Another Back-Slapping Event

It happened today, a Saturday.

It started at about eight in the morning when I went in search of a DPDT electrical switch. That’s a double pole double throw switch to the uniformed.

I needed this as the Metop rotary switch that I worked on last week did not function correctly. It reversed the polarity I needed to feed to the motor’s starter winding, but as soon as I switched it on it tripped my Earth Leakage, This confused me but I soon figured out that I was connecting negative to positive at the starter junction, I spent some more time on the fact-finding internet and discovered I needed the DPDT switch specially designed to reverse polarity.

I decided on paying a call on an electrical wholesaler, who I knew stocked most items required when one re-wires a house, I’d visited them on numerous occasions in the past and they were very agreeable to a ten percent discount if you paid in cash.

It was a twenty-minute drive over to Albertskroon and I said hello to the manager, Adam, a very affable Asian chap. I had waited till the weekend as I knew on Friday he would be closed, as he had to attend his Muslim lunchtime rituals, which sometimes extended well into the afternoon with a feast of assorted samosas and kneeling to the east.

“Hi, how’s it Adam.”

“Can’t complain,” he replied, “what can I do for you Cess?”

“I’m looking for a DPDT switch so that I can reverse the polarity to the starter winding of a motor to get it spinning anticlockwise,”

His jaw dropped, conveying that he had not the foggiest idea what I was talking about.

“Sorry, what’s that?”

“It’s a switch with six terminals, two for the positive and neutral inputs, and four others that you cross-bridge, and then you take leads to the motor you wish to run in reverse.”

He still looked none the wiser.

“The guys that know all that stuff don’t work on a Saturday, I’m sorry.”

“You got a computer? Google a DPDT switch.”

“OK,” and he ambled to the far end of the counter replying in about twenty seconds, “Oh I see. Ja, an illuminated rocker switch, off and two ons.”

“That’s what I want, you got?”

“Err…... no. I have seen them in the shop, but not in a while.”

“Oh, well that’s great. Can you help me with ten 4mm ferrels, ten 10mm ferrels, a 2 x4 metal box, and a blank 4 x 4 bank cover plate with the skeleton behind it.”

“Plastic or metal?”

“Whichever is the cheaper.”

“Plastic, only twelve Rand,”

“That’ll do. You can tot it up, thanks.”

“All in all, forty bucks, cash?

“Great, yeah. Do you know where I might get a DPDT?”

“There’s an appliance repair shop near the Checkers just down the road and a Cash-Crusaders, right next door and there’s Mickles. You could try them.”

“Cash-Crusaders, they’re a porn shop, aren’t they?”

“Ja, but you never know.”

Paying my forty Rand and exiting with my plastic bag of goodies I departed, “See ya Adam.”

Another four-minute drive to the Checkers site, where I found Cash-Crusaders, the appliance repairer, but not a sight of Mickles. Even the parking attendants had never heard of it and the Cash-Crusaders didn’t open till nine o’clock. I ventured into the appliance shop to be greeted by a smiling young African lady. We exchanged pleasantries but when I mentioned the DPDT switch she gave the African reply, “Eeeeeeish! The boss will be coming soon”

I departed.

My ageing grey hard drive was perplexed, I rebooted with a slug from Toddie in my bakkie and stretched my memory to a past time I had been in this area, when suddenly another electrical wholesaler sprang into my head. It was on Ontdekkers Road about ten minutes away, I steered the bakkie in what I thought was the right direction.

Wrong.

I ended up in the back streets of Albertskroon but facing me was a very large hardware and building depot which sported the huge sign which announced, “Electrical goods!”

Worth a try I thought, and I sauntered inside to be told that they didn’t have a DPDT switch but I should try Kelec Electrical about two kilometres further down Ontdekkers Road.

“Its number is 360 and Ontdekkers is just around the corner.” Said the over-weight salesman. Feeling elated that my navigational skills were still OK  I climbed into my bakkie and headed off to Kelec.

Ten minutes later, and I was clutching the switch that cost 38 Rand, a bargain!

I drove to my abode dumbfounded that it was only half past nine and set to change into my acting-electrician wardrobe.

For me to now go into the intricacies of my use of the angle grinder, drill, pliers and screw drivers, Phillip’s and straight, ferrels and insulation tape would probably bore you, but I do have to mention how I Magyvered the plastic 4 x4 cover plate so that I could insert my DPDT switch and end up with my completed project.

This required the use of my drill with a three-millimetre bit.

