Peek into Grandad’s naughty side
‘‘WELCOME to The Repair Shop. Now, who’s next? Ah, Marion. What have you brought us?’’
‘‘I’m not sure what it is, but it’s been in the attic for yonks with all my grandfather’s old stuff. It has a kind of viewing thing and a handle at the side but we can’t get it to work.’’
‘‘Let’s have a look. Ah, yes. It’s an old What the Butler Saw machine. Very common at the seaside amusement arcades in the 1900s. You needed to put a penny in the slot. Made of hundreds of photos which changed as you moved the handle and giving a moving picture effect. Most of them were pretty naughty, you know?’’
‘‘Really? Well, Grandad was a clergyman. Can’t imagine anything unseemly about what he watched. He used to look at it each day and never let us children go near it. He was a bishop later in life. Very proper man.’’
‘‘Come back next week, Marion, and I’m sure we’ll have it up and running.’’
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‘‘Welcome back, Marion. Pull off the sheet and tell us what you think.’’
‘‘Oh, my God! It’s beautiful! Does it work now?’’
‘‘Indeed, it does. Here’s a penny. Now, look into the periscope thing and turn the handle.’’
‘‘Oh, this is wonderful. I told you he was a religious man. It’s showing something from the Bible.’’
‘‘I’ll stop you there, Marion. It’s actually called ‘Bath Night at King Solomon’s Harem’. He had 1000 women there so it gets a bit raunchy. In fact, it seems to have been viewed so often by your grandfather that the original photos were falling to pieces and we had to get Peter over there with his camera to take about 200 new shots. Virginia and Melody, who do our sewing jobs, kindly acted as the models. And what a great job they did. We see them now in a completely different light. Not the dowdy old seamstresses of the last series by a long way. There seems to have been a fair amount of heavy breathing just under the viewing area and the paintwork there was pretty well shot, but Bevan our art restorer found just the mixture to replace the old stuff. Great work, isn’t it?’’
‘‘I’m overwhelmed. It’s a miracle. I just can’t wait for my children to see it. You see, we’ve always wanted to hand it down through the generations.’’
‘‘How old are your offspring, Marion?’’
‘‘Twelve and 9.’’
‘‘That should be OK. At that age they’ll have seen worse on their computer than what went on in the harem. Or came off in the harem, I should say.’’
‘‘I must say it rather changes my ideas about Grandad. Perhaps he got some rather impure pleasure from this machine. We were told that when he was a boy he was always asking if he could spend a penny during the seaside holidays and his parents worried that the salty air was causing some kind of urinary infection.’’
‘‘Well, now we know his waterworks were fine. That’s a blessing. Did you find any more photos? They came in a kind of circular magazine which could be inserted in the machine.’’
‘‘No. The only magazines we found were about 600 copies of Playboy. Grandad never let us see them, of course, but told us he subscribed because the articles were so useful in preparing his sermons. He preached about adultery and fornication quite a lot, I seem to remember. Of course, when he became a bishop he had to move to the cathedral town and all these memorabilia have been stored in the attic ever since.’’
‘‘It must be a relief to you to know that he was a just a typical clergyman. No funny business with choirboys and that sort of thing.’’
‘‘Yes, that’s a blessing. And thanks to you and your team the family can remember him as just another normal sex maniac. A great comfort.’’
‘‘Only too happy to help, Marion. And Virginia and
Melody asked me to thank you. Without this job they’d never have started their lucrative career as porn stars. Bless you, Marion. Bye.’’
‘‘Goodbye, and many, many thanks.’’
‘‘Now, what’s next? Penelope, you’ve brought something?’’
‘‘Yes, most of it is outside but I’ve got the propeller here. It’s from a German plane which was shot down over our place during the Battle of Britain. It landed on the outhouse while Granny was using it and she became the first fatality in Sussex caused by enemy action. We kept the plane wreckage in the backyard as a kind of memorial to her, but we’d love to see the plane restored.’’
‘‘We’ll do our best, Penelope. Come back on Wednesday and have a test flight. Perhaps over the site of the old outhouse, just as a tribute to Granny.’’