If I was honest, perhaps a dream come true in my silver years.

An Amateur Engineer, and the satisfaction of producing something out of nothing that you can’t buy anymore.

Certain tactile materials that are all around me have a certain appeal, wood has always given off an aroma that reminded me of my granddads timber yard up the top of Queen street in the chalk pit, the sounds and smell of sawdust as the wood was cut to size has left a lasting impression on my senses. 

Metal and the smell of oil reminds me of my Dads overalls and his workshop at the bottom of the garden when I was growing up, a small little place that was heaven to me, and just to be allowed to enter was a joy I would give up playtime with my chums to be with Dad out there in the winter with the heat and smell of the little paraffin oil fire in the corner. The knowledge passed on to me in those hours spent with him has been invaluable over the years. Watching him make threads on a piece of metal to fit perfectly, reviving a machine that had been broken to last another few years. Learning how to sharpen the many different blades that he used to razor sharpness with just an oil stone and elbow grease, never letting his precious chisels anywhere near a grinding machine. He did have a water stone that I was instructed to turn by hand at a certain speed, but that was all, there wasn’t any electricity out there at the bottom of the garden to run machines, everything was done with hand tools. I’d sit there in the corner with the pressure from the Tilly-Lamp hissing away, not only giving light to Dad but also keeping me warm as well.

Since then as time has gone on the need to have my own small haven at the bottom of the garden was a dream I never thought would ever materialise, the cost of the tools far beyond my pocket when the children were growing up. But gradually it has become a reality and I have never been happier than when I am out there with the wind whistling through the trees outside, the rain beating against the roof on a cold winters night, warm and cosy in a cocoon of my own making.

I have collected over the years all the hand tools that have ever been invented, sets of chisels too numerous to count. There are at least two-dozen planes all in mint condition of varying sizes and they are sharp and all in use.

But it is the metal work that I find most rewarding now, to be able to skim a thousands of an inch off a piece of metal on my small milling machine is very satisfying, to turn a bar for a press fit in a bearing on the metal lathe also gives me a thrill every time. I wonder sometimes if Dad is looking down on me with a smile on his face, nodding his head in that way he used to when I did something right, without a word ever being spoken.

I have read books, watched video’s, studied and asked questions to engineers, learning over time on the how and the why and also with a lot of ‘what ifs’ that must have sounded at the time rather stupid to them, but realising there is always something missing in my knowledge as an amateur machinist that I needed to refer to from the books in my small library.

What has surprised me is how lucrative it can be, gone are the days when a small component could be obtained for a small amount of money from the local machine shop if it had been broken or had worn out. Now, because the majority of machines I suppose are made in far away places, it is not possible to get anything repaired, you are expected to buy a new one. I have never advertised, its all word of mouth, if I accepted every job that came my way I would never leave the workshop to indulge my other pastimes, to sketch or to enjoy my retirement generally, so if you can buy it I won’t make it only for myself. But if it is unobtainable then I am interested, so long as there is no time limit, only under extreme circumstances will I work until it is finished, burning the midnight oil, it is very rarely appreciated. 

Anyway ‘T’ nuts, a pet hate of mine, you ask ‘What the h*** are ‘T’ nuts, well, I will tell those of you that don’t know tomorrow and why they are a pet hate of mine.

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.     

 

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,

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

 

Disillusioned and Disgusted !

Absolutely unbelievable that grown men and women who have been elected by the working people of this country should act in the way that I viewed them yesterday: I turned the news off!  If I had heard my children screaming at each other like they were, they would have received a sanction that none of them would ever forget.

Anyway, a few doodles today.

Remember when you had to get up in the cold dark mornings to go to work, dreaming of the day when you could lay in till quite late, taking your time over breakfast instead of a piece of toast between your teeth as you drove down the motorway to another days toil.

Take it from me, it doesn’t work that way! As time goes on I am rising earlier and earlier to cram in everything there is to do nowadays.

