Regret to Inform You... Read Online Free

sometimes like sharing each other’s parents as well as having one’s own and when there was a family sadness that, too, was shared. They all knew that Jack’s father, Edward Atkins, had been killed in a terrible thunderstorm and how all the community had given huge support to Olivia, his lovely widow.
    The six went on to swap stories of their schooldays, recent family and village news, as although most lived at home still, work gave them little time to all meet up.
    â€˜Do you know,’ chipped in Jammy Carey, ‘I’ve sometimes felt a bit ashamed of some of the things we used to get up to.’
    â€˜Like what?’ asked Racer.
    â€˜Well, like the time we moved old Grumpy Grout’s privy.’
    â€˜I don’t know about that one,’ intervened Jack Atkins.
    â€˜Well,’ went on Jammy who had first mentioned this old exploit, ‘you remember old Grumpy whose cottage backed on to the pond? He always seemed a miserable old devil anyway, but I’d been ticked off by him for skimming some stones across the pond. I know it didn’t involve you, Jack, but Fred, Boney and I decided we’d play a bit of a trick on him. At that time Grumpy’s privy was a small shed in his rear garden that backed right on to the pond. We all knew that he went to The Queens Head every night, so during the evening we slipped into his back garden and managed to lift the privy up and turn it right round, so the door almost hung over the pond. We then waited nearby. Eventually old Grumpy came home and, just as we knew he would, he walked down his garden to the privy. Of course, he couldn’t understand what had happened as he obviously couldn’t get inside it.’
    â€˜So what happened next?’ asked Racer who had certainly not heard this one before.
    â€˜Well, he just went and pissed in the pond. A bit disappointing really,’ answered Jammy. ‘Poor old Grumpy.’
    â€˜Well, I never knew about that, though of course, I remember Grumpy Grout well enough. One thing I must tell you,’ continued Racer, ‘as I expect you know Mr Mansfield always has a party night just before Easter at Spinney Farm. He says it’s his way of thanking everyone. It’s always on the Wednesday before Easter. He says that as there aren’t so many workers now that he’s brought in more machinery, we can each take along three or four friends. So, how about it? It will be a good evening, anything up to fifty people.’
    Jammy Carey knew he could not make the event as he would still be in Ilford working on a building site that had to be finished by the end of April, but the rest thought they could manage it and agreed on a seven o’clock meet up in The George.
    â€˜We can then all walk up to Spinney Farm,’ added Racer. ‘There will be plenty of beer, some girls if we’re lucky. You’ve got a good voice, Boney, so we can rely on you for our singsong.’
    Other things they had done were recounted. Jammy Carey, who had spent much of the time since leaving school working away from the village, asked about the vicar’s wife. ‘I hadn’t really seen her before. She is beautiful. Do you have to be a man of the cloth to get a wife like that?’ There were smiles and laughs; Jammy’s interest in girls had started well before leaving school, although all of them had regularly swapped stories about village girls, tales often exaggerated. Before long their evening came to an end with warm handshakes as they left, either singly or with friends. All of them had jobs to go to the next day, even though it was a Saturday.
    That they were now not able to meet together so regularly probably caused them to be a little out of practice in sharing each other’s troubles: Fred, worrying about his overworked and sickly mother; Willy, of his beloved sister Ruby; and Boney Jones about his injured father who would probably never be able to work again.