Carole Boyd (Lynda Snell)
The mystery of the missing bum continues to haunt the production of the Canterbury Tales and Lynda calls on PC Burns, demanding to know why he hasn’t widened the scope of the search and where are the police car patrols, not to mention the helicopters? Actually, you do wonder if Harrison is putting his heart and soul into the search, as later in the week, Fallon finds the fake bum in Brookfield’s yard, which isn‘t that far from the barn/theatre. Sadly, it is mutilated beyond repair, so what do they do now?
Lynda wants PCB to bare his bum on stage, but he isn’t having any of it. Perhaps someone could knock up a substitute before the weekend, but who has the time? Lynda hands the cast an ultimatum - if they cannot come up with a solution, then she will have to accept Nathan Booth’s offer; he has offered to be a body double and to expose his rear end on stage. This is greeted with gasps of revulsion from all the cast, but Lynda is adamant.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man and David tries to persuade son Ben to save the day and come up with a papier mache bottom, moulded round two balloons. Ben makes his father beg and then demands £50 as his fee to save the production. David offers £30 tops, which still isn’t a bad sum for doing, frankly, not very much - I’d remember this incident when you next update your Will, David.
Actually, Ben gets his comeuppance a few days later, as he and Ruairi are helping David move some heifers. David shouts a warning about an open gate - presumably left open by ramblers - but it is too late, and a number of the cows make a break for freedom. Ben and Ruairi corner them in a field but one, for reasons best known to itself, jumps into a waterlogged ditch and cannot get out. Ben jumps in to help the struggling bovine and, in addition to the freezing water, he gashes his arm. David, who could perhaps be forgiven for thinking ‘Yes, there isa God’ arrives to help Ben and the heifer out.
He tells Ben to go back to Brookfield and get a hot bath. On his arrival, Rooooth has an attack of the vapours and is all for dragging him to A&E, but all Ben wants is a slug (or two) of brandy. Rooooth hurries him inside and Ben asks “What about your rehearsal?” “Sod the rehearsal” his mother replies, thus articulating what many of us have been thinking for weeks. She eventually goes off 30 minutes late and, presumably, is given lines, or made to sit on the naughty step for a while. Back at Brookfield, Ruairi congratulates Ben on a superb performance and Ben tells him to get the brandy bottle out from where Rooooth has hidden it.
We learn later that Ben did go to hospital and had a tetanus jab, which surprised me, as you’d think that, being a farmer, he’d be well up to date with injections. Not only that, but I thought that, if you’ve had three of these jabs, then you were protected for life? At least, that’s what my doctor told me, although come to think of it, I don’t think he’s ever really liked me that much.
Towards the end of the week, we learn from Eddie that Joe is “heartbroken”. Why so? Has Bartleby been called to that great paddock in the sky? Has Adele the ferret been mugged by vicious, feral rabbits? The actual answer is rather more prosaic than that - after the portable toilet-emptying debacle, Clarrie has decreed that she wants to see the toilet got rid of early in the New Year. Honestly, some women are so fussy - just because her daughter-in-law was sprayed with excrement and more was spread over the garden, Clarrie has put her foot down and denied Joe one of the few pleasures that he has in his life, which tells you a lot about the quality of his day-to-day existence.
Of course, last week was Christmas week, which is usually a time for Jennifer to shine and show off her culinary prowess. Not this year, however, as everything is being packed up, ready for the moving out of the farmhouse. Jennifer says that it won’t be much fun, just her Brian and Ruairi, to which Brian says make that just you and I, as he has told Ruairi that he can go to Brookfield for Christmas dinner. Jennifer is delighted that Ruairi will be having a festive celebration, and she is even more pleased when Brian reveals that he has booked them in for Christmas lunch at a smart restaurant.
The meal is delicious and Brian and Jennifer talk about such happy things as whether Lexi will get pregnant this time and Brian’s forthcoming prosecution by the Environment Agency. They propose a toast “here’s to living in a shoebox” and it’s lucky that they are on the dessert course, so that there are no sharp pieces of cutlery around with which to slit their wrists. Brian is still very anti, as far as the buyers of the farmhouse are concerned and you feel that he’d prise up the floorboards and remove the nails, if he only had more time.
For her part, as she tells Lilian later, Jenny was going to have the place professionally cleaned, but has decided that the buyers can do it themselves. Thinking about it, I suppose the buyers are lucky that she didn’t get Eddie to come and spread some of the contents of the portable toilet around the house and garden - that would have been a truly novel ’welcome to your new home’ gift.
