Old Gaffer

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  • People Are So Diverse

    If people say to you ‘You really must come and see us!’ don’t take them at their word, often it’s lip service. My mother met a distant relative who said that, and when I was on my first leave, a little pleased with myself as a seagoing sailor, I arranged a visit. It was the height of winter, there was snow on the ground, the trains were unheated and I arrived looking for warmth. I rang the bell and was about to enter when I found my way barred by my aunt, who directed me to the tradesman’s entrance. When she open that door she instructed me to take off my shoes and leave them outside and enter in my socks, with the words ” Snow is bad for pine!”, and led the way to the kitchen. The house had won a prize for design and had a lot of interesting features, like a heated handrail on the staircase. This was one reason that I had accepted the invitation. I was taken on a tour, shown a plush lounge, plush bedrooms, and all the architect’s innovations, and then returned to the kitchen. In due course my cousin arrived, we had a meagre tea, in the kitchen, and then it was suggested that I should leave as they were going to the cinema. That was the last I saw of them for about six years when there was a ring of the doorbell of our post-war home in Belfast. Standing on the step were my cousin and his father. They said that my uncle was in Belfast on business and they thought they would call. In fact it was late evening but fortunately we were on top line, lighted fires, a fresh cake, and a welcoming smile. Later Sophie told me she was convinced that this was a sortie to see how we lived, as they had neither telephoned nor sent a card in all the years that had elapsed. We smiled, some other day they might have caught us on the hop.

    A Disgraceful Superstition I helped out in a small newsagent and tobacconist shop with a man, Alec, who suffered from spinal curvature and as a result was undersized, with a severe hump on his back to torment him through life. It was alleged his sister had dropped him twice when he was tiny. In those days there were so many indignities suffered by people in that condition, from the cheeky remarks of ignorant children being funny in front of their friends, to the insensitive adults who touched his poor back, because they thought it was lucky to touch the hump of a hunchback. Alec would stand in the doorway of the shop, cigarette in hand, shoulder against the jamb, one leg crossed, taking bird-like drags on the cigarette and nodding to the regulars as they passed. All his actions had a quick, staccato movement. I don’t think everyone appreciated the pain he was often in which sometime made him fractious. I am grateful so many of these old
    superstitions are no longer prevalent.

    On the Contrary. The English Pub where drinking is less serious. In the first week I was instructing at Leydene three of the other instructors took me to a pub called the Jolly Sailor. As we approached the bar, the owner immediately turned and took down two silver tankards and started to fill them. He turned to me but said to the others ‘Has your friend got a tankard?’ It turned out that the regulars had their own tankards and set of darts kept behind the counter for whenever they should come. That night I had a glass tankard and borrowed darts, but the situation was soon remedied. The following Christmas, Sophie joined me and on one of the regular nights came with the others to the Jolly Sailor, where it was our pleasure to play darts and bar billiards competitively. She, not wishing to play was scoring. The owner of the Jolly Sailor came over, said to her “You must be bored with these chaps, come with me!” He went to the bar, collected a sherry, and led her to a seat amid a group of the locals, warming themselves at a huge fire, he introduced her and left her to a pleasant evening. This was a salutary experience for both of us, it was the best introduction Sophie could have had to the camaraderie of the English pub, but it also taught me humility, and the duties of a new husband and not to be selfish, all of which I promptly forgot.

    The Family Call A relative who hailed from Yorkshire introduced us to a tradition of his – it was a family call. Originally I believe it was a whistle to a tune, with the first phrase being ‘ Is the old woman in?’.Allegedly called almost always by men assembling for a drink at the pub. We as a family, and later all of our close friends used this call in crowded situations to draw attention. When my children were small and we went Christmas shopping in packed shops, it was wonderful how just by calling they came running. I had an aunt who was in the hospital just beside Clapham South Station. On my way home from school I would stand outside and give the family call, within seconds, a window would open and a bag of sweets would come hurtling down to me. In our eighties, we still use the call – or whistle.

  • Leaving Home For The Unknown

    By the time I was drafted I looked upon the destroyer almost as home and the prospect of Barracks made me even sorrier to leave. However, I had no choice and was sent back to Barracks. I suspect it was at the behest of a shore-based officer whose feathers I had ruffled. I had had an exasperating voyage, struggling with a silent set in which I knew the location and the result of the fault but not the cause, and short of totally stripping out every component I was unlikely to find the cause, so the odds were against success. Today there are rooms stacked with TV sets and computers under guarantee with similar irredeemable faults, it is a hazard of high-frequency technology.

