BRICKING IT: FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE BUILDING TRADE

Ask anyone to conjure up an image of building workers from the North East and they’ll be naturally drawn to the popular culture of the 1980s TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and the fortunes of the Geordie bricklayers who upped sticks for graft in Germany during a building recession in Britain . They’ll recall the bleakness of the site huts, the constant putt of the cement mixers, the bottles of Becks in strange boozers and the rolls of Deutschmarks in a wad; they’ll remember the worldly-wise foreman Dennis Patterson, played by Dennis Healy; the green youngster Neville, as portrayed by Kevin Whatley and, of course, they’ll mind the raucous, boisterous brickie Oz. Jimmy Nail’s character was a believable and realistic characterisation and one that you could easily find among the lengths of 4x2, bags of cement or football terraces in Britain at the time. Slapping down compo with his trowel in a brown leather jacket and combat pants while telling dirty jokes, Oz didn’t care much fo...