Adge’s brother, Crash, is an occasional but welcome visitor to the Grot. I’m delighted to see him as I walk in because Piggy is busy and I don’t really want to be stuck with just Adge and Ossie for company.
Ossie is a fine keeper of ale, but unbearable at the moment because he is convinced his team is going to win the FA Cup and cannot keep off the subject.
Adge is, well just Adge. Lovely fella, with a heart of gold, but ‘intellectually challenged’ I’m afraid, and hard work sometimes.
‘So Crash, how’s things going on the railway then?’
I forgot to mention, didn’t I, that Crash works for Great Western Railway. He joined British Rail, as was, after a brief apprenticeship in carpentry with his and Adge’s father ended in disaster.
From what I have been told they had a bathroom refurbishment to do on one of the big houses up by the Manor. The job ran into three or four days and to make access easier the bathroom door had to be taken off. This didn’t stop Crash blundering upstairs one morning while the lady of the house was concentrating on what ladies of the house concentrate on first thing in the morning.
The version I have heard would have it that the lady of the house completed doing what ladies of the house do at that time of the morning rather quicker than was originally intended while Crash stood there aghast but transfixed at her plight.
After that it was thought he would be better off with a ’safe’ job on the railway. He had not been in the job long when he was tasked with supervising the shunting operations at the local car factory. The fact that he took that task all too literally was the reason for him acquiring his nickname.
It cannot be too easy to reverse a train loaded with brand new cars into a siding that has been made too narrow by the temporary siting of a mobile crane. It must be quite a feat to scrape all of the vehicles on the transporter on the way back, realise your mistake, and scrape them all again as you bring them back up the line without having the crane moved!
Astonishingly the union were able to save him from the sack and he was shunted out to the first of a series of village stations where he has been ticket seller, porter, handyman, and even sometimes acting Station Manager. He tells some cracking tales about life on the railway.
He is also good company because he enjoys 2L as much as me, and we can lose a night in double quick time at this time of year discussing the prospects for the upcoming cricket season, before stumbling down the road chuckling about his brother!
I wonder what, if any, tales of work-related disasters will keep my grandkids amused when they reach their later years. In this age of Health and Safety, impotent unions, and ruthless managers, I suspect not many. A good thing, I accept, in most respects, but where will the characters be?
Cheers Crash. I hope you come back again soon.
Tags: apprenticeship, characters, railway, safety, the Grot