Steve Jeffrey

Oil worker in the 1970s

Steve Jeffrey

"In those days in the 70s the fun was getting the job done quickly and efficiently. The Americans like with all their industries it was a reward scheme. The harder you worked the faster you got promoted. The faster you got promoted the more you got paid. So everyone wanted to work hard, get promoted and get paid more. It was also, in those days, the drilling crews were working as a team, and it was very very important that you were an absolute star in what you did, because the other guys would show a lot of respect, and you would show respect to guys who were good at their bit of the job. And when you got promoted, not only was it a feather in your cap, but you had the approval of the rest of the crew around you. It was a bit like being in a football team or a rock and roll band."

"The first trip I ever did offshore I flew out on a Westland Wessex, which was the helicopter, which was designed round about the 1950s. They were all ex RAF helicopters and there were no seats in them and I was sitting on a sack of potatoes beside a crate of milk and that was my first trip off shore. This was perfectly normal in those days, nowadays if you go to Aberdeen and go to the heliport, it's like watching a little regiment of soldiers all dressing up in their orange suits with their life jackets round their necks and marching out to the helicopters. It's terribly much a process, but in those days nothing was formal at all."