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Where there's muck there's Mike and cameras!

28/ 6/2002

AS A holiday job, it leaves a lot to be desired, but don't tell Mike Thomas - he's maintaining a family tradition of mucking around.

Mike's love of cleaning up after others has now landed him a starring role on BBC One's Life Of Grime documentary series.

Just started this week, the series trails Salford council's environmental health staff as they follow their jobs, from the divine to the downright dirty. Thirty-eight-year-old Mike is already emerging as a front runner in job satisfaction, despite being constantly up to his neck in septic tank blockages.

As a gulley jet operator he is part of the drain clearing team which helps solve some of the city's smelliest problems. He has worked for environmental services for 21 years - and eight years ago took over his present job when his father Bill Rigby retired.

"My dad worked for the council for 47 years and trained me up to take over the job when he was on holiday. When he retired I took it over so it's a bit of a family tradition."

It's Mike's job to use specialised equipment to flush out, clean up and swill down private drains and sewers. On Life Of Grime he can be seen sticking his head into a septic tank to look for a major blockage and later sharing home-made samosas with a satisfied customer - but not, he adds, on the same occasion, and of course he scrubbed his hands in between!

"The way I see it is, if you don't go to work and enjoy your job, then don't go to work," he told us. "And I never take my work home with me!"

• IT'S a dirty job but someone's got to do it - and now those, like Mike Thomas who do, have become stars of A Life of Grime. Camera crews followed Salford Council staff around for six months last year, capturing the sights and sounds of some of the least sweet-smelling jobs.

Pest controllers Steve Hodgkinson, Byron Hunt, Peter McCarthy and Graham Hulse are some of the other colourful characters featured along with dog warden Lynne Rogers, crematorium workers Gary Fraser and Barry Eden, graffiti cleaners Ian Royle and Duane Hignett and pollution team Stephanie Bierwas and Chris Singleton .

Meanwhile, environmental health officers Joan Hooper, Diane Watkin, Marianne Rold and Wendy Guest are seen going over some less-than-appetising food while binmen Brian Livesey, Robert McAvoy and Mark Hattle get to work in one of the city's regeneration areas.

Watch out Jeremy Spake and Jane MacDonald!