I carefully marked, with a black Cokie pen, the cover-plate with the dimensions of the switch and starting in the centre, I drilled out a rectangular hole. This a tedious job as making a rectangular hole with a round drill bit is like a child trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, almost impossible; however, with the use of a Stanley knife blade the task was completed.

The 4 x 4 box on the left houses the DPDT switch and joint-bar for electrical connections, the wires coming out lead to the starter winding and the running winding of the motor, a brown and blue to each winding, and the recycled double-switch on the right, from my scrap box, is the mains switch for the whole set-up, cutting off both the live and neutral wires, which enter the 2 x 4 box on the far right.

The whole operation, on display below, took approximately four hours and after several test runs of the motor making sure it ran correctly in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions.

I felt the need of a bit of back-slapping and self-administered congratulations.

I refilled my Toddie with some Groot-Marico mampoer I had saved from my trip to that Charles Herman Bosman part of South Africa and had a stupendous, well-deserved back-slapping and thirst quenching time!

Back-Slappping Gleeful Delight

I have discovered that as your age increases, and you enter your senior years, the discovery of how to do something becomes extraordinarily exciting.

In one’s youth the learning that confronted you at school and on through college or university, if you were fortunate enough to climb the educational ladder was a tedious affair.

 You were confronted by either teachers and lecturers you loved or hated. They gave termly tests and exams at the years end which you dreaded, and then gave gleeful sighs of relief when you learnt you had passed and achieved your goal.

In the age of the over-seventies, when ones appendages seem to be breaking down, that gleeful sigh becomes an explosion of back-slapping delight.

I recently experienced such an explosion when I learnt how to wire a three-position rotary switch, that’s one with an off position and two active live positions. Such devices were common in the fifties, sixties and seventies before the arrival of new chip and transistor technology.

They were in your HiFi units, your portable radios, your fridges, household appliances, and your televisions. You used to switch channels, change dishwasher and steam-iron temperatures, regulate toaster times and even set your alarm clock using a basic rotary switch,

So, when a friendly defence-force trained plumber who I have worked with for years, Keith, handed me a Metop three position rotary switch and asked me to wire it so that he could run his grinder in a forward mode, a reverse mode and an idle state, I was filled with a questioning mind, could I or couldn’t I do it?

I started by exploring the internet and discovered numerous circuit diagrams, several U-tube videos and one or two sites offering practical and theoretical advice. I watched the videos, read the documents and perused the diagrams and was none the wiser, until I remembered something I learn in my physics class at school. Electricity is like watert it flows until something stops it and that’s what a switch does!

How do you test the ability of electricity to flow?

You use a continuity tester and I have one.

So, I set to work testing the switch with it set in all three positions. In the off position I discovered that there was no flow on any of the sixteen terminals, eight one side of the barrel and eight on the other;

Position One, there was flow from one left mounted terminal to two terminals on the right. I had discovered an on circuit. Two hours later, on position two, and I had discovered the second on-circuit coming from a different left mounted terminal to two right mounted terminals. Success!

But I was still confused, and something was not right. Yes, it worked, I could feed live power in and out, but where the fuck did the neutral wire go?

I knew this system would work with Keith’s grinder, I could feed the live current through the switch and connect a separate neutral to his grinder, but I also knew that the Metop switch had not revealed all its secrets.

A phone call to another old friend, Herman the German, a trained and fully qualified electrician of over forty years. He asked me to send a photo on the “Whats Application”.

Another new learning experience for me. Having transported the photo through the ether the cell phone rang.

“It’s got Bruken.” Said Herman.

“What? I don’t think it’s broken,” I replied.

“Not broken, it’s got Bruken!” he repeated irritably, across the terminals, on both sides, what was it used on before?”

“I don’t know.” Then my O-level Deutsch resurfaced, “Ah, Bruken, Bridges!”

“Ja, strip ‘em all off, they is confusing you They triangles.”

“Triangles?”

“Ja, them things mit three corners, strip the bridges, and then retest with the continuity tester, you did gut mit dat!”

“I did that, and it works.”

“Ja, but you got no place for neutral, strip bridges and retest. Call me back when you’ve done Dat.”

I duly followed Herman’s instructions and removed all the nine bridges and discovered that I had no continuity at all between the terminals that I had before!!

I felt as if I’d lost the battle, defeat was staring me in the face.

I re-read the numerous pages I’d downloaded from the Net and tried Wikipedia. A triangle sprang into view and it all began to make sense!

