NOTES ON A SMALL CITY

Richard Wyatt: Notes on a small city

Columnist Richard Wyatt starts thinking about night-time disturbances and his thoughts wend their way all around the houses before they arrive back just where he began...

Someone living in our street is doing their bit to support a local milkman with a regular home delivery. The trouble is this usually happens at some point between midnight and three in the morning and the bottles are loaded onto a motorised van and not the old-fashioned, battery-driven milk float that I remember from pre-supermarket days. It sounds like the product couldn’t be fresher –the only problem is the engine is not switched off when the delivery is made and I, having been woken by its arrival, wait in the dark for the sound of the collected ‘empty’ to be plopped into place when I know the vehicle will finally move on.

Now I am wide awake and looking for something pleasant to think about, which might encourage me to return to the Land of Nod. But it’s too late, as my mind is off on the trail of a noise theme and with 5 November in mind I was remembering the young boy who, while appreciating all the pretty and colourful pyrotechnic effects of your typical Guy Fawkes Night, only lived for the bangs. Whether they were from exploding missiles overhead or from ground-placed bangers, that ear-shattering burst of gunpowder was all that mattered.

Now I had thoughts about several careers before settling on journalism, and scientist/inventor was one I briefly considered after having being given a chemistry kit. I secured enough chemicals and test tubes to produce an agreeable stink bomb and eventually enough knowledge to produce a passable firework with plenty of fizz and flare. However, my attempt at launching a rocket shot off to one side, cracking the milk bottle I had used to keep it upright. It must be financial hell for NASA if something goes wrong with a satellite launch, but in my case it was only my pride that got burnt.

Once upon a primary school time, headmistress Miss Packer had said she could see me in the pulpit as I was lifted onto a table to be weighed by the school doctor, but as thoughts of a real career developed I was more interested in another type of dog collar as I considered becoming a vet. I even briefly considered –having savoured the delights of the TV soap Emergency Ward 10 (which ran until 1967) –becoming a human medic, but all this evaporated into the ether when I won a school essay competition and my future was then destined to be in a world full of words.

So, lying awake in the dark I wondered what I might have achieved if I had followed a more scientific road. Is it too late to offer a couple of inventions that might benefit humanity? There’s this business of trying to get motorists to adhere to the different speed limits set on our roads. I speak from experience as one who exceeded a set limit by a couple of miles per hour and, as my ‘crime’ was considered more careless than criminal, was sent to ‘Speed School’. You spend a day here coming to grips with how speeding is dangerous and are taught many ways in which you will emerge a safer motorist. This is where I learned that when you pass into a town or village between two signs declaring the speed at which you should enter, that is known as a Speed Gate. So with our now computer-aided cars, couldn’t there be some electronic pick-up from the sign which locks our car’s speed at the required limit? That’s not much good though if you’re trying to make way for a siren-blaring ambulance or fire tender, however.

Maybe I would have better luck pushing another idea involving solar roof panels. These ARE likely to be the future but I find them ugly to look at. Surely someone, somewhere can come up with a roof tile that slots together to form a surface capable of gathering energy from the sun, but with a finish that blends in. There’s nothing stopping the building of houses with a much greener edge –you can get wind turbines that look like chimneys and these might produce enough energy on a gusty day to re-charge your electric bike if not your car.

This sort of brings me back to milk floats, although I don’t suppose there would be much demand for battery-powered delivery vans these days. It’s more of a rarity for someone to get milk delivered to their doorstep! Next morning I remember my last waking thought before finally dropping off: ‘Thank God for the person who invented ear plugs’. I think l will buy a pair. n

Lower Swainswick’s Speed Gate

My attempt at launching a rocket shot off to one side, cracking the milk bottle I had used to keep it upright... ❝