Old Gaffer

Category: General

  • The Terraced Wedge

    We finally moved from the awful flat to a house we all called ’76’. My brother could now come home to be educated. 76 was close enough to 88, my grand- mother’s house, for her to help out when Willie, my mother, had to work late. Unless one has never lived in a terrace house on the bend of a road, and a tight inside bend at that, one cannot possibly imagine the consequences. As far as the house is concerned, the bend starts at the kerb on the farside of the road, then there is the road, the footpath, the front garden- however meagre, only then does one arrive at the front face of the house, which, for road symmetry, must be the same width as the rest of the houses on the straight. The house is like a slice of sponge cake, wide at the front and narrow at the back and the degree of squeeze is determined by the depth of the house and the tightness of the curve. 76 had a front room, a second room on the ground floor before arriving at a side entrance to the garden, the kitchen and then the scullery, and throughout this parade of rooms and spaces, the width narrowed inexorably. It was as if the house had been squashed in a ‘V’ shaped vice. Don’t get me wrong, it was a palace to what we had been occupying previously, the freedom, the independence, the joy of a place all of one’s own was immeasurable. It was just a funny shaped house with an even funnier shaped garden. It was just our own personal slice of speculative mismanagement.

    The hall leading from the front door to the living room had a kink where the staircase started. On the wall at the kink was fixed above head height the shilling-in-the-slot gas meter which had all sorts of interesting pipes, name plates, covers and seals, each with its own resonance when hit by a lead air-gun slug. So the Wyatt Erp Era of gun law was inaugurated, and also open season on gas meters. I had swapped something or other for an air-gun pistol and it was my pleasure, especially at holiday times when I had the house to myself, to sit at breakfast and practice the ‘quick draw’. The target was the gas meter, not as a whole, but the various units, and success was signalled by the sound each gave off when hit. As you can imagine, this palled after a while and I advanced to using a mirror and shooting backwards over my shoulder.

    All the years I knew her, Willie was subjected to fearsome migraines and never more so than at 76. It had never been a severe problem for me before, when she was ill I fed myself, but when my brother joined us circumstances changed. We started having greater choices; this included roasts, Yorkshire puddings, boiled salt beef and carrots and so on. The problem was we had no refrigerator, only the wooden ‘safe’ in a cool place in the garden, with its wet cloth in the heat of summer, wet earthen crocks with dripping towels and other devices to prolong the life of meat, and milk in particular. Willie would buy a roast for the weekend but often the migraine would strike and I would have to provide the dinner. In this way I learned to cook anything, stews, roasts, even pastry when my interest had been awakened enough for a meat pie. I spent the morning running up and down stairs receiving orders for each stage as it arrived, given in a weak, pained, wavering voice, but in time it became routine.

    By comparison, in about 1935, my Aunt Min, our school-teacher aunt, had a marvellous one-room flat in Russell Square which I envied. For its time it was well in advance of the norm. To start with it was approached by a lift and was so high one could see right across London to the East. Off a tiny hall was the bathroom, a wardrobe, a general storage cupboard and, what interested me most, was a small cupboard which contained the refuse bin which was emptied by the building staff from the corridor through a small door into the corridor. The room itself was not exceptional except for the cupboard in the lounge which opened to reveal itself as a tiny kitchen with stove, sink unit and storage. To me it was the life to aim for. At 76, aged about 14, for the first time ever, I was given a room in which I could do what I liked, and it was then I started designing multi-function furniture for the bed-sit, some of which I saw later in magazines. There were two pieces in particular, one impracticable, one later commonplace. The first was a rotating wardrobe with doors back and front so in one position it was a wardrobe, in the other it was a larder – totally daft, although years later, in a one-(tiny)room flat I was to use a wardrobe for both functions. The other was a bed with a bed-head for sitting up against when in bed, which folded down to form an occasional side-table when the bed was transformed into a divan as part of the seating arrangements. I believe it was ahead of its time.

  • Talk of Parties

    “ANY FOOL CAN COOK ” – a certain party stopper. We were entertaining old friends to dinner, we had all eaten and drunk well, the conversation was slowing and some guests started to eulogise the meal and others felt left out if they didn’t – we all knew my wife Sophie’s excellent cooking capabilities. I said, ‘Any fool can cook’ just for something to liven the evening.

