OED in Sunday NY Times Magazine

[George Thompson]

I noticed in the story that one of the harmless drudges was quoted as
saying "We're painting the Firth Bridge".   (I'm quoting from memory.)

I see from Proquest's Historical Newspapers a paragraph from the
Washington Post of March 29, 1936, p. R11, under the headline "Job of
Painting Bridge At Edinburgh 'Endless'".  "It requires three years for a
force of 50 painters to work their way from one end of the bridge to the
other -- and then it's time to begin all over again."
The column "Questions of Readers Answered" by Frederic J Haskin in The
Hartford Courant answered a question from E. W. on November 6, 1936 (p.
17): What is the name of the famous bridge on which men spend their
entire lives painting?  The Firth of Forth Railroad Bridge in Scotland
has a permanent staff of 30 painters.  When these men die their sons
take their places.  ***
The same question, in the same words, from S. J. B., was answered in the
same words on December 3, 1939 (p. A3).  The same question, in the same
words, except omitting "famous", from J. M., was answered in the same
words, except omitting the bit about the job being heretidary, on June
17, 1942 (p. 8).

I don't see by the Proquest results, from various ways of formulating
this search, when it became a proverb for "a task that never ends".

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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