The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

Bricklayer in Paoua, Central African Republic

A bricklayer or mason is a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The term also refers to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry.^[1] In British and Australian English, a bricklayer is colloquially known as a "brickie".^{[citation needed]}

The training of a trade in European cultures has been a formal tradition for many centuries.^{[citation needed]} A craftsman typically begins in an apprenticeship, working for and learning from a master craftsman, and after a number of years is released from his master's service to become a journeyman. After a journeyman has proven himself to his trade's guild (most guilds are now known by different names), he may settle down as a master craftsman and work for himself, eventually taking on his own apprentices.

A notable person who laid bricks (as a hobby) was Sir Winston Churchill.

Bricklayers in Germany[link]

The German word for a bricklayer is Maurer. In Germany bricklaying is one of the most traditional trades.

Career[link]

The aspirant bricklayers start their careers as apprentices (Lehrlinge) and learn from a master craftsmen (Meister) the skills necessary for the trade. They also attend a vocational school (Berufsschule) to gain theoretical knowledge.

After three years of training they graduate by successfully completing an exam held by the guild (Innung). The apprentices must show that they are able to construct masonry, know how to protect a house from humidity or water ingress, know about thermal insulation, know about the science of construction material and about occupational health and safety. If the apprentices are successful they are awarded with the journeymans's certificate (Gesellenbrief) and are now allowed to call themselves journeyman (Geselle).

After graduation the journeymen may choose to go on a three years and one day journey known as the "journey years" (Wanderjahre, Walz, Stör, Tippelei). For this purpose he may join an association for journeymen (Schacht). The most important journeymen associations are as follows:

1. The righteous journeymen (Rechtschaffene Fremde)

The members of this association wear traditionally black (aka the blacks) to express their decency (Ehrbarkeit). The association is more than 200 years old. The members have a secret ceremonial which they are not allowed to describe, but people say that its content and language are of great beauty. This association is very near to the Unions and many of its members are members of the unions as well.

2. The free journeymen (Fremder Freiheitsschacht)

This association was founded on Mayday of 1910 by the famous bricklayer Hermann Schäfer. They wear red and are called the reds. Their maxim is "we all are brothers, we all are the same" ("Wir alle seins Brüder, wir alle seins gleich" dialect). They call each other "Dear Brother" (Bruderherz).

3. Association of Roland (Rolandschacht)

They wear blue and are called the blue ones. Their maxim is "loyalty and friendship and brotherhood will unite us brothers of Roland all the time" ("Treue, Freundschaft, Brüderlichkeit, vereint uns Rolandsbrüder alle Zeit" )

After their journey years the craftsmen are allowed to settle down ( to become a local/citizen (Einheimischer)), but they will only be allowed to do so, if they behaved respectably on their journey.

A person who has had many years of experience in their trade will be allowed to become a master. They will have an exam again. In this exam they will show that they are an expert of the trade. They also must show that the can work well with other people and have some teaching skills, because as a master he will be allowed to educate younger bricklayers.

If he did well in the exam he will be rewarded with the master craftmen's diploma (Meisterbrief) by the chamber of crafts.

As a master he will be allowed to start his own construction company.

Bricklayers in Fiction[link]

In several novels and short stories by Italian-American author, John Fante, hod carriers, bricklayers, and stonemasons feature prominently (perhaps most notably in his debut novel "Wait Until Spring, Bandini," "Brotherhood of the Grape," and "The Orgy"--one half of the posthumously released collection "West of Rome"). This is due to the highly autobiographical nature of much of Fante's writing. Fante's father, Nick, was an Italian-born bricklayer descended from—at least in Fante's fictions—a long line of Italian artisan bricklayers and stonemasons. Moreover, the author spent a significant portion of his youth apprenticed to his father, experience that lent him the knowledge to write accurately about various details of the trade: from descriptions of the actual work, the physical toll it took on workers, the color and character of those workers, and the pride and satisfaction of a job well done. Because Fante looked up to his father (despite their numerous quarrels and fallings-out) he thus held the trade in very high regard, at times verging on romanticizing the quite difficult work it took. To him, bricklaying (and hod carrying) was something that ennobled poorer classes; it was a respectable manual labor that required a degree of artfulness, and was a manly occupation.

