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Bilko, Cupid and a Pair of Pitman's Clogs., Chapter 1This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Brian Twist | |
| Monday, 23 June 2008 | |
Bilko, Cupid and a Pair of Pitman's Clogs.
~PROLOGUE~
‘Let us not break in upon him Or change beyond report, thought or belief See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused, With languished head unpropt, As one past hope, abandoned'
These mighty Miltonics gilded the *** scented summer evening air with such a fine Memorial theatre accent that you may have been listening to Laurence Olivier spouting in his cups at the bar of the Dirty Duck at Stratford instead of marvelling at Jake Fitzgerald doing his amateur thespian best, in the cosy back room of the Market Hotel, Wigan. "What the hell are you reading?" tittered his wife Jayne leaning back ag-in the well up-holstered bench seat beneath the window, taking a delicate, yet sophisticated puff at her menthol cigarette in her best Marlene Dietrich manner. A harsh, but fair drama critic in the making. "I'm rehearsing for my role in Bee's first play." he explained waving a foolscap sized green folder at her. "I've got the plum role. I'm Eros or Cupid the playful love god. It's a three-act tragedy in the Greek manner complete with chorus and chorus odes." "It would be." said the harsh but fair drama critic. "There's a part in it for you too, course you'll need to beg, borrow or steal a see-through nightie." "That's Bee for you. A touch of authenticity, what else do ancient Greek women wear but see-through nighties, that is when they're wearing anything at all? And what costume will you be reducing the audience to hysterics in? And it had better be more than a pair of wings and a quiver of arrows!" "I don't need a costume" countered Jake with a smirk. "It's part of Bee's original concept. He sees Eros as a sort of cack-handed member of a second-rate pub darts team, that's never sunk an arrow in the right double in his life." "Well, looking at the kind of idiot he got me stuck with, Bee might have a point there!" but this kind of barb couldn't dampen Jake's enthusiasm. "Bee's first idea was to present it as a kind of puppet play using Action men and Barbie Dolls but I could see that human actors would be better. I thought we'd rehearse it at home. More intimate. The living room can double up as a singing room in a Culcheth pub and a dark back alley on a council estate in Leigh. For the final act we'd use the couch as a tow path on the Leeds/Liverpool canal and you can dance around it in a see-through nightie." "Well, you can just -----------." "No need to feel shy or embarrassed, nobody would know it was you. It's a Greek play we all wear masks. Bee was thinking you'd look great in either an Olive Oyl or a Minnie Mouse." Well, this confirmed Jayne's suspicions that the idea of her prancing about her living room in a see-through nightie was not her husbands, but that randy little swine Bee's. He ought to be arriving at the pub any minute and she was looking forward to subjecting him to the torture of a thousand cuts. In fact he should be here now. Where was he? Perhaps that cinema usherette Dot had other plans for him. Now there was someone who would love prancing around a living room dressed in a see-through nightie. In fact she might be doing that just now, which would explain her and Bee's absence. She dragged her mind back to the ridiculous play. "Hang on a minute" she objected "An ancient Greek play set in a Lancashire pub, a Leigh back alley and a canal tow path?" "Good, isn't it? It's called Bilko Agonistes and the plot goes like this....."
CHAPTER ONE.