    Alcohol had something to do with it. The fact I believed it to be true and was prepared to prove it, made no difference, heads turned with such speed, some were in danger of dislocation. All the women round the table were up in arms, their skills, had been denigrated, it was like the terraces on a Saturday when the ref has made a boo boo. The men were laughing, enjoying the lashing I was getting. I tried to explain my thesis which asserts that most people think cooking is so easy they don’t read the small print – the really important details – they read the ingredients and the first few lines, then, as they have seen that bit before, they think the rest is also all the same and skip it. I tried further to add that one was allowed one mistake and then success should be assured, but the hub-bub was such that no ‘lady’ was listening, they were all shouting abuse.

    A few weeks later an Aunt, a reasonably intelligent woman, was in Ireland staying with us and I brought the subject up again, with the same reaction, she was very incensed, to the extent she reminded me of the Worthy Master of the Loyal Orange Lodge who had said he would ‘like to stick a deacon pole into me so far he would have to put his boot on me to pull it out’ – there was that level of vindictiveness. She insisted I take on a challenge and make a ‘knocked-up’ pie as proof of my theory. The trouble was none of us knew what a knocked-up pie was and she was too cross to tell us. In the end it transpired that the K-U pie was the sort of pork pie people eat in pubs. To me the answer was simple, use a jam jar as a former for shaping the bottom, make and cook the bottom bit, make and cook a fancy lid, fill the pie with pre-cooked meat, put on the lid and then pour in the hot jelly through a hole in the lid. The Aunt said I was a mile off, but not why. Sophie, ever helpful, even though I had insulted her with my theory, was forgiving enough to discover in her library of cook-books that I was right. I think QED would be a suitable way to close the matter for all time.

    PUNCH – manipulated. I used to make wine out of Spanish grapes – 54 gallons per year, and this enabled me to make a lot of punch. In wintertime, the norm was four bowlfuls as a pipe opener for our parties. The recipe, consisted of wine, with a mixture of chopped up oranges boiled in brown sugar and sieved, brandy, Orange Curacao, and Cointreau; the last three being added after the heating process was over to ensure none of the alcohol leached away into the atmosphere. This potion was relatively innocuous in that there was no in-built hangover but it did set the standard for the night. One evening, a close friend, stood beside me and remarked I was playing tunes on my guest’s alcohol blood level. I claimed ignorance, he insisted, and I capitulated, he was right and very astute to notice. To avoid the parties getting out of hand, I replaced the three liqueurs with only essences and orange lacing the wine, and when the decibels came down to a nearly reasonable level, normal service was resumed, and only one had discovered the ploy.

  • Willie And The Suitcase

    My mother’s nickname was Willie, and you can imagine the confusion in small minds when my children referred to ‘Granny Willie’ – but that’s our family way.

    Willie was one of those who constantly find themselves in alien situations, mostly because of a determination to right wrongs – a sort of latter day, female Don Quixote. Before WW1, she left Deal and went to London to work as a bookkeeper. She worked for Simpson’s or a similar chain of restaurants in London; establishments where middle-class people would dine on special occasions, and while not in the top echelon, they were in their day considered more than acceptable to all but the very wealthy. Once, between the wars, Willie took me there I found it very dull, the dark, deep-piled, patterned carpet, the heavy dark mahogany and the hushed atmosphere were all too sombre for me at that time – it was a wasted expense, I preferred the Brasserie of the Lyons Corner House where it was bright with a lively orchestra competing with the clatter of plates and the chatter of conversation.; just what a young person looked forward to on his next birthday.

    Willie was housed at the top of one of the restaurants in a sort of dormitory under the roof, where the company maintained lodgings which the female staff were obliged to occupy unless they lived at home. Situated on the borders of Soho, she sometimes heard screams from outside which made her hide under the bedclothes. I asked the obvious question, ‘what caused the screams?’ but she said it was better not to know.

