Mrs Slocombe sits in the winged back chair by the flickering fire so her shadow is dancing eerily against the walls of the dining room. She likes to create a bit of an atmosphere although not the sort where you bang cupboard doors because someone has left an empty cereal packet on the worktop rather than putting it in the bin which is just THERE. After all, Christmas Eve is the traditional time for telling ghost stories. And before you all write in, the Author know it’s not Christmas Eve and also knows that this isn’t really a ghost story. But the Author does know it’s the ‘half-way there’ episode and therefore the point where she traditionally feel a bit frantic and is grasping for tenuous plot points. So hush, you bunch of pedants. Her story, her rules.
‘Do you mind?’ says Mrs Slocombe.
‘Soz,’ says the Author.
Mrs Slocombe steeples together the ends of her wings and rests the tip of her beak on the top. She clears her throat and begins…
‘’Twas the season of Christmas 1956. Simple times, back then, times before Christmas was driven by the stench of commercialism. Times when you erected your tree on Christmas Eve, made paper chains for decorations, got a satsuma and puzzle book in your stocking and nobody puked into the coal scuttle because they’d eaten too much for dinner. As a treat, my dear old Mum took me and my thirteen brothers and sisters to see Father Christmas, who was visiting the nearby village hall a few days before Christmas Day. As a curious chick, I questioned his early appearance and Mum told me he made pre-Christmas visits to special villages because he was so busy on Christmas Eve.
‘I believed her because she was my Mum and her reasoning sounded feasible to my young chick ears. Anyway, off we went – me, Myrtle, Bertie, Norman, Irene, Felicity, Shirley, Pat, Graham, Wendy, Sue, Ignatius, Pearl and Dean – all excited because we had never seen Father Christmas in real life before…”
‘And how old were you again?’ says Inspector Spectre.
’27 days old,’ says Mrs Slocombe.
‘Continue,’ says Inspector Spectre, like that piece of information makes any difference whatsoever.
'I remember the village hall looked beautiful,’ says Mrs Slocombe, her voice tinged with wistful nostalgia. 'Decked with holly and ivy, a large tree in the corner, the buzz of excitement from all the chicks gathered to meet this magical Christmas celebrity…’
‘I bet all that excitement set off your dodgy bladder,’ says Mrs Miggins.
‘Absolutely it did!’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘I asked my Mum when Father Christmas would be arriving and did I have time to pop to the little hens’ room…and she said, yes, if I hurried. She said, ‘Listen for the sound of jingle bells and that will tell you that Father Christmas has arrived.’
'So off I ran to find the village hall toilets. Now, I was a tiny chick, remember, and bearing in mind the village hall was very busy and full of excited bustle, it didn’t take long for me to get a bit lost, and I found myself outside. It was a lovely evening – clear skies, twinkling stars, a light dusting of snow falling…’
‘Sounds idyllic,’ says Inspector Spectre, wishing she'd get a move on.
‘It was,’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘I couldn’t have been more full of Christmas cheer if I’d eaten a whole walnut whip by myself. So, there I was, wandering around outside - and then I heard them. The jingle bells! Father Christmas must be near-by, I thought. And I knew that he was kind and jolly and would be only too happy to help a slightly lost tiny chick to find her way back inside.
‘So I followed the sound of the jingle bells, along the back of the village hall and around the corner. And that’s when I saw him…’
She breaks off her story-telling and takes a little breath.
‘Carry on,’ says Mrs Pumphrey, who is sitting with a torch shining upwards from beneath her chin, for added spooky ghost-telling story effect.
‘Well,’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘I shall never forget the sight that met my eyes that terrible, terrible evening. There he was – Father Christmas…looking quite, quite hideous - sans teeth, sans taste, sans everything.’
‘Surely not sans pantaloons??’ says Mrs Pumphrey, agog with the suggested scandal.
‘Oooh no,’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘Not THAT sans. But his jolly red cloak and hat were hanging on the village hall fence, his sturdy black boots were standing on the back door of the hall and he was…smoking a cigarette and swigging whiskey from a very big bottle in his pants!’
(For visitors across the waters, pants does not mean trousers. It means pants. Of the under variety.)
Everyone in the room gasps!
‘No!’ says Mrs Miggins, who isn’t easily shocked.
‘That’s terrible!’ says Mrs Poo. ‘Father Christmas in a state of drunken undress!’
‘And smoking a cigarette!’ says Ptolemy, who could write a jolly good rhetorical polemic about the evils of smoking to match the one on alcohol by Mr Noah S “Soggy” Sweat. He would call it Ptolemy’s Ptobacco Ptolemic.
Mrs Slocombe, revelling in the ripple of shock she has caused, continues with enthusiasm.
‘I gave a peep of horror at the sight before my innocent chick eyes, and do you know what he did? He looked at me, stamped out his cigarette and said, ‘Clear off, you nosey little b*^!*#d!’
A shocked silence descends on the room. This is NOT appropriate Father Christmas behaviour at all.
Inspector Spectre ventures to speak. Even he is shocked, and he’s done some pretty despicable things in his time. ‘How did it make you feel, Mrs Slocombe?’ he says.
‘Well, how do you think?’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘Upset, scared, angry…take your pick. It made me feel like I didn’t care if I never saw Father Christmas…EVER again!’
Inspector Spectre draws closer to the fire and leans into the shadows. ‘And did you ever see Father Christmas again?’ he says.
‘No,’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘Because I….’
‘…murdered Father Christmas!’ says Inspector Spectre, pointing a triumphant and accusatory finger at Mrs Slocombe.
And Mrs Slocombe promptly bursts into tears causing Mrs Miggins to crack open another bottle of Sunny D.
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