Cadets and 'The Who' sell out...

Yesterday, Mrs S and I were murmering about how much we liked 'The Who', and actually played their seminal album from the sixties. I'd known all these songs almost by heart since then and a chance visit to 'Circuit City' in Richmond VA, had unearthed a cassette, during a visit some years ago.

This all started because for no reason, the song 'Substitute' came into this ol' grey head, and I immediately thought of 'Senior Service Cadets' cigarettes.

Back in the impoverished student sixties, the young surveyor's salary wasn't that great; in fact there were even a few articled surveyors still around, which is an anachronism which would make today's business starters reach for the protest march handle.

The few pounds I earned were upgraded by my generous Dad, who'd always urged the Sprog Scrobs to go for a profession, or something similar. The accumulated cash (about £8.00 a week) usually went on much the same as anything today, like digs, rugby subs, train fares, egg and chips, a few beers, and of course, some fags.

When I returned to the vast bosoms of my landlady, on a Monday, I'd be well in with some folding money, and her rent (£4.00) was always paid on the dot. And, because the rest of the cash was holed up in a rapidly burning pocket, the week would start with twenty 'Players Gold Leaf', which would last about a day and a half. This would continue until about Wednesday, when it was down to one egg and chips, and I also needed some shillings for a few halves of bitter most nights, but by the Thursday, the pocket was considerably lighter than it had been on the Monday.

That was the moment when these tiny sixpences and shillings were counted up, (several times) and I'd realise that 4s-7d (23p), was out of the question for any more Gold Leaf, and it was down to the Cadets at 3s-9d (19p).

And so the last evening at work (I went home on Friday evenings), was spent enjoying the rasp of those little smokes, a couple of halves of the cheapest bitter I could find in 'The Duke of Marlborough' Ashford, and - yes, with the chums agreeing - a threepenny play of 'The Who's 'Substitute' on the juke box...

Yet another junket...

My dear Mum used to make this stuff regularly.

Somehow, because of the expectation of something sweeter than the chocolate drops I'd buy by the hundred-weight from the local shop on a Saturday afternoon when I was about ten; my lovely sister and I would go 'Woooooh' and scoop it down without a murmer.

While nurturing GD today, she sat in her high chair, (Grand Daughter, not Mrs S...), and proceeded to spit out another similar delicacy from the Scrobs' formative years - egg custard!

The subsequent discussion ended in confusion, GD looking slightly bilious, and JRT rushing round the floor, hoovering up anything which had been dropped! We both wondered why we used to eat junket, or egg custard, and have decided that it was a delicacy which will always remain in some infantile fantasy, something which was so special because our Mothers had decided it was, and we'd better sit down and enjoy it - or else, but, it will never actually get a mention on a McDonalds menu.

More's the pity, I learned that egg custard had nutmeg sprayed all over it, and also what rennet actually did to milk all those years ago.

Fat lot of good that did...

One too many mornings...

Yesterday, I caught a radio snippet of an obit on Suze Rotolo, whose picture graced many a schoolboy's study wall in the nineteen sixties.

The commentator mentioned that Joan Baez, after she had become Bob Dylan's squeeze, popped a few songs into her covers of Dylan's songs.

It might have been a bit thoughtless for Joan to sing a love song which Bob had written for Suze, but there you go...

Does anyone know what this bit does...

One of my business partners has given me a printer. It is a good printer, and because he is a photographer par excellence in his spare time, he makes sure that his pictures are top quality. So when a new printer is put on the market, he is generous to a fault about what to do with the one he is replacing, which is an honourable state of affairs, and one for which I am eternally grateful, because our printer packed up recently, and I'm using a pencil.

So today, all three of us in Scrobs Inc. had one of our regular get-togethers, with another old chum who seems to know where the money is, and from whom we have had some spiriting advice and assistance as well as a lot of friendly banter.

BP brought the previous printer with him to pass on to me and I was drooling at the switches, lights, etc, which these state-of-the-art machines seem to sport these days, and I was commencing to dream of being able to write pompous letters to 'The Times' and do other pursuits like scan old pics etc.

That was right up to the moment that the said printer was being tranferred from the boot of his car to the clutches of your very own Scrobs. We'd covered the printer with a plastic bin bag because it was raining, and BP was busily collecting the various items for me, while I said 'cheerio' to our guest and friend.

