"Stephen, what's in this big wooden trunk," Sarah my soon to be ex-wife asked as we cleared out the loft of my soon to be ex family home.
"I don't know, junk probably," I suggested.
"It might be bone China, we agreed I had the China." she said greedily as she stood there and if I half closed my eyes I could pretend she looked sexy with her in her dungarees and checkered shirt, with her blonde hair tied back severely.
It was amazing the way Sarah had changed, was it only three years since we met, got drunk, had twins and married, and eight months since she found she preferred a black footballer and instigated divorce proceedings which meant I was having to sell the riverside house my great great grandfather had designed and built back in the eighteen nineties with a huge water wheel to harness the river's power and drive a generator to provide electricity.
Four generations of Stephensons, general engineers, once Stephensons workshops had stretched the whole length of Manston street and folklore was that we were related to the Stephensons who designed the "Rocket" but we were not the family that built the 'Rocket' or the lighthouses or wrote Treasure Island but honest hard working engineers who came from Ramsgate originally not Northumberland, and now just the old B shop remained as my empire, and that only because I managed to do a deal with my sisters when dad died, which saw most of the factory sold for housing land.
Even with a much smaller workforce the order book was pretty thin, we kept making things for stock or at cost to keep ticking over but I couldn't really see how we could stay in business much beyond the year's end.
"Stephen, what is it?" she demanded.
"You have a look," I suggested, "I'm having a coffee."
I descended the ladder to the second floor and the stairs to the Kitchen and then with some difficulty climbed back up with two coffees.
"It's a machine," she said disappointedly as she stood with the lid of the huge trunk raised. "It looks unused."
"Drink your coffee," I insisted.
"It says Stephenson WEC 1909." on the Instruction book." she said.
"It's got instructions?" I asked.
"Yes, and all sorts of stuff, what is it Steve?" she demanded.
"No idea," I said, "There's a label on it somewhere, there look,"
"October 1914," she read.
"Well it may be old stock from when Stephensons went over to Munitions in the first world war." I suggested as I peered into the box.
The parts were all packed and secured with wood and fabric packing, smaller polished wood boxes contained attachments as I found when I opened one to reveal a set of slightly ribbed plungers around a foot long from one waisted in from two inches at the threaded end to an inch to one expanding from two inches at the thread to almost four and a half inches in diameter.
Some were parallel some noticably belled out, "It's a bit odd." I suggested, "There a motor and bars and all sorts, pulleys and a crankshaft, I wonder if its a pump." I suggested naively.
Sarah took hold of the leather bound instruction book, "WEC 1909," she said, absent mindedly as she examined the cover before opening the booklet.
"Widdows Electric Comforter," she read out, "For the discerning bereaved gentlewoman, the new Electrically operated Comforter provides all the comfort and relief from anxiety of the Steam powered machines with the cleanliness and comfort of electricity."
"I don't understand, It's not a heated bed is it?" she asked stupidly and then gasped "Oh my god!"
"What now?" I asked.
"It say's, by appointment to his Germanic Majesty the Kaiser and his excellence Czar Niclaus of Russia."
"Really?" I answered uninterestedly as I tried to work out what fitted where.
"There's some diagrams," Sarah said excitedly, "it say it will fit a Watt and Furlough number seven or Nine or any of the Grantley Axis metal bed range, but they recommend the Blackstaff Slumberknight number four."
"There's an old bed in aunt Bessie's room, I think that's a Slumberknight," I suggested, "Where's the diagrams?"
She showed me the page of drawings, "The Anular shaft?" I queried, "What Anulus?"
"For heavens sake Steve, do I have to do a drawing?" she asked.
"But I don't understand." I protested, "Anulus shaft Worm Shaft."
"Steve, thats Womb not Worm," she said, "And Anular refers to Anus not Annulus, do you see?"
"No," I admitted.
"Womb shaft, Anus shaft?" she said, "Oh for christs sake!" she said, "Its a Victorian Fucking machine you imbecile."
"Edwardian surely nineteen oh nine." I surmised.
"For gods sake its a fucking machine," she said excitedly, "Don't you understand, it might be valuable."
"Great, we'll sell it through Southerbies," I suggested, "Or actually I will because as I recall we said I get the junk, you get the China and paintings."
"There must be collectors," she suggested, "I wonder if its all there,"
"Oh I don't know, it's a bit dark in here." I complained.
"Then lets take the parts down stairs and see shall we?" she suggested.
"You just want me to break my neck," I replied but it seemed the sensible thing to do so I started to remove the parts from the case.
