The Story Of The Great Steam Calliope Read online

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  Eventually Watt's immense creation was rediscovered. A couple of years prior to the Second World War, an East End County Council Inspector of Brass Barrel-union Pipe-connections was holidaying in the country with his family. Early one morning, as he was taking a daybreak stroll along a leafy lane, he thought he detected the faint odour of old brass in the air. He stopped for a moment, doubting his senses, and tested more carefully.

  He was right. Despite being mingled with all of the forest's ferny and dewy smells it was unmistakeable – a taste almost, a hard to define something with a slightly … well, "brassiness", about it. And, with the morning mist drifting across the lane from a dense part of the forest, that was the direction in which he turned, slowly moving into the undergrowth as he followed up the trace. And the farther from the lane he ventured the more tangible it became.

  Eventually he came on a vast thicket of ivy and bramble. The odour there was stronger … and it was coming from within.

  He pressed on, forcing his way through the vines and thorny branches ... and suddenly found himself in clear space. At first the light was too dim to see properly, but his eyes soon adjusted. And when they did he couldn't believe what he saw!

  In every direction lay a maze of brass steam pipes, left and right, overhead and along the floor. Some even turned downward, into the floor. Small ones, medium sized and bigger there were, each with its own collection of brass barrel-union pipe-connections. And not one of them with a Regulation British Brass Barrel-union Pipe-connection Standard Thread, as set out in great detail in his “County Council Brass Barrel Union Pipe Connection Inspector's Manual Of Regulations And Bylaws” – which, as it happened, he knew by heart.

  With an involuntary shudder of delight and ecstasy he drew himself up smartly to his most officious five foot four and then bent forward equally as smartly to rub where he'd struck his head on an overhead pipe. And then, after enunciating some very specific vulgarities and expletives and quoting verbatim the relevant British Brass Barrel-union Pipe-connection Thread Standards By-law, he condemned the entire system – despite lacking the usual angry and outraged or contrite and grovelling condemnee at which to direct it.

  And what a wonderful, life-changing condemnation it was, for even in his latter years, retelling the story as an elderly pensioner-retiree down at the Grimsby local, it would still leave him shivering with goose bumps – and do so despite every one of its regular clientele's parroting the story along with him, word-for-word.

  Back at the holiday park he waited until nine o'clock and then rang the Council Office, and within an hour Council workers had barricaded the roadside and put a watchman there, for after all, the area was unsafe...

  And it was this self same pair of threadbare watchman's trousers that confronted the men from the Ministry of Munitions fourteen years later, when they arrived to inspect something it was believed might possibly help make the war fifty seven centimetres shorter, should the rumours prove correct – two in an official car with driver plus half a dozen Dad's Army reservists in a requisitioned truck.

  "No-o-o wa-a-y in the world, mate," the trousers' occupant informed the suited gentlemen from the car in his thin trembly voice. "NO one's goin' hin there! Hit's out of bounds!"

  Horace Smidgens was his name. He glared at the two for a couple of seconds to let this gem of information sink in, then sniffed loudly and added, "…An' you're lucky t' catch me here, as it happens. Hif I'd 'arf a crown in me pockit I'd be dahn the Feather and Tar, mate."

  Coins were quickly thrust into Horace's "pockit" and he was bundled onto his bicycle and boosted down the road. But it happened too quick for his old bones to adjust properly and he finished up in the ditch. He was then hauled out, the mud and muck given a cursory wipe and he was sent on his way again, this time with a steadier hand and better aim. And even as he rounded the first corner the work team was hobbling into the forest to investigate.

  Eyes agog they reported back, and in short order were sent to clear a track into there and to strip away the brambles. The next morning a crane arrived and men with trucks and cutting tools came.

  Over the next few weeks every last pennyweight of brass was stripped from the great machine, the salvage team leaving behind only the immense concrete substructure, its foundations' abutments complex, the great cast iron organ-pipe support racks and the exposed grunnion flanges. Interestingly, the only costing to be queried by Treasury was an unexplained item listed in petty cash – the minor fortune in half crowns slipped old Horace Smidgins to keep him "dahn the Feather and Tar".

  "Hey!" he would shout each morning from the door of his watchman's hut, as the workmen arrived to start the day's demolition. "You can't go in there! No-o-o wa-a-y in the world mate! Hit's out of bounds!"

  "Morning Horace," the foreman would reply. "Chilly morning for an old fellow to be out. Here, why don't you cycle down to the village and have a nip of rum ... warm yourself up."

  "...Werl, seein' as y' put it like that, I do-o-on't mi-i-ind if I do. But don't youse go touching nuffink while I'm gone mate."

  "...Wouldn't think of it mate."

  Naturally all of this activity did not go unnoticed by German Intelligence, and they promptly notified High Command.

  "Jawohl mein Kapitan! Zer Britisch zome kind off segret vepon are vorkink on zey, der grossen poopenfarhten maschinen effery detail der camoflache midout can see ve now, der aerial votogeschlagen in! Ya! Undt der messencher efen! Hist bicycle der villache to back und ford pedallink mit!

  A special U-boat operation was mounted to discover what sort of threat this thing might pose, with a pair of special agents on board who were to land and capture the "messencher". This was the first of a series of events which led to the complete discrediting of German Intelligence.

  Horace Smidgins was awarded the OBE for his part in the affair, having escaped one night after drinking his captors blind.

  "They wanted to know what we were building," he said, "an' I told 'em!

  "It was a giant steam calliope I said, an' it was going to be aimed right at their bloody Deutchland. And it'd be playing God Save The King I told 'em. Day an' bloody night!"

  At Smidgins' investiture, H.M. THE KING stated that it was Men the Likes of Harold Timkins who had made Great Britain what it is today, and that the Bosch could not possibly hope to defeat a nation comprised of people such as him. …Not that we were exactly, he'd added, but we were to catch his drift.

  To which Horace Smidgins OBE had replied, slightly out of order, "No-o-o wa-a-ay in the world mate."

  As a footnote I would add here, that a few years after the war I found myself in London for a couple of nights, awaiting a connection. And so, having time on my hands, I made a point of going to the British Museum – and in particular to the office of the Assistant Curator of Brass Steam Calliopes. There I was met by a doddering old fossil in a faded and threadbare uniform.

  I carefully explained to this gentleman how I was from the Colonies and only in London for a very brief period, and that I was particularly interested in seeing the model of Mr. Watt's instrument. I mentioned, too, that while appreciating it was an "off" Friday, I was hopeful in view of my circumstances that the Museum officials might make an exception.

  "No w-a-a-ay in the w-or-ld mate," the fellow said, fixing me with a watery-eyed, whaddya think this is? sort of stare. And rheumy-eyed it may have been, but those rheumy old eyes had not failed to notice the small bottle of whisky that had slipped from my pocket onto his desk.

  "…Hunder no circumstances," he continued in his most officious voice, "is hanyone allowed to visit section 326 dahn the corridor on the left during times other than those set out in the Museum regulations!

  "And now, if you'll hixscuse me, there's something I have to find in the harch-ives for harf an hour. Mate."

 
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