One-Hour Lunch Break

[keith lockey]

Who can remember the one-hour lunch breaks we used to get?

 

I worked at several places in the seventies and recall having an hour break for lunch - but when did they stop? Was it an individual employer / employee choice or was it mandatory?

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

1965 - 2011 

Shipyard = 1 hour = Union rules, Ok.

Civil Service 1966 to the start of FLEXI time (introduced in the UK 1971!) was always 45mins - DHSS Longbenton - start of day 08:15, Lunch 12:00 to 12:45 (not sure on exact start and finish times), end of day 16:24 - and that was all contrived to fit in with 37hr week.

8 hr shifts - 1 hr lunch

Contracting - as long as you like and stay late to make up the time (money).

12 hr continental shifts - 1hr 30mins - to balance out to 37hr week over a 4 week period working 14 x 12 hr shifts

Day shift FLEXI = max 2 hrs - min 30mins.

So only had the 1 hour lunch for the 13 years I worked 8 hr shifts (First shift, Back shift and Night Shift).

 

So my answer to your question Keith would be - Unions controlled most industries, Civil Service stuck to the rules, Contractors did what they liked, and charged for it.

[keith lockey]

Cheers, Eggy, I remember I used to take a book to work. Ate my lunch in the first 20 minutes then read for the duration of the break.

[Symptoms]

In London back in the 70's and 80's I used to get 1hr 40mins ... most of it spent having 'lunch' it the pub with colleagues.  That really hot summer of 76 we usually went to the Waterman's Arms* on the Isle of Dogs and quenched our thirsts;  the docks were just finishing then but there was still a bit of activity to watch from the river wall just outside the pub.  Happy days!

 

*The Waterman's Arms, like quite a few London boozers back then, had an old style Music Hall theatre in the building.  It was a rock venue in the 70's.

[keith lockey]

Symptoms, I came across this after you posted that bit on the Waterman's Arms. Really interesting.

 

http://wharferj.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/quietly-famous-the-watermans-arms-isle-of-dogs/

[Tonyp]

Kieth,I don't know we're eggy is pulling these break times from your actual time allowed is 20mins if you work more

Than 6hrs goverment directive not unions,if a firm doesn't recognise unions that's what you get like it or lump it...

Firms who work with unions tend to get a better deal that's a fact,when the union will discuss a deal which in the

First instance will be with the lads & lasses on the shop floor & what they would like,we as union officials

Will put this to management...But if management wanted to be mean they can quote goverment rules

Which means you have to go with what they say,sometimes you might get something out of them as they like to

Be seen to been good,theres some different rules for shift workers but not a lot of difference...

What's annoying is working class people slagging unions off,maybe they should ask what they can do for them instead

Of been treated like Victorian slaves because that's what's happening thatcher started it.....

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Kieth,I don't know we're eggy is pulling these break times from your actual time allowed is 20mins if you work more

Than 6hrs goverment directive not unions,if a firm doesn't recognise unions that's what you get like it or lump it...

Firms who work with unions tend to get a better deal that's a fact,when the union will discuss a deal which in the

First instance will be with the lads & lasses on the shop floor & what they would like,we as union officials

Will put this to management...But if management wanted to be mean they can quote goverment rules

Which means you have to go with what they say,sometimes you might get something out of them as they like to

Be seen to been good,theres some different rules for shift workers but not a lot of difference...

What's annoying is working class people slagging unions off,maybe they should ask what they can do for them instead

Of been treated like Victorian slaves because that's what's happening thatcher started it.....

Only from my own little world Tony. Fortunately  wherever I worked the break times were good.

Shipyard & Civil Service 1960's & 70s - pre Thatcher - 1979.

Normal day shift in the Civil Service was 45mins.

Before Thatcher got in and shift work started in the Civil Service the management staff going onto the shifts (October 1961) were allowed to define the shift patterns. They had a choice when two shifts first started - 08:00 - 16:00 & 16:00 to 24:00 for 12 1/2% shift allowance or 09:00 - 17:00 & 17:00 -01:00 for 20% shift allowance. They chose the latter and no complaints + 1 hour lunch break! Even when we went to 3 shifts in 1980 we were allowed to keep the same times for the existing shift and the first shift started at midnight, one hour overlap with the other shift, and at the end we worked an hours overtime 08:00 to 09:00.  

