"FINGERS"I
My nickname, didn't we all have one, was "fingers", because it was usually my fingers that interfered with things often leaving a once perfectly working machine in small and useless pieces. I was death to clocks;
any clock that had the misfortune to be left
near me rarely functioned again.
The pursuit of knowledge into to the wonderful world of mechanics and all other moving things led me into more trouble as a youngster than I care to remember.
On one occasion I was ensconced in bed at grandmas with a bad asthma attack, and grandma left me her wind up gramophone so I could listen to some records.
More interested in the workings of the gramophone I used my trusty jack-knife to unscrew the four screws holding down the top. I was just going to ease the top up a bit and peep underneath to see the parts moving around inside the base.
Within a few short and disastrous seconds I was surrounded by a mad crazy steel spring that forced its way out of the base and unwound its greasy length onto grandmas "friendship quilt".
I remember to this day that spring, Manic! It was, with a determination of a mad thing it threw itself onto the bed and wiped itself off all over the bed and the floor, miles of it there was, about three inches wide and, until disturbed, covered in thick green grease.
I did try several times to wind it back under the top cover but it always escaped just as I had the last bit to go. Strangely enough every time it escaped it appeared to have recovered itself with more green slime, which it gleefully left on the "friendship quilt".
The best solution to this setback appeared to be, to throw the gramophone and the quilt on the floor and suggest that the fall had opened it up.
Unfortunately my reputation as "fingers" and the appearance of my jack-knife, screwdriver blade open, on the floor among the wreckage was enough to seal my fate
I discovered that friendship like grease does not wipe off quilts painstakingly made over many winter months.
I did point out that it was a "friendship quilt" but asthma was quickly superseded as my main concern as Violet was "sent for" and proceeded to carry out her threat "to belt your arse till It glows"
And " it did! for days.
Ah the price of knowledge!.
pete skipper
did i ever tellyou about the bell?
perhaps another day.
