Fortunately Dave forgave me and I soon became his new drinking buddy. We didn’t drink so much outside of work, as we drank at work. As I said, he worked on the Ethanol plant so we didn’t need to look far for industrial alcohol. Back in the seventies apparently half the factory was on it, but Health and Safety came along and tightened things up a bit. Bloody spoil sports.
Usually at around one or two in the morning of a nightshift, he would say, “Hey Billy, fancy a wee livener?”
That was my cue to get some sample product from the plant and a can of Irn Bru from the vending machine to then meet in the lab where we would test the Ethanol quality…orally.
“What do you think Billy? Any good?” “Aye seems pretty good to me. Although it could maybe do with a dash of ice”.
As time went on, during the lab sessions I would think to myself, ‘Although, I am pissing a lot of blood these days and waking up with screaming kidneys, it’s got to be worth it. Better than twelve hours sober in this shithole’.
We only drank the ninety seven percent pure alcohol though because the ninety nine percent stuff had traces of benzene in it and that gives you cancer if you smell enough of it, never mind ingest it with fizzy juice. We weren’t totally stupid.
Dave was also giving me a lift to and from work every day until I got my licence back, just in case we weren’t dicing with death enough by operating millions of pounds worth of machinery while pissed out of our brains.
Just before I left the team after two years at the end of my apprenticeship, Dave did develop Multiple Sclerosis so maybe it wasn’t the best idea to drink it every shift as he had been at it for over ten years. I decided to give it up myself at that point, just in case there was a connection, as you can’t be too careful.
Cheers!
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