We’ve all done it.
We’ve picked up the remote control, fiddled around and pressed the wrong button.
Before we know it, the video has turned off halfway through a recording, the neighbour’s garage door has opened or we’ve launched a major air-sea search-and-rescue incident.
This is exactly what happened to a gentleman on Ullswater last week. He was on his boat, demonstrating his radio to his grandchildren. Unfortunately he pressed the Mayday button and sent a signal to Liverpool coast guards.
They in turn triggered rescue boats from Ullswater Outward Bound Centre, a nine man team from Patterdale Mountain Rescue and crews aboard the Ullswater Steamers.
The man was eventually found, three hours later, at a local marina, blissfully unaware of the havoc he’d caused and, probably by this stage, introducing his grandkids to the delights of Werther’s Originals.
The leader of the Mountain Rescue Team commented, with commendable restraint: “I wouldn’t implore his intention of checking his equipment although I would query how well he actually did it.”
This, clearly, is ideal stuff for a newspaper cartoon. Below you can see the pencil sketches submitted to the editor. It’s really one idea plus four variations; it sort of grew on me.
To see which one adorns the front of Thursday’s Westmorland Gazette, rush over to my website urgently!
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