    In this instance, tiredness, cold, and being fed up, having spent hours fault-finding, only to be told it was something else, when the evidence I had put forward was transparent, forced me to tell the officer in words of one syllable exactly what I thought of his competence. – an act which probably saved my life, because shortly after I left my Hunt destroyer I heard it had been blown out of the water on the Malta convoy run in the Med.

    For whatever reason, I found myself alone, on the wharf at Sheerness. I was the only one leaving the ship and so received ‘sippers’ in nearly every Mess on the ship and from nearly every rating in each Mess with the result that I was dumped on the jetty like a sack of potatoes, along with my hammock, my kit bag, suitcases and all – totally out for the count. I ultimately came to and when I put my hand in a jacket pocket I encountered it full of aspirin. Feeling in the other pocket, I was surprised to find it full of contraceptives, cynical farewell presents from the Sickbay Tiffy, a ‘friend’. There was a story which I believe was true and concerned sippers of Rum as celebration. On a larger ship than ours were twins and it was their 21st birthday. For twins to become 21 on the same ship would have gone round the lower deck like a whirlwind with the result everyone would be keen to wish them well, which meant sippers and the rest, from all over the ship – even, possibly, the wardroom. The following morning they were both found dead in their hammocks from alcohol poisoning. It doesn’t bear thinking what their parents felt, and there would have been a very subdued crew for a long time on the ship.

    When I looked round Sheerness Docks I found the ship had gone. I pulled myself together and set off for the dockyard gates and the station to take me to London and then Portsmouth. Earlier I had filled my kit bag and hammock with cartons of cigarettes to stand me in good stead at the barracks but I had estimated without taking the Customs Officer into account. “Have you just come off that ship?” he asked, politely,. “Yes,” I whispered, hung over. “I take it your kit bag and hammock are filled with duty-frees?” He did not wait for a reply but just finished the statement. “Go back into the Yard and get rid of them and then come back here and be searched.”

    I was staggered, but did as he said, it was experience speaking, not guesswork. I sold the cigarettes at cost and returned. He searched and then I left. Fortunately he did not do a body search. In the meantime I had put on a pair of sea-boot stocking and filled them with packets of cigarettes, I had some in my hatbox at the bottom of the kit bag and others here and there. When he searched the hammock and found none, that was it, honour had been satisfied, but I nonetheless did wonder if he had a few friends in the dockyard who were privy to his policies – even at nineteen I was cynical

  • Stress In Children

    Teenage Stress Today. To some extent, auto suggestion prompts a lot of the ills of today. With the vast amount of material needed for TV, and to fill the pages of the copious newspapers and magazines on sale, editors are probably less critical than they might be of material submitted. I suppose I come into the latter category – so be it. Through their lifestyle young people in the 30s, were not open to these opinions, they were more interested in sport and their social life, not hunched over a TV, or reading magazines I would never have been allowed to bring into the house.

    Prior to World War II all of us played simple games within the house and outside, and the only stress that we suffered, in general terms, was caused mainly by our schooling. There were some, like myself, single-parent children, who suffered more stress than others, but we were unaware that this was supposed to be detrimental to our psyche, and so I believe, we just accepted our lot and got on with our often unhappy lives. Sport played a great part in the lives of all children, from they were toddlers. In those days, throughout the land, areas, such as village greens, parks etc, which had previously been common grazing land, were where we all played. In many of the Commons, there were tennis courts, running tracks, and everywhere in the summer, small groups of children were playing a crude form of cricket. The older children skated in the winter at commercial rinks, and most schools played football or rugby. Later teenagers formed small groups on a regular basis to play games like tennis, football and cricket and then these developed, as they grew older, into local teams, especially football and cricket, on local open spaces.

