These days, when doctors ask if you are ‘regular’ they are usually referring to the frequency with which you do No.2's. This term, though apt, applied to Grandfather Tadpoles in a rather different fashion, however - and it was to be the saving of wartime London.
Grandfather Tadpoles was a lifelong sufferer from flatulence. His trumpeting tendencies started at an early age and continued right up until the day he blew his last. But, as intimated above, he was uncannily regular. So much so, that by the time he was in his mid 30’s, his blasts arrived at the rate of one every hour, exactly on the hour.
Now during World War Two, when clocks were rationed, it was often difficult for ordinary Londoners to tell the time with any great accuracy. This clearly compromised the capital’s productivity and, by 1942, was beginning to have a deleterious effect upon the war effort in general. It was a cause of no little concern to the government of the day and, indeed, to Winston Churchill himself.
The hero of the hour was to come from an unlikely quarter – from Stepney, to be precise. That hero was, as you might already have guessed, Grandfather Tadpoles.
News of my grandfather’s precision flatulence spread rapidly across the city from his native East End, eventually reaching the ears of those in Whitehall. Who paid Grandfather Tadpoles a visit and made him a proposition which, as a patriotic sort, ever willing to do his bit, he accepted with alacrity.
So it was that Grandfather Tadpoles spent the latter years of the war in studio F at Broadcasting House. A typical working day would find him, trousers and pants around his ankles, bent over with hands on knees and a microphone strategically positioned at his posterior, parping melodiously upon the hour. By keeping their radios tuned to the BBC, the citizens of London thus had an unfailing time signal which allowed essential services to run efficiently and the city to go about its business in a punctual manner.
Indeed, a saying became widespread in the capital from 1943 onwards – ‘If you want to know the time, ask a tadpole’.
Nor was this Grandfather Tapoles' only contribution to the war effort during this period. His eructations were recorded by a BBC sound engineer (whom history, sadly, does not recall) and were subsequently superimposed over the broadcast speeches of Lord Haw Haw, thus doing much to boost public morale in those dark days.
Grandfather Tadpoles was knighted in 1946, receiving a generous government pension in recognition of his unique contribution to the war effort. He retired to a small bungalow in Leigh-on-Sea, where he pootled on into a ripe old age.
This most unusual and unlikely British hero eventually fell silent on September 9th, 1988, at the age of 81.
Is this a joke???