Back in `88 my eccentric great “uncle” the taxidermist Kerrington Quazi-Pots (he had married into the family – obviously) told me a rather amusing bitter-sweet story regarding his late grandfather Gastonbard Farris Pots (the self proclaimed inventor of the Digby Sandwich) and the tragedies that befell him the previous summer. “If only we’d have known you then Charlie, you could have whipped something together tout suite… Something suitable. Something jaunty for the little feller.” We were sitting in the luxuriant English garden of the Bog and Toad in West Witherington. He went on…
Gastonbard Farris had been betrothed to his good lady wife Ethel for 62 years although, it was, eventually, an unhappy marriage because Gaston, after a serious brush with lightning on the moors one night had become wholly asexual; albeit, with a disturbing penchant for both dwarfism and amputation…BUT…anyway..I digress….
Well, tragedy of tragedies Gastonbard had returned one late summer evening from a few pints too many of “Dabger Best Colostomy” at the Thieves’ Fingers public house to find Ethel as dead as a doornail, face down in the small, murky deep of the gratuitously ornate Koi carp pond at the end of their garish yellow patio. She had had a preponderence for hats and their dainty, delicate tissue filled boxes.
Around her lay the fractured smithereens of several of Gaston’s 350 treasured golden gnomes, just to run sour salty insult into the bitter-sweet injury. Of course with the mixed emotions of his wife’s death and fascinating speudo-amputational destruction of the gnomes Gaston retreated into himself for awhile in search of something he was never quite able to find. Nor should have for that matter. Barry Judd the constables son came and filled it in. The pond; not Gaston’s fragile, egg shell mind that is. He traipsed wet concrete throughout the house as there was no access outside and Gaston didn’t care; besides – he “…weren’t chargin nothin’ and it wont hurt none.”
A few weeks passed and Gaston, lost in the loneliness of the bungalow, and unable to cope turned to drink, nothing too exotic, just his own urine, and conversed day and night with his beloved gnomes – most of which were now missing an appendage or two. Naturally EVERYONE was worried about his physical and mental health so the youngest nephews Froderique and Hughlow, with their bauble clad mother Phregenia Sputtles, took it upon themselves to find a young puppy to keep Uncle Gaston company.
Phregenia drove her white and gold Honda to Buttersley Dogs Home and successfully managed to pick up the worlds only three legged pekinese pug labradoodle whom they imaginatively named Plog…And by god it was an ugly thing; almost ugly enough to scare away water itself! But not quite.
Gaston’s 88th birthday soon came around and the family assembled at his house for the great big cheer up: “….it’s been his worst year ever Hughlow…” Phregenia muttered to Hughlow, “so you just be on your best behaviour…AND DON’T DRINK ANYTHING indoors.” Absent minded to the Nth degree both children had minds like sieves – incapable of holding much at all. ell, nothing important anyway.
Hughlow and Dallas set up their small but inflatable paddling pool in the backyard and while it filled they marched inside for some Digby sandwiches *. Gaston appeared to mumbler obscenities during the first quarter of the Liverpool match and both Houston and Dallas were beside themselves with excitement about their SURPRISE and protege; the amazingly ugly puplet Plog. Hopping about and darting to and fro’ like a man on hot coals Hughlow waved his water wings like a troubled hen: “Please, let me, let me!!”.
“SSshhhh. Not yet Hughlow; no. BEEE QUUIET!” Ephregenia quipped, “There are more Digbies coming.” At this point in time a knock at the door announced the arrival of the neighbours Crecil and Franny. Crecil and Franny had twenty years on Gaston, were twice as unkempt AND well and truly as close to being through the exit in God’s Waiting Room as one could be and retain living breath. They thought the golden gnomes were icons of Beelzebub. But then again, they thought wheelie bins were part of an extra terrestrial conspiracy.
Froderique produced another round of soggy sandwiches alongside a garish orange Tupper of stale looking and fetid pork rinds that resembled a dust rolled pile of elephants toenails at which Gaston finally broke from his torpor; and they tucked in to the tune of another goal from the boys in Red. “Bloody Communists and Lefties! Churchill knew what were good for ‘em.” he hissed and sank back into his seat, pork rinds about his chops and lapsing back into a “state” of nigh unconsciousness.
“Okay boys; now’s the time…” Ephregenia quietly squawked in exasperation. “Time for the ess, you, are, pee, are, eye , ess, ee. “
Hughlow leapt to his feet like a man who had sat upon an impromptu hedgehog. ” Yes, Yes!” He shrieked with glee. “Let’s!” Frederique put down his Digby and nonchalantly rose to his feet with the smug air of a greasy political victor: “But just where is Plog?” he enquired, smart-arse that he was.
“Yes where is he boys, where have you hidden him?” Phregenia quizzed, her furrowed brow curling about her hooky, over-made face.
