The Demise of Roland Ratso: Chapter sixty five

Denise, one of the cancer nurses has just phoned to say that my CT scan was clear and does not show any secondary tumours. Brilliant news. She also said that my operation is likely to be scheduled for June. My brother Alex has turned up along with Antony, Lyndsey and my liittle girl – quite a family reunion. Friday night and the club is fairly busy. There is a female singer who is pregnant. I decide to change seats so I can watch her and Irene says I needn’t look at her as she is pregnant and I have had enough of bringing up kids. I tell her that it is David the gay compere I am looking at and David shouts out “who is calling me!” Irene says it’s me and that I fancy him. It’s really not true, Picko! We have got lamb chops for tea. Alex friend Ian used to be sheep farmer on South Uist and now lives in Herne Bay. He got three lambs – his wife, Sandra called them Starsky, Hutch and Huggy Bear. Anyway Huggy bear gave her a funny look one day so we are having some of him for dinner! We were talking about my treatment and my forthcoming operationa and I said that I was not too worried about the operation itself but what concerned me is what you wake up to afterwards because with the best will in the world and scans etc. the surgeons often have to make the decision once you are opened up and there might be less of you left than you anticipated. Irene said that there will still be enough of me left to go round. We were also talking about Uncle Bill who was schizophrenic. There are enough stories about Uncle Bill to fill a book but his life was truly tragic. He was in the small armada that went to Dunkirk and then joined the RAF finally succumbing to schizophrenia in 1953. I remember him twanging an elastic band on a brylcreem plastic tub and the next time I visited he had built a musical instrument that plucked string using a system of cams and cables by winding a handle.His workmanship was truly amazing – he had cartwheels on it, a ship’s wheel, garden gate, all hand made with a Chinese pagoda rood carved from solid oak. He became obsessed with his creation and nothing would stop him. When he became so infirm that he could not get into his workshop he worked on top of a brand new washing machine that his brother Tim had bought. With no vice available Bill simply drilled holes in the top of the machine and held his work pieces with self tapping screws. He called it a "colongalorum", Saucepans were a favourite source of material. He cut the back from the pressure cooker to get some aluminium and then replaced it back on the shelf with the undamaged part facing outwards. When Tim decided to use it he had to burst out laughing. Another time he cut the bottom out of a milk saucepan. Tim tipped the milk into the pan – but there was no bottom in it and the milk went all over the cooker. His obsession evolved into making a piano accordian. He filed reeds and hand riveted them on to a frame and then built the bellows and valves. He then tried to tune it by pouring pepper into the reeds and then blew clouds of pepper into the air making his nose run and his eyes stream and all of the time there was a wheezing sound that went on for hours driving anyone in earshot demented. ________________________________________________________