Well, I suppose it made a change from the Golden Rivet ! (what else was in view I do not know).
Danny.
ah . .. . lacking the breadth and the robustness and the touch of bawdiness in our illustrious chronicler , he of many parts, the 'Golden Rivet' , until researched was a
mystery to me. Rivetting, for want of a better word, in its early nautical
applications. So, to return to the original allusion, the implication would seem to be that back then around Sutton Bank there were a bunch of blokes known to favour 'batting for the other side', and for them to be consorting otherwise was something of an anomoly. But how supremely human and poetic to get your rocks off when witness to a glorious sunrise. (Such frequent events are one of the delights of being alive and cause for great appreciation of eyesight, for the thought of those who are deprived the experience is indeed sad. )
Seeing as how diversions into entirely different aspects, say of someone's war for instance, are acceptable hereabouts, here are two little Second World War anecdotes I heard today from an old mate, for the first time in fact. Which surprised me not a little. His late uncle was in PNG at the height of the first Japanese advances across the Owen Stanleys. He, the uncle, and his mate had had a gutful of one of their officers who was the epitome of an arrogant, ignorant oaf without a shred of concern for his men and lacking any true moral fibre himself. One night, during an advance , with Jap snipers popping off their targets all around, these two aggrieved men took summary justice into their own hands. One felled the officer in question, keeping him face down, while the other plugged him with his rifle to the back of the head. He was buried on the spot, as were all the other dead men, victims of Japanese sharp shooters, hidden in the tree tops. The secret of the two perpetrators stayed with them until shortly before the death of the last to survive into old age. According to his nephew, uncle, not surprisingly, had been thoroughly traumatised by his experiences during the war.
The other story relates to an incident at Buka Passage in the islands to the east of New Guinea. The war was just over. A bunch of Japanese POWs were lined up on the jetty waiting to be taken aboard a ship to take them away to an encampment. An Australian soldier, known well to my informant, saw that the prisoner standing at the end of the queue of prisoners was a hated officer who had personally executed and brutalised many of our captured men earlier in the war. Without hesitation our man fetched a long length of four by two and with a mighty swing hit the Japanese square on the back of the head, sending him flying into the fast flowing current. Screams of outrage continued until the victim was carried out of earshot. Thus, one more savage did not have to face the War Crimes Tribunal.