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Salt Lake City — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced on 14 October 2025 that Dallin H. Oaks has been set apart as the 18th President and Prophet of the worldwide faith, succeeding Russell M. Nelson, who passed away on 27 September 2025. The announcement was made during a live broadcast from Salt Lake City, Utah. Play The 93-year-old former Utah Supreme Court justice and…

I assert ownership over this work

David Kitchen. March 24th 2020

 Working the line

I’m going south-east on the A14 to a municipal park on the far side of Ipswich. I get an info text a few days ahead from the events company but it’s only the core stuff: working hours, type of event, where it’s at and who is in charge. And a reminder if your fifteen minutes late, the company call it a no show.

After delays at every junction and crawling traffic in between, I make it to the park gates for twelve. Maybe 20,000 Ricky (Soul Man) Palmer fans will be showing up shortly. Who the hell pays a £100 to see him?

Just about all the jobs on-site are for day workers who, like me are on zero-hour contracts. They were somewhere else yesterday and won’t be here tomorrow. It’s pointless asking any questions because they will know nothing beyond the confines of their remit. So I show my ID and drive into the park looking for clues as to where I should go. The fans will be parking up here to catch buses to the concert location in town. My job is to get them parked and then point them in the direction of their onward transport. I figure if I can see a double-decker bus then I should head in that direction. My job will be nearby.

And after a couple of false starts, blocked roads and a lot of frantic driving that’s what happens. I find a hole in a fence, drive my car through and park up in line along with the others.

The ‘Event Manager’ calls me over. He is The Somebody in overall charge of controlling car movement for this event. I worked with him at the Grand National back in April when it rained solidly for all three days. I don’t expect him to recognise me but he does. I’m old, I’m tall and I’m fat and I live in Norfolk and look a little like Mussolini so maybe I stand out. He gives me an orange Hi-Viz jacket which won’t fit across my belly. Its ten minutes to ‘gates open’. He points me on to another supervisor who is organising the teams. It’s good to be remembered. This game is transient. Every day another crowd of people to work with and another boss but reputations stick.

There are five thousand cars about to come through the gates of this park. Our job is to guide them, slot them into a fast-moving queue, direct them into one of four fields, and then park them up with their front bumper just hanging over the white paint line in the grass and with enough space either side of the car for the doors to open. Not an inch more. We place the cars in doubles: that is a front row which will pull out forward at the end of the day, and a backline which will reverse out. Either way, there is just enough space for a medium-sized family car to pull out, straighten up in one go and drive away before they hit the next set of doubles. Mobile homes and vans go at the end of the row and we don’t like them. They make our lines messy and take up scarce free spaces

Speed and flow are what it’s about. Moving wheels mean happy customers. Stop-wait-go gets them tetchy.

The last bus from here into the city concert venue is at 7 pm. At just after eleven the same buses will bring the people back but it’s a simpler task: we just man the channels and deal with blockages. I tell my boss it’s a lot like plumbing. His eyes light up. I tell myself the man is shocked that someone else gets it. That’s how I think of it. A large occupancy building with tanks and pipes to be supplied, filled and empties. No mistake there is a science to this. We are not just men and women in Hi-Viz. We are your secret heroes. Working at the job I get nice remarks shouted out through car window. “Thanks for getting us out so quick”. Things like that.

Twelve men of us line up alongside the company van. We will be at the centre of the operation today. Tasks are allocated, it’s a little like picking teams for sports. They need someone at the gate, someone at the junction, then two teams of three for the actual parking, then two more workers to cover disabled parking and drop-offs plus two for break cover. That’s twelve, no spare capacity for now but there could be a lad coming in later for a 2-8 shift. “It’s going to be hell-of-a hot day, we will get you extra breaks out of the heat”. Welcome words that lift us a little.

I’ve only known the people around me for a short time. I know who I want to work with and who I don’t. Its instinct. Your day can be hell if you stuck with a weirdo or thick bastard, or somebody with a bad attitude. And it makes you look bad. And the heat will compound it, its forecast a high of 34c and it will feel like a lot more out on this shade-less dusty field. I’m wearing my floppy white bush hat. The interior has a brown-yellow sweat line running all around the middle of the crown. Disgusting. And its smells. I get nobody I wanted.

