Boring story of the day.

[MANEMAN]

A recent happening made me cast my mind back in time.

George was a "Black & White" sort of a guy. You were either liked by George, - or, - George didn't like you.

From his manner you would guess that George didn't like too many people. He was Service Manager of a company named "Rumbelows" where I worked in Hertfordshire back in the 1960's. It was an offshoot of the then large Thorn-Industries.

A lot of the Radio/TV engineers at that time were ex-services,- mostly ex army. They new how to fix things fast, and didn't rely too much on "Book Learning", or any of that mamby-pamby stuff. They had perhaps been more used to doing repairs with bullets whistling past their ears, or bombs dropping.

Service departments hardly ever make a profit. Service departments most times do not even break even, so the fastest turn-around you could do on broken down electrical or electronic equipment the better. George wanted fast and good.

We were servicing for our retail outlets, so not only audio and T.V, but also, hairdryers, electric fires, electric toasters, and just about anything else that an electrical retailer sold was coming through our workshop. You may have been employed as a T.V engineer but George expected a little more than that from you.

It wasn't unusual to come in to work in the morning to find that George had fired somebody at the end of the previous day. New recruits were interviewed firstly in the office and then given a T.V that George had fixed up with all sorts of faults including open circuit resistors and electrolytic capacitors from the rubbish bin. You always knew how the office interview had gone by the model of T.V he gave them to repair.

The Ferguson 900 series meant the office interview went fairly well. The Murphy V310 meant that George wasn't too keen. Most of the people who got the Murphy T.V walked in with a swagger and an arm full of paper qualifications, and walked out with their tail between their legs, looking all hot and sweaty.

The Murphy V310 was unusual in that you didn't take the back off of the T.V to get to the guts of it. ( George would look out through the office window and get great pleasure seeing people trying though ! )

You had to put this T.V face down on the bench, undo two screws, and the whole case lifted off.

Those who did manage to find their way in, soon found that it would have also been prudent to have returned the T.V to it's normal horizontal position, as the Line Output Transformer ( LOPT or: Flyback transformer U.S.A )

sat in a pot of oil, and would soon leak if you left it too long.

This coupled with the fact that George had "engineered" an EHT (Extra High Tension) fault on the T.V

( EHT Voltage in the range of 20Kv-25Kv ) soon produced smoke, if not also flames to go with it at times.

George would rush out of the office with a "What the bloody hell is going on, I thought all those bits of paper meant you knew what you were doing." "You'd better **** off before you burn down my ******* workshop !"

George ran a tight and tidy ship, had the ability to wind people up until their spring broke, fired from the hip, and was an excellent mentor to anyone who wanted to know how to handle folks. He hated people who kept shoving qualifications under his nose in a cocksure manner, although he was in fact himself highly qualified, as I was to find out later in life when he and his wife used to visit us in Cornwall.

Gawd bless ya George. I expect you are long gone from earth now. I learnt a lot, and thankfully got to know the real kind loving family man that was beneath the surface on the occasions that you visited us.

[rong]

Didn't know there was anotherRumbelows apart from the one in banbury

[MANEMAN]

There were about 350 shops nationwide Ron. ( Thee 'av truly led a sheltered life there in Buckland ol' lad. :) )

It was the formative years of dealing with management and customers of Rumbelows that truly honed my skills of sarcasm, argument, rudeness, and general ability to rub people up the wrong way, which led to my Knighthood in 2005.

The gradual onset of tourettes has only added to my usefulness in society, and hardly a week goes by now that I cannot be found carrying out social duties by helping the local constabulary with their enquiries.

John.