Life is Full of Ups & Downs - Part 13

ON REPAIRS - AFTER GRACE BUILDING

Eventually the modernisation job came to an end and we relocated to other jobs, several of which I can recall with ease:-

Tomasetti House

I think that this building was located on the corner of Kent & Bathurst Streets. (The Google Maps photo is of the building we worked in....I think). It was down the back of the Town Hall, if memory serves correctly, but it's hard to recognise many of the older, insignificant, buildings now that their facades and surroundings have changed over 50+ years.

EDIT. 25-October-2017
My thanks to Bob Deahm for correcting my original location, which I had as Sussex & Bathurst Streets.
Bob is sure that address was "Sunderland House" and I agree.

I'm not sure exactly what the repair job was at Tomasetti, although I do remember rewiring door locks and doing some "stuff" in the motor room.

The bods on the job included myself, Dave Rutter, George Farham, the Hudson brothers...Kevin and Dennis... and another apprentice by the name of Frank, who wore glasses.

(More of Frank below, under Washington H. Soul Pattinson).

It was at this job that George Farham threw away his perfectly good pliers after he latched onto what he thought was the end of a bit of old VIR wiring. It was in the somewhat dark and dingy lift pit that this incident occurred.

When George gave the "wire" a good yank the skin of a decomposed rat appeared...complete with eye-watering odour. George tossed his pliers - and rat - across the pit and that was the last he saw of both!

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332 Kent Street

Not sure of the crew on this one or even what the work entailed (other than setting a lot of conduits) but I can definitely remember working here because it was directly opposite the Kent St. entrance to Radio 2UW ....... "Eleven-ten on your dial"!

We would watch Ward "Pally" Austin arrive & depart in his Cadillac, usually with a group of teenage girls hanging around the door waiting for him.

This is what the two buildings look like today......looking north, with 2UW on the left and our building on the right.

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Washingon H. Soul Pattinson, Pitt Street.

I have mentioned this building in an earlier item but we now come to the time when an electrician by the name of Helmut Nehls (nicknamed "Crash-hat" by George Farham!), the mysterious Frank and myself were doing something electrical here.

I refer to Frank as "mysterious" simply because I know nothing else about him - can't recall his surname and I don't think I ever worked with him other than here and at Tomasetti House.

The drama occurred.....SEE THE FACTUAL DETAILS IN FRANK'S REPLY, BELOW MY INCORRECT VERSION! .... when Frank was standing in front of the control board ready to test which of the 415 Volt A, B and C phases had dropped power.

Instead of using a test lamp (every electrician carried a test lamp in his leather bag), for some weird reason Frank took one wire and touched it to one of the other two!

Needless to say, the two he touched were the live ones.
There was a blinding flash accompanied by a very loud BANG! and the entire building lost all electrical power and, from what I understand, so did several other adjacent premises.
Frank was very lucky that he was wearing glasses because at the very least they prevented flash burns to his eyes and quite possibly saved his eyesight. As it was his face was blackened and he had no eyebrows left.

I think he went up to Sydney Hospital (Macquarie Street) for first aid.

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