Penny Black
The Post Office, Rowland Hill
Last week, I walked all the way up Rowland Hill, braving the frosty pavement, intending to purchase a postage stamp from your Post Office only to find that you had closed one minute early. This in itself would have been no problem since a stamp is but a stamp and I recognise that anyone may find themselves caught out by the inaccuracies which I have always considered inherent to clockwork mechanisms. However, on this particular occasion, I also wanted to purchase a postal order for 1/3d, that being the weekly cost of submitting a coupon to the football pool to which I have subscribed for the past seventeen years. During those seventeen years, I have each week marked the same numbers regardless of the teams drawn against each other for, unlike some, I regard the pools as a game of luck rather than skill. And each week I have listened expectantly to the football results at the end of each Saturday afternoon only to be disappointed for I have never, during those long seventeen years, won a single penny. How cruel is fate that the very first time I am prevented by circumstance from submitting my usual coupon, I find on the following Saturday that my seventeen year choice of numbers would at last have succeeded and made me party to a half share in the largest ever football pools win of over one hundred thousand pounds.
Such is fate. Even a moderate win on the football pool would have been most welcome this week. As you may know, the Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture factory where I am gainfully employed has been on short time ever since the police sniffer dogs totally destroyed last year's crops. The drastic reduction in my income has resulted in my becoming some three months in arrears with the rent on my humble cottage.
However, back to the frosty evening of last week. Finding myself walking carefully down the steep and slippery Rowland Hill with an unexpected 1/9d in my pocket, that being the sum of stamp, postal order and poundage that I would have spent in submitting my winning coupon, and feeling miserable and cold, I decided to buy myself a shilling's worth of fish and chips from the new shop that has opened halfway up the hill (or halfway down from your perspective). This it turned out, was a mistake. The fish had not been filleted with any degree of skill and a bone became lodged in my throat. I don't know if you can imagine the panic that overcame me but I'm sure you'll understand that my dropping of the fish and chips in their greasy newspaper wrapping was entirely unintentional, as was my stepping on the newspaper during my futile struggling with the fish bone. The combination of steep hill, frosted pavement and greasy newspaper is not to be gainsaid and I doubt that I had any more chance of keeping my footing that evening than I had of winning the football pool. I began the long, inexorable slide down the remaining half mile of Rowland Hill. As luck would have it, I remained on my feet during this terrifying journey which allowed me to see that I would almost certainly reach the cross-roads at the bottom of the hill at precisely the same time as the furniture van speeding towards that point from the road to the left (from the direction of my humble abode, as it happens). Had I not had a fish bone lodged in my throat, I would, I am sure, have screamed, although had I done so, I doubt, knowing what I do now, that the driver would have heard it or, had he heard it, that he would have heeded it. But had I been able to scream, then the portly gentleman who at that moment turned out of the Rowland Manor grounds directly into my path may well have not done so. I have to thank him and the fish bone for saving my life, although, of course, had it not been for the fish bone, I would not have been careering down the hill like some wild Alpino in the first place. A broken leg and collar bone, and severe contusions to the face, are as nothing compared to the fate which would have befallen me had not the the portly gentleman stopped me in my tracks. I am only sorry that my impetus sent him flying to crash through the ice on the village pond.
Although I have not seen it myself since I am laid up in a hospital bed, it transpires that the speeding furniture van was actually fleeing from my cottage. The driver and his mates had broken in, caused extensive damage and removed everything of any value, including my home and medical insurance policies.
I do not complain for as I wrote, I regard the football pools as nothing more than luck. I merely wish to bring to your attention the possible consequences of your closing one minute earlier than the stated times.
Yours sincerely,
Bob White
Mr Robert White,
Hillfoot Cottage.
Dear Mr White,
Your letter was forwarded to me by the new Postmistress at Rowland Hill Post Office. I am very sorry to hear of your misfortunes.
Since winning the football pools last week, I have retired from the Post Office and have bought Rowland Manor from the estate of the late Colonel Fitzandstarts. You may have seen the notice of his demise from the severe chill occasioned by his unfortunate ducking in the village pond.
