When I left college, I worked for a summer as a labourer on a building site, building these apartments. I was scraping together cash to set up my first business (it never got off the ground). I was very wary of heights when I started, but not at the end. My most memorable jobs were scaffolding up inside a dark lift shaft and standing on the top of the topmost handrail above the roof fixing the Union Flag to a bit of scaffold pole, with just someone hanging on to my ankles — yeah that would have helped — And I had to do it twice, as the first time we got the flag upside down.

Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.