What a Load of Rubbish

by Martin Etheridge

  I have a lot of people to thank for my recoery. First and foremost my Aunt Vi - we “shared” many a meal together at Q.E.M.H. Woolwich when I was a patient in the “Cabbage Patch”.

  Secondly my Mum, Eileen (sadly no longer with us but always with me); my Dad, Norman (down to earth and salt of the earth); my Uncle, Harold (everyone should have one) and my brother, Kev (although we fight like cat and dog we always have a laugh).

  Thirdly, my son, Jack “the flatfoot” - sorry, Policeman and my daughter, Rosie C, now a mum herself. Lastly, to “Brazillian bombshell” Teressa Mendoca, my best friend ever, love always,

  Martin

  XXXXXX

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Before we Begin

  1: The Wonderful ‘All-In-One-Der’

  2: It’s in My Blood

  3: Malcolm and the Power of the Pooperscooper

  4: Monday is only a Weekend Away

  5: The Future According to Geordie

  6: Thunderclouds in the Office

  7: Malcolm’s Wallow/Gisele’s Despair

  8: A Little Dice With Death

  9: The Challenge

  10: Night-Time Break-In

  11: The Problem With Fizzy Drinks on Hot Days

  12: Willy’s Promise

  Copyright

  BEFORE WE BEGIN

  If you have opened this book expecting to find a tale of witches and wizards flying around on broomsticks then I’m sorry, you are going to be disappointed – there is no sorcery in this book. The only brooms mentioned are used in the way they were intended to be, that is to sweep up rubbish. There is magic though, real magic, but that comes later – like all good things.

  Chapter 1

  The Wonderful ‘All-In-One-Der’

  Suburbiaville Council works depot yard looked as though a bomb had struck. There were sheets of paper of all sizes and colours, paper bags, cardboard boxes, carrier bags, polythene bags with who knows what insid1e. There were broken bottles and smashed crockery from the works depot kitchen, week old left-overs from staff breakfasts. These were mixed in with used industrial tea-bags – the big ones from the four-gallon urns, and mountains of coffee dregs. The big, outside ashtrays had been upturned and emptied all over the concrete, along with all the sand from the fire buckets.

  The office staff had emptied their waste-paper baskets, the cleaning staff had thrown the contents of a number of vacuum cleaner bags out on the ground. A chilly wind blew in through the gates stirring all this into a thick, cold, inedible stew. Sheets of bubble-wrap and wads of tissue packaging had been slung willy-nilly all over the area – on top of this mechanics from the Motor Transport Wing had dumped all the greasy rags, engine and sump oil, old brake and clutch fluid. The yard was an unsightly oily slick, dotted here and there with debris – the top of a cake sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. And it smelled. It smelled of… of, uurrgh, words cannot describe the smell.

  “Okay, Geordie,” called Willie Eckerslike across the council works depot yard, “power ’er up, lad. I said. Power ’er up!”

  “Reet y’are, Mr Eckerslike, like.” Just outside the gates a tatty head, the hair scraggy and thinning under a cloth cap, ducked below the dashboard of a truck, the engine whirred a couple of times – a powerful beast gunned into life – and settled down to a deep purr.

  “Bring ’er in lad. I said. Bring ’er in!” Willy shouted above the rumble, hardly able to contain himself. A few revs, a gear-change and the huge beast crawled through the double-gates and into the yard. Air-brakes released. Hissed like a hundred angry pythons, the throttle opened wide and the vehicle lurched forward coming to a halt inside the double-gates. A grinding wrench from the hand brake, a door opened and Geordie jumped down from the drivers’ cab, rubbing his hands together.

  Mister Willy Eckerslike hopped from foot to foot like a startled pigeon, hardly able to control his excitement – the other pigeons just coo-cooed and flew away. It was such a thrill to watch his plan start to take shape. Mister Willy Eckerslike was the rather round Managing Director of Suburbiaville Newtown Council. A blunt, brash, self-made man from “Up-North” with a bald pate and double-chin – who had his beady eye on the Mayoral Elections, taking place next year. He had “come from nowt” and “grafted f’ perishin’ years to get where ’e is today”. Where he was, now, was at the end of a very large “Winston Churchill” cigar that looked very impressive but he never lit it: “I’m not payin’ out good money on cigars to watch ’em go up in smoke,” he used to say, or rather shout, “I said. I’m not payin’ out good money on cigars to set fire to ’em!” Besides Missus Eckerslike would not tolerate the smell of them in the house. And Willy was master in his own home – wasn’t he?