Once that precedent had been set, in our little world, it was never changed. Always told the staff if they ever went into 'the real world' they would realize how well off they had been.  

[Tonyp]

Eggy that's what I tell my fellow workers the firm I work for are quite good with breaks in fact very flexi they say as long as the work is done what's required .. Unfortunately you get a few most who will grizzle at anything & in the end put in danger of jeopardising the thing we

Have in place I say to them exactly what you said, guess you can't win sometimes....

[Symptoms]

KeithL, thanks for that link. 

 

The Isle of Dogs in the 60s & 70s was a very interesting place and very, very Dickensian.  Narrow cobbled street everywhere with tall dark warehousing* looming over everything.  If you looked up all these warehouses had iron cranes swinging over the cobbles (to lift goods off carts and up to high-level doors).  There were pubs everywhere to serve all the merchant seamen off the ships and the hordes of dockers ... it was obvious to me that another type of 'business' went on in rooms upstairs in some of the pubs.   It was a great place to pub crawl.  There was another pub called The Gun, just along from the Watermans, and at the entrance to the West India Dock and beside the Met Police River HQ.  Even in the dying days of the docks there was still plenty of shipping to watch whilst supping pints on the pub balcony and on one occasion we watched the River Peelers drag a couple of recovered dead bodies off their launch and onto their pontoon jetty (no body bags back then!) 

 

I lived in Greenwich at the time and would go through the foot tunnel to get the Isle of Dogs (the Greenwich entrance is right next to the Cutty Sark ship), the other end in the Island Gardens near the Watermans Arms.  For some unknown reason half-way under the river the foot tunnel got seriously smaller in diameter ... perhaps the original builders got their dimensions mixed-up. 

 

*most of that warehousing has been converted into very swish apartment blocks selling for really serious money.

[Tonyp]

I live in greenwich ??. But what has walking underneath the river Thames got to do with lunch breaks unless that's what people do on

There 20 min break?????

[Symptoms]

Lived in Greenwich, worked in Poplar (Isle of Dogs).  Nobody I knew had 20 mins lunch breaks back then, most had at least an hour and many approaching a couple of hours like me.  I recall it only took 6 minutes to walk down the shaft, under the river, up the shaft on the other side so there was plenty of time to go in either direction for pubs (loads also in Greenwich).   Even if folks had civilised lunch breaks now they'd be sh*t scared of going to a pub for fear of getting the sack for having the smell of a pint on their breath.

[Tonyp]

Symptoms,you can't do that now they would sack you on the spot,if you had a 2 hour break can't see what production gets done

You can see why firms employ Eastern Europens you'd never see them having 2 hr breaks...by the way there still lots of pubs

In greenwich which are packed 7 days a week locals,students,tourists etc...

[Symptoms]

Those long lunch hours coincided with a most productive and creative periods of  my working life ... I suspect it had much to do with a 'well-lubricated' relationship with my colleagues - a working lunch, if you like.  I agree with you that it wouldn't be permitted these days. 

[Tonyp]

I guess they weren't scaffolding or steeple jaccks

[willy j.]

They weren't miners either. Down the pit we only had a 20 minute bait time, or lunch, to you lot who worked with clean hands. In my time from 1963 (that's 'before Thatchers time) right up to the 90's we only ever had 20 minutes. That was if you were lucky, most times you would have your bait (lunch for the poshies) sitting on a hardwood chock before going down the face because you knew that you would probably not get off it until the end of your shift.

 

Often men would get their bait going outbye on the belt because they didn't have time to get it during their shift. I cannot believe that people working on bank (working on the surface) were only given 20 minutes for their lunch. It would take them 20 minutes to wash their pretty little hands. A luxury we never had underground and 7 miles out under the North Sea.

[keith lockey]

I guess the rescue team didn't look at the content of my father's bait box when they went in after the roof caved in on him - killing him. He was a cutter, so I doubt if he had pretty little hands. PS. I was a painter and decorator...so most of my bait had a smattering of putty and emulsion or gloss on it. But I still remember there was an one hour lunch (bait) break.

[willy j.]

