The Squelchies
In the 1980s I spent my working days at a desk on the eleventh floor of a very modern office block with sixteen floors and high-speed lifts. From a distance the building reminded me of a large ocean liner in dock. It had an underground car park; swishy-smooth it was as I approached, swinging the car off the main road and gliding down and round the curving entrance lane into the illuminated depths of the car park.
There was something none of us knew. And I doubt if any one of us would have thought it particularly interesting as it is commonplace in these large-scale buildings and it became interesting only when it was demonstrated; all the offices had removable walls.
The trouble was that it was not a mere demonstration. We came in to our office one Monday morning to find that our walls had been removed. Our comfortably personal room had vanished and our desks stood in about fifty square metres of floor space. All our erstwhile neighbours were now sitting there with us, their desks ranging down as far as the eye could see. They were almost strangers to us. Their phones bells for years had been barely audible through the walls; now, the bells and the conversations were very clear indeed.
Sam, a very good friend of mine, had always sat at the desk in front of me. Now, his was the desk next to my own. On this Monday morning he looked around the big space and then said something I’ve not forgotten. But I'll come to that in a minute. Let's go backwards a few years.
Early one Monday morning as I came in, he excitedly handed me a crumpled sheet of paper. It was a hand-written poem. He said his 12-year-old son had just written it and what did I think of it?
I read it and was startled.
If anyone other than Sam had come to me with that story I would have been dubious. But Sam, no.
Years later on the Monday morning Sam and I sat gazing around at all these people on their phones, people riffling through paper files and slamming desk drawers. Sam sighed. I said, 'Funny, isn't it. These people. They've been here all the time but now with the walls taken down they're somehow different.'
He swung round in his swivel chair and looked at me, waving a curled finger in the way he did whenever he wanted to share a thought. 'Yes!', he said. 'Yes! That's it! That’s it! Death!’ His eyes were bright with sudden insight. He spoke quickly. ‘You’ll see things that you’ve only ever partly understood. You’ll understand things - d’you see? They’ve been there all the time but they’ve been hidden. "Through a glass, darkly, but then face to face." ’
It was a typical Sam remark. He looked about him.. ‘Yes, that’s it,’ he said, pipe gripped between teeth, and he swung round to his typewriter and started work. That was Monday.
On the following morning I came in and, unusually, Sam had not arrived.
Our Chief Editor had been on the phone. Now he came over to us. He told us that as Sam drove home the previous evening he’d collided with another car. He died instantly.
During the morning the office manager came to me. ‘Paul, you were as close to him as anyone - how would you feel about, you know, clearing his desk?’ I did, and among the masses of old manuscripts and pictures and folders I came across the now coffee-stained, crumpled piece of paper that he had waved at me years before.
At his funeral I met the boy, now tall, solemn-suited, a slim teenage version of his father. I handed the poem to him with a note telling him about his dad’s excitement on the morning he brought it in.
We missed Sam.
The High-wire machine
Sainsbury’s, Wealdstone, was the town’s butcher’s shop in 1930. Just raw meat and sausages; no jams or marmalades or junkets or chocolates or cereals. That was left to the little shops along the High Street, the Grocer's, the Dairies, the Confectioners. At Sainsbury's you saw Butchers dressed smartly in straw hats and white jackets. They unhooked enormous sides of beef hanging from ceiling-high rails and, with two or three swings of their oblong choppers, separated family-size cuts. You would see them mincing meat for a customer by pushing it into an electric mincer, the long strands of mincemeat oozing out and onto a sheet of white wrapping paper.
But the really fascinating thing about Sainsbury’s was the overhead communications system. Please do not take the illustration seriously; think of it as rudimentary in the extreme. A long wire stretched from three or four points along the counters, converging at the far end of the shop to where the Cashier sat in her box. Above the heads of each butcher along the counter hung a small metal barrel-shaped container. When a customer handed him the cash he reached up and gave the base a quick twist so that it separated from its cover, put the money inside it with the slip of paper on which he had written the name of the items bought, their weight and and price, re-attached it and pulled the handle. Then came the bit I liked. There was a metallic clunk and the box shot away along the wire, swinging from side to side, and clunked into the spring latch of the receptor. The Cashier reached up a little, took out the money, counted it out, selected the change from a neatly arranged tray of halfpennies, pennies, threpenny bits, sixpences, shillings, florins and half crowns, put it into the little barrel, stamped 'Received' on the slip of paper, gave it a twist and pulled the handle. Back would come the container, swinging merrily, and clunk into place above the butcher.
