Reading things out of proportion

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

One of the bewildering twists and turns of my 37-year local government career actually resulted in my going berserk at Reading (Berks) – as opposed to Reading (Books). It was a simple chain of events. Oh, and the Books thing was just a cheap joke.

I worked at Rochdale MBC for six years in the seventies then went back to Bournemouth, where I was born and had begun an illustrious local government career in October 1966! Upon my return, there was a recession in the North West and thousands of workers were suffering a three-day week. The property market was therefore pretty stagnant in that area and I spent the next two years (the time it took to sell our house) travelling backwards and forwards on trains. The one I mostly caught (on every other Friday) was the daily 09.26 service (or was it the 09.24? it seemed to matter in them days) from Bournemouth Central to Manchester Piccadilly, which took a cross-country route (thus involving no changes in London) and took six hours or thereabouts.

One of the scheduled stops was Reading and, if my memory serves me right (it very often does on more than one level!), it was not long after the introduction of the whizzo Inter-City 125 service (so-called because the trains actually went 125 mph – well, when there wasn’t dust or jam on the tracks), one of which passed through Reading (without stopping) on the way from London to Exeter. It was quite impressive to see one of these new machines thundering through the station!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, going berserk. On my first journey on the jolly old 09.26, we duly arrived at Reading (forwards). Can you see where this is going? I thought I was going to be able to at the time. After some rather unnerving joltings, the train began to leave – backwards. Coupled with the need (entirely whimsical, I accept) to sit facing the direction of travel and the resumption of the journey in a direction completely opposite to that which had been hitherto prevalent, my senses took a turn for the berserkness. I could not understand why we were going in the opposite direction – obviously I was on the wrong train and goodness knows where I would end up, or how much more it would cost me (times were hard). For a short time, I ran amok with a mental machete, chopping the heads off passengers and an assortment of British Rail (remember them?) employees for not telling me I was on a train that was going anywhere other than my desired destination.

After I found out that Reading was where the diesel engine was replaced with an electric one and, via a system of intricate points and other nifty railway-type devices, we ended up going in a north-westerly direction as planned, my running amokness subsided and I returned to my seat, mentally apologising to all the people I had hacked to death in my information vacuum.

When all’s said and done, it had been an unnerving experience. Funny how the mind plays tricks.

Travelling Companion

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

On the sad occasion of Sheila’s stepfather’s funeral a few years ago, I had to drive up to my mother-in-law’s in Manchester; Sheila had already been there for a week, keeping her mother company. I thought it would be a good idea if Matt came with me, instead of going in the evening with his brother, his brother’s girl-friend and his cousin, so he could be company for me on the 250-mile journey.

Well, he was company in the sense that he was in the car. For the first two and a half hours, he watched ’24’ on his portable DVD player, then, when the battery failed, he made me stop at Warwick Services so he could get his CDs from his bag in the boot. My heart sank, for I knew then that Blink 182 were about to rattle my head, thus rendering all conversation impossible.

The next incident of note was his descent into a fairly deep sleep, to wake up only when we were five minutes away from my mother-in-law’s house.

So that was nice.

The Sausage and Mash Award

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

I wrote this in memory of a visit to Letchworth for a work meeting and, in particular, to a supper at the nearby hotel where I stayed overnight. Imagine a ceremony similar to the Oscars.

Gorgeous lady presenter: “And the Award For Having To Eat The Most Disgusting Sausage And Mash goes to……”

(pause for suspenseful effect)

“……Mr Hants Bluepants!” (raucous cheers, gorgeous presenter takes a deep breath and kisses me)

Me: “I just can’t believe it!” (I kiss the gorgeous lady presenter again). “This means so much to me. I was hoping that the hotel in Letchworth where I partook of the meal in question could have allowed the chef to attend tonight but he is busy poisoning some other unsuspecting diners or helping to clean up the customers’ vomit.

I would like to thank the first waitress who obviously misheard me when I consulted the Menu and ordered the ‘Sausages and Mash In A Yummy Gravy’ since she got the kitchen to rustle me up a dish of sewage instead.

Thanks are also due to the second waitress who brought the steaming, er, dish to me and asked if I wanted some tomato ketchup on it! On reflection, it might have improved the taste considerably.

I must take the opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the knife and fork – it couldn’t have been easy for them. And I couldn’t possibly have accomplished any eating at all without the help of extreme food deprivation brought about by a lack of lunch.

And when the first waitress came to collect my dish, she asked if everything had been all right. I cleverly avoided giving her a direct answer by asking if I could please pay the bill. What I should have said was that, yes, everything had been all right, inasmuch as it is all right to give someone food that has only marginally more flavour than industrial effluent, and actually resembles it, but it was 7.30pm and I was quite tired and emotional from a four-hour journey that should have only taken two and a half.

Thank you so much! I love you all!” (holds golden sausage aloft, gorgeous lady presenter backs away)

That really happened – except the award ceremony.

The Refreshment Break Scam

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

When you first started in local government (and, I suspect, any other similar job), you were the lowest form of life, namely the office junior. You did everyone else’s filing, had to go to the public counter when someone buzzed, answer the telephones and nip out to buy fags for a superior. However, all this administrative drudgery paled into insignificance when compared to the brilliantly conceived but frighteningly simple Refreshment Break Scam. The former junior (promoted to Plan Folding once you had arrived) would instruct you in the finer points of this lucrative process which would supplement your salary of £385 per annum. Oi! I don’t look that old!

It is probably best explained with an actual worked example and, as I recall the details for the purpose of this account, it has just struck me that, of the 16 employees in this particular office, none were female (well, not during normal working hours anyway) – a fact that has never occurred to me before. But that is not part of my tale.

You took orders for tea, coffee, plain buttered rolls and cheese rolls in the morning and only tea in the afternoon, then took a tray with teapot/coffeepot to the canteen across the back yard of the building where your orders were filled by Alice, the cook, who always had a cigarette hanging from her mouth, the ash always at the point where it was about to drop (and frequently did into whatever she was cooking, presumably). I don’t know who was worse, Alice or her successor, Betty. After Alice left, you always knew if suet pudding was going to be on the lunch menu when Betty wore only one elastic stocking. Well, I believed it at the time – I was only a young lad, after all. But I digress.

Suppose you had taken orders for 10 teas, 6 coffees, 5 buttered rolls and 8 cheese rolls. You would actually order 7 teas, 4 coffees (measuring quantities was by no means an exact science), 8 buttered rolls and 5 cheese rolls. On the way back from the canteen, you would redistribute the cheese from the cheese rolls to populate the 3 buttered rolls needed to make up the number of cheese rolls ordered. When you returned, you always had enough tea and coffee to fulfil the number ordered in the office and the right mix of plain and cheese rolls. Thus, you made a tidy profit and the poor fools suspected nothing!

I suppose I ought to have kept quiet about this – or does cheese fall within the statute of limitations?