“Oh, no,” moaned Timothy. “Not again.”

But he had to …

When you’re a Holiday Host at Melody Bay Holiday Camp you’re expected to provide most of the entertainment. In whatever fashion the happy campers demand. And some of the demands were distinctly above and beyond the call of duty. Not that Timothy was unwilling to oblige what with Janet, June, Elsie and the rest of them shattering their fingernails on the door of his chalet. And then of course there were Nan and Nat, the Camp owner’s nieces, pursuing their own ideas of female liberation through the shuddering chalets. It was undoubtedly Timothy’s toughest assignment …

and even better than his hilarious adventures in CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER and CONFESSIONS OF A DRIVING INSTRUCTOR

CONFESSIONS FROM A HOLIDAY CAMP
Timothy Lea

CONTENTS

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter 1

In which Timmy finds himself on the road again, having been found on the front room carpet with an attractive young lady who called to ask questions about cleaning shoes.

Chapter 2

In which brother-in-law Sidney hires Timmy as a Host at Melody Bay Holiday Camp and our hero travels north in the company of Janet, an athletic girl eager to make new friends.

Chapter 3

In which Timmy arrives at Melody Bay and gets some idea of the duties expected of him, helped by Avril and a conscientious chalet maid.

Chapter 4

In which Timmy becomes involved with the Camp Beauty Contest and Mrs. Married, Elsie, Janet and June – all of whom are keen to do well.

Chapter 5

In which life is disrupted by Nat and Nan, big girls with big appetites, with whom Timmy shares an embarrassing experience on the stage of the camp theatre.

Chapter 6

In which Timmy’s particular talents are singled out for export to Love Island, the new Mediterranean Holiday Camp for the swinging seventies and in which Timmy is taken in hand by Angela, an experienced air hostess.

Chapter 7

In which Timmy gets the lay of the land – known as Carmen – and discovers that the Island’s amenities leave everything to be desired.

Chapter 8

In which Sidney arrives to get a grip; Nat and Nan cause fresh problems and Timmy shares a beautiful experience with Marcia.

Chapter 9

In which Mum, Dad, and Rosie arrive for a holiday. Rosie conceives an affection for a singing gentleman named Ricci Volare, camp life continues to deteriorate and Timmy offers comfort to a lonely lady.

Chapter 10

In which Rosie and Dad disgrace themselves. Timmy organises a Love Carnival which gets out of hand. Dad is clumsy, Sidney loses his temper and we learn that Mum has a secret.

Chapter 11

In which an interesting new holiday camp development is outlined and Timmy begins an unusually exhausting journey home.

Also Available in the Confessions Ebook Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

How did it all start?

When I was young and in want of cash (which was all the time) I used to trudge round to the local labour exchange during holidays from school and university to sign on for any job that was going – mason’s mate, loader for Speedy Prompt Delivery, part-time postman, etc.

During our tea and fag breaks (‘Have a go and have a blow’ was the motto) my fellow workers would regale me with stories of the Second World War: ‘Very clean people, the Germans’, or of throwing Irishmen through pub windows (men who had apparently crossed the Irish sea in hard times and were prepared to work for less than the locals). This was interesting, but what really stuck in my mind were the recurring stories of the ‘mate’ or the ‘brother-in-law’. The stories about these men (rarely about the speaker himself) were about being seduced, to put it genteelly, whilst on the job by (it always seemed to be) ‘a posh bird’:

‘Oeu-euh. Would you care for a cup of tea?’

‘And he was up her like a rat up a drainpipe’

These stories were prolific. Even one of the – to my eyes – singularly uncharismatic workers had apparently been invited to indulge in carnal capers after a glass of lemonade one hot summer afternoon near Guildford.

Of course, these stories could all have been make-believe or urban myth, but I couldn’t help thinking, with all this repetition, surely there must be something in them?

When writing the series, it seemed unrealistic and undemocratic that Timmy’s naive charms should only appeal to upper class women, so I quickly widened his demographic and put him in situations where any attractive member of the fairer sex might cross his path.

The books were always fun to write and never more so than when they involved Timmy’s family: his Mum, his Dad (prone to nicking weird objects from the lost property office where he worked), his sister Rosie and, perhaps most importantly, his conniving, would be entrepreneur, brother-in-law Sidney Noggett. Sidney was Timmy’s eminence greasy, a disciple of Thatcherism before it had been invented.

Whatever the truth concerning Timothy Lea’s origins, twenty-seven ‘Confessions’ books and four movies suggest that an awful lot of people share my fascination with the character and his adventures. I am grateful to each and every one of them.

Christopher Wood aka Timothy Lea

CHAPTER ONE

Mum was glad to see me when I got back from Cromingham. Just as she had been when I got back from the nick. A bit worried too – just as she had been when I got back from the nick.

“Everything alright at the Driving School?” she says casually, as I fold my mits round a cup of cha, made as only my Mum can make one – diabolically.

“Fine, ma,” I say, equally casually, trying not to let my expression reveal the death struggle of my shrivelling taste buds. “I’ve decided it’s time I moved on to something else, though.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ma. It was good experience but I feel like a change and Cromingham was a bit dull.”

“I thought you’d settled in.”

“Yes ma, but—”

“I do wish you would find something a bit permanent. Your father and I get quite worried about you sometimes. You’ll never get married at this rate.”

Marvellous, isn’t it? Another step on the way to National Health gnashers and my old age pension. Get married, settle down, have children, drop dead.

“I don’t particularly want to get married, Mum.”

“Well, you want a decent job, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Well then.”

“Yes, Mum.”

There is no point in telling her about how my career as a driving instructor ended: agro, needle, nudity. You want to protect your old Mum from things like that, don’t you? I pick up the paper and glance at the headlines, evincing less interest than Germaine Greer being shown round a brassiere factory. Apparently the police have found two half-naked birds and a bloke in a stolen Rolls Royce on Cromingham Golf Course. Funny that.

I toss the paper aside and thankfully gulp down the last of the tea. By the cringe, there are enough dregs at the bottom of the cup to tell the fortunes of Lana Turner’s bridesmaids.

“Well, whatever you do,” grinds on Mum, “I wish you’d get a steady job. Look how well Sidney has done.”

Odious Sid is my poxy brother-in-law and always dragged in to conversations of this type as a symbol of what hard work and a bit of nous can do for you. In fact Sid is a bit stronger on the latter than the former, though you can’t point the finger at him for that – two is nearer the mark with Sid. He and I were partners in a window cleaning business until he got a bit too close to a girl I was thinking of getting spliced to. In fact “a bit too close” is putting it mildly. He was so close he was touching her in about half a dozen places. In her dad’s garden shed, too. I still get a red flush every time I think about it. Mum and Rosie, she is my sister, don’t know about that little incident, though I keep the threat of revelation dangling over Sid’s nut like the sword of Dan O’Kleas.

“How is Charlie Clore, then?” I say trying not to sound too bitter.

“Don’t be bitter, dear,” says Mum. “Just because Sidney has taken his chances—”

I start choking at this point and it’s not just because Mum’s omelettes taste like they have been made with Great Auks’ eggs.

