Millom in the Dock (9 page)

And that M’lud,
ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, dear reader completes my short
statement on a smidgen of local genius which has been sadly missed
by the unlucky outside world. I hope the jury can comprehend the
potential of such a boring ‘End of the Line’ place?

M’lud: “Well Mr
Lassut, very interesting indeed. I think we will now conclude
today’s proceedings. The next session will be tomorrow morning at
ten o’clock.”

“ALL RISE FOR
M’LUD!”

END OF DAY
ONE

(“Mr Lassut, do
you think it may be possible for me to have a ride on Peg? Do you
have Mr Hunter’s number?)

Why yes M’lud,
it’s here in my executive Filofax. I’m sure Freddie won’t
mind”)

***

ONLY A GIFTSHOP
OR TWO? DON’T THINK SO, FANCY A SHOPPING SPREE?

TUESDAY 10 a.m.
– SECOND SESSION

Court Clerks
(sober!!): “All rise for M’lud!”

M’lud: “Good
morning everybody, Mr Lassut, I hope you all had a good evening.
Now then, I see the next thing on the agenda which has led to a
good tabloid kicking up Millom’s Northern nethers was ‘hustle and
bustle’. Apparently, according to the Courts and the press, poor
old Millom has only
“a gift shop or two”
, which wouldn’t
exactly render the town a magnet for shopaholics? So then Mr
Lassut, should I bother visiting with my lady wife who, it should
be said, enjoys spending my money a great deal, she is a black belt
in fact. What would be likely to keep her busy? What is interesting
about Millom’s frontline consumer metropolis which separates it
from say … ahm? Coventry City precinct? What variety of ware is on
offer?”

Well M’lud,
ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, dear reader shopping in Millom is
a juxtaposition (dictionaries everyone! Ho! Ho!) of both normal and
different I suppose. Apart from the usual everyday things like
mops, buckets, birthday cards etc., there is a large industry
catering for anything the consumer would ever need which hails from
the humble cow, bull, sheep, rabbit, pig, chicken or fish, you have
literally found your paradise. I could have added horse to that
list but, as Peggy is much loved and is also the star attraction at
Farnborough every year, no way Jose.

Oh sorry! I do
unwittingly tell a fib, my language is all a spin and I don’t wish
to be accused of genuine perjury this time by the defence. Peg,
bless her non-cotton hooves, is an industry in herself! She not
only provides transportation, she supplies every school in Millom
with violin bows for the music departments (being cut by the
Government. Mind you I don’t blame them, bloody screeching
untalented whelps”), manure for heavy duty shaw kite lamps, flowers
and vegetables and, not forgetting, lucky horseshoes of course. Peg
is to Millomites and Haveriggites what buffalo was to the Wild
West.

King Arthur, if
you remember made Peg a supplier by ‘Royal Appointment’ which makes
her actually invaluable. I cannot, (will not actually), pass this
point without telling of Peggy at the Farnborough Air Show. After
her first year’s appearance, she was banned from flying over one
hundred feet in altitude with attitude (gauged by Freddie’s
nosebleed and audible maverick flyers flatulence). It just got a
tad too dangerous because her aerobatic display, good as it was,
still made the poor old girl nervous, (fear used properly aids us)
resulting with her covering the windscreens of the Lancaster
(people) bombers and other WAR planes with her fertile bum crud.
The side windows of the planes would then open and the pilot(s)
would lean out with colourful seaside buckets and spades gathering
Peg’s previous feast for their garden, not for power, having
electricity in their towns, cities and villages. Mind you this
caused some static from Arthur Ferg who had somehow gotten himself
invited into the control tower and onto the radio … although he
couldn’t understand how it worked without shaw kite? So being Ferg
and always looking for a market, he left a free ‘half’ bucket for
the hams to try, licking his lips with relish at the thought of 30
years of repeat orders! This letting go of the aeroplane joystick
would lead to unintentional low level aerobics where peoples wigs
would be removed in the draught and land sometimes skew-whiff on
someone’s head, giving the crowd a treble experience of fear,
flatulence and a totally new look. But apart from Pegs’ products
you can get most things (especially from Ferguson’s) but
unfortunately because the town has been dismissed by the outside
world, forgotten by God and unjustly criticised by the press and
the Police you can’t get electrical goods (as of yet????).

But you can get
…

WHAT ‘WOULD
NORMALLY BE’ ELECTRICAL GOODS

Because, as
already stated, the concept of moving electrons along copper hasn’t
yet arrived, on Summer nights some of the locals go walking and
glance across the estuary at the not too distant Barrow in Furness
and see the lights glittering away, sometimes reflected in the calm
tide waters of the Irish Sea and think … “My! They have big earwax
candles and powerful kite lamps over there!” The nearest thing to
your electrical normality is the Dames Ison cleaner as mentioned in
the inventions section. It does not have a plug but uses power as
in ‘Human Power’. The cleaner has been cleverly fitted to the front
of a bicycle. A complicated chain and pulley system breathes life
into the ‘cyclone’. If the owner can’t balance on a slow moving
bike very well they may have problems. There have been many
insurance claims, none of them Acts of God of course, the reason
you well know. Some of them were actually valid though, where the
user has gone tumbling over the settee or worse still, out of the
living room window. These acts were caused by the domestic toiler
trying to be clever and using Shake ‘n’ Vac. Poggy has had many
cases in his surgery of sore toes after the man of the house has
refused to lift up his feet when his missus has politely asked him
to do so, so many times, such is married life.

