Well; we had managed to make it, undetected from the church
to the hotel. It was a lovely hotel that
had been built in to the town’s defensive walls. I shall not tell you the name of it, for you
will only go away and Google the name and see just how posh and decadent the
place was. Just imagine Downton Abbey by
the sea. And if you don’t know what
Downton Abbey was, then let me explain.
It was a bit of nonsense parading itself as drama for Sunday evening
television viewing; it is what is commonly known as a soap opera. It was so close to reality it would have made
the Brothers Grimm blush. There’s this
posh Englishman, I know, aren’t they all.
He is married to an American woman, this allows them to shoe horn in the
story of the Titanic.
Every programme begins with a close up of a dog’s arse which
is a tiny indication of what is to come.
One daughter murders a Turkish man to death by sleeping with him;
another marries an Irish rebel and then dies.
The next daughter is up the duff by some writer type who is missing,
presumed dead. And most believable of
all, the next daughter, or cousin, or whatever flavour relative she is, has
decided to marry a black man. Of course
they are all so posh none of them are able to dress, or undress, themselves so
they have slaves to do that for them and the slaves are even more posher than
the posh people pretend to be. I tell you, it’s the best forty five minutes you
can have shouting at a television ever. So; here we all were in the Welsh version of
Downton Abbey by the sea, or as posh people might say ‘Downton Abbey sur la mer,’
which of course would be incorrect as it’s by the sea, not on the sea, it’s a
fecking hotel, not a boat.
So, here we all were at Downton Abbey by the sea or as
educated, posh, people might say, ‘Downton Abbey par la mer.’ We had the standard sit down nosh and drinks
and speeches and perhaps one or two more drinks. I have to say the whole place felt very Noel Coward. There was a beautiful veranda and swimming
pool and as it was a fine day most of us wandered out and sat among the palm
trees, polishing our monocles and sipping our pink gins while puffing away on
our silver cigarettes holders. Two of
the navy guys decided to give the girls a bit of a show and stripped off to
their shreddies. I think they must have
planned this, for both pairs of shreddies looked relatively new. They dived in to the swimming pool and began
to, what seemed like effortlessly, swim lengths of the pool.
Someone made a comment that this was how good navy guys were
at swimming pity the air force guys weren’t.
This as you may imagine had me thinking.
I was trained in many things, my most favourite being desert and mountain
rescue. To me swimming pools were
somewhere you drove golf buggies into.
There was a beach in front of me, made of sand, but nothing sprung to mind. There was a hotel behind me and I had noticed
that on the top, five or six stories up in the air, was a flag pole, but there
was no flag on it. As most people were
now focused on the swimmers in the pool and the ribaldry and comments were
flying thick and fast, I took the jackets that the swimmers had dropped, and
started to walk toward the hotel.
Now, you are probably two or three steps ahead of me here. You probably think that I had studied the
side of the hotel and was able to work out a route, using the drain pipes, to
get myself on to the roof. Problem was,
when climbing, you always need to have three points of contact and I’m sure I’ve
told you that before, so start paying attention. If anyone thinks I was going to wear the
jackets and then climb up the side of the hotel, or hold the jackets in my
teeth before the climbing then you are all very wrong. I was a highly trained mountain rescue
operative. I took the fecking lift to the
top floor, found the access hatch, climbed through that and tied the jackets to
the rope on the flag pole.
I don’t know what the people down below were shouting at me,
probably complaining that I hadn’t saluted the jackets as I hoisted them up. I
could hear the other fellow who was shouting at me but that was the hotel
manager who was demanding that I got off his roof. Something about health and safety or slipping
and falling, bloody civvies, what do they know? The two swimmers now had to negotiate with the
hotel manager as to how they could retrieve their uniforms. Luckily the marines or cavalry guys didn’t decide
to join in with the oneupmanship frolics.
We retreated back to the farmhouse, again evading detection by the local
constabulary, and settled in for a night of heavy drinking. Once again Tim’s father was the focus of the
evening and I have to say the fellow certainly knew how to host a party.
At one point Alex Alexander and myself were stood standing
chatting to various people. As far as
all the fellows there were concerned we were all friends with Tim, that was the
one common bond, so rank never came into question. Unfortunately, one or two of the naval wives thought
that because they were married to a naval officer this made them posh. One of these girls, who probably dreams of
living somewhere like Downton Abbey, was talking down to Alex and myself. I of course know my place as the bloody
foreigner and poor old Alex was a non-commissioned officer, in the air force,
probably someone she thought could clean her shoes.
This was a problem across all the services that the wives
assumed the rank of their husband.
Remember invites would ask for officers and their ladies, non-commissioned
officers and their wives while the oiks and their women would be at the bottom
of the pile. At one unit the bitching
was so bad that the wives were invited to a function, female only, and asked to
sit according to rank. After ten minutes
of utter confusion, silence was called for and the statement, ’Ladies you don’t
have any rank,’ was given. Of course
Irene never had that sort of problem, for when people discovered that she was
married to me they immediately felt sorry for her although they would probably recommend
her for a medal.
Alex keeps reminding me, thank you Alex, that at one point I turned
to the woman who still wittering on, rah, rah, rah, and asked in my thickest Irish
accent, “Is it true you are wearing them tights,” for she was wearing thick woollen
tights. “Is it true?” I says.
“That you are wearing them tights because your legs are so fecking ugly that
you have to cover up your varicose veins?”
I know, not very cutting, or abusive, and expletive free, but it had the
required effect. It was like someone had
slapped her in the face with a wet trout.
In fact she very nearly tripped over the fellow who was unconscious on
the floor behind her, in her haste to get away from us. I think it must have been something Alex
said. I hate pretence especially the, I’m
better than you are nonsense; I wonder how she would feel now if she knew I was
a King?
The guy on the floor was a cavalry officer. He was still wearing his best dress uniform
and looked as if he was lying to attention on the floor. He looked as if he was wrapped very tightly
and was still wearing his beret and his sword.
But the funniest thing about him was that his feet were held four inches
off the ground as he was still wearing his spurs. One by one we fell by the wayside and sleep or
a state of unconsciousness took over and before we knew it, it was the following
morning and we were all waving goodbye, farewell and adieu. There was an attempt at a bit of a swordfight
between some cars as we joined the main motorway, where the three lanes allowed
some skulduggery but soon we calmed down and met at the final motorway service
station for coffee before we would all fire off to the different parts of the
country.
John Clancy, Rick Stocks and myself decided to go to John’s
family home in London where John would introduce us to the finer things in life,
like pie and mash or was it pie and jelled eels? First off we would call in to Rick’s family
home in Wiltshire and have some afternoon tea.
Rick and I swopped cars because it’s not often you get the chance to
drive a classic car, and it was heaven driving an open top roadster along the motorway
where there are no speed restrictions, well; none that I was aware off. Rick had bought it from his brother, who was
leaving the country, for the princely sum of one shilling, the smallest value coin
that was regarded as legal tender. Both John and Rick are now secretly praying
that I don’t mention what happened next.
Perhaps tomorrow but, as they say, plain brown envelopes, stuffed full
of used twenty pounds notes, have an amazing effect on people’s ability to
remember stuff.
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