The pride of pouring perfect concrete

In the summer of 2020 I was awarded a degree in history from Bristol University – the culmination of three years’ work, late nights and great expense – but it is my concrete pump operator licence which sits above the mantelpiece. My father considers my ability to pump concrete at a rate of one cubic metre per minute to be far more impressive than my knowledge of Henry VII’s foreign policy.

At university I worked as a pump operator for my father’s piling company, making me a very unglamorous nepo baby. I helped bore the foundations for constructions all over the country. On a job installing disabled access lifts at Old Trafford stadium, the foreman explained to me that the piling gang is much like a football team: the pump man is the centre half threading passes (concrete) through the midfield (snaking pressurised pipes) towards the striker (piling rig), who attempts to break down the opposition defence (the wintery earth) with their attacking nous (rotating steel auger).