~ A dissertation on Cupid and Tyche. ~
Cupid is a darts player of long standing as everyone knows, but that doesn't mean he's any good at it. For instance, he'd never have made the Colliers Rest first team. Never in a million years. True, he's hit a double once or twice and I know for a fact he once hit a bull. But, when you consider that he's been playing longer than it would take a monkey to write Hamlet, then that was bound to happen by the law of averages. Ask Pascal. I remember an old, retired cotton-worker-cum bookies runner called ‘eath (short for Ephraim) once bounced an arrow off the bull. It ricocheted off the ceiling and nose-dived point first into a full pint of bitter that was frothing away innocent like on the domino table. The whole of the Spinners Arms tap room was sprayed with glass and beer. Cupid made a similar fox's pass one evening in the Falcon Hotel, Culcheth and the one metaphorically drenched in beer and powdered glass was that coy Casanova with the biggest losing streak in sexual fulfilment known to man John Leonard ‘Bilko' of Norley Hall, Wigan. Why it should have happened to the innocent Bilko of all people who can say? Was it Karma, Kismet, Tyche? Perhaps Fate controls even Cupid's dart. Your old neo-Platonists of Alexandria thought so. Polybius of Megalopolis thought so, and he was the finest darts thrower in the Greco-Roman league. Perhaps they were right. Bilko's friend Bee could write a learned dissertation on the subject chucking in a couple of agathodaimons, a Eutychides of Srcyon, ecstatis, enthusiasmos, and Aphrodite Anadyomenes to boot. Indeed having dragged the tale from Bilko's own trembling lips that is at this very moment what he is threatening to do. That and worse. What prompted Bilko and his cousin Harold to grace the Falcon with their company that evening I'm not quite sure? Something to do with a christening or a funeral or some such family event. The party had been too hectic for them, what with the party givers being strict teetotallers who didn't like their liquor-free house being fumigated with *** smoke. After eating a grotesquely unfair amount of the miniscule buffet they'd sneaked off to the nearest which turned out to be The Falcon, that or something very much like it is what I gather must have occurred. All you need know is that at the fatal moment when that arrow of passion bounced off that bull Bilko was there to receive the ricochet. It came in the form of a delicious, apple-sweet, cuddly breasted blonde miss-named Angela, with long, straight shiny hair and legs as inviting as the portals to paradise. Outside, she was a nineteen-year old mill girl. Inside she was the living embodiment of the femme fatal in her bacchanal phase. A cotytto drugged with babycham and pepperami. Bilko didn't stand a snowballs!
At the time when Aphrodite's favourite son let loose from the ockie Angela was one of a merry band of tipsy-choral enthusiasts of the breast bouncing, bum waggling, hip gyrating type gathered around a garish glass and metal object. The object was all flashing lights and feet-stamping rhythms recognisable to an aficionado of the Antiques Road show as a juke-box built in 1929 in Cincinatti, Ohio and imported to Britain in 1942 as ballast aboard a rusty American destroyer as part of the lease-lend agreement. Angela had just tripped over a friend's handbag, which had been placed for safety on the fag-strewn floor in order that its owner could twist again like she did last summer, and was just steadying herself against the juke-box when Cupid committed his latest boob. At that very moment Bilko, returning from a much needed evacuation of the bowels re-entered the room making somewhat late adjustments to his fly zip. She looked at him. He looked at her. Or to put it more succinctly for the first time that evening their eyes met, and if those little red hearts with arrows through them didn't simultaneously appear over both their heads, well all I can say is that they ought to have done. A few years before these events a singer, rising to temporary notoriety on the wave of a popular but short lived musical phenomenon known as ‘skiffle' had warbled to a steel stringed guitar that in his opinion ‘Love is Strange' and looking at these two star-crossed lovers what can one say except ‘how right he was'. If I tell you that Bilko was staring at the girl through his young executive style bi-focals in such a daze that if every fly in Culcheth had sought refuge in his open mouth he wouldn't have noticed, my earlier description of the girl should tell you why. But she was gazing at him in a similar besotted fashion and that is much more difficult to explain. Well, to be fair, I don't suppose there's much wrong with Bilko. Stout hearted chap, startling resemblance to Phil Silvers, good humoured, laugh a minute, charming personality, and he retains nearly all his own teeth (white, with a slight hint of the yellowy green). The little mole on his nose is not too unsightly and it helps to keep his glasses from falling off. A little porcine perhaps in the face and build but none the worse for that. All in all a good sort. But lets face it, if Goldwyn had been looking for some exciting newcomer to take on the role of Casanova or Don Juan in his next Hollywood epic it would not have been Bilko's trembling hand that he would be guiding over the dotted line in the seven-year contract. So what had got Angela's heart fluttering like a butterfly on brandy? What had got the hormones so tingling through her veins that she thought she was Jane to his Tarzan? All I can say, yet again, is that it was Fate, Tyche, Kismet or Karma, either that or Cupid's visit to his optician was long overdue.