    WW2 put an end to all this, what with the Dig For Victory campaign, subsequent house building, and other reasons, many of these Commons have since disappeared with the result the young people are now thrown back on their own meagre resources, tribal rights and wars, or a more monastic life mainly spent in front of a blue screen in their bedroom. It is therefore not surprising that some of the tougher, more bolshie elements make trouble. If the money thrown away on so many government advertising projects, which do not seem to bear fruit, was used to provide more facilities for the young, we might get somewhere. At one point in my chequered career I joined a youth club. My outstanding memories were that it was an aesthetically cold place, poorly run by amateurs, that I enjoyed little, and left in a hurry. I believe that young people have a fair idea of what they want, most do not want the moon, but they do not want second-best, this is an insult and gives exactly the wrong impression. Perhaps they should be consulted. I’m not equipped to advise on what should be offered, and how it is run or how it is funded. A nationwide survey of successful clubs might be rewarding and give a benchmark for future design. Aspects I think important are, that the club should be better in every way than the homes the young people come from and therefore valued by them. Abuse and therefore banishment would really deter bad behaviour, and that respect is a two way street. I am merely making these points from the basis of my own experience, and trust
    that that experience is not unique; otherwise this piece would be pointless.

    Livingstone to London, Real Trauma??? The journey was long and tedious, especially from Livingstone to the Cape We were trapped in a small compartment on a very long train, all day everyday, even washing in the compartment in a hand basin that emptied by tipping the water out onto the track. Parts of the journey were on the high plateau and going up and coming down the track took torturous turns and twists, as trains do in Switzerland, so that the guard’s van passed the engine. Periodically we stopped to take on water and fuel, and at the stops we found Africans lining the route, selling food and their exquisite handmade ivory and wooden crafts, which today would fetch a fortune and then cost only a few pence. It was my misfortune that a neighbour of ours accompanied my mother and me, as far as Bulawayo. He was one of these hearty cheerful chaps who can be a bane. Prior to leaving London my mother had purchased a topee for me, that was already out of date, dull khaki, half an inch thick, as if made of dough. I was ridiculed by my peers from the day I set foot in Africa, as theirs were of smart design in thin compressed cork. I hadn’t the wit to smash the wretched thing for a replacement, with the result I tended to go bare headed and get sunstroke. It finally wore out a few weeks before departure, two years later. At eight years old, I was whiling away the journey, imagining the reaction when I returned to London with my stories of lions, snakes and crocodiles, while wearing my brand new hat. Shortly before we arrived at Bulawayo, the ‘friend’, whisked the hat I had practically been sleeping in, out through the window of the train saying ‘You’ll soon be home so you won’t need this.’ I was devastated and inconsolable. Traumatic? I can see it all now, 77 years on!

  • Characters 2

    The Little Man in Portnoo, Co Donegal In the hotel in Portnoo, one wet Sunday lunch time, I came across a strange little man. We all met for a pre lunch drink and a chat. In those days Portnoo was not as well known and the people who summered there were generally medical or clerical. I was probably the only engineer within miles. Everyone was standing around, it was more like a Chelsea cocktail party than a drinking session in an Irish pub. I first noticed the little man when he insinuated himself into the group I was with and started asking inane personal questions, such as where did people come from and what was their profession, and he then followed this inquisition in all the cases but mine by being terribly obsequious. I noticed he was doing this right round the room and inevitably he came to me with the same patter. At the time I was designing a sewage works so when he came up with the questions I had heard him asking the others, I was prepared, I thought I would try him out. In answer to his question of what I did for a living I said I worked in the sewers, a fair assessment, all things considered, and pretty interesting to the uninitiated, or so I thought, but he did not see it that way, in fact he cut the connection and went seeking yet another doctor, surgeon or priest.

    John of Dunmore Caravans I think the greatest reflection of the attitude of the average Donegal man to cash flow is demonstrated by our purchase of a static caravan in Portnoo. Sophie and I were staying on Gillespie’s site in the middle of the field in a two berth towing caravan. John, the owner, was installing a replacement van on the periphery of the site. We became curios as to what was involved in a permanent plot. When he was clearing up the timbers, ropes and bits needed for transportation I drifted over to him, and asked how much it would cost to buy a static one and have it installed. He told me and added that if I was interested I should make my mind up quickly as he was opening up the field at the end of the site with an incredible and uninterrupted view right across the golf course to the Derryveagh Mountains and Mount Errigal. All there would be between us and the view would be grazing cattle and bad golfers – irresistible. We agreed a price and the model of van we would like a few days later by telephone and when I suggested he should give me a layout of his expansion so I could chose a site, his reaction was typical of the people of the area. ‘Plan?’ he asked. ‘What plan? Just you come up here John and stick your heel in the ground and I’ll have the van on it by the Twelfth of July.’ He was as good as his word. Now, because of lack of planning the ground could only be partially levelled, with the result we are higher than everyone else, as well as having the very best view. We now find the journey too much for us, but the family can’t bear to miss a holiday in it.

