The picture of the watch reminded me of a funny. The old watches were de riguer when I was issued mine. When those nice new ones with the "kewl" looking dials and timers on it came out a mate, (Richie R who I recently heard had died), decided he wanted one and he had heard that they had some in stores in Belize. So off he went only to be told that he can't exchange his old one because it wasn't broken, (I got the same response when I tried it on). So he came back to the Swamp and later that evening, (beer might have been involved but my memory is unclear), after throwing it around the room, stamping on it, hitting it with rocks from the garden etc. etc. etc. he decided that he could break it by putting it in the Swamp blender. In it went, on went the blender and the watch promptly flew,
through the side of the blender, across the room in absolutely pristine condition bar a couple of slashes in the strap. Watch 1, Blender 0!!!
Not to be outdone Richie decides to wait until a different storeman is on duty and try to sweet talk him into making the exchange. Off he goes to stores and finds a new victim. Richie was quite the charmer and often got his way by the simple application of a nice line of patter. Off he goes giving it his best holding the old watch on it's brown strap in his hand. The stacker is utterly unimpressed with Richies patter and tells him that he can't exchange it because it isn't broken.
This puts Richie in an, (unusually for him), major sense of humor failure and he holds the strap by the end and smashes the watch down on the counter... Well... Remember those metal angle iron things that they used to put along the edge of the counters in stores? He hit the glass directly on that and cracked it. He looked at it, looked at the stacker and said "There, it's F$cking broken now!!!"...
Result...
Back on topic:
Compo Can opener... A set of Mess tins made in 1948 - soon to be antiques and therefore worth buckets of cash I'm sure...
and one of the old style Aircrew Survival Knives, (with an actual point and blade), that I use all the time in my workshop... You'd be surprised what you can do with that old thing...