I had them laid out checking the numbers when she said we should build it up so we could be sue nothing was missing, and so I went down the ladder while she handed to components down to me, it wasn't easy because some parts were iron castings and very heavy but we managed somehow.
Sarah came down and set about making the bed in Aunt Bessies old room, it was as it said on the brass plate on the headboard loop a Blackstaff Slumberknight 4, and she worked out that it needed a mattress and undersheet as the curved supports were designed for the mechanism to sit over the top of the mattress.
"The Motor clamps round the footboard loop," Sarah said needlessly.
"That's obvious," I agreed,
"And that whirly thingy," she said.
"Crankshaft," I suggested, "Fits between the trunnions which bold to the motor baseplate."
"Yes you should have fitted the baseplate first," Sarah explained.
"You've got the damned book," I pointed out.
"Baseplate, motor, Crankshaft, trunnions," she said, "then lift it onto the bed."
"It's too heavy, we'll do it in situ," I told her, "I'll get some tools." I wandered down to the garage, to get my toolbox. The MGB's batteries were on the workbench being charged pair of 6 volt batteries, and beside them a spare 12 volt battery and suddenly I had a brainwave, 12 plus 6 is eighteen, nearly the 20 volts I needed to test the motor, and there were two complete sets of Jumper leads.
I took my tools and the batteries to the bedroom, wearing jumper leads around my shoulder like a Mexican bandit wears ammunition belts but it still needed two trips.
Sarah was busy there was something about Sarah, when she was interested in something, or wanted something, her blue eyes sparkled, she stood up straight thrust her shoulders back and, well you know, thrust her chest out.
Sarah, who generally kept at least a yard away from anything even remotely oily, and never knowingly touched a spanner, was busy puzzling over the instructions, "It doesn't show the girl," she complained.
"That my dear would have had you locked up in nineteen oh nine," I explained.
"Ugh, it suggests beef fat as lubricant." she announced as she set the book down.
"No I'll use medium grease." I suggested.
"I think I'd prefer KY jelly." she laughed, "look."
She picked up the book to show me an illustration of someone applying beef fat to a plunger with a paint brush.
"Oh yes," I laughed, and then as I looked down I observed "Damn we missed a part,"
"What?" she asked,
"This bracket, between Motor and footboard rail," I explained "it takes the "shoes," what ever they are." she looked puzzled, "Shoes, it says." I repeated.
"Yes, there is a set of boots," Sarah agreed, "I didn't think, I'll get them."
I tightened the bolts when she was gone, they were all odd sizes, Whitworth sizes but I found sockets and spanners to fit, and I added the shoe bracket and then it was complete.
It really did look menacing, the two transverse supports arching around the mattress supporting the trunnions which held the crankshaft with the sprockets and drive chain up to the motor which towered over it, all polished brass and copper, the green paint did little for it and it looked more like an updated medieval rack than anything else.
"I've got the shoes," Sarah said as I admired my handiwork, "I got grease on my trousers so I had to change," she said by way of explanation, as I looked admiringly at her long shapely legs now revealed by her change into shorts, still with the check shirt, but then as she bent over with a sudden flash of white knickers I realised it was a short blue skirt she had put on not shorts.
"Look how odd the shoes are!" she said, and as she showed me one I had to agree, it was a soft leather knee boot in tan, but with a heavy half inch thick metal sole and a false wooden sole maybe two and a half inches deep which just clipped on, and could be removed to reveal a big one inch diameter threaded stud on the bottom.
"I think you either wear the shoes with the wood soles and someone else bolts them to the frame or you bolt the shoes to the frame and lace yourself in." I explained.
"Well of course you do, these are sevens," she said.
"Which holes do they go in?" I asked.
"I don't know, read the book," she snapped.
I picked it up, "Ah, I see," I explained, "there's packing pieces and you should ensure the equipment allows for the normal position of the head upon the pillow, always ensuring sufficient clearance to the headboard.
Sarah hopped up on the bed and lay back, her legs spread, one foot each side of the crankshaft, "Hows that?" she asked.
"Lie back," I suggested, "head on Pillow,"
"How's that?" she asked again.
"Is your head against the headboard," I asked.
"No, get on with it," she said, as she kicked her shoes off.
I put the right boot on her right foot, screwed a three inch spacer to the boot fed the spacers portruding bolt through the shoe bracket and asked, "How's that?"
"Right a bit," she said and as I tried a different screw hole in the shoe bracket and she said, "Try that."
I tightened the bolt, "Any good?" I asked.
"And the other," she commanded, I used the other three inch spacer hole 13 L as the other was in 13R and I wasn't the lest surprised when she wanted a shorter spacer and her foot moved in a bit.
