it's my great pleasure to start a series of videos off where i get an opportunity
to talk to electricians and we'll be out in the field later on
who am i here with today clive o'dell trading as Electrodell i've been
self-employed since 1967. we're going to stop you that
1967 self-employed and we're going to get to
that as we have a little journey through clive's working life
but let's go back live let's go back to perhaps that 15 year old boy looking
to leave school at 15 did you go straight into an electrical
apprenticeship what was those at that time for you like
always been messing about with like batteries and switches bits of wire
and if there was an electrical experiment at a local school
it was always me out to set it up okay but i used to have this push bike
that used to have all sorts of lights on it including indicators and brake lights
that i'd rigged all up myself when i was about 11
12 years old and um so i've always had this electrical bent
if you like and um and so when i left the ordinary
village school i went to this next technical college
for a year right okay so you didn't get an apprenticeship
straight from school no no so so at 15 years old you've left school
gone to local college which lots of people now
a days do was that to get an electrical apprenticeship or just no that was just
for further education right and then so then i was 16
and my dad got me an interview with the local electricity board i had to go
i had to pass this interview for a start i had to take
an exam and then there was a group of us at this place in cambridge
and we had to take it so all to do with aptitude
and maths and things like that and we had to pass them
and i did and so i then i started i was i was 16 and and then it was
and then it was still a probationary period i think it was 12 months
probation right and then and then once that if
they was happy with me then we had to sign on properly so when
you say sign on properly i'm thinking probably a bit like mine my parents had
to sign to suggest that i'd do that apprenticeship was it
yes yes that mum and dad or at least dad had to agree that it was going to be a
proper indentured apprenticeship absolutely and that identity
apprenticeship probably took you were you you're in your 20s when you
managed to get to the end of that i was 20 i was 21. i actually finished my
apprenticeship on my 21st birthday on the day of your 21st birthday yes
wow so yes so that's working for the the local uh electricity company yes so
it's totalization electricity electricity right talk us through the
range of work that you do in what looks like a five-year period
were you you stuck just in one electrical installation
about 20 electricians on there and there was four or five of us apprentices
and we went with different different electricians
to do different jobs when we was when they needed a hand i suppose
but we were doing all sorts of work we worked on farms we worked in factories
we worked in houses so we're talking five years to phil
making obviously the journey from being a school leaver to becoming an
electrician that's a considerable amount of time now
we've got a box in front of me here which looks like some some
engineering-based tools so if i just grab one out at random here
is there a story behind this tool so who made this tool first of all
i did you did this this this this is a this is a tap wrench as
probably you can see um and this was this was made out of a block of metal
but a bit wider than this and a bit thicker and i had to cut that down
with a hacksaw all the way down and it took ages to do it to make it
very roughly into shape we'd put it then in a four jaw chuck
and then we had to turn it all down to the sizes that it is now
there's another story beyond this because it looks brilliantly made okay
from my expert opinion here but you were
recognized actually as winning a prize for this well yeah this was one of the
last things we made we got photograph of me and the local paper
being being awarded this this prize so we've worked away through our
apprenticeship we've got to the end we've become qualified
you've got what i've got as well which is really nice you've got an indentured
apprenticeship haven't you so i'm proud you still own that i've
looked through your college notes as well
um i think you should be immensely proud of your college notes not only
beautifully written i didn't find one mistake in there
and the pictures were beautiful yeah so we've got ourselves through an
indentured apprenticeship you've probably made your mum and dad very
proud i know you know getting to the end of an apprenticeship when it's taken as
long as it did you're working for the the board and you
said sir again off camera how your dad
thought you probably would like to see you stay there forever
yes however it wasn't long before you know you had a bit of an itch to go and
work for yourself well you see all my life up till then dad had
been dad had run the local garage so i was
used to it to an um a self-employed um situation it was
natural as far as i was concerned i was going to become self-employed
and we're talking very early twenties then that you've gone on i was trying to
i was 22 when i started i was going to do my math for 22. so you went to work
for yourself at 22 in 1967. you registered your business you've got
i've got i've got me i've got i've got your registration form there so you
registered yourself as a business and when did you retire just so we can
date the the two together so you started tonight in 67
okay clive when did you retire i haven't retired no you're still working
is that is that five six seven days a week well i mean
i mean what i'm normally trying to do is we're just mornings
that's what i'm trying to do but but and mostly it works out like that
but i've recently done a big farm building and i that took me about three
weeks to do and i had to work there ever you know i had to do sort of a full
day's work for five days a week i haven't got the energy that i had when
i had like 30 or 40 years ago but i still enjoy my work so so how many
years you've been working for yourself then they're going to give us that rough
number 53 that's 53 years i've been
self-employed yes yes so we'll challenge everybody out there
so if you've listened to this and you've got somebody that you know that's worked
for themselves longer than 53 years and you're still
going so we're still going we'll come and see you as well so that's
that's an incredible amount of time to see changes with our industry as well so
we know where you were probably time stamped us at the start that we're
changing to ring final circuits we're certainly installing pvc wiring
we're going over to from baker lights to plastic accessories
and the old wireless field boxes oh did you yeah
right okay yeah and we know they've changed over the years as well
no don't you you've
so we've seen lots of changes we haven't even discussed this one even
