Clean sweep for five generations

It is a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and Javan Brown has better credentials than most.

In April, much to his teachers' consternation, the 16-year-old left school to join his father's chimney-sweeping business in Dunedin.

His father is Dave Brown, of Brown's Chimney Cleaning Service.

Mr Brown (41) started sweeping chimneys with his father when he was 15 and started his own chimney-cleaning business when he was 19. His brother, sister, grandfather and great-grandfather were chimney sweeps.

His father is still a chimney sweep in Blenheim, and his other sister's husband works for that Mr Brown, as a chimney sweep.

"It's certainly in the blood," says Dave Brown, who is clearly pleased Javan has chosen to join the family business.

"It wouldn't be the ideal pick of jobs for keeping clean, but it is a solid business. I said to him [Javan] he could go to school for another couple of years, but when he finished he'd have qualifications and no practical experience, when he could have spent those years making money and building up his skills instead."

Aside from the dirt, chimney sweeping was enjoyable because it was outside work and involved meeting people, and there was satisfaction in knowing you were providing a service.

While regulations and burners had changed, the basics of chimney sweeping probably differed little today from Javan's great-great-grandfather's time, Mr Brown said.

Sweeps still used similar brushes, although these days there was much more emphasis on safety, which was good when you were sending your teenage son up on roofs all day, he said.

And it was a profession with a future, Mr Brown believed, with new clean-air legislation meaning a greater requirement for cleaner burning.

He hoped his son would reap the benefits of a "good, solid" family trade, for many years to come.

And as for Javan's younger brother Keani ...

"He's only 13. I think he'll stay in school for a few years yet."