Category: General

Smoke Test No 1. Today inspection and testing has become remote, highly technical, and mostly computer driven. In my Dark Ages every thing was hands on, mucky and tediously prolonged. Pipes are now checked with robots and cameras. I have always found it strange that smoke really does issue from a sewer up through the earth and travels quite long distances through cracks in pipes and the ground. In those days this feature of smoke was used to assess whether a sewer pipe had been breached or was leaking. Theoretically every pipe leading to a sewer is trapped with a water trap, so there should be no risk of smoke entering a house. To carry out the test the operator closes one end of the pipe, or puts a temporary block at some point. At the other end he attaches a box, which is really only a source of smoke, and the bellows will force it through the pipe. He puts a rag, heavily impregnated with oil, inside the box, lights it, and then, using the bellows, pumps the smoke into the pipe until it is seen issuing out through a small hole in the block at the far end. If it issues from nowhere else it is assumed that the pipe is tight and has no leaks.

This test took place on a Saturday morning when I was working for the contractor. The sewer we were laying was in running sand, a very unstable and dangerous material and we did not want the trench lying open over the weekend as the results of a possible slip could have been hazardous to the Public and expensive, added to which if a smoke test failed then we might have had to carry out a water test which can take hours. We were dealing with a very fussy Clerk of Works who liked his authority and enjoyed wielding it. He knew as well as we did that there was nothing wrong with the pipe, he had seen every joint made, he had nothing else to do, but the book said smoke test before passing the work, so smoke test we did. We set it up, put in the disk at the end of the pipe with the one-inch hole to show the smoke had gone the whole way through the pipe, and then tea was up. Well it was up for the Clerk of Works, it was up for the men, but not for the foreman and not for me. We had connected the crude smoke box with its bellows to the upstream end of the pipe, inserted an oily rag, lit it and were pumping the smoke for all we were worth and it was not reaching the other end. The Foreman said to me, “You go and join the Clerk of Works and I’ll have it fixed in the mean time, no sense both of us being here.” I followed his advice.

About ten minutes later he stuck his head into the hut and said all was ready for testing and when the Clerk of Works and I went to the other end, there, sure enough, was the smoke puffing out in spurts in time with the pumping of the man at the other end. Honour had been satisfied and come twelve o’clock we would all be going home. When I was out of earshot of the Clerk of Works I said to the foreman that I was surprised at the amount of smoke issuing. Considering the length of the pipe, usually there is dilution by the air within the pipe for some time, and it seemed to me the smoke was denser than I would have expected. He smiled. “I helped it on a bit,” he said. “I thought it could do with another smoking rag so I put it in the other end, I knew he’d never guess, he’s all talk and no experience.” This accounted for what I had seen. The foreman, unknown to me and the Clerk of Works had inserted a piece of burning rag at the other end of the pipe from the bellows and the air within the pipe was being pushed by the bellows to make the smoke from the second rag issue from the small hole. Instead of the pipe being full of smoke as it seemed, it was probably partly full of air. For all of ten seconds I wondered what to do, and then for another ten seconds I suppressed my conscience with the thought that I saw the Clerk of Works from time to time, I saw the foreman daily.

SMOKE TEST No 2 There had been a complaint of rats in the lower part of the Ormeau Road area in Belfast and it was laid squarely at the door of the Sewerage Section. Sam was sent to investigate and decided that he needed a smoke test. He had it set up with the smoke box in one manhole and the round timber block with the smoke hole in it at the next manhole In Sam’s case the usual results were amplified. In the first instance someone shouted that smoke was issuing from the lamp standards, and as these were gas lamps, panic ensued until he managed to explain what was happening. Next he heard screams coming from the back-yard of one of the houses. The sewer in question ran between the backs of two rows of houses and at that time, those houses only had outside toilets in the yard. Apparently a householder had been in one when she found smoke, firstly coming up round her feet, and then all round her; her plight was understandable. Finally he had to pacify the fire brigade who had been called with a 999 call from someone further afield who had found smoke coming up through the floor boards. The theory that the sewer was at fault, seemed to have been thoroughly confirmed.

