Bricolage

Setright Machine

2019-03-16T12:05:00.000+00:00

The main focus of the rather abbreviated period of training thereafter was to learn how to use the Setright machine, the device that printed the tickets. The Setright was a marvellous steampunk contraption all dials and hieroglyphics with a name that seemed to be a triumph of branding. But I subsequently discovered that there had in fact been a Mr Setright who had invented the device and simply given his name to the company. This was no doubt one of the more obscure examples of nominative determinism, much more unlikely than Igor Judge eventually becoming Lord Chief Justice after passing through that phase of his professional life when he was Judge Judge.

From Setright Conundrums, Me Neither

Highsett

2018-12-17T11:05:00.000+00:00

Furthermore it was also well known that many of the roundsmen had houses where they might get a cup of tea or coffee with the lady of the house. And it would appear that some of them, got even more than that including, improbably as it seemed to me, Ron. I lived in a kind of queasy anticipation that I might soon be feebly fending off some Highsett Sophia Loren in a whirl of négligée. Alas I never got so much as a glimpse of winceyette pyjamas.

From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither

Amazon paperback.

Kindle edition here.

Image courtesy Dr Julian Paren, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42413097

Bristol Lodekka

2018-12-08T14:12:00.000+00:00

I was fairly doubtful about this plan. What if we passed an inspector en route which was far from improbable at that time of morning. Speedy thought for a bit and then suggested that we avoid the city centre altogether. He reasoned that an inspector would have no reason to be on duty on The Backs for example. He sketched out the route we would take and then we’d resume our schedule at Mitcham’s Corner. I wasn’t even sure that there was enough clearance for a double-decker bus on the route he was suggesting but I could see that the longer we debated the issue the later we were likely to be. No doubt my lack of moral fibre was connected to the monumental hang-over I was nursing so I agreed weakly, put up the Not In Service sign and hid myself in the back of the bus. A Bristol Lodekka LFS 45 is faster than a Morrison Electricar milk float, but not much. Despite that fact Speedy managed to coax an impressive performance from the lumbering beast and we made up most of the time lost due to my hangover. In my bilious state I couldn’t help imagining the puzzled looks on the faces of early morning walkers as they saw a double-decker bus screeching around some of the more scenic parts of Cambridge.

From Setright Conumdrums, Me Neither

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Kindle edition here.

1974 Cambridge Folk Festival

2018-11-27T14:14:00.000+00:00

This meant that each morning I drove by Cherry Hinton Hall. Since 1963 this had been the site of the Cambridge Folk Festival. The Hall was not actually part of my round but I was aware from the many posters that the festival would be taking place during my Cherry Hinton tour of duty. The line-up was right up my street—Arlo Guthrie, Loudon Wainwright III and Alan Stivell. I was starting to work out ways that I could do my round and still attend the festival. In the end common sense or apathy won out and I had to resign myself once again to observing gilded youth frolicking in a sylvan setting while I got my finances in order. At least I got to sleep in a comfortable bed.

From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither

Amazon paperback.

Kindle edition here.

Milk Bottles

2018-11-26T14:40:00.001+00:00

On my own everything seemed to take more than twice as long. To begin with I got into a terrible muddle loading the float. The different kinds of milk were indicated by aluminium foil bottle-tops—silver for whole milk, red for homogenised, red and silver for semi-skimmed (rare in those days) and green for unpasteurised. And a few people required sterilised milk which came in a different shaped bottle with a crown cap like a beer bottle. So it was important to get the right quantities on your float. Unfortunately I had forgotten to make this calculation before arriving at the depot, so I was trying to add up quantities from my log book whilst parked up at the loading-bay much to the annoyance of my colleagues.

From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither

Amazon paperback.

Kindle edition here.

Morrison Electricar

2018-11-07T22:44:00.000+00:00

Image courtesy Don Reid (donreid103 on Flickr)

The vehicles we had were Morrisons. The top speed of an electric milk float is nothing to write home about although its acceleration from 0-15 mph or so is considerable. There was no gear stick, just a switch for forward and reverse, an accelerator pedal, a brake pedal and a hand brake. The cab had a windscreen and a roof but was open at the sides. One of the things I had admired about Ron was the way he drove standing up with the log book in front of him and a pencil behind his ear. And I concluded one of the reasons why he got around so quickly was the way he would jump in the cab and stamp down on the accelerator whilst checking on his next delivery. My attempts to emulate this advanced technique brought me to grief on two occasions.