Three of us start in the direction of Field Number One. We sort out jobs along the way. Director, Pointer, and a Parker. In time all will get a turn of each but its best for the first in as a parker to do it for a while. The pointer is important but the parker is king. It all rides on their speed and skill.

Coming over the field at a half gallop is the old half Indian guy I met when we're both doing Stonehenge Summer Solstice parking. Then I saw him at Santa Pod Raceway for a few days. Stan’s his name. Works as a pair with his wife. Both are in their seventies. Got a great big motor home. He shouts over at me, “Hey it’s Septic. I’m on Disabled Parking. God, I thought you were from up north”.

I holler back “Twenty years in Norfolk now. Try and keep up. Catch you for stories later”. Stan’s a great storyteller. Travelling types him and his wife both. They call me Septic. I’m a Patrick but they misheard it the first time.

We, the people who do this job term the field a ‘panel’. That’s the phrase used. A panel is divided into two halves, left and right. Our group go to the endpoint of the first white line, in the upper outer corner of the right panel. This will be our beginning point for the day. Our parking line is fifty yards long. We will fill that and then do a second line directly behind that first row of cars, then jump and repeat as the new drivers pick their way in our direction. This we will repeat all day long till the stream of cars slows, becomes a trickle and then ceases.

For now, I will be The Pointer. A late-middle-aged man called Tim, with a very tentative way about him will be The Director. He goes back to the feeder track which is marked out down the middle of the panel by cones and plastic tape. As the cars roll toward him over a dirt track he will direct them with an (emphatic) arm gesture to make a diagonal route across the grass in the direction of where we will be filling the parking line. Drivers are sneaky. They try and park in the wrong places. Seeking some imaginary advantage for the end of the day. Tim the Director Man has to spot these delinquents, these black sheep and like a good shepherd get them back to where they should be. Tim seems lacking in life force and I wonder if he has the neck to manage the task.

I am The Pointer Man. At the approach of a driver, I raise both arms like a flag to signal my presence and progress to ‘come-hither’ movements with outstretched hands. Drivers panic and go blind sometimes but I am their keeper. When the target is fifty yards out I drop one arm and make a precise pointing gesture with the other. The cars take a ninety-degree turn and at that moment see they are on a straight-line approach to a perfectly presented parking space and I hope they get the feeling that a pilot might get bringing his plane into land. I like to think like that when I am parking cars.

Our ‘Parker’ for now is ‘No-Nonsense Sue’, a big girl in her early twenties with fleshy arms. She stands on the line and as a car approaches raise a finger and sternly points at her feet. I will soon wonder why she does not smile.

These automobile pilots give themselves away. Some have overly generous ideas of themselves and like to do their own thing, and at speed. One must be careful of them. Others are smooth and precise. Their cars glide in, front wheels exactly on the line and front bumper hanging over just as they ought to. They lean out and ask “am I right” and I say “yes that’s great” or “you’re a champion” or something but I know that Sue will just grunt and step along to the next space along. Then you have the drivers who panic and forget how to drive and come close to running you over. They are the reason for standing to one side when the car is ten yards out. Some drivers turn into headless chickens and their feet lose all memory of which pedal to depress. These are the people who can break your legs or crush your feet.

Our little team are all in place and ready: knowing once the first car comes in sight that will be the beginning and we shall not rest again today without permission. I get on the radio and in my most confident voice say. “Norfolk Boy to control, Team A in position and ready, over”

Five minutes pass and then Car Number One appears from behind a row of trees half a mile away. Even from this distance, it’s possible to sense the driver’s hesitancy until they spot The Panel Man at the first right-angle junction, and pick up speed. It’s like the layout becomes suddenly clear and they proceed confidently point to point to point. It’s so like the game where silver balls roll through channels and drop into holes.