During the 50’s we owned a series of cars but the most idiosyncratic was, without doubt, the Morris Minor 1000. Sitting with the driving seat fully back I found my knees were somewhere near my chin, so the matter of using the clutch caused my knee to make the little signal arm come out and indicate I was turning right, an embarrassment at any time. Sometimes that same little arm stuck and when I got out of the car I would break it off.If nothing else it gave me confidence in doing small repairs. Then there was the shape of the boot. Clearly, at the speeds that thing achieved, streamlining and hence the drag factor were obviously an issue the designer had spent hours on. I never did discover why it was so small and of a shape that no more than one suitcase could be accommodated in the boot at a time.

We proposed taking a month and going to Igls in Austria, via Brussels and Cologne. We had learned that to save money one took as much tinned food as one could and due to the shape of the Minor’s boot the tins had to be packed round the spare wheel and within its dished rim. Just one suitcase, a Revelation, expanded to its maximum, everything else was in plastic bags – apart, that is, from a doll in a carry-cot. My younger daughter refused to go unless the wretched doll went too and in its carry cot. Every inch was catered for, under the seats, the sun brolley was between the seats, the back shelf was loaded until the rear view was almost obscured, every spare space was taken up – except one – behind my heels – that triangle of valuable space immediately in front of the driver’s seat. That was where the unmentionable dolly in its equally descriptive cot rested when we were on the move.

It had to happen – of course. It would have been unthinkable for it not to have. When we travelled in other vehicles, where things were secreted in suitcases, it never happened, but because we were travelling like gypsies, it happened – we had a puncture on a motorway, the German Autobahn outside Cologne. There I had to take out the case, the plastic bags, and the individual tins of food, before I could change the wheel. That was not the end of our embarrassment. We were staying in hotels where the staff in green aprons came out to take the elegant, matched suitcases from people driving limousines. In our case this was not quite a fair description. They came out all right, but I made them hold out their arms and piled them up with the transparent plastic balloons containing our necessities, all on display. I suppose seeing the repeated looks of surprise, followed by disgust was compensation for what I really felt. No matched luggage meant no big tip; what plastic bags portended, they had no previous experience, but they guessed correctly.

Igls was not a success after our previous holidays at Hendaye in the Basque country. For a start, the latter was on the Atlantic, the beach was wonderful, the huge waves came straight in and when it wasn’t raining the weather was perfect. Then there were the myriad of things to do. On Bastille Day there was the great celebration with the confetti battles, where one never opened one’s mouth to say a word in case a complete stranger threw a handful ofconfetti in. Towards evening, when the street dancing started, the ground was littered to a depth of more than an inch with all colours of confetti one bought in huge paper bags. Sophie lost her watch in all this mele, It is impossible to believe, but after a lot of searching, under the confetti, in the middle of the cavorting feet, I found the watch still going. Those celebrations kicked of with the Toro Del Fuego, a papier-m?ch? calf, festooned with Catherine Wheels, bangers and Roman Candles, carried on the head and shoulders of a man, weaving in and out of the crowd, sputtering its fireworks to the screeches of the dancers. There was that beautiful city of San Sebastian, with its posh shops, fine restaurants, statues on high towering pillars of rock round the harbour and a small funfair at the top of one of them.

We visited San Sebastion from Hendaye on the Topo, a ackety train in which all the locals crossed themselves before it started, and with reason. It journeyed through a tunnel in the Pyrenees, which was not well lighted. The way it rocked about was certainly unlikely to imbue anyone with the confidence they would survive. In San Sebastian we bought the cheap liqueurs, which we shared with the other guests, all French, back at Madame Ader’s and this made the evening meals most congenial. The only problem was no one spoke English. After about three weeks of continuous fractured French I came down to breakfast swearing I would speak no French that day, it was such a strain. I had to renege, there was no chance of getting through a day, with only English.

In the then Northern Rhodesia. On film today it is certainly majestic, but to see the immensity, the rush of water, hear the noise and feel the constant rain of the spray in those simple, uncluttered days, is an unforgettable lifetime’s experience. We had an enormous American car, called an Overlander, with a soft, collapsible hood resting behind the back seat.. The wheels were so huge the mudguards were big enough to form a seat for our African servants. Mostly we went on picnics to The Falls or the Zambezi, We needed guards with us to guard the car and more importantly the food, from baboons, which gathered in vast numbers around the picnic sites – they could be vicious. The servants brought chairs, and set out the food. We would take two servants on the rear mudguard, hanging on to the canopy as we went over dry roads, rutted after rain by the wheels of ox carts. In the wet season, we would take two more perched on the front mudguards in case we got bogged down. Neighbours of ours in Livingstone, had, for years, been dreaming of retiring to Eastbourne. When they achieved it, they only stuck it for two years and then returned to Africa. I suspect their muscles had forgotten what housework really meant.

