Trevorthelockeeper’s Weblog

Being a sole Lockeeper has its advantages. There are lots of opportunities for delaying some of the most unpleaseant tasks until a future date and there’s generally nobody around to contradict whatever slightly fluffy answer you’ve just delivered to a puzzled boater. The disadvantages do, however, out way the former. That future date always comes around and there really is lots and lots of grass to mow.

So I wrote a pleading letter to my MP and received a sweet reply suggesting I talk to my boss. This was an interesting concept and well worth consideration. After several days I took the plunge and phoned up the office in Devizes, introduced myself to the chap who vageuly remembered interviewing me, and put across a well crafted and succinct case for an assistant. After two years, a maiden speech in the house by my MP, a threat of grass blade 3861/s being left to grow over the regulation 50 cm and evidence sent to Devizes of a stress induced nosebleed, the boss finally agreed.

The great day came and he duly arrived at Hanham Lock in his jolly modern and pristine company car. Sitting next to him was a yeti. This I took in my stride and got on with the business of looking responsibly worn out but in control. The boss mouthed something terribly managerial through the tinted car window, pushed out the yeti and sped off back up the lane.

And then it dawned on me. Could this possibly be?…no they wouldn’t do this to me….oh, goodness, they had.

So I did what any full blooded and fearless Lockeeper would do. I screwed my eyes shut and proffered a non flea bitten hand.

 “Wooga, bang, bang,” it said, shaking my hand. I winced and swiftly put my bent hand under my armpit for some natural first aid and realignment.“Wooga?” It enquired. I answered. Lockeeper, mowing, strimmimg, customer relations, painting, crisis management whilst avoiding most flying objects and small children.“Bang, wooga, bang”. Nathan, machine operator for an earth moving contractor, ex-rock starry type drummer, keen fisherman, plagerised Shakespeare sonnets for a hobby, natural talent for scaring small children and returning flying objects to whence they came.I was impressed. Stig then dropped a black dustbin liner on the ground and rummaged through what I recognised to be various items of uniform. He pulled out a shirt and trousers.

“Bang, bang, wooga?” No, there was no one around. Knock me down with a feather if he didn’t completely de cack down to his birthday fur coat and pulled on the uniform. In my shocked state I blessed my luck for two reasons. Firstly there was nobody using the lock, and secondly, the hair on his head started at the top, and through 360 degrees, when straight to his toes, therefore protecting the finer chords of my delicate upbringing.

 “Wooga?” I duly went off to get some petrol only to find on my return the wookie dancing delightly on his former attire. He set light to the clothes and did a regulation cave dance around the fire as the resident wildlife leapt for their lives. Megan the border collie pup appeared from the other end of the garden. She stopped, inclined her head endearingly to the side, and then charged.“Wooga, bang, bang, wooga!!” Again I was impressed. Quoting Shakespeare and running at full pelt down a rutted lane with a merciless pup snapping at your hairy heels can’t be easy.I let Megan have a bit more excercise before calling her back. I’ll swear she can look smug sometimes.

“Bang, bang?” Megan, me, fireworks, pretty looking pekenese, tuna sandwiches and fifty quid in bloomin’ court costs, I replied. “Wooga” it said resignedly. I agreed, but the relationship with the border collie pup was going to have to be a success if he wanted a flourishing career as a Lockeeper.“Wooga”  I said, and set about obtaining details on how a wookie takes his tea. 

One day the most amazing thing happened. After two years with nothing but a bent screw driver I was told to take the van to a big tool shop and get some tools. All the things I’d so desperately wanted, and all in one afternoon. Spanners, generator, drills, grinders, chain saw on a long stick and other assorted goodies. It was like a Lockeepers Christmas without the wrapping of presents on Christmas dawn just before the kids get up. So the yeti and I decided to do a lot of nut and bolt replacements on the locks. After a morning of grinding, winding and bolting at Weston Lock, I loaded up the wookie and pointed at the van. I told him I’d be along in a minute as I needed an overdue pee. One has to be discreet about these things as I was constantly having to remind the wookie who had already traumatised two old ladies, one priest and an Alsatian.

Into the bushes go I and enjoy the relief. About a quarter of the way through what had been a successful operation I felt a scratch on my arm. And then another one on my leg, followed by two on my head. I’d never really had a problem with wasps. If one appeared around my sunny summer lunch I’d sit quietly, tutting smugly and nicking other peoples beetroot until the screaming died down. Another thing I wouldn’t of thought I would have a problem with, is if a giant came along and relieved itself all over the roof of my lock cottage. I might give my hands an extra wash after next dead heading the flower baskets, but would more likely look on the bright side of clean gutters and not telling Mrs Lockeeper why the washing hummed a bit. But my world was about to change, mainly because wasps don’t share my sunny philosophical disposition.

Once I realised what was going on I went into a bit of a panic. Obviously I had a few things to weigh up which included pain, modesty, getting far away and quickly etc. I ran down the towpath trying to flick off a thousand damp wasps with one hand whilst reneging on a deal I’d done with my bladder with the other. I think I remember saying ‘Aaaaaaaagh’ a lot. I reached the van where the wookie was just finishing loading the tools. It took one look at me and froze. As I approached at high speed its expression changed from one of perplexity to ‘The Scream’.

