meldrew's_mate said:
PS I'm not an engineer, I'm a Registered Gas Installer, or fitter, or a heating technician. Proper engineers don't get their hands dirty, and calling gas fitters "engineers" is similar to calling A & E nurses "surgeons"
I'm impressed. Absolutely correct, although I never expected to Hear it from a Gas Fitter. Theres's nowt wrong with being a fitter/craftsman/technician, they should be capable of doing many things far beyond mere engineers. There is an awful prejudice in this country (and many others) against people who do manual work.
The IMechE did a survey a few years ago, asking people to name a famous engineer. The most frequent nomination was Kevin Webster, the car mechanic in 'Coronation Street'.
In the olde days 'Gentlemen' didn't have to work, they had an income from the peasants/workers on their estates/mines, etc.. Manual work was regarded as brutalising. The working classes were mostly illiterate. Gentlemen could only work in a profession for which they had a 'vocation' e.g., church, medical, architecture, army officer, etc.. Thomas Hardy's short story 'The Son's Veto' gives an idea of how society worked in Victorian times. WW1 and death duties disposed of most of the idle rich families.
One of the most talented Engineers I knew was also one of the best welders. One of the most useless didn't know how to change a wheel on his own car; in fact he didn't know how to open the bonet.
Softus said:
"An engineer is someone who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound"
-Nevil Shute in "Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer"
And a quote from my hero in the same thread! Oh joy! Slide Rule is a great book. The bit about Shute's work for Barnes Wallis on R100 and the disaster that befell the competing, dreadful R101, is really educational.