Words and Stuff Johnny Grimond
I awoke feeling rather Dawlish and was just Kettering about the house when I heard the most awful Rotherham upstairs. Was it the children trying to Boconnoc each other? Or was it Audley, my wife, falling out of her Mynyddygarreg and tripping over the Ballyaurgan or that maddening Low Dinsdale she’s so fond of? Anyway, it sounded like an almighty Clatteringshaws, as though Three Hammers were simultaneously demolishing Three Chimneys. So I went up to investigate, expecting to find the place a right Bonnyrigg or, at best, in a state of some Wingerworth.
Instead, it was all quite Nibley. Audley was Woking at her Constable Burton, doing some Bodmin, and the twins, Tyne and Wear, though intermittently Pickering over a soft Smalley, were more interested in playing computer games on their Devizes. Audley said she was feeling rather Blair and might have a touch of the Wirral, but was unsympathetic about my early-morning Durness. More to the point, she had heard nothing, not a sound, and thought I had gone completely Skeroblingarry or, as she put it, ‘right round Dorley’s Corner’.
All this was rather Rickling. Had it been a mistake to go to Potter’s Bar the previous night? I hoped I hadn’t got Slochd. I’d had only one Hough-on-theHill, a couple of Skinflats and a pint of Blitterlees, or at least that was all I could remember. But the place was quite convivial and I ran into Old Glossop, Old Rattray and Earl Shilton, not a bad chap actually, though his hair oil stank of Dyffryn Ceidrych. The Duntisbourne brothers were there too – Abbots, Rouse and the aptly named Leer – and we were joined by Clacket Lane, Charnock Richard and Leigh Delamere. They were quite a Sliddery group: some calling for a round of Up Hatherley; some wanting to sing bawdy Rishangles; some trying to play Ring o’ Bells or Perranzabuloe; others just Havering-atte-bower.
A Great Sankey was being had by all. You could probably hear the Duffus a mile away, and Thrumster, Camster and Scrabster were really Sompting it out. But we were a bit light on Womenswold and when Norton Ferris, wearing the most awful Ribchester over a ghastly Smockington, said he’d quite fancy a bit of Shap and Tickhill, I knew it was time to Dipple off. Soon there would be talk of Mickleover and calls, no doubt, for Shirley, Frances Green and Penny Bridge. I had to Drumnadrochit at once.
Too late, Gott dammit. Amid all the Ecclefechan, cries of ‘Kilbirnie!’ and ‘Kilkenny!’ were coming from the Barrhead and it looked as though we were in for an Upper Slaughter. As visions of an Ullapool of blood swam before my Discoed eyes, someone called for the famed Glen Garry. I Worgret what happened next, but it seems that, after some Hayling and Hawling, the Great Glen got matters sorted. Boughton Malherbe and Letcombe Bassett, after much too Much Hadham, had gone to Nettlebed and then, I guess, Great Snoring. Both must have faced a good Chittering from Great Wymondley.
Compton Bassett too would have received a High Wham from Maiden Bradley had he not slipped off for a Curry Mallet. Despite some serious Barskimming that had left him distinctly Hinckley, he was no longer Cottered and might even have passed for Stroat. But How Green and Dottery he looked, with a dreadful Lossiemouth and two Bagshot Kingston Bagpuize. No matter: he gave me a lift home in his two-seater Bonkle, making a hell of a Balerno as we went over the Bottacks, noisily Epping and Baulking and shouting, ‘Westward Ho!’ The imaginary Knockvologan I heard next day must have been an echo of that. Time now to Rest and Be Thankful.