The Pesky 'Letrit'

It’s The Letrit !

You know the stuff the gas board sells, there again it could be the water board in your area. Comes out of a little plug on the wall. 

I learned to loathe electricity many, many years ago. I had an old Morris Minor, the one with the split windscreen. Talking to a mate the other day it would be worth a small fortune these days, but there ya go, I never could get it right where cars are concerned. Anyway, I remember it broke down one weekend coming back from Maidstone along the Thanet-Way and had to be towed into a garage that was out in the middle of nowhere. Back in those days there was nothing from the end of the M2 until you reached The Sportsman Inn, just fields. This guy turned up after a long walk that took me an hour to find a telephone,  I swear he was older than I am today, he must have been eighty, perhaps even older. He was the mechanic in a one-man band that drove a pick-up truck; today, that truck would be in a museum, and looked as if it had been put together with a ‘Mecano’ set he’d been given at Christmas.

There again he had probably been brought up learning his trade on steam cars and attributed all the troubles of the motoring world to electricity. Come to think about it now, he was probably right.

He took one look at my paralysed four-wheeled ‘pride and joy’ and said with scorn and distaste in his voice: ‘Betcha it’s the letrit!’

He opened the bonnet, pointed to the petrol pump and spat out the word again ‘Letrit’

Jabbed an accusing bent middle finger that had mysteriously no nail on it, at the distributor and actually snarled, I swear to this day a lion couldn’t have done any better: “Letrit! It’s all down to the Letrit boy” he said.

His eyes then moved to the fuse box, and there was an audible sigh as he shook his head: ‘Letrit’!

By this time I had got the hang of it all and as he glared at the starter motor we both chorused ‘Letrit!’

Still nodding his head in agreement with the acceptance I had given him;

“Nothing wrong with ya car boy, ‘cept the pesky Letrit! No good will come of it mark my words.”

And I have since had good reason to agree with him when I get the bills for the ‘Letrit!’.

Without ‘Letrit!’ we could be free from television. That small square box in the corner of the living room that used to be when it started, a couple of hours in the evening, ending with the national anthem at eleven o’clock. 

Without ‘Letrit!’ we could be emancipated from the telephone. And I wouldn’t be pestered with cold calls trying to sell me insurance that I have already paid a fortune for at the beginning of the year. 

Without ‘Letrit!’ there wouldn’t be high-voltage guitars that blare out of a car radio whenever I have to stop at traffic lights from the open windows of the boy-racers? Hairdryers? You don’t need a hairdryer, walk down the pub and let the wind dry it for you. There is a good side to this as well, when you walk into the lounge bar, because your hair is standing on end and your appearance emulates a mad professor, everyone disperses leaving a clear path to the bar-keep who immediately serves you hoping you will occupy the furthest corner seat and not frighten his clientele away.    

Buzzing razors, I’ll grow a beard!

Neon signs, guided missiles and simply the enormous shocks that amateurs like myself receive when we try to put a new plug on the vacuum cleaner . . . . .use a broom!

But there again there is the kettle, can’t do without the kettle. I remember we had a power cut a we while ago, it took ages to boil a little tiddy bit of water in a pan for a cup of tea. Got to have a bit of  ‘Letrit!’ I’ll put up with it a bit longer I suppose.

Have fun,

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