As an employee of the Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture Company, you will be aware of the recent difficulties faced by the Company. Since you are now incapacitated, I regretfully must terminate your employment with the Company. Normally, you would be due one week's wages but since you have failed to attend for work this past week, I am afraid to say that you forfeit that entitlement.
"Hillfoot Cottage" is a property of the Rowland Manor Estate. Under the terms of your lease, rent arrears in excess of three months qualifies for immediate eviction with forfeit of bond. My Estate Manager has inspected the property and finds it in a deplorable condition. The builders estimate that the repairs, for which you are liable, will cost not less than £400 and a bill for the final amount will be sent to you in due course.
Yours very sincerely,
Penny Black
It is time to publish these exquisitely grey-whiskered gems upon the World Wide Web or rather, to publish their facsimiles for the originals, in which are encrypted the launch codes for the scheduled U.S. nuclear first strike on Har Meggido, are retained in Atomic bomb proof vaults buried deep within the North York Moors at Fylingdales with copies stored in the Foot and Mouth proof repositories at Menwith Hill near Harrogate. (Rowland Hill is just a post code - as are many other terms such as second delivery, first day cover and sorting office.)
David's original intention was to place these rare works upon this very page but on taking legal advice from a woman found soliciting in Sheffield, that some of the words and verbal imagery used in the pieces were such as might bring a faint blush to the cheeks of not yet unfrocked bishops and maiden aunts, and as such should not be presented without due warning, he has decided to place them on a separate page which may be accessed only by clicking over the following link.
Not being of a presumptuous nature, I found myself left with but one small, malformed and creamless fairy cake and a milkless cup of stewed tea after Mrs Filibuster, Miss Anthropist and the old, arthritic and near-senile Dr Over had grabbed their platefuls. I regret now my uncharitable subvocal muttering. Had I realised how ill those three must have been I would not have so begrudged them the little pleasure of fish-paste sandwiches and mushroom vol-au-vents. It must have given Penny Black quite a shock when told the next day that three of her four guests had died so horribly in the night following her housewarming party. Although obviously too upset to attend the three funerals, she did send nice wreaths.
I think Penny Black had a hand in choosing the new G.P., Dr Wether. That was about a year later, long after we'd stopped telling the old joke about being under the doctor. Strangely enough, looking back, it seems that no-one suffered much more than a head cold during that year - except young Albert Hall, of course. Young Albert had every disease known to man. Even worse: his mother being a hypochondriac, he suffered every illness known to woman, as well. The only treatment which seemed to offer him the slightest relief from whatever disease or disability discomfited him at any given time was Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture. He swore by it - no, that's not right, he usually swore when he didn't have any. When he had some, he just sat around smoking those large, loosely rolled cigarettes with glazed eyes and a beatific smile on his cherubic young visage. Now, Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture isn't cheap. It never was and it tripled in price after the police sniffer dogs totally destroyed last year's crops. And since the Hall family had never been known to engage in either lawful or unlawful employment, the village wondered just how young Albert got hold of the stuff. So did the residents. All anyone could determine was that the owner of the Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture factory seemed very pleased that the lad had managed to acquire the Mixture, for whenever young Albert's eyes glazed over in his beatific face, a more elemental look of satisfaction was usually observed on the face of Penny Black. The first case for the new Dr Wether (this was long before we started telling the new joke about being under the doctor) was an ectopic pregnancy. I did say that young Albert suffered every illness known to woman, didn't I?
