STEEPLEJACKS’ WORK
ONLY TWO IN NEW ZEALAND
The work of the steeplejack is a fast dying occupation in New Zealand. As far as is known Messrs D. and A. Archer, of Dunedin, are the only two steeplejacks left in the Dominion. Their work takes them all over New Zealand, and they need to be adept at many occupations, such as painting, bricklaying, and to a certain extent engineering.
Removing weather vanes, replacing slates on a church spire, painting flagpoles, or repairing brick work on the top of tall chimneys are all in the day’s work to them. They are apparently quite happy at a height of 200 feet. “It’s just the same as being on the ground once you are used to it,” they said on Friday. They are able to keep going on such work all day.
On Friday they were repairing brick work on an 80-foot pottery kiln stack of a Christchurch firm. “One has to be fairly agile for this work; we won’t be able to keep going much after we are 40,” they said. If the art of the steeplejack is lost in New Zealand, firms needing such work done will have to pay about three times as much to have it done with scaffolding. The ladder needed to do the work on Friday could be put up in three hours. To'erect sufficient scaffolding for the same work would take three weeks.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25550, 19 July 1948, Page 6
Word Count
236STEEPLEJACKS’ WORK Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25550, 19 July 1948, Page 6
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