The Chobbingham Green Preservation Society

By Leonard Sime

The meetings and misadventures of the Chobbingham Green Preservation Society. Annotated by diarist, journalist and write things downerist Leonard Sime. And all that sort of thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leonard Sime
• Release date: Feb 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310483448

Leonard Sime

The meetings and misadventures of the Chobbingham Green Preservation Society. Annotated by diarist, journalist and write things downerist Leonard Sime. And all that sort of thing.

Book preview

The Chobbingham Green Preservation Society

By Leonard Sime

Contents

1 Mr Dainty’s Electric Fence

2 Go Karts

3 Geoff at the Dog and Duck

4 The Thoughts of Mr Strong

5 Statues

6 From Greer to Gaga

7 Jim Spickett

8 Monty’s Pipe

9 Chobbingham Flyer

10 Interview with the Vicar

11 Jack Walker

12 Abducted

13 Darts

14 Jet Silvers

15 The Dogs

16 Great Aunt Dotty

17 A Ghost Story for Christmas

18 New Year at the Vicarage

1

Good evening, I’m Leonard Sime. As usual on Wednesday I chaired the weekly meeting of the Chobbingham Green Preservation Society. It’s a society formed by a few of the townsfolk of Chobbingham to see what we can do - nothing more, nothing less. It’s called the Chobbingham Green Preservation Society in honour of Mrs Harrington, who was a huge fan of the Kinks. Had everything they ever did, and would often give us her Autumn Almanac or Phenomenal Cat on the ukulele when it was Go As You Please night at the Bowls Club. She’s dead now of course, but it was nothing to do with her musical tastes, she simply threw herself off a bridge. So we drafted in my friend Mr Malinga from the Post Office and I must say he’s been a more than adequate replacement, besides being a veritable John Coltrane on the tuba, he can play practically anything on a kazoo. Our experimental music nights at the Dog and Duck really took off after he joined. We sound less and less like Philip Glass every week. We sound more like the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band now.

Last week the society was bogged down with the old chestnut of whether we should erect an electrified fence around the bowling green. Mr Harrington said he was fed up with tourists picnicking and erecting tents on it, particularly in the middle of an important game, and Mr Dainty had offered a compromise, we’d put it up in summer and take it down in winter, or we could put it up in winter and take it down in summer, or put it up on Tuesday and take it down in two weeks, when Mrs Strong suddenly flew at him, kicking and biting, clawing and spitting. It took three of us to subdue her. When we asked what was wrong she said she thought that he had been talking about Richard Briers in an uncomplimentary way, and had seen red. Mrs Strong has to be heavily sedated at all times, everyone knows that, and had forgotten to take her pills.

I reminded the group that an experimental electrical fence which, at Mr Harrington’s behest, had been erected around the statue of Elton John, had killed four people and a dog. The statue was supposed to be John Major with a hat on, but it definitely looked more like Elton John, no one was fooled, and we were stuck with it. We finally took the fence down when Mr Easterby’s cat accidentally brushed up against it. The poor beast was purring away contentedly one minute then suddenly there was a bang, a flash, and a shriek, and it flew backwards straight through Dr Glossop’s surgery window, killing Mr Collinson who had a suspected heart condition. In the end we agreed that, in this day and age, it wasn’t practical to electrocute people willy-nilly, and the fence remained in Mr Dainty’s shed.

Mr Strong said that rumours were rife that a well-known rock star was moving into the village, and Mr Harrington said that was all very well if it was the likes of Bryan Ferry, or Midge Ure out of Ultravox, as they were quite neatly turned out, but he drew the line at Mick Hucknall out of Simply Red yomping about making the place look untidy. We all said aye to that apart from Mr Dainty, who had been in a psychedelic group in the 1960’s, but he couldn’t remember their name. He always comes up with a name but it constantly changes. This week he thought he was lead guitarist with Mister Winkle’s Ever Expanding Plantpot. Mrs Strong harrumphed, there was no other word for it, and Mrs Dainty said they had had several names since they were all on drugs. All four or five of them. She wasn’t sure if they were all dead apart from Mr Dainty and maybe we should have a statue? Mr Dainty said we could put the electric fence around it, but I was more concerned with the new go-kart track. Mr Dainty offered to erect the fence around that, but Mr Harrington told him to start living in the real world. He wouldn’t expand on that and we adjourned for a cup of tea.

Mrs Strong took me to one side and asked me if I was fond of a custard cream, or a bourbon finger. When I said not particularly she pinned me up against the wall and demanded to know what was wrong with them. As chief biscuit buyer for the society she had been buying cheap biscuits for 18 months now, and there had been quite a hoo-ha about Penguins one evening when Mr Dainty had suddenly risen to his feet and began ranting about poor quality comestibles. I’m afraid he took another sound beating from Mrs Strong and no one had dared mention the matter again. But here it was, confronting me now. A very powerful woman Mrs Strong, with or without heavy medication, and Mr Dainty gained a black eye as the rest of the society eventually dragged her away from me. She was screaming that she’d kill me one day, and that in fact she’d kill us all, if and when she found the time. I told her she had been short listed for the go-kart team and that seemed to placate her until Dr Glossop finally arrived with his big syringe. That was the end of the meeting as far as I was concerned, although Mr Dainty seemed intent on finding a suitable site for his electric fence, until he began to have another of his acid flashbacks and, after any other business, Mrs Dainty bundled him into their Honda and he disappeared screaming into the night.

Two days later and it was time for the go-kart trials. The whole village had turned out and we were going to pick the best five drivers to take on our local rivals Claxham. The Chobbingham-Claxham rivalry is centuries old and fierce, and it appears to have no point whatsoever, but we all join in. The Society was organising things and we had all gathered at the track, apart from Mr and Mrs Strong. I was attempting to talk to Mr Dainty, without much luck, and I turned 270 degrees to see Mr Strong approaching with an almost forlorn look on his face. When we asked what the matter was, he explained that the previous evening Mrs Strong had forgotten her medication and had gone off into the night. She had turned up at an old barn staging bare-knuckle fist-fighting and had met her match in the form of a small gorilla, unbeaten in 19 professional contests. Mrs Strong had taken something of a drubbing and had later died in hospital. Apparently it was her first ever defeat and she had passed away while resolutely demanding a rematch.

No one said anything for a few seconds then Mrs Strong jumped out from behind a Nissan Micra and screamed with laughter, dancing around and pointing at us, claiming she’d fooled us all and shown us up for the idiots that we all were. This must be her new medication at work. At that, a long black limousine with tinted windows pulled up, and out stepped Bryan Ferry. He took one look, turned, got back into the car and drove off and we haven’t seen him since. At least Lance Percival stayed a fortnight before upping sticks.

2

This week’s meeting kicked off with the good news that Mrs Mitchell from the pharmacy was expecting a baby boy, her first. Mr Dainty said how did they know it was a boy when amoebas don’t have willies. Mr Harrington pointed out that it was a foetus not an amoeba, and Mr Dainty looked confused, then