Trade Legends | Construction Podcast

This week on the Trade Legends Podcast, plumber Nathan Nash joins us to share a story that changed everything. In early 2024, at just 27 years old, Nathan started getting a nagging pain in his lower back. Like most tradespeople, he put it down to the job and got on with it. The pain didn't go away. After weeks of painkillers, GP visits, and medication that wasn't working, Nathan was eventually diagnosed with anaplastic large cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, an extremely rare form of blood cancer. He talks candidly about the three weeks he spent in hospital before the diagnosis came through, the moment he found out what he was dealing with, and how he processed being told he had a 60 to 70% chance of coming through it.

Nathan opens up about getting married just days after starting chemotherapy, losing his hair exactly two weeks later, and the six months of treatment that followed while raising two young children. He talks about the raw social media posts that connected him with an outpouring of support from the plumbing and construction community, and why he wants to use his platform to raise awareness of a cancer hardly anyone in the trades has heard of.We also cover what's next as Nathan moves into radiotherapy, the news that he's since been given the all clear from active cancer, and his longer-term goal of moving away from the tools and into teaching the next generation of apprentices.This isn't just a cancer story. It's about what happens when your body tells you something is wrong, and you actually listen

E91 | Plumbing has DESTROYED my body. It's time to GIVE IT UP

E90 | FROM A GLOBAL TRAINER BRAND TO SAFETY BOOTS : Transforming The Construction Industry PPEPremier League Football, Wimbledon, the FBI... and now the trades.In this episode of the Trade Legends podcast, Ed van Wezel shares his journey of transforming traditional construction safety boots and work boots into stylish, high-performance safety trainers for tradespeople within the construction industry.As the visionary behind revitalizing iconic brands like Hi-Tec and Totectors, Ed discusses his career in the business, from working in Asian factories to leading global campaigns, and his ethos of combining comfort, style, and durability in work wear for tradesmen and women. Ed discusses how he brought Totectors back to life, set trends with Hi-Tec's outdoor technology, and bridged the gap between functionality and fashion with innovative safety trainers for tradesmen and women. #tradesman #construction #podcast Guest this week: Ed @totectors1163 Hosts:Alex @alexinsley ⭐ Supported by Tradify | https://tradifyhq.com/ | @TradifyHQ 🏷️ Save on over 50 Trade Brands | https://tradelegends.uk/discounts/

E89 | SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS in CONSTRUCTION... What NOT to do!!Trade Legends Construction PodcastAlex and Mark sit down with Troy, the tradesman behind the brilliant 'surface protection' company Dusty Boys that all trades will use, from plumbers to carpenters, plasterers to electricians.... and I'm sure you've seen it all over social media. Troy is a carpenter by trade, something he was able to achieve without the need for an apprenticeship as he learnt his trade skills on the job, but the work doesn't stop there. A few years ago he decided to start a second "trade" type company, specialising in products that protect homes, floors, working areas and properties from the mess created by electricians, plumbers, carpenters, decorators and construction workers. With clever marketing and a keen eye for business, Troy was able to make his dream a reality.We sit done in this episode of the Trade Legends Podcast and talk all things trade, protection, social media ideas and much moreCheck out our DISCOUNT CODE for Dusty Boys, as well as many other Top Brands: https://tradelegends.uk/discounts/#tradesman #construction #podcast Guests this week: Troy @dustyboys.uk (Insta)Hosts:Mark @MJTiffPlumbing Alex @alexinsley ⭐ Supported by Tradify | https://tradifyhq.com/ | @TradifyHQ 🏷️ Save on over 50 Trade Brands | https://tradelegends.uk/discounts/

E88 | SUICIDE in CONSTRUCTION Trade | The BIGGEST DANGER in the TRADES

"Nobody asked me how I was."www.thelostcity.org "Lets save the next 7000."

7000 tradesmen have taken their own lives over the last 10 years. That's 2 tradesmen every day: enough tradespeople to build a city the size of Cardiff.- Project 7000 | The Lost City -"The construction industry has a suicide rate four times the national average. It's a crisis, but one that's relatively unknown outside the industry. By visualising exactly what they could have built, The Lost City addresses this crisis, showing the true scale of construction suicides. This is the city that could exist if the construction suicide crisis didn’t."In this week's Trade Legends episode, we discuss Mental Health within the construction industry with a few familiar faces - Lee @OnTheToolsOfficial , Kryss and James. Both Kryss and James contemplated and even attempted to take their own lives. Each guest explains how they found themselves in that situation, but also how they were able to find the professional help that ultimately saved their lives. 'Project 7000 aims to highlight these issues within construction, bringing to light the horrific statistics regarding mental health within the trades.What is the aim of the project? To raise £2.5 million to help anyone in the trades who feels they have nowhere to turn.Whether you're a plumber, electrician, carpenter, bricklayer or in any other trade...DO NOT SUFFER ALONE. Talk. Please visit 'thelostcity.org' to donate whatever you can.

