Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
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Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#2I’m glad the subtitle was included. “Knocker upper” has a very different meaning to me.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#3A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house.
It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came to the arrangement that whoever was on milk would also do the knocking up, as everyone got mandatory milk at the same time anyway, so ironically, whoever was on knocking up used to get to lie in for the week.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#4The waker uppers are up all night. Were there no alarm clocks at all? Can't a grandfather clock wake the waker upper?
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#5The last time I read about this I kept wondering how many times the person accidentally broke a window pane with the big long stick. Some of the houses were already 80+ years old at that point, and I've lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900 - just single pane, wavy, very thin glass. You could breathe on them wrong and break a pane. I'd never have trusted myself to with a 3 meter long stick to poke up at a 2nd story window pane loud enough to wake someone up but not so hard as to break a thin windowpane...
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#6The waker uppers are up all night. Were there no alarm clocks at all? Can't a grandfather clock wake the waker upper?
The article said they usually had inverted sleep schedules and they woke people who had odd or irregular shifts. Staying up all night was probably the best option for the work
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#7I’m glad the subtitle was included. “Knocker upper” has a very different meaning to me.
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Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#8Lazy Edwardian industrial workers demanding 8 hours sleep after 16 hours work!
"Oooohh we used to dream of living in a corridor..." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#9A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house. It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came…
I find it fascinating that I don’t understand a sentence of this.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#10A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house. It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came…
Gotta love british boarding school jargon. In the 90s no less! Sounds like 18th century.