The Smell of Half Baked Jackdaws
It was the night of the Town’s Annual Meeting as our young David set off across the Worthies. The smell of freshly cut grass from the Cricket Pitch raged through his nostrils interrupted at random intervals by the unmistakable smell of the cow pats, that he had been treading in, unable to avoid in the darkness of the moonless night.
By the time young David reached The Grand Town Hall he had already aged about another 10 years and that was just through shear excitement of the show ahead. Then as if by magic, the four huge slabs of glass parted before him as he strode into Horror Hall.
Now he was presented with a difficult dilemma, should he enter the Assembly Hall or the Wesleyan Hall, for both had been set out just in case it was a Parallel Leap Supermarket Presentation Year, in which case the show would still go on, but would be split between the two rooms and the guest speakers alternatively shouting between doorways.
However Sue Snooker Poole was on hand with a Crystal Ball prop belonging to the Athelstan Players and she assessed the space between the front row and the Council Bench and designated it would be the Wesleyan, so be it.
There were 100 seats for all the Town’s Folk, as we are a very small town indeed. More surprising were the Four Speakers and two microphones, well actually just the one loud speaker not counting Bill Blake and four Guest Speakers, none from Dolby I hasten to add.
Members of the public began to arrive into the hall with its great nutcracker arches and ships hull roof all in the darkest old oak timber. A great sight indeed to gaze at should your mind wander if a speaker were to, dare I say, get a trifle boring.
A man carrying a camera followed by a woman carrying a large metal box appeared. Graham and Penny walked smartly into the hall, followed by Sheriff Woodcock and his Gaggle of Girls from the Players of Athelstan 1938 vintage. Enter right of stage or left of stage, between them they opted for centre stage.
Alison Lewis and Bill Sykes crossed arms and held hands behind their backs and skipped down the isle towards the back of the hall where strands of dying sun light broke through the curtains casting a shadow over Big Bob and Little Dave Picter as they jiggled between rows.
Barry Dent shunted Dave Witt past the engine shed and towards the buffers where the rapidly ageing our David was now sat putting on more years of half a score. Quickly the notes ran out and the sheet was turned, just in time for Mr and Mrs John Hughes to scale down the back row.
People were now entering at quite a rate and being randomly mixed by the virtual turn stiles, football fanatic Ruth Strange side by side with The James of Yorkshire More please. Everyone else pirouetted to collapse whilst holding high their 106 raffle tickets, there were no prizes, they all had the same number!
The Town Bells began to knock about a jaunty number from the Tower of Paula to mark the setting of the sun precisely as Steve Cox-ed his councillors into row and began the ceremonies. Only Seven Seats, we were going to do the whole night in Missing Man Formation, the Mayor cried Pull, not a councillor was seen to put an oar in, so it was off to a very smooth start indeed.
The Famous Doppler Microphone was handed to Bill ‘Boomer’ Blake to give it his Test of Destruction, luckily all the Wesleyan windows were still ‘cross taped’ from World War Two, and not a pane of glass escaped into Oxford Street. During this dual purpose test, where Ted Palmer calibrates his disfunctional hearing aids, Caroline Pym and Tristan Cork tried to sneak in late un-noticed, but our man just down from Scotland for the evening kindly guided them to empty seats with his trusty Laser Pointer, which in turn induced sea sickness in some members of the audience.
Porpoise Pilots they cried out, we all want to be pilots and scramble on a mission over the night’s Waitrose and Sainsbury’s targets and drop our biggest munition, the Portas Block Buster. The ‘Bustard’ Graham was busily hand cranking celluloid to the sound of 633Sqn when he finally managed to bounce the winning note off 617Sqn just as two beams of light from the balcony spotted the Doody Mugs Towers either side of that damned council bench.
The man with the Laser Eyes who fell to earth suggested a little Landscaping in front of the Horror Hall might be in order if only Tristan could see between his little Pink Blotches, then Catherine of Flowerdom could persuade Graham and Shaun to stuff some daffs in a pile of dirt, and ‘Hey Dyson’, Big Bob is Your Uncle, then we can all get on with the presentations.
The Scotsman finally fell asleep on his feet, after his long trek south of the border without a stop, and dropped the Mighty Laser onto the floor with such a crash it awoke everyone in the room sending Rotary Engined Sandersons scurrying ‘L’ for leather into the slit trenches, where they waited for Ted Palmer to sound the All Clear.
Our poor old young David had now aged beyond that of dinosaur bones and was about to be cast into the Museum when a Roll Call was taken. Everyone going by the alias of Diamond Geezer were being Called Up to Do Their Duty for The Community and were being formed into Ranks in front of the Council Trenches as Charles Vernon dimmed the Barnes Wallis lights for atmospheric effect.
Each worthy citizen was duly awarded a medal of honour before being thrust forward into the Hobbes Parlour to partake in Sea Shanties and Grab Yourself a Councillor’s Ear. It was at this climatic point in the night’s affairs that a Man in White, rose to his feet at the back of the hall and informed all the new converts that The Gospels would duly be available on line from all good Town Web Sites.
And so it came to pass that all the good Folk of Malmesbury would now be following Bishop Roger of the ‘Order of Athelstan’ for the next millennium.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.