[Jayne Osborn]

Er... just wonderin', chaps... (and ladies, sorry, Ann and Esther)

Aren't one or two of these professions ''extinct'' rather than ''endangered"?

My understanding of what Lucy asked for is a profession that's on the way out (like John's milkman). My daughter's fiancé's mother has been having her milk bottles stolen from her doorstep so she put a camera up with a notice outside the house: "Smile -- You're on CCTV"

But I could scarcely believe that anyone still has milk delivered these days!

[Ann Drysdale]

Some do. In the less developed parts of the kingdom. Where there are old people. And hills. And cows.

[Brian Allgar]

Well, I don't know about other parts of the country, but my sister lived for over 30 years in London SW15 (she's in the process of moving), and milk is still delivered every day. Unheard of in France, of course. They all drink that sterilized muck.

And Jayne, you could be right about endangered as opposed to extinct professions. But if you think Lucy may find Rob's Hangman a bit ropey, then I fear my Headsman is certain to get the chop ... although there are, of course, parts of the world in which both professions still flourish.

[Rob Stuart]

I take it you went down the executioner route as well then, Brian. Sick minds think alike.

[Brian Allgar]

Yeah, we obviously both yearn for the good old days when "Capital Punishment" meant more than being compelled to listen to a crappy radio station.

[Graham King]

The valve-blower’s métier’s passé;
Electrons now give him short shrift -
They’ve opted for new, bijou dwellings;
Through circuitry (micro) they drift.

Those elegant tubes, bulbs, and bases
Replete with their arrays of coils
(And vanes or grids, in many cases)
Are obsolete; likewise his toils.

He’d shape a precise device often:
With care, an eye trained, and skilled feel,
Manipulated glass would soften;
He’d anneal, cool; draw vacuum, then seal…

A structure, once powered, that warm glowed,
With vibrant hum… city, writ small!
Celestial transmission’s recalled, owed
To him, as we now bear his pall.

[John Whitworth]

Elegant. Very elegant.