the plumber

Thanks for the nudge, Joy.
As I mentioned earlier, there are certain artisans who are not willing to
pass on their skills to others, and i suppose there are those who are
willing to do so but are such poor teachers that they cannot.
There may be other trades worse, but I have found that the plumbers, as a
breed, always used to be the most secretive. Have you noticed that many
persons of one trade, say a brickie, would tend to gain a working knowledge
of allied trades, just by watching them. Thus a brickie can lay tiles, or a
plasterer can lay a cable, but perhaps not join it up.
But the plumber was so secretive that he would hide his work from others, so
that they could not learn the tricks of his trade. I was watching one of
them at work on a new house, where other trades were working but this
plumber always kept his 'tricks' out of sight. One of these was the
'sweating' of a leaden joint [yes, I am talking of years ago]
he had the two lead pipes there to be joined, and because there were other
people about he hid the actual joint under his coat. there he was with one
piece of the pipe under his left arm, and the blowtorch in his other hand.
he would heat the joint, put down the blowers, apply lead solder, reheat
then wipe it with the cloth. we found out later when we had put out the
flames that destroyed his coat, shirt and most of his head hair, that his
coat had been covered in some sort of flammable substance.
perhaps someone can say why they would be so secretive?

Joy...

Possibly because a good plumber can make as much as a professional baseball
player? (Okay, slight exaggeration ) They couldn't get away with
charging so much if everybody knew how to do their job.