It's A Bloke Thing.

I have a nephew named Jamie. He lives in Great Yarmouth with some other members of our numerous family who moved to the coast some years ago and have settled in comfortably. Great Yarmouth is not the town it once was and is no longer great. It's very difficult to find employment so Jamie works all the hours he can in a bowling alley, and therein lies the story.

My wife and I went to Yarmouth to see the family over the New Year but Jamie was working so we went to see him at the bowling alley. The seafront at Yarmouth has recently benefited from an extensive and expensive refurbishment however, some of the older attractions date back to the 1950's and the bowling alley is one of these. Jamie wasn't busy and asked if I wanted to have a look behind the scenes. I have always been interested to see how things work so jumped at the chance. My wife declined the invite and couldn't see why I was so interested, she just didn't get it.

Jamie explained that the alley was built in the 1950's and it was still the original machinery. It was fascinating to watch this old machinery gathering the fallen pins via a simple mechanism and smoothly putting them back in place time and time again. I could imagine the youth of the 1950's with slick brylcreamed hair pretending to be Elvis and the girls in their bobby sox and flouncy dresses on Saturday night. The town would have been thriving, there would be money in their pockets and the bowling alley would be the place to be seen. As Jamie finished his impromptu lecture-cum-tour he presented me and my father in law with an old, damaged skittle each. The plastic was torn on the outside but the internal wood seemed to be intact. I am not usually sentimental and I am not materialistic but I was quite touched that Jamie gave me this skittle. It has no monetary value and is hardly ornamental but I felt I needed to do something worthy with it. I decided to strip the plastic off then stain and varnish it. 'What for' my wife said, she just didn't get it.

In my naivety I thought to myself no problem, strip the plastic off, a quick sand down and stain, hey presto. I didn't take into account the plastic would be glued to the wood itself. It took hours to prise the plastic away causing painful hands and a lot of splinters whilst trying not to damage the wood. I also stupidly thought the wood be one piece of beautifully lathed timber with a glorious grain running through it. It is no such thing. It's made of odd blocks of timber a bit like one of those 3D puzzles you can assemble but all glued together. Where I had taken the plastic off the wood had split and fractured. It was like trying to sand a hedgehog. I managed to impale myself several times on the treacherous barbs, but I persevered. 'Why,' asked the wife, she just didn't get it.

After several hours of preparing and sanding I managed to get it in reasonable shape to be able to stain it but, I must confess, I haven't got round to it yet. What I have now is a lump of wood with a bit of history. The only conceivable use for it is as a door stop or perhaps to knock an intruder over the head. However, I am strangely proud of it. My wife still doesn't get it. I am not sure I get it myself; it must be a bloke thing.