Down Mexico Way

I have just come across the happiest workforce in the world and in the most unlikely location.

I am not sure how they got to that particular point in time but theirs must have been a very interesting journey indeed.

I am talking about my time spent today in the company of the Mexican builders of East Hull.

They were working on a refurbishment of a post war built terraced house on one of the outer rim Local Authority Estates. I could hear something like a party going on as I pulled up in the car. Latin beats and rhythms blasted out of the open front door, not just a tape or CD recording but an actual live broadcast from the Old Country interspersed with what definitely sounded like commercial adverts and chat show phone-ins.

I poked my head into the hallway.

A cacophony of noises covering the majority of building trades emanated from the kitchen beyond.

Power tools, hammering, pipe bending, sawing, tea making and sweeping up.

I was a bit reluctant to intrude on the hive of activity but was spotted by one of the Mexican workers who welcomed me in, as though showing me to a table in a South American themed eatery. In between passages of Spanish dialect talk radio the six members of the workforce sang along, in tune and word perfect to the ballads and standards.

There was a certain melancholy in their sonorous voices, no doubt brought on by the cold and damp November weather in the North of England and a fleeting, passing recollection of their native land, and its contrast of hot and dry climate.

I felt like I was partaking in a sort of fluid dance through the house in evading the large sheets of dusty plasterboard which were brought in from a delivery van and then noisily fixed onto the existing papered ceilings.

My route from room to room was also impeded by the fact that the house had not been cleared of furniture and belongings.

The living room was full of the personal effects of the previous occupiers under a light but all penetrating covering of dust. It must have been considerably more cluttered had not the three piece suite been ejected onto the front lawn along with amongst other detritus of everyday life, a ladies sheer black brassiere. It was a bit of a surreal sight.

I fell out of the back door after two of the Mexicans had manhandled the pine kitchen table away from its former barricading position. The yard was also littered with the remains of goods and chattels, a drastically leaning storage shed and a burnt out Wendy House.

Work continued and I had to squeeze up the staircase around stored piles of building materials. Brushing up against the stairwell wall had left, as I looked back from the landing, a sweeping mark and then I realised that this was due to the transfer of the residues from wall to the back of my suit jacket. I was totally plastered in the actual meaning of that otherwise much misused term.

There was more mayhem in the first floor rooms with furniture including bunk beds, loose chairs, mounds of linen (dirty) and yet more building materials and tools.

All of the upstairs windows were wide open and I was glad of that as otherwise the atmosphere would have been humid, stifling and choking. I thought for a moment that perhaps the Mexicans lived and slept on site but that would not have been possible in the cramped space of the otherwise decent sized house.

The music and happiness continued amongst the men, no doubt contributing to the lightning fast progress of the renovations and refurbishments. I had been in a good many properties where the workers were just plain grumpy, disillusioned and simply running down the clock until knocking off time.

Before I realised about 45 minutes had elapsed. Such was the infectious ambience that I was reluctant to leave and did entertain the thought of rolling up my sleeves and joining in. I was after all from the South originally, well Aylesbury.

The actual standard of work was, to be frank, not very good and I would have a lot to write about in my report for the prospective purchaser. To give the Mexicans the benefit of the doubt I had turned up in the middle of the project and there was a very good possibility that they would turn things around in a few days. I would have to recommend a re-inspection when the works had been completed and indeed looked forward to a further visit although the builders will, in reality, have been long gone to the next job.

For the rest of the day I found myself humming a medley of James Last-esque South of the Border melodies and with a definite lightness in spirit and foot.

I like to think that my Mexicans were in fact a full Mariachi Band just filling in between a busy programme of evening and weekend bookings. That made me smile and tap my feet. "Ole`".