Bricklayers in German poetry[link]

• Armin Berg: "Der gewissenhafte Maurer"

See also[link]

• Stonemasonry
• Construction
• Construction worker
• Guild
• Brick hod

Zunft-Clothing of the german bricklayers[link]

• Picture of an Ehrbarkeit
• Traditional belt-buckle of a bricklayer (it reads: three cheers for laying bricks).
• The buckle is worn on a belt very much like this (this is a belt of a roofer)
• Bricklayer trousers
• Traditional bricklayer waistcoat (most times this is not white, but rather grey)

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Look up bricklayer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Gerard Hoffnung (22 March 1925 – 25 September 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works.

Early years[link]

Born in Berlin, and named Gerhard, he was the only child of a well-to-do Jewish couple, Hildegard and Ludwig Hoffnung. He was sent to England, where he attended Bunce Court School in 1938.^[1] In 1939, his parents left Germany, initially for Florence and then for London, and Hoffnung then attended Highgate School, while his father went to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine to enter the family's banking business. This temporary separation became permanent as a consequence of World War II.

Career[link]

Hoffnung died of a cerebral haemorrhage only 20 years after arriving in England, but filled those two decades with considerable achievements as - amongst other things - a cartoonist, tuba player, impresario, broadcaster and public speaker, much sought after by the Oxford and Cambridge Unions.

Hoffnung published a series of books of cartoons poking gentle fun at conductors and orchestral instrumentalists. After his death, some of these were turned into a short animated film by Halas and Batchelor under the title The Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra, which won a number of awards in 1965-66.^[2]

He created three Hoffnung Music Festivals held at the Royal Festival Hall in London. These featured contributions from distinguished "serious" musicians. Compositions specially commissioned for the Festivals included Malcolm Arnold's A Grand, Grand Overture, Op. 57 ^[3] which was dedicated to U.S. President Herbert Hoover and was scored for several vacuum cleaners and other domestic appliances.^[4] Franz Reizenstein's Concerto Popolare was described as "The Piano Concerto to end all Piano Concertos".^[5][6] William Walton conducted a one-note excerpt from his oratorio Belshazzar's Feast: the word, "Slain!" shouted by the chorus.

Much of Hoffnung's own humour relies on timing. A notable example is the 'Bricklayer's Lament' which was part of his 1958 Oxford Union Speech.^[7]

	Excerpt from "The Bricklayer's Lament" noicon Excerpt from The Bricklayer - 266 kb
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Hoffnung's life was in the tradition of the Great British Eccentric, despite his continental origins. He affected, consciously or otherwise, the persona of an elderly music master, a role honed while teaching at Stamford School, where his eccentricities are remembered to this day. His voice had the hoarseness one associates with age, its cadences slow and faltering after the fashion of the old, or perhaps in homage to Colonel Blimp. His eccentricities were legendary, to the point where stories about him are fantastic enough to be believable, as nobody would think of making them up. For instance, he is said to have been fanatical about learning to whistle entire symphonies, even calling friends who were conductors and whistling down the phone line at them to check his memory. Describing his cartooning, he seemed to regard it as something not under conscious control:

I would try to draw something, a chair for instance, and there it would be - with an expression. I had almost nothing to do with it.

Try as he might, any inanimate object he drew seemed to take on a personality, so it is not surprising that he turned to caricature and surreal exaggeration, as in the drawing of the musician being devoured by the Serpent he is trying to play. Another drawing features a singer whose waistcoat buttons are control knobs labelled Loud/Soft, Wobble, and Sob.

His public persona as an eccentric and wit does, however, overshadow his more thoughtful and serious side. He joined the Quakers in 1955 and was active in their prisoner visiting scheme. Moreover, according to a biographical sketch by Joel Marks, first published in Essays in Arts and Sciences (University of New Haven, Volume XXI, 10/1992), Hoffnung's

outlook on race relations, homosexuality, nuclear disarmament, the treatment of animals (especially hunting) and, for that matter, the music of Bartók and Schoenberg [was] liberal and impassioned.

He learned to play the tuba well enough to take the stage for the Tuba Concerto by Vaughan Williams as well as being an active participant (and jester) for Morley College Orchestra, a much respected amateur ensemble in London. Hoffnung's home functioned as a kind of salon for musicians, artists, writers and friends in general.

After his death, his concert concept was kept alive by his widow, Annetta, and collaborators. The latest event was performed in Lausanne Switzerland on 31 December 2005. His son, Ben Hoffnung, is a professional timpanist who can be seen with groups including the London Mozart Players and The Sixteen. Hoffnung's uncle was Bruno Adler,^[1] a German art historian and writer who, during the war, wrote for the German language department of the BBC.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gerard Hoffnung web-page (created by his widow) - As well as being a source of information about Hoffnung, it also lists and offers for sale his recordings and books.
• Joel Marks's biographical sketch
• [1]