Then there is a second car, this driver watches the first and follows suit, and then a third and so on. In a minute or two it’s a stream. At the endpoint, we accept the flow and take it in. Fluidity is the aim. They move like a stream but when they arrive the cars present to us like a tilting wave and only the smallest of hand gestures are needed to bring them in. No delays and as they say, a frictionless experience.

Our team of three moves down the panel like an old fashioned teleprinter then switches across to the left side and starts over.

Two hours later it’s up at 34c and feeling hotter and we are sweat-soaked and caked in dust. Weary legs of course, but our brains are feeling fried. The Supervisor Man has been around with bottled water. It shifts the dust in your throat but we are working flat out and need a respite from the sun most of all. The boss gets this and over the radio drafts in the six-hour chap, Ronnie to replace each of us in turn for half an hour so we can get into the shade and have a break: eat some energy foods and rehydrate.

Tim is most exposed to the heat and dust so he is sent off first. This allows a switch around. Sue goes out to Tim’s spot and Ronnie becomes The Parking Man. He wanted it.

I know his face. He did the heritage drag-racing event at Santa Pod but worked on a different panel. There was some kafuffle involving him but I am struggling to remember details and dismiss the mental alarm, then drift onto other thoughts. Men called Ronnie should not look like him. They should be in their mid-fifties, five feet ten, broad in the beam and be fans of Rugby Union and time in the bar. Ronnie’s that age but the rest is wrong. Spindly, excessively thin, angular and jerky of movement and everything a little too fast and intense. The sight of him made me uneasy. The tingling alarm in my brain is active again.

The Supervisor Man rolls over in a company van. One of the younger ones, an easy manner, burly, ruddy face, thick tufty red hair, looks like he should have been a hill farmer. His backstory, I find out later is the army and being unable to settle to anything afterwards. I learn this and more bits over the next few hours.  He goes from one event to the next all summer, working seventy hour weeks and sleeping in his motorhome. There are a wife and kids in Cheltenham. I ponder on how that might work.

He leaps off the front seat of the van like a latter-day cowboy “Hi how’s it going? I know.  You’re doing great. Everything flowing easy. No back up on the A14 or even at the roundabout outside the gate. The police are happy and that means the promoters are as well. It’s bloody hot so one of the girls went out and got us Ice-Pops. Put them in your pockets, till you have a chance. They will cool your balls off”.

All this is said while the cars are flowing, I’m a man that needs a hearing aid but this man’s voice carries and can be heard over anything else. “It’s just turned 2.30, between now and five is the peak, then by seven it’s all done with those going in. Then we rest till ten when they all come back and fingers crossed we get them all out easy”.

Ron bawls out “we are the team skipper, we shan’t let you down”. We all cringe and sense immediately we are no longer a team. Supervisor Man looks ill at ease, hands out the ice pops and gets away.

Ron shouts over at me, “I used to be in food and pharma process technology. It’s all the same. Keeping the shit moving hey?” Ron proves to be pickier than most about the positioning of the cars and is not your man for banter and rapport with drivers. The idiot is passively rude to people and that puts my teeth on edge. Part of this job is Show Business. Moving along, giving it some spiel, getting a laugh from the punters and keeping people on side… and happy. A bit of all that and the punters will do anything for you. Ron is odd and I am thinking about how to get rid of him.

It’s just then that an Indian lad, possibly a college student and his friends, in tiny three-door leaves too big a gap between himself and the previous car, a Merc and rolls well over the line so his bonnet is a clear metre ahead of all the others. Ron barks at him “back up my friend and come in again, and this time watch and follow my instructions, hey?” The driver is looking like he has been zapped with a stunner and in his incomprehension puts a foot on the wrong pedal and almost scuttles Ron, who curses obscenely, waves his arms and shouts “back! Back! You stupid twat”. The lad finds reverse and backs up a little too fast in my direction. I jump out of the way and he almost hits a Bedford van coming in. Ron directs him forward again and brings him in too close to the Merc. The passenger door won’t open but Ron ignores this and moves on with a dismissive gesture.

