This review was originally commissioned by BC Bookworld for their Spring 2023 edition although it was published in Fall of 2022. It was my pick for "Favourite Memoir of the Year." Published by Anvil Press: 9781772141955 TP $22.00
This is a wonderful memoir by a remarkable writer and human being about her experiences as a welder and member of the Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, Union Local 191. For two decades after completing her training in B.C., Hilary Peach worked mostly as a travel card welder. This meant responding to call-outs for skilled workers urgently needed at big projects like pulp mills, chemical plants, refineries and generating stations elsewhere. Off to Montana, Pennsylvania, Fort McMurray, Port Alice, Chetwynd, Nova Scotia, Prince George and Skookumchuk she went, constantly refining her skill set, learning from the best welders in the trade as well as dealing with the toxic and hazardous ones.
It is not explained exactly how she became interested in welding or learned she had an aptitude for metalwork with good eye-hand co-ordination, not to mention mental and physical toughness, fearlessness when working at dizzying heights or in cramped enclosed spaces. Or how she acquired the endurance needed for working in severe cold or heat for 10-13 hour days for weeks at a stretch. There is no mention of big brothers or a handy Dad with a workshop but her kind and thoughtful mother seemed fully supportive of her endeavours. So was a renowned instructor, Denby Nelson, at the former Malaspina College in Nanaimo who must have recognized a kindred spirit, a renegade artist needing a way to make excellent wages to finance her Gulf Island acreage plans and creative collaborations with other artists.
But when Hilary Peach set out, in her early thirties in the early 2000’s, with her TIG ticket (Tungsten Inert Gas), fully qualified to work as a welder, there were seven women in the approximately seven hundred member local union. Often the only woman working on a site, she was frequently told to “get a thicker skin.” Or, “don’t bleed in the shark pool”. One way to interpret that is to shudder at the number of electrical shocks, molten metal burns and assorted jagged edges which got past the cheap plastic rain gear and size 12 steel-toed gumboots she was issued at the Esquimalt Shipyard at the start of her career.
The other reading, for any woman working in the trades, is the ability to withstand the verbal hazing, the filthy language and even malicious meddling with the intent to cause failure. From the belligerent foreman who refused to acknowledge she actually was the TIG welder he’d sent for and had her making coffee for three shifts at $90 an hour, to the airport security guard who was convinced she was travelling under her husband’s name, to all the times opportunities were kept hidden in some special men-only need apply vault of information, the self-described 5 foot 4 inch nerd with big glasses met sexist stupidity with unwavering stamina.
Fortunately, for every deeply insecure and mean-spirited individual depicted in this book there are at least a half-dozen decent, well-brought up union brothers who let her know they would back her up if she ever made a complaint. She never did. But several men scuttled off to complain about her! After one such encounter the foreman came over to talk to her about the tool crib attendant’s complaint after she refused to share his sleeping quarters, claiming she’d threatened him.
“What did you say?” he asked.“I said that given the opportunity, I would stab him in his sleep and make necklaces out of his teeth,” I answered. “Did you?” he asked. “Well, good for you. Carry on.”
In one truly scary instance, the brothers made sure she made it safely to and from her car and everywhere else she walked on the job before they found a way to get a dangerous predator out of camp. In another, when she was recuperating from severe dehydration, she’d find a litre of orange juice or a jug of bottled water outside her hotel room door, left by the guys she worked with after the first aid attendant spread the word. When one or more other women were working on-site, the dynamics changed in a most gratifying way for the better. They made the guys blush.
Fortunately, Hilary Peach is no slouch at defending herself, possessed of a razor-sharp sense of humour. Here’s how she dispensed with a foreman who sidled up to her and whispered in her ear: <br />“If it had been up to me, you’d have been fired weeks ago. This is no place for women.” “If you don’t like your job,” I said, “you can go and work in a flower shop.” I sense an adjective went missing in that last sentence. As Red Seal carpenter and acclaimed poet Kate Braid says in her excellent Foreword, “Thick Skin reveals the challenges of the job, both physical and emotional, but it’s also a love story. It’s about choosing your battles, fitting in, getting along, and it’s a study in sensitivity and toughness.”
