An old sparkys tale
In the far right hand corner you will see 2 apex roofed houses. The furthest one holds a great tale told to me by the pictures owner.
Late 1940s he was an electrician for the power company. His job was to disconnect homes that had not paid their bill. One day he and a colleague went to the house to disconnect the supply due to none payment. They considered the area as a “black” area not because of the muck but because it was like in our language the “Bronx”. They knocked on the door and were surprised to be welcomed by a middle aged woman who agreed to let them in. the meter was housed in a floor to ceiling cupboard that needed steps to get to it. One man began to start disconnecting whilst the other stood by (or on guard). The woman had been watching and then turned and went to the sideboard and brought over a large jar and sat down. The sparkys both had watched this carefully as they thought they were going to get the jar on the head.
The woman sat watching for a few moments and the opened the jar and pulled out a hand full of pills and calmly said” if you cut of my electric I will take these pills”. The man on the steps quickly replied “come on love, I am only doing my job”, and then continued to disconnect. The woman opened her mouth and swallowed the hand full of pills. Over the next few minutes she began to get drowsy and eventually her eyes rolled up as she passed out. In panic one man ran to get a doctor who came back running. An ambulance was called and the woman taken away. The electric was cut off before the men left.
The irony of the story was that 8 days later the social paid off the debt and the same two men went back to re-connect.
Hard times, in a bleak environment. Sounds like good old Featherstone.
