Trevorthelockeeper’s Weblog

  A diary entry 

Once upon a time, far far away in the land of the grown ups, there was a princess. She gazed out of her office window and lovingly thought of the seven dorks who sweated and toiled for long hours up and down the Kennet and Avon Navigation, without her ever hearing a complaint. The phone rang and reluctantly Snow White turned on her hearing aid. A boater had phoned up to say they’d struggled to open the old antique gates at Weston Lock in Bath. Snow White leapt into action, turned off her hearing aid and phoned Doc, the leader of the seven dorks. The gates had to be replaced and the seven dorks had only three weeks to do it.

The date was set and so exactly one month later Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, and Skivvy all assembled at the lock side. Dawn was just breaking as they waited inside their vehicles, champing at the bit in eager anticipation. Doc climbed out of his truck carrying a red flag. He studied his watch thoughtfully. After what seemed like an age, Grumpy got out of his van, went over to where Doc was standing and went through the whole procedure of little hands, big hands and how Mickey Mouse must have double jointed shoulders. Three, two, one, GO! The red flag swooshed down.Well, children, you’ve never seen anything like it. The doors of the assorted vans, cars and lorries flew open with such verve you would have thought Snow White had said it was about time she took the seven dorks out for a well earned drink. A big metal box the size of a shipping container arrived on the back of a low loader and was craned over a hedge. Suddenly it was filled with every conceivable tool necessary for replacing a pair of lock gates.

The little legs of the seven dorks were moving so fast it looked like they were all hovering around on clouds. A lot more lorries arrived, some of them were meant to, others just wanted to watch the perfect and precise ballet that only Creativity Within Time and Motion graduates fresh from the Keystone Cop College could pull off with total credibility and good critical reviews. The new lock gates arrived, followed by a toilet cubicle, a greasy hamburger wagon, and a brand new, two storey staff accommodation facility. On the upper floor there were seven little beds, a kitchen, showers, reading room, picture gallery, amusement arcade, and a flower arranging studio. The lower floor was taken up by a particularly spooky ghost train ride, reserved especially for any curious wicked witch or uninvited officials from the Department Of Health And Safety.

The seven dorks now had everything they needed to effect a perfect gate replacement program and so with it already being nine thirty in the morning, six of them played a few hands of cards before retiring upstairs to bed, leaving Skivvy with very detailed instructions as to what was required and by when. But, dear children, if you might be thinking that somebody had forgotten the most important ingredient of any fairy tale such as this, you’d be right. But fear not, little ones, because just in the nick of time, Snow White got on the blower and talked animatedley for several minutes to somebody with a deep booming voice. Seconds after the call had ended, the heavens over Weston Lock were split by a lightning bolt followed by torrential rain that fell in a smug sort of way, as only rain can when it knows it has exactly three weeks to defy any weather forecaster without having to change its mind.

And so the allotted time past. On the very last day, Doc, followed by the other dorks awoke from a very deep and peaceful sleep. Changing out of their embroidered silk pyjamas they retrieved the various bits of once immaculate work clothes and assorted wet weather gear that had been percolating happily away in a barrel of liquid mud, and put them on. Outside the clear blue sky was so perfect it took away the slight downer that sub zero temperatures can apply and they trooped out singing a funny song about elevated gardening implements.

 Skivvy was lying exhausted by the lock side, the pristine new gates gleaming their soft blackness against an exquisitely dry and perfectly crafted concrete cill, the hand rails and paddle gear gleaming glossy white in the early morning sun. Just as Snow White pulled up, they thought about waking him, but ended up voting that he, being a Lockeeper on the River Avon and twice their average age, would rather be left to his dreams of a land where fact was often stranger than fiction. And that, George, conludes my case for the defence.  