“Don’t gulp your food, dear,” continues Mum, “I was always telling you as a child. Now where was I? Oh, yes. Sidney. Do you know what he is doing now?”

“Six years in The Scrubs?”

“He’s working for Funfrall Enterprises.”

She makes it sound like the Archbishop of Canterbury so I am obviously supposed to be impressed.

“Oh yeah. And what’s that?” In fact, I can vaguely remember having heard of it but I don’t want to let on to Mum.

“You know! They own all those Dance Halls and Holiday Camps and Health Centres and things. You’ve seen the Miss Globe Contest on the tele?”

I have too. Like an explosion in a dumpling factory with dialogue by Andy Pandy.

“He’s taken over from Michael Aspel, has he?”

“No, no. He’s nothing to do with beauty contests—”

“You can say that again.”

“—he’s tied up with the holiday camps. Promotions Manager or something. He’s doing terribly well.”

I can imagine it, too. Jammy bastard. Well we all know what goes on at holiday camps, don’t we? Just Sidney’s cup of tea. Timmy’s too!

Maybe Mum is a mind-reader.

“Perhaps he could help you find a job, dear?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so, Mum,” I say, turning down the idea on principle. “I think it’s about time I found something for myself. How are Rosie and the kid?”

I soon learn that Rosie and little nephew Jason are full of beans and now living in their own house in tasty Streatham. Sidney’s cup must be over-running right down to his Y-fronts. After a few more painful details of his new car and their holiday in Majorca I am forced to escape by switching the conversation to the unsavoury subject of Dad. I learn that the man who contracted out of the rat race because the other rats objected is still filling in some of his waking hours down at the Lost Property Office. Plentiful evidence of this fact is provided by a quick butchers round the walls of the ancestral home of the Leas. Dad is what you might call a collector. What you might also call a grade one tea leaf. Moose heads, stuffed fish, millions of umbrellas, enough binoculars to supply the Royal Box at Ascot. All saved from the incinerators – so he says. I reckon that most of the stuff was left on public transport because it wouldn’t fit into the dustbin.

The pride of Dad’s collection can be discovered in the hallstand underneath the telephone directories – we don’t have a telephone but Dad is prepared for this eventuality. Here can be found all the porn that Dad and his mates down at the L.P.O. know will never be claimed. The tattered, drool-sodden fixes of a brigade of plastic-macked sexual fantasists: “Kinky Kats on the Rampage”, “Corporal Ecstasy”, “Leatherworkers’ Handbook”, full of dead-eyed girls with tits like policemen’s helmets, who look as if they should know better – and have certainly known worse.

Not that I want to sound as if I’m always writing to Malcolm Muggeridge about it. I have never been able to resist a quick flick through Dad’s library and it’s to this that I retire when Mum has cleared away the breakfast things and toddled off to the launderette.

I am not disappointed. There, beneath the 1968 A–D nestles “Wife-swapping, Danish Style” with a cover that leaves nothing to the imagination, not even my particularly fevered article. The inside is even worse, or better, according to your personal tastes, and I am beginning to crowd my jeans when there is a sharp rat-tat on the front door. Cursing under my breath, because Sven and Brigitta and Inga and Horst are just beginning to forget about the open sandwiches. I stuff the magazine under a cushion and do a ‘mum through the lace curtains’.

Standing on the front door step is a pneumatic brunette of about twenty-five, carrying a map board and chewing the end of a pencil as she examines our door-knocker. She is not at all bad and in my present keyed-up condition could be a lot worse. Pausing only to make sure that my eye teeth are not showing, I speed to the front door and hurl it open.

“Good morning,” says my visitor with practised cheeriness. I note that her eyes are making a lightning tour of my person and allow myself a similar liberty with her own shapely frame.

“Good morning,” I say.

“I am doing some research for a company called Baspar Services and I wondered if I could ask you a few questions about shoes.”

“Shoes?”

“Shoes. It won’t take very long.”

Take as long as you like, darling, I think to myself, wincing at the discomfort her too-tight sweater must be causing her tempting tits.

“Come inside, we don’t want to stand out here on the doorstep.”

The girl looks a little doubtful.

“Is your wife at home? I’ve got some questions for her, too.”

This is obviously a ploy used to discourage potential rapists. Funny how my expression always gives me away.

“Oh, I’m not married,” I say jokily as if the whole idea was too funny for words, “but my mother is doing the washing.”

I don’t say where, so she trips over the threshold and I steer her on to the settee in the front room. This puts her at a disadvantage because generations of Leas watching tele, or grappling before it during power cuts, has forced the springs down to floor level. One either sinks without trace or perches on the edge. My guest starts off by doing the former and then struggles uncomfortably into an upright position revealing a good deal of shapely leg which I pretend not to see. In reality, I am finding it difficult to control myself because the adventures of my Danish friends are still firmly rooted in my mind.

“Well, let’s get down to business,” say Miss Shapely-Thighs, briskly. “First of all, how many pairs of shoes do you have?”

She chews the end of her pencil and I could do without that for a start.

“Sixty-nine,” and her eyebrows shoot up.

“I mean six—er—yes. I think it’s six. Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” I don’t either. I have this terrible habit of saying what I am thinking, sometimes. Very embarrassing.

“Six,” she repeats and makes a tick on her questionnaire. “When did you last buy a pair?”

Talking of pairs, I think that’s a lovely set of knockers you’ve got there. I wouldn’t mind doing a few press-ups on top of that lot.

“About a month ago,” I say.

“Where did you buy them?”

“At the shoe shop. I can’t remember the name. Maybe it’s on them. I’m wearing them, you see.”

We smile at each other as if it’s all terribly funny really and I wrench one of my casuals off and gaze hopefully into its interior. Nothing, except a shiny brown surface and a lived-in smell I would not try to sell to Helena Rubinstein. I put it on hurriedly.

“I think it was that one down by Woolworths. It was in the High Street, anyway.”

“Can you remember how much they cost?”

“About a fiver I think. Shoes are diabolically expensive these days, aren’t they?”

I throw that in because it is about time I started showing a bit of initiative. Horst and Inga would have had each other’s knickers off by now on half the wordpower.

“Terrible,” says the bird, “and it’s not as if they’re made to last.” She flexes her calf muscles and indicates some disintegrating stitchwork before realising that I am casing her joints and snapping back to being Miss Efficiency.

“Do you have any wet-look shoes?”

“Three pairs.”

“What colours?”

“Two black, one brown.”

“How do you clean them?”

“I breathe on them,” I say, fluttering my lips at her. “And then I rub them over with a duster.”

“Have you ever used an aerosol?”

“Only my sister’s hairspray.”

“On your shoes?”

“No. I was trying to stick Mum’s Green Shield stamps in with them. They got left out in the rain and all the glue came off.”

There doesn’t seem to be a column on her questionnaire for that so she gives a little sigh and gets on with it.

“I meant an aerosol shoe spray,” she says. “They’re specially made for wet-look shoes.”

“They cost a few bob, don’t they?” I say suspiciously.

“How much do you think?” She sounds all eager and her pencil is poised expectantly.

“Oh, about five bob, twenty five p, forty seven rupees, or whatever it is, these days.”

