Last of the Summer Walking Frame

April 24th 2006

“There are three men with walking frames at the front door,” said The Trouble, with her expression of ‘And what have you been up to now?’ on her face.

I looked up from my Oldie magazine, trying to look unconcerned. “Oh yes?”

“What do they want?”

I spread my hands. “Search me. Perhaps they’re collecting for something?”

“Well if it’s walking frames they’re collecting they’re having a lot of success. See to them would you.”

I went to the front door. Abreast of each other were Mr Jeffs, Mr Barnaby and Mr Ross. Standing behind their walking frames they looked like a small football crowd. How had they known where I lived?

“Mr Atkins told us where you lived,” said Mr Jeffs, as if on cue. I made a mental note to give Atkins Down The Road a piece of my mind the next time we met; they’d obviously called on him and now he was making me have some of what they’d given him.

“Why haven’t you been turning up for training?” asked Mr Ross?

“I’ve decided to change my event.” Well I had to say something.

I thought quickly. They would no doubt want to know which event I’d switched to. The Downhill Stairlift was the first paraplegic-like competition that sprang to mind. I would tell them I was already in training for it and had already got very close to Thora Hird’s long-standing record. But hang on a minute. Downhill Stairlift? Wouldn’t that be a Winter Paralympics event? Are there such a thing as the Winter Paralympics? Skiing down the side of a mountain at a hundred miles-an-hour is difficult enough as it is without being hampered by having only one arm or one leg or partial sight, so probably not.

“What event are you going in for then?” asked Mr Jeffs.

“Putting the Truss,” I said. “In fact I’m just off to the hospital for a new one, nice seeing you all again,” and with that I walked down the drive and out of their lives forever. I hope.

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Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

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