Angela was also accompanied by her cousin, a dark haired serious girl called Mavis. Soon all we're sitting, chatting, knee rubbing and clasping hands at a charming table for four under the romantic light of a pseudo-Jacobean, wall-mounted lantern with a spluttering 20 watt candle/bulb with plastic wax running down the side of it. The slow sensual whirl of blue cigarette smoke weaved its magic spell around them, whilst the orgasmic beat of drum and guitar electrified the very air tingling irresistibly and demandingly through their veins, turning the mundane Lancashire pub into a veritable Temple of Love. Bilko had eyes for Angela alone, and even Harold was not unmindful of the understated charms of the serious Mavis. Harold, Bilko's cousin, was a tall studious lad wearing an even thicker pair of glasses than Bilko. His features leant more towards the piscine side of the family than the porcine. He wore his hair in the ever popular Tony Curtis style moulded in brylcreem grease thick enough to fill a family sized chip pan full of battered cod. His lips were perhaps over generous, his ears less so, and he had the nose of a professional pugilist who had been glad to give it away. When port officials saw his passport photograph they had the impression of a large bass struggling in an anglers keep net. His Adam's apple was of the Granny Smith variety. It hung over his spare frame like a lone fruit on an over pollarded tree. His height, he was 6'3"; he had inherited from his father. His hypochondria and his desire to join the ranks of the respectable professional middle classes he had learned at his mother's knee. Six days a week he stamped the return-by dates on books in Leigh Library and dreamt of the Dewey classification system and even better things. Mavis worked at Boots, the Chemists and collected Mills and Boons novels, so she and Harold had something in common. In her quiet understated way she wasn't bad looking. Remove the spectacles, lower the neckline, add a more suitable brassiere, reshape her dark glossy hair a little and she could be called sultry. Unfortunately the sort of dress that she wore didn't do justice to her generously proportioned figure. It is possible that in letting loose that ill-fated dart it had been these two that Cupid had actually been aiming at. But the night belonged to Bilko and Angela. How they danced! Bilko himself, leaning heavily towards the more energetic style of Gene Kelly rather than the suave sophistication of Fred Astaire, was on top form. Even the land-lord commented on it. "Listen Tarzan!" he said to Harold when he went to the bar to get a fresh round of drinks. "If these peanuts are for your performing chimp yonder, get him to sit down and eat them. Otherwise you're both barred!" As to Angela, well Bilko says he had the impression of Rita Hayworth doing the dance of the seven veils. In the intervals, between amusing the Landlord and the other customers with his vivid impression of an orang-utan with a ferret up its trousers, Bilko had discovered the girl's name, that she worked at Mather Lane Spinning Mill and that she lived with her parents in a council house at Butts Bridge in Leigh. He had also tentatively broached the subject of meeting her again. At the local cinema perhaps? The problem that she lived in Leigh and he three buses away at the other side of Wigan was one that in his amorous condition he felt he could surmount. But in the main, thanks to her woman-wise prompting he had spoken mainly of himself, his dreams, his ambitions, his longings and his preference for traditional rather than modern jazz. He spoke of his love of the open air, the landscape, the mountains, rock climbing and camping under the stars. Caution told him not to mention that he had a friend from Leigh whom he often visited (wisely as it turned out for Angela knew Bee, indeed she worked for his father) instead he stated quite boldly that in the world of pop music he preferred the voice of Buddy Holly to that of Elvis Presley, and Angela had delighted him by stating that now he came to mention it she could discern a startling resemblance between the bespectacled Texan Pop Idol and the bespectacled Wigan dreamboat at her side. So in the end she knew a great deal about him and he knew bugger all about her except that he liked the way she was bursting out of her blouse. Three buttons were undone and he felt like a scuba diver gazing at the pristine glory of a coral reef and making final adjustments to his snorkel before diving in. Well, if the girl lived in Leigh so did his cousin Harold and Bilko felt that his lucky star must have been beaming over the church that morning when he had the foresight to arrange to stay at Harold's for the night. Which just shows how far the poor lad was gone. He could no longer distinguish night from day.
CHAPTER TWO.
Wherein Bilko is inspired by an amorous tomcat mewing a feline madrigal of amour over the ancient scented waters of the Bridgewater canal.
