The Pickled Egg Library

[Hell Razor5543]

Another item from The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures, and it will be obvious WHY I have typed it up.

Our Sort of Bomb,

Digging near his home in Cottishall in Norfolk in September 2004, David Page unearthed a rusting piece of metal resembling a camping gas cylinder. Only when he pushed the button at one end did it occur to him that this might be a highly dangerous unexploded bomb. Clearly something had to be done.

Sweating with fear, he phoned the police and was told not to let go. With tremendous ingenuity he taped the device to his hand so he could not release the trigger-like button. 'I was absolutely terrified that I would be blown into a million pieces. The woman police operator kept telling me that it would be OK, but I said to her "You're not the one holding the bomb"'.

As an extra precaution he buried his hand in a barrel of sand, 'I thought, "If it does go off I hopefully only lose my arm"'. What a man.

Police arrived and cordoned off a two-mile area, then called in the army. 'Tell my family I love them if the worst happens', Mr. Page told the police telephone operator. There was no need because his equally courageous wife Joanne now arrived and refused to leave his side.

Spoiler: show

As it turned out, the bomb was a Citroen car part. Was his courage in any way diminished by the facts? Of course not. Incredibly, there is no medal the Queen can give this brave man. Perhaps Citroen could honour him?

[CitroJim]

My first forays into the world of electronics was very much via old TVs and to a lesser extent radios. I got good enough at fixing TVs by the age of 12 to land a nice little Saturday and School Holiday job at or local TV shop, working in the workshop and out on the road with the resident engineer doing field calls.

I worked there right up until I left home to undertake an apprenticeship that would lead to a long and interesting professional radio engineering career. My grounding in domestic TV and radio helped no end...

I have never lost my love of tellies from the 60s and 70s and my early experiences of being in the trade and still have it. I was still fixing them up until the late 80s as a side-hustle.

A few days ago, in a TV Servicing Nostalgia Group I follow on Facebook, I spotted this book has just been published. I just had to get it

It's just arrived... I could tell some tales from many field calls too

I'm wondering if the author was ever offered payment for his work at a customer's house in the form of a 'hairy cheque'... I'll let you all work out what that actually means All I can say that I was - just the once, memorably!

[CitroJim]

Maybe a little niche for the general PE Library readership...

It is, I must admit, a bit heavy-going in places but a veritable bible for the job I do

[mickthemaverick]

Maybe a little niche for the general PE Library readership...



It is, I must admit, a bit heavy-going in places but a veritable bible for the job I do

And maybe not!!

[CitroJim]

Indeed, I know at least one other member of this fine forum who's a very skilled and competitive time triallist You know him too Mick...

[mickthemaverick]

Indeed I do, not to mention the Scottish contingent, which is why I said maybe not!

[mickthemaverick]

My find today, Bradshaw's Handbook definitely deserves a place in the PE Library. Apart from the incredible insight into 19th Century Britain it also holds some beautiful illustrations:

MTMO

MTMO

[CitroJim]

Excellent! Would love a look at that Mick

[mickthemaverick]

Already in the car for Tuesday Jim!!

[CitroJim]

Already in the car for Tuesday Jim!!

Magic

[Hell Razor5543]

I have recently re-discovered the "McAuslan" series of books by George McDonald Fraser. Very funny, sometimes poignant, and almost certainly all true. Set in the period just after WW2, it follows a junior officer in a Highland regiment having to deal with his platoon. There are three books ('The General Danced at Dawn', 'McAuslan in the Rough', and 'The Sheikh and the Dustbin'), but they can be bought together as 'The Complete McAuslan'.

The last 'chapter' of the last book 'The Sheikh and the Dustbin' details a meeting between the Author and his former commanding officer (initially at a book signing session). They had been discussing the various stories, and the Colonel had asked why George had claimed the Highland regiment was fictitious (it was for protection against possible libel). The conversation continued thus; "Well, there is a bit of exaggeration here and there - and I have said that I've used my imagination-" "As if you ever had any! Mark you - you've certainly used it in one direction." He made a performance of filling his pipe, grumbling to himself and looking across the room. "You've been far too dam' kind to that old Colonel," he said gruffly. It was my turn to study my glass. "Not half as kind as he was to me," I said.

Although they never met again they remained in touch. The final paragraph reads;

And then one morning I got a phone call to say that he had died, in Erskine Hospital above the Clyde, where old Scottish soldiers go. And because he was, as fairly as I could depict him, the Colonel of these stories, I inscribe this book to his memory, with gratitude and affection, and with no qualms whatsoever about identification.

Lieutenant-Colonel R. G. (Reggie) Lees
2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

"Ninety-twa, no' deid yet"

Warning. The books were written between 1970 and 1990 about a time some seventy years ago (from todays' date), where attitudes were very different to today, so if you find them offensive don't say that you were not warned.