Feminists around the world have reacted with horror to a new line of lingerie that comes equipped with a GPS tracking system that enables husbands and boyfriends to track their partner’s whereabouts.
Many years ago, my grandmother had a cheaper system to keep track of her husband, granddad Edgar. Before he left the house on an evening, she would attach one end of a length of elastic to his trouser belt and tie the other end to her rocking chair.
Then he would stride up the hill to the “Bird in the Hand” Public House, take his seat at the bar and commence to drink as much dark mild as possible before closing time. The elastic would stretch from his belt, out of the pub’, down the hill and through the front letterbox to the rocking chair.
Through years of experience, Gran could tell us what was happening at the far end of the tether.
“He’s on his fourth pint now, any time now and he’ll need the toilet,” she would say, and sure enough, a minute later and the elastic would pull and stretch a bit more as granddad staggered to the pub’ urinal.
At kicking-out-time, the gentle pull of the elastic would guide the happy but inebriated man back home. In his later years we rigged up a little trolley so he could gently wheel down the hill and tip into the hall.
The system was prone to abuse and several times the trolley would arrive with a passenger other than Edgar. Sometimes one of his giggling friends, once a friendly collie dog and one time only his trousers arrived.