Keith, I'm not talking about people who did manual work like you, or steelworkers, shipbuilders, smelter workers. Or anyone who worked in heavy industry in fact. Us, all of us who got our hands dirty every day, most of those men got their bait when they could. And some, like us miners had no facility to wash our hands, we ate our bait with black hands. Lots of people could not imagine eating a sandwich with black, coal dust fingerprints on them unless you have been there, seen it, and done it. I am talking about people who go so work in suits, or nice clean casual clothes groaning about only having 20 minutes to have their lunch.

 

By the way, your father would have had rough, dirt ingrained hands like the rest of us. and his bait box would probably have been empty. You can be rightly proud of him, he was doing one of the hardest job's in the pit. He would have been a very tough man.

[keith lockey]

Appreciate the comeback, WillyJ. Funny enough, if I smell putty or linseed oil I'm always reminded of Luncheon meat and pickle sandwiches!!! The job I'm in now means I eat on the hoof...grabbing pasties or sandwiches at bakers, etc. Once in a while I actually sit down to a cooked meal. At times I just haven't got the time to cook anything before I'm out again. But the good part is...I'm losing some fat. 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Appreciate the comeback, WillyJ. Funny enough, if I smell putty or linseed oil I'm always reminded of Luncheon meat and pickle sandwiches!!! The job I'm in now means I eat on the hoof...grabbing pasties or sandwiches at bakers, etc. Once in a while I actually sit down to a cooked meal. At times I just haven't got the time to cook anything before I'm out again. But the good part is...I'm losing some fat. 

I think you should walk bast the 'Live' camera once per month, at a prearranged time, so we can check the body outline!

You'll be telling us next you haven't got time to eat because of your 'Power walking' regime.

 

Please to hear the job is keeping you busy.  

[willy j.]

One thing I must say though guys, it wasn't all doom and gloom, we did have the pit canteen. Good food, and cheap, served by cheeky chirpy ladies who always gave as good as they got.

 

The downside was though, if you had your own transport or lived local, you could take advantage of the canteen. However, if you had to catch the pit bus, and were not very quick through the baths, well that was tough shit.

 

By the way, luncheon meat and pickle sandwiches sounds good to me.

[Symptoms]

Willy ... didn't you ever consider handcrafted artisan wholemeal brown bread, complete with a pumpkin seed topping and smoked salmon filling, for you bait sandwiches?  These wouldn't have shown the black finger prints as clearly as the Wonderloaf.

[willy j.]

Nice one Symptons, I never thought of that. Mind you, in the mid to late 60's you never questioned your what your mother put in your bait. One day she put sliced tomatoes up for me and they were great, however, I made the mistake of telling her, so she put them up every day after that. With the Wonderloaf of course.

 

Which brings me onto your smoked salmon tip. I was working with an old guy who had his own boat and went out fishing, he must have noticed that I always had the same thing for my bait. One day we were on the hallowed hardwood chock and  he must have felt sorry for me, so he insisted I try one of his fresh salmon sandwiches. He had caught the fish the day before, my god it was wonderful, I'd never had fresh salmon before.

 

This brings me to mistake no. 2, I told my mother how good this fresh salmon sandwich had been but I guess I must have waxed too much lyrical about it because a few minutes later she said......"MM, fresh salmon eh......you'll make do with paste". So, I had paste for a long time after that.

 

I like your mouth watering suggestion though, if only.

[Symptoms]

willy wrote: "... old guy who had his own boat and went out fishing, he must have noticed that I always had the same thing for my bait." and "he must have felt sorry for me, so he insisted I try one of his fresh salmon sandwiches."  I usually used lugworms.   

 

I can remember fish paste of various sorts although I never ate the stuff ... didn't it come in tiny glass jars?

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

willy wrote: "... old guy who had his own boat and went out fishing, he must have noticed that I always had the same thing for my bait." and "he must have felt sorry for me, so he insisted I try one of his fresh salmon sandwiches."  I usually used lugworms.   

 

I can remember fish paste of various sorts although I never ate the stuff ... didn't it come in tiny glass jars?

It certainly did, but can't remember if the manufacture was 'Princes' or another company - fish, salmon, beef, crab, chicken and probably loads more. Small glass jars with air tight 'tin' lids that just pressed back on.   

[Canny lass]

Shiphams!