Tuesday, 4 April 1978

10:30 AM

Chris stopped to cough and looked around his new surroundings.   Certainly the cleaning and polishing section was a great deal quieter than the canning and bottle capping section had been.   Chris imagined that if he could last out another month in his new work place, his ears would probably eventually stop ringing, and perhaps the migraines might eventually go away also.

Most of the floor space within the section was covered by five huge rectangular steel vats, each vat nearly three metres wide, five metres long, and five metres high.   The first two vats contained over five hundred litres of concentrated sulphuric acid between them, the third and fourth vats contained concentrated alkaloid cleaners, and the fifth vat contained plain water.

Around the side of the vats, ran a steel walkway, about one metre from the top of the vats.   A pulley system, operated by a control-panel connected by a thick cable, operated over the vats, to allow large wire-sided cages to be lowered into the vats in sequence: acid to alkali to water.

The purpose of the section was to clean the rust away from bathtubs, hand basins, and other kitchen or bathroom utensils, prior to enamelling.   When Chris had first started work in the cleaning and polishing section, he had been amazed at the state of the utensils prior to cleaning.

“Well, you see, the bathroom fixture section is only a part-time operation,” the foreman had explained to Chris.   “Two months a year, in May and November, the section takes on dozens of part-time workers, to produce enough fixtures to last over the next six months.

“The first tubs sold after each production drive are pretty new and in very good nick.   But most of the fixtures awaiting sale have to be stored out in the open air, due to insufficient storage space under cover.   So, as time goes by, the fixtures become more and more weather worn, coated in rust, which has to be virtually burnt off, in the acid vats.”

The fixtures that Chris had first seen, were nearly five months old, and were almost entirely rust.   Chris had been amazed to see a bathtub, which was almost paper-thin after the rust had been burnt off.   The tub received a thin coating of yellow enamel, and then was sold as a super-deluxe model tub.