The Reverend Miss P, who for years had cheerfully warded
off the attentions of the men of her parish, invited me on one of her well-organised rambles.

Later I watched as she tucked into her lasagne in The Peckish Partridge,
a pub she insisted we go to, rather than that other hostelry, The Feisty Farmer,
which has, as she pointed out, ‘Pictures of busty women admiring a sweaty blacksmith,’
then declaring, ‘Images like that endorse the myth of the domineering male.’

To disguise my surprise at this outburst, I teased her about the many calories contained in said meal.

But she retorted with a diatribe about her achievements as a Beacon’s Bottom Harrier,
then made me feel like a couch potato when she listed her weekly running mileage.

I was further impressed when she said, ‘So I think you’ll agree that I’m entitled to a good feed...’
but our conversation was interrupted by Miles Manningport, a wealthy landowner,
who, with his comments, indicated there was history between the two of them.

When I tactfully asked if they had been an item, she simply said,
‘He was so boring.

'All he did was talk about sheep dips and silage.’

Then changed the subject by advising me to
read her pamphlet on that holy figure, the Venerable Bede.

This cute cleric was a breath of fresh air, compared to the others I’d met in my
shady career with her Majesty’s Government – all city types, particularly my ex-wife,
a typical pretend socialist, who laughed when I hinted I was some sort of secret agent,
saying, ‘You’re just a plain old data analyst.’

So I again joined the vicar’s rambling group to climb Montague’s Mount,
that impressive monument to our glorious dead which
overlooked my new home of Beacon’s Bottom.

As we strode along, I was ready to impress her with quotes
from her book on The Bede, when she suddenly sat down and swore,
with c and f words flowing with equal abandonment.

I was intrigued by this, as I’d heard that eccentricity was not unknown among her antecedents.

It seemed that her great aunt, Mrs Bunty Babstock-Bunsen,
had performed heroic deeds in the Indian Mutiny,
inspiring the English defenders in the besieged Cawnpore cantonment,
and written a best-selling book, A Rebellious Woman Of A Conformist Century,
which tells how her eccentric aunt brought an Indian mystic with her to England,
who would sit on the highest branch of an ancient beech,
in this very village, and perform the Indian rope trick, then sell his Life Affirming Soup,

‘Made from the leaves of our ancient tree.

'So take a sip and amaze everyone with your mystically-induced self confidence.’

But the leader of the parish council, Godfrey Love-broad, claimed all it did was give him flatulence.

In an article in the Beacon’s Bugle, he accused
‘This foreign interloper’ of perpetrating a fraud.’

However, a notoriously shy solicitor, Lionel Lovelorn,
suddenly came out of his shell after a diet of Old Knobbly soup,
and took up the cause of the much maligned Hindu,
successfully suing Godfrey and announced,

‘For years I have been stricken by the curse of shyness.

‘But now, to use a metaphor, I no longer sit in the wings,
but strut on the stage of life, doing what the other chaps do.

'Indeed, as the psychologists say, I am happy within my self,
and outside of it well - I’m a bleeding extrovert!'

But the council leader muttered, ‘He sounds pissed.’

Then shouted, ‘You’re more like a bloody pervert!’

‘Now then Godfrey...’ Lionel laughed. Then spoilt his outburst with an untimely belch.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I have joined our village’s amateur dramatics group,
and we'll be staging that saucy romp, A Funny Thing Happened On The way To The Forum.’

There was a murmur of disapproval.

‘Yes, isn’t that right, Mrs Montrose Montgomery-Marston?’
He asked, looking pointedly at the stage director of the Players,
who nodded agreeably, but muttered under breath,
‘Dashed upstart’s got no talent.

'He’s taking the lead part for himself.’

‘Anyway,’ commented her husband, ‘the vicar would object.

'She’s such a strait-laced madam.’

However, a decided kink was observed in Miss P’s hitherto laces,
after she saw a comic sketch entitled The Sex Lives Of The Plantagenets,
which highlighted the story of a 15th-century lady-in-waiting,
who donned a joker’s outfit, thus becoming the very first alternative comedian.

