The time was 1952 or 1953. I had a roving job. Indeed I've nearly always
had a roving job. You meet people.

The place was Gretna Green, just a few hundred yards from the well-known
black-smith's forge and its famous marriage-ceremony anvil.

I was working with a colleage in a normally unstaffed telephone repeater
station. The job was capacitance-rebalancing of the multi-pair trunk carrier
cables which ran through the place.

The test leads were very flexible twin-screened cables which kept getting in
the way of the portable test equipment, on a collapsible table, and the two
operators. Difficult to read the dB meters.

So to ease the accommodation problem the test cables were tossed up and over
a pair of substantial bars, up near the ceiling, which could have been part
of the station's equipment racks.

Unfortunately, the insulation over the screening braid was worn at one point
and the bars turned out to be the main copper 50-volt bus-bars from the
battery room. Work continued in silence until suddenly there was a loud
bang, like a cannon shot.

The main fuse from the station's batteries had blown. The station stopped
working. England was disconnected from Scotland at a time when the Cold War
had started.

There was a glass-fronted fusebox containing a lot of cardboard-cased fuses.
The idea was for fuses which had blown to indicate themselves by charred
cardboard. But none were indicated although spare fuses were available. One
catastophy after another. But in any case neither my colleage or I was
familiar with station maintenance procedures.

We had visions of severe disciplinery action being taken. And I had brought
with me a set of fishing rods. Indeed, I had obtained after much arguing
temporary exclusive membership of Gretna Green fishing club at the then
extortionate fee of 2 shillings and sixpence.

But then our luck changed. 10 minutes later the local maintenance man walked
in. Purely by chance he had come in to make himself a cup of tea (facilities
were available) whereas he should have been doing something else in the
English town of Carlisle, 12 miles away. We were of senior rank. He fixed
the fuse and we never heard any more about the serious incident.

In the evenings I went fishing for trout by bright moonlight while my
colleage, a much older fellow than I, took my wife (who had come to join me
for a week) to the local Gretna cinema. He bought her icecream in the back
row. And I made friends with the female cook at the hotel and had trout and
butter for the first course at breakfast.

The next few jobs took me further into the wilds of Bonnie Scotland where
there was nothing to do except to gamble and play cards in the evenings. I
always lost. Even to the extent of losing my ex-army camp bed and having to
sleep on the hard wooden blocks of the repeater station floor. Myxamatosis
raged amongst the poor Scottish rabbit population.

It is only relatively recently, in my old age, have I returned to such happy
days. I have just opened a bottle of Sierra Valley, Californian white wine
for a night-cap. Diplomatic relations are now back to normal. I expect no
more irritable invitations to tea parties in Boston.
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Yours, Reg, G4FGQ