The infamous home made vibrator incident

I left school in 1985 aged 16, armed with the sum total of 2 C.S.E grade 1's in English and Religious Education. That's the equivalent of learning to swim for 12 years and only being able to swim 25 yards, in case you're interested. I would have loved to refer to myself as a rebel without a cause. In fact, I would have settled for the title rebel without a clue. But in all honesty I was never really a rebel, I was just clueless. Sexually clueless, domestically clueless, professionally clueless and directionally clueless. When forced into a corner by my careers guidance officer, I mistakenly told him that I may have something to offer the IT world, an industry then in its infancy. Of course, this train of delusion was soon to be derailed after a year at an Information Technology college (Bury ITeC), during which time it seemed that I lost more knowledge than I gained. All was not lost though, it was at Bury ITeC that I met some of my greatest friends. Some of whom have remained friends for the past 4 decades. And it was here that I first made acquaintance with Marco.

Even at 16 years of age, Marco exuded self confidence and it was easy to see why. His dashing good looks could have adorned the cover of any magazine, his wonderfully crafted body, the envy of all the boys and his intelligence in a different stratosphere to that of his peers. Above all, Marco was headstrong, nobody told him what to do. The product of an Irish mother and a Sicilian father, his temper was not something one would wish to ignite. In later years, during a drunken night out in Israel, I would see him launch an attack on two soldiers, in defence of our friend. Needless to say, he was loyal to the core. During the ensuing fight he got a table smashed on his head, but not before he had rained a flurry of hard punches to the eye of one of the soldiers. For want of a more sophisticated expression. Marco was fucking hard.


He was one of those guys that could turn his hand to anything, his confidence would always drive him through. He played the guitar, he acted, he played the piano and he could sing, but his greatest achievement of all, in my opinion was the engineering of a home made vibrator.


I can't quite recall the first time that Marco let me in on his little secret. I think that he just kind of slipped it into conversation one drunken evening. The conversation probably went something like this.

Marco: I was talking to Kev last week.....(I'll stop the sentence right here, to fill you in on a few facts).


These 7 words would be the start of many a conversation around Bury ITeC and they would all revolve around one subject. You see, Kev was boastful about bashing his bishop, he bragged about buffing his banana, he was the Master of masturbation and the Lord of the lathered handshake. Call him what you will, Kev was an ardent wanker. His ingenious methods of stimulation for a more satisfactory ejaculation were legendary around the local area. As you can imagine, many of them were just out and out ridiculous, but every now again he came up trumps.

Marco: .....and he said that if stick you cock in a custard tart, it actually feels like a fanny. (a fanny for any American readers is the British term for a vagina, and not an anus, as it is in the States). Has he made you aware of any other new techniques?


Me: You mean like putting your dick between the mattress and the bed frame? (this being one of Kev's more successful suggestions)

Marco: No, That's been doing the rounds for ages. Has he given you any really good suggestions?

Me: Well, Kev told me that if you put your balls in a glass of water whilst you're wanking, your balls shrivel right up and you shoot it twice as far.


 (what Kev didn't tell me, is that you get water all over the bedroom carpet).

Marco: Did he?  I'm not trying that. It's stupid. That's never going to work.

Me: Me either,


 (not after the mess it caused last time I think to myself), 


he talks some right old bollocks, Kev does.

Marco: Has Kev told you any more ways to get off? 


Marco has of course realised by this stage that he has tapped into a great resource and he is determined to extract the Great Oracle Mitton of all his knowledge on the noble art of masturbation. Only then will he inform the Great Oracle of his own ingenious addition to this arsenal of pleasure. And all the while, the Great Oracle Mitton will use Kev as a scape goat, to unleash his own, ever increasing catalogue of innovative techniques.

The conversation draws to it's natural climax (no pun intended) and a short silence ensues as Marco mentally assimilates all of this new stimuli. He then chooses this moment to tell me about his own spectacular device of pleasure. The home made vibrator.

Marco: I USED to make my own vibrator. (his emphasis on the word USED to, does not fool me. I am certain that he has recently made one).

Me: Really! (ears pricking up) And how did you USED to make it?


Marco: Well! Do you know those big Ever Ready batteries with the screw down contact points at the top?


Me: Yeah. I used to have one with my motorised Lego set.

Marco: Well, you need one of those and some wires with little loops on that connect to the contact points.

Me: Right!

Marco:  Then, you connect that to the Scalextric motor.


Me: Ok. So it's spins really fast (I volunteer the sum total of my engineering knowledge).

Marco: Exactly.  Then you get a toilet roll tube and you cut it down one edge, so that it fits on your knob and you line it with cotton wool to make it more comfortable.

Me: And then what? How do you fix the motor to the toilet roll tube? (I can hardly contain myself with excitement).


Marco: Just tape it on. Put tape around the whole thing to hold it tight.

Me: That's brilliant. (I shout out in the midst of a EUREKA moment).

Now fast forward a few years and Marco and I have just returned to his parents house after a night at the local. The time not yet midnight we retire to the Blue room for a few more beers. The Blue room being so named because of the colour of walls and nothing more ominous (despite what you may think in light of what's to follow).

Over the years since Marco first informed me about his special creation my questions of its existence have cropped up on many an occasion. Like the Spear of Destiny and the Crystal Skull before it, the infamous home made vibrator has almost become an object of mythology to me. It's very existence can surely only spell misery and ill fortune for all those that are to encounter it. I should have heeded the warnings that my intuition had instilled me with.


But so it was, and against his better judgement, that this ordinary Saturday night, some time in the summer of 1987, I convinced Marco to dispel the myth. And I put this to you now. That some myths are better left with their mythical status intact. They say that curiosity killed the cat. I would have quite happily fought a lion to be afforded the opportunity to rewind the clock and not to be sat with a Heath Robinson device taped around my old boy, when Marco's mum entered the Blue room on the fateful Saturday night.

Whether she chose not acknowledge the fact that I was sat with a vibrating cushion on my lap and my trousers around my ankles, or she she truly did not notice this, I will never know. Although she must have found it strange that I was sat watching highlights of the Chelsea flower show. My lightning reflexes obviously not lightning enough to select a more credible TV channel in my haste to get the porn off the screen.