    At some point she was promoted to stock taker as well as bookkeeper and went round the restaurants checking stocks. This included the stocks in the kitchens and as the implements would be part of the stock, the chef had to be on hand. On one such occasion she watched with horror while the chef nonchalantly dug a boiled rat out of a cauldron of congealed fat that had been set on the floor overnight to cool. He then proceeded to place the fat on the stove to reheat for use through the day. This incident, related to me when I was about ten years old, had a profound effect on my enjoyment from then on. Blessed with a highly developed visual imagination I could see the whole scene and never forgot it, but it was not the idea of the dead rat nor the casual attitude of the chef to common hygiene which affected me so markedly, it was the way these considerations had affected my mother all her adult life; she would never again be able to sit in a restaurant without being confronted in her mind by that incident in her past.

    She was not the only one affected in a material sense, as a result of her almost, irrational, and certainly singular views on restaurants and the catering industry. She introduced the ‘dreaded suitcase’, an article I loathed every time an expedition was muted. The suitcase was an albatross I had to bear, not around my neck, but it turned an outing into a drudge. I was envious of my friends, and added to this, toward the end of a long day round Hampton Court Palace, when the shins were complaining at the battering from the suitcase and the arms were tired from my turns at carrying it, there was a deep, heartfelt resentment. My specification for a day out, consisted primarily of being taken to a restaurant for a celebration lunch, the odd ice cream, sweets and maybe another meal later. My school friends would regularly relate visits to places like the Zoo, describing how they had lunched in the open air at the restaurant, what they had eaten and drunk. I could see it all, and envied them. For me, however, the disgusting chef had scotched this level of debauchery.

    On the rare occasions Willie and I set out by train or bus to visit such places as the Tower of London, full of anticipation in some respects, I was burdened by a suitcase containing a ham salad for two, complete with plates, ironmongery, salt, pepper, salad cream, indeed all a person could possibly need for a picnic out of a suitcase, including tea, milk, cups and sugar. The whole procedure was ludicrous, especially as other members of the family would take me to cafes and restaurants. Willie’s sister, Josie, would think nothing of eating winkles from a stall on any promenade you care to mention.

    There has been one plus to this unusual saga, however – my own children ate all manner of food in all manner of places and, as far as I know, were none the worse for it.

  • What Goes On Beneath Our Feet Part 1

    I write these two pieces to draw attention to those men working underground, in risky and filthy conditions, who are taken too much for granted. The 2nd, a story I wrote, on an occasion when I really did think I might drown, when the stanks – timber boards – holding the city’s water eased with a frightening groan, and I saw the waters rising.

    Under Ground Going up pipes, down manholes, through tunnels, into dark dank corners, beneath the sea, beneath roads and ground, deep or shallow, in compressed air or in sludge and sewage, was ever the lot of the inspection engineer, and those who worked there. Fear of being faced by a cat-sized mother rat protecting her brood, was always something I was paranoid about, but there was no alternative. A steel pipe had been laid, anticipating the long planned, often shelved scheme for the sewage works before the flyover was built. Intending to extend the pipe, I had to find out for myself whether the pipe was still viable after ten years. Holes were opened to air the pipe, a trolley was made so I could push my way up, as arthritis and height made the procedure more difficult. Off I set, on my solitary journey, tied to a safety line, in total darkness illuminated by a hand-torch, anticipating the red eyes of Mama Rat facing me like the headlights of a car. There was no rat, I hadn’t really expected there would be, it didn’t make sense, there was no food, well not right inside the pipe, why would she choose to live in a big wide steel pipe? – nice and cosy, with room to manoeuvre, room to escape danger? – Ah! – Just a thought. A Bricklayer I worked with was badly burned by steam in a sewer when the steam exhaust, from a reciprocating steam engine, was leaked by mistake into the sewer.

  • What Goes On Beneath Out Feet Part 2

    I, a bricklayer have been instructed to examine the main drainage culvert beneath the quiet dark streets of our sleeping city. All afternoon a joiner and two men have been erecting a temporary sluice gate they call a stank to hold back the waters of the whole city which will be collecting as I work. We have chosen to work at night because, apart from the effects of heavy rain, that is when the flows are low. Now the heavy timbers are in place it is time for me to put on my thigh boots and make my way over to the others standing at the gaping manhole in the bright circle of the arc lights. The men look up as I approach and one steps aside to allow a late traveller to pass quietly by, the black round curves of the car momentarily reflecting the gentle activity, before being swallowed up in the rising mist. Natt steps forward with the lifeline, harness and lamp, and tells me that the sewer has been tested for gas, methane, the killer. Only a few weeks previously a man had passed out at the bottom of a manhole and his friend and colleague who had then gone down to rescue him had died with him. We were now being extra careful.

