Lamenting about ladders
2026 Mawson Carpenter's ladder audit report
Oh ladder ladder where art thou,
It's time to end your yearly prowl.
It's time to check your nuts and bolts,
And audit your condition – and fix your faults.
Oh ladder ladder - there are 70 of you,
Scattered about station, hidden from view
You need to be sighted, looked up and down
Make sure you still function, and reach from the ground
If you are unsafe, you will be cut up
And sent back to Kingston via barge, ship and truck
Oh ladder ladder where art thou
It's time to find your where abouts.
Are you behind a water tank or tucked up on a shelf.
Are you hidden by junk, left by somebody else
Are you behind a generator in the powerhouse
Left to your thoughts, quiet as a mouse.
Did a big scary plumber drop you on the ground
Did they pop out your rivets and kick you around
Are you covered in glue and don’t close properly no more
Are you bent and twisted, feet not on the floor
Were you used for concreting, or to change out a light
Or to send someone up to some ghastly height
Has an electrician taken you, and not put you away
littered in copper strands, plastic and complete disarray
Did a mechanic use you to climb up onto a crane
And cover you in grease and cause you strain
Did a comms tech standing 6 foot 5 tall,
Use you to reach just that little bit more.
Have you been stood up on the ice, and covered in snow,
Have that katabatics left their scars to show
Were you put in the dark, under the floor,
Forgotten and gone and not used any more.
Were you left under some scaffold in the satellite dome
Or has a rusty old container become your new home.
Were you tied to the roof, of the fire Hagglund
Just out of site and all scratched up and trundled
Were you left in a freezer, inside the green shed
where the storeman gets boxes perched on your treads
Oh ladder ladder did somebody hurt you,
I'll take you back to the workshop and nurse you.
Charlie Hooley - carpenter
