You know how, when you splat a fly (if you're quick enough!) it's a sudden death, albeit there's a bit of a mess to clean up; ... that's something like I felt this afternoon. Let me start at the beginning. On Friday evening, I returned from a couple of good jobs at around 6.30, to find the controller on the phone, taking a rather complicated instruction for a job later in the evening. As I listened, and watched what he was writing, I realised that part of the job involved a visit to an electronic engineer to whom I'd delivered many times before, about 30 miles away.
Since I knew at least that part of the job, and because the week had been a little straitened income-wise, I suggested that he get me to do it. He was pleased, because it meant that he wouldn't have the bother of calling someone else out. The upshot was that, by the time I'd met another engineer in the centre of a city some 100 miles away - the second part of the job - and returned home, it was 3.0 am, and well past my bedtime! Since I had no special plans for Saturday, I didn't mind this, and it was wonderful to wake up to wall-to-wall sunshine, instead of pre-dawn mist and fog.
Then this morning after church, I called at the cashpoint before driving the last leg of the short journey home. As I stood there, keying in my PIN, I heard my mobile register an incoming text. It was my voicemail, trying to tell me that I had a message ... only there wasn't one, and no missed call either! Puzzled, I mentally dismissed it as an electronic quirk, came home and thought about lunch. Then the phone rang with a proper call. It was the controller from work. Now, normally I don't work on Sundays as a matter of principle. However, he knows that I don't mind being disturbed if it's only to pick up something for delivery on Monday, and that was the case today.
I was gone only about three-quarters of an hour, and returned with one small box, to deliver about two-and-a-half hours' drive away in the morning. The only thing is that, in order to get there by the required delivery time, I shall have to be up at around 3.30 am. With this hanging over me, as it were, the afternoon has seemed somewhat artificial. I'm not sure how I can better describe it. I haven't been able to settle to any particular task, because I know that I won't have the usual length of Sunday afternoon and evening before me, in which to get to grips with anything.
The weekend was foreshortened at the start, and now with bedtime fast approaching, it will end prematurely as well. It's just one more restriction in the haphazard life of a 24-hour courier, I suppose .... I'm glad I'm not a fly, though!
Sunday 20 November 2011
Thursday 17 November 2011
Good ringing - and a bit of photography
Ringing is commonplace ... well, it is for bellringers, at any rate. If you are unfortunate not to like the sound of bells and live next to a church (and why would you?) it's no pleasure, I grant you. But for the rest of us, the nights when it all comes together, and a touch is rung without a slip or a clash, and no one loses their way ... it's sheer bliss - a real privilege to be part of!
And then there's that special occasion, when there's a need for the ringing to be a little out of the ordinary. A special service, perhaps, when we need to get it right because there's an important guest. Or when a prominent resident has an umptieth birthday. On such occasions, we often ring (or attempt to ring) a quarter peal. That's a particular composition including at least 1,250 changes, and it requires about three-quarters of an hour of non-stop ringing. But the sound itself is still commonplace - especially to the untrained ear: ding, dong, ding, dong,
Last Sunday evening, we rang a quarter peal for Remembrance Sunday. Now this was most definitely NOT commonplace. Instead of ding, dong, ding, dong, the bells were half-muffled, and the sound was ding, dong, bing, bong! Since I wasn't actually taking part in the ringing, I decided to go along with my camera and record this unusual occurrence.
The first change rang out with the usual vibrant sound of metal on metal, but the next change sounded the more mellow tone of leather on metal. To achieve this, the clapper of each bell is muted by strapping onto it a leather pad. We have to be careful to get the pads, called 'muffles' fixed to the same side of each clapper, or else some of the dull strokes would be mixed with the 'open' or normal strokes, and vice versa. Of course, the muffles have to be on the correct side of the clappers, so that the first stroke is the open one and the second is the muffled one; and they have to be fastened securely, too. If not, with all the vibration of ringing, they can slip around the clapper, allowing the metal to strike the bell at both strokes, with the muffle hanging uselessly by the side. If this should happen, we all know who to blame - the poor steeplekeeper - although the 'blame' is cast with broad smiles and no rancour, because we all know how difficult this can be in a dimly lit bell-chamber, with a howling and chilling gale whistling around the ears (and elsewhere!)
Muffled, or half-muffled, ringing sometimes marks the funeral of a much respected member of the community, and in some places is part of the New Year celebrations. The old year is rung out with muffled bells, and the new one rung in with the bells open. To achieve this, someone has to scurry rapidly up to the bells to remove the muffles as quickly as possible between the two pieces of ringing. This is not only difficult, as noted above, but is also very dangerous because, with the bells raised into the ringing position, each one is precariously balanced, without restraint.
