Not Practical 15 2 2 +13 hits so far 25 1 19

At least that was my view of myself as a child because my older brother was so much more practical or so it seemed to me all through our childhood and primary and secondary education leaving school at 15 as we did from our Technical School, Bury Junior TS that is, where you had to sit and pass an entrance examination at age 13. The maybe even less technical kids, lads and lasses who passed the much more prestigious entrance examinations to High School and Grammar School at age 11, via the then notorious 11 plus exams, didn't even bother to sit our entrance exam because well, who wants to pursue a secondary education in technical subjects anyway..? hahaha (Only my distorted view of life in those days from way back when!)

But my brother Jim was the one with endless patience who always scored at things like woodwork for example: if it took me all my time and energy to make a towel-rail of questionable quality out of deal, he was the one to invest in oak to make a coffee table which still stands in pride of place in his sitting room... One year I did fashion a wrought-iron stool using the forge and anvil in our metal-work workshop, but in the process some flying scale burnt one of my eyes which fortunately recovered over 2 or 3 weeks of eye drops, and it may have been in the year I took the metal-work prize for best student, but I always had it in mind that he was the really practical person among the two of us: the one who was always ready to help me when I used to give my James 197 cc motor-bike engine a de-coke, or fitted new gears to its gear-box. And Jim was the one who pursued a practical career like becoming first a fitter, then a tool-maker, a draughtsman and finally a lecturer in mechanical engineering subjects, whilst I went into the science of physics chemistry and mathematics for my chosen career, after ruling out all the other more practical subjects, like carpentry which our father Jim senior chose, just to emphasise further my own failings and isolation!

Well this morning as I pondered the design of the lavatory porcelain with its bowl of smooth lines to facilitate the onward movement of what it is we visit such implements of hygiene for and I found myself recalling the time I returned home from a business trip to learn that my wife, who was reading English History and Philosophy at the time, having designs on a second career as an alternative to the nursing one her father had decided for her, had thrown a party for her college friends in my absence, with the odd prof or senior lecturer, and that our down-stair's toilet, or lavatory had gone on the blink... But that Myron her History Lecturer had fixed the problem to prevent further loss of water through its over-flow, but that now you needed a bucket of water to flush the thing... My removing the cover to reveal that the ball-cock had come unscrewed from its lever, which Myron had strung up in its uppermost position to ensure no further loss of water, leaving me the bigger job of cutting the string and re-screwing the ball-cock back into place, proclaiming to myself as I went "Eureka, after all these years I think you are also something of a practical person!" (if not in the same league as the Jim's in our family..!)  

Another member of our family, my maternal grandfather a guy with the common name of Kay in the town of Bury, Lancashire where we grew up, on an occasion he visited us from Manchester, took me swimming and pointed out the Gardens built in the town centre to commemorate John Kay, his Great Great Uncle, (maybe a Great or two short but nay bother) and the inventions that made his name famous, like his flying shuttle of 1733, a key piece of equipment to mechanise the machinery for manufacturing cloth. 

Today then I shall adorn my blog with a couple of covers from some of my patents: from the US and Japanese Offices to go with my European and one or two other countries' covers for nothing so monumental as Kay’s famous patent, but only to serve to make the point that the same gene pool that served Kay also helped to serve me maybe..? hahaha   

Have a good day everyone and please forgive my blog today if you see it as a boast as opposed to an example of the learning process involved in finding out what it is that makes us all tick..?

Stop Press 25 2 20 the original of this blog post took fresh hits one of which is perhaps someone i know from within the greater K family making a total of 15 hits: interesting for me personally of course since it is probably a first visit fot the person in question?