That mess up has caused a delay and given us a problem. I scream over at Sue to stop the cars at her point on the track. I have ten cars all askew in the field and two are driving off in their own chosen direction to find a spot. I shout at all my drivers (if they are on my panel then they are mine) and tell them to stop and there you have a snapshot of human nature. The ones who instinctively think of the common good and the other lot who hate self-important fat old bastards in Hi-Viz jackets like me telling them what to do.

I call over at Ron, “Hey mate, are we good to go again?”

And he bawls back “everything under control here. Roll ‘em big fella”.

I hate Ron…

Supervisor Man comes over on the radio. “Is there a problem? The cars aren’t moving down here at the gate?

“Ron here, no problems skipper, just some Western Oriental Gentlemen who cannot drive. On track now”

Supervisor Man snaps back, “Ron we cannot talk like that, please stay professional on the radio”. Reggie’s face fills up red. Starts at his neck and rises. He is the colour of beetroot.

I glance back over at ‘No-Nonsense Sue’ on the access track. She is bent over a car window. I can just see a young woman shouting at her, and then the driver pulls hard right and speeds at ninety degrees to the middle of the panel entirely ignoring us. Other cars break out of line and follow suit and in a second this insubordination has spread and maybe half of the hundred cars in the queue break out and drive off in every direction…something that reminds me of one of those starburst fireworks.

I turn back and see the most astonishing thing, Ron is aiming punches at the face of an old man in an ancient Morris Traveller who is using his forearms to shield his head. “Ron, Ron what you doing man?”

“Norfolk Boy to control. We have a problem. Could you stop all traffic at the gate until we sort this out? We have lost…” And that’s when Ron punched me on the chin and I fall to the ground like a felled tree. He leaps onto my body, places a knee ether side my torso, and then puts his hands around my neck. My denture plate has snapped with the punch and has fallen into the back of my throat. I’m choking but manage to grab Ron by his ears, fold my right leg and push off with that so we roll over and I spit my teeth out. Ron scrambles back on top of me so I kick off against the ground some more and we roll again. Cars and vans are treating us like a traffic island and driving to the left and right. Ron’s is screaming something about standards and trying to push his thumbs into my eyes.

2 am. The whole site is empty apart from our cars and a couple of wind up, illumination towers. Stan and I are the only ones left on the site apart from Mark, the Supervisor Man who is down by the gate talking with the police about Ron. Our timesheets need signing before we head off so we wait.

I’m having some problems swallowing, there’s grazes on my back and head, and a black eye is coming out. I ache rather than hurt. Ron was pulled off me by Sue who then decked him with a head butt. I am grateful. I suspect his time in food and pharma process technology had not been without issue.

Stan’s day has been quiet over in disabled parking. No more than twelve cars all day and all very civilised and social. Drivers and passengers spread themselves out on the grass for picnics. Stan sat in, chatted and shared their sandwiches. Of course all the shouting and the sound of car horns and revving engines had drifted over on the wind but at his age, he felt it best to remain at his post.

“Me and my wife are having a crisis”. Their youngest daughter: a first-time mother at forty has just had a baby. “Septic, the wife wants to settle. Rent a flat somewhere near our daughter and help with the baby. I want to see the kid… of course I do, but don’t see myself in a pokey flat on an estate in Barking. I thought she would keep with me but seems this is it. So it’s going to be good friends and past good companions and I don’t know what else if anything. I’m flying off to Toronto tomorrow night. This game and bar work will fund my doings all the summer”.

I tell Stan I’m flying out to Samarkand in September and joining the Silk Road all the way back to Istanbul. Backpacking, trains, buses and cheap smelly hotels. “If the company has not been doing their criminal records check, I could be in for a bonus”.

Stan puts on his wistful philosophical face, this man could turn a watering can into an object lesson about life, and “Who would have known it Septic? Looking at two old buggers like us in our Hi-Viz, who would credit it? We are like modern day cowboys. Battered but undefeated. Riding till we drop. Yes, I’m telling you, we are modern-day cowboys…who park cars”.

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