Out with the tester and this time I knew what I was looking for, an imaginary triangle with two of its corners touching two separate terminals, one on the left side of the Metop and the other on the right.

Within half an hour I had discovered four circuits and had the Metop switch wired up so that both positive and negative were switched on and off.

I quickly rigged up a light on an old piece of Oregon Pine, supplied power to the Metop switch and onto the light and tested my wiring. It worked!

A gleeful telephone call to Herman-the-German, thanking him, followed.

And now, Keith’s grinder could now go forward or in reverse mode with a flick of the rotary switch.

An explosion of back-slapping delight engulfed my aged old frame!

The Cheque is in the Post/Ether!

I cannot believe that today I am screaming and shouting about an injustice that I was screaming and shouting about fifty-five years ago!!

The injustice to which I refer is the late payment to jobbing actors who do Voice Overs for Advertising agencies and their respective clients, which include, banks, cell phone companies, white-goods manufactures, automobile manufacturers and distributors, retail companies, insurance companies, confectionary & sweets, chocolate bars, computer makers, airlines, beer, wine and sprit manufactures.

I have during my illustrious career voice over-ed for all the above products, 15 years for a beer company, twelve years for a household goods manufacturer, two years for an airline, three years for an insurance company, a chewy chocolate bar for three years, and several wine producers. All this during fifty-five years as a jobbing actor and voice-over artist and I’m still waiting for a payment for a job I recorded in early April of this year. Two radio spots for a leading local Cell phone company and an up-market Cell phone manufacturer.

These spots have been broadcast nationally over the airwaves since the first week of May! There is nothing more galling for an artist to hear his dulcet voice airing the magnificence of a product while he or she has not been paid.

The payment is divided in two parts, one for his/her performance in the studio and another for its usage. The latter is dependant on the period which the advertisement is broadcast, either three or six months or a year. There is also a clause which entitles the artist’s agent to renegotiate the usage fee should the advertising agent and product manufacturer wish to use the advert for another year.

The advertising agencies claim that the product manufacturer does not pay them for at least sixty days after the advert is aired. I ask the question, when is the broadcasting company paid? Does the SABC, M-Net or E-TV, have to wait for their money too? I find this hard to believe! I suspect that the broadcasting company will not air the advert till it has been paid in advance!!

And I think that the artist should also not allow the spot to be broadcast or the advert aired, till he or she has been paid!

I attend a clinic at the local general hospital, I have done this for over sixty years. Every now and again the fee for this service has increased from ten Rand back in the nineteen seventies up to sixty-five Rand now. But I must pay this fee before I can even see a doctor, have the necessary tests and receive my medication. A very simple and easy procedure; why can’t the advertising industry have a similar one?

Imagine what would happen if you didn’t pay the mechanic for the repair to your car? You wouldn’t get your car! Imagine what would happen if you didn’t pay the plumber who changed or washer or if you hadn’t paid the electrician who’s replaced your earth-leakage unit? Both these artisans would remove what they had fixed!!

I understand that certain professions like lawyers, doctors, accountants all submit monthly invoices for the work they have done for various clients and allow some latitude if their payments are not forthcoming, but they then add interest to these late payments, just like late-paid municipal accounts. But Voice-over artist do not even get this!

Way back when I did a lot of voice-overs and I had a friendly bank manager, I could ride the late payments as I always knew that I could increase my overdraft and pay my monthly bills, but now in old age work is not so prolific and waiting for five or seven thousand Rand means the disconnection of my electricity!

God knows how younger artists are coping either. If any of you younger readers are venturing into the world of voice-overring, I strongly advise you either to have a good-standing overdraft facility with your bank or an exceptionally good agent whom can chase outstanding payments from advertising agencies!

My agent went through a very difficult negotiation with a local beer manufacturer in the nineteen eighties. Under the voice-over contract the Ad agency can broadcast the advert on either radio or on television, but nowhere in the contract is it said they can broadcast them at a live venue like a cricket match.

Back then, the beer company was the national sponsor of the South African cricket team, the Proteas. It so happened that I was given eight free tickets by the brewery to watch an ODI game at the Wanderers in Johannesburg against the mighty Australians. My children at the time were living in Phalaborwa with their mother, they were going to the same school as Dale Steyn, who even at the tender age of ten was keenly interested in cricket. I gave all the tickets to my children who came down to Johannesburg for the weekend accompanied by Dale Steyn and his father.

