Bank Holiday bickering, missing bunting and who’s the best man? A confusing week in Ambridge

Bad blood on Bank Holiday Monday

Lynda Snell and her indefatigable team of organisers pulled off a remarkably successful May Day event over the Bank Holiday weekend – even though the day seemed set for disaster when the May Queen’s crown was stolen by the Button sisters and the Morris Men’s transport broke down.

‘We triumphed – and we needed a triumph after so much trauma,’ Lynda sighed with relief. ‘If you ignore the petty larceny,’ snapped Shula, whose day was already ruined because Richard Locke has pulled out of their lunch date.

Kenton was in a filthy bate too, as he had to accept David’s help in running the barbecue. ‘If you think you can make everything better by slicing a few burger buns, you do not understand the situation,’ he hissed, eyeing up the distance between the white-hot grill and his brother’s backside.

Luckily David is so thick-skinned he felt he and Kenton had made progress, and now plans to offer him a loan, to prevent Jill from dipping into her savings. Not that he is doing this solely for family harmony. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for the village losing its pub,’ he said. Let’s hope Kenton is suitably grateful for David’s largesse… 

First-time voters swing shock poll result

Local residents Philippa Rose Archer and Jack McCreery confounded the pollsters last Thursday and helped deliver a completely unexpected Conservative majority in the general election, the Ambridge Observer can exclusively reveal.

‘My ma wouldn’e believe it,’ said Mr McCreery, known locally as Jazzer. ‘I voted for yon wee ginger woman and got 56 MPs!’

‘I thought voting didn’t matter to young, cool people like me,’ said ‘Pip’ Archer, who is about to take her finals at Felpersham University. ‘But then a horrid man at the Hunt dinner told me he didn’t approve of gay marriage and I knew I had to take a stand.’

‘I was so pleased to help younger members of the community exercise their democratic right’, said Pip’s cousin Helen Archer, who guided the two first-timers through the process. ‘After all, my partner Rob let me out to vote, and told me what to do, so how could I refuse to do the same?’

Detective David delves into the drains

The mystery of the blocked culvert at Berrow Farm deepened this week when Rachel from the Environment Agency, who is tall, but knows her stuff, told David that her team would have checked and cleared the culvert last November. ‘It’s a mystery; we’ll probably never know what happened,’ sighed Ruth, who’s preoccupied because Pip has an interview for the job as a jillaroo in Queensland.  But that wasn’t good enough for David.  He ever so casually asked Rob at the farmers’ cash and carry if Berrow Farm had taken any ‘special precautions’ to prevent flooding (such as blocking the culvert to divert the water into the village.)

‘No, I was too busy rescuing your sister and aunt’, grumbled Rob, pretending to look at new riding gloves and trying to hide his ever-lengthening nose.

Who’s the best man: Eddie, Will – or Toby?

Toby and Rex Fairbrother, the young guns who are moving to Ambridge to farm celebration poultry, look set to cause even more of a stir than their father Robin did when he dallied with a young Elizabeth Pargetter back in the day.

This time it’s the turn of Pip Archer to catch Toby’s eye (Rex has a career-ending neck injury that cramps his style with the ladies). Having changed her plans so she could spend the day shearing with Toby, Pip wowed him with her sledgehammer-subtle flirting style. ‘I can take any physical challenge you can throw at me!’ she giggled, unaware of the lump of sheep poo in her hair.

‘I’m looking forward to seeing you in action!’ he leered back. ‘I could say the same about you!’ she replied, before they both got down to some hot and sweaty action (you mean catching sheep and rolling fleeces. Ed)

Meanwhile Charlie Thomas was suspiciously reasonable when Ed asked him if he could transfer his tenancy of 50 acres over to the bird-loving Fairbrothers. ‘Things are really looking up,’ smiled Ed. All he has to do now is decide who he wants to be his best man. He’s asked his dad, but Clarrie and Joe think it should be brother William – like Emma’s last wedding, but just swapping roles. Remembering how well that went, he might be better off asking Toby, who clearly thinks he is always best man.

Musical interlude shows the Grundys have still got it

Guests at Grey Gables were delighted by an inpromptu folk evening this week as Joe Grundy and his son Eddie practised their repertoire of country songs old and new in the lounge. The set began with ‘Fair maid of Edgeley’, which soon got the crowd’s toes tapping, followed by the raucous ‘Cobbler of Borchester’ and Joe’s own composition, ‘Bartleby’s no match for my Susan’.

‘We enjoyed it, although for some reason a younger man with them – Ed, I think his name was – was begging them to stop,’ said one guest. ‘It was better than those hunting horns the toffs were blowing at their dinner the other night.’

Missing bunting ties police up in knots

House-to-house enquiries and a fingertip search of the village green have proved fruitless in finding thieves who stole a valuable string of bunting between Bank Holiday Monday and Tuesday morning.

‘ I thought it would be safe up in the trees overnight,’ said Ms Fallon Rogers of the Ambridge Tea Service. ‘Emma and I made every piece of it by hand. It’s my trademark!’

Rural crime officer PC Harrison Burns appealed for witnesses to come forward. ‘I will donate a free road safety demonstration to anyone who provides information leading to an arrest in this distressing case, ‘ he said.