Keeping streets tidy for 20 years
Last Tuesday, management and staff at Mainstreet Whanganui recognised Jim Robinson’s 20 years’ of service with a morning tea and a certificate presentation.
“Twenty years ago I was with Parks and Reserves,” says 58-year-old Jim.
He was mowing public lawns as a private contractor. “In 1998 Bob Williams rang me up and asked if I’d like a job.”
Mainstreet then was a newly established department of district council and Bob Williams — the man who bought and restored the Rutland Hotel — was manager. Mainstreet’s office was then in the old bank building between Wanganui Furnishers and the shops under Wakefield Chambers.
“We were sweeping the streets with a platform broom and carrying a green bag and a hearth brush and shovel,” says Jim. “We emptied the sweepings into the bins. Well before I came along they used to hose the streets clean every day.”
Jim can still remember the names of the individuals in the team he worked with back when he started.
“Once a month, on a
Sunday, we used to start at the top of each block and hose the footpath and any dust or dirt off the buildings.”
Afterwards the supervisor would shout the team to a beer and a pie at the pub.
Jim saw quite a few changes of management over that time, but it never affected his job.
“I had no trouble with the bosses and the bosses had no trouble with me,” he says.
He has seen a few changes, including the use now of street cleaning machinery which was introduced when Ritchie Minnell started working for Mainstreet 17 years ago. Ritchie was Jim’s boss until last year. There are two mechanical contraptions that do the job — the Green Machine, with its rotating front brushes which gather loose material and scoop it into the machine’s innards, and a scrubbing machine, which does as its name suggests.
Julie Northcote now heads the outdoor team.
Jim is one of three street cleaners who begin work at 5am, starting from the city bridge.
“We work Taupo Quay to the i-Site and we cover right up Victoria Ave and all the side streets as far as Ingestre St. We also cover Majestic Square and the top carpark there.”
Part of the job involves cleaning the Victoria Ave public toilets and removing chewing gum from all the usual and unusual places it turns up. He admits it’s not a pleasant aspect of his work.
“Saturday and Sunday can be really bad for broken glass, bottles mostly . . . and then you have all the different characters on the street at times.”
Some of those “characters” can be a challenge, but most become an interesting episode in the many street cleaner stories.
While there have been basic changes in the way things are done, Jim says the weather has not changed. It’s still an outdoor job and has to be done regardless of rain, wind, cold or heat.
There are always people who greet Jim as he trundles his trolley up and down the street, but there are plenty who ignore him and the team.
“We blend in,” he says, although he knows there are plenty who look down on him and his fellow street cleaners. “But if we didn’t do it, rubbish would get this high!”
It’s the mark of the man: Jim is also a volunteer with Rural Fire where he has worked for 25 years.