‘You are bloody useless,” the erection manager said to me. He was referring to my proficiency at scaffolding. His name was Alan and that was his job title. And he was making a fair point. We were on a housing estate somewhere on the blurred line between Birmingham and the Black Country, putting up rigs for the council’s painters. And I had just dropped a steel coupler through someone’s veranda roof.
This was 1985. When Doves Cry by Prince was getting a lot of radio play and I was on a gap year working for the family firm. Even though I was the boss’s son, my colleagues felt free to point out my limitations, which were many.
