I know that I am supposed to be writing about Isandlwana and its aftermath, but I have been a tad busy of late with that thing that doesn’t get mentioned here. Don’t worry, there’s no Super-Injunction in place on me, and I’m not a rich personality, although my personality may sometimes be a bit rich. No, it’s more of a case that while things could be resolved I see no reason to dig a ditch. Dialogue and negotiation reduces tensions and deescalates the rhetoric from both sides. Talking is good and can solve many problems. I suppose that sometimes it also causes a few problems as well. People have to be talking from the same storyboard, and repetition has to be accurate. The African tradition of oral history relies upon the accurately recalling of the stories and trying to ensure that events are not lost in time.
We were chatting about family history last night, and some of the things that we told one of our daughters she had never heard. Some of course, for various reasons, simply cannot be published, but quite a few of the stories brought about a few laughs. So maybe it’s (life) not that bad after all. I thought that this would be a good time to post a trio of family stories and try to link them in some way to create a bit of interest. So here goes, I was thinking along the lines of a few common denominators; wheels, reduced numbers, and my bro.
Four wheels
The 2011 grass cutting is Season 7 for my petrol driven lawnmower. It’s a lovely thing that I found in the skip when I was visiting my brothers quite a few years back. I asked if I could have the lawnmower and although the answer was ‘yes’, there was at the time two significant downsides. (1) It wasn’t working, and (2) my lovely new Volvo with its light coloured leather upholstery was stuffed full of Daughters University stuff from England being brought back home to Wales by yours truly. So we tipped out any residue oil and petrol, covered the backseat leather with blankets and somehow managed to manoeuvre the lawnmower into the S40. About a week later and only £20 lighter, the missing 4th wheel was welded back onto the axle, and a new fan belt meant that the lawnmower worked. Here we are in Season 7 and as the lawnmower fires up first time at the start of each Season, I am extremely grateful to my bro. It’s not that I couldn’t afford to go out and buy my own, no it’s not that at all. The gratitude is all about salvaging someone else’s junk, and making good use of it for many years to come. Indeed, there’s a fair chance that the lawnmower may get a spray job this winter ready for next Season. Maybe red with sharks teeth or some WWII air art.
Three wheels
The second of my trio of family blasts from the past is about my father driving a road roller. These lumbering beasts of a machine have a solid turning rolling wheel at the front and two large fixed wheels either side of the main body towards the rear. Three wheels and no rubber, the driver sits high up in an almost open cab and if they are lucky have a sprung seat. Yes folks we are talking ‘big’ road rollers here, and not the diminutive ones often seen these days. Now don’t ask me what my brother was doing in the cab with dad, it doesn’t make any sense as the cabs only have a single seat. But nevertheless bro was with dad in Swansea trundling down a very long hill. Except that the trundling became a sort of freefall as the brakes on the road roller failed. Now I’m reasonably intelligent and understand physics and the like, but what I cannot explain, is what possessed my father and brother to determine in an instant that bro should jump? It doesn’t make any sense at all.
Massive road roller with massive front wheel is sort of going to demolish anything that it hits. I suppose the only vehicle that would create a similar impact would be a Centurion tank. Bro jumped and broke a bone or two and was lucky not to be crushed by one of the rear wheels. “And the road roller?” you ask, well come on folks do I really have to explain? Gravity ensured that it rolled onwards to the bottom of the hill, and its mass meant that it demolished a wall. For my part I am grateful that bro or dad did not come to an early demise.
Two wheels
Family stories should be about our oral history becoming embedded into written form so that future generations know a bit more about their ancestors. I giggle when I recall the lawnmower and road roller stories as they say a bit about fortune and misfortune and interpretation of events at that moment in time.
Who would have thought that the lawnmower in the skip would have been repaired so cheaply and go on to give excellent service for many years to come. And a bit like putting the thing in the skip, why on earth did bro jump?
I suppose on both accounts, decisions were made at each moment in time based on the information and assessment of that information by those that were in a position to make a decision.
We had a family member who died in a bike crash, and I remember as a young man, I wanted to have a motorbike. Well nothing strange there then, because girls and motorbikes were the order of the day. Given that I wasn’t able to get and keep the one, trying to get the other seemed at the time to be a good idea. When selecting a two wheeled story linked to my bro, I could of course have written about my butchers bike from my Saturday job, or bro standing the terms so that I could buy a Carlton 5 speed racing bike while I paid him back from my Saturday job, of which I am also extremely grateful.
But the thing is I found a guarantor for that motorbike purchase and I am extremely grateful that bro changed their mind and stopped the bike idea stone dead. Because if he hadn’t: then it might have been me travelling downhill without brakes and ending up in a skip.