There was suddenly a resounding crash, and pieces of Epson were heard hitting the tarmac with quite a lot of anguish, and plenty of noise.

There was a deathly hush; I eventually regained the skin out of which I had jumped in terror, and BP was understandably very upset that the rain had made the plastic very slippery, and the printer had gone extremely south.

There was no need to remonstrate, you just don't need to do that because we are friends, and so I took the bag containing the bits of printer home and Mrs S and I examined the damage.

The lid was broken off, and several pieces of important plastic were rattling around in the bag, but, after several false starts, it all seems to be back in one piece, after a little glue here and there, and a choice version of various curse words everywhere, such that JRT has vanished clutching her ears with her front paws.

So tomorrow, when all has dried, I'll see if it works, but I'm puzzled by just one item (above) which doesn't seem to have a home, and I'd be delighted if anyone can recognise it and tell me where it goes!

I thank you!

Reevers' reminder of Scrobs' Big Idiot Card...

When Scrobs was a younger bloke, and just finding out a few things, he joined several friends and went on a couple of holidays in Spain and Italy, for a little water skiing, several drinks each lunchtime and evening and a multitude of Three Castles tipped...

It was a grand couple of weeks on each occasion, and among all the general festivities being enjoyed by our throng (about fifteen of us), there was community singing in the bar each evening, with Scrobs on a very basic, but much loved guitar.

As Reevers has prompted me to reminisce, we used to have several party pieces which crept into the repertoire after certain levels of tinctured jollity, and 'The Three Bells' was a late entry into the finales of each evening, much to the chagrin of most of the other residents, and sometimes a few of the hangers-on as well...

It's been mentioned here that this particular song has a great history with the Scrobs dynasty, and so it seems, with the Clan Reevers as well!

So, at the risk of repeating myself, saying everything for a second time, and reiterating past posts and comments, I can safely say that when we used to sing this song, we could always forget the order of the verses, and also the order of each of the lines - even the words in each line or verse as well! After much happiness and laughter, the song would echo into the rafters with a giggle and a chuckle and a "where are my my smokes", or "who's shout is it..."! Yates would always say 'What key are we in' and he was tone deaf!

One year, we all went to a party which was intended to be a post-holiday re-enactment of all the fun we'd had at these various gatherings. When the evening was going full swing, our host (an osteopath of some renown) called the meeting to order, handed Scrobs his concert guitar, and ordered everyone to sit up and listen. He the proceeded to unfurl a huge roll of paper on which he'd written the correct words to the song for us all to sing - probably for the first time ever, and it worked like a dream!

Magical moments like this last a lifetime.

That lucky old sun...

I have a sneaky suspicion that the Scrobs frame and brain has been interspersed with a teragram of Vitamin D!

Why, yesterday, the sleeves of the 'Twickenham/Hard Winter/stop being a prat and light the bloody fire' jersey were nearly rolled up, and today, I forgot to take a scarf when we walked JRT!

This must be a sign of 'Globule Worming', and I claim my five splonders...

R.I.P. Ron Hickman - Workmate inventor...

Ron Hickman was a proper inventor.

This obit says far too little about all the work which has been spawned by such an amazing piece of kit. I inherited two Workmates, and always use the original one, (I gave the later one to my BIL). Mine is made of the distinctive blue painted alloy struts, and is one of the very first ever made in the sixties. I love it, because it has made work at home so much easier! They really were a godsend when they first came out.

Mine (in fact technically ours, as it once belonged to Mrs S's dad), has had all sorts of things done on it, and before anyone asks, the answer is 'no' as it's the wrong height...

We've used it as scaffolding (plastering and painting ceilings), a vice of course, in every position imaginable (again - 'NO'), very recently as a frame to hold the 'Scrobs White-Finger Saw', a BBQ table (it comes out every year), and it probably gets a run out every week of the year on some job or other! It really has emerged as an iconic piece of machinery, and has endured all sorts of abuse for over forty years!

I even tried to make my own version when we were first married, and couldn't get to the price, which was - I think, about £36.00 back then...

And, to cap it all, this man designed the Lotus Elan, a car which has always been a fantasy buy for Scrobs, which must be a whole story in itself!

'Bye Ron! I'll be out in the shed using that special bit of kit today and will think of you for a while. I'll also raise a tincture in your memory, just a nano-second before I walk round one of the extended lower legs, and trip headlong, as I've done on over three million occasions...