Christmas dinner at Brookfield was a standing room only job, with David telling Emma that there will be 13 for lunch - something that does not bode well. The main point of interest is the first official outing of Russ as Lily’s boyfriend (or ‘life partner’ as he later tells Jill he prefers to be known). Josh is helping his grandmother by preparing sprouts in the kitchen - he has taken Ben’s place (this was another reward for Ben making the fake bum) and Josh is moaning and grumbling about it incessantly.
Into this scene of festive cheer and goodwill to all march Elizabeth, Lily and Russ. Russ is introduced to Jill and Josh says “hello Mr. Jones.” “Please, call me Russ - we’re not at college now” says Russ, to which Josh replies that he prefers ‘Mr. Jones’, as it’s a bit weird, calling teachers by their Christian names. We have been told that Russ and Josh have a bit of history, as Russ once had to discipline the stroppy young so-and-so and the atmosphere between the two soon becomes a bit more fraught when Josh starts needling Mr. Jones about his art, and what does he think about sculpture, particularly young nude ladies? It’s a pity that Russ didn’t remember that they weren’t at college, as he could have smacked Josh in the mouth. Instead, as Russ, Lily and Elizabeth are leaving, David apologises for Josh’s behaviour. “It’s OK, I’ve got a thick skin” Russ answers. Lucky for him - he’ll need it if he sticks around Ambridge for any length of time.
While all this is going on, Jill is ever so slightly flummoxed - first of all, she thought Lily was romantically involved with a girl called Meredith and secondly, nobody told her that Russ was so old, nor that he was a tutor at Lily’s college. “He didn’t teach me” Lily tells her Gran. So that’s all right then.
I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but all through the pre-, during- and post-dinner conversations, the voice of Rooooth was nowhere to be heard. Considering that she was, nominally at least, the hostess of the event, she didn’t utter a dicky bird throughout the entire meal, nor was Russ introduced to her, as far as we heard. Perhaps she had got fed up with Josh’s whining and retired to bed with a bottle or two of brandy.
One person who did notice the atmosphere was Lily, as she told Pip the following day when Pip visited Lower Loxley and began apologising for Josh’s behaviour. Pip also told Lily that she understands how her cousin feels, as she (Pip) once had an older boyfriend - Jude - and everyone was against him. Quite right, and those of us who remember Jude can understand this attitude perfectly, as he was a waste of space. And how long ago that was!
Lily protests that her relationship with Russ is not just a teenage crush, but the real thing, and there is the beginning of a tense atmosphere between the two girls. The situation is saved when Lily apologises, saying that things have been very difficult over the past few weeks, plus she is very worried about Freddie, who rang Elizabeth and said that he had had a pretty awful Christmas. “Never mind; you’ll soon be back at Uni in Manchester” Pip replies. Personally, I wouldn’t be so sure about that, as Elizabeth is still a long, long way of taking over responsibility for the smooth running of Lower Loxley, as Lily keeps telling Russ.
Having had Christmas off, the day after Boxing Day was eventful for Rooooth; not only was this the day that Ben rescued the heifer from the ditch, but Rooooth is facing a crisis of confidence and competence. It was the day of the Dress Rehearsal for Canterbury Tales and, if the old adage that ‘a bad dress rehearsal means a great first night’ carries any truth, then Canterbury Tales will be taking Broadway by storm before long. Words like ‘dire’, ‘appalling’ and ‘fiasco’ sum it up nicely. Rooooth cannot remember her lines and tearfully reminds David that she (along with the vast majority of the cast) never wanted to be in the production in the first place. Never mind, Rooooth has the solution - she will only appear on stage with a script in her hand “and if Lynda doesn’t like it, then I won’t do it at all.”
Brave words, but I fear Rooooth is wildly optimistic and is risking the wrath of Lynda and at least a flaying alive, if she’s lucky. David appears to realise this too and, probably worried that an annoyed Lynda could torch his barn in a fit of pique, tries to persuade his wife to abandon the script idea. He tells her that, when she spoke her lines to him, she was word perfect. Rooooth retorts that it was easy speaking at the kitchen table, but standing in front of a crowd is a different matter altogether. David says that he will be standing offstage, where Rooooth can see him and she should speak her lines to him alone and ignore the audience.
Friday is the opening night and Rooooth (who is playing the part of - among others - Chaucer) is the first to speak. She walks out on to the stage to be greeted by a huge roar of applause (which must have been difficult to ignore) and begins to speak. Of course, it all goes perfectly, as you always knew it would, and the barn remains unscathed. Another Snell triumph (and hopefully the last).
So, we say ‘goodbye’ to 2018 and welcome in the New Year. Neil and Peter wish you all a happy, peaceful and prosperous 2019 and thank you for your good wishes and comments over the past year.
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