Donkey's Tails

Extracts from Donkeys Tails.   Edited By Carrie Torode.  For purchasing details, click here

Morley Russell

Looking recently through Carel Toms' great little book, "Times Past", I came across a photograph that took me back thirty years to the time when I was driving a lorry for a local hardware store.  The photo was of the well known and highly skilled coppersmith Morley Russell.  Morley, together with his two sons Arthur and Fred, plus Charles and Walter Penny were practically the last of the traditional Guernsey copper can craftsmen.

I remember delivering a heavy package of "Tinmans Solder sticks" to Morley's house at Jerbourg Road.  I went around to the back garden and there found the man himself at work in his garden shed.  This old rickety wooden building, no more than about eight feet by ten, had been his workshop since the year dot, or as Ernie would have said, "Since the Town Church clock was only a wristwatch!"  It had no floor, only hardpacked clay which had been trodden down for so long that you had to step down about eighteen inches from garden level.  It had a bench and some shelves and very little else, but in the middle of the shack stood the all important tree stump, complete with its perfect hollow exactly the right size for hammering out the curved sides of the world famous cans.

"How you doing?" I asked.

"Not so bad, not so bad," he answered cheerily, "what you got there?"

"Sticks of Tinmans Solder," I answered, "where do you want them?"

"Plonk them on the bench," the old man replied, "you busy?"

"Enough to get on with, you know.  What about you?"

"I'm busy enough," he said, "but not as busy as if I'd accepted an American's dopey offer yesterday," he began to rock with laughter at the thought of it.

"What was all that about?" I asked, moving a few tools aside to sit on his bench.

Still laughing, he began, "Well I had an American visit here yesterday, when he saw the shed he goes, "Oh! Gee! Look at the workshop, Oh! Gee! Can you believe that?   That's fantastic, is this where you make all the cute cans? Folks back home in the States are really into all this "handmade" thing, you know.  I can sell as many of these as you can make!"  I says to him, "How many are we talking about?"  He says, "Let's put it this way, I have a chain of superstores as outlets and I can write you a cheque for up to one million dollars if you will supply only me"!"

By now ol' Morley had tears in his eyes, "Those Americans," he wheezed, "they must do all their thinking with their chequebook.  Imagine one million dollars, I'd be five hundred years old before I'd finished the order, so I said to him, "but I only make about eight a week, ten at most.   He says, "well what about getting more men in to help you?"  I said, "how many men could fit in here?"  "Well," he said, "perhaps you could rent a small factory and put in some machinery."  I says, "how could they be 'handmade' cans if we made them on machines?"

Old Morley really made me laugh that day and I've never forgotten it so when I saw his photo I wondered if the story had ever been passed on down the family, the way they do at birthday and Christmas parties and I phoned Morley's grandson, the silversmith Bruce Russell.  He assured me that it was a well known family tale and also that it, or something similar, had happened more than once.  He recalled that one American businessman had gone so far as to offer to dismantle the garden shed and transport it, the bench, the tree-stump and Morley and re-erect the whole thing inside one of his huge stores for people to see the cans being made in their original authentic setting.

The Therin Brothers

Frankie Therin (pronounced Terra) and his brother Yves, known affectionately as 'Eave-Up , lived in two of the cottages overlooking the cup and saucer at Rocquaine, Pleinmont.  One was a lifetime supporter of the Rangers and the other, the North.  This caused enough animosity when their teams were playing others, but when they played each other it was mayhem.  Just before the kick off, Frankie would shout, "come on the Rangers, let's give 'em another thrashing," to which 'Eave-Up would respond in rage, "another, another, that'll be the day when your load of cripples can give us a thrashin'."

"We beat you last time," Frankie would yell back triumphantly.

"Only because the ref wouldn't give the free kick, you can only win if you cheat."

"We don't need to cheat mate, we can beat you anytime, anywhere, you're just rubbish!"

"Rubbish is it?  Rubbish, you wouldn't like to come here and say that."

"I'll come anywhere and say it mate, you're rubbish!"  With that the first punch was thrown and then the fight would last right throughout the first half.  They would queue separately for a cup of tea at half time, some derogatory remark would be made at the start of the second half and off they would go again.  I can not speak from personal experience but it has been said by football regulars that the Therins never saw a match between North and Rangers all the way through.