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Get into the holiday spirit and read about the day in the life of Kevin Cartledge, the son of one of T. Cartledge's founders, and an important figure in keeping the streets (and Christmas trees) of England lit up and electrically safe.
It’s no coincidence that Kevin Cartledge works for Cartledge, the UK’s third largest street lighting contractor. This born and bred Sutton lad is the son of one of the T’s in T. Cartledge, a family run street lighting company started up in the 1960’s. In 2002, T. Cartledge was sold to May Gurney, one of the UK’s leading maintence and engineering companies for the public sector.
From a very early age, Kevin knew he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I wanted to be like my dad- work and make something of myself,” said Kevin. And at the age of sixteen, Kevin entered the electrical industry as an apprentice. “I was an ‘apprentice everything’, really,” said Kevin about the variety of his training, including working as an electrician, labourer, and heavy goods driver. He eventually became a qualified electrician and now works as an Area Supervisor for Cartledge.
Kevin hopes that with his hard work and determination, he can continue climbing up the management ladder. And as for passing on the sparkie gene to his children to perpetuate the Cartledge name, replied Kevin: “Possibly. It would be a nice thought, wouldn’t it?”
Project: Fit and Light the Surbiton Town Centre Christmas Tree with over 1500 lights
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5:30am: |
Kevin starts his day bright and early (although at this time of the year it tends to be “dark and early”). After washing up and changing into his Cartledge gear, Kevin drives to the Cartledge depot in Esher, Surrey. |
| 6:30am: | Upon arriving at the depot, Kevin meets up with his workmates and heads to the café for a hearty brekkie of two bacon sandwiches and two cups of tea. |
| 7:15am: | Kevin and his team fill out safety on-site risk assessments for the day’s project, fitting and lighting the Surbiton Christmas Tree at the Town Centre. |
| 7:45am: | The massive trees are then loaded onto a lorry and driven down to Surbiton Town Centre, where they will be set up on a roundabout. |
| 9:00am: | Kevin and his team secure the roundabout area by placing a traffic management system to guide vehicles and pedestrians safely around their project. |
| 9:15am: | The metal fixtures that will securely hold the giant trees in place are bolted into the roundabout. At the centre of the roundabout stands a pillar where the electrical connection will be made. Kevin inspects the cabinet to ensure that it is safe and tests the electrical supply inside the pillar to make sure that it is live. |
| 9:45am: |
After testing the electrics, it is time to bring in the trees! Upon measuring the diameter of the tree trunks, the team discovers the tree trunks are too large for their metal holders. This is then quickly resolved by ‘Advanced Tree Services’, who are on-site and use a chainsaw to trim the tree trunks to the specified size. |
| 10:15am: | Kevin then operates the lorry mounted hiab crane to lift the trees with their freshly cut trunks. These are raised with the aid of all his workmates into their stands, where they are screwed in and securely fitted. Wedges are used in to fill the gaps and further prevent any tree wobbling. After all three trees are secured in their stands, the strings holding in their branches are cut. When the branches have fallen into place, Kevin’s workmates board a cherry picker where they tie the tree tightly to the column. |
| 11:30am: | With the aid of a cherry picker, the team then starts to string the abundance of lights vertically along the trees. Kevin then returns to the Esher depot to exchange the large hiab lorry for another cherry picker. |
| 1:00pm: | Kevin returns to the Surbiton Christmas Tree site, where he then uses the second cherry picker to attach the more lights. |
| 2:30pm: | He then attaches the leads to transformers, which are held in a water-resistant box. |
| 3:30pm: | Kevin and his team then switch on the lights to make sure they are working and then switches them back off, as the official Surbiton Christmas Light Switch-On isn’t for another couple of days. Now that the tree is lit, Kevin heads back to the Esher depot to unload everything that he will not need for the following day. He then loads up the lorry with steel wired armour cable, cable terminations, and lamp posts for his next (and very different) day at work. |
| 5:00pm: | After a long day of tree lights and lorries, Kevin heads home to Sutton to enjoy an eagerly anticipated roast chicken dinner and relax with his wife, Tracey, and his ten-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son. Kevin is not yet done with the Surbiton Christmas lights, however- he plans on bringing the family to take a look at his fine festive lighting work after the town’s official Christmas Switch-On. |