Revisionism

I'd like to confess to having all these stories that never really happened to me, like I was some sort of Walter Mitty, a Billy Liar whose life was basically a fabrication, a sham, a great big hoax and you're all a bunch of silly ones for actually believing in it from the start.

Me too.

I'ts a progress through life I suppose, there are a bunch of half truth stories that have been embelished over the years, the downright lies that have become folklore in my mind, and then the set of stories that I could never have dreamed up that actually happened.

The stories that set fire to the ship and actually sank it.

I titled the blog the "Fool on the Hill" because in my early teenage years there was so much foolishness that I have to identify with the man up on the mound and nowadays certainly do not identify with the boy I was thirty-odd years ago.

Funnily enough, I've talked to a friend or two and the concensus is that we were all rather silly.

Right of passage.

It would be so easy, just build a time machine and go back and change one thing. Well, maybe two, but of course, if you change the one thing then the second probably wouldn't have happened anyhoo.

Catch double-deuce.

So, I'll take the plunge, I'll pay my fee and travel back to a November night in 1974 and change just one of my real true stories.

I'd taken the train down to Liverpool and was in a nightclub called the "Babaloo" or something similar. I was quite tuned in and dancing with this pretty blond haired girl, well, she looked pretty good in the darkness of the night club with my beer goggles on, ego tells me she was a looker.

I'd been grinding my knee into her groinal area for a slow dance or two for half an hour (I've since been informed that girls don't really like this pastime) and then she told me that she had to go for a "wee" and would I mind her drink.

Well, there was about an ounce of a rum and coke in there, so I knew she'd be back for that valuable item, so, I bid her goodbye as she went off to the toilets.

It's probably what those wives felt like during the war when their men went off. I waited for at least half an hour before I started thinking something was up and then, well, even then I felt that she must have been kidnapped or taken by aliens.

You know, If they hadn't closed the club that night I probably would still be standing there.

So, I'll go back, walk up to me and tell meself to shake my head. Sort out my life before it happened, do everything right, be nice to people and keep it real. I'd fix it all in one simple moment, there ya go.

The trouble with the concept is that the bouncers at the club, would take one look at me as I am now, and tell me that there was absolutely no way that they could let an old bastard like me into the club!

Sorry mate.

The best birthday ever

October 13th, 1969.

As an eleven year old boy with a great need, my mum and dad had played on my emotions in the weeks before my birthday. There seemed to be many “off camera” conversations relating to the facts “they could not get one anywhere” or that “even the wholesalers have no stock” and “nobody knows when they will get one in”.

It seemed like it was the only thing I’d ever wanted, well, besides football boots with screw in studs that is, and here in the eleventh hour, with my parents, networked, ex-toy shop owners with connections, giving it their best shot, it was all falling apart.

No it wasn’t.

They were having me on, the rascals.

The psychological process was complete, my mother and father had worked their mind games on me and I was primed for the event.

October 14th, 1969.

I came down the stairs and it was there.

The Raleigh Chopper.

It was the best bike I ever had.

It was cool, trendy and a joy to ride and show off with.

Three speed stick shift gears, brilliant orange paint, big handlebars and a comfy seat. It was destined to be customized with mirrors and multicolored tassles and for a couple of years there it was the focus of my young life.

Thanks Mum and Dad for the best birthday present ever.

Bonnie Riggs

The print room girl, Doreen, retires on Thursday after a long career shuffling papers. We will all miss her and those neatly collated binders, mind you, there’s already been a memo sent around telling the workers which Stepford wife will be Stepping into her size elevens.

Doreen was short, but by golly did she have big feet.

My exceptionally long career of staring vacantly at a computer screen still has a few years to run, I fill my days with thoughts of escape, visits to my Scottish pal, Graeme in hut 13, with the subject predominantly being the plans of the escape route, how we’ll hide the soil and the wooden planks we use to move the wood stove while we’re digging.

All the while keeping our eyes out for the little men.

It would be nice if I had a nickname like Digger or The Tunnel Man, but that would arouse suspicion with my coworkers and others in the dormitory. They say that careless talk costs lives and that’s exactly what would happen because if we found out that anyone knew what we were up to, then we’d have to silence them. I have a sharp compass in my drawer and I know how to use it.

There are spies everywhere.

It has come as a great surprise that one of the inmates has actually negotiated a stay of execution, it’s a guy we’ve nicknamed “Busy Ronny” mainly because he’s constantly busy and his name is Ron.

Ron must have been talking to the guards, or the Colonel, because he’s negotiated POW status for the rest of his natural life, and he appears to be rather chuffed about the whole thing. He’ll be staying in the camp long past his sell by date and it seems that as we’re planning our escape, Ron is planning to have new double glazing and shelves put in his hut.

As the resident fence, Mat the Drat, says, “Well me old china, it’s all horses for courses and if the old Bonnie Riggs wants to be a merchant banker and spend his birdy lime in his working kippers to earn some Nelson Eddy’s then we should let the old blighter be, jump in our tea, two and a bloater and do a Naval gunner”

What the hell he means by that, no one actually knows.

I knew Jack

Jack Edwards was my Grandfather, well, one of them anyway. He was a good man.

Jacks real name was John, I've noticed this was a common thing back in those days. Jacks being Johns, Nellies being Ellens, Dots being Dorothy. A name change epidemic.

