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Cheer Zurf That is a great bit of Johnny Cash I enjoyed that. .
A fireman, stoker or watertender, is a person whose occupation it is to tend the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labour, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal into the boiler's firebox.  On steam locomotives the title fireman is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually stoker (although the British Merchant Navy did use fireman). The German word Heizer is equivalent and in Dutch the word stoker is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as watertenders.
There were approximately 176 stokers on board the Titanic to keep boilers running.  Short video attached below about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1gyA3MOIwo&t=41s

Back when times were tough people would  search the side of railway tracks for coal fallen from trains to heat their stoves and homes. Apparently some of the firemen  on trains would deliberately shovel some some of the coal on to the tracks meant for the train boilers to help the poor out. Here is Dave Gunning singing about his grandfather shoveling some coal onto the tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7nLTnzTaw4

Dave Gunning - Coal From The Train.

Cheers Phill Here in  Wellington we use be dependent on the tram in many areas as a means of transport, but gradually city planners began to realise that their days were numbered. Many of Wellington's streets were very narrow by Australasian standards and large trams lumbering down the centre-line of the road didn't mix well with increasing numbers of cars. Working on the  tram were conductors and a driver. Like your clippies the the conducter would ring the bell ding ding  so the driver new when to move the tram on from a stop and yell out  "hold tight please" . They took the trams of the roads in 1964 and replaced them with buses that didnt have conductors just drivers.

TF thank you for the two songs about workers and also the traffic control new technology video. I see now they are developing robotic technology to pick fruit I will attach a video of one picking apples here in New Zealand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhswzqyVuLw

EB  Will Rogers quote  “Common sense ain't common.”

DE I love that James River Blues song  I guess many of the Boatmen jobs or Ferrymen as Kiwis call them on rivers around the USA were lost with more bridges been constructed across rivers. Most people here in New Zealand live on the two main Islands the North and the South Island. We are reliant on Ferrys to get us and our vehicles and freight from North to South video attached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR_L5k4rpu0

Milk was delivered to houses in New Zealand cities and towns until the mid-1990s, when it gradually stopped. Now people get their own milk from shops. There use to be a saying if you were differant to your father they would say “ Your obviously the milkmans son”.  Here is a song attached  about a milkman The fastest Milkman In The West.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1xvyTdBZI     

Excellent thanks TF. for introducing me to Pierre Bensusan.     

Nice one Bill I love that style of playing.     

Phill your an excellent musician and singer I love listening to your recordings.     

People are living longer and living more of their life in better health than before,yet we are constantly been told that all the things we enjoy are bad for us. So I guess this unhealthy world is good for you. Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it comes to your mind. Research has shown that listening to or playing music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory. Music therapy is widely implemented in general health care in the Netherlands, so it’s unsurprising that a group of researchers from the country set out to explore the link between music practice and blood pressure. They studied three guitarists and found that each patient who practiced for over 100 minutes a day showed a significant drop in blood pressure and a lower heart rate compared to those who didn’t. I asked a friend of mine who plays piano about 2  to 3 hours a day if he thought if it is good for his brain. He tells me it has been good for remembering music but hasn’t helped his poor memory in other areas. I guess everything is in the mind. When I think I am making music my wife tells me I am just making noise. I wonder why is Repetitive Strain Injury  such a chronic problem among classical players within the music world ? Debilitating pain when I  play guitar or piano has meant I don’t play much now days. So I guess we can’t generalise about whats good for everyone. In this era of political lies I love the way politicians around the world use scientific theory not fact on whats not good for us as another way of taxing everyday people. Back to music I find there are songs I respond to emotionally because they are part of   previous chapters in my life. When I was a child  staying with my grandparents whenever they sang a song together I could feel the power of their love for each other. It was an incredible joy that would come over me and yet they were songs I wouldn’t have listened to in other circumstances.     

TF that is a brilliant piece of writing. I went to a funeral a while back where the son of the man who had died said one of his proudest days was when he was twenty five and his dad let him for the first time  become part of his circle who met at a coffee shop once a week. He said something along the lines of to sit and be part of this group made him feel like he truely had become a man in his fathers eyes.     

Good man CG.     

Strong lyrics Jeff well written.     

I enjoy looking in on chordie and have on here met many good people. I am not a person that looks at chordie every day or even every week only because there are other things going on in my life which is no reflection on Chordie or those interested in music.  Most of my online communication is email with people that I have met physically so I guess I am not that good good at the web site thing.
The major disadvantage for me of online relationships and communication is that there is no body language to read or  the experience of bouncing ideas instantly while sitting around a table ..Sometimes an expression on a person face says more than words. Sometimes I don’t post thoughts on chordie because I know that due to the fact people who haven’t met me in person could misunderstand what I mean or are trying to say. The positive of chordie is  we can take our angst and difficult emotions and do something positive with them, such as write poetry or songs. The same as we can use it as a sounding board for writing about our differant observation on life or experiences. I think differance between playing a sport like tennis and music is that  sport  is usually  a straight out competition. Music mostly  is about making something enjoyable or challenge peoples thoughts  and  is not always  something that is built around winning and losing.
In regards to the terrible shootings down in Christchurch it has shocked our nation as we tend to think down here we can escape those sort of events by our distance from the rest of the big wide world.. The truth is no where in the world can escape someone who is crazy. The killers attempt to divide our nation has done the opposite and made us more united.
Phill you are not a boring person and your posts I enjoy.