“What is the most you would be prepared to pay for an aerosol shoe-spray?”

“I’m quite happy with breathing on them like I do at the moment.”

“But supposing you wanted to buy an aerosol.”

“But I don’t.”

Not vintage Noel Coward, is it? And certainly not getting me any nearer a dramatisation of “Wife-swapping, Danish Style”. It’s a shame really because she’s a lovely bird, even if she does seem married to her craft.

“You must get a few passes made at you on a job like this,” I say chattily. “Have you been doing it for long?”

“Six months,” she says. “Now try and imagine that you do want to buy an aerosol. 20p? 25p? 50p?”

She does go on, doesn’t she?

“Well, it’s difficult, isn’t it?” I say. “Do you fancy a cup of tea or something? It must get a bit knackering wandering about the streets all day.”

“Thank you, no,” she says. “Look—” and she dives into a large satchel-type handbag she is carrying, “—this is the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

She produces three aerosol canisters and lays them on the settee. One pink, one black, one green.

“Oh yes,” I say, trying to keep my enthusiasm within bounds. Actually I am quite glad that we have found something to play with. I always reckon that it is easier to get to grips with a bird if you have something to keep your hands occupied. Start with your stamp collection and you will soon be showing her your tool set is one of my golden mottoes.

“How does it work?” I say, wrapping my mits round one of the canisters. “Oh dear—”. This latter remark is prompted by the fact that I have depressed the plunger and ejected a large blob of frothy, white liquid over my visitor’s skirt. If standing in the dock of the Old Bailey I would probably say it was an accident.

Faced with this emergency I move swiftly and muttering profuse apologies ram my hand up Miss Shapley-Thighs’ skirt. This manoeuvre, though liable to misinterpretation, is of course intended to prevent the gunge soaking through to the tights whilst also affording me a firm and uncontroversial surface on which to perform mopping up operations.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” squeals my visitor.

“I’m trying to stop your skirt getting stained,” I bleat. “You’d better take it off.”

“Take it off?!”

“Yes. I’ll get some water from the kitchen. I’m terribly sorry. I’ll buy you a new one if it’s ruined.” This show of efficient concern is obviously reassuring because when I return with a beaker of warm water she is standing behind the sofa with her skirt over her arm. She has fantastic legs that go straight up to her armpits and her arse would trigger off a wop’s pinching fingers like a burglar alarm. My hands are shaking as I put down the beaker and it is all I can do to control myself.

“You have a marvellous figure,” I tell her breathlessly. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that?” No woman ever has and I can see that my boyish enthusiasm is not entirely repulsive to her.

“Thank you,” she says permitting herself a slight smile. “I bet you say that to all the girls you squirt aerosols over.”

She bends forward and starts rubbing away at her skirt and again I have to put a hammer lock on my impulses.

“Let’s have a drink while you’re doing that,” I say. “What do you fancy? Gin, whisky, sherry?”

In fact, I know the sideboard contains a half-bottle of Stone’s Ginger Wine and an empty Chianti bottle Rosie was going to make a lamp out of seven years ago, but I want this to come as a complete surprise.

“No thanks,” she says. “I’ve finished. Now, where can I put it to dry?”

I whip the skirt down to the kitchen and drape it over the stove and when I get back the lovely girl is curled up in an armchair with her questionnaire over her thatch patch.

“Back to the questions is it?” I observe. “My, but you take your work seriously, don’t you?”

“It’s my first job,” she says. “OH!”

I follow her eyes and see that one of the poxy aerosols has started leaking all over the settee. Mum will half kill me and for the first time since I peeped through the lace curtains, all thoughts of bayonet practice are banished from my mind. Snatching up the damp rag I dive onto my hands and knees and start rubbing away like a maniac. So wrapped up in my task am I that I do not immediately notice that Miss Research is doing her bit beside me. It is only when I accidentally bounce against her boobs that it occurs to me that Mum doing her nut is not the only thing I could be up against. The damp patch is half across the sofa, the questionnaires are strewn all over the floor and the aerosols have rolled under the sideboard.

“It’s not our lucky day, is it?” I say into her mouth which is a couple of inches from mine. I smile and she smiles and her eyes make a quick trip round the features that litter my face.

“Um,” I murmur, which is a handy excuse for conversation at moments like this. “Let’s forget it.” I slip my lips into forward gear and accelerate swiftly onto her mouth. This feature is so meltingly tender that on impact my toes glow like brake lights and I feel small ripples of excitement breaking up and darting away down the long corridors of my body like kids coming out of class. I slip my hands up underneath her blouse and gently mould her back until my fingers are flicking to and fro across the catch of her bra. Her mouth is still against mine and showing no indications of finding the position unpleasant so I carefully release the catch and feel her breasts swell forward gratefully. To my surprise, she begins to tug the hair at the back of my neck and squirm against the thick bars of muscle which decorate my chest. By a happy accident a pillow drops to the floor and it is down on to this that I gently press her, running my right hand over the smooth sheen of her tights until I can feel her minge fringe stirring beneath my fingers like the fur of an animal. Her lips are half parted and her eyes closed. Glancing away from them I see that “Wife-Swapping – Danish Style” has suddenly emerged from its hiding place behind the cushion and that Inga and Horst are revealed in a manner calculated to win a warm glint of approval from any manufacturer of chocolate bars. This glimpse of our Scandinavian chums at play is sufficient to give the market garden down the front of my jeans a decidedly tropical flavour and I start peeling her tights off like there is an Olympic Gold Medal for it. It is at moments like this that I wish I could press a release mechanism and feel my jeans zooming into space like ejected pilots.

She pulls me down towards her and we wrestle with each other’s clothing whilst trading mouths and gasping and gurgling like we are drowning in lust and going down for the last time. She helps tug my jeans over my heels and we ruckle against each other so that I can feel the buttons of her open blouse biting into my chest. By now you could paint my old man green and call it a cucumber and her greedy little fingers have hardly settled on it before I am checking on the best place to tuck it away. Luckily I am no stranger to the area and soon find the ideal spot. Warm like a pot of cha brewing under a silk cosy it is, and I have to bite my lips and think of hob-nailed boots to control myself.

“Go on! Go on!” she bleats and it is going to take a battalion of Gurkhas to stop me. Rising up in the litter of questionnaires and pausing only to tuck Inga and Horst discreetly down the side of the settee, I launch myself into her like a nuclear sub gliding down a narrow slipway. Her hands close around my backside like she is frightened it might suddenly drop off and we start beating out the theme from Ravel’s Bolero in a way that would bring tears to the composer’s eyes. Powerful stuff it is, too, and once into our stride we are not easily disturbed.

This is something I realise when I hear Mum’s voice from the hall.

“I can smell burning,” she says.

Now we have been going at it a bit – but burning? I don’t think so. Not that I would be prepared to argue with her because at that moment I am riding a tidal wave of passion and would not be diverted from my purpose if the Dagenham Girl Pipers started marching around the room. My friend obviously feels the same because she is carving finger holds in my shoulder blades and making a noise like a donkey with hiccups. A few mighty thrusts and the deed is done with a mutual shriek of ecstasy that must rupture eardrums as far away as Balham High Road.

