Donkey's Hind Leg

Extracts from Chapter 3 "Local Locksmiths".   Edited By Carrie Torode

We were gathered around the stove again on another occasion, I remember it as though it was yesterday.  Elvis had been sent to the shop to get a packet of Senior Service.  On reaching the door he called back to Ernie, "What if they haven't got them?"

"If they haven't got Senior Service, get anything," responded Ernie.  He came back with a pork-pie!!

Not only that but there was turmoil in the workshop because Bee-Jay-the-Key had made his own gun from steel tubing, a firing device of some kind and gunpowder from goodness knows where.  It had put a huge stainless steel ball-bearing through two sheets of corrugated iron with the ease of passing through warm butter and powered a nasty dent in the roof-supporting R.S.J. that can still be seen today.  The ballbearing was never found but the general consensus of opinion was wherever it lay it must have been as flat as a pancake.

Bee-Jay-the Key was an apprentice in the engineering department of the Stalag and, although only young, could best be described as a budding genius.  They were teaching him to be a locksmith and he was learning fast.  He could open most locks with wire as quickly as the person with the key, hence the nickname.  What was more worrying to some was how he used his talents to amuse his mates at night.  Rumours abounded, stories of someone who had picked the padlocked runway gate at the airport late at night, driven the full length quietly with lights out and then raced back, flat out, head lights blazing, testing the maximum speed possible in a car full of people, out through the gate, clicked the padlock back together and gone!!

Another malicious rumour involved a beach kiosk which had been entered without any apparent sign of force.  The only thing missing was a box of Mars Bars, a trail of which with but one bite taken out led from the kiosk door to within two houses of Bee-Jay's home.  He, of course, was not involved in any of this, but it just goes to show how people can jump to the wrong conclusions when you are good at your job.

"They'll end up sacking that Bee-Jay nipper yet," said Charlie as he rigged up one of his famous cheese sandwiches on the toasting rack at the pot-bellied stove.  "I mean, you've got to admit that making a gun that fires ballbearings is dangerous, whatever way you look at it."

"Dangerous?" growled 'Happy Bill', "dangerous?  The way that ballbearing hit the girder, the ricochet alone could've passed right through a human being."

"I don't think they'd sack him though," commented Ernie, "he's very talented with his hands, you know ..... you've got to admit that."

"Huh!" growled Bill, "not only in the daytime from what I hear!"

"Ah now, come on be fair," interjected Charlie, "you can't judge a man on hearsay."

"Hearsay .....hearsay," shouted Bill, "I suppose you think the Mars Bars liberated each other from that Kiosk? ....and then threw themselves down in the gutter all the way up the road."

Whilst on the subject of locksmiths, I must say that some years later I went to work at what was then called States 'Public Works'.  This was in the days when they occupied part of the slaughter house complex on the Castle Emplacement.  I worked with a plumber called Eric Johns who was also a dab hand with locks, for instance, within two weeks of working there, he showed me exactly how and where to strike the padlock on his toolbox in case I needed tools and he wasn't around.  Eric was great fun and certainly knew locks, there again, he should have done because he learned from his father and his father was a 'living locksmith legend'.

Percy Johns was thought by many to be the greatest of them all, but the incident that finally put it beyond all doubt and made him undisputed Champion of all time was the case of the National Provincial Bank.  Back in the days before the National Provincial and Westminster banks amalgamated to become NatWest, Percy Johns received a desperate phone call: could he come and help?  The problem was that the bank had just recently bought the most modern, sophisticated and impregnable safe from the United States of America.  It was fitted with the latest - self reciprocating, interplaneterised toggle sprocket tumblers and no-one, but no-one, could break into it.   The trouble was someone had locked the keys inside.

Percy arrived and the manager and several senior members of staff met him and took him to the room containing the offending safe.  After looking briefly at it, he asked if everyone would please leave the room, let's face it, a genius does not want a crowd of on-lookers when he is about to perform a delicate operation.  Just five minutes later, he opened the office door and invited them all back in to see.  His ultimate moment of glory:  the impregnable American wonder stood with door gaping open and keys still sitting on the shelf.  Well!  Congratulations and shoulder slaps rained down on him till his knees buckled - his firm were paid for his time, but there was a very nice golden handshake for Percy who had saved them a fortune as well as an embarrassment in getting a replacement all the way from America.  Yes, there was no doubt about it, Percy was without question the greatest locksmith of all time!

He basked in the glory of this event for many years until his retirement.  On that day with all his work mates around him and the friendly handshake and cuckoo clock from management, he finally gave the whole story.  "Boys," he said, " you are all no doubt familiar with the story of the American safe at the National Provincial bank.  Today being my last day working with you, I would like to share with you what really happened that day.  When I was shown into the room with the safe, I immediately noticed the smell of fairly new paint and the thought suddenly occurred to me that the new safe had recently been painted in keeping with the rest of the room.  When everyone had left me, I proceeded to give hard sharp smacks with my hammer all around the edge of the door, then one jolting pull on the handle and it came unstuck.  The staff were so thrilled to see the door open and the keys sitting there, that it seemed a shame to disillusion them with the extra details!"

It is said that there has never been a retirement 'do' with more laughter and cheering than Percy John's!