Are these old fossils Aynuk and Ayli?
Author, historian and raconteur JOHN SPARRY brings news of a recent discovery which shines a light on the lives of early man – and two of them in particular ...
PROFESSOR Ivor Van Driver, lecturer in Early Wallscrawlings and Light Haulage at Mushipeez College of Further Education, is of the opinion that wall paintings, recently discovered in a cave just down the road from where his wife’s sister-in-law used to live before she and her husband divorced for the second time, are the earliest known portrayals of the legendary Black Country duo, Aynuk and Ayli.
The primitive drawings, executed with what Van Driver believes may have been a flint-tipped ball point pen, depict two men dressed in loose-fitting garments, which Ivor hazards were probably of Brontosaurus hide and were quite common during the Stone Cookingrange Age.
An inscription found below the illustrations reads ‘Ug and Og woz ere’, but Professor Van Driver’s theory is that the full names were Aylug and Aylog, which had to be quickly foreshortened when a sabre-toothed tiger unexpectefly called round for tea.
The Prof avers that the pair, shown not only in pocketless Brontosaurushide overalls, but also a tweed cap and a bowler hat, must indeed be our Black Country heroes, if only because the wearing of anything except cuckoos’ nests on the head would have been severely frowned upon at that time.
Fortuitously, and while Mrs Van Driver was visiting her aforementioned sister-in-law, now living happily with a tank of tropical fish in Chorltoncum-hardy (or it may be Chalfont St Giles) her other half has made some further startling discoveries.
Cap
Ivor, with assistance from a team of students seconded by the college’s Faculty of Radish and Celeriac Research, has unearthed in that same cave the remains of both a tweed cap and a bowler hat, which appear to have been fossilised by rising damp. Says Professor Van Driver:
“It’s amazing, the sizes six and seven-eighths and two nub ends tucked in the hat bands can be clearly seen.”
A sandstone tablet found nearby, carved with the letters ‘DODDL’ states the professor, seems to indicate, if further confirmation were necessary, that Aylug and Aylog were in the employ of a local firm.
‘DODDL? Definitely Diplodocus Oil Distillers, Dudley Limited,’ says Van Driver, and who can argue with that?
Except his wife of course, but she’s away at her sister-in-law’s, and is giving serious thought to acquiring a tank of tropical fish.