All too soon the bar towels had been draped over the bar pumps and the exiled jukebox had retired to dream of the land of the brave and the home of the free. The four of them had dashed out of the pub just in time to miss the bus to Leigh, and were contemplating whether to try a long romantic walk home or wait half an hour for the next, when a van stopped and a friend of Harold's offered them a lift into Leigh. Bilko in an understandable daze doesn't quite know how it happened but when the van stopped at Butts Bridge Angela, reluctantly ungluing her burning lips from his, stepped out. She had just removed Bilko's all too eager hand from a certain intimate part of her anatomy and was still grasping it tightly when she performed her exit. Consequently he sort of came stumbling and staggering after her. The van sped on leaving them alone in the dark romantic street whilst a lover's moon shone above the ancient-scented waters of the Bridgewater canal and an amorous tom cat mewed a feline madrigal of amour into the starry night with all the pathos and passion of a Venetian gondolier. Bilko, ever the parfit Knight, offered to escort the damsel in distress safely home. Not that he had any choice in the matter. As to a safe escort it was Bilko who was in need of that, the poor gook just didn't know it at the time, but he knew that it was late and he had but the vaguest idea of where he was. The canal was the only familiar feature on the landscape whereby he could eventually orient his tired feet towards Harold's parents house which he sort of knew must be to the Nor-Nor East on the far side of town but within sight of the canal towpath. He knew that when he eventually got there Harold would be all eager questions and, considering how late that would be; he envisaged the kind of grilling he was bound to be subjected to next morning by his inquisitive Aunt over the boiled egg and toast. But Bilko was above such mundane considerations. Cast your mind back to my earlier description of the eager damsel now clutching his hot little hand and you'll understand why. If a mere tomcat could fearlessly face the dark, sinister alleys of the wilds of Leigh howling for its oats. Well, so could Bilko. Angela lived with her parents in a semi-detached council house with a well tended front garden and a rather small rear yard. It was leaning against the high brick wall of the yard, strategically sited next to a dustbin that he and Angela eventually paused for breath in order to go more deeply into a point of order that both felt should be settled on the spot. Some time passed. Their tongues had met in a long passionate greeting. Something like a Texas Tornado surged down Bilko's backbone. The testosterone seared his flesh like strontium 90. If you'd taken his shoes and socks off you'd have seen his toenails glow in the dark. One item of his male equipment that had not yet left the showroom began to stiffen up its sinews and summon up its blood causing Bilko to remove his glasses before they melted. He had made some fumbling and futile attempt to undo her brassiere and she, impatient girl, had been forced to do it herself. Emboldened by this, his ardent heart beating like a whippet's tail at the sight of a bowl of stewed rabbit, he began a thorough exploration of her now liberated and gloriously palpitating mammeries, before he moved onto pastures new. She herself had not been a mere passive recipient of all this bold foreplay and where Bilko had fumbled she did not. Both his belt buckle and zip had opened magically at her merest touch. Cupid hovering above them was no doubt beaming. Fate however was not. For at this moment a gate opened and the figure of a man appeared. Obviously if this had been an insomniac in search of a cure Bilko could have advised him to go back to bed and count sheep. Alas it was not! "ANGELA!!!!!! *&%$@^%$£" cried the man. Bilko says that he felt that was a little irresponsible and anti-social of the fellow. Didn't he realise it was late and his neighbours needed their rest. Then Angela revealed all. "Oh bugger it's me Dad!" grasped the stricken girl as all her dreams of passion shattered at her feet. Say what you will about him but Bilko's not slow on the uptake. It took him but a moment to realise that when a father sees his daughter, her blouse open, her bra god knows where, her breast pulsating in the moonlight, sitting on a dustbin, her legs wrapped around the waist of a young man who is panting as if in the final stages of an asthmatic attack, his pants south of his knees, his hand down in the nether regions clutching some object protected from the cold night air by a durex contraceptive long past its sell-by date, guiding it eagerly up the slip way whilst at the same time holding his left hand in the air and waving a pair of knickers. Said father is not going to be too pleased. Bilko said he felt that it didn't seem to be the right moment to introduce himself and offer to shake the man's hand.
CHAPTER THREE.
Bilko takes a little healthy exercise before retiring for the night.