The descriptions of The Victoria Falls run to 11 pages on the Internet; so I will be brief and describe what it was like 76 years ago. There were few visitors then, merely the locals. Both sides of the Zambezi were Northern Rhodesia, now, when crossing the bridge, built in 1908, one leaves Zambia for Zimbabwe, and the Falls Hotel is in Zimbabwe. Only as a special treat did we eat there, mostly we picnicked in an area where the ‘rain’ – spray thrown up by the force of the fall – was absent. Also in Zimbabwe is the Rain Forest, a treed area growing on the edge of the Falls and mostly, soaking wet from the spray The Boiling Pot was where the water from the river fell via the Cateract into the Gorge and with the turbulence and the spray was all the world like a bubbling pot. From the pages of the Internet the area now seems to be highly populated.

THE CAR AS A BATTERING RAM Our house was on a corner of a junction. of two dirt roads. On trips my father would set the car at the edge of the road, facing downhill.. The servants would load it, my parents would get in, the servants would climb onto the mudguards and then we’d be off. On THE day. to get me from under their feet, I was sent to sit in the car, which I did, in the driving seat. Where else? I naturally pretended to drive, who wouldn’t, aged seven. I maintain I did nothing, but then I would, wouldn’t I? It was hot. I know I was. I sat there for an age, and soon became bored with saying brmmm, brmmmmm, but what else was there to do? Start all over again? All I know is that the car suddenly started moving of its own volition and set off down the hill with an excited me on board, It started to track narrowly from one side of the road to the other, gathering speed until it reached the other verge, on a slight bend which it then mounted, knocking down some flimsy fencing, then a telegraph or electricity pole, which sheared at ground level, thanks to the attention of red ants, and which finally fell diametrically across the centre of a hut made of reeds and clay, used to house the servants working for another family. The pole demolished the hut. The car stopped short of the hut. For a short while nothing happened. Where the servants were who used the hut, I had no idea. There were no shouts or groans and death never occurred to me, I was too worried about the impending doom I could see gathering on the horizon, or more accurately at our garden gate.

I was whacked. On principle, if in doubt, whack. I explained or rather pleaded that I had touched nothing, total amnesia though is never an excuse. I found that out years later in the Navy. In fairness, my mother had lifted me from the car amidst the disaster, but she spoiled the effect by scolding. I was never believed by anyone but myself, and that’s no consolation. A totally different and more interesting story was told that evening at Sundowners – alcohol has that effect. My absence in body, if not totally in fact, had been an edict, so I only heard what was said through a crack in a half-closed door, but the story had become a saga, the nub of which was not what had happened to the hut nor to the people who might have been in the hut, not even the traumatic effects on the psyche of a quivering child, (who had never quivered in his life), it was a long and tediously detailed explanation, with many repetitions, of how the car had been extracted from the hut and that it had not sustained so much as a scratch. Everyone has his order of priorities, mine were severely changed that night.

Life and Standards

I have always believed that until 1939. when Hitler mucked up the world and in Britain it has never been the same, the period from ’35 to ’39, when our economy was steadily improving and we had emerged from the austerity of WW1, was the most equable and relaxed time in our history. It wasn’t Utopia, but nowhere ever will be. We had the iniquitous class structure, but as we knew nothing else – so what? From my experience of education and industry over the years, people in the 30′ were less ambitious, their goals were modest and achievable, a job was mostly for life, your pension like the job was inviolate, and promotion was dead man’s shoes. WW2 changed all that, 1946 brought back a work force which had been replaced in its jobs and there was a period of re assessment – shuffle and re-deal which lasted right into the 70’s and 80’s.

Since the 50’s standards gradually accelerated in every sphere, industry, leisure, communication, and then, in the 60’s, when we had reached a pinnacle of some sort, the wheels came off and it has been down hill ever since. Chaos seems the order of the day, standards in most spheres have dropped – education, business probity, morals, mores, thrift, and above all, trust, have all suffered. Am I right? Can we rise yet again? Do we want to?

