Ted Max

And it's not often you can say that.

Dear *Bob* A friend's new thread requires a boost after a disappointing start. Any suggestions? Ted

F'n'B, you'll also need a covering of mould, and to keep it ever fed with thin tears.

A simple ceremony should be suitable. Don't send orchids to the bereaved, though. That would be tactless.

No baiting please we're British.

How do you PM someone 634 times if your account has been deactivated? (This information would be useful to me for future campaigns I have planned)

Looks like you were shooting some of these at waist level, PRose. I hope all the dogs have signed waivers.

I unfortunately know far too much about England?s history, geography and global significance and far too little about celebrity, asinine television and pop music for anyone to ever mistake me for an Englishman. Oooooh. The Duchess is proper narked this morning. Tell us something about England's geography.

Cheers, Wolf. Your requests are being considered by our committee. GSJ57 - really appreciate your post but I'm under no illusions. My pastiches are only of the "fannying about on the internet" kind - and that's all I really want them to be.

Later, over tea, my old nanny poured out her story. ?It is my belief that your father never died,? she said. ?Instead, he went mad in India, and escaped to come home, determined to abduct his children as a punishment for your Mother, who I am afraid never loved him as she should, and encouraged his posting in India. I used to watch over you and could swear that I could see him, stalking from tree to tree on the Green - his size and limp were so distinctive. I begged your mother not to allow you to play alone, but she would not hear of it, convinced I was hysterical. I only wish she had listened to me. After you left I found a position with the new family who came here, and I have kept his picture from that old newspaper report ever since by the front door, in case he should return. The maid, in her fear, thought that you were he.? What, I ask myself, did I see that night, all those years ago? It could not have been a ghost. Believe me, I have seen much death, and nobody who has seen it as I have could believe in anything coming after. Could it, possibly, have been my poor, mad, father? If so, how can we explain the writing in the frost on the outside of that high window? But there was something there, something that took my brother and sister away. I am old now, and wish only the consolations of a quiet grave. And so I sit by this path every day, waiting for my ? for that distant memory to come and collect me. And to take me to where it took my brother and sister, so that we can once again play together our games upon the echoing Green.

Accompanying the photograph there was a short newspaper article, dated 1895: ?The London Coroner has confirmed the death by misadventure of Mr Robert Stanaway, in Delhi, India. Mr Stanaway, once of East Dulwich Road, in the Parish of Camberwell, London, is thought to have died while out hunting at night for tiger three years ago. His body was never recovered.? Then, as I stood in my confusion by the door, an old woman appeared from inside the house, her step like a shadow of something once so familiar. It was my old nanny, who held me to her shoulder and shushed the sobs that had been pouring from my chest.

We moved house shortly after that, although nanny did not come with us. Mother and I lived in dumb comfort in a small house by the sea, and were never parted until the time came for me to go away to school. We never spoke again of that night on the Green. Yet even though I was a good student, and went up to Cambridge, and from there to France to fight another man?s War, at night my dreams remained those of the small child at that high window, watching his brother and sister play their last game of tag upon the Green, tracked by that slow-moving, but limping figure. Driven by my dreams I returned to this spot, limping myself now, clad in a heavy coat and a dark suit, with eyes tired from War, and climbed up those few short steps to the house. When I rang the bell, the maid that answered let out a fearful scream, and ran into the house. On the wall by the front door I saw an old, creased photograph. And in the photograph I saw ? a version of myself.

For what seemed like hours I watched, as the two small shapes were traced round the Green by this phantom, who never seemed to approach, but always maintained a true distance. For how long I watched I do not know, but eventually, and please forgive me because I was only a few years old, I could watch no more. In the morning, when nanny came into the nursery to wake us, her shrieks were so loud they brought the vicar running from his morning prayers in the church. I was still at the window, eyes not shut in sleep, but wide open, my pupils wild and my expression drawn back in horror. My brother and sister?s beds were cold and empty. And in the frost on the outside of that high attic window, someone had written the word ?daddy?.

I like it.

And so we lived our lives. We were happy, despite the absence of our father who was abroad at this time helping the Queen run India. But, young one, water cannot be held in a cupped palm for ever, and the time came when my brother and sister decided that they wanted to roam on the Green free from nanny?s watchful eye at the window. So one evening, after we had drunk our milk and honey, and nanny had retired, my older brother and sister crept out of the front door, back onto the Green. It was dark, and I begged to go with them, but they told me that I was too young to be out in the cold night. So I crept back into the nursery and positioned myself by the window. Aided by the clear sky, a bright moon and the electric light from the few street lamps by the Green, I could see my brother and sister playing a chasing game upon the grass. And then, as I watched further, I felt that I was watching not two, but three bodies. It was hard in the half-light to see clearly, but as the forms of my siblings flitted from tree to tree I imagined them to be followed, at a short distance, by a much larger shape, moving more slowly. It seemed to me to limp, and hold out its arms in a pleading manner.

Your wish is my command. A Goose Green tale: Sit down, young one, and listen. You ask why I sit on this bench by this path every day: indeed mock me for doing so. Very well, I will tell you. I was once your age, and I loved this small park. I loved its strange form, its shadowy trees, the church that stood guard over one side, with its tall spire that never cast a shadow on the green grass below. I even loved its name, Goose Green, thinking it then to speak of something pleasant, something that might be found in the rhymes that decorated the wall of the nursery I shared with my brothers and sisters. We loved that nursery, too, high in the attic of that very house there, overlooking this spot. And after tea, we liked nothing better than to come down to the Green, free at last from our nanny?s control. We would play our games on the Green till it grew dark, our shouts echoing off the houses, and all the while the familiar face of our nanny would be visible in the nursery window, watching over us. After dusk, exhilarated and cold, we would bundle in for hot milk and honey, supped by the fire in the sitting room ? telling tall tales of adventure to Mother. Only then would nanny leave her post at the window.

Mares eat oats...

this will start to become quite a big 'problem' soon I, for one, welcome our new fox overlords.

Summer dreams ripped at the seams?

Was it? It wasn't. The image of the youth turning into an old man is conjured, within the dream, by the smell and sounds of a late summer's evening. The author inexpertly attempts to portray the experience one can have in a dream of watching one's own life. Give the author a break, he is in a meeting, "taking notes".

In your dreams, Moos. (so to speak)

Sweet decay rises from the fallen apples that lie condemned under your hammock, mingling with the dying fall of a neighbour's lawn mower, invading your dreams. The wine glass at your side contains one small fly, scrambling for safety up the sticky cliff-face. The sun's warmth fights a losing battle with the overhanging chestnut tree and you shiver involuntarily, but only once. The golden-faced youth of your dream turns into a pock-marked veteran, his complexion bruised and pitted. You realise you are staring at your reflection.

You people are insatiable.

I didn't intend to develop a full blown drugs habit after retirement. But this thread has changed that. Also, it's made me want to wear hats in the dark. I suppose the two ambitions could very well be combined.

No, I got my free energy-efficiency upgrade: loft and wall cavities insulated, triple glazing, combi boiler. All on your taxes. Thanks for that. Means I can spend the winter fuel allowance on crumble, pie and coke.