Top Man, so called because they were often required to work at height; and Mattock Man, a role named after the pick-axe-style tool favoured by demolition workers of that era.
Image: Friends in high places - A young Michael Heseltine with senior NFDC officers
and continues to guide the Federation to this day. Looking back through the archives of the NFDC, it is notable just how much the industry has changed and yet just how much remains the same. In one entry from a Federation meeting in 1949, a committee is tasked with addressing the need to facilitate a faster, more efficient electricity and gas utility service disconnections. Despite the best efforts of those founder members, the rationalisation of the utility sector, and the advent of advanced communications, that problem remains one of the few industry challenges that the NFDC has failed to conquer. In fact, through no fault of the Federation, it clings stubbornly to the to-do list almost 70 years later.
Other themes to have similarly echoed down through the ages of the Federation include safety, training, wages and codes of practice; all of which remain taxing and ever- present items on the agenda of most NFDC meetings to this day.
Bridging the Gap The male population of the UK had been decimated by death and injury during the war and able-bodied workers were in such short supply that, in line with many other industry sectors, the demolition business harked back to the workhouse days of old, employing juvenile workers to bridge the human resources gap.
However, despite having to call upon young and experienced workers to meet the workload demands, the fledgling National Federation of Demolition Contractors and the Demolition Industry Wages Board had already started to grade its employees. Designed primarily to recognise and reward the experience levels of the key demolition workers, this grading was to cement in demolition history two job roles that endure to this day:
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According to notes from a meeting of the Demolition Industry Wages Board dated 26 February 1946: “
...The general labourer is the ordinary demolition operative. He is technically unskilled but he confined himself to demolition work and becomes of value by reason of his experience in it. The normal process of promotion is for an operative to start as a general labourer. He then finds whether he has an aptitude for working at heights and, if not, he becomes a Demolition Worker or Cleaner but does not progress further.
The operative who considers he has a personal ability for heights usually approaches his Foreman. Under supervision, he is allowed to “go up” and his efforts are watched. If he is found to be suitable, he is gradually given more difficult work and, should he prove satisfactory, he is graded a Mattock Man.
The fact that an operative uses a mattock or works above ground level does not, in itself, constitute him a Mattock Man. A Top Man is more fully experienced, and is expected to be able to carry out ALL operations in connection with demolition work...”
It is notable that, sixty-five years on - long after working at height has been all but outlawed and the mattock has been replaced by high reach excavators and demolition robots - the terms Top Man and Mattock Man remain in use to describe two of the highest grades achievable under the National Demolition Training Group card scheme.
The British Elite
By the time its 10th anniversary Annual General Meeting rolled around, the Federation had clearly established itself as a major force within the UK building and construction industry. The principal guest at the AGM luncheon was Lord Morrison, parliamentary private secretary to the Minister of Works, and one of an elite band of ministers and politicians tasked with rebuilding war-torn Britain.
Indeed, such was the Federation's place in post war British society that the minutes from a London & Southern Counties regional meeting from 20 February 1952 records that the secretary had written a letter to the Queen “expressing the humble duty and sympathy of the
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