The Chauffeurs Page
The Birds:
During the time i worked as Chauffuer for a retired Major, one of my daily jobs was to feed the Chickens, which consisted of Full size chickens and Bantems.The Bantems were of a special small pidgeon sized ones, and i had trained them so as soon as i walked into the Chicken run, so they would both fly up , land on my shoulders, and then eat the corn out of my hands.Well one weekend i was away racing, in our big annual rowing race in Guernsey called the Sark to Jersey race, so the retired Major offered to feed the birds for that weekend, of course, one forgot to mention to him about my trained birds.
Well, when i got into work on Monday i couldn't believe my eyes, being as he was quite bald i couldn't fail to notice that his head looked more like the train lines at Clapham Junction than anything else, his poor scalp was scratced that much. When i asked what happened, he said " as soon as i walked into the chicken run, your bantems flew up at me, seemed to get into a fluster and perched on my head", course i suddenly realised that he was a good foot shorter then me, so they had got their usuall flying bearings aimed at my shoulders, got halfway there, relised something was wrong, there was no shoulders up there, so when in an emergency landing, find the nearest landing spot, hence the top of the head was chosen. One thing i never asked him, cos i didn't think it would go down well, did they do any droppings while there were up there, cos once or twice they had done whoopsie's on my shoulders.
Teething Problem:
Alongside running my taxi, i did quite a lot of chauffeuring work, of
which i spent 15 years driving for a very distinguished gentlman. One day, in a terrible
panic he called for me, " my teeth are missing, i can't find them anywhere and i have
a meeting in one hour", he explained , so off we toddled up to the master bedroom,
into the loo where the teeth last were. Well i thought to my self, shouldn't be a problem
finding a set of false teeth, they've more than likely fallen into the deep pile carpet
ready to bite ones toes as soon as one puts his foot on them, Jaws in a deep pile carpet,
i thought to my self.
He explained to me that they were in a glass of water, on the window shelf , the glass was
still there, but no teeth, and no water. I suddenly noticed when he was talking that most
of his teeth were there except for a gap of about 3 or 4 teeth in the front making him
whistle a bit when he talked. Bloody hell, i thought, it is only a few teeth on a piece of
wire, this is gonna be harder to find than i thought. I said to him," as anyone used
the loo since the cleaner has done your bedroom", "no " he replied, knowing
the cleaner, who was a lovely but old lady, very dizzy at times, she had probally thrown
the water in the glass down the loo not noticing that some teeth were in it.
"Well", i said to the gentleman, " only one thing for it, i will have to go
down to the bottom of the drainpipe, see if they are there if not we will try flushing the
loo," i reckoned that she had thrown the water so hard into the toilet that the
offending teeth had shot round the bend. Now i left strict instructions, " don't pull
the flush till i shout ready". So down i toddled, now bear in mind that this is no
ordinary drainpipe, it is some 40 feet long coming down from this bathroom area, and it is
an old metal one. So i removed the drain cover first, no sign of these teeth, then just
behind me i removed the manhole cover to the inspection chamber, no teeth there. All of a
sudden he puts his little bald head out of the bathroom window way up in the distance,
" okey " he shouted, well all i had time to say was, " just a sec" and
whoosh, he pulled the flush, well i dived to my knees, to get my hands at the bottom of
the drain pipe, sure enough down the pipe is this ting ting ting ting, as the teeth were
hitting each side of the drainpipe. Suddenly something soft appeared, i wasn't going to
find out what it was, and moved my hand back sharply, shooting past following this soft
stuff was a pink set of teeth, "s--t " i had forgot about the teeth in my panic
of what was in front, i swung around , made a dive for the inspection cover, my hand
diving into it, and right on the end of my finger i had made catch that Ian Botham would
have been proud of.
There on the end of my outstretched finger was this small set of teeth, another inch and
they would have ended up somewhere between Guernsey and Herm. He shouted down from 40 feet
above , " have you got them " "Yes " i replied still laying on the
ground but with them firmly in my clasp, " wonderfull" , he called out. Down he
came to where i was, big smile on his face, took the teeth, rinsed them under a cold tap,
shoved them in his mouth and off to the meeting he went.