When Albert was found to be with love-child, old Ebenezer Hall, the lad's father, threw him out into the snowy night - or so goes the story. If truth be told, however, it wasn't old Ebenezer who came down so hard on the poor lad but his father, Albert's paternal grandsire, the even older Islamabad Kingdom Hall, who forced the issue. Even older Islamabad Kingdom Hall was a redoubtable man and truly a force to be reckoned with. He it was who had found fame whilst on a cycling holiday in the Pyrenees before the war. It so happened that the Tour de France came upon him just as he was setting off one morning on his old bone-shaker of a tricycle, panniered with all the requisites of a three-week cycling and camping holiday. And what he found no room for on his trike, he wore: The hot Pyrenean sun and the cold Pyrenean snows held no fears for old Islamabad Kingdom (this was some time before he became the even older Islamabad Kingdom) in his best brown brogues, stout tweed plus-fours, union shirt, Fairisle pullover, Norfolk jacket, eight-piece cloth cap and army issue knapsack. Looking behind him, old Islamabad Kingdom found himself suddenly being pursued by a couple of dozen extremely sweaty foreigners on the most expensively crafted and extensively geared of racing bicycles.
Being a redoubtable man and truly a force to be reckoned with, old Islamabad Kingdom, an Englishman through and through, simply refused to let these lesser mortals past him. The harder they pedalled, the harder he pedalled; the lower the gear they used on the uphill, the harder he pedalled; the faster they sprinted downhill, the harder he pedalled. When they didn't stop for elevenses, or for lunch, or for tea, old Islamabad Kingdom just sucked at what remained of his teeth and pedalled the harder. And that evening, as old Islamabad Kingdom flew across the finishing line on his rickety old tricycle, a great cheer arose from the waiting crowds who, ecstatic at his tour de force, rushed to hoist him aloft and award him a large bottle of champagne, a bunch of flowers and a polka-dot jersey. Of the many kisses bestowed on him that day by the French males, he later said little to his friends and family; of the even greater number of kisses bestowed on him by the French females, he said even less to his family. Though he steadfastly refused to wear the jersey, old Islamabad Kingdom made short work of the champagne and for ever afterwards took great delight in his new title of King of the Mountain Hall. Anyhows, as I said, it was this redoubtable grandsire and not young Albert's father who really forced the issue by casting him out into the snowy night. So, on Christmas Eve, young Albert issued on the doorstep of Hall Hall, in a ten foot frozen snowdrift aided by Dr Wether and the District Nurse, Sue Pository, the latter spending most of her time boiling snow on an old army issue primus stove that had long ago taken part in one stage of the Tour de France.
That the child had cold grey eyes owed nothing to the cold grey manner of her birth. They wrapped her warmly in a polka-dot jersey and spirited her away to Rowland Manor where Penny Black eventually became her legal guardian. A wet nurse was needed, of course, and the job was given to District Nurse Sue Pository for after her valiant attempts with the old primus stove in the ten foot frozen snowdrift, no wetter nurse could be found. When asked to choose a name for the child, young Albert insisted that as he must have been under some sort of magic spell to get pregnant, and that as the child really was such a little charmer, no name other than Entrance would suffice for the girl. To this name, the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages took no exception; he did, however, require a little persuading, mainly in the form of a gift of Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture and a free blood pressure check by Dr Wether, before he would enter the name of young Albert Hall as both father and mother of even younger Entrance Hall on the birth certificate. But at least the birth certificate did not carry the stigma of an unemployed father (or, for that matter, an unemployed mother) since Penny Black had thought fit to provide young Albert with gainful employment (the first in his family to attain that dubious honour) as Quality Control Inspector of the Rowland Manor Herbal Smoking Mixture Factory. It is to young Albert's credit that he held both the position of his employment and his relationship to his employer in such high regard that never again did he become pregnant, either out of or in wedlock.
Young Albert Hall's daughter, the even younger Entrance Hall was provided for and given the finest education at the expense of her legal guardian, Miss Penny Black. She grew into a fine young woman with strong, shapely calves filling the finest of silk stockings, thighs that shaped her pencil skirt, a broad hip that could not but inspire awe, and a wasp waist that owed nothing to the manufacturers of corsets. Her proud young bosom might have deserved a sentence or two to itself had it ever fully developed. Her bosom did not, however, develop quite fully for whilst at a most select finishing school in the Pyrenees, even younger Entrance Hall one day donned her old polka-dot jersey and, with the intention of formulating her own herbal smoking mixture, ventured out in to the hills to pick wild herbs where she was mown down by the passing Tour de France.
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(C) David 2/9/2007 |
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