Workmen investigating a burst waterpipe at 13 Railway Terraces, Batcombe, Dorset, the childhood home of the late Professor Brian Thrupiece, have stumbled upon what appears to be a 1950s style whisk thought to have once been the trusted tool of Mrs Porphyria Thrupiece, Brian's devoted mother. Little is known of Mrs Thrupiece save that she encouraged Brian in her twin hobbies: knitting and beetle drives, in neither of which he developed a lifelong interest.
Instead she may, inadvertently have sparked his youthful obsession with the ethics of culinary and other small appliances by allowing him to witness her struggles whilst "bent nearly double and clearly hoping for someone to come up with something to help her finish". The Eminent Professor to be would later add to this early obsession a keen interest in small appliance improvement through the application of "the wonder that is electricity". His 15th book "Better Than a Hand Job: Electrification and the World of the Small Appliance" is dedicated to his mother who "gave it her all but often came up short".
In intriguing early diary entries, the young Professor Thrupiece refers several times to his distress at seeing his mother "on the job" wrestling with "a sizeable piece" and "finding it hard to handle". He goes on to describe how, having seen "a most ingenious hand-held electrical appliance capable of whisking a soufflé to perfection" in a Department Store in Cheselbourne, he was forever thereafter urging his father to come home "with a big one" and give his mother "the surprise of her life". No record exists to confirm whether or not the young man's hopes came to fruition, though it is "plausible" argues Thrupiece historian and small electrical appliance expert Intimate Lady-Shave that such a device was purchased and that "the old hand held whisk was discarded in an area towards the rear of the house". Experts believe that it may be this very artefact which has been exhumed from the Railway Terraces Garden during recent earth works.
Pending authentication, rumours merely tantalise, though it is widely believed that the Threadbone Corporation has already instructed agents to try to acquire the whisk for possible installation in the Thrupiece Museum of Science and Technology, Tincleton. Unconfirmed reports suggest the device is an Acme Dorset Double Beater manufactured by the Acme Small Appliances Company of Swanage. Only 2.4 million were ever made of which less than 400,000 survive.
Clockwise from Left: A woman believed to be Mrs Porphyria Thupiece (or possibly someone else entirely) with "that whisk" (or possibly a wooden spoon); Acme Dorset Double Beater of the kind thought to have been discovered in Batcombe; forensic experts carefully remove and conserve their find before transportation to the Threadbone Forensic Laboratories for biological evaluation, proper authentication and scientific testing.