FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Chapter 3 A New Start

We didn’t blink. We said: ‘Yeah, no problem at all.’ And when we got out of there, I looked at Jim and said: ‘Is he bluffing, or what?’

Wimbledon. The problem was that the only access to the garden was through a very narrow alleyway, only three feet wide. John Sullivan did the work with his mate Patsy, and because of that alleyway they had to do the whole thing by hand. So they dug in stages, and took everything out in a wheelbarrow through the alley to a skip on the road. When it came to putting in the lining, they had to roll one-foot concrete rings along the alley, and lower them down the hole with a rope. That was a job they will never forget. To this day, Jim refers to it as ‘the most expensive manhole ever constructed’. Meanwhile, work continued to pour in. One Friday afternoon, I got a call from Max Keller, Assistant Director of Highway Maintenance at Merton Council. He wanted a chat with me and with Jim Manning, who managed the Merton Term Contract. When we got to his office, Max didn’t beat about the bush; he asked us straight out: ‘Are you able to take on the Emergencies in the Borough?’ We asked when he was thinking of. He said: ‘From midnight, tonight.’ We didn’t blink. We said: ‘Yeah, no problem at all.’ And when we got out of there, I looked at Jim and said: ‘Is he bluffing, or what?’ But at ten minutes past midnight that same night, I got the call at home to do the first Emergency, and from that moment it was full on. Every Friday evening without fail, we would get ten or twelve Emergencies. We had a two-hour, a four-hour, and a twenty-four-hour response system – and, as you might guess, most of the calls were for two-hour responses. We were desperate for men to do the work. Merton had employed seventeen gangs, but we only managed to get one of them to work on the Emergencies with us, including Tommy Walker and Sean Hogan.

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