“I…don’t…know…” Hughlow quivered back in almost-unison, looking into his feet as though the Wayward pup might emerge from them at any given moment. He had been the dogs chief consort and protector throughout these early, innocent, puppy fat days. It was a succulent time of laughter and play, camaraderie – solidarity. They were best chums!
“Well, hurry up and find him. For God’s Sake.”
A search of epic proportions began; upstairs, downstairs, in the cupboards, beneath the sink, the drawers, wardrobes, tallboys and compactums, in the utility room, in fact, everywhere. Amongst Gaston’s collections of crap that he had been hoarding in every room. Amongst his pickling jars. Amongst the litter. Amongst the mouldy clothes of his deceased wife. Amongst the dusty crevices of his life. Amongst the dust, that remained, of his wife. But to no avail. Plog had “..vanished into thin air.” according to Froderique. They stood around in the hovel of Gaston’s lounge, dumb, like stupid useless statues to the tune of his oblivious, rhinocerous snore. Phregenia had had enough.
“Come on kids, lets go – we can come back in half an hour I’m sure that hound’s here somewhere – probably buried under Gaston’s crap. ffff…I need a cafe-au-lait.” She looped her snakeskin handbag across one shoulder and, with her long dirty green fingernails, stroked young Hughlow’s scruffy head: “Frody!” He was molding a sandwich into a tacky ball or turnip, cheese and vinegar. “Come ON!” Marching to the front door, her gold heel snared and took castaway old dirty tissue from happier “hatbox” times in Gaston’s life. Out the front they filed like a miniature model army; Phrenegia, Froderique and Hughlow backing up the rear. Froderique threw his cheese ball, like a grenade, over the twisted fence, into the neighbour’s garden.
“Frody for gods sake! I’ll remove your bloody privileges!”
“Can we have an ice cream?” Hughlow asked, “I`m thirsty?”
Their voices grew more distant and charmingly remote. Like a fading memory, like last year when things were alot better. As though time itself were dissembling. When things were alright and none of these stupid interfering nincompoops had crawled out of the woodwork. When the milk still came in a bottle. When we won the cricket. That’s it. When the cricket was played properly. Well; that is what HE thought; smiling intermittently and chuckling half guiltily into his sleeve; and watched, the clear motionless afternoon moon, and the soggy white, gently circling, furry body of Plog, in the weeping pool. The tiny fresh pink tongue, like the first dahlias of a spring fresh sprung, and the motionless ebony set button eyes. Very, very slowly Gaston turned off the tap.
“Would you like another?” Kerrington asked and lit his church-warden.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“Another Quaggles Best?”
“No, I`ll have a Bad Elf this time, yes, a Bad Elf”
“Hahaha” he laughed, “Hahahaha” like a gargling drain and emptied his bowl into the large blue ceramic ashtray, “A good choice my man.”
“Well, a toast to the children Hughlow and Froderique and the old fudder too, good on him I say!”
“Yes, yes” Kerrington laughed as he slipped into the doorway of the saloon, “He died the very next week. Killed by one of the gnomes in a bizarre bath tub incident…”
*The Digby sandwich is a rather unusual sandwich requiring a very few simple ingredients and some rather strange processes. It is not a recipe recommended here by myself, Charlie Underwood, but I will reprint it for your amusement and delectation:
1. Cathedral City cheddar – marinade for as long as you can stand in the tepid juice of turnips.
2. Vinegar.
3. Grate your cheese into two slices of toast and sprinkle liberally with vinegar – add salt petre to taste.
We met up at Three Sheets for a few wee drams of Lavagulan’s finest 18 year old Scotch and headed out to meet the rest of the gang at the L’olonnaise Bar and Grill. As we lit out into the street Belzer eulogised about the old days in 
That’s not to say the young ones weren’t stupid and recalcitrant as well as bloody ugly; not to say their mouths weren’t working overtime – they bickered and shrieked like gulls about a bag of chips, swore like troopers and upon the food’s arrival fought like scurvy mongrels over each others repasts. I ordered another Lavagulan while Belzer regaled me with more tales of his time in the Carrot Valley. By the time the ribs arrived I was on my fourth glass and Belzer on his sixth. And justly so, the delinquents were in complete uproar.
“At last!” I thought to myself as the paramedics lifted the Brig from his dinner “Some peace and quiet.” But for a few whispers the celebrations were over. As Brigadier Solomon rolled by I couldn’t help looking into his empty eyes, frozen with fear, thinking to myself “…he’s a gonner this time; six foot one by three and a half, white, chrome furniture, with the Union Jack”. Looking askance at the oikish children Belzer whispered into my ear, “It’s been a long time coming Charlie, but the old buzzard’ll probably make it through for another month of misery…’nother whiskey?”