Health Minister Mike Nesbitt jumps back 50 years to relive student job as bin man
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has taken the unlikely step of going back 50 years in time to relive his experience as a binman during his university holidays.
There he met fellow student Trevor Marshall, who went on to have a successful career in the steel industry.
Reflecting on where they had begun fifty years previously, they both wondered recently if they could go back and do the same job - half a century later.
"I was 19 and enjoying a gap year between school and university," Mr Nesbitt told the News Letter.
"I spent several months in 1976 as a binman with what was then Ards Borough Council."
The council kindly facilitated their adventurous spirit to relive the past on Thursday this week.
Coincidentally 1976 was also experiencing a heatwave, he said.
The pair both went back "on the bins" and even covered part of the same route - the West Winds.
In 1976 they also covered Bradshaw's Brae, central Ards Town, the Scrabo Estate.
"I did it because it's 50 years since I first signed up in 1976," he told the News Letter.
"I did it for three years on my summer holidays, switching between one of the world's most renowned universities [Cambridge] and the bins and I learnt as least as much from the bin men, certainly in terms of life skills and street smarts.
"Ards and North Down Council facilitated the return and I am very grateful to them and especially to the depot staff who were extremely friendly and accommodating.
"I have great memories of the crew, Davy John, Benny, Ronnie and Paddy and of course Trevor, the other student who worked on my lorry. Trevor and I have been best mates ever since. He went on to have a hugely successful career in the steel business."
Mr Nesbitt found the jump back in time ""very liberating".
He added: "It was great to shut off for a day and concentrate on what is an extremely important public service. We all create rubbish and we all need the council to take it away. It's a job I loved and would recommend highly to anyone interested."
He said some bins had holes and when you lifted them up "a cold, liquid something” ran down your shoulder. The students always got those bins because regular bin men knew how to avoid them, he added.