Bin Men Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Bin -Men
In the late sixties there was a down turn in shipping
I was broke and unemployment, benefit meager.
From I was fifteen I had always been in catering and
before that I was milking cows, and now I got a job
as a bin man. In the back of restaurants and cafes
bins where open and attracted rats, black and brown;
we wore gloves but they were still jumping about
and as the foreman said it took too long killing them.
The job was easy enough we started in the morning
and finished about noon, I went to the communal
bath for a long shower, but I still smelled of rats and
rotting food. A call came and I was needed in
the merchant navy…but for my fellow bin men this
was their honest toil and they were great mates.