Mum certainly hears it because I look up to see her peering down on us with a face turning the colour of a baboon’s bum. As is always the case with me, I now begin to wonder what I was getting so worked up about and my passion evaporates like spit on a stove-top. Not so with Mum.

“Timmy!” she screams. “Oh no! How could you? It’s horrible! Oh no! Oh no! no! no!” I have never known her behave like this before and it is really quite disturbing. We uncouple and I scramble to my feet just in time to give Mrs. Wagstaff a glimpse of the full frontals which obviously takes her back a bit – about forty years I should think. Mrs. Wagstaff is one of Mum’s friends and the biggest gossip and ratbag in the neighbourhood. The last person Mum would have chosen to witness our little domestic upheaval. She is carrying my friend’s skirt which is soaking wet – what is left of it, that is. A quick glance at the charred remains convince me that it was a bad idea to drape it over the oven to dry.

‘Ooh!!” says Mrs. Wagstaff. “OOoooh!”

“My skirt!!” squeals Miss Aerosol. “It’s ruined; ruined!!”

“How could you do this to me?” howls Mum. “How could you?!! On the sitting room carpet as well.”

I don’t really see what that has to do with it but I don’t argue the point. After all, one doesn’t want to upset one’s own mother too much, does one?

CHAPTER TWO

It was as a direct result of this little incident that I found myself pacing up and down in the reception of Funfrall Enterprises a few days later. Mum has been decidedly stroppy about my little flirtation on the hearth rug and has passed the ill tidings on to Dad who has reacted in characteristic fashion and done his nut. Like all dyed in the wool dirty old men, Dad has a deep-rooted objection to anyone else but himself getting their end away, and is very quick to come an attack of the total outrage.

It is perhaps a trifle unfortunate that he discovered me breaking down racial barriers with one, Matilda NGobla, on that self-same rug a few months before. She was one of our next door neighbours and never a favourite with my parents who are so bigoted they drape a blanket over the tele during the Black and White Minstrel Show. Anyway it has now got to the stage where Mum and Dad start going over the seat covers with a vacuum cleaner before they sit down and I have clearly got to head for the wide open spaces again.

I don’t fancy volunteering to become callus fodder down at the Labour Exchange so, bearing in mind what Mum has said about Sidney wringing gravy out of his turn-ups, I pad round to get the gen from sister Rosie. I am fortunate enough to find her between the slimming salon and the hairdresser’s and a glance round the eye-level grills and the louvred cupboard tells me that Mum has not exaggerated. Sidney must be on to a good thing. Rosie fills in the plot by telling me how Sidney sold the window cleaning business for a ridiculous sum of money and moved into Funfrall on the strength of a contact – Sidney has contacts like dogs have fleas. It is painful to listen to and I am quick to down my cup of Blend 37 and leave Rosie to wrestle with her Boeuf Strogonoff.

The reception area of Funfrall Enterprises is like an ice rink which may have something to do with the personality of the receptionist who would turn a cupboard into a refrigerator by sitting in it. She is like one of those frigid bints you see photographed in opticians’ windows, and watches me as if she reckons I am going to start nicking the magazines. With a choice of “The Director” or “The Investors’ Chronicle” she must be joking. Her makeup looks as if it has been put on with a spray gun and it can hardly withstand the strain of her telling me that Mr. Noggett’s secretary will be waiting for me by the lift on the fifth floor.

This girl is easy to recognise because she is breathing heavily and there is a large red flush on one side of her neck. I look at this pointedly and watch her tucking in her blouse as I follow her tight little arse down the corridor. It looks as if Sidney hasn’t changed much.

The man himself is staring out of the window with his back to me when I come into his office and I notice that on his desk there is a photograph of Rosie clasping the infant Jason to her bosom. There is also a strong whiff of perfume, aftershave lotion and togetherness, but perhaps I am imagining it.

“It suits you,” I say when Sidney turns round.

“What? Oh, you mean this?” He fingers his moustache as if he hadn’t realised what I was talking about. “Rosie nagged me into growing it.”

He is looking well, there is no doubt about it. A bit plumper round the chops but still a fine figure of a conman in his Burton Executive suit. I wonder if I am actually turning green.

“So you’re back again,” he says. “Decided that being a driving instructor wasn’t quite your line?” I nod. “I don’t know how many jobs you expect me to find you before you settle down.” When he says that I wish I hadn’t come, but I keep my mouth shut.

“Still, you’ve got to make allowances for your brother-in-law, haven’t you?”

“That’s what I always say about you.” I mean, there is a limit, isn’t there?

“Saucy, saucy.” Sid wags his finger at me.

“Don’t bite the hand that lays the golden egg.”

The news that Sidney had problems with his Eleven Plus will surprise nobody.

“Look, Sid,” I say. “I don’t want to grovel. Have you got anything that might be up my street?”

‘Well, I don’t know. It all depends.” Sidney fiddles with his cigarette case. “You know I’m Promotions Manager for our holiday camp circuit?”

“Mum said something about it.”

“Yes, well amongst other things, that means I have to recruit our Holiday Hosts.”

“You mean Redcoats?”

Sidney’s face turns white and he darts a glance around the room as if he expects Fu Manchu to leap out of the air conditioning.

“Don’t mention those words,” he hisses. “There is no other Holiday Host than a Funfrall holiday Host. We do not recognise the existence of any competition.”

He sounds as if he is reading the words off a fiery tablet and I don’t mean the kind you take for tummy upsets.

“O.K. O.K.” I say. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I was only asking. What the the chances of me becoming a—a Holiday Host?”

Sidney leans back in his swivel chair and puts his finger tips together in a gesture he must have borrowed from “The Power Game”.

“It depends,” he says. “Do you play any musical instruments?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

“Can you do conjuring tricks?’

“No.”

“Are you of instructor standard at any popular recreational activities?”

“Well—I—er—”

“I didn’t mean that! What about children. Do you like children?”

“I like little Jason,” I lisp untruthfully.

“That’s why he bursts into tears every time he sees you, I suppose?”

“I think he’s a bit highly strung,” I murmur, thinking that about six feet off the ground would be favourite.

“What about dancing. Tap or Modern Ballroom?”

“You know I don’t go for that kind of thing.” Rape, arson, murder, yes. But ballroom dancing? Do me a favour!

“And women. How do you reckon you would get on with our lady visitors?”

“Birds? Now you’re talking, Sid. All those love-lorn little darlings looking for a bit of slap and tickle. I’ll be in there like a vat of Enos. You know me Sid—I’ll—”

“Forget it!” Sidney bashes his hand down on his paper knife and bites back the pain.

“As a Holiday Host for Funfrall Enterprises, you would be the repository of a sacred trust. Your role is that of a happy holiday guide, counsellor and friend – not some sex-mad raver trying to shove his nasty up every bint on the camp.”

“Beautifully put, Sid,” I observe. “At least, the first part was. Straight out of the text book. But, how can you say it. I mean you of all people! Do you remember Liz and the toolshed. How you—”

“Yes, yes,” he gabbled, rising to his feet, “but things have changed since then. You’ve got to develop a sense of responsibility in this business, I’ve got a position to think of.”

