" He's not a lucky man, isn't Brian".
So said the biker mechanic at another of the garages I used to attend to rig out radios and CDs and such like. This one in Woolwich, SE London, that centre of refinement and civilization. Jeff was a biker mechanic, I mean he was a Hells Angels type ( tho not actual) biker who was a car mechanic. He knew Brian's story inside out.

I was new to this garage. The owner, Chris, was a gent in his late fifties with a constant stress prob' visible on his palid face and always a Dunhill in hand ( lit, naturally ). He features in part two.

Brian was the chief electrician at the garage which was actually a Renault franchise ( they only did Renault new ) but with the odd ( Skoda odd ) used stray on sale from TT Time. They called me in when Brian was too busy to handle an urgent stereo fitting or something.

Brian was in his late forties, very dumpy build and likewise visage. Not at all any kind of attractive physical specemin for the ladies, but on the upside he had a very chirpy personality except when the subject of discussion got around to " wimin".

Brian prefered to talk about " fishin" which, funnily enough, had brought about his downfall with "wimin".

Jeff recited the story of Brian's luck with relaxed deadpan pannache over a tea break once when the electrician was away.

Once upon a time, in sunny Erith, Brian was a happily married chap in his thirties. His wife was faithful, devoted and happy to play the part of the contented domestic engineer ( housewife), standing smiling at her door for hubby to return from work, where waiting indoors would be slippers by the fire and steak& kidney pie in the oven.

But men sometimes being men and Brian certainly being Brian, he started spending more and more time away from home on his fishin' trips. Now SE London, down to the Thames Gateway at least, is infested with rivulets, small ponds and tributaries. A fishermans paradise infact. So, slowly over time, little Brian and wife drifted apart, though the meal was always on the table for him and he assumed all was well.

To garner a little more money for the household, they had both decided years earlier to let one of the rooms in their tiny Erith terrace to a lodger, a quiet fellow who worked nights at the local Tate & Lyle sugar refinery by the Blackwall Tunnel up near Greenwich . . . . . .you can see where this is going you sharp lot, so lets cut ALSS!

One fine June day in 1994, Brian returned from a fishin' trip with a keep net brimming with Rainbow trout, to discover his slippers were not by the fire and his meal was not on the table.

" Where's the dinner" Brian quizzed his wife who seemed strangely quiet and cold.
" In the fridge - make it yourself"
" Whats going on? " he quizzed, dropping his fishing tackle to the floor.
" I'm divorcing you and marrying the lodger".

Well one year later and after intensive psychotherapy - for poor Brian had in the interim, had a nervous breakdown - the situation in the house finally settles thus.

Brian had moved into the tenant's room and became the lodger in his own house. His ex wife married the lodger and were living as man and wife, rocking and rolling in the marital bed in the room adjacent each night, as Brian suffered next door.

I just couldn't believe this story so taking advantage of an opportune moment one afternoon whilst helping Brian install a bass system in some hoodlem's Toyota Skyline, decided to broach the subject of his marriage.

Brian spilled the beans, telling it exactly as biker Jeff had. Of course I had to ask.
" How can you bear to live in the same house as your ex wife with another man, especially the guy who used to be your lodger?

" Easy, chirped Brian. I get to do all the fishin' I like now - even bugger off over to Ireland for a week three times a year. And when I gets back my slippers are by the fire and my dinner is on the table. Lifes a lot simpler now".

Right! I thought, scratching my head. I got on with connecting up an earth wire to the chassis.

Wimin!

MSM.