M’lud: “Mr
Lassut, you did say that this cleaner is constructed from a large
jam jar didn’t you?”

Yes M’lud I
believe I did.

M’lud: “Good, I
like that design, it allows a woman to see the results of her
naturally, unconditioned, genetically attributed labours, her birth
right, her talent. I may get one for my wife and abort her
membership at the expensive Bodystation Gym. She can have her
exercise bike and Hoover the living room at the same time. Must
remember to lift my fee though, carry on Mr Lassut”.

Thank you
M’lud, you can also get … erm, ‘buried.’

THE
UNDERTAKERS

Who are not
exactly thriving, so survival strategies are employed to ensure a
steady flow of cadavers. They dress up in SAS style camouflage gear
then render themselves as invisible in the bowling green’s
surrounding privet hedge a couple of hours before sunrise.

Later, when
surface temperature facilitates joint movement and the old lizards
… sorry … ancient bowlers arrive again for the first time in their
dehydrated memories. The grimmer reapers wait patiently until one
of the squeaky shoed crew stands with their back to the privet. The
Undertaker simply shouts “BOO!” milliseconds prior to the jack
being rolled, as there is no point at all in ruining the exciting
game once it has begun, may as well sit back and watch the fight
and then BOOOO at the end.

The undertakers
used to / still do (?) get a Christmas card from Elgar’s family
each year. Should the hit be successful clothes from the now ex
bowler are donated to the Costume Department of Millom Amateur
Operatic Society, narrowing the choice of show to ‘Hobson’s Choice’
for yet another year. You see, you can also successfully shop for
entertainment in Millom. On some weekends, when no one has snuffed
naturally and, the military trained scare tactics fail, as they
sometimes do, in order to avoid any depressing between show /
funeral boredom the thespians enthusiastically provide an ‘actoor’
usually John (JR) Clarke … typecast to play dead. They then
solemnly, melodramatically have a ‘mock’ burial … well it’s a bit
of overtime for Peg as well. It is also the only time that John
does not forget his line(s). This is where the term ‘corpsing’
comes from and, also the concept of the Real Fun funeral (think
about it). On one memorable occasion, JR asked to be really buried!
(It’s the David Blaine in him). He wanted to check out whether his
wife Sue would miss him? “Of course she would John!” everyone
assured him. His friends told the Reverend that he had died
immediately after paying for a large round so could he, the
Reverend, bury him before his wife found out and played hell with
him? The Reverend Joe agreed and, just to show how much he really
cared about JR, he went by himself into the chapel of rest and said
a few good words over John’s pauper, paper-mache casket. One week
later his wife Sue asked the neighbours if they had seen him
because his plates of gruel (all he ever gets and still asks for
more) were gathering on the table and no hemp Y fronts had appeared
in the washing basket for a while. On finding out (after much
asking around), Sue dug him up. Upon the opening of the lid John
looked up at Sue from the pocketless shroud and asked “Did you miss
me?” she replied “Of course, but have you got anorexia? And where
are your Y fronts? Because I don’t want to have to hand wash in the
tin bath twice!”

Sharpo was
advisor for the Undertakers, because one time after I had espoused
a monologue about troubles I had with my dad, who I never really
got on with (a fight my mother fuelled), Sharpo’s advice was ...
“He’s had a heart attack, so if you sneak up behind him and shout
waaaa! Or something, he should drop dead, problem solved.”

He also wrote
the most down to earth T shirt ever seen in Millom and Haverigg in
the eighties. On the back, it said simply, FUCK OFF AND DIE. Again,
I thought the Undertakers had bought him it (I tell people now and
they laugh).

John before, or
after the funeral? Still wearing the shroud – that’s the Great
Midge cairns in the white shirt and Sue, John’s wife, is in light
blue.

“He’s up to no
good Midge.”

“Smile John,
there is no such thing as bad publicity.”

John couldn’t,
no matter how
hard
he tried, get his auto
windup Rolex Oyster Perpetual wristwatch back from the Reverend
whom he’d wanted to stop taking from his stiff (limp) wrist but,
obviously couldn’t, because he was supposed to be dead. All the Rev
said was “God told me that the watch was a gift from your
departing/cheating soul to my hanging round soul, so to merely ask
for the return of said Divine ‘gift’ will certainly put you on the
path to limbo, or worse! If the gift is actually returned. However,
here you are, have it back!! With my blessing my dear and precious
child. Amen”. The Rev is actually a spinner, and I’m not talking
fishing. John of course begged the Rev to keep the watch.

Authors Note:
Even though God forgot about Millom, not even such Divinity can
ignore the Reverend Joe.

As I was saying
… before the folklore about JR came to my mind, the clothes from
the ex-bowler(s) are donated to the MAOS, while the wallet …???
Maybe they, the undertakers, leave it at the home for the next of
kin? They do live in big houses though don’t they and drive really
expensive cars?! And ‘still’ manage to look grim most of the time.
This is actually quite an achievement; because they are in
competition with … here we go …

Dedicated to
the Rev Joe ... (he really, really likes me)
.

WANT TO SAY
HELLO TO YOUR SOUL? THEN SHOP AT … ST GEORGE’S CHURCH! AMEN. The
Rev’s office
.