Just looking
Were they trying to escape a mad dog? Perhaps it was a primitive weather station. Or maybe they were scanning the horizon for the next payday.
Just as well OSH wasn’t around in those days.
Yet another photo of indeterminate date but we are informed that this photo is of two electricity workers ‘installing power lines’. Any viewer would be forgiven for thinking that a somewhat inaccurate description.
The pickup utility (as they were known then in some parts of the country) appears to be fitted out for carrying ladders. The ladder appears to be high enough to facilitate the installation of power lines but, those chaps were not installing power lines and they do not have remote control of the ladder.
No. They are posing. Two fully grown responsible working men on a 20 foot (six metre) ladder are going to be in awful trouble when their boss finds out! But it is testimony to the craftsmanship of old-time ladder makers and the strength of the hardwood used. I hope they got down alright – that transformer installation beside them looks awfully menacing.
Oh, the date? Sometime from about 1935 we think, and maybe as late as 1960 but unlikely to be beyond 1955 (at a guess). If anyone could shed any light on this photo and the identity of the characters aloft we would be happy to hear about it.
Hamilton City Libraries files
