SUM OF PARTS

About fifty years ago a boy wanted a Meccano set for Christmas. His father couldn’t afford a new one, so instead he paid five pounds for a large fifteenth-hand set, rusty, dirty and ancient. The boy’s father painstakingly painted by hand every metal piece in one of three colours: pillar-box red, emerald green or Prussian blue. He submerged every nut, bolt and tiny axle spring-clip in vinegar overnight to remove the rust and dirt. He painted the tiny spanners silver and bought two new shockproof plastic-handled screwdrivers to replace broken ones. He cleaned the brass wheels and gears with ‘Duraglit’ so that they shone like the sun. He painted the tyres of the wheels with blacking, and buffed up all of the axle rods with emery paper, to remove the pits and scratches. He built a compartmentalised box for the set, and a lid, in deal timber. He stained and varnished the box three times. He dovetailed the joints and rebated the compartments to ensure that the box remained strong. When the set was finished, it was hidden from view, behind the sofa in the front room. On Christmas morning, the boy was overjoyed by his gift. Not because he could build anything, in fact he was an absolute duffer. The boy’s skills lay in other directions. He picked up paper and a pencil and painstakingly wrote down a description of each part and counted how many of each part there was. Then he examined every item to see if any manufacturer’s part number had been embossed on each part. Then he invented unique code numbers for every item and created stock records for every code number. Next he categorised the items: fastenings, rods, girders, plates, wheels, gears, pulleys and so on. Then he added up the number of categories and double-checked the stock quantities and descriptions against a bill of materials he had written. Finally, after a Xmas tea of turkey soup, turkey and turkey and custard, he carried out a full stock inventory. Fifty years later, he finished writing a Christmas card to his own son and arose from his chair with a deep sigh of regret. He was recollecting the words of Wordsworth: ‘Bliss was it in dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven.’