On the first of these I was parked at the top of Station Road pointing towards the station. I had just delivered to the Station Hotel on the other side of the road. I crossed back to the float jumped in and without sitting down aimed the float at the mini roundabout in front of the station. As I went into the rounda- bout I realised that I was going a little fast to be going into a 180 degree turn. To make matters worse because I was standing up I was thrown off balance and my weight came down more for- cibly on the accelerator. A milk float with its attendant batteries is too heavy to turn over but I had not been particularly meticulous in stacking and restacking the crates on the flatbed of the float and as I careened around the roundabout one of the crates toppled of the back of the float and crashed onto the road.

There was broken glass everywhere though fortunately not too much milk, the uppermost crates being for the empties. I brought the float to a halt and went back and surveyed the dam- age. I scooped up as much glass as I could without lacerating my hands and kicked the rest into the gutter and then I made off back down Station Road a little more sedately, vaguely aware of the stares of commuters heading for the London train. I lived in dread for the next couple of days that complaints would flood into the depot from taxi drivers and motorists about broken glass in Station Road causing punctures. Fortunately there were none as far as I was aware.

An even more embarrassing accident lay in wait for me a few weeks later. The last task of the working day before driving the float to the charging station was to offload the empties. Once again I was a little late in getting back and a large tanker was already parked at the loading bay. I pulled in front of it and then had to back up to it to get my crates off. Space was tight but I was only going to be a few minutes. So I got very close indeed to the tanker and then set about getting the crates off. Split splat. Done in no time at all. I jumped into the cab once again and in full emulation of Ron’s technique stamped on the accelerator and reversed rapidly into the tanker. Once again broken glass everywhere, this time the brake and the rear side lights of the float. I had had to switch to reverse to back up to the tanker but had forgotten to switch to forward before leaving the cab.

From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither

I am not my own subject. But now I am not so sure

2018-11-07T16:30:00.003+00:00

I began a cursory study of memoirs and was irritated to find that Gore Vidal had already bagged Palimpsest, a title I had been toying with. But as I grumpily leafed through the book I discovered that Vidal had had his own qualms about the genre. In fact he claims in the introduction that he had never previously entertained the idea of writing a memoir because he did not consider himself his own subject, but now he was not so sure.

From Brought to Book, Me Neither

Me Neither

2018-10-31T16:22:00.001+00:00

Me Neither is a memoir of the years 1974-88. It celebrates a haphazard approach to building a career in the wake of the turbulent economic circumstances generated by the oil crisis of 1973. It also documents what were in effect the first stirrings of the gig economy.

Despite the advantage of a privileged education the author's first job on graduating from Cambridge University is as a milkman. This is followed by stints as a bus conductor, stage hand and theatre box office assistant. After a sojourn in the Western Highlands writing a play, the author returns to London and talks his way into a number of jobs in marketing and magazine publishing. This phase is in turn superseded by a move into politics first as a local government officer at the GLC in the Ken Livingstone era and then as a magazine publisher for the Labour Party.

Along the way there are glimpses of Cambridge, London and Scotland in the 1970s and Germany and the USA at the start of the 1980s. There is an account of the difficulties of magazine publishing in the pre-digital age and about parliamentary procedure in the House of Lords before it was reformed by Tony Blair's administration. There is inevitably some discussion of Labour politics. There are also plentiful references to the popular music of the era, both live and recorded.

Memoir cannot help looking back and in the case of Me Neither with a certain amount of affection at a period whose stock is currently low. As the sorrows emanating from the Pandora's box of digital technology and a multi-polar world order become ever more apparent, the analog, bilateral world of the Cold War era is inevitably bathed in a nostalgic glow. If there is a nascent revisionism towards the 1970s, then this book is a part of that tendency.

From Introduction, Me Neither