OK. Is this story true or isn’t it? I’ll leave you to decide.
-----00000-----00000-----00000-----
The True Village Spirit
-----00000-----00000-----00000-----
The True Village Spirit
If he’d thought about it, maybe he’d not have worn those particular boxers when he set out to work at the Holly Festival that morning. It was too late now.
It was one of those great days when the village was en fête. Kit had been “thrown out in the cold,†as we put it to Dino, his boss, to get the mulled wine stand set up outside “Frodo’s†restaurant. It was Kit’s last day as chef before taking up a new job at the prestigious “Hampshire Hog†hotel in the Forest.
“Come on, Dino, it’s a bit mean throwing him out just because he’s leaving.â€
“Nah, he deserves it.†said Dino with a grin.
Kit is tall and skinny - not a good advert for his own superb cooking - and he was working on the electrics and constructing the stand on the pedestrianised street in front of the restaurant window. He wore the inevitable black, band t-shirt and his rather too baggy jeans (Let’s face it: everything is baggy on Kit) that constantly flashed his rather worn boxers whenever he crouched down or bent over.
The usual crowd was at “Frodo’s†bar: the young, the old, the merry and even the sober. The Holly Festival is always a good day in the village and we had a fine, bright and even relatively warm Saturday for it this year. The farmers’ market had been set up, local artisans offered their wares, food stalls enticed people to spend their money and the street entertainers did their thing without the local misery-guts being able to stop them.
As the sort of Festival Co-ordinator, I had frocked-up in eighteenth century gear and based myself in Frodo’s in case anybody wanted me, making the occasional excursion to announce things or chase people up. Our Village Manager was busy hiding in a dark corner of Cona Coffee in case anyone wanted her to do any work. The afternoon wore on into the evening and things were still in full flow. Eventually, things calmed down a bit and Dino suggested that Kit might as well knock-off and he’d clear down. That was the critical point: if Kit didn’t buy that, the plan wouldn’t work.
We’d had an idea a couple of weeks ago and, you know, we had a little drink about it. The more we drank the better the idea sounded. I’d like to say it was just his young colleagues at the restaurant who were responsible but that would be a lie; most of us were certainly old enough to know better and we all wanted to see Kit off in style.
Kit disappeared upstairs to change out of the whites he had worn for service and the customers and staff swung into action. Dino produced his tow-rope and Chris got the chain that he used to use to seal off a car-park when he worked as a caretaker. Rosie found the first-aid kit from her car and Billie had brought a pillow case from her flat.
Kit reappeared and went the rounds of the bar shaking hands while everyone wished him good luck. Fortunately he didn’t notice the bags at people’s feet. Dino, being behind the bar, was the last to shake hands and, as Kit offered him his hand, he held on tight and twisted while Jim grabbed his left arm and twisted it up his back. You could tell Ken was an old soldier, he directed the action with military precision.
I quickly tightened a cable tie round his left wrist while Billie shoved her pillow Case over his head and Rosie clamped it round his neck with micro-pore tape. Once both wrists had been cable tied, Kit’s arms were brought together behind him and I slipped two more cable ties between the other two forcing his wrists close together. So far things had happened so quickly that Kit hadn’t even had the opportunity to resist. By the time he realised he’d been betrayed, it was too late.
Len, his fellow chef, quickly pulled his jacket down his arms to his wrists rapidly followed by his “Black Sabbath†t-shirt. Len and Dino wrestled the skinny victim to the ground and Dino – a better advertisement than Kit for his own cooking – sat on his shoulders while Mandy pulled the baggy jeans off over his footwear. Len sat on the “hosts†legs while Ken explained his options to him.
Well, to cut a long story short, that’s how Kit came to be chained to the oak tree outside the Sailor’s Rest when the local Community Support Officers found him. It wasn’t so warm by that time and he was wearing just his footwear and that faded black pair of boxers, the ones with the penny-sized holes under the waistband that he’d been flashing all morning. You know, the ones with “I ♥ YOUR MUM†woven into the waistband? By then we’d removed the pillow case and placed a crate of rotten oranges, the ones that Heidi cadges from the market every Tuesday to make orange wine from, in front of him. Dino had moved “Frodo’s†specials board to be on one side of him with Di’s best writing announcing, “NEVER TRUST A SKINNY COOK†and “The Sailor’s Rest†one inscribed with, “IT IS MY BIRTHDAY AND I LIKE FRUIT†was moved to his other side. The “birthday†bit was a lie but we thought it would serve its purpose.
Once we’d “escorted†Kit to the other end of the village with rough music and chained him into place, it was about time for the regulars to start leaving the pub. We thought that might be an apt time to retire. He wasn’t there many minutes before the CSO’s found him, adorned with fragments of rotten orange and with the padlock key hung around his neck, and released him.
Dino, Chris and I sneaked back from Chris’s place at about two in the morning to tidy up and re-instate the “specials†boards. Isn’t the true village spirit wonderful? You know, nobody seems to have seen a thing? And Kit’s not saying!
Happiness is never growing up!
-----00000-----00000-----.
I leave it to readers to decide: is it a true story or not?
I leave it to readers to decide: is it a true story or not?