Just in case you ask, there is nothing autobiographical about this story :)

Bando enjoyed being perverse, particularly about tea. A beverage that had to be served frequently, black as asphalt, sweet as syrup and stirred with his favourite tablespoon. A large sturdy implement he had acquired from some works canteen during a shortage of teaspoons. Conveniently, a tablespoonful of sugar was his choice amount of sweetening and a mug big enough to receive it was his choice of container.

Derek Osythe Bannerman, now retired with a decided paunch and a full set of false teeth, had been an engineer. Not the sort who tend to tell tall tales about how they designed all the motorway bridges north of Watford Gap, nor the sort more recently found on the foot-plates of wheezing tank-engines at preserved steam-railways, but one of those guys responsible for designing the chugging intestines of washing-machines.

At school in the Fifties he had been the fourth bearer of the Bannerman name to grace the blue and white uniforms of the local grammar-school. Ahead of him in the hierarchy had been Bannerman Major, his brother, then to confuse the issue, his cousins, Bannermans Minor and Minimus. A situation, which left our hero with no distinguishing ‘M’ word to call his own.

Classical scholars among you will appreciate that 'minimus' is what one might call a superlative diminutive. So, when such case arises, it is traditional to fall back on the use of initials; hence D. O. Bannerman became Bannerman Dee-Oh. A label which the staff retained in full, but his class-mates lost no time in reducing to ‘Bando’ - a nickname he accepted with enthusiasm.

In those days his nature was merely contrary and his sweet tooth confined to the addictive use of Penny-Chews, Spangles and Refreshers, as available at the school tuck-shop. His form-masters, a series of disciplinarians with noses highly attuned to the artificial scents of boiled sweets, were constantly telling him to 'Come up here and spit it out, you horrible little boy!' Other annoyingly incessant admonishments were, 'What do you call this? Work or wastepaper?' and - addressed to the class - 'We all know who's going to fail his exams, don't we?'

The latter, fortunately for Bando, acted as a stimulus. Not to his general class-work, of course, that would have been against his philosophy, but when the threatened exams arrived, what could he do but pass with honours?

After that, his astounded father tried to insist he went to university. Bando, in whom contrariness was beginning to harden to perversity, applied to the local technical college.

With that behind him and an HNC in mechanical engineering in his pocket; he set forth into the world of work. His mother, despite the subject on his certificate, wanted him to work in a bank. Naturally he took the first low-paid factory-job he was offered.

The foreman, who thought him a clever-dick, told him he'd never amount to anything. A tactical mistake that eventually saw the poor fellow back on the production-line and Bando in his former job. In the Sixties, it was amazing what becoming a shop-steward could achieve.

By then Bando was bored with being devious on the factory-floor and in need of some more entertaining awkwardness. He found this by returning every drawing that came down to him, traced, altered and improved. Again his perversity paid off, the manager was impressed by the changes and moved him to the drawing office.

Difficult as ever, when they told him to design parts thicker - because they tended to break too easily - he made them thinner, changing their shapes from solid, stolid chunks of iron to slim slivers of pressed steel with canny calculated curves. This got him into trouble; until someone in Accounts pointed out there were savings to be made. That gained him friends among the directors and in the Pressing-shop, but not in the Casting Department.

So, as far as his career was concerned, perversity had served him well. This was not so true in the matter of his health; he still liked his tea with a tablespoonful of sugar, but had exchanged his addiction to sweets for one to cream doughnuts. Soon his colleagues started to tease him about being overweight. He ignored them, pointedly flaunting his battered EPNS tablespoon at every tea-break.

Then came retirement. Within a year, his wife was demanding a new lounge-suite on the grounds that he'd broken all the springs in the old one. This upset him so much that he took to sulking in the garden shed, in the bad company provided by a blackened old kettle, a teapot, a biscuit tin of sugar and, of course, his faithful tablespoon.

Eventually, despite various warnings from his doctor, he table-spooned himself into a minor heart-attack. After that the specialist insisted on a diet. It must be said, this time he did try to restrain his natural instinct, but it was much too firmly ingrained. A second heart-attack was inevitable. The shock of recovery, something he really hadn't expected, finally changed his mind. For almost the first time in his life, he attempted a compromise; he forsook everything fattening, except sweet tea.

His weight remained the same, which was an improvement on the steady gain he had been used to, but still family and specialist despaired of him. They called him a Sugar Junkie; told him he must give it up, or die!

For a while he was perverse enough to want to die, but then, at last, he decided to blame the tablespoon. Un-sugared tea needed no spoon and left him mooning for his old friend. Saccharine, offered as the obvious solution, nauseated him; he vowed he'd never use it.

Despair was advancing fast when, suddenly, a thought struck him: He had a psychological problem, it needed a psychological answer. He retreated to the shed to look for one. Staring at the kettle reminded him of the illustration in his school science-primer, James Watt discovering the power of steam. It reminded him that he, like Watt, was an engineer not a psychologist. Perhaps he should really be looking for an engineering solution.

In the subsequent trance he almost put sugar in his tea. The comforting old spoon was in his hand before he realised what he was doing. That was it, of course! A combined solution - psychological and engineered. There were tools on the bench, why not re-jig the spoon?

Ten minutes later, he laid aside the brazing torch and looked at his ancient friend, the bowl now held less, a mere pudding-spoon's worth of granulated death. He made tea with his usual 'one' spoonful of sugar. It felt wonderful. Suddenly, there was hope!

A week later, he reduced the spoon again. Obviously, after all those years, it was the ritual that was important, not the amount of sugar. As the weeks passed, he reduced it to teaspoon size, then egg-spoon, mustard-spoon and finally salt-spoon. Soon he had virtually weaned himself off sugar altogether. His weight began to fall and his health improved dramatically.

His doctor was pleased, his wife was pleased, even Bando admitted being chuffed, but what satisfied him most was that the path to success had turned out to be so delightfully perverse.

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