They had a fantastic time watching Alan Donald decimate the Australian batsmen with figures of five for sixty and the Proteas won the game, however over a few beers, when I met them afterwards, they could not stop talking about my voice-overs which they had the pleasure of hearing at almost every bowling change. Dale’s father brought up the question, “How much do they pay you?” I pleaded ignorance as I did not even know they were being aired at the match. Both the radio spots and the television Ads were shown on the big screen, urging the attending public to fill their plastic cups with “The taste that stood the test of time.”

It took my agent four months of negotiation with the advertising agency, SA Breweries and the Wanderer’s cricket ground officials. All three entities were involved because each of them blamed the other and were reluctant to pay. Finally, a deal was struck and for the next eight years I received a fee for their use at live matches.

Another tale from the same era, in the days before the new-fangled- technologies entered our lives, a fellow thespian and voice artist waited for five months for his payment. Deciding he could wait no longer he and a friend visited the advertising agency in Sandton, Approaching the enquiry desk he asked to speak to the senior accountant and said he would wait. He then lent over the counter and grabbed the small switchboard, disconnected it and sat down with his mate. Within five minutes the accountant arrived, and he informed him of his problem. The accountant departed and returned a few minutes later with a cheque made out to cash!

There are some happy endings!

DATA

I have recently, in a past blog, written about The New-Fangled -Technologies that confront us on an almost daily basis.

It’s time I attacked the cost and the use of that commodity which one must have to operate the New-Fangled-Technologies, i.e. DATA!

For almost ten years I made use of an internet company, which for the meagre sum of ninety Rand a month supplied me with 2 Gigs of internet usage. Unfortunately, they were forced to close.

They kindly offered me the chance to join another company that would give me a Wi-Fi service of 2 Gigs usage, but at over twice the cost, two hundred Rand. After quickly looking at all other offers, I realised that this was going to be the cheapest on the market, so I signed on the dotted line and accepted the offer.

I have now been in the cloud, so to speak, with this company and the Windows Microsoft 10 operating system, for five months. Some things have been OK; I’ve managed to keep writing my blog; helped edit a couple of play-scripts for friends and continued to make posts on Facebook and send emails. All well and good, you might say. But!!!

I’ve continually been bombarded with annoying adverts and distractions asking me if I want to buy something or upgrade to some new-fangled-distraction!!

These adverts I’ve now realised are using up my paid for internet Data!!

Last month, for the first time ever!!! I found that I had used my 2 Gigs three days before the end of the month!

I do not download movies, I do not use U-tube! All I do is blog, Facebook and send emails!

Very annoying!!!!

Another complaint I have is that, in the past I’ve always enjoyed a game of “Free-Cell”. Now, with Windows ten, I must play this game in the cloud, so to speak, and this also means that almost every ten minutes or so, I’m hit with another wave of Ads offering me other games which I don’t want!

Microsoft does offer the ability to avoid these infuriating advertisements, but this means I must upgrade and pay an additional cost! Galling to say the least! It seems that every way there is to try and keeps costs down, the technology companies have a way to increase the cost!

At least when my late grandfather flew his racing pidgeons, way back in the nineteen-hundreds, the only cost he had was the feed, as he had me to clean their loft and from their effluent, he made the most efficient fertiliser! A pity there is no effluent from Data, or its usage!

Recently, The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) compared the cost of data within Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the BRICS nations, because of a request by the public.

Its findings are published in a report analysing the tariff plans offered by local operators.

Icasa looked at the price of 500MB, 1GB and 2GB packages. In South Africa, the body found that the difference between the cheapest ($7.15 aproximately 90 Rand) and most expensive 2GB package ($19.57 aproximately R230).

Do a google search, “Ways to reduce your Data cost!” and you’ll find numerous ways to reduce your DATA usage, particularly when on holiday and using your smart phone. Most of the advice is common sense, like switching of your “roaming facility”. But it seems, unless you’re a hacker or computer boffin, there is no way to stop the technology companies charging fucking exorbitant rates.

If any of you readers have simple method, I would be extremely grateful if you could pass on the information.

This morning I came across another “Rip-off”. My over twenty-year-old Hansa gate motor is malfunctioning. I took a quick look and realised that the latch mechanism, which is a slightly bent metal bar with a free-wheeling plastic nodule at its end, was not working. This mechanism stops the gate motor by hitting a rise on the horizontal bar and the plastic nodule at the end of the metal bar had completely worn away.

Considering that the Hansa motor is over twenty-four years old, not bad.

