I'm getting the hang of making these now...the 'missile launch" switch is the coil tap for the twin rail neck pickup...it's another "garage find" can with plenty of character...
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Ah yes...there's the whole back-story of Werner von Braithwaite, the mad scientist son of a Lancashire washerwoman and a German clock-winder, who defected to South Yorkshire by being smuggled over the Snake Pass hiding in a consignment of Aunt Bessies frozen Yorkshire puddings, by the brave partisans of the Hallamshire Liberation Front, driving a Triumph Tiger Cub sidecar combination through one of the worst winters of the 1960s
The launch switch came from my uncle Horace, who used to work at a council control bunker in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, during the latter years of the little-known "Tripe War" period of the late 1970s. Secret intelligence had confirmed that Lancashire was building up huge reserves of ICBMs (inter-county ballistic missiles) armed with weapons-grade tripe, and in the spirit of "getting their retaliation in first", the PRoSY developed an interceptor missile (codenamed "Whippet") equipped with a warhead containing DYP (Depleted Yorkshire Pudding).....that's how I came by that switch. The switch initiates the launch procedure by triggering the rocket motor ignition, which used a secret process involving the sudden co-mingling of onion gravy and pickled red cabbage, which apparently generated huge amount of heat and gas which was then sparked by the rapid application of a smouldering untipped Wills Woodbine cigarette.....that's why uncle Horace said he always had to have a packet of Woodbines handy, in case of the 4-minute warning
You've excelled yourself again Mr Chickenbone :o) Love the launch switch. Though I have to wonder why someone from Birmingham had one knocking around in the shed.... lol
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