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Asked by edwardremer to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 14 Mar 2012.
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Harriet Fletcher answered on 14 Mar 2012:
I had to do a survey of the sewers in Brighton in summertime. The samples needed to be kept very cold so I had to go in to 24h ASDA at 5:30 in the morning to buy ice. I got some very weird looks at the tills with 10 bags of ice and a pack of chewing gum (that was just for me). At the time the work we were doing was quite controversial so the best thing I could come up with was “I’m really hot”. I think they thought I was having an early menopause.
One of the funnier aspects of sewage works is that the sewage is passed through abig sieve at the start to take out any big things people throw down the loo. Some of the operators collect the endless childrens toys that get sent down, presumably on adventures. I have seen a dress turn up (no idea how they got that down into the sewer), the odd shoe and lots of toy cars.
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Ken Gibbs answered on 14 Mar 2012:
As the Russian war in Afghanistan was drawing to a close (1988/89), I was asked to join one of six groups to go into Afghanistan with the Mujahedeen so we could look at what returning refugees might need. My group had three of us who spoke Pharsi and it was just coincidence but all the rest of our party (4 of them) fell ill as we were about to set out on a long walk into Nuristan. We came back to our colleagues two days later when they had recuperated but they were anxious for us to find out what the cook was so anxious to tell them. I went in search of the cook and asked him, and he proudly pointed to his Tommy gun and asked if I liked it ? Well, apart from the fact that it was pointing away from me, I didn’t like it at all, but I didn’t say as much – but even I was confused by what he meant. “No, no, no” he said, “look at the label!”
On the stock of his Tommy gun was a small bright blue label, so I looked at it carefully only to see that it was one of the sticky labels from a UN office on which it said, “Supplied by the United Nations’ Development Programme”.
I have to assume that he had stolen it from a UN office because it looked pretty!
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Jed Ramsay answered on 14 Mar 2012:
My story is not so much weird as probably silly (on my part).
We were doing an emergency job on the river to repair some lock gates (huge steel gates that let boats travel up the river) and I was down on the river bed inspecting them. On the river bed – which we had dammed off and drained down, there was still quite a bit of water, so I had my wellies on. What I hadn’t realised is that there were also quite a few big holes in the floor… as you can guess I stepped in one of the holes! The water went all the way up to my chest… which wasn’t too bad, apart from the fact that I had my best suit and tie on at the time and about 8 people were stood above me watching me!!
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