Portia’s Adventures in the World of the White Van Man (Part I)

The Viscount William (one of Portia’s brothers) had decided to take his sprogs off on a short holiday to visit the colonials in New York.  Much against his better judgment he also decided to leave me in charge of his little drainage company, Roddit & Run, while he was away.  He left me with the keys to The Van, the services of his operative – Danny, the company mobile phone and an invoice pad.  Then he jetted off into the wide blue yonder without a care in the world. (Fool!!!)

This gave me a valuable opportunity to inhabit a world where men are men and customers are grateful.  Aided by my cunning disguise of a hard hat and a hi-vis jacket – I was able to study the british tradesman at close quarters, undetected.

The White Van Man in his habitat

This mysterious breed are to be found zipping around the streets of towns everywhere in the UK – heading to no apparent destination.  They also gather in greasy spoon cafes (see below) and speak their own language – and very bad language it is too.  Their conversation revolves around women, football, the nearness of payday, football, politics, football, the state of the competing companies, football and the practice of ‘padding the job out’.

Padding the job out

I must pause here to explain a little about ‘padding the job out’ – this is a vital concept that has to be understood if one is to get entirely into the mindset of the british tradesman. ‘Padding the job out’ involves arriving at a call out (which, in the case of Roddit & Run is a premises knee deep in overflowing toilets and raw sewage) making appropriate whistling and tut-tutting noises and explaining how this may take some time. 

Having reduced the customer to a state of abject terror, a few manhole covers are lifted to add to stress levels by introducing foul smells to the premises as well as raw sewage, bits of toilet paper and other nasties.  Then the tradesman pushes off back to The Van to have a cigarette with his colleagues.  It is then decided how long a 10 minute job is actually going to take.  This is a complex process which can only be learned after years of training but the formula is roughly this – a (customer’s state of anxiety) + b (level of raw sewage in premises) x c (amount of business being lost/domestic disruption to customer) plus a call out fee and the application of a sliding scale of charges determined by the nearness of the latest sandwich shop or café (the further away the café the higher the charge) and the prettiness/sexual availability of the housewife/female assistant on the premises.  All of these figures are added up and finally divided by the S factor.  S standing for surveyor – who is usually another male who has a rough idea of how long jobs really take.

After the ‘padding the job out’ has been correctly calculated.  The tradesman gets on with doing whatever it is he is meant to do, as slowly as possible.  When the padding limit has been reached he adds a further half hour by filling in the invoice with a ball point pen stolen from a previous customer, scaring the wits out of the customer with a huge list of ‘recommended works’, collecting payment and heading off to the nearest café/greasy spoon to gloat over other tradesmen who had not managed to pad the job out as well as he has.

The Greasy Spoon

No treatise on the british tradesman is complete without a little explanation about the ‘greasy spoon’. 

Most sane café proprietors would not let a huge number of british tradesmen into their cafe – for some pretty obvious reasons.  The cumulative effect of dusty boots, smelly overalls, sexist jokes, bad language, chain smoking and football talk would scare off customers in the average café.  So some café owners have made a conscious business decision to accommodate the british tradesman. They provide furniture that is easily washed down, huge quantities of tea, coffee and fried food and an endless supply of tabloid newspapers. Behind the counter is either a male called Costos or a stout lady of middle years, who having brought up a family of unruly children, is able to deal with the antics of tradesmen during their tea breaks.

During my undercover observations, I have visited a number of these establishments, but can recommend the Omega Café in Coney Hall, Kent, which is handy for the M25 and serves up food on plates only slightly smaller than the land area of Luxembourg.

A good greasy spoon can be identified by the huge number of commercial vehicles clogging up the traffic in the road outside.  Unfortunately, these huge numbers of illegally parked vehicles attract one of the tradesman’s natural predators.  The traffic warden.

The Traffic Warden

The terror and delight of any tradesman, especially those working in London.  The London traffic warden is employed by the local council.  Local councils tend to employ African traffic wardens.  This is not because of any laudable commitment to equal opportunities or integration on the part of local councils - it is because only a Nigerian traffic warden has the necessary social skills to deal with the British tradesman. The female African traffic warden is particularly dreaded (because despite everything, the British tradesman still has a residual shyness about swearing at ladies or rolling on the pavement with them in a physical confrontation). The Nigerian warden has the necessary sang froid, physical toughness and commitment to the pursuit of law and order to deal with a infuriated tradesman as a parking ticket is sticky-taped to the windscreen of The Van.  The traffic warden takes particular delight in ordering the wheel-clamping of The Van and reaches a state of almost orgasmic pleasure when ordering a truck to tow away The Van.

The British tradesman dreads the day when the African traffic warden decides to join the police force, as they will probably bring back instant hanging as punishment for parking infringements.

And finally……

The Van

The Van, obviously, is vital to the commercial success and happiness of the British tradesman.  They come in varying colours and sizes (Vans, as well as tradesmen).  They can be marked with company logos and colours or, for the shyer tradesman wishing to maintain a lower profile there is the popular Ford Transit van, usually white.

The Van is the tradesman’s personal kingdom, his daytime home, his refuge from the world, women and the wife.  In The Van, the tradesman is God. His mate, who occupies the passenger seat, is his Greek chorus or his heavenly choir of angels - regaling his employer with praise, jokes and keeping an eye out for parking spaces, pretty women and traffic wardens (see above).

The Van is full of the tradesman’s personal accoutrements.  The radio, which is kept tuned to a commercial radio station for loud music and traffic reports (I have to admit that I retuned William’s radio to BBC Radio 4, the news and discussion station, which has no traffic reports and discusses art, poetry, books and politics).  The personal accoutrements also include a number of pictures of the tradesman’s children, empty coffee cups, at least two mobile telephones and of course, his mate (see above).

In the back of The Van, the tradesman keeps the tools of his trade, a change of clothing, a toothbrush, a microwave oven and other important supplies.  This space is his inner sanctum and its sacredness is close to that of the Holy of Holies in the temple at Jerusalem or the turf of the pitch of his favourite football team. (Ladies…think..handbag…(or purse, for our American sisters)….).

The male of the species is a territorial creature and The Van is his pure territory, unpolluted by home concerns, wives, children, taxmen and political correctness.  A tradesman deprived of The Van is a sorry creature indeed.

Phew!

After such a long discourse on the habits of the british tradesman, I feel the need to lie down in a darkened room with a cold compress, to eat some chocolate or even do some therapeutic shopping.  I shall sign off for today and continue with another episode later. 

The next thrilling episode includes:-

Surveyors, churches, U-traps, underground car parks, The Van in peril and the most untamed male of them all…the semi-psychotic recovery truck driver!

Well wishes Ladies.

The Exhausted Admirable Portia