LAUGH ABOUT IT NOW PART THREE

THE RING MAIN CIRCUIT

Assessment One was basic: on a wall of plasterboard, construct a ring main circuit adhering to the 17^th Edition of the Electrical Regulations.

Your basic ring main circuit

Now, you may think from past experience, I would panic. Ha ha! You’re wrong! Because the panicking about building a ring main circuit according to the 17^th Edition had already happened and been overcome on the pre-course. I had already built one! 

And now I even had the invaluable electrician’s on-site guide manual to help me (once I realised the red book was the on-site guide, not the green one I'd been using). 

Your on-site guide

What I did not have was any facility with tools. Sedentary Gentleman had barely ever used a power drill and the one time he did (at the Hampshire Youth Theatre in 1982 when as a painfully unlikeable youth he had offered to help out a bit) – the pointy bit at the end had fired out like a bullet and embedded itself in a wall. Since then, Sedentary Gentleman has stayed away from power tools. 

This is more my experience

Saws, knives, hammers, the metal things you bang to make objects stick to walls, spirit levels, screwdrivers – there’s probably a word for the phobia I have towards such items.

During my time with my colleagues the electricians, and previous experience with practical men, I had heard a lot about ‘making good’. This, I understand, means making a wall or whatever look nice again with plaster and paint or something. once the complex electricianing stuff is over. 

Now, I had a deep unease about my ability to ‘make good’ but I figured if I vaguely sorted the wiring/circuit thing, the ‘making good’ would somehow get resolved.

In front of me was a bare plasterboard wall, like an unpainted theatrical flat or a vertical table. There was no ‘making good’ required here. Assessment One was just me and the electrical task; mano a mano.

Before I could build a ring main circuit, I had to work out how to stick the CU – or Consumer’s Unit – or Fuse Box to you – to the plasterboard wall without it falling off. Then I had to work out how to stick the wires in. Then wire an electric socket in at the other end. The difficult, incomprehensible job of testing the circuit with probe machines I would panic about later.

Trying to control my breathing, I looked at the tools. I was acutely aware the South African boy next to me had actually completed the whole assessment and was moving on to the next one. Ignore him, I told myself. Just get this done a bit at a time. I reached for the drill.

Men watched me as I worked

KEEP ON KEEPING ON

By lunchtime that Monday, the rest of the group had finished. By finished, I mean they had finished all eight practical assessments. All of them had finished all of the tasks. No exaggeration. I only realised this at about four o’clock that afternoon when I finally emerged, sweating, angry and tearful, with a basic cobbled together never stand up to any form of scrutiny ring main circuit. Just to be clear: I was still on Assessment One. The most basic kind of circuit there is.

Our friend the Cockney ‘tutor’ had remained hidden for the bulk of the day. In fact, I hadn’t seen him at all. I had occasionally heard him in my aural periphery telling people they had done a good job, but I was so absorbed in not fannying up this ring main circuit I hadn’t looked up. I’d skipped lunch to get this damn thing on the wall.

Suddenly, he was on my shoulder. I gave him a really stupid smile. A weak smile that appeared to enrage him. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘That’s no fucking good.’ He proceeded to tug the wires out of the CU. ‘What the fuck have you done here? These are the wrong width. How have you trimmed these?’

I didn’t know. I don’t know how to trim wires. I don’t even know what that means. And that’s what I told him.

With a deep sigh, our friend picked up a Stanley knife and a piece of twin and earth and neatly carved the plastic sheaths away, exposing the bare wire. I had seen him do it but as to how, I knew I had no idea. ‘Tear that down,’ he said angrily. ‘Fucking start again. Jesus!’

He stomped off, knowing he wasn’t getting away early tonight.

COMPLETING ASSESSMENT ONE

Just after Tuesday lunchtime I completed Assessment One to his satisfaction. Luckily, a couple of the other electricians – bored of hanging around – had suggested how I put a ring main circuit on a plasterboard wall. They were nice. This was my seventh attempt.

‘Thank fuck,’ said the tutor, until he realised the second assessment was much more difficult and involved cutting Steel Wire Armour cable.

I had to cut and connect this bad boy

I should point out at this point, I was suffering from an absolutely brain annihilating hangover. I was staying at a friend’s flat nearby and gone out round Exmouth Market with my oldest mate Grant with the express intent of obliterating the memory of that terrible Monday from my mind. I succeeded. Already I was planning to drink as much as I possibly could every single night of this hellish week.

A very lovely part of London

So for Assessment Two, I was hardly in a fit state to tackle walking to the workshop, let alone actually pass any assessments. But for once, luck and preparation were with me. The Steel Wire Armour cable thing. I  had had such a nightmare with it on the prep course, I had focused what energy I had on getting that right.

Okay, by the time I’d manked it up over and over and kept cutting and cutting it down to start again, the cable was about twelve inches long (and this is the cable you use to electrify your garden lights) so was of no use to anyone, but it DID connect the two electrical things it was supposed to connect. You switched it on and a light came on. It didn’t kill you when you used it. The tutor was relieved.

The rest of that Tuesday afternoon was easy. It was easy because the tutor threw the assessment book onto a table and instructed me to go through it and fill it in myself. I no longer had to build anything. Just test and write down results. A couple of the electrician chaps told me the answers and I wrote them down. Funnily enough, I passed all eight assessments.

I was surprised to discover that Tuesday night that the practical part of the ‘becoming an electrician’ was over and I had passed everything. All that had to happen for the next three days were written exams. Thirteen written open book multiple choice exams. As my colleagues groaned, I inwardly cheered. The right kind of tears came to my eyes. I could pass these exams. Of course I could. The pain was over.

I got drunk a lot happier that night.

The pain – the real humiliation was done. The rest was standard frustration, and coming to terms with the realisation that I would never, ever be an electrician. The pain and humiliation was scarring; I couldn’t see past it yet but at last, it was over.

AFTERMATH

I only failed two out of thirteen written exams. I finished the course second highest in my group.  I passed one of the two some weeks later but I never finished the final exam. It was only twelve multiple choice questions but I had no idea of any kind what the answers were. I even memorized the questions and four possible answers and after each re-take (at 10 quid and a train to London a time) wrote them down. I then showed them to an electrician I had got to know. 

Even after that, I still never passed that final exam. After five attempts, I gave up for ever.

I think the company went out of business. I never checked.