Winda's & How To Clean 'em

Alan Pencavel's new book was all inspired by backing into a swimming pool on a New Zealands cold winter morning in June. Being a one man band, this started Alan on thinking about how to compile all his experiences into a book. It's a humorous account of all the up's & down's & window cleaners exploits he has encountered. Alan from Cambridge, on the North Island of New Zealand wrote this book which also includes a beginner's guide to how to clean glass panes. An expatriate Englishman, Alan has been window cleaning for some 16 years & business is booming to a point he has to turn down work!

The unfortunate on-the-job incident that spawned the idea for "Winda's & how to clean them" was when Alan actually fell into a customer's swimming pool – not intentionally, and it was mid-June, so it was freezing." "I'd finished the job, and I was doing a final `lap of honour' to check for smears. I was looking up at the high windows and forgot there was a little kidney-shaped pool. He fell in, "and the blue cover over the pool didn't support my weight and that of my bucket". "I was absolutely freezing. I said to my customer: `If I do too many more things like this, I'll have to write a book about it'."



The book - his first published writing - contains small sketches of the happenings on the job & small poetry offerings. The film "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" inspired some of his work with mishaps & notes of his tales. Although the 1974 has sexual annotations, Alan admits he's happily married & never followed the exploits shown in the film. "Once or twice I have inadvertently caught people naked, and that certainly gets a mention in the book." "In all honesty, I have to pretend I haven't seen them, and just move on to the next window." "I only look at the glass, not through it".

Initially, Alan ran his own local campaign, which started the publicity to advertise the book, which is full of anecdotes of (and admissions to) things that have occurred over the last sixteen years of him being a full time 'TEF' (Transparency Enhancement Facilitator'). His book covers such topics as awkward clients & a general guide to window cleaning. The characters in the book are real people however their names have been changed, although he reckons that local people would be able to guess who was who. You can contact Alan to get a copy of the book "Windas ... and how to clean 'em" by sending an email to: pencavel@xnet.co.nz.