Author: davidjohntooth

I was seventy six on the eighth of June and still working three days every week at a small engineering firm in Tipton, West midlands as a toolmaker.

Went out with three friends last Friday to a local public house The Jolly Collier and took some samples of the recently designed Fasteners and nuts that I made at work.

I suppose that designing nuts and bolts doesn’t sound very exciting but I do like to keep my mind active just in case someone is desperate and needs a brain transplant ( best of luck there)

But my friends were impressed with the smart_thread and the other two items that I took along. Trying to get a large manufacturer interested I them.

Don’t suppose Andrew Lloyd Webber reads my column? if you do would you be interested in making a musical of my book ‘Don’t Ever Forget Me’ if so I would willingly let you have twenty percent of the profits , look if you really do a good job on it I could run to twenty one percent.

Can’t spend any more time on this column tonight as I want to write some more of my science fiction novel ‘Clone’ Don’t suppose there’s a good literary agent in the Tipton Area that works on five percent commission or a bad one that works on three and a half percent. Wonder If Andrew would be interested?

After three years working at the first factory Nichols and Lewis, they went into administration, which looking back seems to be a common theme in engineering in the UK.

Fortunately, the company next door offered all the apprentices employment, and it was one of the largest plastic toolmaking firms in the country.

While there I was moved to different parts of the factory it was a way learn a different variety of skills. Now it was my turn to stay in the Inspection department; not very exciting I thought. I was going to spend the next six months sitting down measuring blocks of steel…Still.

On my first morning, a tall man as thin as a broom stale introduced himself to me, he had little hair but what he did have was brushed backwards and held in place with Brylcreem, ‘I’me Albert Brown,’ he said. For the first few months, I struggled to make any sense of what he said. It wasn’t just the lisp but more like the feeling of starting a jigsaw without the picture to give you an idea of what the finished puzzle looked like.

‘I used to be a boxer,’ he told me one day. ‘A boxer.’ I replied in surprise. ‘I was pretty good.’ he said. ‘Who did you fight?’ I asked.

‘Everyone,’ he replied, ‘I was a fairground boxer, a bare-fist fighter, people would come out of the crowd and they would get money if they beat me. not many did. Then I saw his eyes glisten. ‘But one day this guy stepped out of the crowd, he was big but that never bothered me because big people are sometimes slow or clumsy.  He climbed into the ring and as soon as the bell went I knew he was too good for me. I could usually box and slip away from a person if I needed too. But not him he chased me and was relentless, he really hurt me.’ but I didn’t go down,’ there were tears in.his eyes.

I felt so sorry for him and now knew why he struggled with his speech, I really liked him. He used to tease me and say, ‘Hit me on the arm as hard as you like’,  ‘I  don’t want to I,’ replied, ‘I might hurt you. ‘Don’t be silly he replied,’ but if it makes you feel any better let me hit your arm first, from just two inches away. Before I could reply he hit me and my arm went numb. He started laughing. From then on it was a ritual between us. One I always enjoyed.

It was normal for me to have a bruised arm but it never bothered me, it was part of factory life. ‘ I have a son.’ he said one day. He had never mentioned a son before. ‘Is he a boxer,’ I asked? Albert laughed. ‘Got more sense than me,’ he answered. He’s a drummer in a rock and roll band. They are are a really good group.’ They are called the fortunes.

I said, ‘Wow,’ or something equally as cool because he was right they were a really good group and would eventually have songs high into the record charts.’

Albert Brown was a really nice man.

This is the only solid silver coaster of this type in the universe (unless there is a parallel one.)

I designed and manufactured the tooling and made just one sample.

It is 110-millimetre diameter by .5 thick and has been hallmarked at the assay office in Birmingham.

The case made from oak and is branded with the same Logo.

Features in the book Along Came Joe

”A collector’s item?”

21/01/2018

How could a Government in the UK run a policy of fitting Smart Meters that are not ubiquitous and can at the moment only send information to the energy company that fitted them? Which means that if you decide to switch supplier they possibly won’t work.

Could it possibly be that the people in government aren’t very smart?

21/01/2018

The year was 1957 and I  was 15 years old. My sister had got me a job in a factory located on Tyburn Road, Birmingham as a toolmaker. it was a firm that made a variety of parts in metal; from small components to sumps for lorries.

I had no idea what a toolmaker was or what they did but my dad said that it was the best job in a factory and that I would have a job for the rest of my life. And he was right but I really disliked working there mainly because the person in charge of the section that I worked in was a really aggressive person. And everyone disliked him but most were too frightened to tell him.

I did make some really good friends there, Bobby Moor was two years older than me and so confident that he was never frightened to say what he thought even if it caused problems. He was an excellent footballer and a very fast runner. He did have a major health problem and would on many occasions suffer epileptic fits and collapse on the floor unconscious. The nearest person to him would cradle his head and place a steel rule in his mouth to prevent him biting his own tongue.

John Ward was the same age as Bob but old before his time.  As far as I know, he never did anything spectacular in his life but was absolutely fanatical about trains and spent his weekends driving children around on a small gauge railway in Sutton Park. Bob told him that he was boring and that later in life he would regret not enjoying himself while he was young.  But some people are born old.

Harry Lycet was the firm’s electrician, he was small and stocky had a round face with a complexion that was more suited to a fairground boxer; sort of scuff marks all around the edges and never stopped talking. He squeezed himself into a boiler suit that was far too small and as it was washed every weekend each Monday it shrunk even more. Never really knew how old he was but probably about fifty-five.

