THE PANTS OF CARATACUS

THE PANTS OF CARATACUS

An extraordinary find was exposed during a recent archaeological dig at  the "Three and a Half Men" public house in North West London.  

Excavations in the sixteenth century former coaching inn’s basement, have unearthed a soiled pair of undergarments supposedly discarded by “Caratacus”, a first century British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe who led the British resistance to the Roman conquest of Britain.

The stained underpants were discovered in a sealed brass container, with a Pig Latin inscription describing the contents as having been discarded by the chieftain after an unfortunate accident whilst imbibing vast quantities of honeyed Meade at a Catuvellauni camp site adjacent to the present location of the public house.     

Also enclosed with the soiled garments was an ivory drinking horn made of Boars tusk, and a deer skin flat cap inscribed in Brythonic with the name Caratacus and a line drawing of his flaccid membership.  

The project to explore the basement and cellar of the "Three and a Half Men" was headed by Professor Hillary Hildegarde Chard, a distant relation of Driver Chard of El Hadj Duiff, acting president and chairman of the Duck Flat Cap Society. 

Driver Chard had obtained funding for the dig by selling his collection of antique black and white editions of “Lady boy Frolics”, old Fulham FC programmes, and donating his body to science for the advancement of scalp therapy and hair replacement theory.

The Dig was headed by “Barry the Gravedigger” who advanced his services for no more than a daily allowance of three pints of lager and a packet of crisps, with the occasional free go on the Golf machine. He was ably assisted by failed ladies’ man and part time refuge collector “Sick note Ray the Dust”, the diminutive” little legs Parkes”, the pint sized overweight “Pepe Le Puke” and ex-military hard man and sexologist “Basher Hurley”.

Driver Chard main objective was to uncover the fabled lost tunnel that connected the "Three and a Half Men" with the near bye restaurant and Bar, located a couple of hundred meters away at the base of the adjacent steep hill.

This tunnel was also believed to be interconnected with the allegedly previously discovered tunnel running between the pubs and Bentley Priory, home of RAF "Fighter Command" during the Battle of Britain during World War 2.

Returning to the soiled undergarments bequeathed by Caratacus, local antiquarian “ Loafington Smythe”, believes that they are associated with the Roman encampment located at nearby Brockley Hill, where it is known that British tribal forces, led by Queen Boadicea, pursued the Roman Legions after the sacking of Colchester and London, prior to advancing to St Albans and the further destruction of Roman property and settlements.

It has been postulated by Professor "Loafington  Smythe", that after an earlier skirmish at Brockley Hill preceding the  Boadicean  revolt, Caratacus and a few of his cohorts escaped across the hilly ridge that now separates Hertfordshire from what was to become Middlesex, and found  refuge in a hovel that stood adjacent to an encampment, and located where the "Three and a Half Men" now stands.  Having reached the relative safety of the encampment they began to drink copious amounts of alcohol until they passed out soiling their undergarments as the strain of battle descended in to the oblivion of deep drink induced slumber. 

The other Britons under garments being of inferior quality quickly rotted in to oblivion, but the pants of Caratacus, being a gift from Boadicea, were of sufficient quality to survive until  found by a roving Monk during the middle ages who stored them in a brass box for posterity, and revered them as a religious relic. 

The Monk went on to found a Monastic brewery that eventually developed in to the present Public House and the revered relic remained interred in the basement / cellar until unearthed by the intrepid expedition by the Duck Flat Cap Society.

More details to be released in due course when Carbon Dating has provided a definitive date for the soiling of the Pants.

R.I.P   JOHN CHARD 1933 - 2020