uh while we've had a chat informally what's your thinking on smart technology
well i've always been a bit dubious with some of this
fancy technology but nowadays i mean what they're doing with electronics is
all so clever but i've i'm i suppose i'm feeling a bit
left behind with it really well going to be able to learn enough
about it to keep up with it but i've still got i still got people
bringing me up you know farmers and and and people
householders wanting things done um i haven't rewired
any houses this last few months i'm keeping myself really busy that's what i
was about to say so smart technology probably something you're not going to
touch on that's fine we'll let you off that one
you're busy enough without that um have you got an end date that you
think you're going to probably hang out because i did hear on on the quiet
through your son that you were looking at buying a new
van the van i've got is an xrac van the only reason i got it was it's four wheel
drive and so when you when i'm on some some
farms and and it's a bit getting a bit slippy
i just put it into the four wheel drive and and i can get a bear i have been
thinking about getting another one this one's done
fairly high mileage and i've been thinking about it
um i've really haven't really decided yet
so that suggests to me that you're not going to hang up your talk
anytime soon no no no no no no so have you if you're well enough are
you going to work is that the plan as long as as long as i can keep doing
it i think as long as i can walk i'm going to work
that's how i feel and i just enjoy i can't really imagine waking up on a
monday morning and not having to go to work
while i'm strong enough and while i'm fit enough i just wish i got a bit more
energy having spent a morning with you already
i'd like to suggest that clive has got tons of energy oh yeah
you don't need any more oh dear so clive it seems that you've done a real wide
range of work is there anything you can show us that you're currently working on
i've been doing on this farm it's a big it's a big farm building it's got a lot
of led lighting big three-phase board um and it's got three-phase sockets in
it and so i've just complete i mean i've
been working there more or less on my own i've done it more or less all on my
own and and so for doing the led lighting i had to
use a machine to get me up there to save keep going up and down with ladders
i find i find going up and down ladders a lot really tiring these days
it's taking me about three weeks to do this job and it's more or less completed
now it's one of the biggest jobs i've done just lately
so before we get on to the farm that you promised that we can have a look at some
of the work you've been doing we just walked through this passage well
it looks like it might need a little bit of love care and attention from you in
here a lot of it is temporary because i've
got the lights just rigged up temporary while i am working in here but
a lot of the old wiring's got to come out anyway but it's all
it'll hopefully it's going to be a lot tidier than this in in
in the next few weeks so we're going to go and find that farm yeah yes
yes okay so this is that this is the immersion here the oldest
tool you've got is it i think so yes this it was it was an ordinary it was an
ordinary spanner right my dad actually cut this and fitted this
bit on okay so that so that you could put it
put it over the over the wire okay that's it over the
wire and then you could tighten you could tighten it up if you needed to
okay and then he made this bit to just to slide on to the
to slide onto onto there so we got a bit more
a bit more um well talk in it um and and and and so i've had this now
well i don't know it's well over 40 years
it's it could be 45 i don't think it's quite 50 years but
and you still use it yeah still use it yeah that's fantastic
when was the last time you used it oh only a few days ago um
um still paying for itself yeah yeah not last week not this week last sometime
last week yes we did merging it yes yeah should we
get that farm okay so i would suggest you're in your most
uh comfortable environment you've got the overalls on which you've got them
off camera they're always legendary with you
and we're at the mains end explain what you've done in this job for us well this
is a this is a neil farm building and we've got the
near and without three-phase supply although it's only fed with the 40 amp
cable so it's only it's only protected over
another bar with a 40 amp mcb okay right so we've got various
circuits these are three these are the these are three
phase and these are three-phase so these are two
these are two um that's the three-phase fan there's an extractor fan up there
okay the the three-phase roller shutter door
there's a a 16 amp five pin socket here yeah um
and then we've got we've got another smaller distribution board a sub board
down the other end and and that's the thing and there's
also another three-phase five pin 16 amp socket just the other
side of that wall in the corner so that's what all these circuits are
all the all the lights they're all led lights you can see
three in here there's four outside lights and then there's eight led lights
in there and i've got them all on contactors
right okay so that so that you don't because they have these heavy
um what's it through rashford or whatever they call it now
um so that so that none of the switches are actually switching the lights and
the switches are just control they're just switching the contactors
and then bringing the lights on it looks a massive impressive job so as i drove
up here this is a big building obviously there was a big team of odell
electrical doing it that was only you yeah i think you said
that you were going to get the the old boy to help you
yeah well i think you did spend a couple of days here okay yeah
but he's too busy you see i mean you know and remember from earlier on you're
only doing half a day yeah well i wasn't here i
mean i just took about three weeks and i was
here like like you know for um all day for for like just five
days a week just five days a week yeah yeah well i
mean i thought if i'd done this 30 years ago i would have been here seven days a
week and got it done and got it and got it all done in what a
couple of weeks or so you know but i haven't got the energy so much that i
used to have nails okay we'd like to thank you clyde for taking
some time out of your busy only half a day
remember you're only working mornings yeah schedule in order to show us around
and have a chat about your journey into the electrical industry and one that
you're still in and hopefully you're still enjoying
clive thank you very much we look forward to anyone else's journey that we
can follow so make sure you contact us on social
media in the usual ways and we can maybe get out to see you in the future thanks
mike thank you guys