I was a teenager, so obviously I still knew it all, and I wanted money. I lied about my age and got a job at the steel works relining furnaces over the Christmas. I’d been warned but, what the hell, I wanted the ridiculously high wages that went with the job, and it was just a job. I’d never heard anyone say, ‘If something seems too good to be true then like as not it will be.’ They dressed me in an asbestos suit that made me look like the Michelin Man, complete with helmet that came down over my shoulders and had like a welder's darkened glass visiplate and heavy heat proof boots and gauntlets. I had a twenty minute practice using the breathing equipment – no health and safety nonsense then – then they clipped a fire proof steel cable to my belt and gave me a wrecking bar and a sledge. I was hotter than I’d ever been in my life, and then I went in.

I was melting before I went into the hades that was the still glowing furnace. Three minutes inside before I was pulled out for the next guy to do his three minutes. I’d no idea just how long three minutes could be. It was blacker in there than the inside of the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat and breaking out the faintly glowing firebrick which provided the only light other than my helmet torch was punishing. My heart was hammering, I felt light headed and my suit was running in sweat so badly that I was steaming when I came out for my thirty minutes in the cool.

Three minutes in there was for ever, but thirty out was no time at all. I was to do it in twelve hour shifts for a fortnight. Next morning I really didn’t want to go back for a second day, but I didn’t want to be laughed at either for not being able to take it. “You’re back then?” I was asked by some of the regulars. Only two of us out of six came back for our second shift and I subsequently found out the men bet on who would last. I was pleased to know they had thought I would. Sixty odd students did a day, only fourteen did a second or more, and only I did the full fortnight till the job was finished. What price adolescent pride? I earnt six months wages in two weeks but I only ever did it the once, I’d finally learnt some things are just not worth the money.

Trouble was some lessons don’t stay learnt and for the next ten years I worked academic holidays building motorways with the Paddies. Some folk just don’t learn.