Bilko, clutching his trousers, pounded through the darkened streets like a stallion fleeing the gelding knife, heading vaguely for the canal bank. He says that in his dreams he can still hear the ominous clatter of the irate father's clogs raising sparks on the cobbles behind him. Bilko says that the sound of those clogs has made him re-evaluate his political position re the Labour/Tory - Socialist/Capitalist conflict. Obviously this clog wearing fiend was a pitman who had only left the warmth and comfort of his bed in order to attend the late shift at the Parsonage Colliery and had inadvertently come upon a pair of innocent lovers about their lawful business. Bilko now holds the rather daring and radical view that late shifts ought to be banned. The Labour Party and the Unions ought to have combined to outlaw them years ago. Eventually the noise of the clogs stopped. Bilko didn't, not at least until he reached the footbridge at Common Lane. There on the cold, concrete steps he rested for half an hour or so smoking his last few cigarettes lost in thought. He'd overshot Harold's house by some distance and the idea of turning back was too much for his fevered imagination. He could see clog-wielding fiends lurking in every shadow on the tow path. He'd lost his belt somewhere and he had secured his trousers with his sweat-damp tie. It was in doing so that he discovered that he still had Angela's knickers clutched in his left hand. He looked at them in the moonlight. He could have wept he said. He placed the treasured mementos in his rear trouser pocket where they were later found by his mum. He was scared. He was tired. He was weak. He felt as vulnerable as a cream cake at a woman's slimming convention but there was steel in the man's backbone. You couldn't see it for all the yellow paint, but it was there all right. He decided to skip Harold's and make the long trek home along the canal bank. A daunting task for any athlete especially at night. In the distance a dog howled. Or was it a wolf? Oh God there was a full moon. As he walked, strange noises assaulted his fevered imagination coming from the direction of Pennington Flash. Above him, to his left, sinister slag heaps looked down upon him. He stiffened his resolution, summoned up his ever gallant spirit and quickened his pace. He recalled his friend Bee talking about some poem by... he forgot who... the one that smoked opium in Xanadu. It was about a man walking alone down a dark road. He didn't dare look back for he knew some awful fiend was walking behind him. So he just walked on in fear and dread. Bee said the poet was talking crap because the fellow wouldn't just walk on he'd break into a run. Bilko broke into a run. He got as far as Bamfurlong. Where, with his courage returning and his wind leaving, he paused for a short rest smoking a large *** stump that he'd found in his breast pocket when searching for his glasses. His eyesight wasn't up to much without them and he thought that to fall in the canal on top of everything else wouldn't signal a perfect end to a perfect day. It was with the cig stump raising small blisters on his thumb and forefinger before dissolving into ash that he fell asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR.
Wherein Bilko is rescued from the cruel claws of fate and the furious flames of unrequited love standing on da poop deck of da S.S Caladonia in da cold, grey light of an American dawn.
It was on a Saturday morning a week after these events that Bilko found himself once more back in Leigh, staying for the weekend with his friend Bee. They'd just reached the lights at the Turnpike at the top of Railway Road intending to favour the George and Dragon with their valued custom when Bilko saw on the opposite side of the road, standing beside the traffic lights and waiting to cross over, sort of blocking their egress to the said pub, the burly figure of Angela's father. Their eyes met. The ones that bulged with impending violence were Angela's fathers. The ones that bulged with panic and fear were Bilko's. At that moment two buses slowly crossed between them blocking the said father's progress towards the errant swain. Bilko spun on his heels and was across Railway Road weaving through the stationary traffic like a greased wombat. In but a moment he was sitting at the domino table at the rear end of the taproom of the White Horse. Pale and breathless he held onto the table top with palsied hands whilst the dominoes before him rattled like large pre-bald fleas gorging on a dozy dim-witted mongrel who'd only just survived the mating season, and a puzzled Bee ordered pints at the bar. For once it seemed that Fate was on his side, or perhaps it hadn't been him she'd been out to get, perhaps it had been Angela's father and Bilko had been a useful pawn in her campaign. Be that as it may, but the landlord of the White Horse had been uncharacteristically punctual in unbarring the pub doors. Furthermore the lad had moved so fast that Angela's father had become convinced that he had seen a mirage and had carried on to the cobblers to get some new irons for his best parring clogs. With his usual good sense, based on a deep insight, Bee placed a pint before Bilko and returned to the bar leaving his friend to stew for a while in what he deemed to be some much needed solitude. In the meantime he ordered a ripe selection of ear-manglers from the jukebox at the request of the nineteen-year old barmaid. She was new to the job and Bee hadn't had the pleasure of her cleavage before. He was at the time, as you may recall, busy writing a long learned dissertation on the ‘British Barmaid' and thought he'd get in a little research before endeavouring when he deemed the time ripe to discover what was ailing his poor, disturbed friend.