His full name was John Edward Edwards.

He courted and married his sweetheart, Betsey Cottrill, in those years between the World Wars and in 1930 they had their first and only child, Dorothy Edwards who was my mum.

She was the best mum I ever had.

In World War 2 he volunteered for the Liverpool Fire brigade, attending many of the fires during "The Blitz" which destroyed a lot of Liverpool and the docks. He also worked in various trades as a driver and then an export clerk at a Liverpool shipping company.

They travelled around England and Wales, from Lands End and maybe even to John O'Groats. Betsey would be Jacks "love of his life" as after her tragic death in 1961 he never remarried.

I was only four at the time and never knew her.

In the 1960s Jack moved in with the family in Botanic Road and loaned my mum and dad almost a thousand pounds so they could buy the house next door. They converted it into flats and rented them out.

Oh, they had some fun with tenants.

He often babysat my older brother Robert and myself, he'd take us to the Presbyterian church on a Sunday morning and off for a Tizer at Capaldi's Soda bar afterwards if we behaved ourselves. I only realised in the last few years that it gave my mum and dad a break, to have some "quality" time alone at the end of a long week.

But we won't think about that.....

In the years that followed he took us on holidays to Wales, the Isle of Man and afar. Allowed us to shoot cigarettes out of his mouth with our Astroray guns, suffered rubber sponge balls bouncing off the top of his head and was a constant source of cash and chocolate.

A few of his interests were woodworking and gardening. He worked at W.Boot & Sons as a clerk, as they dealt with a lot of exporting and custom wooden box building it was here that he gained a good knowledge of carpentry. This would result in numerous home projects, garden sheds, fences, greenhouses and even a home for the dozen or so chickens that my dad would introduce into our family in the early 1970s.

He was a super Granddad and I still miss him.

I miss them all.

NextGen

The Xbox 360 has been in my life for three or four weeks now, as soon as Best Buy had them in stock (when I was awake) I plunked down my five hundred bucks and rushed home to see if I could start a fire.

Drat. The thing is stable and does not overheat. It runs fine.

I think I should write or email all those critics on the web who had a go at this fine device. Well, I would if I had the time, I’m too busy developing a peptic ulcer while in a frenzy playing single player Call of Duty 2 or being shot in the head and every other soft part of my body by people in Texas playing GRAW.

(Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter)

Coincidently, GRAW has one of those guns that shoots around the corners.

It’s a pity that my granddad has long gone.

If he was still around, I could shoot him again.

The Gun that shoots around the corner.

It was Christmas 1964 that one of my prized guns came into my possession. It was made by an American Toy company called Kenner.

The amazing thing about this gun was it’s ability to fire hard sponge balls, at a very high velocity, I think it had a five or six capacity magazine. The other essential aspect of the weapon was that it had a pivot, and a mirror. It was able to fire around corners!

This was the perfect weapon to use to stalk my granddad, I’d creep up on the floor, out of his sight, load up a couple or the sponge balls that I hadn’t already lost, and fire around a corner at him. He never had a chance!

I’ve researched this recently and the toy was actually called “The Gun that Shoots around the corner”

What an amazing coincidence.

At some point I’ll have to start a series of blogs about the toys I had and never had.

Death

Times are moving on as usual in the Engineering Office.

Dave Henry turned 60 years old a few weeks ago and Karl Janvier is so grey he looks like he had a fight in a flour factory.

There’s the perpetual print room girl, Doreen Nodwell, who is on a countdown timer, ten working days to go until she retires, happy times ahead running after the grandchildren and not working.

Ron Barlow is back from his vacation, 65 years old in a few months time and does not want to stop work (something that me and Graeme cannot understand). Graeme sits there at his desk squeezing every last penny out of his investments to make his retirement day closer, he sits there, works the numbers, watches Chris Brookfield grow old and dreams of life out in Hope, British Columbia, throwing stones at pedestrians.

It’s a phenomenon, something that’s happening to all of us, death and taxes etc.

I searched out a picture of a DECwriter on the web yesterday and immediately thought of my time at APPH which is twenty years ago now. In fact, I started around the end of March in 1982 which is a mere 24 years ago.

If I mirror that number then I’ll be 72 years old.

Hopefully I’ll have been retired 22 years by then.

Writers Block or Blog

I’m suffering from writers block at the moment, can’t think of anything interesting to type, can’t get my mind onto any particular topic. It must be all the late nights I’m having playing Ghost Recon or Call of Duty online.

I’ll throw in some filler.

I sent this around the salt mines with great success on the 22nd March :


To All Employees :

Today is the International "Call someone who is clearly not a homo a homo day" and as usual we encourage employees to drop any fears of Political Correctness and choose one of their colleagues "who clearly is not a homo" and call them a homo.

We understand that in the Engineering building this is a daunting task as it is not immediately apparent who clearly is, or isn't, a complete homo. However, to help in the fun and games we have created a database on the intranet of the 53 complete homosexuals who work in the Engineering department here and another 22 who fall into the "grey" zone and have only indulged in occasional homo activities. The remaining 7 Engineers who are "clearly not homos" may be approached and called a homo.

However, following an International court ruling, female Engineers should not be approached on this day.

This leaves only Rob Chappell, who is clearly not a homo. Please feel free to call him one all day.

Have fun!