Tales of a newly qualified young engineer.

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Tales of a newly qualified young engineer. 1

Submitted By Member: Chas Large

Having achieved my C&G 222 Radio, TV and Electronics certification, I went on to night school for the additional Colour certification. I really enjoyed that. I was at the time employed as a field engineer for a little TV rental shop in a market town in Buckinghamshire, clue here; it has a famous bridge over the River Thames and is noted as a home for some of the rowing elite. So I had a great variety of places to go to do repairs, other than this town, there were several others nearby, but the majority of the rental customers were in farms and council houses.

I recall several very notable visits to some of the customers. On one occasion I went to this farm and, having parked the van on the drive, went up and knocked on the front door… no response. I knocked again, louder this time… again, no response. I had been advised that folk living in these farm houses may not be close to the front of the house, so I should always try the back door. I walked round to a lean-to / garden room attached to the house and could see the back door through the window. I knocked on the outer door and suddenly there was this huge dog, standing on it’s back legs at the door, growling and drooling, it must have been sleeping and unseen by me.

Now I know the other engineers on the team would have run a mile if this had happened to them, but I love dogs, had one of my own and my uncle had also had a huge Alsatian who did the same thing when folk went to his back door. But it was a big softy, and I hoped that this customer’s hound, also an Alsatian, was of a similar nature. So I stood as upright as I could, smiled and opened the door. “Hello old friend I said, how are you?” The dog, having gotten back to four paws, just looked at me and sniffed, then went and laid down. Wow, I’m a Dog Whisperer I thought, phew!

I knocked on the real back door and within moments the customer opened it and stood there, totally perplexed, looking from me to the dog and back again. “H… how did you do that… what have you done to my dog”? she asked. I told her that I smiled and talked softly and that had done the trick. “Well I never, so much for him being a Guard dog” she said. “Want a cuppa?” and so I went in, fixed the telly (A KB something, they all were, the rentals), had a lovely cuppa and piece of cake – never refused – and patted the dog on the head on my way out.

I recall another tale of a visit to a flat on the high street of this market town. The Service Manager told me I could walk there as it was just around the corner and it was a portable black and white set that was buzzing, or so the customer had reported. “If you need to bring it in just pick it up and walk back, no need for the van” Now one thing I do remember about this job, was the SM smiling a lot as he gave me the job, and I’m sure I heard a smirking giggle from one or more of the engineers in the workshop as I left.

I arrived at the front door of the flat, next to a hat shop, and rang the bell. After a few minutes, the door opened with a kind of whoosh, like you get from a fridge that’s been closed tightly, sort of like an airlock sound, if you like. The customer then presented himself in the doorway, together with an aroma of very strong cologne. “Oh, are you my engineer?” he asked, “er.. Yes, I guess I am, I replied”. “Oh good” he said, then turned and walked up the hallway which was decorated in Red wallpaper – though it might have been Burgundy – with gold coving and plaster works on the ceiling. The carpet was also a deep red and deep in pile too. “Follow me please dear”, said the customer, and he walked up the stairs in an odd, wavering kind of way, as though he was on a ship that was rolling from side to side. I followed, gingerly, at a distance, my young brain considering the situation. At the top of the stairs he turned and went through a doorway which had Gold doorknobs with what looked diamonds mounted in the middle. “The set’s in here”. And he held the door open but not fully, I had to push past him a little to get into the room. Boy, that cologne was really overpowering now.

I went further into the room which most extravagantly decorated with plush furniture and fittings. The little 12” portable TV was sat in the middle of a large table, on top of a white tablecloth. “We don’t watch it much, just for the odd occasion like the boat race, it buzzes like it has bees stuck in it” he said.

The set was on and sure enough there was a buzz coming from the loudspeaker, so some form of interference or audio circuit problem was my guess. Not sure I could fix it, there and then, I tried various things with the controls and tuning. Then I picked it up to turn it round and the customer, who had moved up very close to me by then, said, “Hmmm, you’re a big strong boy aren’t you!” Well, at that I decided I could not fix it there and then and said, “sorry, it looks like the transformer needs replacing, I’ll have to take it back to the workshop, I’ll get it back to you by the end of the day”. I switched it off, unplugged the aerial and the mains lead, wrapped that round the handle, picked up the set and my tool box and was out of there…

Boy did they laugh when I got back to the workshop, quite red and puffed out from running up the high street. They knew, didn’t they…

Another out in the wilds trip got me my first full frontal nude encounter. A farm up the hill had reported a problem with their TV. As before, no response at the front door took me to the back, whereupon knocking I was greeted with a female voice loudly telling me to “Come in, the door’s not locked”. I went in to be greeted by a typical Farmhouse Kitchen, table, larder, cupboard, sink and bent over it, washing her hair, was the farmer’s wife, naked apart from pants and wellies! She stood up, wrapping a towel around her long wet hair, smiled at me. She was very well-endowed. Then she said, “TV’s in the living room and pointed the way. Eventually, I managed to turn and walk in that direction. Now to the best of my knowledge, the only other woman’s breasts I had seen in real life before then were my mother’s, I was too young to remember them in any detail, but this lady’s magnificent boobs were/are burned into my memory, such that I can still recall them today, forty-five odd years later. Can’t for the life of me remember what the set was though, or even if I fixed it.

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