“Quite a few of them, if I remember rightly,” I observe, “and by the way, your flies are undone.”

You don’t often see Sidney lost for words but his mouth gapes open like a serving hatch and he strikes sparks as he yanks his zip up.

“I bet she leaves the cover off her typewriter, too,” I say. For a second I think he is going to belt me but then he relaxes and the veins go underground again.

“Sit down and shut up,” he says. “Go on, sit down. I want to talk to you. Look, Timmy. I’m going to be honest with you.”

When Sidney says that, strong men start checking their wallets. “If it wasn’t for Rosie, I wouldn’t give you a job cleaning up after an elephant act. But I know that if I don’t, she’ll nag the bleeding arse off me.”

“Thank you, Sid,” I say, interpreting the way things are going.

“Don’t thank me. I’m only doing it because I like sleeping at night. And let me make it quite clear. You cock this one up, and Rosie or no Rosie, I’ll flog your balls to a driving range. Are you with me?”

“Yes, Sidney. How do you see me fitting in?”

Sidney snorts and fiddles in one of his drawers. “Don’t tempt me. I’ve got a job here for a Host at Melody Bay. The last one—oh, it doesn’t matter what happened to the last one.”

“Melody Bay? I’ve never heard of it.”

Sidney goes over to a wall map of the British Isles and jabs his finger at it.

“I didn’t know they had seaside up there.”

Sidney jabs again.

“This blue bit is sea and it stretches all round the country. That’s why we’re an island.”

“I knew that, Sidney. It’s just that I never—oh well, it doesn’t matter. What do I have to do?”

“I’ll give you a book about that and they’ll tell you when you get there. It’s what you don’t do that I’m interested in.”

“Yes, Sidney.”

“Lay off the campers. If you’re caught on the job with a guest, you’re out of one. Got it?”

“Yes, Sidney.”

“It isn’t always easy. By gawd it isn’t.”

Sidney gazes ceilingwards like a man who has had to withstand terrible temptations in his time.

“If you must indulge choose a Funfrall employee.”

“Like your secretary, Sid?”

Sidney momentarily closes his eyes as he controls himself.

“There are Funfrall Hostesses, and you are, of course, free to make such arrangements with them out of working hours as you may mutually deem fitting.”

“Where did you learn to speak like that?” I ask, because this is a new dimension to the Sid I used to know.

“We use all the latest training techniques from the States,” says Sid smugly.

“I’ve just come back from a Method in Management course and we pay a lot of attention to organisation and forward planning.”

“How did you get taken on in the first place?”

“I knew somebody.”

I have a lot more questions, like how much bread I am going to get, but suddenly Sidney’s telephone lets out a non-stop high-pitched shriek and a red light on the top starts flashing angrily. Sidney snatches it up like it might explode at any second and the expression on his phizog combines elements of fear and panic.

“Yes, Sir Giles,” he yelps. “Yes, yes—I have—nearly finished —it’s right—” He tears open another drawer and starts throwing files on to the floor until he finds what he wants.

“I was just completing the figures—interview—yes—no—yes—alright. I’ll just look it up.” He presses a buzzer on his desk and his secretary shoots through the door like from a catapult. “Is the Miss Globe file up to date?” he screeches, slamming his mit over the mouthpiece. The girl shakes her head and I am glad to see that the red flush on her neck has subsided, leaving only a couple of toothmarks. “I haven’t had time—I—”

“Oh my God!”

Sidney applies his quivering lips to the mouthpiece again. “Hello, Sir Giles. I’m afraid it’s not here. I lent it to Jefferson to have a look at. Yes. Yes. I know—Yes, yes—I know—I know—Yes, I know, I know.”

“Why doesn’t he come right out with it and say he knows?” I remark to the girl, “I hate people who are always beating around the bush.”

“Bugger,” says Sidney, slamming down the telephone.

“Have you got the up-to-date entry figures? Thank God. Add ’em up quick will you, darling, otherwise I’m up the schittenstrasse mitout ein paddle.” He turns back to me. “Right, I’ve got to go now.”

“So I gather.”

“We’ll send you a form to fill in, but that’s just a formality. Consider yourself hired.”

“Thanks, Sid—”

“Don’t thank me. Just don’t drop me in it, that’s all. I’ve got enough problems at the moment.” All the time he is talking, he is walking me to the door and the next moment I find myself alone in the corridor wondering which way it is to the lift. Poor Sid. I have never known him like this before. Big business has certainly taken its toll of Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman. If this is what Sir Giles and Funfrall Enterprises do for you I am not sure whether it is worth the fringe benefits.

The thought is still playing on my mind three weeks later as I stand at King’s Cross Station weighing up the paperback covers. Honestly, I have never seen so much tit in my life. It is getting so if you see a cover with five naked birds plastered across it, you know it is a reprint of “Little Women”.

I am supposed to be catching the 15.30 to Nowheresville and, as at all such moments of decision, my feet are colder than a penguin’s chuff. What with Sid’s list of ‘dont’s’ and the memory of his face when he was talking to Mr. Big on the telephone I feel like jacking it all in and sliding off home for a cup of tea and a wad. Trouble is that leprosy would be more welcome there than me at the moment. Mum has made it clear that she will never forgive the matted hairs on her fireside rug and Dad keeps throwing out offensive remarks about the stain on the sofa and making a great show of examining every chair in the place before he sits on it. All in all, it is more than a person of my sensitive nature can stand.

Luckily the path of duty is made smoother for me by the sight of a right little darling sweeping past and pausing only to totally ignore me. Sid always reckoned that when a bird really fancied you she went out of her way to treat you like air and I think he had something. I have known chicks who would cross the road when they saw me coming. Anyway, this particular specimen is carrying a suitcase and she gives a lift to my Y-fronts by getting into my train. Pausing only to slam down 30p for an epic entitled “Terrible Hard Says Alice” which I remember Sidney raving about, I slope in after her and wander down the corridor casually glancing into the compartments until I find her. My luck is in, because she has discovered an empty compartment and is just struggling to get her case on to the rack as I appear. Nice curve to her calves there is too as she teeters with the case at shoulder height. Nearly doing myself a nasty injury in my haste, I gallop through the door and prepare to show her how strong and gentlemanly I am.

“Here, let me do that,” I yodel, snatching the case from her fumbling fingers, pausing only to destroy her with the fruits of about half a ton of Colgate and years of hard brushing (children, please note), I toss it lightly on to the rack and follow up with another flash of the gnashers. She has a nice smile too, and we stand there beaming at each other so it might make you feel sick. She is blonde and she has big blue eyes and mouth so generous it looks as if it might give away kisses to strangers. I wouldn’t mind receiving the rest of her as a free gift, either. Smashing tits, as Wordsworth would say, and all the better for nestling under one of those thick woolly sweaters which make you think of stroking animals – or what you thought of stroking in the first place. I wouldn’t complain to my M.P. about her legs, either. Speaking as I find, all in all and putting it bluntly, she is definitely a looker who could well have her way with me if she played her cards right.

“Oh, thank you so much.”

“No trouble.”

We have another little smile and I make sure to sit down in the opposite corner to her. I want to fill up the compartment and I don’t want to crowd her too much to begin with. After all, we have six hours alone together.