Such a task might be undertaken by two people together, so that one could lift the clapper and perhaps steady the bell, while the other one attacked the fastenings of the muffle. All the time, both of them would have to be extremely careful not to nudge one of the other bells, and knock if off balance. Quite apart from the effects of the noise when a bell is rung close by (have you read Dorothy L Sayers' excellent book 'The Nine Tailors'?), if one's body happens to be in the path of the moving bell, serious injury is almost certain to ensue, since a piece of moving metal weighing anything up to a tonne is somewhat unforgiving, to say the least! For these reasons, while it may have been common in past ages, this practice is quite rare today, since attention to bells while they are in this position is widely forbidden on health and safety grounds.
When teaching beginners to ring, we always warn of the dangers inherent in the art, and the need to respect the bells and their power. At the same time it is clear to anyone spending time in a ringing chamber just what a lot of fun there is to be had there, as well as healthy exercise for both mind and body.
And then there's that special occasion, when there's a need for the ringing to be a little out of the ordinary. A special service, perhaps, when we need to get it right because there's an important guest. Or when a prominent resident has an umptieth birthday. On such occasions, we often ring (or attempt to ring) a quarter peal. That's a particular composition including at least 1,250 changes, and it requires about three-quarters of an hour of non-stop ringing. But the sound itself is still commonplace - especially to the untrained ear: ding, dong, ding, dong,
Last Sunday evening, we rang a quarter peal for Remembrance Sunday. Now this was most definitely NOT commonplace. Instead of ding, dong, ding, dong, the bells were half-muffled, and the sound was ding, dong, bing, bong! Since I wasn't actually taking part in the ringing, I decided to go along with my camera and record this unusual occurrence.
The first change rang out with the usual vibrant sound of metal on metal, but the next change sounded the more mellow tone of leather on metal. To achieve this, the clapper of each bell is muted by strapping onto it a leather pad. We have to be careful to get the pads, called 'muffles' fixed to the same side of each clapper, or else some of the dull strokes would be mixed with the 'open' or normal strokes, and vice versa. Of course, the muffles have to be on the correct side of the clappers, so that the first stroke is the open one and the second is the muffled one; and they have to be fastened securely, too. If not, with all the vibration of ringing, they can slip around the clapper, allowing the metal to strike the bell at both strokes, with the muffle hanging uselessly by the side. If this should happen, we all know who to blame - the poor steeplekeeper - although the 'blame' is cast with broad smiles and no rancour, because we all know how difficult this can be in a dimly lit bell-chamber, with a howling and chilling gale whistling around the ears (and elsewhere!)
Muffled, or half-muffled, ringing sometimes marks the funeral of a much respected member of the community, and in some places is part of the New Year celebrations. The old year is rung out with muffled bells, and the new one rung in with the bells open. To achieve this, someone has to scurry rapidly up to the bells to remove the muffles as quickly as possible between the two pieces of ringing. This is not only difficult, as noted above, but is also very dangerous because, with the bells raised into the ringing position, each one is precariously balanced, without restraint.
Such a task might be undertaken by two people together, so that one could lift the clapper and perhaps steady the bell, while the other one attacked the fastenings of the muffle. All the time, both of them would have to be extremely careful not to nudge one of the other bells, and knock if off balance. Quite apart from the effects of the noise when a bell is rung close by (have you read Dorothy L Sayers' excellent book 'The Nine Tailors'?), if one's body happens to be in the path of the moving bell, serious injury is almost certain to ensue, since a piece of moving metal weighing anything up to a tonne is somewhat unforgiving, to say the least! For these reasons, while it may have been common in past ages, this practice is quite rare today, since attention to bells while they are in this position is widely forbidden on health and safety grounds.
When teaching beginners to ring, we always warn of the dangers inherent in the art, and the need to respect the bells and their power. At the same time it is clear to anyone spending time in a ringing chamber just what a lot of fun there is to be had there, as well as healthy exercise for both mind and body.
Wednesday 9 November 2011
What did you do in the War, Daddy?
If I remember it correctly, today's BBC news alleged that there is a body of opinion that says that wearing a poppy is a sign of blind right-wing support of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether that bizarre idea is fact or not, I thought I'd just post a note of why I 'wear my poppy with pride'.
The literal answer to the question above is, 'not a lot.' Being a farm worker, and therefore in a reserved occupation, my father's wartime experience was limited to the Home Guard. While that didn't make me any less proud of him, I did have two uncles who saw active service in the Royal Norfolk Regt. One became an uncle through later marrying my mother's sister. He served in India, and was sent home because of illness. During his convalescence, he learned to embroider, and our homes were decorated with some beautiful examples of his handiwork.
