Cape Breton's Magazine

pass to take it out as scrap. You'd carry it out. At that time you could go up and buy scrap. Well, say you got 10 pounds-- oh, 50C, or $1.00, at the general office, and he'd give you a slip to take it out. Same way with nails. If you were building a house and you wanted nails, you'd get an order for 50 pounds of nails. So you'd go in on the plant, and you'd come out with maybe two kegs of nails. When you'd pass the fellow at the gate, he got the slip. He doesn't check--they never checked you out in those days. (So it went out as scrap.) You bought a piece of scrap. Actu? ally, it was brand-new nails. Now, you could buy scrap barbed wire. Like, for instance, when it was going through the machine, she'd have a cobble, she'd catch, and you'd only get a half a roll. Well, you could buy a half, or you'd go in and you'd buy the scrap. But in that scrap you'd throw in 3 or 4 complete rolls. And you'd pass them in the slip. (Well, it's ways to augment your income.) Yeah. I remember one time one of our watchmen caught a fellow with a lunch can full of nails. He was over before the chief, and the chief gave the watchman hell for saying a word. He said, "Why don't you catch some of those fellows that are going with 10 kegs of nails?" he said. "Never mind the fellow with the lunch can." Gave him hell for catching the fel? low with--that's the way it was. Everybody knew everybody. If I had a friend of mine that got into trouble, I could go up and talk to the chief. I knew him. I'd say, "Look," I said, "Chief, he's got 5 kids. And he's just getting along, and he's having...." "Oh, send him back to work." I don't know what it was, but there was something that--I had a camaraderie with all of them, that I could talk to most any of them. From Clem Anson--one fellow asked me, he said one time, "How can you talk to Clem Anson like that?" I said, "Clem An? son's only a man." As I said before, he's no better than I. He's got a better job, and I call him Mr. Anson. But there's no reason why I can't talk to him. He's not God. No, he was just another human being. (Clem Anson was a former "general manager of the steel plant. See "C. M. (Clem) An? son and Steel" Your Souvenir & Christmas Gift A PLACE APART THE CAPE BRETON STORY Text by JAMES B. LAMB > Photographs by WARREN GORDON Available In Bookstores and Gift Shops, and from [$12,95 J Gordon Photographic Ltd. 367 Charlotte St. Sydney, N. S. Published by LANCELOT PRESS LIMITED, Hantsport, Nova Scotia BOP IPO ?? Catalogue from LANCELOT PRESS LIMITED Available on Request ~ in Issue 28 of CAPE BRETON'S MAGAZINE.) And that's been my philoso? phy all my lifetime. (But you do make it clear there was the sense of fami? ly, the sense of caring for one another in the Open Hearth--or in the steel plant in general perhaps,) Generally--the whole thing. Like, the Blast Furnace had the same thing--they had their own benefit society, that they paid people $10 a week. And $10 a week then was a lot of money. Now I can tell you this. I remember being laying in my bed home, after my leg was off. And two men came in the bedroom. And they threw a bunch of money on the bed-- couple of bagfuls. There ( North Sydney Mall - With Over 26 Shops and Services - Starcade Peoples Store Schwartz Direct Film Guys & Gals Pipes & Things Jean Gallery Carlton Cards Workout Fashions Super Touch T's 794-8274 794-4900 794-3567 794-3440 794-4409 794-8305 794-8244 794-7151 794-4997 794-8330 Household Finance 794-4735 Island Fashion 794-4997 Nova Scotia Liquor Commission 794-4917 Co-operators Insurance 794-4788 Employment Centre 554-3510 Shoppers Drug Mart 794-7211 Cape Breton Video 794-7783 Sherry's Treats & Beverages Chantelle's Dining Room & Lounge Agnew Alteens Zeilers Sears Sobeys Maher Sports Den 794-8245 794-3429 794-3513 794-7206 794-3610 794-8088 794-3963 794-8810 116 King St., North Sydney, N. S. B2A3R7 Phone: (902)794-4703 or 794-4704