Communication
We sat round the Christmas luncheon table on Christmas day, with the cat’s whisker adjusted, the 2 volt, lead/acid battery powering a crystal wireless set, and a pair of headphones talking to us with the King’s voice, and those memorable words – ‘London Calling !’ all from the bottom of a baking bowl in the centre of the table. We never thought that one day we would communicate instantly with pictures, words and music, in every sphere. Now, unlike then, censorship, voluntary and enforced, is more relaxed, we  are presented almost daily with scenes of alleged sexual orgasm, speech incrusted with our letter words, guns that fire unlimited bullets so inaccurately, the recipient of the onslaught walks away unscathed. We are told we can switch off if we don’t like what we see or hear, but is that not infringing our right to be entertained that we have contracted for, should the squeamish not be totally catered for as well as the unshockable? The latter, after all, have a section of the ether referred to as ‘Adult’ – a misnomer?

Being unemployed at any time is not funny and in ’46 I had been unemployed for three months, and any resources I might have had had gone. I worked to reach a standard for the university entrance exam, and then I became a student on an ex-service grant of ?200 a year. I think if it hadn’t been for the generosity of my in-laws, we would have starved, our finances were so tight. It is said the purpose of university life is that it broadens the mind as well as the backside, the latter from hours of sitting in the Stack, mugging. In the first year Laura, my daughter, was too young to know she even had a father so I was able to take part in a lot of what went on in the college, before the needs of family were greater and something had to give. Rowing was the first to go.

Loving boats I naturally joined the Rowing Club, a lowly Fresher Oarsman. We had racing shells and practice shells, those with the sliding seats and out-rigged rollocks; and rowing boats variously termed the tubs or the punts in which we, the raw recruits, were trained. Unfortunately, the people who were to teach us were also part of the first and second eights, so we waited until it suited them to teach us – anything up to four hours later – during which one did nothing but chat in a desultory fashion. I enjoyed those days on the river, I was tall which was good, I could handle an oar, which was essential and I was keen. When the tide was in we would row right down to Belfast Harbour, or up as far as the weir, but the real pleasure was all in the rhythm. When everything was going well there was a poetry about the way the boat responded and we responded to it, which has to be experienced to be appreciated. Alas, while the youngsters could relax in the boathouse, I had plumbing and paving and presents for the parties on my mind and worse, on my conscience. With the deepest regret I gave up after a year.

When my daughter was old enough to be invited to children’s parties we were presented with yet another financial problem, how to keep up with the Joneses. The children Laura played with came from homes across the social spectrum, but as the trend was set by the more affluent, all toed the line, with the result Laura would come home laden with bits and pieces. Not only that, but she had to take presents which were on a par. Often still skint, when it came to funding Laura’s, and later Lizzie’s, presents, both to take and to give, I had to find a solution.
At that time James came home from work at the Belfast Shipyard with pieces of rough sawn timber, which had originally been part of long lengths used as templates to pattern the plates for the ships. He cut these, when their useful life was over, into manageable lengths and brought them home for firewood. In the first instance, using this wood, I made Laura a small Irish cottage with a hinged back, opening front door with a little porch round it, all on a small board and decorated with roses growing up the sides and round the porch. The next venture was to make small simple jigsaw puzzles out of the ply obtained from tea chests, with the pictures from colouring books. Very soon Laura could do them, picture-side down. These prototypes in the end solved our problem. Then it was not possible to buy wooden jigsaw puzzles with big or small pieces, and dolls houses were scarce too.

The next requirement was an assembly line and armed with a treadle sewing machine base, a grinder head-stock, some steel channel, I made a circular saw cum-lathe. The people who run the dodgems at funfairs use hinges on all sides of the floorboards connecting them to each other. The pins in the hinges can be withdrawn, making it easy and especially quick to assemble and take down on each move. I used this system to mount and take down the saw table when swapping from sawing to lathe work. I produced the houses and other items by batch methods. True I have a nick in the bone of one finger where I inadvertently put my finger into the saw, but Sophie was never party to that bit of carelessness. Later the machine became electrified instead of the laborious treadling, and later still I made dolls from broom handles – long lengths of dolls on the lathe, head to foot, with their arms from doweling and wool for hair. Not only had we solved the problem of the presents we now had a minuscule income. . What had started as an idea, in the end turned into a mass production industry with the houses and puzzles also being sold in our shop

