Even though your turbo-weasel collection may by the envy of everyone who lives to the south of Northamptonshire, and your pedal-powered custard maker may very well be the finest outside of the most secret laboratories of those high-tech companies on the leading edge of technical innovation, it means next to nought. That is if your abilities with the goat-rewiring spanner are not up to scratch when you attend the next meeting of your Tinkerers and Fettlers club.
Tinkering and Fettling however, does seem to be somewhat on the wane, these days. There was a time when what it meant to be a man was in a great part defined by how well you could dismantle, repair and reassemble a clockwork social worker with optional cheese grater attachment. Many a man would take pride in his toolbox and the arcania it contained.
Many a young son was spellbound and fascinated to see the wonders of so many instruments of strange purpose when he was deemed old enough to see what lay in his father’s tool box. Further honour and heavy responsibility also lay in that significant day when he was allowed to take some of them and use them, perhaps only to recalibrate a geography teacher or to put a bit of a shine on a hand-cranked water goat. However, it still was a significant rite of passage, which now seems as quaint and out of date as an honest politician or a knowledgeable TV journalist.
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