As she preferred women in tights to men in clinking armour,
this amazing woman became known on the underground comedy circuit,
secretly supported by HRH Elizabeth, The Virgin Queen,
as Pamela Pouncy - The Perverted Poltroon.

Who, according to Miss P’s genealogy expert, was a predecessor to her great aunt,
Mrs Bunty Babstock-Bunsen.

I learned all this during our walk, as Miss P indulged in a burst of loquaciousness,
while supping from a cup of an odd-smelling soup.

And then she dropped her bombshell, that she’d relented in her
opposition to the staging of the saucy play,
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and had even joined the cast.

However, there was a snag, as she explained, ‘I couldn’t resist giving the younger
actors' strict moral codes to follow in their quest for romance.

'However, I must have put that old know-all, Mrs Montgomery-Marston’s nose out of joint.
I can imagine the conversation she had with her husband.

“I’ve had three sons. What does that stuck-up vicar know about life?”

Old Monty would probably reply thus:

‘Indeed. Gervase is a merchant banker who never visits;
Chrispin’s an actor baring his arse in some hippy musical,
who does visit, but was caught by PC Milliken smoking pot!

‘Then there’s Monkton, a celebrity therapist, who thinks everything’s cool,
whom some gossip columnist christened Philpot The Piss Pot,
’cos he’s like that silly sod Manningport - a right old lush. 

I laughed at this.

'But it’s not funny,’ she said, then dropped a bombshell.

'Mrs Montgomery-Marston thought it would it be apt to
cast me as an unfaithful wife who gives a Roman senator – Miles – a kiss!’

                  ………………………………………………………………………….

The sun was setting as we finished our walk, but Marjorie Mumps
and Major (retired) Fred Thistle-Pile
took such an agonising time to conclude their farewells,
that I tried to slink off, so I wouldn’t be invited to join them for a drink at the Ring O’Bells.

However, Miss P caught me as I slunk behind a bush,
saying, ‘Oh you’re having a pee. Don’t worry, they’ve gone.

'We can admire the sunset from Old Knobbly. Oh, do come!’

‘Did you know this is where my great aunt’s Indian mystic created
his self-liberating soup?’

She asked, jumping onto a lower branch, saying,

‘There’s plenty of space up here. Come on, jump up!’

‘Oh yes,’ I answered, ‘I’ve never had any of his famous concoction.’

Then she announced, looking at me strangely, ‘I had some for lunch.
‘Don’t worry about Miles. I know things about him that he’s managed to keep secret.’

‘Really?’

‘My cousin was in the athletics team at Oxford with him,
and he would wear his mum’s knickers in competitions.’

She giggled. ‘Claimed they were easier on his nether regions.’

She suddenly fixed a gaze on me. ‘So, what are your thoughts on mystics,
fairies, shape shifters, those hidden forces that live in that hinterland
between reality and the sub conscious?’

I thought for a second, ‘Well, one should never dismiss the possibility
that there is a force up there seeking to create a more spiritual man.’

I was quite impressed by my off-the-cuff answer, then she answered, ‘Yes, but I’m a woman.’

A week later I was still nursing the bruise I sustained that day when we
fell off the tree still engaged in a passionate kiss,
but was as happy as the proverbial Larry, at the news that had quickly gone around the village,
that its odd vicar was to be known as my missus.

Meanwhile, when the news of our coming nuptials was announced,
Mrs Montgomery-Marston was heard to mutter, ‘Now I know she’s lost the plot!’
At the opening night of the play, I was adjusting my toga when in stormed a drunk Miles.

‘How are you feeling?’ He asked.

‘Nervous,’ I answered.

He laughed, ‘You shouldn’t be, haven’t you already been where no man has gone before?’

A second later I was remembering the words of my MI5 self-defence instructor,
‘Never use karate other than to defend yourself!’,
as I stared at the first chap I’d ever enjoyed hitting, a suddenly sober Miles Manningpot.