 | Protective clothing Steve Jeffrey worked on oilrigs in the 70s. He knows, first hand, what harsh weather in the North Sea was like. Nowadays it's totally different because people are issued with very reasonable and very good protective clothing. The working environment is a lot better than it used to be. We were lucky if we were issued with work boots, which in those days were hugely expensive. Overalls was about as far as you got, no protective clothing as far as thermal conditions were concerned. As far as wet weather gear was concerned, that didn't exist either. So what we used to do was go to the jumble sales two days before we would go back to the rig and buy up half a dozen woolly sweaters, which you'd wear for two or three days then throw away because you couldn't wash them on the machines on the rig, they'd shrink. And of course first day back at work was always interesting because at least three or four guys would have bought a suit at the jumble sale for 50p or whatever and would turn up with their hard hat, work boots and a suit on. |  | |
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