A few things that caught my eye today, sketching perhaps for future reference. Sitting in the car waiting for the little wife, the radio playing softly in the background, my ever-present sketchpad on my knee capturing the different things around me.

Eves dropping on a conversation the other day, I heard a lady say she was bored since retiring, however can that be? There doesn’t seem enough hours in the day sometimes, so much to do, so many things to see and always afraid I will miss something. I like the saying that has come across the pond to these shores, namely: “Onward and upward, we are burning daylight” as soon as my eyes are open, the joy each day brings and all the mischief I can get into has to be crammed into a few short hours, the hands of the clock wiz round and I have only achieved half of what I set out to do come bedtime, but I live in hope there is always a tomorrow.

Reading the Blog’s today reminded me of yesterday when I switched on the ‘tele’ to watch the budget as I had my lunch.

These people who call themselves politicians that are supposed to have our interests at heart in running our country, were acting like children in a playground, there was unbelievable pandemonium from all sides of the house supposedly there to discuss the very important subject of our finances. It seems to me, and many like me, the system that the world once regarded as a model of government have reached a new low in our history.

There is nothing I can do about it! No place to turn to for help only to shut my door and pray I survive another day in the turmoil this country has got itself into, everybody blaming everyone else instead of putting their heads together to fathom out a future for our children. I thought this was what we elected them to do; …..wrong!

So I sketch, busy myself in the workshop, listen to the music I love and remember the statesmen that ran our country in days long gone, hoping the youngsters of today will not have to rise up like in other countries around the world before sense and reason is resumed.

I am sorry, I promised not to get political on this ‘Blog’ but when I am presented with what is supposed to be news to people I, and all of us little people have elected acting in the way they were I begin to wonder where it will all end.

I’m sorry, no more politics, I promise.

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

One for 'The Friends of Ellington Park'

You have got to be joking !

My Vision now of 'The Park Keeper' as he was in my day.

We could smell the acrid tobacco smoke from his pipe and knew when he was around, every one of us was mortally afraid of him during our young lives. Petrified in fact.

That fear rose to a climax about the second or third week in September when the chestnuts hung in bunches from the trees in Ellington Park; it was conker time!

His flat peaked cap and spectacles were imprinted on my subconscious, right up to when I went to sleep at night, planning and scheming for the following morning when I had arranged with my mates to reconnoitre the perimeter, this was where the best conker trees were in the Park. (all chopped down now.)

I have watched him from the long grass at the back of the Park and been racked with anxiety, no long grass now, just a plain brick wall. I have looked in terror at his thick stick, which he always carried as I hid behind the dahlias and rhododendrons feeling week at the knees in case I was discovered.

The Park Keeper was the symbol of authority and the implacable enemy of every small boy between the ages of five and ten. His reputation struck almost permanent terror into several hundred young hearts, ghastly stories of the revenge he took on lads whom he was supposed to have caught lurking in the Park at dusk, long after he had blown the whistle that preceded the ceremony of locking the big iron gates.

The thing was, by hurling large sized sticks into the chestnut trees, it was possible to bring down a substantial shower of the coveted conkers, so much so that you sometimes had to quickly jump out of the way of the falling nuts, this was when you had to watch out for him. Chestnuts were quickly stuffed into your pockets along with fag cards marbles bubblegum and lumps of toffee and you took off like rabbits bolting for home at a pace Roger Bannister would have a job keeping up with, you had to avoid being caught at all costs.

Guerrilla warfare was ceaseless. The Park Keeper did sentry-go for hours on end at this time of year, but us young shavers with devilment in our hearts stalked him and created diversionary tactics on the flower beds while the main party of us went in on the conker raid.

We always won, there was too many of us!

 

*************** 

As a footnote that brought on the memory of all this, we were walking in the park a couple of days ago and I noticed a poster nailed to the trunk of a chestnut tree, see photo! ( I found this on the internet, and it is evidently being displayed in another part of the country as well.)

