ANOTHER VISIT TO "THE CITY & COUNTY"

As long term followers of the Herefordshire VBCW will tell you only too readily, the varied customers (ladies, spivs, spies and the like) of the City & County Dining & Refreshment Rooms, situated hard by Hereford's famous "Old House" in High Town [note 1], are always first with the VBCW gossip. And these days there's an awful lot of gossip to catch up on....

Dorothy and Agatha always choose "tea at The City & County"
 to discuss the latest local news....

(1). Do you know what "the Reichsmarshall" is doing with his time nowadays? Playing with model trains! After all, the Hereford Museum and Art Gallery didn't detain him for long, did it, especially when he found he couldn't "acquire" anything. And as for the local huntin' n' shootin', well, he had the nerve to describe it as 'small fry'! Would you believe it? He's not even interested in fishing! The management of the Castle House Hotel were quite besides themselves with worry about how to entertain him, until someone hit on this brilliant idea. Now their entire attic space is given over to the Reichsmarshall's new train set, and he spends hours up there, honestly, its true, my cousin told me and she's the Assistant to the General Manager....

(2). Well, if the Reichsmarshall's not interested in riding to hounds, I can tell you about a certain hulking German who's available for galloping, if you know what I mean, Agatha. Now that poor, dear Stokkies is a prisoner of the Ludlow Anglicans, well, the field is clear, as it were....

Lady Edith Watkins absorbs the latest gossip -
'The field is clear!"

(3). Poor Stokkies Joubert! Did you hear he's caused a fashion craze in Ludlow? He has to serve the tea at the Ludlow Women's Institute, you see; it's part of his 'community course of rehabilitation' on some kind of 'day release'. Well, what with the prayers, the tea urn and his neat little pinny, it seems that the spectacle has been all too much for certain Ludlow 'fashionistas':

"The Stokkies" wraparound pinafore. Now an essential
 fashion item for Ludlow's VBCW ladies.

(4). Do you think Stokkies could ever 'break out', just like dear, dear Sir Alan McGuffin? Well, Winter's lot have tried to hush it up, of course, but there's no doubt - Sir Alan, his batman, McGuffin, his driver, McCavity, and quite a few others have definitely escaped from the "Presteigne Re-Education (No.1) Camp". Not just escaped, mind, but even stolen one of the Communist's latest and largest Assault Guns! Well, it seems that Comrade Winters had only left a skeleton crew of guards behind, rushing all his infantry to the front line and some of his senior NCOs back across the border into Wales. Yes, yes, I've heard all about the two "Shock Fronts" he claims to have been training up there. But the point is, Dorothy, the prisoners were able to overpower the remaining guards, somehow - and even have the time to rifle through the "Communist Front" offices in Presteigne itself! The printing press of "Red Star Presteigne", the photo labs of the "Bureau Desinformatsiya"......yes, apparently Commissar Moody was quite beside himself when he found out. Well, they thought that Sir Alan was looking for some secret information, but we all know that he was just trying to recover his bag of clubs and favourite 'mashie niblick", don't we? 

(5). No, we don't know where he is at the moment, dear, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Sir Alan turned up in Bromyard eventually. After all, Councillor Dribblesnot played no part in the utter destruction of the Hereford Golf Course, did he? More than can be said for anyone else! And Dribblesnot's apparently considering a "surprise attack" on Leominster, yes, using levies funded by a "carefully arranged" overdraft on Lloyds Bank, Bromyard. Of course, they say it was 'arranged' at the point of .303 rifle, don't they, and isn't the Councillor a sweetie for thinking that anything could be 'a surprise' in Herefordshire...

Sir Alan McGuffin and the crew of his original 'behemoth'.
Following his capture, this vehicle is said to have been
destroyed in the process of Communist 'reverse engineering''.

(6). I don't know about Sir Alan's latest 'behemoth', but Lord de Braose hasn't been making much progress with his 'DIY dredger'. Oh, they got it up from Gloucester, alright, and they've been tinkering with it at Sully's Garage ever since. Yes, the Chairman of the Wye Anglers' Club told me all about it. It may be some time before we see gunboats on the Wye, he thinks, if that's the rate of progress for "HMS Dredgenaught"!

An Anglican spy takes careful note of all the gossip in the City & County.

(7). Where are our Air Raid Precautions, that's what I want to know? It's all very well messing about on the Wye, I suppose, but the "aerial arms race" has left us all in peril. Radio Red Presteigne never cease boasting about their new "air strength", and the Anglicans say they trust in God but keep their heavy bombers ready. What's Lord de Braose doing to protect us, hmmm?

(8). He's probably too worried about the BUF build-up in the County, Dorothy. All those tanks and armoured vehicles coming in from Tewkesbury, and the rumour is that there are at least two more BUF 'legions' already here and mobilising. Nobody quite knows what Mosley's planning - some kind of 'big offensive' perhaps, or even a coup against Lord de Braose and his Royalists?

(9). Surely not, dear. Why, I saw Major Everard scurrying off to the train station only this morning, followed by his entire battle staff. He looked perfectly calm, I assure you. The rumour is that he's conferring with Senior Captain Maynard in Leominster even now, assessing the new situation that's arisen with the 'republican revolution' in Bromyard. Of course, the saving grace might be that Councillor Dribblesnot hates Colonel Professor Winters more than any Royalist. The Left do detest each other when they fall out, don't you find?

Rumours of an imminent coup by the BUF against Lord de Braose's
Royalists are discounted by all intelligent commentators.

Notes

(1). The Bishop of Ludlow's Blog now contains a detailed look at the Old House, Hereford, including some photographs accurately placing the City & County Dining and Refreshment Rooms in the context of Hereford's High Town. See HERE

(2). Previous campaign gossip can be found HERE. Experience enables the wise commentator some judgment on its reliability (or otherwise).