    The tightness of the harness gives me confidence like a warm comforting arm around my waist, and with my hammer, chisel and lamp I descend the old, dirty and rusty, wrought-iron ladder to the bottom of the shaft. I am familiar with the tarry smell of sewers but I have never become accustomed to the loneliness and severance from those above. I stand on the concrete shelf and shine my torch at the almost still grey waters at my feet. A bubble of gas rises to the surface in the light of my lamp to form a grey sinister bulging eye in the viscous liquid and then, after surveying sightlessly the round red brick tube that is garlanded at every projection with the bunting of refuse, bursts silently as it passes down stream. I wade through the sticky silt towards the sluice that is holding in check tons of water, slowly rising, behind the timbers, like the shadow of an evil gene. It must not rain.

    I have been down here some time now and I’m tired through the effort of lifting my legs in the sludge of years. I stop again and listen to the steady trickle of water through the joints in the temporary barrage. Has the noise increased? No! There are two noises. It must be the small pipe discharging as well. Perhaps it has started to rain after all. I stop and watch the level of water against the culvert wall with the bricks acting as a gauge, it is not rising. On I go again, tapping to see if the joints are sound, to see if the steel beams are still strong, to guess how long it will be before another inspection will be necessary, lifting each heavy leg from the clinging slime, easing my bent and aching back, surveying as I go, but all the time keeping an ear attuned to the trickling water. What was that? It was at my ear. I turn my torch and two beady eyes peer at me from a small pipe at face level. A rat. I have a childish fear of the creatures, bred of old wives’ tales. A rat in a field; a rat, dead on a railway line means no more to me than a sparrow on a pavement; but this intruder is assuming the proportions of a black panther. I clap my hands and struggle to hurry on. There is no one here to se my callow fear.

    I think I hear a creak. My pulse is beating. I must control my imagination. The rat has shaken my confidence. Is the gushing louder?. Before I can reassess the sound, a thunder clap reverberates along the tunnel like a charge along the barrel of a gun and as I stand dumbfounded, for a brief second I hear the torrential rushing of the angry waters freed from their imprisonment. The timbers have cracked. The sluice can no longer hold the water in check. I turn and drop my tools in frantic flight. I tug the rope, all signals forgotten and feel the tension taken from above. I cannot run, I can barely walk. I can but flounder like a fly held in illicit jam. In my haste I splash but I care little if I mouth the water which is rising round my knees. I must take off my boots, but how? Is there time? Now in my haste I have fallen, my torch is lost. Dragged by the rope through the stinking blackness I lose my breath. I struggle once more but now the rushing waters carry me on as the rope never could and tiredness and exhaustion have seeped my will to fight. All is going black. Thank God!

  • A New Industry

    This is a plea for sanity. The promulgation of theories on Environmental-Whatever, Global Warming, Ecology etc., you name it, is a new industry, rapidly being built and for no sane reason – its only product is a bandwagon upon which all the politician are scrambling for fear of being thought uncaring of the state of the Earth, at election time. Scientists have been warning them for many decades, and it is only now the flavour of the month. Hundreds must be beavering away at statistics, theories, slogans, advertising, speeches, spending taxes and going to meetings, but none seem to have looked into the logic of their platform, especially No 10.

    We represent 0,67% of the world population of 9 Billion, we have lost all our heavy engineering to the very countries not too worried about global warming, but we still buy from them. In spite of the goading we are receiving, we are steadily improving pollution and waste and the message has got home here, if not in those huge countries with the huge populations including the USA. But the thing I found most absurd was the latest publicity, which probably cost a bomb, energy saving by switching off standby systems. Some systems use almost nothing, others from 1 to 5 watts, some can’t be switched off without inconvenience – rechargeable phones and satellite TV, (the TV itself should be off for safety,) but they are low anyway and are at night, when more electricity is being generated than used. Weigh this sort of saving against the School Run – but of course, revenue comes from petrol, the sale and resale of cars, taxes etc – a rethink on Public Transport would not match up. In the 40’s and early 50’s, we couldn’t afford a car, we travelled everywhere by an efficient, readily available public system – Progress??