    The Sweet Cheat At University I came across a talented conjurer who was a medical student. He had sat his finals at least four times. Then there did not seem to be any limit to the number of chances one had to qualify. The reason for the repeated sittings was that he always passed his written examination but when it came to the Orals, while other students had a nominal 15 minutes he was in there for ages as the examiners went over the whole syllabus again.. They, unlike the students, were not aware of the scam, but they obviously had their suspicions. When he entered the examination room the conjurer would arrive early, find his desk and then scatter granulated sugar in a wide circle so that he would hear the crunch of the invigilator’s feet and have time to palm his cogs before the man was close enough to discover the cheating. Years later he and his wife were the Toast of the Town with their joint conjuring and illusion acts and to be seen regularly on TV. He had found his niche – I shudder to think what he might have perpetrated in a surgery.

    Wreaking Satisfaction We were laying a large diameter steel pumping main to carry untreated sewage, so the joints had to be perfect, however they weren’t. I had previously visited Crew for details when we placed the order, and I telephoned the manufacturers for someone to be sent to advise. When Smith arrived late, he spent the journey from the airport moaning about being sent to Northern Ireland and that his wife was very worried about him. It was evident he cared little for our situation and wanted home on the next flight or no later than three o’clock in the afternoon. By the time he had left we were a little wiser, but an overnight stay was what I expected. It was my duty to take him to the airport, and to underline how safe he had been I took him through every hotspot in Belfast, pointing out where this man had died or that place have been blown up, on the way. The next day I received a phone call from Smith’s head office, asking me what I had done to him, as from the minute he had arrived he had not stopped talking. When I explained, the roars of laughter at the other end were like honey.

  • Tha Ancient Art Of Helmet Diving Part 1

    First posted August ’06

    Today professional diving is sophisticated and technical. My training by comparison is like that with halberds compared to AK47 assault rifles. From what I read, it would seem I am one of the very few left who have been a professional helmet diver. I thought the experience might be of interest. Part 2 deals with the course exams, closed circuit diving, and an unpleasant diving story.

    In the early 50’s I worked for the Admiralty and one condition was that I qualified as a helmet diver for inspection work. The thought raised youthful visions embedded from my reading ‘The Adventure’ and general comics with a torch under the bed clothes.. Unsurprisingly it wasn’t a bit like that. . I am convinced the whole course at the Diving school at Chatham was intended to put the fear of God into us which it nearly did. We had to learn to dive in those old fashioned helmets and canvas and rubber suits which were so popular in the black and white films. Were put in decompression chambers with the pressures increased to simulate depths we would never reach – our speech sounded like Pinky and Perky.

    Chatham is at the mouth of the Medway estuary. The water consists of black impenetrable silt. We went out in a barge, with hand operated air pumps and everything else we needed on board. We dressed into the smelly suit, which, I’m absolutely sure, was as clean as they could make it, but if you can’t scratch your nose when the helmet is on, and almost immediately everyone unconsciously tries to and is then driven mad, because the urge becomes obsessive, think how much more difficult it is if you are taken short – enough said. The belt was put on, the weights tied on the chest, the heavy brass boots were next, and then the helmet was bolted to the heavy collar. When I staggered to my feet they threaded the lifeline and the air-line through the belt and then I had to climb slowly and ponderously over the side of the boat and stand on a ladder while the face piece, the glass, was screwed in place. With a tap on the helmet which sounded like thunder inside, and now breathing the fetid, oil and rubber, smelling air being pumped through the air-line, I slowly descended the last three steps on the ladder before launching into nothing but water and a steadily increasing darkness.

    I never noticed when I reached the bottom, it rose round me as I sank into it. We had been told relatively little of what to expect. I think the idea was to give us a shock to start with and then anything later would be easy. I tried to move my feet and nothing happened, I was stuck. I tried to feel with my hands because any light there might have been had been obscured by the rising silt as my feet struggled in the mud. I did the only thing I could do, I stopped, I told myself not to panic and I just stood, slowly sinking, controlling myself and taking stock. It was then I remembered about shutting off the air release valve so I could rise. This I did and kicked my feet at the same time. The suit which had been grasping me like a cold second skin with the pressure of the water swelled away from me, and I was on my way up like a cork. As I rose the external pressure steadily decreased and correspondingly the internal pressure was increasing. Suddenly it happened, my arms were pulled inexorably out straight from my side and like a cruciform, I floated to the surface, there to lie like a dead sea-elephant, to be pulled ignominiously to the boat by the lifeline. It was only then they told me that in that type of ground-conditions the diver had to kick his legs out backwards and get on his face, propelling himself along by digging his arms into the mud. When one considered what might be lying on the bottom of an old harbour like Chatham, the prospect was not enticing, to say the least. I had other opportunities to practice my new found equanimity in the face of near panic, like the time, again in total darkness, I became entangled in the piles of a jetty

