By Press Release
If a job’s worth doing…
My late father-in-law, Peter, was the kind of man who put his car away in the garage overnight, always. He tied a tennis ball to the ceiling – so when he drove in, it gently touched the windscreen. He knew precisely when to stop and avoided ever hitting the back wall.
His garage was narrow, so he fixed a strip of polystyrene to the wall, so that, when he opened the door to squeeze himself out, the paint didn’t get chipped. I’ve been parking alongside my wall at work for 15 years, and half the time I get out of it; the edge scrapes on that wall. My poor door has more chips than McDonald’s.
Peter introduced me to Vernier callipers. They measure the distance between two opposite sides of a surface. Using Vernier’s he could measure down to 0.001 inches, and I’ve never known anyone else who used them, ever. Peter was meticulous in all things; when it was time for a new car, he spent at least two years carefully researching all of them before committing himself. I often wonder what he’d make of Island Roads’ resurfacing workmanship.
When I started dating his youngest daughter I drove an old MGB convertible. Little did he know that it had failed its MOT, due to rust in the passenger footwell. He’d have been horrified, but I don’t recall worrying that his daughter could fall through the floor at any moment! One day, on the M3 southbound, we spotted Peter’s car up ahead, bumbling along in lane one at his usual 60 mph. As we hurtled past him, possibly just over the speed limit, I waved, but got nothing in return. Both of his hands remained firmly on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed straight ahead. When I next saw him, he told me: “Oh yes, I saw you all right,“ but he couldn’t believe I’d “waved at 90“ with only one hand on the wheel!
Eventually, we bought a wreck of a house. It needed central heating, and Peter offered his help. Warily, I accepted his kind offer, although neither of us knew anything about plumbing. There was no YouTube then, so Peter carefully researched how to do it the old-fashioned way – with a book. On day one, he patiently demonstrated how to lift a floorboard without splitting or damaging it. Next, he explained that to ease the flow of hot water to and from the radiators, rather than use 90-degree ‘elbow’ joints in our pipework, we would be gently bending the tubes. Over the next two weeks, despite my daily impatience, we had a perfect working heating system: no leaks, no drips. Naturally, all of the joints we made were trial fitted and tested before soldering. Peter would use only British-made ‘Stelrad’ radiators because they were the best quality. Later, when we did some rewiring, the same rules applied. We used only ‘MK’ brand plug sockets and switches – because no one else manufactured them to the required standard.
Peter’s been on my mind of late, because son number two, who in many ways reminds me of his Grandad, bought a house on the mainland that needed everything doing to it. Heating, wiring, bathroom, kitchen: it was a proper wreck. Most of the tradesmen he’s used have been dismal. Fifty quid an hour; “Can you pay cash please?“ He’s had several plumbing leaks, bodges and always the worst (cheapest) quality materials supplied. None of the trades seem at all bothered that their work is substandard, nor that the (usually Chinese-made) materials are badly made.
These days, it’s all about speed, the price and the look of things, never the quality. Could internet ordering be responsible for that? When did we give up caring about doing anything properly? What became of Peter’s pride in a job well done?