Almost as good as models trains, that.
Public Library Harbour
I was ten, and not so happy with school. To come out of school at 4pm and walk into that little free public library at the top of our road was like sailing a storm-tossed boat into the calm of the harbour. All you heard as you went in from the main road was silence.
Not a forbidding one. A soothing one, with a quietly-spoken, helpful young woman busying herself at the shelves. You could go to her whenever you liked to ask questions about where to find the book - or even the sort of book - you needed and she would lead you there with a smile. Two or three members would be at the big tables at the far end with an open book or two in front of them. Some would be writing notes, others turning the pages, looking something up or just scanning them for interest.
When I went in I knew exactly which shelves to head for. There were the entire series of Cody M Ferris’s ‘The X-Bar-X Boys’ stories and all of WE Johns’s ‘Biggles’ books; on each side and above and below them were books of the same kind. Further along there came the PG Wodehouse, with Jeeves and Bertie Wooster and The Empress of Blandings waiting to reduce me to uncontrollable laughter.
Jerome K Jerome’s ‘Three Men in a Boat’ became the one I would read to mum and dad in the evenings, delighting in seeing them exploding with laughter, rocking back and forth and holding their ribs. I was in the dining chair facing the fireplace and they were in their armchairs on either side.
I discovered the Library as soon as we arrived at our new house. The other discovery was that we had a telephone. In 1935, if you had a telephone you had the necessary overhead telephone cable running to your house, and everyone would think you were someone of some standing. A doctor perhaps, or a lawyer or councillor or even a Member of Parliament. We had just a London Underground train driver. But we had the label of the telephone. I’m sure I made myself a bore at the new school by introducing the telephone into all conversations.
The Library was not merely my entertainer; among other things it was my solace when ill. My mother would return my borrowed books to the Library for me and select the ones I specified. I’ve often wondered since how many people caught my colds. It was also my teacher, my guide to the ways of the world, to the workings of the human body. This last function came into play as soon as I cottoned-on to the fact that there was an enormous book called ‘The Encyclopaedia Brittanica’ and that it could enlarge upon so much of what I had heard about but didn't understand. But this book led me to discover other books of the same nature that served to explain the sorts of word I had been hearing among the older boys at school. And they did more than provide meanings; they also enlarged on them, describing functions and showing illustrations, providing me with answers to the many pressing questions that the pubescent boy asks and are today provided in the school curriculum. As I read the answers and studied the illustrations I would be aware of a burning red face. Walking out of the place I hoped it would cool down by the time I went in at the back door of No 36.
The Library was my best friend.
Wetting my pants – again
I have always liked boats. But there have been times when I would have issued a slight amendment. When I was approaching the age of twelve there was an interesting event in Dartmouth while Dad and I were in a small rowing dinghy on the River Dart opposite the Royal Naval Training College.
We were having a lovely time. He was rowing, I was steering. I loved steering, and I still do. Give me anything on air, sea or land and I'll steer it. We saw a huge Royal Navy training ship moored on the other side of the wide river-mouth and I thought we should get a closer look. We did. We got a very close look indeed. So close that we found our small boat being hoisted upwards by the bows. We had ridden over one of the ship's anchor hawsers. As the tide eased us further and further forwards so our bows rose higher and higher. This meant that our stern was going lower and lower.
I was sitting in the stern and, increasingly, in the water.
The laughter and cheers coming from the trainee crew leaning over the ship's rail above us signalled clearly that, from 40ft up, it was unbearably funny. (It's so nice to be able to bring a little sunshine into people's lives.) Dad finally managed to manhandle the steel hawser so that we gradually slid backwards, and our dinghy floated off.
Wet pants, again.
Camping Out
My friend John was erecting the tent and I was kneeling in grass, getting the Primus stove going and putting on a pan of baked beans. There came a little cough from John behind me.
‘Paul.’