  • The Ancient Art Of Helmet Diving Part 2

    First posted August ’06

    The Diving Course, taught by serving Petty and Chief Petty Officer Divers, was mostly practical, and had hairy moments. In fact they taught at such a rate one tended to forget all but the frightening bits. We were taught to signal with the air-line and lifeline, how to inflate the suit by reducing the escape of air from valve on the side of the helmet, but warned that too much air would blow us up like a balloon and our arms would be so stiffly outstretched by the air pressure in the suit, we would then not be able to open the vent with the result we would be blown to the surface, which I proved. They also said if this happened when we were diving deeply we could risk getting the bends – nitrogen bubbling out of the blood – a possible killer. They then cheered us up by saying that if the suit was damaged or the airline cut at depth, the pressure could force our bodies up into the helmet. Next they put us into great tanks of water and taught how to burn steel under water, with the warning that as the hands would be cold, and since we were not allowed gloves, we could cut our own fingers off with the acetylene cutter if we were not careful. They made us practice decompression stops on the way up from the dive, to equalise the suit and blood pressure to the water pressure in stages. We weren’t deep enough for it to matter, but in the compression chambers and on a deeper dive it would have been essential to avoid the bends

    Just prior to our final test they taught us to measure in total darkness, using our hands and arms as measures – the width of a hand, 3.5 inches, a span, 8 inches, the 1st joint on a thumb, 1inch, elbow to wrist, a foot – the old haberdasher’s measure of a yard, chin to outstretched fingers, and width of two outstretched arms 2 yards, What they do now Imperial Measure has gone by the board is anybody’s guess. Then they threw different pieces of metal into the ooze without us seeing. We had to find them, directed by signals on the air-hose and line, measure them and return and make drawings with all measurements, from memory. We were not allowed a telephone in the helmet.

    We were made to breath pure oxygen to see if we would develop oxygen sickness and then taught how to swim under water in a wet-suit with what is called ‘closed-circuit breathing’. This is the system Naval Commandos used in WW2, breathing only oxygen, which is circulated through a cleansing system. In this way there are no tell-tale bubbles rising to the surface as with Scuba diving. I suspected that we would never have done inspection work with oxygen, but we were now partially trained and so a possible source of underwater demolition recruits, should the need arise, or pressed men if you prefer, – after all that was a good Naval tradition once. Inspection divers check old underwater structures for deterioration, the installation of new works and under water surveys prior to design.

    Now the sickening story related cynically but factually by one of the tutors. The story concerned a diver in a port who contracted to recover the body of a young girl who had drowned in a car she had driven off the pier into deep water. In those times pickings for the diver had been poor and seemingly were getting poorer, which one must assume prompted his heartlessness. While he searched, the father of the girl sat in a cafe near the harbour and looked into space, just waiting. It transpired that the diver knew pretty well where the body was, through knowledge of sand bars, currents and outfalls, but avoided that spot assiduously and carefully quartered the harbour every day leaving that part until last. He wanted to make the most from his contract and also the vital knowledge of the harbour he had gained over many years of diving there.

    My short brush with helmet and oxygen scuba diving was a highlight in a varied career.

  • Islands of Stimulation in a Sea of Monotony

    There is nothing more stimulating than sitting on a button on a warship when it is gathering speed. Button is the term used for the round pancake of wood set on top of the mast to protect the end from the weather. Radar relies on signals received through a special cable which connects the set in the ship to the aerial array at the top of the mast and in rough seas, water might get in through damage to the copper casing of the cable making the aerial useless. Discovering this condition is simple, locating the damage is tedious and, in this case, hazardous. Normally this sort of testing is a routine carried out in harbour when the ship is still and everything is switched off, doing it at sea is only carried out in extremis, as this occasion.