"Git outta dat bed you ***** an' git outta dat ***** you bum." said Bee to Maureen. She had just transferred to the White Horse from the Comfortable Gill in Culcheth where she had developed an aversion to the fifty-year old landlord with the wandering hands. This was her first day. Bee was her first customer; she was enjoying the job already. "So I gets outta bed, ***** and winda an' makes wid the feets uppa de boulevard. I just reacha de corner of toidy(30) toid(3rd) an' Bronx when ah' hears a loud yell to my rear." "Come back and face your licking ya big black fornicating feline." At these inspired words Bilko suddenly recalled an earlier would-be fornicating feline, wailing an amourous madrigal of unrequited love over the scented waters of the Bridgewater canal, and the merest smidgeon of a smile flickered momentarily across his face. It was enough for Bee. Grasping two fresh pints he sat down opposite his friend, gazed into his stricken face and with an encouraging smile said "In your own good time mate. Let it all come out." Bilko grasped the pint thirstingly and sent the beer roaring like Niagara past his bobbing Adam's apple. Accepted a *** from Bee, took a much needed drag and muttered something about the sound of pit clogs. Then he hesitated and his eyes glazed once more. It was only when Elvis Presley stopped selling crawfish in New Orleans and stormed forth from the jukebox telling the world that if it was looking for trouble it had come to the right place that Bilko finally opened up. Bee's mighty spirit withstood the onslaught. His true worth as a friend, comforter, wise advisor shone through. For not a smile, not a titter besmirched that noble face... honestly. But with that legendary sympathy and understanding of his, notorious over two counties he undertook to rescue his friend from the cruel claws of Fate, and the furious flames of unrequited love. And with the sure touch of a born Jungran psychologist he began to cheer his friend up. First with a much needed shock to the system. He told Bilko that he'd bought the first two rounds and was running out of cash because he'd left his wallet in his other suit and wasn't it time that Bilko disturbed the moths in his genuine calfskin and shelled out. He'd pay him back later when his horse came up in the 2.30 at Haydock Park. A fiver would do he said. "Maureen!" he cried, waving Bilko's fiver in the air. "Two more gozzundas from the brewery's horse and something for yourself with a preserved cherry in it. Bilko's just seen the Spirit of Christmas Past!" Over the next pint the cure of Bilko and his bird benighted Blues began in earnest. Bee told of his envy of his friend - of how he was like a hero out of Boccaccio. A Lorenzo to Angela's Isabella. Even Peter Abelard's tragic and poignant love for the beautiful Eloise didn't compare with the tragedy of Bilko and Angela. He spoke of the Roman de la Rose. He quoted Spenser's translation of the poem of the Bower of Bliss from Tasso. He likened Bilko to the gypsy lover in Lorca's romance Sonambulo. If Bilko could only learn to write something a little more poetic than ‘wish you were here' on the back of a holiday postcard he'd be another Catallus. Bilko brightened visibly though of course he hadn't a clue what Bee was babbling on about. It sounded good. It was then that Bee broached the theory of Cupid, Eros and Tyche, of Kismet, Karma and Fate. He promised that he would immediately set to and write a thesis on the subject. This he assured Bilko, would act on the lad like a catharsis. After engulfing himself in its flames Bilko would emerge like a Phoenix. A happier Bilko, a stronger Bilko, a wiser Bilko, a nobler Bilko. Ready in future to face, unafraid, whatever brick bats the smiling, playful, wayward love-god had in store But Bilko's tragic tale had done more than bring out the psychiatrist in Bee. It had inspired the poet. He would produce a short dramatic poem on the subject. He went to the bar. A poet can't work without a drop or two of the bacchic dew. He gazed at Maureen and began to imagine her in a see through nightie. The poetic juices were flowing already. That's what the play needed a chorus of Nymphs in see through nighties singing to the sleeping, exhausted Bilko by the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool canal. It'd go down a treat in the Market Hotel, some Thursday night when all the dons, lecturers and poetry lovers like Jayne and Jake were there. It'd been abnormally quiet and tame down there since they'd worked out who built the pyramids. This should cheer them up - Bilko Agonistes, Bilko the Athlete... yep, good working title. Now for a good choral ode.
