Burley Cross Postbox Theft (45 page)

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2
Hurrah!

3
Sic.

4
Transparency is definitely not one of Mrs Parry’s main characteristics.

5
I’ll make no bones about it, dear:
phallic
.

6
Norma Spoot works part-time at the local butcher’s, and told me – in between hysterical gales of laughter – of how she overheard Mrs Parry boasting (while she was having a chicken deboned last Tuesday) that her jewellery ‘sells like hot cakes’ on the internet.

7
I do not mean to include you in this sweeping statement. That would obviously be ridiculous.

8
People refuse to believe that she actually became eligible for a free bus pass last February.

9
And then some! The poor chap’s tall as a door handle but weighs in at over seventeen stone!

10
I’ll abbreviate Mrs Parry from this point onwards, if it’s all the same to you.

11
Did she have it yet? Was it – as I predicted – a bonny little chap with a bright tuft of ginger hair on top?

12
The youngest child’s initials are still scratched into the bark of our old apple tree.

13
His voice ranged over several octaves – although my late wife used to say that while he might reach a note with all apparent ease, he could never actually succeed in holding one for any extended period. I used to tell her that this was simply ‘the rustic style’ (I’m fairly well informed on the subject), but she refused to be convinced.

14
The topiary was never as good after he left.

15
I call it ‘a crime’ although a corpse was never discovered (there were signs of a struggle and several suspicious spots of blood, however).

16
Bertrand Russell, the famous philosopher and coward, apparently stayed there on several occasions.

17
In the early 1990s these letters were adapted into a play called My Dear Hinty… I can’t remember, off-hand, who starred in it – possibly that game young lad who used to ride his bicycle up and down those steep, cobbled streets in the old Hovis adverts. Either way, a dear school friend of mine – Hortensia Sandle, an RE teacher, charming lass, who lived in the Smoke and had a penchant for the theatre – was persuaded to attend the opening night (I’d been given free tickets by Hinty himself, but was a martyr to chronic piles at the time so found it difficult to remain seated for extended periods). I still don’t know for sure what she actually made of the production (one review I read said the direction was ‘all over the shop’), because – for some inexplicable reason – she refused to ever speak to me again afterwards. Very odd.

18
To use the main entrance would actually involve cutting through a yew hedge and then swimming across a large Japanese pond full of ornamental carp.

19
The Morrison line ended with Emily. We had no children of our own – though certainly not through want of trying! Rumour has it that an inappropriate liaison between two first cousins in 1810 caused a genetic weakness in the Morrison gene pool which rendered all subsequent issue physically and reproductively flawed. Aside from her infecundity, Emily had the added distinction of a third nipple. In poor light it could be mistaken for a large mole, but she was very self-conscious about it and always wore a robe whilst lounging by the pool. Once, on holiday in Kenya, she allowed her guard (and the robe) to fall and the mark was spotted by a sharp-eyed cocktail waiter. We were subsequently evicted, unceremoniously, from the hotel. To protect Emily’s feelings I determined to keep the real reason for our eviction hidden from her (and was relatively successful, to boot). She always naively believed that we were turfed out because I queried the bar bill (and gave me no end of stick about it, too!).

20
Who have always been extremely genial landlords and have never sought to interfere with our ready access to the property – although they did kick up quite a stink two years ago when we built our conservatory or ‘sunroom’. Apparently the light reflects quite sharply off its glass roof and can be seen very clearly from the window of their dining room (an added complication is that this small but precious ‘space’ was added to the property with the intention of creating a safe/therapeutic environment for Shoshana to sunbathe, au naturel. The poor creature is prone to seasonal attacks of chronic eczema and constant exposure to gentle sunlight really is the best possible cure).20 Who have always been extremely genial landlords and have never sought to interfere with our ready access to the property – although they did kick up quite a stink two years ago when we built our conservatory or ‘sunroom’. Apparently the light reflects quite sharply off its glass roof and can be seen very clearly from the window of their dining room (an added complication is that this small but precious ‘space’ was added to the property with the intention of creating a safe/therapeutic environment for Shoshana to sunbathe, au naturel. The poor creature is prone to seasonal attacks of chronic eczema and constant exposure to gentle sunlight really is the best possible cure).20 Who have always been extremely genial landlords and have never sought to interfere with our ready access to the property – although they did kick up quite a stink two years ago when we built our conservatory or ‘sunroom’. Apparently the light reflects quite sharply off its glass roof and can be seen very clearly from the window of their dining room (an added complication is that this small but precious ‘space’ was added to the property with the intention of creating a safe/therapeutic environment for Shoshana to sunbathe, au naturel. The poor creature is prone to seasonal attacks of chronic eczema and constant exposure to gentle sunlight really is the best possible cure).20 Who have always been extremely genial landlords and have never sought to interfere with our ready access to the property – although they did kick up quite a stink two years ago when we built our conservatory or ‘sunroom’. Apparently the light reflects quite sharply off its glass roof and can be seen very clearly from the window of their dining room (an added complication is that this small but precious ‘space’ was added to the property with the intention of creating a safe/therapeutic environment for Shoshana to sunbathe, au naturel. The poor creature is prone to seasonal attacks of chronic eczema and constant exposure to gentle sunlight really is the best possible cure).

