u/Macrihanishautomatic

At the weekend I went to a restaurant with my parents and my Dad was reminiscing about his days as an apprentice television engineer.

He left school in the long hot summer of 1976 and went straight into a job as a television engineer for a TV rentals company. Apparently in those days many people rented a television. This probably worked out a lot more expensive but it came with free repairs. Apparently in those days televisions broke down a lot so free repairs was a big advantage.

My Dad would go from house to house in the mining communities of northeast England and repair televisions for which the residents were (usually) immensely grateful. They often gifted him vegetables from their garden or fish they had caught.

One time he dropped off a television for a woman (intended to be a surprise for her husband) and when said husband came home unexpectedly my poor Dad was ushered into a side room and told to hide. Thankfully he was able to escape through the back door before any misunderstandings could occur.

My Dad was sometimes paired up with an older colleague named Neville. A day with Neville usually went like this. First repair then a quick visit to a nearby pub. Neville would buy himself and my Dad a beer. Drive to the next repair then time for another swift half at the nearby pub. A quick lunch washed down with beer. Drive to the next job - “this is thirsty work - I think there’s a pub round the corner”

You get the idea

Neville was on first name terms with all the bar staff. He was always generous and refused to allow my Dad (who was only a young apprentice at the time) to pay for a single drink. Although he did sometimes ask my Dad to drive when he got too drunk.

One day (just before Neville was due to take two weeks vacation) he took my Dad on another pub crawl (interrupted by the occasional visit to do repairs for customers). At the end of the working day Neville was driving the works van up a particularly steep hill and in his haste to get home decided to floor it. My Dad heard a terrible crashing sound. One of the TV sets in the back of the van (those huge old 1970s sets) had come loose and was rolling and crashing around in the rear of the vehicle making an awful din, which Neville seemed insensible or indifferent to. Neville disappeared inside his house with a quick goodbye leaving my Dad alone with the van and a wrecked television set.

Neville also claimed clairvoyant powers, which he attributed to being the seventh son (his middle name was Septimus). He would sometimes read the customer’s fortune in their tea leaves (for which he made no extra charge).

Neville sadly died at only 55 years of age. My Dad remembers him as a funny and kind-hearted man who always wore a suit to work. It was the 70s after all.

My Dads last memory of him was one Christmas Eve when they drove through the snow to a remove village to fix a family’s television set. Back then TV on Christmas Day was everything. It was a difficult repair but they managed to fix it. The grandmother of the family thanked my Dad and Neville with tears in her eyes.

“You saved our Christmas.”

Considering the civilisations that had high ANF ancestry, did the ANF have a higher propensity towards abstract reasoning and cognitive ability?

Powerball is being launched tonight here in the UK. I am already making a mental list of what I’m going to do when I win. I wish you all the very best of luck. I hope for the sake of my sobriety it’s one of you that wins and not me 😂

I know the seagulls have to nest somewhere but every year they seem to get more territorial.