EPILOGUE.
I thought I'd finish this true history on a more artistic and high-brow note by giving you an extract from Bee's epic dramatic poem ‘Bilko Agonistes' or ‘Bilko the Athlete'. In my opinion it owes a great deal to Shelley's ‘Prometheus Unbound', Milton's ‘Samson Agonistes' and Euripides' ‘Hippolytus'. But none the worse for that. I have chosen the closing ode from the final scene of the last act of the play. An ode of which Bee seems to have been most proud of if the following entry from Jake's diary is anything to go by.
Bee - That'll give Shelley a dose of the west Wind that will. He'll be gargling cod-liver oil and Alka-Seltzer blown up with jealousy. As for that dancing daffodil from Grasmere well he'll................
Jayne - One mention of see-through nighties and Olive Oyl face masks and you'll be singing that lousy ode castrati on the stage of the Wigan Little Theatre.
As I say it is from the final scene of the tragedy. Eros, god of erotic love. Tyche, goddess of Fate and Fortune and Bacchus, god of the all-consoling dew have been discussing in deep philosophical terms their part in ensuring that human life remains as delightful as ever. Interesting and ever enduring farce that it so truly is Now they have left the stage, leaving the gallant Bilko still clutching his rustic lyre, the vine leaves wilting on his noble brow, lying in feverish sleep by the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool canal.
There is a full moon blossoming like a camellia in the sable star-leaved forest of the summer sky, shedding its silver petals onto the dark waters of the canal below. The fragrant air is filled with the sad, sweet sounds of the Aeolian harp mingled with which the long dulcet tones of the pastoral reed pipe are heard once more. For on the far bank of the canal opposite the sleeping hero, half-concealed in a little hawthorn glade sitting on the rusty tyre-less carcase of an abandoned Ford Anglia, tapping his shabby hooves and waving his goat-like beard is the randy old piper Pan, himself. By his side Silenus already stewed to the gills lies sleeping it off on a pile of well stuffed black dustbin liners and Cheiron the Centaur resting his noble equine rump on a heap of rusty Heinz baked beans tins can be seen thrusting an experimental hand a Bacchanal's skirt. Fauns, satyrs, dryads, nymphs and bacchae flicker in the moon dappled shades. Suddenly there is a clash of cymbals and a rattle of the tambourines and a chorus of water nymphs appear clad in see-through nighties. They begin to dance alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise around Bilko. And as the play ends they sing this final tragic ode to the sleeping shepherd swain of Norley Hall.
There's the beaver and the bear the hamster and the hare And don't forget the old Gnu There's the pretty bunny rabbits So engaging in their habits And they've all had their oats but you.
There's the hippo in the mud The cobra in its hood They're at it till the moon turns blue There's walruses and seals And, before they're jellied, eels And they've all had their oats but you.
There's the nits beneath your hat The flees on every rat The baboon with his arse so blue There's the lice beneath each log Every newt and frog And they've all had their oats but you.
There's the miner on the piss The viper with his hiss The bats on the belfry too There's the donkey on the sand The chin-less wonder up the strand And they've all had their oats but you.
There's the rhino with his horn Gets his ration every morn Likewise the noble shrew Whilst the cuckoo and the kite Are at it moon and night And they've all had their oats but you.
Now the bashful octopi They do it on the sly In the depths of the ocean blue Every jackass has Jill And she goes like Fanny Hill Rolling in the morning dew There's the bulldog and the pug Every snail and every slug And they've all had their oats but you.
Every butler so discrete Gives the parlour-maid a treat And sometimes mi-lady too The sweep with his long brush Makes the eager housewife blush When he's cleaning out her flue.
Feather, Fur, Hide, or Skin They're all in like Errol Flynn Yes They've all had their oats But You.!!
THE END.
Copyright 2008 Brian Twist |
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