The other was an uncle by birth, being my mother's brother. He was captured at the fall of Singapore in February 1942, and died of malaria on the Burma railway eighteen terrible months later. Some adults find it awkward to speak of death to children, and this was possibly even more the case in former ages. However, I can't recall ever being unaware of his existence and his death. Perhaps - as I have lately come to realise - because my mother was so close to him, she felt it natural to speak of him as I was growing up. She often said that I resembled him - and that, too, I can now confirm as I plough through the photo albums I have inherited.
Then, early during my family history investigations, I came across a first cousin who died while serving in the RAF. It was only in the last few years, however, that I discovered the circumstances of his death. He was with an Operational Training Unit in Derbyshire, and volunteered to be included in a flight of four Albemarles who were transferred to a base in Berkshire to be part of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force in action in conjunction with the D-Day landings. A group of 147 planes, a mixture of C-47 Skytrains, Dakotas, Albemarles and Halifaxes, took off on the night of 5th June 1944 to tow gliders across the channel. One Albemarle was among those that didn't return to base - no. P-1442, whose crew included my cousin.
So, it is with great personal pride that I wear my poppy each year, in memory - a memory that I have never been able to know personally, of course - of
Pte. Charles W J Sturgeon, 4th Bn, Royal Norfolk Regt. and
Sgt. Wilfred T Francis, 42 OTU, RAF
RIP
The literal answer to the question above is, 'not a lot.' Being a farm worker, and therefore in a reserved occupation, my father's wartime experience was limited to the Home Guard. While that didn't make me any less proud of him, I did have two uncles who saw active service in the Royal Norfolk Regt. One became an uncle through later marrying my mother's sister. He served in India, and was sent home because of illness. During his convalescence, he learned to embroider, and our homes were decorated with some beautiful examples of his handiwork.
The other was an uncle by birth, being my mother's brother. He was captured at the fall of Singapore in February 1942, and died of malaria on the Burma railway eighteen terrible months later. Some adults find it awkward to speak of death to children, and this was possibly even more the case in former ages. However, I can't recall ever being unaware of his existence and his death. Perhaps - as I have lately come to realise - because my mother was so close to him, she felt it natural to speak of him as I was growing up. She often said that I resembled him - and that, too, I can now confirm as I plough through the photo albums I have inherited.
Then, early during my family history investigations, I came across a first cousin who died while serving in the RAF. It was only in the last few years, however, that I discovered the circumstances of his death. He was with an Operational Training Unit in Derbyshire, and volunteered to be included in a flight of four Albemarles who were transferred to a base in Berkshire to be part of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force in action in conjunction with the D-Day landings. A group of 147 planes, a mixture of C-47 Skytrains, Dakotas, Albemarles and Halifaxes, took off on the night of 5th June 1944 to tow gliders across the channel. One Albemarle was among those that didn't return to base - no. P-1442, whose crew included my cousin.
So, it is with great personal pride that I wear my poppy each year, in memory - a memory that I have never been able to know personally, of course - of
Pte. Charles W J Sturgeon, 4th Bn, Royal Norfolk Regt. and
Sgt. Wilfred T Francis, 42 OTU, RAF
RIP
Wednesday 2 November 2011
To do or not to do!
It won't really matter if some items fall off the bottom of the to-do list; others stand at the opposite end of the scale of importance, and must be done by certain deadlines. And yet others spread themselves at leisure along that broad swathe in between: any old time will do, so long as they get done eventually. I confess that I'm a bit of a timing snob. If something has to be done by a specific date - like submitting a tax return - I tend to jump on it as soon as it's possible to do it, and get it done out of the way. I've just submitted my VAT Return for the quarter ending 31st October, notwithstanding that, because I do it on line the deadline for it isn't until 7th December. As soon as I had all the figures to hand, it just had to be done! And just in case I should forget (I've never forgotten in the nine years I've been registered!), the reminder e-mail had been sitting in my inbox for the last couple of weeks since it arrived, and has now been gleefully deleted.
As well as being punctual to extremes, I'm also lazy, and well aware of it - and the two don't make happy bedfellows. For the most part, when it comes to domestic chores - for which there are no deadlines - the only person their execution or otherwise affects is me. The landlord's agent comes to inspect the flat every quarter and, to be fair, so long as I don't vandalise the place, break windows, wrench doors from their hinges, etc., I don't think she's really bothered. Nevertheless, the fact of her regular visit usually sends me on a guilt trip as I think of all the housework I haven't done, and the weekend next before the promised visitation sees me in a whirl of frantic activity which I'm sure is less than efficient, and could be totally avoided if only I were a bit more organised in that department.
Last week brought a pinprick of a reminder of things not being done when they should have been. I say pinprick because the effect was merely that my earnings were about £10 less than ought to have been the case, although through no fault of my own. What really annoyed me, however, was the underlying cause of this loss. I shall explain. In common with most self-employed courier drivers, I get paid only for the jobs that I do. It won't surprise my readers to learn that the value of each job is determined by the distance travelled, i.e. from base to pick-up to delivery. The advantage of working under contract to an agency is that both the procurement of work and the security of payment are handled by them - as also is that most delicate of all commercial flowers, Customer Relations.
Imagine for a moment that you are a regular customer, sending goods on a weekly basis to a single destination. You could be forgiven for making some complaint if one week you were charged £40, the next £45, and the next £38, and so on. Unless you had been advised of some specific change in pricing policy, you would expect the same job to cost the same amount week in, week out. To ensure the smooth running of the business, when our jobs are charged to the customers each one is checked to see whether it has been done before, and if so, then it is charged at the same price. The importance will therefore be appreciated that, when a new job is undertaken, it is priced correctly.
Twice last week I was sent on a particular job that I hadn't done before. I was sent nominally to a large market town in the adjacent county, but when I collected the goods, I discovered that they were consigned to a village some ten miles further on - nearer, in fact, to the next market town than to the one designated. Accordingly, when I returned to the office, I pointed this matter out, thinking that the price would require adjustment. It is often the case that customers will just name the postal town as a guide to the area where the goods are going when they book a job, rather than the specific destination. For planning purposes this is sufficient. Most drivers recognise that, if the job takes them far from where they were originally told, it's in their interest, as well as that of the firm, to let the office staff know. On this occasion I was told that, although it had only now fallen to me, this job has been done daily for several weeks, and no one had advised this discrepancy before! Now, of course, a precedent has been established, and since this is one of our major customers, whose feathers are not to be ruffled, no price adjustment will be made.
My complaint had been overheard by other drivers. There is now widespread disquiet, and some reluctance on the part of many to accept that job, now it's generally realised that it will be underpaid. And all because the first driver to do the job - whoever he may have been - didn't highlight the error when it could have been put right!
As well as being punctual to extremes, I'm also lazy, and well aware of it - and the two don't make happy bedfellows. For the most part, when it comes to domestic chores - for which there are no deadlines - the only person their execution or otherwise affects is me. The landlord's agent comes to inspect the flat every quarter and, to be fair, so long as I don't vandalise the place, break windows, wrench doors from their hinges, etc., I don't think she's really bothered. Nevertheless, the fact of her regular visit usually sends me on a guilt trip as I think of all the housework I haven't done, and the weekend next before the promised visitation sees me in a whirl of frantic activity which I'm sure is less than efficient, and could be totally avoided if only I were a bit more organised in that department.
Last week brought a pinprick of a reminder of things not being done when they should have been. I say pinprick because the effect was merely that my earnings were about £10 less than ought to have been the case, although through no fault of my own. What really annoyed me, however, was the underlying cause of this loss. I shall explain. In common with most self-employed courier drivers, I get paid only for the jobs that I do. It won't surprise my readers to learn that the value of each job is determined by the distance travelled, i.e. from base to pick-up to delivery. The advantage of working under contract to an agency is that both the procurement of work and the security of payment are handled by them - as also is that most delicate of all commercial flowers, Customer Relations.
Imagine for a moment that you are a regular customer, sending goods on a weekly basis to a single destination. You could be forgiven for making some complaint if one week you were charged £40, the next £45, and the next £38, and so on. Unless you had been advised of some specific change in pricing policy, you would expect the same job to cost the same amount week in, week out. To ensure the smooth running of the business, when our jobs are charged to the customers each one is checked to see whether it has been done before, and if so, then it is charged at the same price. The importance will therefore be appreciated that, when a new job is undertaken, it is priced correctly.
Twice last week I was sent on a particular job that I hadn't done before. I was sent nominally to a large market town in the adjacent county, but when I collected the goods, I discovered that they were consigned to a village some ten miles further on - nearer, in fact, to the next market town than to the one designated. Accordingly, when I returned to the office, I pointed this matter out, thinking that the price would require adjustment. It is often the case that customers will just name the postal town as a guide to the area where the goods are going when they book a job, rather than the specific destination. For planning purposes this is sufficient. Most drivers recognise that, if the job takes them far from where they were originally told, it's in their interest, as well as that of the firm, to let the office staff know. On this occasion I was told that, although it had only now fallen to me, this job has been done daily for several weeks, and no one had advised this discrepancy before! Now, of course, a precedent has been established, and since this is one of our major customers, whose feathers are not to be ruffled, no price adjustment will be made.
My complaint had been overheard by other drivers. There is now widespread disquiet, and some reluctance on the part of many to accept that job, now it's generally realised that it will be underpaid. And all because the first driver to do the job - whoever he may have been - didn't highlight the error when it could have been put right!
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