My last away job involved walking up the stairs inside
this big bastard in Liverpool between four and eight times a day in full kit, carrying paint buckets, tools or cement, for five weeks - thirteen floors, and 60m to the top. I'm the one on the right - we had to do two coats on two faces, and did a better job than the guys using a mast-climber. The lifts were installed on the last day of the job - the same day my appendix burst and I spent another week there in hospital. Is there any wonder? Hilariously, when it was close to discharge time, this perky young physio lady came to get me and told me it was time to do the 'stairwell test' to check my stamina - involving walking up 'up to two' flights of stairs. Through the big glass windows on the stairwell, we could see this lift-core, now painted, so I told her what I'd been doing and what I did in my spare time. She said 'Right - so you should be OK on stairs then?' So I trotted up two flights, holding my drain-bag, and she was happy enough with that, and I went home that day after next - without the drain-bag, obviously