But I speak too soon. Just as I am beginning to feel the first little electric thrill of anticipation as she crosses her legs, and the train gives a sympathetic jerk forward, so the compartment door slides open and a strong contender for the Upper Class Twit of the Year award hoves into view. In fact, I do him an injustice. If I was betting money I would put the lot on his nose – all fourteen inches of it.

“Phew, oh I say,” he chortles, “damn close thing, eh what?” He crashes one of his great nobbly brown shoes onto my multi-patterned suedes without giving any sign that the encounter has caused him pain, bashes his pigskin case against my knees and slumps down opposite my bird. I can see that she is no more pleased to see him than I am and this makes his presence doubly choking.

He is wearing a sort of poor man’s Sherlock Holmes uniform with a check cloak and a non-flap Deerstalker that looks as if it ought to be covered in trout flies. In fact, any kind of fly could cover the whole blooming lot of him without feeling it was living above its station.

“Had the devil’s own job finding a cab,” he confided, as if we cared. “There must have been a garden party at Buck House, or something.”

There is nothing there for me so I exchange a commiserating glance with Big Eyes and look out across the corridor to where there is a large expanse of tunnel on which to project my thoughts.

Captain Chinless is obviously desperate for conversation because he slips into full bore.

“My own, fault, I suppose. Didn’t leave enough time, eh, wha-a-at?” He strings out the last word so that it sounds like someone gargling. “But demned if I was going to rush my lunch. Very bad for the indigestion, that’s what nanny used to say. Chew each mouthful sixty five times – or was it fifty five? No, I think it was sixty five – that’s the only sound way to digest it, wha-a-at?”

If he is going to keep on like this to Newcastle I’m going to swing for him and that is the honest truth.

“The family never missed a train when nanny was around. Nanny Pecksmith; that was her name. I can still see her as if it was yesterday. Remarkable woman. Tremendous disciplinarian. Hated television. Used to read Pilgrims Progress to us all the time and the next one, what was that called?”

“Carry on Pilgrims Progress?” I say.

“No, it wasn’t that.”

“Onward Pilgrims Progress?”

“No, no. That’s a hymn.”

“Oh, of course.”

Tragic isn’t it? The world’s most attractive male animal thwarted by this throwback from Berks peerage and I don’t mean Burke’s. The poor Lea-besotted bird in the corner must be heartbroken.

“Tea is now being served,” says the waiter in the pumice stone coloured white jacket.

“Oh, super. Just what the doctor ordered. Would you care to join me for a spot of tea?” says Sherlock Twit.

“I’d love to,” says my bird.

And the consequence is that they have disappeared up the corridor before I can say Fascist Hyena. It is diabolical, isn’t it? The titled twit hasn’t even asked me if I fancy a cup of tea. I try and immerse myself in my book but even the multiple talents of Christopher Wood fail to wrest my uneasy mind from the thought of Sherlock and Big Eyes grappling over the tea table. She is obviously the kind of chubbycheeked scrubber that hands it out to everybody and I did not move fast enough. The thought of losing out to Lord Shagnasty is more than I can stand.

I consider wandering down there after them but I can’t see where it is going to get me, apart from outside one of British Railways’ diabolically expensive excuses for the traditional vicar-ridden and clotty.

One hour I have waited before they stumble through the door and it is obvious that the tea has degenerated into a drop of the hard stuff. My tip for the Upper Class Twit of the Year stakes is registering symptoms of an attack of the galloping knee-trembles and Big-Eyes is totally giggly and droopy.

“Awfully funny,” says Shagnasty raking his eyes across my face is if he expects me to break into spontaneous applause. “Oh, yes, capital wheeze, eh wha-a-at?”

Only the lack of a primed twelve-bore materialising in my hands prevents me from turning his mug into scarlet wallpaper.

I sit there pretending to give my all to “Terrible Hard, Says Alice”, whilst my evil cock-orientated little mind seeks a means of reducing the human equation to a simple one plus one equals minus supertwit.

Fortunately, Fate chooses that moment to play into my hands. The train shoves on the anchors and I notice a flurry of activity in the corridor which denotes the fact that disembarkation is imminent.

Whilst my two companions flop out in their seats making fish-pouting noises to each other, I cast a casual eye over Shagnasty’s baggage. This clearly reveals that my rival is bound for Leeds. This is something of a surprise, but I have a better one in store. The sign on the platform describes a place well short of that fair city and is obscured by a trolley-load of mail bags as we grind to a halt. Quick as a flash I dart onto the platform and take up a position behind the mail bags. “Leeds,” I shout. “Change here for Leeds. We are the champions.” Whether my final utterance gives a gloss of truth to the rabbit I do not know, but my erstwhile rival is soon stumbling out of one door as I get in the other. I lean out of the window and can savour with genuine ecstasy the sight of his drunken mincepies colliding with the sign saying “Crewe” as the train begins to pull away. He reaches back as if trying to stay our progress and then is snatched from my sight. Now it is just me and the crumpet in seat number A7.

She looks up as I come through the door and our eyes meet like they are connected by dotted lines.

“Newcastle?”

“Soon,” I say. “Oh my God!” This latter phrase may seem a bit uncalled for but I can vouch for its effectiveness if delivered with sufficient passion. Basically, what it means is: “I find you so paralysingly beautiful that I am temporarily robbed of the power of speech.” Such utterances are usually very well received by the kind of bird who finds it difficult to string five words into a sentence.

“What do you mean?” she says.

“You’re beautiful, aren’t you?” Few women will deny this.

“Oh,” she squeaks. I snatch up her hand and squeeze it passionately.

“When I first saw you—oh, I don’t know, it seems ridiculous saying this because we’ve only just met but I—I felt this strange thing happening to me. Do you know what I mean?”

How can she, but she nods vigorously. That is good because with the breathless approach you have to come to the boil pretty quickly. It’s either there or a quick case of the

South London Magistrates Court.

“I felt as if I had been carrying a picture of someone in my mind without really ever being able to put a face to it. Then, when I saw you—”

I look meltingly into her big blue eyes and her head tilts forward. This last gesture is equivalent to putting your bonce into the mouth of a lion with hiccups and I am not slow to slam my pinkies against hers. As lips go they are softer than underdone liver and generate enough heat to forge spare parts for half the British motor industry. That they smell of whisky I can forgive, especially since Supertwit paid for it.

“Darling,” I murmur, coming up for air. I glide my hands around the back of her head and stroke her ears with my thumbs. This might be the means of operating her tongue because that object starts bashing the inside of my mouth like its trying to find a way out through the back of my head. The arm rest is in the way so I press that up and pull her back to lay along the seat. I am on my hands and knees.