21
Which I won’t bore you with here.

22
Little Hitlers. It beggars belief that these people actually have the right to claim ‘charitable status’.

23
I am considering trying to claim this same status myself – I’ll be seventy-three in February!

24
And you could hardly call us philistines – Shoshana is actually treasurer of our local History Club!

25
A marvellous, generous, open-minded bunch of individuals (with the odd, notable exception).

26
Last April Shoshana single-handedly staged and organized a charitable quiz night (in conjunction with Radio Wharfedale DJ Mark Sweet) to raise money for repairs to the church organ (which she plays – very competently – whenever the resident organist is away on holiday).

27
Encouraged, in no minor part, by the poison tongue of you know who.

28
Money changed hands. It definitely changed hands. I’m almost 100 per cent sure of it.

29
The cover photo of a booted foot suspended above a huge pile of steaming excrement is certainly eye-catching. Shoshana is very squeamish and will not allow me to keep my copies in the house (even wrong-side-up!) so I have been obliged to resort to storing them – and all correspondence relating to this issue – on a shallow back shelf inside our tiny garden shed.

30
No need to return it. The yellow marks on the back cover are nothing more sinister than grass stains (from where it accidentally fell into my lawnmower’s clippings bin on retrieval).

31
Although felines – very helpfully, but with the odd exception – bury their own.

32
The average age of your Burley Cross resident is fifty-nine (this is a quotable statistic – feel free to use it – I researched it myself).

33
Approximately eighteen months ago.

34
That said, I was utterly appalled by the filth I encountered on a day trip to Haworth in ‘Brontë country’ recently.

35
And not without occasional resistance – especially on icy winter mornings!

36
Shoshana’s family have a tradition of naming their dogs after biblical characters.

37
Samson actually turns eight this year – he was a rescue dog and three years old when we got him. But before Samson I regularly walked Shoshana’s beloved Highland terrier, Hezekiah (or ‘Zeke’), although we were not resident full-time in Burley Cross at that stage.

38
Like an innocent young rabbit cruelly disembowelled by a savage fox (and this is an entirely pointless killing: the cruel fox is not hungry; it does not pause to eat the rabbit – it has already killed and consumed the mother – so attacks the young one purely for ‘sport’).

39
Pathetic creature. Hugely overweight. And I’m pretty convinced that it’s always the same dog she walks; it seems to be lame in one of its back legs, although I’ve never had the chance to meet it – and so identify it – in daylight.

40
No judgement whatsoever is involved in my use of this word.

41
Although one really has to wonder at her facility to locate these random faeces in order to bag them up when it’s apparently so difficult for her to avoid stepping in them in the first place!

42
I’m guessing that this is because the habit took a while to become properly established and then suddenly snowballed after the first few months.

43
The contents are, therefore, always fully visible.

44
Chops, perhaps, or liver/kidney/tongue and other smaller cuts.

45
To be purchased at any large supermarket or pet shop.

46
Quite belligerently.

47
Her word.

48
God only knows what she had in those damn bags – they weighed a tonne!

49
Lucky for TP we were only fifty or so yards from her front door at this stage.

50
And quite incorrectly, it later transpired.

51
I had yet to come across this valuable little booklet and so was, as you can imagine, somewhat confused and nonplussed by this attack.

52
We get the Sunday Express at The Retreat, but only for the sudoku.

53
Shoshana, I must confess, is an avid Corrie fan.

54
The last film I saw was The Full Monty, and I only went to that because my late wife convinced me it was all about El Alamein.

55
Although, as I’ve already emphasized, there wasn’t a problem before TP arrived on the scene – TP is the problem!

56
I won’t bore you with the details here as I am sure Mr Horsmith will already have bored you with them himself.

57
His words, not mine. Shoshana once observed – very wittily – that Mr Horsmith makes Alice in Wonderland’s Dormouse seem hyperactive!

58
By a flurry of phone calls, emails and at least half a dozen letters to the local press (two of which mentioned him by name).

59
Three of her bags were recently discovered in Lowsley Edge – over seven miles away as the crow flies!

60
His letter was full of the most appalling grammatical errors.

61
This struck me as an astonishingly irresponsible thing to say given the deranged nature of the character we are dealing with here. As I said to Horsmith myself (on one of the rare occasions he actually made a visit to the village), by encouraging TP to think that she’s got moral right on her side he’s only sharpening a stick for her to beat him (and the rest of us) up with.

62
Ye gads!

63
A point I made myself to Mr Horsmith – but to no avail – over six long months before!