REVOLT IN THE DUCHY OF RIPPLE

 REVOLT IN THE DUCHY OF RIPPLE

A recent indecent on the Glebe lands of Upper Ripple has led to an unimaginable protest by the villages enraged inhabitants. 

Villagers began congregating at the antiquated church yard after receiving news that the annual badger shaving contest was to be replaced by a new communal bathing event. This had been at the behest of the new Lord of the Manor, The Right Honorable Septimus Septic-Tank Lavage.

Lord  Lavage had been appointed as Lord of the Manor the previous summer by the Duke of Ripple, Lord Sebastian Montague Mongham-Northbourne of the Festering Hoof. The previous incumbent having drowned in the Deal marshes attempting to entrap a Great Bustard for his wife's menagerie.  

The contest has become a local sensation and has been conducted in the lower parsnip field for generations. Mrs Coldwhallop, a former washerwoman and local guttersnipe, had donated the land for the event in the middle ages and the field has been preserved for the sole purpose of the annual event ever-since.

Temporary sheds were set up on the lower parsnip field every year, to ensure that contestants had a stable environment in which to shave the badger. The badgers have always been specially bread for the event by whoever farmed the Glebe lands, and it was  condition of tenure. In addition, the honour of breeding the badgers had always been highly praised by local inhabitants of the community and was a sought after privilege. 

Bill the Badger Bradbottom had bred the required roster of badgers for over two score years and was renowned for the coloration of his animals. He and his ancestors had lived at Otty Bottom for as long as the parish registers could reveal, and local legend had the family bewitching medieval neighbours and throwing their corpses in to a bottomless well.  

To be continued........

THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST REGALIA

 THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST REGALIA

Ever since the sad demise of Driver Chard, the former Chairman and President of the Duck Flat Society, there has been a scramble to local the lost regalia of the societies high office.

The regalia, encompassing an old fashioned toilet flush chain and stainless steel sink plug chain, were of great significance to the society due to their inaugural use at the original meeting of the Duck Flat Cap Society by its august founding fathers.

  The original meeting was in fact held at a neighboring establishment called the Rose & Crown as the Duck was only a beer house at the time, and not a fully licensed premises. However, the society was an immediate success and as soon as the Duck obtained a full licence, the society relocated to its spiritual and everlasting home, The Duck.

The society soon grew from its original membership with both organic and external sources of new membership. The society continued to grow until the outbreak of the first world war, when it became a prescribed society due to its support for the retention of 24 hour drinking and the repeal of the recently announced licencing laws that restricted the consumption of alcoholic beverages in public houses, beer houses, tap rooms, bars and hotels. 

The society continued to conduct its business as usual, but within the confines of the new licencing hours, and managed to pursued the government that the it should be released from the law prohibiting it from recruiting new members.  For the remainder of the interregnum between global conflicts,  the membership continued to swell until the society was forced to bring in quotas for new membership. 

It was at the outbreak of the second world war that the hallowed Regalia first came to prominence as a sacred and honored symbol of the society.  Tradition states that as last orders were being called, an air raid siren shrieked its urgent message to take cover, and in his haste to pull the toiled cisterns chain to flush away his wast, the acting chairman and president wrenched the chain from its socket and and with him to the pubs cellar where he hoped to take refuge from the air raid. Realising that he had the chain about his person, he conveniently wrapped it about his waist until hostilities had ceased.

 Having survived the airborne onslaught, he and the other members of the committee decided that the chain should be worn at all time as a mark of thanks for the lack of loss of life, and remembrance of the outbreak of hostilities.   

To be continued.........