“What about—?” she murmurs, but she need say no more. I am the soul of discretion at moments like this and I spring lightly to my feet and pull down the blinds on the windows giving on to the corridor. Outside the slag heaps and the lights of small spurned stations are kaleidoscoping into the night but I am here pressing the light-switch towards the position marked “dim” and effortlessly releasing the buckle of my belt. The very motion of the train churns the lust round my pelvis until it takes on the consistency of cream and my nerve-ends tingle. I return to my original position and press up the last of the arm rests so my friend can extend her luscious frame without impediment. Our lips return to the position we have practically copy-righted and I allow my fingers to steal down to the fertile pasture land of her thighs. For a second her hand drops protectively on mine but the pressure is so weak that I know it is no more than a hangover from what she learned in the Brownies and I continue to press forward towards my goal. The attainment of same is made more easy by the fact that Big-Eyes is not wearing tights. Fellow stocking-lovers will rejoice with me in a mellow saunter down memory lane as I describe the electric ecstasy of my fingers tip-toeing over the brink of her stocking tops to be met by an expanse of warm, soft thigh. Restraining the impulse to run amok I fondle the faithful suspender and then, responding to the impulsive arch of her eager body slip my fingers under the tight stretch of her knickers. This is a frustrating exercise because the British are nothing if not excellent knicker-makers and it is difficult for my eager fingers to perform up to the standard they can attain when permitted uninhibited access.

Drawing back with reluctance, I tug down the clinging nylon and reveal the fur muff below. Over the unprotesting knees and I lower my mouth to nibble along the thighs. Now it is up to fursville and as I trip her panties over her ankles, so I perform an acrobatic love dive which jerks her heels against my shoulder blades whilst she makes contented moaning noises.

Her needs seem well catered for but mine as yet are only putting a strain on the front of my brushed denim. Guide, philosopher and friend I may soon have to be, but at this moment, Number One is screaming for action and I am not the man to stand in his way. Without discontinuing my labour of love I ease my jeans down over my heels and hope that a status-conscious ticket collector will not choose this moment to improve his promotion prospects. With the departure of my lower garment it is now possible for me to pay Big-Eyes the ultimate compliment and seizing her around the waist, I draw her forward so that she topples gently onto the floor. Beneath us, all is shudder, shake and quiver and my own body could play accompaniment without the aid of a musical instrument. Greedy sod that I am I now peel back her sweater so that I can see the glowing mounds of her breasts encased in heaving pink. Our mouths hold again and I slip my hands beneath her arched back to release the jack-in-the-box catch. My expectations are not disappointed. Her nipples are like dainty gherkins and when sucked pulsate like wire coils on a pin table machine.

With such a creature it is a problem to know where to go next but J.T. Superstar is now taking over my personality and, almost without being conscious of it, I find myself immersed in Big-Eyes right up to the dolly bags.

At this point I would like to try and step back from the narrative and say to you frankly – Ladies and Gentlemen, if you have never had it away on the floor of the 15.00 to Newcastle ring up British Railways tomorrow. You do not know what you have been a missing of. A B.R. Diesel churning it out at 80 m.p.h. beats any theme music put together by Mantovani, I can tell you.

During the next few hours, I learn that my new friend’s name is Janet and that she is training to be a gym mistress. This latter fact would come as no surprise to any of the flies on the carriage walls. She is a very athletic girl, there is no getting away from it, and after a couple of hours, I do want to get away from it. We have been having it away in every position except with me hanging from the communication cord by my big toe and that is only because I have been too terrified to mention it. Now she has me pinned in a corner and is rubbing her hands underneath my shirt and kissing the side of my neck in a manner that is clearly saying “get on with it”. I would like to oblige but my old man has about as much backbone as a boiled leek and I have to change the subject.

“I think we’re nearly there,” I say, intercepting her hands as they start tripping down to complain about the service. “At least, I am. You’re going to Newcastle, aren’t you?”

To my relief she sighs and reaches out for her knickers.

“No, no. I’m off on holiday.”

“Holiday?”

“Yes. I’m going to Melody Bay.”

“The holiday camp?”

“That’s right. Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Melody Bay as well,” I gulp.

“Ooh, that’s nice. We’ll see a lot more of each other, then.”

Bloody marvellous, isn’t it? After everything Sidney told me about fraternising with the customers, I’ve had it away with one of them before we even get through the camp gates. And she doesn’t look the kind of girl who is going to be satisfied with that little session for the next two weeks. Never mind, I will just have to keep out of her way. We don’t want any scandal threatening my new career before it has even started.

Looking back on the whole thing, I have to laugh at my naivete, I really do.

CHAPTER THREE

Melody Bay holiday camp is situated on the edge of town and surrounded by a high wire fence. This is presumably there to keep people out. The first impression is one of a lot of mock-tudor chalets layed out in orderly lines along paths with names like “Laughter Lane” and “Happiness Row”. From the bus I can see tennis courts and putting greens and a couple of large buildings that look like aircraft hangars (I later find out that they were aircraft hangars before their true potential was realised.) The camp is approached by the coast road and a wide expanse of almost empty beach stretches away opposite the main entrance. This entrance is vaguely reminiscent of those Hollywood studios I have seen pictures of. Gold topped wrought iron gates, a commissionaire type bod, and an inscription carved in the stonework. The difference is that this does not say “Ars gratia artis” but “Let good fellowship be your guide, and Laughter your companion”, Sir Giles Slat, founder of Funfrall Enterprises, who, I imagine, has quite a lot to laugh about. There are also some clinically perfect flowerbeds and a bloke made noticeably ridiculous by the jacket he is wearing. This is all-white, trimmed with black ribbon, and bearing a black ace of spades on the breast pocket. I have no sooner decided that he looks a complete berk than I see another one. This time the white blazer has a red trim and an ace of hearts on the pocket. Immediately, it occurs to me that these men must be Holiday Hosts and that I, too, will have to dress up like a refugee from a game of pontoon. The thought is not a cheering one and it is with heavy heart that I present myself before the commissionaire whose face immediately splits into a smile as false as the teeth delivering it. Janet, I should add, is not with me because I have darted away from her at the bus stop shouting “must get some razor blades, see you later” just as the appropriate vehicle pulls into sight. I have not mentioned to her that I am a Holiday Host, in the forlorn belief that my uniform will either make me unrecognisable or unattainable.

No sooner have I stepped over the threshold than what sounds like a Boer War tannoy delivers the following message of tinny cheer:

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to Melody Bay.

We all are here to please you and serve you in every way.”

Hardly have I recoiled from this than the commissionaire regrinds his gnashers and delivers himself of a few words of welcome.

“May I be the first to wish you a happy holiday and inform you that the reception area is directly across the college lawns. There, our Holiday Hosts will show you to your chalet and explain the programme to you.”

“I am a Holiday Host,” I say, “or at least, I soon will be. Where can I find Mr. Francis?”

The news that I am not a paying customer whips the smile from the doorman’s face like it had been secured with sellotape.

“You’ll find him in his office behind the crazy golf,” he grunts. “It’s past the netball court and the children’s zoo.”

With this description, I cannot go wrong, and shielding my eyes against sight of Janet, who I imagine by now has probably unpacked and is roaming the camp in search of prey, I bring myself to a position in which a quick rat-tat-tat on Mr. Francis’s door requires the co-operation of my outstretched arm.

“Come in,” says a voice right out of Father Christmas’s Grotto and I open the door.

The man behind the desk bounces to his feet and an expression of radiant joy burst across his thin features like sunshine.

