Dixie Dean brilliantly played by Tom Georgeson always came across as the most bitter of all the builders.
His story makes less sense if you had not watched the one off play, The Blackstuff.
Dixie was the site foreman and the others like Chrissie, Yosser and Logo betrayed him by doing a job on the side. That backfired and Dixie lost his job because he could not control his men.
Moonlighter sees Dixie claiming the dole and getting a new job on the side as a security man at the docks. His wife earns a few quid by delivering leaflets.
Soon Dixie is under pressure. The security job involves turning a blind eye to goods getting pilfered. He has been paid a bung for this as a gang walks in and steals the crates in plain sight.
The benefit fraud squad has also taken an interest in him. A lot of the claimants wives are earning money on the side.
It is another saga of how unemployment blighted communities in the 1980s. Dixie's son has had no job since leaving school. An air of hopelessness pervades.
You can sense how employers take advantage by giving the likes a crummy job for low pay, no training and it is all off the books. Dixie is a patsy and he knows it.
Alan Bleasdale still adds black humour. When Dixie's wife refuses to open the front door as she thinks the fraud squad is after her. Only to spill the beans while the perfume lady is listening in. She was from the fraud squad.
When the program was broadcast, my older brother had left college with some qualifications and was on the dole. My eldest brother had left school in the late 1970s with no qualification and walked into a job. What a difference a couple of years and a change of government had made.