Sometime in his life while working on a massive power it had malfunctioned and cut all the fingers off on his right hand. He used to joke about it. and nothing seemed to bother him.

One Monday morning he never turned up for work and we found out later that he had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck dying instantly.

I missed his banter. Funny how sharp some images remain from so long ago and others that you really want to keep don’t.

There will be very little continuity in the snippets that I write because having worked in engineering all my life I now want to move away from having an orderly mind. So if my short stories are relative to a jigsaw puzzle I won’t be collecting all the outside pieces first and then filling in the middle.

Music

Having been born in 1942 I went to school with Elvis Presley, song along with the Everly Brothers, and was amazed by the songwriting skills of Buddy Holly.     Of course, they were in America and I was in Birmingham, UK, but I was with them in spirit.

This was the late fifties early sixties a time when British singers and groups were playing catch-up to the American superstars.                                                               In 1960 I was eighteen and old enough to legally go into public houses and buy alcohol.

But the primary reason for these visits was that nearly every pub would have a Rock and Roll group trying to mimic the latest hit songs arriving from the States.

Beer flowed, smoke from cigarettes threatened to obscure the main acts, the sound from guitars and drums acted as a whisk mixing all these ingredients together.The lead singer who perhaps worked as a shop assistant by day was gradually elevated to a Demi-God.

Missed notes and chords from the lead guitarist became irrelevant as the heady mixture took hold. And how I and my friends envied the groups for they had what at that time in our lives we never had ‘Girlfriends’ and the most attractive ones in the room.

Then one weekend everything changed, ‘perhaps not everything because the girlfriends’ bit remained as yet a distant dream’.                                                                 I had started to go to the Plaza in Handsworth, a club where there were resident rock groups such as the Redcaps and a variety of visiting ones.

One night in 1962 and I arrived at the Plaza with a group of friends to find that we had to stand in a small queue.                                                                                                   What’s going on,’ I asked little Ray?                                                                                            He looked at me mystified. ‘The Beatles are playing here tonight.’                               I shrugged my shoulders.                                                                                                            ‘Who are they,’ I asked still perplexed?                                                                                    ‘New group from Liverpool, just charted with a song called ‘Love, Love Me Do.’ They are supposed to be good that’s why we are standing out here in the cold.’

It was winter and there was a chilling wind whistling along the street. Still, when we got inside the club we still bought the chilled beer.

I noticed that there were a lot more girls here this week and wondered why but found out when the Beatles burst onto the stage.                                                                  As the group started their opening number all the girls standing at the front screamed then squeezed as close as they could to the group.And as I listened to their music I thought Wow, they were by far the best live group that I had ever heard, the guitar chords and harmonies were up another level.                                       And their clothes were as distinctive as the music.

Months later another group arrived on stage, The Rolling Stones and I was in awe of their collective sound and look which was as distinctive as the Beatles, but in a totally different way.

Micky Jagger bounced up and down as if he had springs fitted in the heels of his boots and the drummer Mick Jones was mesmerising both the way he looked and played.

And how I loved that rhythm and blues style of music, and still do. They were, and still are the anti-Christs of rock groups.

The Brit music revolution had started.

I designed these high security fasteners as part of a range of products that come under the Tricone range for a firm called Fastenright based in Wolverhampton, UK

They require a special tool to lock or unlock them.

The three holes have ballbearings inserted in them. This makes forced removable very difficult as the bearings help prevent drilling or sawing.

Use to help prevent items being stolen or in innovative buildings as they are visually stunning.

Not in production yet samples only.

Further products in this range will be added including the Smart-Thread high security fasteners and nuts.

These can be used for robotic loading and in car, trains, plains, just about anything.

Looking for investment.

My name is David Tooth and I live in a small industrial town in the UK; I am seventy-five years old and still work three days a week as a toolmaker. Since the age of sixty-eight, I have written three books under the name of David Timmins which are available on Amazon and I also design and make prototypes of quite unusual items which require larger organisations to produce or fund.

The book cover above is taken from my second publication and is intended to be read from the age of ten upwards.

‘Don’t ever forget me.’ contains some mild bad language and minimal sexual content. The dog on the cover was Kizzie, a miniature Schnauzer, the last one of three different breeds of dogs who all became part of our family.

She brought so much fun into our lives and had ears that could move through a range of combinations depending on her mood.; but oh how she made us ‘laugh; and when  she got old ‘cry.’

The bear; if ever she was annoyed or thought that we were not paying her enough attention it would be pulled from the chair on which it sat and flung around the room.

Then she would stare at us with those great big eyes as if to say, ‘Don’t ever forget me because I am the main person in this family.’

‘Don’t ever forget me,’ by David Timmins.

My name is Rebecca. Today is my tenth birthday. it was going to be such a special birthday. a trip to the cinema with my father who I loved to bits, then a party at home with all my friends. That’s when I would wear that special dress.

Then something terrible happened that changed my life forever. I would never wear that special dress and today would not be my only tenth birthday.

A total surprise

By Jon Quill on 27/ February 2017

I did not know what to expect from this book. It needs minor corrections, mainly spelling, but a total revelation in story telling.  Emotional, endearing, with a twist in the TAIL you couldn’t expect. I recommend this to all over the age of ten. And yes that might have something to do with the story. I am not saying any more about the story because it would completely destroy the enjoyment of reading it.

Please, please, give it a try.

As the person above has said there are quite a few mistakes in all my books which I will gradually eliminate.

Even if you don’t read the book above listen to the chapter headings which are all taken from what I consider classic musical tracks.

David Timmins.

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