I tracked down a gate repair company who specialises in Hansa motors and took the metal bar to them to get a spare part. I was knocked sideways when I was told the replacement would cost two hundred and twenty Rand. The offered alternative was to bring the motor in to them, and they would replace the mechanism totally for one thousand and forty Rand!!

I am now at work with some 20mm electrical plastic conduit and my Pratley’s quick-set glue and putty “Magyer-ing” a solution and making a new plastic nodule to fit on the end of the 4cm long slightly bent metal bar.

I am totally confused by the ingenuity that technology companies have in created new products that work twice as badly as the old ones that they created. This money-grabbing formula seems to be entering our lives daily.

I have a little tool-box draw in which I store all the Cadac-gas-valves I have accumulated over the past fifty years. I do not think I’ve bought a new one for at least twenty-five years. Every time one of my gas filling valves gets blocked I unblock an old one, fit it on the appliance and hey-presto the light, cooker, blow torch is working again.

However, to unblock the valve a device is needed, a Cadac-valve-cleaning tool. A small device, a metal strip with a very thin, less than a millimetre in circumference. After a search of my tool shed, I couldn’t find mine.

So, I popped down to my local hardware store to be told that Cadac no longer make them and I would have to buy a new valve at forty-three Rand!!

I can announce success! The contraption for the gate is repaired and installed and it work! The marvel of Pratley’s quick-set putty and glue.

Maybe, I am wrong to assume that today is a totally a throw-away society. Everyone follows the easiest solution, throw it away and get a new one. Perhaps I am fortunate as my grandfather was an electrician and a joiner and he took great pleasure in teaching me his invaluable knowledge, which I still use today.

It seems as if today’s youth have not the foggiest idea how to use a nut & bolt; they do not understand the function of a washer. When it comes to the theory and the practical use of electricity their minds are a complete blank. The changing of a plug, connecting a three-way switch, changing a light-fitting, making a Janus cable extension, are all problems they are not educated to solve.

And I need not even mention gas! No wonder there are so many fires and explosions in the world!

I even solved the problem of the missing Cadac vale-cleaner. I made one using a fine stand of electrical wire!

If it works, if it can be repaired, don’t throw it away! and whatever you do; don't buy a new one!!!!!

The Gambles in Life

Do you ever call it a day and say you’ve had enough, you’ve travelled and gone far enough? Taken as much as you stand?

Well, when it comes to TV programmes I’m definitely a yes-man to all the above questions!

When it comes to Quiz programmes, they are an immediate channel changer for me.

Not all of them however.

One of my favourites is the BBC’s programme with Stephen Fry and now Sandy Toksvig called “QI” and again the BBC with “Would I lie to you” hosted by Rob Brydon and with David Mitchel and Lee Mack captaining the opposing teams.

Both shows are examples of top-notch British comedy at its peak with fantastic guest artists, comprised of comedians, musicians, actors and even a priest or two.

However, down at the bottom and immediate channel-changers are “Deal or No Deal” with Noel Edmunds as the host, and “Tipping Point” presented by Ben Shephard. I have to admit that “Pointless” hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman  has me in a quandary that falls into no-mans-land, sometimes I can watch and other times I switch channels.

It is, I believe, an aversion that stems from my youth, when I worked for some time as a small-change boy on Blackpool’s Golden Mile amusement arcade.

 It is an aversion to gambling,  caused by the number of fights, crying children in prams and battered mothers lying in the gutter, that I saw whilst I did the job.

It was a simple job, I would wander around the arcade carrying a leather shoulder bag with several compartments filled with small change. In the late fifties when I had the job, it was filled with pennies, threepences, sixpences, shillings, and half-a-crowns, the latter being worth two shillings and sixpence. I had special secret zipped compartment where I placed the paper notes that I had exchanged for small change.

Once I had more than ten pound in paper notes I had to return it to the office, as mugging of small-change-boys was a common occurrence.

Most of the visitors to Blackpool were at that time from the working class manual labouring towns of the industrial North of England, Scotland and Wales. Miners, cotton and wool factory workers, steel foundry workers, furnace feeders, bricklayers and construction labourers. It was their annual summer holiday and they came with hard earned wages stuffed in their back pockets and secretly hoped they would win a fortune at the slot machines on the Golden Mile.

Obviously, that was not what happened.

Gambling like another pet-hate, insurance companies; they both feed off hope, desperation and fear; these are basic human emotions. The faces I see today on the TV quiz shows remind me of those faces I saw as I exchanged a last Pound note to a losing holiday-maker.

