E is For?

Electromagnetic, Electrocute, Electroplasma, Emperor, Eskdale, Electrolysis. To name just six. And why them Six, well we will come back to them,
Hell no, lets deal with them now? But first what does Electro mean? check it out.
but then we have Magnetic, now anyone who knows me, will know I have a magnetic personality, once I know you, you are stuck to me, and like a magnet I will not let go. So maybe that should have been ElectroGlue? Well unless of course we have the same Poles, I.e. you are just like me, 52, going bald, a pound or two to many, knee giving up etc, then we definitely do not get on. As any scientist will tell you opposite poles attract, and the same don’t. Is that where the saying “ Poles a Part” comes from then, or is it as Burnham Bert says “Its when a husband from Gdansk moves to Slough, and leaves his wife at home, they are Poles a Part”
Electrocute? well I am Cute, or so its been said. Don’t believe me?
Well my Aunt S said it when I was 6 weeks old and I nearly got a contract with Anchor Butter. Mum and me were going to be the stars in a 10 year advertising campaign, at least three ads a year watching how I grow up eating Anchor. So Aunt S said to the man that I was cute, and she should know, unless you think she was buttering them up? Who knows. But me Nan needed to cook me Granddad’s dinner so we had to go, and the world lost the next Arnie Anchor, or Sylvester Stork, maybe Bruce Lurpak, real slippery movie star names. With all that butter eating I could have been Cholesterol Man. On the down side I’d probably have had a heart attack by now and lost all my good looks.
And what of the others which begin with Electro? They are only to show I know a few more big words.
But as I write this there are two which stand out. Really? they do. And the two. Eskdale and Emperor.
So what is an Eskdale? Who is Eskdale? Go and Google it and find out. I may give a clue next week
That leaves Emperor. Honesty forbids me to sit here an lie to you, so the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yeah right. That may come later, but the question you should be asking is, have I been known to sit and lie in the past?
I know I can sit and type and watch TV, I’m doing that now. I have been known to sit and eat my dinner without spilling it. I know I can lie and lift my legs up in the air and hold them there for about thirty seconds before my head starts to hammer. Hammer what?I can hear you ask. And I know, I know I should get up and grab a mallet or something when I feel like hammering but I enjoy hammering my head, and now you know where that little dimple in the middle of my forehead comes from. But how do I know its thirty seconds? I don’t. If I had said three minutes, you’d know I was lying, if I’d said ten seconds you’d think me a wimp, but thirty seconds seemed like a manly number. I can also lie and watch TV, not mastered the lying down and eating my dinner yet. But can i sit and lie at the same time?
But back to Emperor, No I have not been lucky and met one of the ruling class of feudal Japan. No it’s the name of the pub that taught me to drink. Ok, Ok I have been drinking from day one , water, milk, squash ( all flavours except strawberry, The Male J of J&J loved that one!! ) and the occasional shandy, all under the watchful eye of Mum and Dad Lessall, but now we are talking Beer, Spirits, in other words Alcohol. So the Emperor was the place that helped me move a way from the boys stuff I did in the evening, and you know what i am talking about lads don’t you? To what the older boys do in the evening. just more of the same. Booze.
Its full name is “The Emperor of India”, which one it was named after I have no idea, and frankly don’t much care, all I know it’s the place I bought my first pint. Legal or not that’s up to you to find out. The year was 1972, and pubs were so much different them. I remember P talked me in to going there and so we walked, yep walked. Didn’t I own a car? No, but maybe age had something to do with that? What was my poison back then, well a pint of Light and Bitter, 17 pence. Four pints and change from a quid. Can you still buy Light and Bitter? But more important can you imagine four pints for less than a quid? That’s sixty eight pence and then at closing time a walk to the Farnham Road, Special Omelette and Chips from the Chinese. Thirty pence. Runny egg, loads of grease, spoiled tomato, curled ham, and chips that have never seen a potato let alone been one, but who cares after four pints? I didn’t that’s for sure, it tasted supreme and I still had change from the same pound. Two P, to add to the many P’s I had on the walk to the Chinese. Today you can get an omelette from the pub, but back then all you could get from a pub was pissed. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing.
And that was the story for about 2 years, every Sunday, as regular as a man who eats loads of roughage, we walked up the hill just as the doors open. Two pints waiting on the bar. We knew Barman B very well by this time. And during that two years I got hooked on darts. So the first thing we did was screw the two parts of the darts to together and careful place the special flights in the end. Drink very quickly half that first pint. Oh does it taste good, and doesn’t it make the dart board look so small. Walk to the Ocky, wiggle your toes, get the right posture, loosen the fingers, flex the arm, aim at the treble twenty, lets get a good start. Deep breath and throw. Standing there watching, almost in slow motion, it flies from your hand, till it smashes into the wall. The flight falls out. The dart point bends, and the back part, with those four slots the flight fits into, breaks. Useless now until I get some replacements. So barman B tells me is Fifty P for a go. Well as you know after two pints its more than fifty P’s, I have nearer seventy five. ( But this Fifty P is for the use of the pubs darts, not the number of trips to the loo ) but most of those other seventy five are on the walk home, I’m like a leaking dog, every lamp post is a lamp post to many. If I ever get lost I can always sniff my way back to the pub.
Well that night I was Extremely good. I Bounced the darts off the wall, of the wire, off the floor and then off the head , then shoulder of the scorer, which resulted in me being banned from playing anymore that night. So with nothing more to do, I got out another fifty P and had two more pints.
The next day with Monday morning hangover clearing, I realised I had lost my darts, maybe I had left them at the pub? So I waited till I got home and asked mummy to phone them up and see if I’d left them there. Mummy? Well I was only **. So being a good mum, she phoned. As I sat in the kitchen as she checked the directory, then finger in the dial, then turning the dial. Wasn’t that so much slower than now, where you just smash the numbers on the pad as hard and as quickly as possible. So she dialled the number, and then said “Hello are you the Emperor of India?” silence. Then a smile spread on her face. Then it turned into a laugh. She put the phone back. I looked at her with that “ What the hell are you doing? You didn’t ask them about my darts? Idiot! How could you? Did you phone the wrong number. Come on I can’t wait for ever. What happened?“ So I shouted at her, in a very quiet voice and very politely “ mum?” She looked at me and laughing said ”when I asked him if he was the Emperor of India, he said Yes dear, are you the Queen of Sheba?” I looked dumb founded. More so than usual.
But that one sentance is etched in my memory and will never go. The look on her face, the confusion, then realisation and them humour, all in one second of facial expressions. I will never forget it and so now I can’t think of Emperor without thinking of that day and her.
So looking back I can see that the “Emperor of India” who ever he was, moved me on from a boy into a lad. Suddenly there was now a new world out there. One with alcohol and females, and darts and space invaders, more alcohol and ham or cheese rolls, and playing cards for money, scoring double on the dart board, finally getting my hands on the the ultimate “DD”, and of course even more alcohol. And suddenly the worry of leaving school and becoming an Engineer Apprentice, was not as bad. Learning how to use a Lathe, Milling Machine, Surface Grinder and Shaping Machine, was the same as learning English, Geograpy, History or Maths. Leaving the Dehydrated Doughnuts behind was not so bad either. I had a local now, drinking mates and eventually my first real girl friend.
So thanks to that unknown Emperor, and also to the Queen of Sheba, at least I know who she is.
Oh and Eskdale, taught me a whole lot more so more about that next week