Da Da Dee Dum De Da, Or Saturday Morning Blues?
Winston Churchill
The Great Anglo-American Artisan
My father, like the great Anglo-American Winston Churchill, fancied himself somewhat as an artisan. As a result he never employed anybody to do anything he thought he could do himself. Indeed he thought that he did all manner of things better than most.
There’s no problem with such a philosophy provided that one keeps it to oneself. But father was intent on training all of us to also be independent artisans, although never as proficient as he!
The result of his mind set was that, as children and from a very early age we were all expected to do all manner of chores that would have gainfully employed a whole squad of navvies.
I well remember the delight of lying on an old sack under a caravan brushing rubberised under-seal onto its chassis. I was selected for this chore because I was small.
In later years I spent my time digging holes in order to plant shrubs. Even more years later as an adult my father and I spent many a fine weekend morning digging up the roots of these shrubs, which had gone badly out-of-control in the years I had been out-in-the-world.
At twelve years old here’s nothing quite like knowing that the weekend will be taken up with digging some muddy trench, or heaving pig manure onto the rose garden to bring on the Saturday blues; especially when your friends are out buying the ‘latest’ flared bell bottoms’ from the Army and Navy store.
You may think that I am complaining, but actually Dad and I were great friends.
Nevertheless it gave me great pleasure this morning when my first work was to insert the Lovely Baby CD
On the other hand, I think that the Ol’ Man might, after all, have approved?
Kindly note: The picture of Winston Chruchill is used here as ‘fair use’ under U.S.C. Section 107 for news reportage purposes only, to illustrate various points made in the article. Text and images available over the Internet may be subject to copyright and other intellectual rights owned by third parties.
