I'm particular for a very good reason

Some children grow up to be just like their parents.

Thankfully neither Corinne nor I have inherited many traits from ours who were, putting it mildly, pretty useless.

Don't get me wrong, we didn't go without much materially.  It's just that they lacked in other areas.  Like when I got picked to play rugby or cricket for the school team, neither could be bothered to make the effort to walk the 100 yards or so to the park to watch me play.  Or when at the age of 12 and having qualified for the latter stages of a local tennis tournament, my father was too busy to drive me the 15 miles or so there so I had to ride my bike there and back.  And they never once watched me race my bike.

But if anyone else asked them to do a favour, they couldn't do enough.

would you wire your house like this?

My father was also particularly dreadful at DIY.  His "toolkit" consisted of a stilsons and a hammer.  That was it.  And they were always left out in the rain to rust.  If he needed a screwdriver then he'd use a knife.  Whenever any painting was to be done, he'd have to buy new brushes.  And then they'd be left uncleaned and therefore rendered useless.  And so it would go on, and on...

Perhaps that's why I built up a comprehensive toolkit, and then looked after it meticulously.  In fact I still have most of the tools I bought when I got my first home back in the early 1990s.  Oh, and I still have the same paint brushes would you believe?

Christmas times were always a strain.  If something was bought that needed a mains plug, they'd never have thought to actually buy one, so one would be taken off some other piece of electrical equipment.

Safety was never high on the agenda either.  I can still remember Corinne using a hair dryer once which burst into flames as the plug socket she was using exploded.

Worst though was the time I was trying to find something that had fallen behind the TV.  After a minute or so of fumbling around, I received the worst electric shock of my life.  I couldn't free myself from whatever was causing it and started to panic and scream as the current surged through my body.  I can still feel the awful, numbing sensation and pain to this day.

Luckily my grandmother was staying with us and on hearing my screams managed to push me away from the source of the shock, probably saving my life.  My hand was quite badly burned though, with blisters on the ends of all my fingers.

And the source of the shock?  We found the top casing of an electrical plug had been removed for some reason (probably to replace a fuse in another plug (as there would be no spares would there?) and just not replaced (we discovered it later on the windowsill!).  So in my feeling around for whatever it was I was looking for, my hand strayed onto the open and very live 240 volt electrical feed.

I remember my grandmother telling my father off.  But he didn't listen as I can't remember anything really changing other than my approach to anything electrical.  Honestly, how our house never burnt down I simply do not know.

Unbelievable really, don't you think?  And no wonder I turned out the way I did.

—————————

If you want to see the best thing on the internet this year, watch my latest video (to the end!!) by clicking below: