The True Story of the Gunpowder Plot (maybe!)

Guy was quite enjoying his new job as a courier driver in London. He had only been doing the job for a week, but he found it quite exciting trundling his horse and cart around parts of London that were new to him, having only arrived from the country a month or so before. He had met lots of new people and had already earned several groats in tips from satisfied customers.

On the 5^th of November he got a message that he was to go to Eddie Towbar’s distribution depot in east London. He was told that he only needed to bring his horse because the wagon was already loaded and ready to go. 

He was greeted by the depot foreman when he arrived.

“Name?”

“Spoons. Guy Spoons.”

“OK, Spoons, your job is to deliver a wagonload of beer to the King’s Arms in Westminster. There are two carts out in the yard, both loaded with barrels, eleven of them on each. One cart is red and the other one is green. You want to hitch your horse to the red cart. Whatever you do, don’t take the green cart.”

The foreman’s assistant laughed out loud at this.

“Oh no”, he said, “you wouldn’t want to take the green cart. That would be a huge mistake.”

“It certainly would”, said the foreman. “An enormous mistake”. The two men carried on laughing as Guy made his way out to where the two carts were waiting.

“The red cart”, said Guy to himself, “not the green cart. Definitely not the green cart”.

So Guy hitched up the cart and set off through the streets of London. 

When Guy reached the King’s Arms he had to ask for directions as to where he would find the entrance to the cellars, which he presumed were somewhere round the back. The landlord explained that it was a bit complicated, because several roads had been cordoned off on account of the huge procession that was expected very soon. 

“It’s the state opening of Parliament”, said the landlord. “King James will be arriving, as will all the Members of Parliament, and security is understandably tight. Mind you, there’ll be lots of celebrating afterwards, which is why I’ve ordered all this extra beer.”

“So where do I go?” asked Guy.

“Take the first left, then the second right, then the second left. The cellar hatch is painted green – you can’t miss it.”

“Green, you say?”

“Oh yes, definitely green. Don’t go delivering my beer down anyone else’s hatch, painted any other colour, or my party definitely won’t go with a bang tonight!”

“How do you want me to stack your barrels?” asked Guy.

“There are several bays in the cellar”, said the landlord, “just go to the one at the far end and stack them up there.”

“No problem” said Guy.

Guy was about to set off with his cart when the landlord spoke to him again.

“Oh, just one thing,” he said. “Because of the royal procession there’s every chance that the roads will be completely blocked by the time you finish. I suggest that you stay down there with the barrels until the coast is clear. I’ll send one of my barmaids down with some food and plenty of candles, and I’ll make sure that you get a decent tip at the end of it all. You can rest assured that you’ll get much more than you were expecting.”

“First left, second right, second left, green hatch?”

“That’s right. There some red hatches in the neighbourhood, but only one green one. You wouldn’t want to deliver my beer down a red hatch!”

So off Guy trundled off with his cart and made his way along the route he had been told. 

“Left, right, left” he said to himself. “Now where’s the green hatch? Ah. There it is.”

He did wonder a bit why the cellar entrance appeared to be out of sight of the King’s Arms, but when he opened the hatch and looked inside he could see that a tunnel ran away into the distance, so it could easily, he thought, run underneath the pub.

Getting the barrels down the ramp into the cellar was easy enough, as was rolling them down the tunnel, which was lit with lanterns all the way along. It took some time, but eventually Guy was able to stack the eleventh and last barrel in the bay that was furthest from the entrance hatch.

There was plenty of noise coming from above his head – lots of shouting and sounds of many feet marching up and down. Maybe they were getting ready for the big party, which had to mean that somebody would be coming for the beer before too long. All he had to do was sit still and wait – at least the barmaid with the food should turn up soon.

After a short time there was a loud noise from the other end of the tunnel. There were bright lights and men tramping along the passageway. A troop of soldiers, armed with muskets, walked into the bay where Guy was sitting.

“Stand up”, a loud voice commanded. “You are under arrest for being right underneath the House of Lords surrounded by what look suspiciously like barrels of gunpowder. Put your hands where I can see them!”

Guy did exactly as he was told. It seemed to be the best plan, given that a dozen muskets were pointing at his face.

“What’s your name?” barked the sergeant in charge of the troop. Guy should probably have been completely open at this point, but for some reason he thought that subterfuge might be his best plan. 

“Forks”, he said, this being the only name he could think of that wasn’t Spoons. “Guy Forks”.

“How do you spell that?” asked the corporal who was taking notes of the proceedings.

“How the hell should I know?”, said Guy. “I never went to school. Write it how it sounds.”

So that is what the corporal did. And that is how the legend of Guy Fawkes was born. It was all down to the fact that the man who was supposed to deliver a load of beer for a celebration night at the King’s Arms suffered from red/green colour blindness and had a problem telling left from right. He simply delivered the wrong barrels to the wrong place - nothing more than that.

You see, there never was an actual Gunpowder Plot. All those stories about plotters being hanged, drawn and quartered were put about by the propaganda machine of the time to cover up the huge embarrassment of what really happened.

I refer, of course, to the terrible mistake made by the Royal Horse Artillery when they tried to fire a 21-gun salute for the King having primed each cannon with half a barrel of best bitter.

© John Welford

The Pockets of Power

Everything you came to love 
So freely bought and sold
An easy life, dependent on
A pocketful of gold

A world of privilege and greed

Was yours from earliest youth
You never knew the contents of
A pocketful of truth

You opened wide your gaping maw
From which came – no surprise –
The latest mad extraction from

Your pocketful of lies

You sought to foment seismic change 
And make your country great
But deeply thrust your hand inside
A pocketful of hate

What you dislike’s condemned as fake 
You guess this makes you strong
But only adds more substance to

Your pocketful of wrong

Your moral baseness further dips
With each offensive tweet
And yet more shame augments what’s in
Your pocket of deceit

All decent folk desire that you
Will not achieve your goals
Each decanted safely in
A pocketful of holes

© John Welford

The Island

The judge gave Prospero a stern look.

“Mr Prospero”, he said, “you have pleaded guilty to the charge of fraud, but perhaps you might like to give the court the full story of what happened so that I can decide on an appropriate sentence?”

“I am grateful to the court”, Prospero replied. “I shall therefore endeavour to do precisely that”.

“As you may recall, at the end of Act Five of The Tempest I abandoned my magic island and headed back home. But I soon got bored and wondered what I could do to pass the time and earn a bob or two while I was at it.

“Ferdinand and Miranda were very happy together and were soon producing a regular supply of grandchildren for me. This got me wondering whether I couldn’t use the island to give other young people the same opportunities. Suppose I set up some kind of community on the island where people could arrive as singles and leave as pairs? I even thought up a highly original name that I could give my new enterprise – can you guess what it was?”

“Actually,” said the judge, “I rather think I can. It wouldn’t be ‘Love Island’ by any chance, would it?”

Prospero looked distinctly disappointed at the news that his originality was maybe not as original as he had imagined.

“No matter”, he continued. “So I went back to the island and got some of my fellow characters to help get things started. I’ve always envied Hamlet his Elsinore Castle, with all its romantic turrets and spires, so I asked him to draw up plans for a hotel along the same lines. Unfortunately, this led to some delays.”

“So I can imagine”, said the judge, “it must have taken him for ever to decide how many towers to build.”

“It was worse than that,” said Prospero. “When writing the spec he discovered that he didn’t know to spell ‘abutment’ or ‘embrasure’. He went around for days muttering ‘two bs or not two bs’ to himself.”

“But the building did get underway eventually, presumably?” asked the judge.

“Oh yes”, said Prospero, “although I should never have invited Henry V to the island. Every time a length of wall got built he insisted in knocking a dirty great breach in it and making a stirring speech as he did so. I had to send him home.

“Worse problems arose after everything was ready and my guests had arrived, having already paid substantial deposits for their accommodation. You see, I thought I could raise some extra cash by running a casino in the hotel. I got Shylock to organize the financing of the enterprise, including issuing loans for those who needed them. Unfortunately, his repayment terms were ever so slightly excessive and I lost a number of guests who preferred to leave the island with all their body parts in the same place and condition as they had been when they arrived.

“Some of the guests preferred to drown their sorrows in the bar, but that wasn’t always possible because I had made the mistake of asking Sir John Falstaff to be my barman. It often happened that he had drunk the bar dry long before opening time, leaving none for the guests.”

“What about your catering arrangements?” asked the judge. “Surely you were able to offer your guests an appealing cuisine?”

“Well, I thought I would”, said Prospero, “which is why I was delighted when Macbeth said that he knew three very talented cooks from his neck of the woods who would be able to produce some highly original dishes based on the flora and fauna of the island. I thought he meant things like pineapples, rabbits and deer, but they had very different ideas. Not too many guests went for the armadillo on toast option at breakfast, but it might have been the iguana surprise that was the final straw.

“Having said that, I think the outbreak of food poisoning was more likely to have been caused by the personal hygiene of the ladies in question, or rather the complete lack of it.”

“But did you have any satisfied customers?” asked the judge. “Did you achieve your aim of pairing people up and sending them home happy?”

“Yes to the first aim, but probably no to the second”, said Prospero. “I just don’t think that there was much prospect of lasting happiness between Romeo and Lady Macbeth, or Desdemona and King Lear, but that was who they ended up with.”

“After which, presumably, everybody demanded their money back and your inability to satisfy them has landed you in trouble with this court”, said the judge. “What do you think was your biggest mistake in all this?”

“Well”, said Prospero, “You have to remember that I used to be a magician who ruled a magic island. At the end of the play I gave up all my magic and swore never to use it again. Not only did I lose my powers but so did the island. The guests of my Love Island may have expected to come away with a few love bites, but they got thousands of insect bites instead. It used to be an isle full of noises, now it’s full of mozzies.”

“And that reminds me of what would be the most suitable punishment for you”, said the judge. “You will return to the island where your only companions will be the mosquitos and the three lovely ladies that Macbeth recommended as your cooks. They will be under instruction not only to provide all your meals but to ensure that you watch every minute of this box set of DVDs that will be your only entertainment.”

“What is it?” asked Prospero.

“Can’t you guess?” said the judge. “It’s every episode ever made of Love Island. That should be punishment enough for anyone.”

© John Welford

Only in America

When Shylock presented himself at the Immigration desk on arrival at New York’s JFK Airport, the ensuing interview proved to be quite enlightening. 

“Where are you from?” asked the official in charge.

“Venice”, said Shylock.

“Is that Venice New York, Venice Florida or Venice California?”

“Venice Italy”, said Shylock.

“There’s a Venice in Italy?” said the official, clearly shocked by the news. “I never knew that”.

“It’s been there quite a long time”, said Shylock. “You’d like it. It’s full of canals and very old buildings.”

“We’ve got some old buildings here, you know,” said the official, defensively. There are some in New York that are over a hundred years old. Can you beat that in your Italy?”

“Just about”, said Shylock.

“Italy”, said the official, “that’s not the same as Iran, is it? They both begin with an I and I’m not allowed to admit anyone from Iran.”

“No”, said Shylock. “They’re very different places. Italy’s in Europe.”

“Europe”, said the official. “I’ve heard of that. It’s a big country near England, isn’t it?”

Shylock reckoned that trying to teach geography to an American was probably a complete waste of time, and was therefore very glad when the questioning turned to a different theme.

“Mr Shylock”, asked the official, “what is your purpose in coming to America?”

“I want to start a new business here”, said Shylock. “I’m a moneylender, and there are some people back home who don’t take too kindly to the ways in which I persuade people to pay me what they owe. They take the line that bodily mutilation is going too far.”

“Bodily mutilation?”

“Yes. I charge extortionate rates of interest and threaten to cut bits out of my customers if they don’t pay up.”

“That sounds enterprising”, said the official. “We tend to use guns rather than knives over here when wanting to stress a point, but apart from that it sounds like a reasonable enough business model. And I like the notion of getting rich quick by squeezing every last penny out of your victims. Very American in tone.”

“I gather that some of your leading citizens made their fortunes that way and then turned to politics”, said Shylock.

“That’s very true”, said the official. “Dodgy businessmen can go a long way up the political ladder if they want to. Even right to the very top.”

“Is that so?” Shylock asked. “Do you reckon I could do the same?”

“You mean become President of the United States?”

“That’s the idea”, said Shylock.

“Ah – you might have a small problem there”, said the official.

“Not dishonest enough, you mean?”

“No, it’s not that”, said the official. “In order to become President you must have been born in the United States, and I assume that doesn’t apply to you.”

“Indeed so”, said Shylock, “but that’s because I wasn’t born”.

“You weren’t born?”

“No. I was created”.

"Created?”

“Yes. By William Shakespeare. I’m one of his best-known characters – from The Merchant of Venice.”

“But that’s just great”, said the official.

“Is it?”

“But of course! America is jam-packed full of creationists! We’re very big on the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve and all that, so to have someone running for President who’s virtually Adam’s brother would be a dead cert to win, no problem at all!”

“Let’s get this straight,” said Shylock. “You’re saying that a low-down crook like me, with absolutely no sense of morality, who’s prepared to cheat his way to a fortune and doesn’t care who gets trampled in the mud as he does so, but who wasn’t actually born, could rise to the very top? Where in the world is that possible?”

“Only in America, Mr Shylock. Only in America.”

© John Welford

The MasterChef Witches

Heaven alone knows what possessed the BBC to allow Mabel, Doris and Alice – the exceptionally ugly weird sisters who were the residents of Blasted Heath Cottage – to take part in their MasterChef cookery show. Perhaps it was a misguided belief that any reference to the works of William Shakespeare would be good for the ratings, or maybe some magical and other-worldly influences had been brought to bear on the officials who decide these things.

Whatever the reason, the fact remained that the MasterChef kitchen, presided over by the revered John Torode and Gregg Wallace, found itself hosting some unexpected equipment in the shape of three enormous cauldrons as well as the usual cooking facilities. Questions were raised about the health and safety implications of allowing cooking to take place on open fires within the confined space of the MasterChef studio, but – once again – the people with the power to decide such matters seemed to become strangely willing to put aside any objections, and they were also persuaded to change the theme music for the series to “I put a spell on you”, which was appropriate if nothing else.

As the rounds progressed, the other entrants fell by the wayside one after the other. It might possibly have been that their dishes were considered too unoriginal by the judges when set against what Mabel, Doris and Alice had to offer. After all, none of them could compete with the delights of bat wing surprise or dog tongue upside down cake. Alice’s newt and lizard turnovers were declared the star dish of the third show, and nothing could compare with Mabel’s adder’s fork ice cream in the semi-final.

At least, everyone said that these entries were the best things they had ever tasted, and that included all the guest gourmets who came on to the show at various stages. Was any undue influence brought to bear on their judgments in the form of strange incantations uttered over the cauldrons just before the tastings took place? Who could possibly tell? 

The final was therefore fought out between the three witches, who now found themselves in competition with each other as opposed to cooperating to get rid of the other entrants. Sisterly love soon gave way to sibling rivalry and no tactics were considered too underhand to be attempted.

Of the three final dishes, Mabel’s was clearly not going to win. The added ingredients supplied by Doris and Alice, when Mabel’s back was turned, had a devastating effect on the BBC presenters when they passed by and sniffed at the cauldron – all John Torode’s hair fell out and Gregg Wallace suddenly found himself sporting a luxuriant set of dreadlocks that reached down to his waist. The make-up department had a terrible time getting the pair back to their usual appearance, and Mabel was promptly dismissed from the show.

Doris had prepared a new approach to brunch, which was to combine breakfast and lunch on the same plate, in the shape of fairly traditional muesli laced with strips of raw yak meat. Doris being Doris, the muesli had a few added ingredients in the shape of dragonfly wings and chopped hedgehog spines, but it was definitely the pieces of yak that made Doris’s dish stand out as the main contender for the top prize. As usual, John Torode questioned whether it was sufficiently seasoned, but that appeared to be the only objection.

Alice was incensed. After all the effort she had made to get the right rats for her take on ratatouille, she had no intention of seeing her sister steal what she saw as her rightful crown. Doris knew all about doctoring a rival’s entry, so there was no way she was going to allow Alice to get close to hers. Alice had no choice but to win by bribing the judges. 

And that was what she did. As mentioned above, Alice had come to the show with a consignment of rats, and not all of them had been used in her dish. Indeed, she discovered just before the broadcast that some of them had given birth to litters of baby rats and she therefore had considerably more than she started out with. Her rats were direct descendants of those that that caused such devastation by spreading the Black Death in the 14^th century, as were the fleas they carried that were the real culprits.

Alice had the very weapon she needed. If she was not given first prize by the judges, she only had to release her highly fertile vermin for Black Death Number Two to be let loose on to the streets of London. She therefore had a quiet word with John and Gregg, urging them to favour her ratatouille over Doris’s unusual brunch.  The words she actually used had seemingly been provided for that very purpose by William Shakespeare when he wrote Twelfth Night:

“If muesli beef’s the food you love, plague on!”

© John Welford

The Darkest Hour: a poem

It’s often said, maybe it could be true,

That just before the sky gives hint of blue

The night does all it can to fright and cower

It’s what is sometimes called the darkest hour.

The task undone, impending daily grind,

Is all that sleepless you can bring to mind,

As thoughts forbear to cease their surly dance

And time, it seems, refuses to advance.

All that is vile is ready to ensnare

But must you yet fall victim to despair?

Take heart, be hopeful for the coming morn -

The world is darkest just before the dawn.

© John Welford

Stories and poems: an index to my blogs

The following stories and poems are available to view. The "Shakespeare" stories are so named because they involve characters from Shakespeare's plays - although not as imagined by Shakespeare!


Fictional Stories

100 Words for Christmas
A Bigger Bat
A Double Proposal
A Good Disco
A Journey to the Past
A Nip of Firewater
A Piece of Cake
A Winter's Tale
An Artist's Impression
Another Dimension
Apologies for Spillages
Contracting a Kidnap
Cruises Can Be Costly
Dreaming David
Fighting Back
Half a Lifetime
How Mark Became an Apostle
Hunting the Cobra-Preta
Identifying a Flying Object
In the Library
Last Day of the Month in Nohopia
Lucy in the Library
Maybe Not
Mother Was
My Acceptance Speech
My Hero
My Journey to Burnside Farm
Not Invited
Old Habits
One Too Many
Out of the Shadows
Over The Wall
Red Stains as the Sun Sets
Resolution
Send in the Clones
Single-sentence Stories
Something Raymond Forgets
Suitable Names
Terror Can Taste So Very Sweet
The Brothers
The Burnt Babe and Black Arthur
The Case of the Missing Doughnut
The Closure of Jimmy McTavish
The Old Man and the Mountain
The Racing Puzzlers
The Tailor of Horsemarket
The Three Bears
The True Story of the Gunpowder Plot (Maybe!)
The Waiter's Tale
Three Policemen Bitten
Trust Means Everything
Try Again, Ollie
Volunteering the Dark
Where Streams of Living Water Flow
Your Wish Is ...


Shakespeare Stories

28 Pounds
A Bad Spell
A Happy Tale's Best for Summer
A Rose By Any Other Name
A Useless Organiser
Away With the Fairies
Enter Mrs Macbeth
Fairies Versus Witches
Getting Out
Ghost Swap
Immediate Response
Juliet: Hatched, Matched, Despatched
Lady Macbeth Does a Deal
Line 42
Meeting of the Brotherhood
Moving On
Mr Jakes
Mr Shylock of Little Venice
New Beginnings
Only in America
Prince Hamlet, Dimly Lit
Pursued by a Bear
Rising to the Challenge
Royal Conference
Seeing Red
Shakespeare 400 Years On
Survival at Stratford
The Doctor Looked At Me
The Glorious Twelfth
The Island
The Lear Family's Resolutions
The MasterChef Witches
The School for Scoundrels
Things That Bounce
Trick or Treat?
Valentine's Day at the Macbeths


True stories

A Helpful Person
A Lengthy Lunch in Moscow
Brake Failure
Clean Up
D-A-M
First Day At School
Flying to Moscow
Guarding the Castle
I Looked Over the Edge and Gasped
Library Rescue
Love is a Roast Potato
Nautical Rainbows From a Long Time Ago
Opportunities
Protecting the Princess
Put That Light Out
Random Meetings
Remember, Remember
RIP: A Funeral and an Ankle
Serious Injury to a Soldier
Taxed to the Hilt
The Parting of the Ways
The Tale of Dr Todd
What's In A Name?
Your Next Station Stop

Poems

A Poem About Cheese
Break
Clerihews
Cloudy Dreams
Familiar Figure
Forget the Fish
Haikus and Tankas
Kitchen Sink Thoughts
Poet's Block
Repeating the Past
The Darkest Hour
The Hottest Day
The Pockets of Power
Time: a quad poem
Tornado Twists and Shouts: a poem with introduction
Vote For Me
You Know You're Getting Older When ...


Other Pieces

A Walk on the Beach
Coffin Humour
Deadlines
Divided by a Common Language
Invented Saints
Partner Piece
The Reduced Canterbury Tales: Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale
The Reduced Canterbury Tales: Friar's Tale to Franklin's Tale
The Reduced Canterbury Tales: Physician's Tale to Tale of Melibee
The Reduced Canterbury Tales: Monk's Tale to Parson's Tale

Things That Bounce: a story

Ophelia’s knock at the door of Blasted Heath Cottage was answered by Doris, one of the three haggard old crones who had a reputation in those parts for preparing strange concoctions in their cauldron and issuing misleading advice to passers-by.

“Do come in”, said Doris. “We’ve just made up a new brew in the cauldron and we’d love you to sample it, just to see what effect it has”.

Ophelia gladly accepted the first invitation, but declined the second.

“What can we do for you?” asked Mabel who, if anything, was even more gaunt and haggard than Doris. “As you know, our advice can always be trusted. We always speak at least one version of the truth, although not necessarily the one that will do you most good.”

“That’s a chance I’ll have to take”, said Ophelia, “but it’s not really advice I’m after”.

“What is it then?” said the third crone, Alice, who was just visible through the smoke from the cauldron. “You don’t want our advice and refuse to sample our new potion, but you must want something? Old bitches like us don’t feature very highly on most people’s lists of folks to drop by on for a jolly little chat.”

“I want an idea,” said Ophelia. “I’m going round everyone I know because Hamlet has started a new writing group at Elsinore Castle - it meets in the library every Friday morning – and he’s set us a challenge that has left me baffled.”

“In what way?” asked Doris.

“The theme he’s set is ‘Things That Bounce’, and I really don’t know what he’s on about.”

“Balls”, said Alice.

“There’s no need to be rude”, said Ophelia. “I only asked.”

“Balls bounce”, said Alice. “Tennis balls, basketballs, footballs …”

“Table tennis balls, volleyballs, even cricket balls”, Mabel added. “They all bounce.”

“I know”, said Ophelia, “but that all sounds a bit too obvious, and I’m not sure that I could write a decent story about table tennis balls or any other sort. That’s why I’m looking for suggestions for other things that bounce.”

“Fortunes”, said Doris. “They can go both up and down. Lots of people have suffered loss of fortune and bounced back up again.”

“And how many people do we know to whom that’s happened?” Ophelia asked. “Shylock pointed out to me that his fortune went in two directions, but after it went down it hardly bounced back up again.”

“Reputations”, said Mabel. “They can bounce”.

“Same problem”, said Ophelia. “You should hear Othello go on about reputation – you can’t stop him. But once his went through the floor there was no upward bounce. All the “reputable” characters in his play ended up dead.”

“So who else have you spoken to?” asked Doris. “Surely someone must have an idea about what can bounce?”

“Well, I did have word with Falstaff”, said Ophelia. “He thought I’d said ‘Thugs That Bounce’ and went on for hours about all the gorillas that have ejected him from every club and pub in Windsor, London and just about everywhere else. He’s far more deserving of the title “The Barred” than our beloved creator.”

“I’ve got an idea”, said Alice, who was quietly stirring the cauldron. “You see this alphabetti spaghetti? Just pick out all the letters you need for ‘Things That Bounce’ and drop them into the cauldron”.

This puzzled Ophelia, but she did as she was asked and selected the sixteen letters that made up the words of the title. She dropped them into the steaming mess of the cauldron and was surprised to see that they did not immediately dissolve. Alice moved her hands across the surface and muttered an incantation. The letters promptly disappeared downwards.

“What’s happening?” asked Ophelia. “How does this help?”

“Don’t worry”, said Alice. “I may be a bitch but you can trust my magic. I’ve put an anagram spell on the letters. They’ll bounce off the bottom of the cauldron and re-appear in a different order. Just wait and see.”

Sure enough, a few seconds later the letters came back into view, but this time they spelled out the words ‘Gaunt Honest Bitch’.

“That’s me”, said Alice. “That should give you an idea for your story.”

“Thank you”, said Ophelia, “I think it has!”

© John Welford

Cloudy Dreams: a poem

Dreamer, what are your dreams?

Is your brain frozen cold in a cloud?

Is reality less than it seems?

Are your visions silent or loud?

Cumulus, cumulo, cumular

Banality, fluffy and white.

Do you dream of a faraway star?

Is your day exploding at night?

Can stratus level the mind,

Greyness obscuring all thought?

The dream has nothing to find

Some fish can never be caught.

Fly high, your Cirrean dream,

Your castle founded on air

A non-understandable theme,

Hopes and ambitions laid bare.

Dream of nimbucular rain

Torrents of darkness and fear

Anticipation of pain

Only waking can make disappear.

Dreams held fast within dreams

Clouds – grey, white and immense -

See there, as daylight first gleams,

The dreamer searching for sense.



© John Welford

Forget the Fish

The challenge was to write a piece that ended with the words: 'Forget the Fish. We need to leave. Now!'

This is my effort - not to be taken at all seriously!

Forget the Fish

I had a hope, when we started tonight,
That, just this once, we would get something right.
No dreadful mistakes, or terrible flaws
To stop us receiving tons of applause.
Our audience large, delighted and wowed
We’d earn loads of cash and make our mums proud.
We’d perform all our tricks, end with a song.
But – oh dear – it’s all gone horribly wrong.
Perhaps what first got us into this mess
Was when I tripped and caught hold of your dress.
As the darned thing ripped and fell to the floor
The women all screamed, the men shouted ‘More!’
I just hope they heard my shouted out pleas:
The programme did not include a striptease.
And was it really such a good plan
When sawing the girl to use a large can
Of highly authentic bright red fake blood?
A smear is OK, but that was a flood.
The blue lights outside were not a good sign –
At least five people had dialed 999.
The card tricks were dud – could I find the Jack?
I wish you’d told me I’d brought the wrong pack.
Tapped with my wand, pulled the hat from my head
How was I to know the rabbit was dead?
And as for the doves, why didn’t you say
When windows are open birds fly away?
Now we’re approaching the end of the show
Do we continue, I ask – yes or no?
I have to say I’m beginning to doubt
If I can pull off the juggling with trout.
We have to admit our act’s a disgrace
A ripe tomato just hit me full face.
There’s not much point in us taking a bow -
Best forget the fish. We need to leave. Now!


© John Welford

The Three Bears: a story

                                                  

‘The trouble with your porridge, Mummy Bear, is that you always serve it far too hot and the three of us have no alternative but to go for a walk in the woods until it cools down. Do you agree, Daddy Bear?’

‘I certainly do, son, and that always leaves open the possibility that we will forget to lock the door and some small golden-haired child will wander in and start sampling it.’

‘Any such golden-haired child will almost certainly want to sit in my chair and eat my porridge, Daddy Bear.’

‘Why’s that, son?’

‘Because your chair is too hard, Mummy’s is too soft, your porridge has too much salt in it, Mummy’s doesn’t have enough, and any small golden-haired child – should one by some chance happen to wander by – is much closer in age, size and inclinations to me – the child of this family – than to two hulking great adult bears.’

‘And what, my clever clogs of a son, do you think this golden-haired child will do once she has had her fill of your porridge?’

‘Well, if it was me I’d wander upstairs for a lie-down and discover that only one of the three available beds was to my liking.’

‘Any idea which that might be, as if I couldn’t guess?’

‘Well, mine of course. Not too hard, not too soft, just the right size.’

‘You could be right, son.’

‘And then no doubt she’d fall fast asleep and we’d discover her when we got home from our walk.’

‘It could just happen, son, which is why, every time we try this trick, we always forget to lock the front door. One day things might turn out just as you suggest.’

‘You mean you want us to find some golden-haired child in my bed after she’s broken my chair and eaten my porridge?’

‘We certainly do.’

‘But why?’

‘Tell me, son, do you really like porridge?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘And do you know why that is?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘It’s because, son, you’re a bear. It’s only in kiddies stories that bears eat soppy things like porridge. Bears much prefer to eat meat, ideally freshly torn from some creature that they’ve caught and ripped apart with their fearsome teeth and claws. It’s high time that you diversified your diet and started eating like the carnivore you really are.’

‘And you reckon that a small golden-haired child might be just the right size for a small bear like me to start on?’

‘Exactly son, you’ve got it in one. Now just get off that chair and join your mother and me for a walk in the woods. With any luck you might get something decent for breakfast when you get back.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

© John Welford

First Day at School

There was no question about it – I was definitely not looking forward to my first day at Oakdale Junior School in September 1959. That was because of my last day at Stanley Green Infants the previous July.

In order to make the transition as painless as possible – that was the general idea – we were all ushered the short distance between the two schools so that we could spend the afternoon in the care of the teacher who would be looking after us when we returned after the Summer holidays.

Oakdale Junior was one of the largest primary schools in the Borough of Poole, taking about 150 new pupils every year, divided into four classes. These were rigidly streamed with promotions and demotions at the end of each term for those children who exceeded expectations or failed to reach the expected standard. An assessment had already been made at the infants’ school so the streaming came into play right from day one.

That meant that I was placed in Class 4, which was the A stream. The top two streams, in classes 3 and 4, were housed in a separate classroom block across a side road from the main school. It was to this block that my group of pupils was conducted on the afternoon in question.

I could never have imagined the shock that was going to befall me and the other children from Stanley Green. This had been a very progressive school for its time, housed in a building that was only about five years old when I joined the school in 1957. Every classroom was light and airy, with a door leading to a garden area in which lessons were sometimes conducted on fine days in Spring and Summer. Learning through play was a strong element and there were no teachers to whom one could not take an instant liking.

However, the teacher who greeted us in Class 4 at Oakdale Junior was far from likeable. This was Mrs Barnett, who was not only considerably older than most of the teachers at Stanley Green but had also come from a very old-fashioned tradition of teaching in which strict discipline was the top priority. She made it clear at the outset that our job was to attend to her every word and not let our attention flag for an instant. She ordered us to our places – each child at a desk in a row instead of the groups at tables that we had been used to – and told to look directly at her and not even think of talking to anyone else.

Not unnaturally, some of the children wanted to take a look at their new surroundings and pass the odd comment to a neighbour. When Mrs Barnett caught a child doing this she pounced on them, dragged them to the front of the room and whacked them three or four times on the back of the leg with a ruler. This happened several times during the afternoon, either for inattention or failing to answer a question correctly – which was usually because Mrs Barnett assumed that our Stanley Green teachers would already have drilled us in pieces of knowledge that they clearly did not think we were ready to learn.

So that was why I spent a terrible Summer holiday absolutely dreading my first day at Oakdale Junior School. I’m sure that I was not alone in this among the future members of Class 4.

My mother dropped me off at the school on my first morning, but she did not know about the separate classroom block and I was left on the other side of the main school building. I therefore had to ask the crossing warden, who controlled the traffic lights at the busy road junction outside the front of the school, where I had to go. She told me to go through a gate in a high fence, which I duly did, only to find myself in a playground thronging with kids – boys only - from all the years in the school.

A whistle blew and the children were instructed to form up in lines according to the class they now belonged to for the new school year. I joined one of these lines, hoping it was the right one, and followed the instruction to stand to attention then turn left and march off through the cloakroom and into the long corridor off which all the classrooms led. I simply followed the leader and found myself in a classroom that was nothing like the one I remembered from July. We were soon joined by the girls, who had been marched down from the other end of the corridor.

A roll was taken, but my name was not on the register so I could not answer “present” as every other child was able to do. I just sat there, feeling very confused and wondering when Mrs Barnett would show up, because the teacher in front of me was certainly not the harridan I was dreading to meet again.

A few minutes later Mr Knight, the deputy headmaster, came in and asked if there was a John Welford in the room, which there certainly was. He told me that I had placed myself in the C stream and needed to follow him to where I should have been. “Here we go”, I thought. “I wonder what sort of mood Mrs Barnett will be in”.

I was duly taken across the side road and into the correct classroom – Mrs Barnett’s lair.

But Mrs Barnett was not there. Instead, there was a very pleasant young lady called Miss Robinson who welcomed me with a smile and showed me where to sit. She turned out to be an excellent teacher who treated children in a far more civilized way than Mrs Barnett had done and never used any form of corporal punishment on a child, not that she was ever placed in a position where this might have been a possibility.

It turned out that our afternoon with Mrs Barnett had been the final few hours of the latter’s career before her retirement. Why she had decided to end her days as a teacher by whacking as many children as she could is anyone’s guess, but we were all mighty glad that the school had chosen a replacement who was far more deserving to be termed a teacher.

© John Welford

28 pounds: a story

The judge who heard the case of Shylock’s bankruptcy had no objection to accepting the latter’s invitation to dinner a month or so after the proceedings had concluded. It would have seemed to the casual observer that the learned gentleman was frequently persuaded to partake in any activity that involved large quantities of free food, given the extent of his waistline. Any bench on which m’lord sat to give judgment would doubtless have had to be strongly reinforced to prevent scenes of embarrassment should his vast bulk have led to a disastrous collapse.

“So, Mr Shylock”, said the judge as he wiped his mouth after his third extra helping of sticky toffee pudding, “how have you been getting on lately? Any ideas for future income generation?

“Well”, said Shylock, “It’s funny you should mention that, Judge. I have already started a venture that takes my previous business model a stage further.”

“All legal and above board, I trust?” asked the judge.

“But of course”, said Shylock. “How could you possibly think otherwise?

“I can’t imagine”, said the judge.

Shylock proceeded to enlighten the judge.

“If you recall”, he said, “I was formerly in the moneylending trade, and I had an interesting method of persuading people to pay up on time. This involved the extraction of one pound of flesh, from whichever part of their body I decided on at the time.”

“How could I ever forget?” said the judge. “I seem to remember that this was the start of the slippery slope as far as you were concerned, leading to the sorry financial state that brought you to my court.”

“Indeed so”, said Shylock. “But it was also what gave me the idea for starting afresh.”

“You intrigue me”, said the judge. “I don’t see how mutilating people’s bodies and possibly causing them to bleed to death could ever be regarded as both profitable and legal.”

“I assume”, said Shylock as he viewed the vast bulk of the man sitting opposite him, “that you have not given weight loss much active thought of late?”

The judge looked offended. “Are you saying I’m fat?” he asked.

“Well,” said Shylock, “if you were to lose just a little bit of weight you might find it easier to perform certain actions – getting through doorways for example”.

“You might have a point”, the judge conceded. “But I do love my food and I’d hate to be forced to eat nothing but lettuce and vitamin pills”.

“But that’s why my scheme is so brilliant”, said Shylock. “You lose the weight but go on eating just as much as you want. When you think you’ve returned to where you were before, you come back to me and we start all over again.”

“So what do you do?” asked the judge.

“It’s called liposuction,” said Shylock. “I don’t just remove one pound of unsightly fat, I use my recently acquired surgical skills to suck out as many pounds as you want. Under anaesthetic, of course – I’ve learned my lesson as far as that’s concerned”.

“I’m intrigued”, said the judge. “I reckon I could lose a couple of stone quite happily. And you say it’s completely painless?”

“That depends on which package you decide to purchase”, said Shylock. “Some of my patients who have gone for the cheaper options have reported feeling just a modicum of unbearable agony during the procedure.”

“Well in that case put me down for the top of the range option”, said the judge. “What will the cost be, anyway?”

“For 28 pounds?” said Shylock. “Including the anaesthetic, that will come, coincidentally, to just £28”.

“That’s amazing”, said the judge, “where do I sign?”

“Right here”, said Shylock, who whipped out the contract that he had already prepared in the firm expectation of just such an outcome.

***********************

A few weeks later the judge and Shylock met again, once the liposuction had taken place to the immense satisfaction of the former, although – if truth be told – the loss of a mere 28 pounds to his waistline did not make a huge amount of difference to the casual observer of before and after.

“Have you come to pay your bill?” asked Shylock.

“I certainly have”, said the judge as he wrote his cheque. “Pay Mr Shylock the sum of 28 pounds sterling … ”

“Oh dear”, said Shylock, “I don’t think you can have read the small print on the contract. I never said that the whole operation would be performed for £28 in total”.

“That’s true”, said the judge. “You must have meant £28 per pound. That’s much more reasonable from your point of view. I think that comes to £784, so I’ll just make out another cheque.”

“Oh dear again”, said Shylock. “You clearly missed the even smaller print. Although we work in pounds when calculating the amount of fat to be removed, as far as payment terms are concerned we’ve gone metric – it’s amazing how many people don’t realise that. It’s not £28 pounds per pound – it’s £28 per gram. And I’ve reversed my old ‘pound of flesh’ threat – if people don’t pay up I push the fat back in – and to any part of their anatomy that I see fit. It can produce some highly amusing results.

“£28 per gram?” said the ashen-faced judge. “But that will come to an enormous amount.”

“It certainly will”, said Shylock. “To be precise, and rounding down to the nearest pound sterling – I can be generous at times – the sum owed by you to me, with the full weight of contract law to back me up, is £355,616”.

© John Welford