“Mr. Francis,” I begin. “My name is Timothy Lea. I believe you are expecting me.”

Mr. Francis’s warm smile does not wane, but he shakes his head reproachfully.

“Come, come, laddie,” he intones. “Let’s try that again and this time with a smile. Remember the Holiday Host philosophy: A natural, ready smile for everybody from crack of dawn ’til last thing at night. When you speak, make me believe that the spirit of good cheer pervades your whole personality. —‘Hello, Mr. Francis. My name is Timothy Lea and I’m looking forward to working with you!’ Now, pop outside and let’s try the whole thing again.”

I feel a complete berk but what can I do? Mr. F. obviously calls the shots around here and maybe all the good cheer will come naturally after a while. I stumble outside and notice that beneath his name on the door it says “keep smiling”. I try and put this into effect and etching a grisly grin across my features bound through the door to repeat my introduction. This time I get it right because Francis pumps my hand up and down like he is trying to separate it from my body and the laughter lines round his mouth resemble mongol scar tissue.

“Welcome, laddie, welcome,” he beams. “I don’t know how much you know about our particular operation but you have probably seen some of our Holiday Hosts going about their tasks. Our job is to keep holiday makers amused twenty-four hours a day if need be and for the purpose of organising team games and competitions we divide the camp up into four villages, Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades—” an impression of an encampment. of Zulus flashes across my mind but I keep it to myself— “Each village has its own Holiday Hosts and these are distinguished by the emblems on the pockets of their blazers. I trust that this is clear? Good. You will be joining the Happy Hearts where I am certain you will find an excellent team spirit prevailing. Team spirit is the answer, Timothy. We all work for each other here. Team spirit and. a warm sincere smile for every man, woman and child you come into contact with. Do you play the banjo?”

I shake my head.

“What a pity. We have our ‘Swanee River Ramble’ this evening and a touch of the banjos would have been most appropriate. Not to worry, though, we’ll get by without it. One thing I should warn you about and that is hanky panky. Steer clear of hanky panky, Timothy. There are temptations and some of the ladies do get a bit frisky before the onslaught of the ozone. But resist, always, resist. Remember your obligation to your employers and to the great family unit we are all serving.” Even as he speaks I expect to hear Janet scratching at the door. “I haven’t been here long myself and one of the reasons I was posted here was because moral standards amongst some members of the staff – only some, I hasten to add – had become lax. Abuse of trust is a terrible thing, laddie. Some Hosts had to hand in their blazers—” He pauses so I can register the full horror of what he is saying.

“I would hate to have to live through a day like that again.”

I nod my head solemnly.

“But we don’t want to live in the past, do we, laddie?” Francis slaps me on the shoulder, jarring the smile back on my face. “It’s the future we have to think about. You cut along to the Ocean Restaurant and report to Mr. Hotchkiss who is supervising high tea. He’ll issue you with your blazer and show you the ropes. Alright? Right! Keep smiling and good luck!”

I go out beaming and it takes about fifty yards to get my face back to normal. Really, this smiling bit is going to be the death of me. The Ocean Restaurant looms ahead and as I make my way towards it, I come across a small clearing amongst the chalets in which two teams of women are playing netball. From the emblems on their well endowed chests it seems as if Clubs are playing Diamonds and the game is generating a fair amount of agro not diminished by the crowds of supporters standing around the court, most of whom seem to be drunk.

“Do her, Bertha!”

“Get stuck in, Diamonds.”

“Ooh, you dirty cow!”

“Watch your filthy mouth, you slut!”

“Come on ref. Get a grip.”

The referee is a fair-haired gangling youth wearing a Spades Holiday Host Blazer, who is vainly trying to keep control of the game without resorting to physical force. His smile is a bit frayed at the edge but it is still there.

“Come on,” he pipes. “Well done. Oh dear. I think we’d better have a free throw there, hadn’t we? Remember, it’s only a game, no need to get too excited. And could spectators keep off the court? Thank you very much. Right now, where’s the ball? The ball? Can we have the ball back, please?”

He gets the ball alright – straight in the mush from one of the crowd. There is no doubt about it, they take their games seriously at Melody Bay. I leave the poor sod to it as two women start pulling each other’s hair and the crowd surges on to the pitch and press forward to the Ocean Restaurant. Quite why it has this name it is difficult to know, unless the corrosive effect of the brine on its walls has anything to do with it. From close to it looks like a wet sponge.

Inside, I get my first view of the Melody Bay holidaymakers en masse and it’s obvious that they enjoy exercising their gnashers. Elbows are flying in all directions and there is hardly an H.P. sauce bottle which is not divebombing a plate. It is clear that food is provided on a self-service basis and behind a long counter a bevy of cooks in tall French Chef’s hats are ladling out goodies. The human voice is much in evidence but this is nearly drowned by the tannoy system which is dishing out a medley of “Workers’ Playtime’s greatest hits” interspersed with commercials for the pleasures to come: “Hello campers, we hope you are all enjoying your fine cured ham. We don’t know what went wrong with it but we think we have cured it real fine” – pause for silence – “but seriously folks, we just want to remind you that this evening the Swanee River Ramble will be taking place in the camp theatre at nineteen thirty hours – seven thirty to you old stagers – and that there will be prizes for the best riverboat costumes, gamblers, hustlers, cowpokes, saloon girls, you name it, we’re giving prizes for it, because remember:

“Welcome, welcome, you’re welcome at Melody Bay.

We all are here to please you and serve you in every way.”

Once the strains of the familiar dirge have faded away I approach the nearest Holiday Host and am directed to a thick-set curly-haired man of about thirty-five who is standing by one of the serving hatches and beaming at everyone approaching it in the manner of a vicar shaking hands with the congregation outside a church. As I draw near, he is addressing a neat redhead with a blouse knotted across her plump little tummy.

“O.K. luvvie. I should be through about twelve, I’ll leave the back door open for you.”

Quite how I should interpret these words in the light of my address from Mr. Francis I do not know, but no doubt there is a very simple explanation apart from the one that flashes across my sewer-soaked mind.

“Mr. Hotchkiss?” I say brightly, “my name is Timothy Lea.”

“Call me Ted. Hello Timmy. Yes. I heard you were on the way. Have a good trip, did you?”

He shakes my hand warmly and, although it is difficult to be certain in the presence of such all-pervading good cheer, seems genuinely glad to see me.

“Seen Mr. Hanky Panky, have you?” he continues. “Got the message about putting your Y-Fronts on back to front when you leave your chalet, laddie? Hey – look at the pair on that one. Grind you to death, wouldn’t they? Have you had anything to eat?”

“Er, no. What’s it like here?”

“The food? Diabolical. I don’t know what they do to it. The raw materials are alright, I’ve seen them. I think they play football with it, to tell you the truth. It’s alright if you like chips. You get chips with your cornflakes here.”

“But you never get any complaints?”

“Only medical ones. I’ve known times when it’s been more like sick bay than Melody Bay. No, the only complaints about the food are if it’s not covered in chips. Hello Gladys – she’s a goer, that one. I’ve still got the marks of her nails down the door of my chalet. Like bloody cats they are. She comes every year – and every five mintes, too, if you give her the chance.”

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