Family violence has always been an enormous problem in communities throughout the world. In fact, a recent survey found that in Australia one in three Australian women have experienced physical violence from a current or former partner, and one in four have experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner.

The survey also showed that there is a clear link between problem gambling and intimate partner violence, children, parents and grandparents are also the victims of violence perpetrated by those with significant gambling problems.

A memory that stays with me goes way back to nineteen fifty-five which resulted in the calling of the local constabulary, the ambulance service and the local social services, which at the time were almost non-existent.

It was a Saturday lunch time when a Glaswegain labourer Ken, his young wife, Monica and six-month-old baby in his pram arrived at the arcade. The baby had a small teddy-bear with him and he squeezed it with delight while he sucked on a full bottle of milk.

“I’ll change my last Tenner,” said Ken, “Sixpences, threepences, and pennies” he said to me, while he looked at his wife as though asking for approval. Monica shrugged in a non-committed way.

“And that’s it?” she added.

“Aye, gotta be, I ain’t got more!” he said in a subdued semi-belligerent tone,

“But y’ still got the ‘oliday-flat money?”

“Aye, I left it there!” he added, “as y’ told mi to!”

“Good.”

I could already sense that the two of them had had a serious conversation on the money situation before they came down to the Golden Mile.

It was about two thirty in the afternoon when the rumpus started, the sound of screaming brought myself and Stan, the arcade manger, to the front of the arcade. A small area of pavement that allowed the passing pedestrians to walk by our arcade and allow them to move on to find another venue that conned them into thinking that they might find their fortune.

When we arrived, the pram was on its side with the baby crying, trying to reach his teddy bear and finished bottle lying in the gutter. Ken had his hands around Monica’s throat and was shaking her violently. Stan made his way to Ken screaming at me, “Call the fucking cops lad!”

I turned to go to the back office, seeing Stan receive a flying right arm jab to the face, sending him crashing to the ground.

I called the cops explaining what happened and told them to come quickly before darting back to the concussed Stan.

“We’ve gotta get ‘em apart!” said Stan as I helped him up.

Stan leapt on Ken’s back and I attempted my best rugby tackle on his thighs. Our joint assault on Ken gave Monica a chance to free herself and went straight to the upturned baby.

By the Grace of God and to our luck the Black-Mariah filled with six policemen pulled up and sprang into action pulling myself and Stan off a slightly subdued Ken.

By now a watching crowd had surrounded us, and while four of the coppers tried to hold them back, the other two dealt with Ken, who by now had found his second-wind and was struggling with them as they tried to get him handcuffed. A third copper finally came over and got the cuffs on him.

Meanwhile Monica was sobbing uncontrollably while clutching her baby. After a short collection of statements by the senior officer, Constable Hardgeaves, Stan escorted Monica back to his office and ordered me to get on with my job.

The fracas had brought in many more customers and the arcade was almost at bursting point. I had to squeeze myself through the throng and be constantly aware of that other villainy that had befallen me before; pick-pockets delving into my shoulder bag.

At about four o’clock in the afternoon we received another visit from the police, this time they were detectives and a single uniformed constable. Luckily Monica was still with Stan in his office. She had chosen to stay there as returning to their accommodation would have reminded her of her time in there with Ken.

She retold her story she had told Stan. She had said that everyday Ken had physically attacked her and forced her to hand over their holiday savings so that he could play the slot-machines. About an hour later the detective asked me to make a full statement. I had to recall every detail as to what I saw the couple doing, the time and their position in the arcade, what machine Ken was playing, and what time he was at each machine. All the time I was praying that they would not search me and find my hidden “Toddie” in my trousers’ back pocket.

I knew that a Yate’s Wine Lodge sipping minor would not be a good witness for the prosecution.

It felt worse than a school test and by six o’clock I was exhausted, they said I could go home after I’d signed the statement that had been written down by the constable. They also warned me that I must tell my mother about the whole incident and that I would be asked to attend the trial in court, probably in about two weeks’ time.

Just as I was about to board a tram to take me home another official vehicle arrived carrying a driver and two meticulously dressed middle-aged ladies.

The last sight I saw was of Monica screaming on the pavement as one of the ladies carried the baby to their car whist the other wheeled the pram and placed it in the boot of the car.

To this day, seventy odd years later, that vision of Monica resurfaces as I watch the faces of losing contestants on TV quiz-shows.

Yep, an aversion to TV quiz shows and a loathing even a hatred of gambling!