    On top of the mast and at various points down it are gathered the aerials of a number of electronic devices, including the aerials of the large wireless transmitter If the latter was operating on full power, the current could blow a person off the mast. To avoid this there were safety switches, small metal connectors which were removed from all the various transmitters and handed to the Captain in person, before the ascent was attempted and retrieved only on reaching the deck once more. It is therefore reasonable to assume the Captain is aware that one of his charges is up there sitting on the button fiddling with an Avometer. We were quietly steaming along at the rear of the convoy, at the speed of the slowest ship, about six knots. I had my legs firmly crossed round the mast, my arms wrapped round the aerial support and was busy testing away in the sunshine. The ship’s proportions were about 250 feet long by 26 wide, a midget greyhound of the sea, such, that even in the calm sea on that day, she still rolled and pitched. The crew used to say she would pitch and roll on a wet flannel. One minute I was looking down at the deck to starboard, the next to port, but it was a gentle rhythm easy to become used to.

    I was nearly finished when I heard a shout followed by the clang of the engine-room telegraph, and a face from the bridge was looking up at me and gesticulating. He had no need, the shudder of the mast, the rise of the bow and then the wicked sway of the mast told me we had an emergency and I was dispensable. Now I could not only see the deck I could see the sea below me on alternate rolls and I estimated we had doubled our speed and still rising. I just hung on and waited. In the end I think the emergency was solved because the cause was never made clear to me and within minutes we had slowed and were quietly regaining station. I finished my check and then slowly climbed down and retrieved the special key from the Captain. He said nothing and who was I to comment? For an instant, up there, I thought I was in trouble, but as time went on and I seemed secure enough, strange to say I enjoyed the experience.

    Stimulation has a number of meanings not all pleasant. When we were on convoy on the East Coast we would pass Whitely Bay. On one trip we saw a light in the sky which told us Newcastle was being bombed and this, understandably, always made the Geordies we had on board furious and worried. There was an instruction to the RAF to avoid convoys as the latter had a propensity for opening up first and asking questions later, because it was not unheard of for German bombers returning from an unsuccessful raid to jettison their bombs on ships. Apparently the wake of ships in a cluster is clearly visible from the air on the darkest nights.

    One night, we were closed up at action stations when the crews on the guns and the people on the bridge heard a plane. There was a system where we could use a recognition signal through the radar to identify friend from foe and when the Navigator asked we were able to tell him if it was a friendly aircraft, probably a stray limping back from a raid, but unfortunately, in this case and by this time, the itchy trigger fingers of the merchant men had opened up and scored a direct hit. Down below we felt the ship gather speed and turn quickly and we guessed we were going to the rescue. We heard later from the men on the upper deck that they had seen the orange light which pilots had attached to their May West life jackets, which were energised when in contact with the sea, but when we arrived where he had last been seen, there was no sign of him nor the light. We were all subdued and there was even an element of guilt, although none of us had anything to feel guilty about, we had not been the ones to open fire.

  • All About 15

    Buying 15 Having got Number 18 exactly as we wanted it, both inside and out, it was obviously time to move. Sophie saw a board outside Number 15; virtually that was that, except for the protracted negotiations. leading nowhere. Then a friend, an estate agent, suggested if we quoted another similar property, stated we were interested in vying for it, but making a firm, time limited, offer for this one, there was a good chance the matter would be closed,. We followed her suggestion, and it worked. Then fate intervened. At about five, the following morning I awoke, beset by the most frightful pain It turned out I had a severely slipped disc and would have to be on my back for sometime so the negotiations continued rather like jungle telegraph, she on the phone in the hall, I shouting instructions, and she shouting the reply. The details of the removal I found interesting The son of a well established remover, out to show his business acumen, made an offer it was difficult to refuse. He said the price was firm from our point of view but if it turned out to be otherwise, the estimate stood if he had underestimated, and if he had over estimated he would refund the difference. This left me a little open mouthed but to reciprocate I told him there was stuff in the roof space and more still in the garage. He said he had no need to see any more. OK! I thought, but backed it with a request for a written quotation with all the provisos included. It was just as well, later I found a debt collector on my doorstep, saying we owed money due to the excessive time taken. Fortunately I was able to produce the quotation, the debt collector smiled, nodded and went on his way.

