The Bell at Albion Bottle

When my dad retired around 20 years ago, I got him a second hand PC and have been serving as first, second, and third-line tech support for him and occasionally his mates ever since.

He's an inveterate story teller and, for a laugh, one time I told him he should write all of his tales down and give them numbers. Then, instead of telling them (again) he could just say the number and we'd all laugh, saving everybody time.

Well, he called my bluff so I'm now mid-way through editing a 300-page Word document he sent me and if I ask him about a detail of one of the stories, he recounts the entire thing. Clearly my idea has backfired spectacularly.

Even funnier, this opus only describes his early life in Smethwick and the various jobs he had between leaving school with no qualifications and retirement. Our family stories are in another epic file I haven't even seen yet! The joke is well and truly on me.

Still, the pages are full of gold and here I'm sharing an escapade from the 1960s while he was working as a telephone installation engineer at the GPO, the General Post Office, later known as British Telecom. This one reminded me so much of what I do, in terms of getting a report of "it doesn't work," taking testimony, finding evidence, observing and checking behaviour, experimenting to generate data, and reporting what was found to to stakeholders. The quick and ugly solution was sadly familiar too.

I hope you enjoy it and my dad does too.

--00--

The GPO supplied and fitted several types of extension bells ranging from a small bell for home use, through a six-inch gonged bell for noisy places, up to a mains-operated klaxon hooter, and a DC (direct current) bell for VERY LOUD locations.

Right, lecture over.

I went to Albion Bottle in Rood End Road, Oldbury, to move a 24-inch DC bell. In the factory where bottles were made the noise level was immense but the workers would soon be aware of a new noise on top.

The foreman’s office had been moved and so his phone and bell had to be moved too. This was no problem at all but re-hanging the bell was something of a chore because it took two people. That being said, we connected everything up and received a test call. All was working, and the foreman was happy, so we packed up and went to the next job.

A couple of days later Albion Bottle reported the bell not working correctly. I called in to find out what was wrong and the foreman told me that it only rang intermittently. I went down the factory and looked at the bell but an inspection showed nothing untoward. I arranged for a test call and the bell went off as expected.

The foreman agreed that the bell was working just then but he said that once I had gone it would stop. So, I hung around in the switchboard room for a while and, sure enough, the foreman called to say the bell wasn’t working.

I went down the factory again and quickly discovered why.

One of the workers, Big Dave I think his name was, built like Desperate Dan, was sitting beneath the bell reading his paper and drinking his tea.

He looked at me and said “if you think I’m sitting here while that goes off you’ve got another thing coming.”

He had stuck a piece of card between the hammer and the gong.

I looked at this giant and said “no problem, mate.” Then I went back and told the foreman what was causing his intermittent fault.

Albion Bottle arranged for the bell to be moved higher up the wall out of anyone's reach.
Images: Society for Historical Archaeology, Mighty Ape

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