Knowledgeable Nigel…..

    Knowledgeable Nigel is a rough diamond.  A guy that will go way out of his way to help you but he is also what I refer to as a “special case”.  How did he get his nickname?  Well, regardless of what you are telling him, he always replies with “I know”.  Hence Knowledgeable Nigel!

    Whatever he does he goes at it full bore, full of enthusiasm, no holds barred, Geronimo!  He’s started to renovate I don’t know how many cars, but to my knowledge he hasn’t completed one yet.  The direct consequence of this is; there are always several cars at various stages of completion outside his house!  Periodically his wife Lynne, (I guess she waited for Mr. Wright to come along), makes him get rid of them.  Lynne keeps old Nigel under a pretty tight rein and Nigel being Nigel, who can blame her?

    Lynne was seriously into horse riding and it wasn’t long before Nigel took it up.  His only problem was his was the only horse I’ve ever heard of to suffer from hay fever!  Sad, but true!  He once fell of his horse and wandered round the local countryside for hours with amnesia before Lynne came and rescued him.

    Nigel is pretty good at plastering and about 12 years ago he came and did some work on my house on Orchard Street.  He was working the morning shift, finishing at 2pm, and he went up to my place to do the plastering.   I was on long days finishing at 6pm.  The plant at the mill wasn’t fully automated in those days and there used to be two Pulpermen and one Beaterman to supply stock to two papermaking machines.  We had an armchair in the corner and it was accepted practise to sit in the armchair and press the buttons with a broom handle which had been modified and sharpened especially to do the job.  I arrived home at about 6-15 and my wife asked me if I’d had a busy shift.  I told her (as you do) that I had indeed been very busy and that I was very tired.  She said, and I quote; “You lying Bastard!  You’ve been sat with your feet up all day pressing buttons with a stick!”  Trust Nigel!  He’d grassed me up and rapped me out big time.  Oh well…

    When Nigel joined the territorials he used to come back from his training weekends with some really funny stories.  He made it all sound like some huge disorganized game of cowboys and injuns.  He was a constant source of poetic inspiration and I could have written pages and pages about him, especially with him taking it all in good fun.

    When Nigel married Lynne his stag night was really great!  There was a plan afoot to get him really drunk, give him a few punches on the arm, (Just to make it tender, not to hurt him, you understand), then stick one of those fake tattoos on him.  We, yes I was privy to the plan, were going to neatly bandage it up then leave him to discover it in the morning.  Lynne heard of the tattoo plan, (She didn’t hear the word FAKE), and asked me to keep a close eye on him during the night. (Like I was the trustworthy one!)  Anyway it didn’t work out because the last I saw of Nigel that night he was doing about 30mph down Sheffield High Street.  Oh, one other thing, he was in a Tesco’s shopping trolley at the time shouting to all and sundry; “Gesh out of the way!  Ash going for the record!”    

Alas, Nigel, due to his own idiocy got himself the boot from Bog Rolls r Us.  I really miss him because he was one of the good old lads. 

    Check out the two Knowledgeable Nigel poems…….