J
ordan Flett was 18 when he first set foot on an oil rig. The rig floorman, or “roughneck”, is now 29, a tall, stocky, bearded figure with a habit of leaning back in his chair to pause and stare, as if at distant horizons. Joining the industry was “quite intimidating”, he says, and not because of the fast-paced and often dangerous work, which he had experienced on building sites. What’s special about a rig is the isolated community of some 130 men, mostly much older than him, living and working together on 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for three weeks at a time. The first three days after a break are the worst, he says, when memories of home are still fresh. But then
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Wallace’s farewell revelations are indefensible