    The Lawnmower Caper The garden of 15 was huge, the contents of the beds had been what had attracted Sophie to the house because of the number of specimen plants she had found there. However, there was insufficient grass to allow the children a bit of freedom so I reshaped the beds and relaid a lawn at the back. I had bought a petrol mower with drum blades because I had been advised that our main lawn was class one. To avoid having to edge I decided to lay granite square sets at the edge of the lawn and then, twenty years before the cigar ad on Telly had the idea, I made the lawn like spectacles, with overlapping lenses, and in the centre of each circle I placed a two inch diameter tube which would take a wooden stake. A two inch peg has a circumference of about six inches, so, if a mower, with a twelve inch cut, no grass box, is set on the paving, the front roller attached to a rope from the stake, it will go round and round with an overlapping cut until it arrives at the peg and falls over, stopping the engine. What was more it worked, and apart from providing endless amusement to our friends when they saw it in action, it allowed me to get on with other things while the lawn was being cut. There is nothing new under the sun!

    The New Kitchen The worktops at 15 required replacing, I got in touch with a builder, decided on the units that I wanted, put it all in hand, and after a year, when nothing happened I decided to do it myself. I knew a clerk of works who had been a joiner and he agreed to help me, and came one dark evening in January to assess the work. The conversation went something like this. I say conversation, it was a monologue. ‘You realise if you put on new tops you’ll have to take the tiles off the wall above them?’ I nodded. ‘You can’t take them off without stripping that wall as well, for the new tiles won’t match!’ ‘Ah!’ I muttered. ‘We’ll have to bring in new cable if we are to strip the walls and have you got a spade?’ That was certainly a switch. Mystified, I brought the spade. He hefted it, shook it a bit, as if to limber up and then struck the ceiling a couple of times until a large piece of lath and plaster fell at our feet with a cloud of dust. ‘That ceiling was bowed,’ he remarked, ‘it had to come down some day.’ With that laconic statement he proceeded, with our compliance and aid, to wreck the ceiling, pull all the tiles and plaster off all the walls, remove the sink and units leaving nothing but rafters above and brick exposed around us. When all the arisings had been wheeled into the yard he packed in for the evening, having given me an extensive list of purchases based on an ad hoc design mainly in his head.. With Tommy there were no half measures and there was no turning back. Good as his word, for a week he turned up every night and also at the weekend. We plastered some of the walls, we made the framing for the wall cupboards and units and installed the sink unit and taps, but that was as far as we got as a team. Unfortunately his father was suddenly taken ill with cancer and needed careful attention. I never saw Tommy again in any guise, either as helper or COW. The next few months were a drudgery, a hell.. How Sophie and the family stuck me, I can’t imagine, except they never saw me, I was always, either at work, asleep, or sawing, hammering or painting The quantities were so huge, especially the frustration, if I heard a voice at the door I told it to go away – I just wondered if Tommy really had to wreck it so thoroughly.

  • Road Engineers,It and Stuff

    Road Engineers, a breed apart, are single minded and possessed. They learned that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and that is their philosophy – straight to the point. They don’t go round things like sites of special interest, but do go through Granny’s 400 year old cottage – so be it. However they take stuff for granted that we Plebs need to know. It’s understandable, they are involved in stresses and drains, centrifugal forces, and strains, so simple stuff is unimportant. Have you ever wanted to get from A to B in a hurry and found you arrive, half an hour late, when the cakes and the coffee are all gone, and people are down to the nitty gritty, all because of one missing sign post. You start at A and know you get to B on the motorway, there are signposts at regular intervals saying, in effect -‘You’re on the right track.’ Then one tells you to get on an ‘A’ road, you do – more signs to B. Then you arrive at a Six Road Ends, any one could lead to B, but the Road Engineers knew the area so well themselves they saw no need to tell you. Then you were on a bet of 5 to 1 against,.

    Computer Periferals operate in the same way – those faceless people who send you death messages, like ‘Error, protocol XYZ, 000779, not available,,,’ and then on for another 6 lines of gobbledegook. I’m just a bloke who makes pictures, writes, enjoys simple things like any other Pleb, and I just haven’t a clue. The damn thing waits until I am in a hurry, on my way to bed, need to go to the lav, have 7 or 8 screens running, and then pounces -, without a word from me, he starts to install some huge piece of kit I have no need of, which fouls up my email system so I can’t post to my blog. There is also a salesman who tells you your ‘Free’ antivirus programme will be out of date in a couple of months, goes into great detail in how you can sign for X Dollars for something you don’t need, – even my bank wouldn’t need it. But finding how to renew the free one is worse than the Hampton Court Maze. Having got it you are instructed to register, but then your problems start again and registration is impossible because of a glitch you haven’t a clue bout.

