My first encounter with Cornelius Blegg was quite as bizarre as my second.
At the time I was employed by a small engineering company in London; this being prior to the great decentralisation push of the late sixties. The city was peppered with such businesses, tucked away in the myriad of jumbled streets and buildings that formed the heart of the metropolis.
It being my lunch hour, I was taking the air – such that it was – and perusing the large shop windows of Regent Street, when my ears were assailed by a hideous screeching. Up from the direction of our beloved Eros, rode a large man on a bicycle.
It is difficult to describe the emotions that the scene conjured. The rider was enormous. A man of about forty, dressed in a dark suit, with shiny, black shoes. His hair was a thick mass of red beneath an absurd bowler. And, as though this were not enough, he sported a great crimson beard.
The sight was, in fact, sufficiently outlandish to turn the heads of several hardened city-dwellers. And they, as we all know, have seen it all.
The bicycle – four sizes too small – creaked and squealed from somewhere beneath him. The man puffed and panted as he wobbled past me.
I stood for a moment, gazing blankly at a window display and musing on what I had seen, when my reverie was shattered by an ear-splitting crash.
On turning, I saw that the huge fellow had collided with a delivery van that had been reversing from a narrow service lane.
I trotted briskly to the scene, and with no little difficulty pulled him out of the gutter. His bike was ruined. The front wheel was no longer round.
Perspiring and swearing profusely, he brushed himself down.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Aye, that I am, laddie,” he wheezed, and cocking an eye at the astounded van driver, added “no thanks to this miserable creature.”
The driver shrugged his shoulders, climbed back into his seat, and went about his daily business. As the vehicle disappeared amongst the city traffic, I turned and looked again at the dishevelled victim.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” I repeated.
The man beamed at me. A red, shaggy beam of a smile.
“Nay” he cooed. “It’d take a great deal more than that to damage Cornelius Blegg.” He extended a large, dusty paw. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, laddie. Now, let me buy you a coffee.”
This is how Cornelius and I met, and talked for an hour, one day in the teeming city.
He worked at that time for a company that made carburettors. His work was that of a draughtsman. The big Scot held the papers of a qualified motor mechanic, but apparently preferred drawing diagrams to wielding wrenches.
On occasion, his work entailed him travelling from one office to another. And it was during one of these expeditions that I had met him.
Through the months that followed we met several times, usually by chance, along the same stretch of thoroughfare. At each meeting we sat and chatted over a hot drink or two.
In due time, my work took me to other parts, and contact was lost. It was not until some five years later, that we sat, sipping coffee again. On the other side of the world.
It was during the summer of sixty nine, in Brisbane, Queensland, that our paths crossed again. Having by this time married an Australian girl, I had returned with her to Melbourne. From there we had set out by car, travelling north, to see the sights of the great east coast.
On one sunny afternoon in Brisbane we pulled into a service station for petrol and refreshments. Having filled the tank I parked the car under a shaded port and went in for cold drinks.
As I stepped from the cool building into the hot air once again, I heard a familiar sound from the past.
A mighty crash, a rending of something metallic, and the boom of a thick Scottish accent filled the surrounding block and a half. I turned the corner to the workshop.
A car, with doors and hood open, stood in the centre of a chaotic scene. Tools of every description lay scattered across the floor, and two great boots waggled at me from under the radiator. It had to be him.
My own lack of real confidence on this point however, prompted me to shuffle my feet a little and remark loudly about the heat of the day. All doubts faded as a great scarlet mop appeared from one side of the car. This was followed by a massive blood-red beard, and a grin that somehow shone through it.
He clambered to his feet like a gigantic, ginger Father Christmas. He had grown! A big, greasy hand thrust out at me, and when I took it, he positively danced me around the workshop, sending spanners and tools scuttling across the concrete.
When we had both simmered down he asked me for my recent history, and I his. By and by we parted on the understanding that my wife and I should join him and his family that evening for dinner.
The meal was truly enjoyable, and the Bleggs themselves a tonic. After their two young sons had been packed off to bed, we sat drinking coffee and prattling at leisure. The ease with which we each relaxed and chatted was quite remarkable.
Eventually the conversation drifted back to the newly adopted country; its politics, economy, and so on.
Cornelius took the opportunity here to repeat an earlier grumble he had made, about being somewhat cornered into his present employment. Although his manner was light-hearted I felt there was genuine dismay in his tone.
“What is so bad about being a mechanic?” I asked. “It’s a skilled trade, and has obviously set you in good stead.”
Our host seemed suddenly overcome with some deep and racking remorse. His eyes dropped slowly to his feet.
“Nay, laddie,” he replied soulfully, “perhaps I never mentioned it …. I hate cars!”
