“The Book Of Heroic Failures” by Stephen Pile was published in 1979 and became a No1 Best Seller.
I only read the first few pages because the bloke thumbing through a copy in WH Smith’s got annoyed with me peering over his shoulder, asking him to turn the pages a bit slower.
I recently found a copy of the book, in good condition, on sale for 50 pence in a local charity shop.
After haggling over the price with the lady behind the counter, I handed her a shiny 20 pence piece and went home with my prize.
When I checked the index, I was astonished to find that the book that ‘Celebrates human inadequacies in all its forms’ doesn’t mention my Uncle Cledwyn, who was responsible for some of the 20th Century’s most heroic failures.
Loyal readers will recall that my Uncle Cledwyn lives alone in a small cottage in a remote part of the Wye Valley and has a habit of walking around his abode completely naked – although, on the rare occasion someone should come to his front door, he does have the good manners to put on a trilby hat.
Cledwyn likes to say he lives an ‘Off grid’ lifestyle, but the truth is he actually lives off deliveries from the local village shop!
The delivery driver, rather than risk seeing old Cledwyn as naked as nature intended, drops off the supplies 100 yards from the cottage, gives three blasts on the horn and hurriedly drives off before Cledwyn has reached for his trilby and opened the front door.
So, I hear you ask . . . “What were Cledwyn’s heroic failures?”
There’s not enough room to list them all, but, as a very young man he invented the ‘
fridge magnet.
Unfortunately, he failed to make any money from it because it would be another 10 years before someone invented the fridge.
Perhaps his biggest failure was his attempt to invent a penetrating oil that could lubricate rusty metal.
After 38 failed attempts to get the formula right, he decided to give it just one more try. But, sadly, WD39 didn’t take off . . .