My in-laws were generous and kind, and any member of their extended family in trouble was welcome. So it was when Ned came to stay, permanently. Ned was both a character and a knowing old devil. In his late eighties when I first met him, tall, stooped, severely rheumatic, lame and rheumy of eye, he was very amenable. His gratitude to his daughter and son-in-law, were expressed almost daily. The most frequent story of his life I heard referred to the days just before he set out on his travels round the world on a sailing ship. He was a joiner and ship’s carpenter in the shipyard in his home-town shipyard at Carrickfergus where he had also learned to drive a ‘Donkey Engine’. This type of Donkey Engine would be called a steam driven winch or capstan today. A ship, with square rigged sails, had been launched and the skipper was looking for a carpenter cum donkey man, and Ned rushed home to tell his mother that he was applying. Back at the yard his boss recommended Ned and, in short, off he went to sea to sail in a sailing ship round the Horn, with all that implied in hardship in those days.

He was an old rascal,. He would sit in his corner and think up statements designed to shock and there were none he liked to shock more than maiden lady visitors. On one occasion it was the spinster daughter of a Presbyterian minister who was visiting, and you can’t get much more unworldly than that, and as a gesture of kindness she went out to the breakfast room to have a word with the ‘old gentleman’ – what a mistake! The family always had someone on duty in these circumstances – they knew him of old. In this instance he was heard to say, ‘I’m not as young as I used to be daughter,’ which he pronounced more as do’gh’ter, ‘Come, steady me on the Po.’ after which he chuckled at the expression on the lady’s face with a sort of Billy Bunter glee-noise, an aspirated’ he-he’ which seemed to come from deep within his chest, and would go on for what seemed ages. There was another instance when a lady of similar background went to talk to him about his travels round the world and he admitted having visited quite a few places in the Southern Hemisphere, ‘Like that sharp place,’ he said. ‘You know, wallop you’re arse with a razor.’ He was referring to Valporaiso, and we were sure he knew the name as well as his own, he was just out to stir the pot, it was all the fun he had left.

Old Ned and Laura. Laura is my elder daughter and at that time she was not yet two years old. He and Laura often had running battles, and sometimes he behaved like a child himself. Laura would sit on the floor and play with her wooden bricks, building them higher and higher, as carefully and meticulously as she does all things, with the result they reached considerable heights when one considers her age and dexterity. Ned was lame and walked with a stick. He dozed a lot, but when he was awake he would reverse his stick and hook the handle round Laura’s tower and topple it, at which time he would cackle with laughter and she would get cross. She, however, was resourceful, and on one occasion waited until he was asleep with his head supported on a hand, itself supported on an elbow, on the arm of the chair; then she attacked. She drew back the door behind which he sat and then hit his hand with it as hard as she could. The shock to the poor old boy must have been devastating, he complained to everyone as they entered the house and as the bruising on his hand developed as it does with old people, he complained even more. I have a feeling the toppling stopped after that encounter.

NED AND THE HAIRCUT Because he was so lame the time came when he could walk very little; so we employed a hairdresser to cut his hair at the house. It seems the visits were too far apart to suit Ned and one Sunday, when the rest of the family were out for a walk, Ned insisted that I cut his hair in spite of my protestations that I was unqualified and the result would be a disaster. Nothing would deter him and still complaining, I put a towel round his neck and proceeded to operate in the best way I could with the cutting-out scissors. When I had finished, or rather, when I dared to cut no further, we went through the ritual with the two mirrors, as in a reputable hairdressers. Ned was delighted, I was relieved. He kept eulogising my many talents, as a barber supremo – his eyesight was not of the best. Then the rest of the family returned and he immediately showed off his tonsorial transformation, explaining who had done it. I tried to intervene and explain that I had been press-ganged against my will, but the hoots and roars of laughter at the remnants of the poor old man’s white locks drowned me out. I have never seen such a transformation, it was lightning, it was quick-silver, it was instantaneous and it was virulent. Now I was cast in the roll of the villain who had taken advantage of a poor old pensioner and made a mess of his hair. Fortunately his memory span was as poor as his eyesight and next day all was sweetness and light once more.