  Mister Eckerslike was an ex-school bully. He had passed all his exams at school, but on the very last day of term had managed to get himself expelled for thumping a Physical Training teacher. The story goes that this poor teacher was fresh out of training college, and had tried to make the young Willy do press-ups during the lesson but he wasn’t “Grovellin’ on t’floor for no beggar.” He wasn’t reluctant to throw his weight around, was our Willy. His whole philosophy on life was, “Y’can’t mek an omelette wi’out breakin’ a few ’eads.”

  “Here y’are Mister Eckerslike, like. All the way from ’Umberside mon,” sang Geordie in a high-pitched, Tyneside warble. “One brand new, state-of-the-art, fully automat’d, self-supportin’, boil-in-the-bag, ‘All-in-One-Der’.” Geordie wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box but could read his operating manual well enough to learn it by heart. And add a couple of his own embellishments: “Complete with self-emptyin’, rechargeable Rubbish Robots – DA-daaaah!”

  Willy Eckerslike flushed proudly at his new toy, then, “Well, go on, lad,” his big, flabby cheeks glowing redder and redder. “I said go on –” getting more and more excited, “Let’s see what she can do!” bullying Geordie back into the cab. “… And where’s that beggar Bartholemew – ’e better be ’ere or I’ll ’ave his job, I said. I’ll ’ave ’is job, So ’elp me!”

  “Oh – er – um – I’m here Mister Eckerslike, sir, god and infinitely more important person than myself.” Gordon Bartholemew ran out of the works depot building straightening his tie, brushing the dust from his suit which was a little too big for him – it made him look a touch weedier than he actually was. He was explaining and excusing himself even before he had Mister Eckerslike’s ear, not that Willy ever listened.

  “Save it, Bartholemew, I didn’t get where I am today by listening t’ your perishin’ excuses.” Mister Eckerslike repeated just to make sure he was understood. “I said. I didn’t get where I am today by listenin’ t’worms like you…”

  But Gordon Bartholemew was determined to get his point across. He nearly ran Willy over trying to get himself in place before his absence was noticed. He failed and attempted to redeem himself. “I’ve been here all the time, sir – so there really is no need to fire me, sir – but you were so engrossed in what you were doing – um – sir, god and infinitely mo…”

  “Alright, Bartholemew, don’t overdo it now. I said, don’t overdo it!” But secretly Mr Eckerslike enjoyed being grovelled to; it swelled his already inflated ego. “I want thee to stand ’ere and watch me put this ‘All-in-One-Der’ through its paces. I said, I want you to…”

  “Yes sir, god and inf…”

  “Shuttit Bartholemew!”

  “Yessir!”

  “Reet – Geordie lad. Go on – show Bartholemew ’ere what she can do. “Okay Mister Eckerslike, like – watch oot noo…” And the “All-in-One-Der” changed up a gear and rumbled forward. Geordie had to shout very loudly so that his voice would reach Messrs. Eckerslike and Bar
tholemew and compete against the loud throbbing rumble coming from the engine.

  “Can I draw yer attention, like,” he yelled, “Tee the specially designed, rotatin’ interchangeable, reinforced steel brushes under each o’ the front wheels!”

  “Speak up, I can’t ’ear yer!” shouted Mister Eckerslike. “I said. I can’t ’ear a piggin’ word you’re sayin’, lad!” So Geordie stuck an arm out of the window and pointed down at the front wheel. “It’s th’ same on th’ other side, look!” Clouds of dust rose on either side of the truck as brushes whirled beneath, pushing it to the front of the vehicle, scoring faint circles in the concrete.

  “Noo th’ rotatin’ brush at th’ front can sweep it all ahead t’be picked-up seconds later by the Rubbish Robots!” cried Geordie, driving the “All-in-One-Der” slowly forward, yelling above the engine noise, and pushing all the dust, dirt, pieces of paper, oily rags and other accumulated debris into a neat pile at the far end of the yard.