Although we had a good laugh at the time, I have since thought what a crazy, crazy world we live in, because when questioning a councillor this week he informed me, quite seriously, there was litigation in progress concerning a woman that was taking the council to court for damages;

A falling conker had given her a black eye and she had been off work since last September because of it, we are now in March……..6 months later!

Can you believe that? . . . . . .Crazy, no wonder our rates are so high, because no doubt the cost of such an action will come out of the council coffers.

You have got to laugh; otherwise we would all end up in straight jackets.

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

 

 

 

What it all boils down to is we weren’t mollycoddled !

 

Received an email today that I thought you might like to read, these are not my words but reflect on many occasions the way us pensioners look at things when the world around us gives cause for utter bewilderment in the state we have got ourselves into in this country.

It read something like the following:

Were you born in the 1930’s 1940’s, 50’s or 60’s ?

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. . . . . 

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childhood lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos. . . . .

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on a Sunday, somehow we didn’t starve to death !

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and ON ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble-Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because . ………..

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING ! !

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day but we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we had forgotten the brakes.

We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all no 900 channels on SKY, No video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms . . . . . . . . . BUT !

WE HAD FRIENDS ! and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time ……..

We were given air guns and catapults for our 10^th birthdays, we rode bikes or walked to a friends house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them !

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren’t concentrating . . . . .

We can string sentences together and spell and have proper conversations because of a good, solid three R’s education. Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. THEY ACTUALLY SIDED WITH THE LAW !

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

 

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

 

Is it me, or is it getting colder ?

Chiddingstone Kent

The old bones I think are getting soft as age creeps up on me, that wind to me seems more bitter than ever this week. So I don’t want to venture out, my snug little home is too much of an attraction, so I stay indoors and wait for the sunshine, hoping better days are ahead.

The tantalising aroma of freshly baked bread from the kitchen drifts into the lounge and makes my tummy rumble along with that distinctive smell of percolating coffee. Listening to the wind whistling round the eve’s and rustling the trees out the back of where we live, I realised there was a smile on my face this morning as the reflection back to the time when work was the order of the day no matter what the weather was like.

Snuggling down into my favourite armchair, it was time once again to get out my well-worn pencils, to do what I had always hoped I could do when working long hours in the past, those last few years when working I dreamed of the day when retirement came to just sit and sketch some of the fantastic memories of the life I had led, the places I had been to, the people I had been so fortunate to have met and laughed with.

I wanted to jot down the little incidents that I found pleasure in remembering, purely for my own gratification; there are so, so many.

Going through the box of photographs I came across one of Chiddingstone and I remember sitting in the beautiful church grounds one afternoon there, drawing the building opposite next to the Post office, going through my old sketches I found what I had drawn that day. There is a little bit of artistic licence in what I have drawn so I hope the residents of this building can forgive me, but basically it is, how it is, a treasure of our heritage that must be kept for the prosperity and our grandchildren.

But getting back to to day I have been doing a little more to the train drawing of last Wednesday (6^th) it’s a long job but I am enjoying doing it.

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

p.s. I had thoughts today of another memory of Ellington Park which definitely requires a drawing!

A very pleasurable experience.

Up a little alley, off the beaten track.

Up a little alley hidden away from the hustle and bustle of a busy town, we were escorted back, upon entering the foyer, to a few decades ago; the welcome was obviously genuine, the service of the staff was part of the experience of dining out. We were treated to excellent food and a small tipple, all presented to us in a first class manner from a waiter that discreetly attended to our every need.

I could have stayed there overnight, but instead contented myself to sitting in the window seat to capture a scene of such tranquillity with my pad and pencil, there was no anxious looks from the staff to vacate that seat, in fact they seemed to encourage my activity as the picture took shape, offering to open the curtains wider to let in more light.

I hope you like the end product.

 

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.