EILEEN BATTERSBYon BRUNEL and MOUSETRAPS
LONDON PADDINGTON, the majestic Victorian railway station, invariably summons thoughts of Michael Bond’s famous bear “from deepest, darkest Peru”. Or one may reflect instead upon the engineering achievements of Isambard Brunel, who gloried in the splendid middle name of “Kingdom” and whose vision continues to dominate the station in which he is commemorated.
Brunel, who was born in Hampshire in 1806 and died of a stroke at the age of 53, was the son of a renowned French engineer who spent much of his career in Britain. Brunel the younger was as versatile as he was gifted, designing steamships as well as bridges, docklands and railways. He also came to the rescue during the Crimean War with a brilliantly innovative pre-fabricated hospital. Brunel’s legacy includes the Great Western Railway. Many of his bridges remain in use; the most famous of them is the Clifton Suspension Bridge spanning the River Avon outside Bristol.
There’s no denying that engineers are also artists. Yet invention can promote evil such as Illinois inventor William C Hooker the fiend behind the first spring-loaded mousetrap, circa 1894. Many homeowners are currently discovering communities of unwanted guests that have been wintering in linen closets and in kitchens. Sales of mousetraps promising instant oblivion to the visitor are soaring. Death may be quick but it is also violent, “the neck or spinal cord is broken”; often while also crushing the ribs and/or skull. Lacking the vicious panache of the guillotine, the mousetrap is a crudely nasty device.
Recently a mouse appeared among the dishes in my kitchen sink and made a heroic dash across the hot soapy water. Among the many shortcomings of a university education is an inability to successfully bait a trap, although baiting demonstrations are available on the internet. However for anyone incapable of mastering the technique there is an option: the “non-killing” trap – ideal for the clumsy and/or sentimental. “The mouse always wins,” smirked the salesman. It took patience, about five days. After all, the non- killing trap is an aesthetic disaster, resembling a Florida condominium, all plastic and glass. Discerning mice would most probably prefer death.
Still, the other evening, fat on cheese and mint chocolate, there trembled a caught mouse surveying his prison. It was cold outside; I left the mouse in the trap in the kitchen, with the light on. At noon I drove to a woods about five miles away (mice have powerful homing instincts) and released him, laying a handful of horse-feed on the ground. The freed mouse gazed up, defiantly vulnerable, like Russell Crowe in Gladiator. It was a sad parting. Three nights later, the trap was again occupied, this time with a couple, both appearing more embarrassed than frightened. Back at the woods, I dispensed horse-feed and a brief lecture about “the big world just waiting to be discovered”. Together they ran back into the car, the door left stupidly open (so much for universities) to disappear under a seat.