A boat went by. Normally I would have smiled  a greeting and the yeti would have waved a stick and wooga bang banged politely. As it was they were met with the sight of a very earnest Lockeeper desperately holding on to his gene pool while chasing a very panicked hairy rug who obviously didn’t like that sort of thing. If wasps had been bigger they might of seen what was really happening and maybe even had a little sympathy. Eventually the wasps decided to go home for a bit of a towel down and I cautiously checked out another bush.

The last time I’d been stung by a wasp it was while I was on a motorbike. The wasp on this occasion took a bit of an exception to being accelerated from very nearly nought to sixty in an instant and quite understandably dumped a load of bee poo into my wrist which in turn took exception and did a great impression of an long thin snake settling down to digest a big fat monkey. This time I knew I had been stung over twenty times and going by my previous reaction I imagined I was going to end up looking like an enormous bunch of grapes. A sheepish wookie appeared from behind a tree.

“Bang, bang Wooga?” What a silly question! Of course I was in great pain. Of course I couldn’t deprive medical science of monitoring the anaphalactic shock of the decade. Of course I’d let him drive the van on this one special occasion.

 One hot engine and four bald tyres later we arrived at the Royal United  Hospital in Bath. Within minutes I’d been stripped down to the waist and plugged into a spaghetti making machine. As luck would have it, the wasps were largely firing blanks and except for three or four large swellings in embarrassing places I was going to be fine. Later on that night, after a successful response to a burst of affection, I discovered Mrs Lockeeper researching Bee husbandry on the Internet

The wookie found it couldn’t take the strain and moved back to the Himalayas.

A few weeks after it was absolutely confirmed by somebody who apparently knew about such things that Mrs Lockeeper was brewing another little Lockeeper, I was told to take one of my rare and precious days off. I fought hard and argued for days, but eventually gave in. We were to go and get the lump scanned. I was nervous but managed to drive to the little cottage hospital in the middle of nowhere without scaring too many other drivers. We were a trifle early, and so I hit out in the name of my diminishing freedom by rebelliously rolling and smoking a cigarette. I made sure I was several yards away in a force five gale to the lee of the car, but I still had the assorted daggers treatment through the almost hermatically sealed car window. Then we went in through some double doors and I found a desk that had a ‘Reception’ sign hanging over it. What ‘Reception’ actually meant in this case was that the desk was a focal point for incoming gossip and while Mrs Lockeeper rested her weary bones I was made privvy to much more information than a certain Celia Ponsonby-Smythe would have liked via a nail file toting lady who resented the aging process with  vengence and a builders trowel. I coughed politely a few times which only succeeded in making the lady rifle through her hand bag and retrieve a half eaten packet of cough sweets. She slid them to me with a smile that might easily have been a nervous twitch.

A swinging door burst open like an overdue boil and another lady covered in lots of hospital bits bustled out with great importance. She called out a name. Mrs Lockeeper raised her hand. She got told she was a ‘poor dear’. I got a cold stare that exuded accusations of fault, blame, assault, selfish gratification and a few other crimes against womankind. What had I done wrong? Since when has having a nightmare about being attacked by a big marsh mallow in a tight fitting plastic bag been a crime?

The sterile Bodicea took Mrs Lockeeper through the swinging doors and all became calm. I sat down, picked up a magazine that seemed to be about how to get, keep and then torture a husband, while still making sure I was in earshot of the ongoing saga of Celia Ponsonby-Smythe, a particularly well put together dairyman and some assorted veg. The doors again opened a little bit and a summoning finger I knew so well told me to put down that magazine and follow. I followed. We then went down several corridors and passed lots of women on the way. Was I the only bloke in this place? Couldn’t there have been another chap around to soak up some of the vitriolic stares I was getting? Apparently not.

We entered this little room that had a desk, a bed and a photocopier with a television on it. Mrs Lockeeper got to partially disrobe and lie on the comfortable bed, while I was made to stand in the corner. The photocopier got turned on with one sterile hand and a fistful of wallpaper paste got splattered over Mrs Lockeepers middle with another. Then a computer mouse got splurged in with the wallpaper paste and bingo, there it was. On the screen was a picture of deep space. Lots of little white bits surrounded by total blackness. I suggested we changed channels. Bodicea ignored me. And then I saw something. It was an alien. Bent backbone bits, razor sharp teeth and a head the shape of a marrow that would have made the judges gasp at a village fete. For the first time I began to feel sorry for Mrs Lockeeper. What if it thought she was John Hurt and fancied a bit of fresh air? Mrs Lockeeper and Bodicea cooed and chuckled about what this supposedly perfectly formed alien was up to. It was doing somersaults, forward rolls and using Mrs Lockeepers bladder as a trampoline. It was due to invade planet earth after Christmas. I don’t think I said a lot on the way home.