  “B-But,” Gordon Bartholemew stammered, pointing at the pile of rubbish that had built up.

  “Shurrup, Bartholemew. I said, shurrup, I’m demonstratin’.” Willy Eckerslike silenced him with a hard stare and a frown, and a backhander in the ribs. “I’m demonstratin’, I said. Go on, Geordie lad,” he hollered, “do y’perishin’ stuff – I said. Do yer chuffin’ stuff!”

  “Reet y’are, Mister Eckerslike, like.” This was the party-piece he’d been dying to show off ever since the factory had released the truck into his care. He announced proudly, “I will noo demonstrate the awesome speed and fully automatic agility of the Rubbish Robot! – of which there are four, like.”

  Messrs. Eckerslike and Bartholemew watched Geordie’s head disappear below the dashboard in the cab as he bent down to flick the switches on the control-box to the “on” position.

  A couple of clicks, followed by a whirring noise, and stabilisers appeared behind each wheel securing the beast to the ground.

  The truck shuddered, let out a long mechanical yawn and cantilever doors opened vertically, between the hopper – which held the refuse – and the driver’s cab. The big “All-in-One-Der” now appeared like a great flying insect, with wings outstretched, about to take flight. But it didn’t move. Rather than soaring into the air, a small squad of fourwheelie-bins on tracks rolled out, down a ramp and onto the ground, and took up position two on each side of the great wagon, like mechanical chicks nestling under their mother’s wings – bleeping occasionally, humming quietly and constantly. These droids were each equipped with movable arms fitted with interchangeable tools, such as a broom, a scoop, a steam hose and a grab which operated like a person’s hand.

  The wheelie-bins lined up, two on either side of the vehicle, with all their attachments stored in shelves and recesses built into its body looking for all the world like soldiers kitted up and ready to go into battle. Again, Geordie ducked down to the control-box and flicked on another switch…

  Invisible to the naked eye, inaudible to the untrained ear, an electrical message flashed from an antenna on the roof of the driver’s cab to a micro-chip in the lid of each bin. This micro-chip was the wheelie-bin’s “brain” and once alerted, each bin tore into the pile of rubbish that the “All-in-One-Der” had pushed up into a huge pile at the far end of the council works depot yard.

  Cardboard boxes, small or large and even the huge ones, were broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces by the grab and fed into an oversized paper and card-shredder installed into the top of the lid of each wheelie-bin.

  Oily rags, any wet paper, sand, paint – anything you like that had a sticky, damp or glutinous element to it – was sucked directly into the bins’ gut by a “nifty” suction device situated underneath as the robotic bin drove over it. The robotic bin would then return seconds later to the oily patch, paint stain, or whatever it was and scrub it clean with rotating brushes fitted beneath the bins, between the tracks. The Rubbish Robots would then drive over the area again and again: ducking and diving, sucking and scrubbing – weaving intricate patterns and figures of eight over the stains on the ground, until they were there no longer.

  Fitted dead in the centre of each robot bin was a bright red, flashing sensor that would seek out and identify any rubbish or anything that should not have been there – this was the bin’s “eye”. Then, using its Artificial Intelligence Chip, it would work out in fragments of a second how to deal with it. For example, whether to bin it, scrub it, shred it or suck it up and store it. Each time the bin filled itself up, it would make a cute little “burping” sound – like a baby being “winded” – and return to the “All-in-One-Der” in order to empty itself into the “Crusher”.

  The “Crusher” looked much the same as the device on many everyday garbage trucks, and it was – only it was twice as big, twice as powerful, and twice as fast.

  Munching, scrunching, cracking, crunching, swallowing, digesting – it could deal with anything the little droid bins could throw at it, or in it, in hardly any time at all.

  “This is wonderful,” exclaimed Willy Eckerslike, “absolutely piggin’ wonderful. I said it once and I’ll say it twice, piggin’ wonderful…”

  “Er, actually sir, that’s three times,” cut in Mr. Bartholemew, eager to re-enter Willy’s good books – he failed again.

  “Shuttit, Bartholemew…”

  “Yessir!”