#tradesman #construction #podcast

Guests this week: Lee @OnTheToolsOfficial James 'royalspadecoration' (Insta)Kryss @Tominay_stone

Hosts: Mark @MJTiffPlumbing

⭐ Supported by Tradify | https://tradifyhq.com/ | @TradifyHQ 🏷️ Save on over 50 Trade Brands | https://tradelegends.uk/discounts/

Rob has been a carpenter for over 20 years and runs Berrywood Contractors in West Sussex. Paul comes from Shell, the NHS, and a career in marketing before landing at RC Sales, the company behind Carpenter's Mate, the timber-fixing that half the trades world calls a Timberlock without realising it's not. In this episode, the two sit down to talk about how they found each other, why quality fixings matter more than most tradespeople realise, and what's actually going wrong with apprenticeships right now. Rob's college couldn't find a single apprentice to send him this year. Not one. The college itself is struggling to fill courses. It's not a Rob problem, it's a sector problem.They also get into the real cost of taking on a young tradesperson, tools, van insurance, wear and tear, before they've even picked up a saw. Rob's 21-year-old chippy is paying £3,900 a year just for van insurance. That's before tools, before the van, before anything else.Plus a conversation about social media content in the trades, why people are now deliberately posting the wrong way to do things for clicks, why that's damaging the industry, and why long-form content will always beat seven-second Reels for anyone who actually wants to learn something.

Sianna spent years working in retail, hospitality and care after leaving college — none of it stuck. Then she found bricklaying on YouTube and everything changed. In this episode, Mark sits down with Sianna to hear how she walked into construction in her late 20s with no background in the trades and a clear goal: learn enough to build her own house. She talks through the college process for bricklaying, carpentry, plant and electrics, what nobody tells you about social housing, and what it's actually like being a woman on a male-dominated site. It's an honest account of a career change done properly, the hard way.

E85 | TERRIFYING GHOST STORIES | UK,s No.1 Paranormal Investigator Danny Moss Tells all"Strap in Ladies and Gentlemen... this could be a long one." - MJ Tiff.Join us for our spooky Halloween Special as we sit down with one of the UK's leading Paranormal Investigators - Danny Moss @TheParanormalInvestigator for some Ghost Stories.Danny's ghost hunting adventures started at a young age, after experiencing a paranormal event that couldn't be explained. Since then, he has been on a ghost hunting mission to explain the unexplainable and debunk all things paranormal....until its real!!!Using a scientific approach, Danny aims to distinguish between fact and fiction, as he knows that the public have had their fair share of Ghost Hunting and Paranormal shows, such as Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters, Celebrity Ghost Hunt and Ghost Adventures.He has toured both the British Isles and America with his expert ghost hunting team, capturing some truly unbelievable experiences, all whilst filming for various shows such as Paranormal Captured, The Haunted Hunts and My Haunted Hotel. So sit back, get your popcorn, draw the curtains...and as Macaulay Culkin once said "This is it. Don't get scared now!"Guests this week: Danny Moss @TheParanormalInvestigator Hosts:Mark @MJTiffPlumbing ⭐ Proudly Sponsored by CT1 | www.ct1.com | @ct1ltd ⭐ Supported by Tradify | https://tradifyhq.com/ | @TradifyHQ 🏷️ Save on over 50 Trade Brands | https://tradelegends.uk/discounts/

Laura Jane Clark has designed hundreds of homes, presented for Channel 4, BBC2 and Netflix, and competed in MMA. In this episode, she sits down to talk about all of it, including the parts that didn't make the final edit. She starts with the fighting — competing in MMA and K1 with a 3-to-1 record, training with the guy who went on to play Darth Vader, and why she walked away when the money wasn't equal. From there, she traces the path through architecture school in Glasgow, working as a labourer on building sites during uni holidays, and the obsession that defined her career — finding derelict underground toilets in Crystal Palace and spending seven years convincing the council she wasn't mad.The toilet renovation led to Amazing Spaces with George Clark, then Shed of the Year, Ugly House to Lovely House, and eventually BBC2 and Netflix. But TV has a dark side. She talks candidly about being edited out of her own show, burning bridges with a strongly worded email, and why she almost never went back. She also drops a story about a builder on her current project who faked his entire portfolio, CGI renders passed off as real work, fabricated references, and the classic line, "it's pre-vibrated in the truck."

Jamie always wanted to work with his hands. But after 18 years in roofing, he learned the hardest lesson in trades: if you can't step away from the job, you don't own a business, you own yourself. It took 15 years to build a team that could run without him. He's not shy about what that cost. Robbie is his 19-year-old apprentice and this year's Apprentice of the Year. Two years ago, he was scanning medical samples in a warehouse, wondering what his life would look like. Then he found roofing, and everything changed.In this episode, Alex sits down with both of them to hear the full story. Jamie talks through coming off the tools, building a management team, why he reads every business book he can get his hands on, and what he wishes someone had told him at 16. Robbie talks about what it actually feels like to find something that grabs you — and why winning Apprentice of the Year wasn't even on his radar until Jamie pushed him. Between them, they cover the education system, the skills shortage, social media, mentorship, pensions, and why the best investment any tradesperson can make is in themselves. "Train people well enough so they can leave — but treat them well enough that they'll stay."