From Steelworker to Careworker

Christopher Smith has lived in Craigneuk all his life. When he left school, he stepped straight into work at the Ravenscraig steelworks. “I left school on the Friday and got a job at Ravenscraig on the Monday,” he remembers. He didn’t have a grand career plan; like many in the area, he simply followed the opportunity to earn a wage. Much of his family worked there, so the steelworks felt familiar and secure. At the time, everyone believed it would be a job for life.

Christopher worked in the strip mill and the finishing plant for seven years. Like many others, he expected to stay there until retirement. Ravenscraig felt permanent, and it supported not only British Steel workers but also many other companies and contractors connected to it. When the strip mill—the first part of the works—closed, everything changed. Because he was a contractor, Christopher was not offered retraining. Instead, he was simply made redundant.

“I remember going home and saying to my wife, ‘That’s it, it’s gone. What are we going to do?’” he recalls. With a family to support, the uncertainty was frightening.

After Ravenscraig closed, Christopher had to move between different jobs to make a living. He first worked as a taxi driver, but business slowed as the industry in the area disappeared. Later he worked at the Motorola factory, which provided steady shift work for a time, though it eventually closed as well. Christopher also spent about ten years driving buses and did some labouring work with his brother, who was a bricklayer. “You moved on—you just had to,” he says.

A turning point came when Christopher’s brother became ill. Christopher took a year out of work to care for him, and afterwards people suggested he consider working in the care sector. Before that, he had never even heard of support or care workers as a job. Today he has worked as a care worker for fifteen years and says he loves it. He supports a young man with autism, often working long shifts that can start in the morning and continue until the next day.

Christopher also remembers watching the demolition of Ravenscraig from Craigneuk. The demolition lasted only seconds and then it was all over, but by that point he had already come to terms with it and said his goodbyes. He didn’t want to sit around saying, “Oh, I worked there and I feel sorry for myself.” Instead, he chose to move on. Although he loved his time at Ravenscraig and would happily have stayed until retirement, life took him in a different direction. As he says about his work today as a carer, “It’s a great job, and I like that my job is to try and make someone’s life a little bit better.”