He and I had been good friends for some years. I was just out of the 'teens and he was still in them. The two of us were on our way to Paris and had just cycled the one hundred-odd miles from north London down to Dover. We were knackered and hungry.
For the trip, John had bagged the job of Tent Man. He would carry the tent and its poles and he would be responsible for them throughout the week. I was Cook, responsible for the supply of food and drink and also total care of the Primus stove and its daily use.
We waved goodbye to nervous parents and reached the outskirts of Dover by sunset. We had scrambled through likely-looking fields that were well out of sight of lurking farmers. We eventually found the spot. And shortly afterwards came this small cough and my name, spoken in an undertone.
I turned. ‘What?’
‘Paul, there's something, I mean, you see -'
'What's wrong?'
'I forgot the tent poles.’
I put it to him that he should go into the nearby woodland and find two bits of wood, which he did, moaning.
When canvas becomes moist with dew it also becomes heavier and, as we slept, the two bits of tree branch proved to be inadequate for the job. We woke at something like two in the morning, smothered by wet canvas.
I shan’t bore you with the constant remedial steps taken throughout the rest of the night. We woke, shivering, tired, miserable and distinctly touchy.
The sun was up and warming the air beautifully. John had the tent spread out to dry. The corn flakes were crisp, the milk farm-fresh and my brilliant handling of the Primus had produced fragrant bacon and egg. The tea (or it might have been coffee because I do like to offer alternatives) was exactly the strength I knew he liked.
Gradually, the atmosphere cleared and we were cycling happily together, indulging in the silly chant you might have seen here a week or two ago.
The ferry ride from Dover to Calais was uneventful. In Bethune, or it might have been sooner, we enjoyed a simple lunch at a roadside café and set off again until sun and horizon were getting close. John asked if I was sure we had enough for supper and I reassured him, forbearing to point out that I did not forget things.
On a delightful site with utter silence prevailing were were in for the night. We had found a little camping shop on the way where John bought a couple of tent poles. He assured me they were the right size.
So, a quiet and much-needed sleep-lulling night lay ahead. We both wanted to get down to the sliding-in of sleeping bags so I quickly prepared supper; four plump sausages ready for frying, with potato. A couple of chocolate bars were available to demolish completely or leave some for later consumption, according to how we felt about it. John was getting the tent ready in a remarkably swift and businesslike manner, the poor chap obviously determined to impress me. I lit the Primus and put on a saucepan of water. With potatoes peeled and sliced, the green peas shelled and waiting for total immersion I glanced up to see how John was getting on with the tent.
I was relieved to see him standing, hands on hips in a satisfied sort of way, gazing at the erected tent and the taut, dry canvas. I complimented him, and he raised an arm in response. I returned to the Primus. The water was nicely warm. It needed another couple of minutes to boil.
And then the wretched thing went out. I got out the paraffin can, and hesitated. It felt too light. Much, much too light. I unscrewed the cap. But I already knew the answer. I went over to John.
‘John.’
He was still gazing at his handiwork. 'What?'
'I forgot to fill the can.'
'Can? What can?'
'Paraffin. Shan't be long.'
'The paraffin? You idiot! And I'm starving.'
I dragged the bike over to the road and went back to a café we had noticed, managed to persuade the maitre to wrap us a hot snack and rode back to camp. John was pointedly silent as we ate. Next morning we pulled up at the next garage and John, because he was a Grammar School boy and knew some French, asked them to fill the can with paraffin.
‘Oui, Messieur. Le pétrol. Certainment.’
‘No, no! Not petrol, paraffin - for the Primus.’
‘Oui, la Primus!’
John turned to me. ‘D’you think he knows what we mean? Can’t have the thing blowing up in our faces, can we.’
‘How should I know? You’re the French student.’
‘Yes. But I don’t know the French for paraffin.’
‘You - you don’t know the French for paraffin? You mean to tell me. . .’ and I piled it on, high.
From then onwards I watched myself very carefully indeed and managed to get us riding away from the camping site without silly mistakes - apart from the minor business of the stove coming adrift from its moorings as we rode and receiving a couple of rather noticeable dents. We got a lift into Paris and wangled four very comfortable nights in someone’s garage, then went home, as the poem goes, by train.
At home, I looked up the French for 'paraffin' and discovered the truth. I looked forward to informing John.