    Then there is another salesman offering you something you would really like. It is within the budget, just right, but how in hell do you get hold of it? Suddenly there are more than one version and I have said yes and got it wrong and lost money. Actually I have only bought 4 things off the internet – 3 were wrong and I couldn’t get my money back, the 4th my daughter bought for me, it never arrived and she had to get her money back by some other means. When you go to a shop it is simple – mostly. You know what and how much! Why in heaven can’t downloads be as simple?

    IT Debacles I am surprised it has taken so long for the Mandarins of Whitehall to discover there’s a limit to centralisation, but not that their failed attempts to make it work would cost billions. It is so obvious that vast, integrated computers, by their very nature, must become so complex that they inevitably become unwieldy and prone to error. The long history of departments of the Civil Service with computer problems, has been ignored for too long. Many are so impenetrable the Public is losing services and money in unbelievable quantities. Now the DHSS proposals as well as those of the Police are foundering. In the end the police woke up to the fact and gave up, not so the DHSS, an even more complex problem.

    Recent reports show that delays in the new DHSS computer were partly due to the problems of converting hand written notes on to the computer. Surprise! Surprise! Even Banks have problems with centralised systems, and the numbers of accounts, staff and operations is miniscule compared with the DHSS. With a population of 60 million, doctor’s records from birth to death, references in more than one hospital, specialists, physiotherapists and also a plethora of other out-providers, such as opticians, all to be interlinked, the memory needed must be unbelievably colossal. About two years ago a very august charity was persuaded to update its operation by importing two computer systems, split into its subscriber function, and its charity one – they are now suffering as others similarly, with malfunction and record loss The proposal of such a system defeats common sense. Medical staff has managed with local systems; why not improve them at less cost and, more to the point, less risk of failure?.

    Pay-by-the-mile Road Charges. Implementing without general approval produced gridlock throughout the country when applied to oil. The government leaders should bear this in mind currently, as at grass-root level there might be murmurings.

  • Enforced Holidays 1930s 2

    Floss was a handyman at Ramsgate’s huge funfair called Wonderland. He worked on the Big Dipper. Early every morning he sent two cars round the track loaded with sand bags, watching the reaction of the wooden structure as the car went round, to gauge any weaknesses. Next it was my turn for a free, if solitary ride, as a third check. Can you imagine what Health & Safety would make of that today?

    Evening was the best time to be there, it was vibrant, with a cacophony of sound and a kaleidoscope of coloured lights winking on and off, and I absorbed the hectic atmosphere of the constantly eddying mass of humanity, along with the excitement of it all. When I went on these protracted holidays it was my practice, even duty, to return home with a small present for each of the family. This time I had had so many incursions into the wallet I was almost totally broke. What with the cinema trips, smoking, the funfair at Ramsgate and the even more expansive funfair at Margate, called Dreamland, I had only pence left and was at my wits end – well almost, I still had the slot machines to fall back on. Families descended like locusts on the one-armed-bandits. They were impatient to win and when the pickings were poor they too, like the locusts, moved on. It was then that I moved in, with just the odd penny here and there. I would give a heavily patronised machine, the opportunity to play one or two more games. Most times it worked. On the last evening I could not waste money on bus fares and cycled to the fairground. There I set about making enough from the slot machines to give me a fighting chance to win prizes at the stalls. Buying presents was out of the question, just a matter of playing the odds and knowing when to stop. Having increased my shilling into something like five, I went in search of other games of chance where I had reasonable odds, I won a glass bottomed tea tray, plaster of Paris elephants of all sizes, coated in black mica, a milk jug, toffee, and chocolates for Val. The things were equally disparate and cheap, but I was no connoisseur, merely a boy trying to get himself out of a jam.

    That night I cycled back to Pegwell Bay with the tyres birring happily along on the tarmac, a smile on my face which could not be rubbed off by the passage of the wind, no matter about the lonely days and the long hours spent touring for its own sake, the elation of that evening put it all behind and made that holiday one I never forgot.

    It was at this time that I bought a packet of Will’s Goldflake cigarettes and sat in the cinema, in the afternoon, in the dark, enjoying a taste I was only once again able to enjoy. There is something about the taste of those first cigarettes one smokes which is indescribably satisfying – like the taste of real Naval rum, never to be experienced again. In fact it was many years later, when I restarted smoking after a longer than usual period of abstinence, that I savoured for a brief period that wonderful sensation and taste once again.