  Gordon Bartholemew did as he was told. Willy Eckerslike went on, “Aye – this will revolutionise street cleaning. I said, it’ll revolutionise street cleaning. I’ll save t’council so much money they’ll be beggin’, I said beggin’ me t’become t’Mayor by this time next year, by ’eck, Bartholemew, an’ I ’ope your takin’ notes, I said. Are you takin’ notes?”

  “Er – yes, sir, I am,” mumbled Gordon Bartholemew, quaking in his Hush Puppy, slip-on shoes, dropping his note book on the wet ground. “B-but won’t that put a lot of people out of work?” adding thoughtfully, “Some have got families to feed, you know.” “Perishin’ ’eck Bartholemew, who needs mere humans…” Willy let out an exasperated gasp. “I said, who needs mere piggin’ ’umans – when my ‘Rubbish Robots’ can do twice as much work in ’alf t’perishin’ time. And…” He put the icing on the cake. “We don’t ’ave to pay them, norra penny. I said norra brass razoo!”

  “Th-th-then w-what will happen to me, sir!” Gordon moaned desolately.

  “When I am t’chuffin’ Mayor, I said, when I am t’Mayor. You…” Willy added gleefully, his tone became lighter, not so loud, “…will continue as my underling. I said you will carry on as my whipping boy! I need lirr’l people like you to mek me look big!”

  “Thank you, sir!” grovelled Gordon Bartholemew, grateful to find out that he would still have a job. “Thank you…” This made him feel slightly bolder. “But sir, this machine will put people like Malcolm, a dedicated artist, out of work.”

  “WHO?”

  But not very much bolder: “Nothing, sir, I’ll speak to him…” But he never did. The trial came to an end. Job done. The Rubbish Robots lined up at bottom of the ramp, then, like hungry school-children in the dinner queue, hummed and bleeped their way up it into the “All-in-One-Der”.

  One last job: Geordie switched off the control box, and the cantilever doors closed automatically shutting the “Rubbish Robots” safely inside. Then he switched off the engine and locked up the vehicle until the following Monday morning.

  Mister Bartholemew never did find Malcolm to tell him. If only he had issued Malcolm with a walkie-talkie then he’d have been able to call him in, but it was one of those things that he hadn’t got round to doing. So he just forgot – an easy thing to do with a chap like Malcolm. He was so reliable.

  Yes, that was it. He was just so reliable he didn’t need one, and a bit thick too – he’d probably only break it.

  Switched off, locked-up and left unmanned with the ‘Rubbish Robots’ stored inside, in its council colours of green and mustard-yellow, glistening with streaks of early
morning rain, speckled with dirt from the trial, the “All-in-One-Der” looked like a large, fat toad that had crawled out of the river. With headlamps dimmed, its eyes were closed – it was asleep. Resting in silence, waiting patiently until those robots fed it on Monday morning, filling that ever hungry hopper – the belly of the beast.

  Chapter 2

  It’s in My Blood

  Early Monday morning on Willowy Lane, a long residential road in Suburbiaville, a new town on the Essex/North-East London border. There was the British Rail station with a snack-bar in the waiting room at one end of the lane, and the town park at the other. This meant that on a hot day, if you bought an ice-cream from the kiosk at the station, it would melt long before you could get to the park and enjoy it while sat on a bench, unless you had a cool-box. There was, too, a little hardware outlet that sold cool-boxes next to the station.

  Suburbiaville Newtown was idyllic, the home of doctors, lawyers, court judges, stockbrokers and television celebrities. Oh yes, and rumour has it that a Hollywood movie star used it as a holiday home. Only those who could afford to lived in Suburbiaville. Of course it had its less desirable areas, like most places, but the residents of Willowy Lane refused to recognise those areas as part of Suburbiaville. To live anywhere near Willowy Lane you needed to be very successful indeed and have a face that fitted – oh, and an air of snobbishness didn’t go amiss.

  Malcolm was a street cleaner from the other, less desirable, side of town. He cleaned Willowy Lane and the other streets nearby. He was hard working, dedicated and so clean and tidy it was untrue. Street cleaners who cleaned other, less desirable parts of Suburbiaville Newtown would turn up for work in a tatty old donkey jacket or jeans and stained shirt, creased and crumpled from the day before, but not Malcolm.