Many years ago in London my friend Ed once suggested that if you were patient enough, anything one wanted would eventually come floating past your boat. Indeed, over time he had been proved largely correct although my used television business failed and the pretty girl I had once had to resuscitate stayed very depressed and suicidal. The River Avon seems to be just as generous, but the people who live along its banks tend to be less patient. The proof of which can be seen in the form of a very nice pub table from a grateful landlady up river (i.e it managed to get into the back of my truck straight from the pub garden without ever knowing what it would be like to get hung up in a tree). The Lock & Weir Pub across the river from Hanham Lock was, at the time, managed by Dave and Cath. Cath, being of Irish descent, knows how to talk and does. Dave does as well, but not wishing to admit more than absolutely necessary that he’s from Birmingham, often doesn’t. Just after the big flood of October 2000, the three of us were surveying the damage. They’d been badly hit and should you ever go and visit, look at the optics and imagine what it would be like in there when the water reached them. Or better still, drink six and a half pints of Ossicle Imobiliser and experience the full effect. Dave raised an eyebrow. Cath translated. He had a barrel of beer he had to write off as flood damage and would I like it? Oh Bless him. Would I like it? Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? A whole ninety pints of the old spleen thrasher. I modestly accepted and had the barrel aboard my dinghy before he could say ‘it doesn’t rain as much down here as it does in Birmingham’.

Never having had anything to do with the non expensive end of a beer pipe I gathered various bits of information needed to serve up a decent pint. Meanwhile enough people had heard the rumour about my great gift. All of a sudden, largely thanks to Mrs Lockeeper who hates drinking beer only slightly less than she hates me drinking it, I had an imminent party foisted upon me. The afternoon came and as Mrs Lockeeper was hosing down the kids I crept out onto the patio and allowed myself a little teeny weeny tester. It was cloudy. It wasn’t just cloudy, it looked like brown paint. I’d done everything I was told to do. I’d laid it down at the right angle for the right time, I’d spiked, spiled, danced the top secret ceremonial cellar man’s half naked with cucumber ritual jig (woops, sorry chaps). I was gutted. With three hours before the curtain twitching, earwigging, ‘you can’t keep a free barrel of beer a secret for long around here, you bald London git’ brigade arrived, I was in a bit of a panic.

A few phone calls later I had learned a few advanced cellarman tricks. These involved a top hat and a whole bottle of gin (only a cellarman would know what I mean). The guests arrived and looked disdainfully at the half pint glasses I was proffering. I was soon pushed aside and  glasses the size of buckets were filled and drained again and again. It must have been all the emotion of having to give away all that free beer that obliterated any memory of wishing anybody farewell.

Blow me down if Dave didn’t offer me another barrel a couple of days later. I was a man torn. There was no way I could have another party. Mrs Lockeeper would have ordered me to build a two berth dog kennel, and anyway Megan the border collie pup snores. There was also no way I was going to turn down the offer. I had a bright idea. Well it seemed so at the time.

 Up river at Saltford Lock, there is another pub called the Jolly Sailor. The pub had also been flooded out and was being refurbished. The top gates of my lock were immovable having been firmly embedded in thick silt and logs. Some work was being carried out on the adjacent weir, and amongst the workforce was a team of divers. I spoke to the chief diver chappie. He ignored me. I mentioned free beer, as much as he and his team could drink. I became his best friend. Roger, the landlord, collected the barrel of beer from the Lock & Weir, borrowed my cucumber and set it up. Two days later my gates were trouble free, unlike me. Mrs Lockeeper didn’t believe me and hid the paraceutamol. One day I was sitting on the patio after a hard days mirth. I was the contemplating the gentle slide down to my retirement, now only a short score and five years away and the onset of mercifully feasible strategic deafness. I was dreaming of talking to the two kids on the telephone, one at university, one living in a commune in Basingstoke dedicated to the world wide abolition of home work, the governmental lobbying for free ice cream and if there was time between ‘Eastenders’ and a team tantrum about who’s turn it was to fill the ecologically sound dishwasher, world peace. I was dreaming of all the extra time I could spend at the pub when I wasn’t going to be bothered with questions about homework, embarrassing questions concerning the birds the bees, and why if I was such a perfect child, did my mother come round and say how I my bedroom had always been untidy, my table manners had always been atrocious and how nice it was to be able to hand children back at the end of the day.Mrs Lockeeper, however, had different plans. On this perfect dreamy day, she appeared out of the back door bearing a little plastic stick that managed to get between her and the toilet bowl. It had apparently turned blue. I’m not surprised.