A TV producer told me I didn’t look like an athlete,
when I was cast as a competitor in the Middington-Fiddle Village Big Mudder race,
in an episode of that corny popular drama, Country Constable,
during which, you’ve guessed it, a murder or two inevitably takes place.

‘But I used to do!’ I protested, to no avail.

So my mind harked back to when I ran through mud so deep, 
a tractor was used to extricate many a competitor,
when I slogged up hill and down dale,
not to mention fells a goat would struggle up, they were so steep.

Forgive my exaggeration, but I could shift when I was a lad.
I’ve done more reps and long runs than a Californian personal trainer,
you know the type, those who see running as a ‘cool’ fad.

I’ve made the first 100 in the national cross country,
hen it was ‘for real men’, over nine miles.
I even ran for Oxford University, where I saw rugby players
doing 10-metre sprints and saying they were fit.
But now I’ve got such a belly I struggle to rise from my seat.

I’ve a PB for 5000 metres which is quite good, and perversely,
a better one at 1500, considering my best distance was long, and not middle.

So why wouldn’t they let me be a TV star and run through the mud at Middington-Fiddle?

I could have boasted in our village pub, The Bashful Bullock,
for though I’m a celebrity, if rather past my sell-by-date, I am awfully vain.

It was there I bumped into Musgrave McPhail, an old Irish comic,
who, due to his type of humour being out of fashion,
had accepted a role as a drunk in that very TV show I’d been rejected from.

‘I’m surprised they don’t have you saying begorrah!’
I cried, anxious to show how unbiased I was – after all,
Ireland gave us that famous BBC radio chap Terry Wogan!

Then to my chagrin, I woke to find my estate manager
had allowed that blasted TV show to be filmed in one of my properties!
But I got my own back by not letting them use the toilet.
Well, I thought, they can always think of their overblown fees!

Later, I laughed as I watched the actors struggle to the village convenience,
before packing my skis, to join Daphne Dovecott’s chums
in the Alpine town of Zierre Zinal.

Daffers and I laughed about when we’d first met, and I told them how,
as a kid I’d hung around her private school, Multchett Manor, Egham,
when, after Tough Boy Williams had called me a pansy for quoting Oscar Wilde,
I’d bet him I could convince a posh girl to be my pal.

Dammit, I was so good she even believed I was at Eton,
when I was actually from Slough, that very modern town.
But she soon worked me out, clever lass, and used to laugh when,
at Oxford I wore hat and gown – stolen of course.

The hotel was abuzz with the fact that a movie director
was staying there, Milo Mills-Milde,
responsible for such classics as Incident At Whitehall – ‘An assassin’s
stalks Downing Street’,
and that ‘Thrilling survival epic’ –  A long Way To Fall.

It was the sequel to the latter which had brought him to our mountain retreat,
where that evening, full of brandy, Daffers was boasting
about her son, ‘Ever Ready Everard’,
who was getting rave reviews for his one-man show,
playing a camp Shakespeare – Ballads Of The Bard,
while in the background Milo was working hard on a script.

I thought I’d puncture her pomposity, so asked,
‘What did that military husband of yours think about that?
What was he called – Bunty Buffers-Buntington?
He hated anything outrageously unmasculine.’

‘I know,’ she laughed, ‘and even though you couldn’t half run,
you were rubbish at rugby or football, and, what’s more, 
and I quote, 'a right ponce' with that speech impediment.

‘I didn’t agree, of course, hence his jealousy of you.

‘Don’t worry, he’s far away, ex-colonel Bunty’s a mercenary in South Africa,
fighting the mighty Matabele.

'Or do I mean the Zulu?’

‘You are joking!’ I exclaimed. ‘Last I heard he was running
one of those adventure camps in Surrey, £500 a day and bring your own tent.’

‘Really?

'Well he always said you were a fool.

'By the way, he found the poem you wrote about me.'

‘What did he think of it?’

‘All he could say was you don’t where to put the apostrophe.’

‘Yes well,’ I interjected, ‘Slough comprehensive wasn’t the best school.’

Then I felt it was time for my party piece, so I got up and quoted,
I’ve come to apologise… not to you (pause) to Charles.
I’ve been perfectly bloody (pause) and I’ve come to apologise.

Daffers laughed, saying, ‘Brideshead Revisited!

'I always loved your Sebastian.’

But later that night I cried for my lost youth,
when to escape reality I would read boys own stories,
becoming ace First World War pilot Biggles,
downing the Hun in a rickety biplane, the Sopwith Camel, 
or Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

This escape into another world had helped me climb, despite my stammer,
into the exalted ranks of those fast-talking twits who dominate the TV panel-show circuit.

For my vivid imagination helped me quell a terrible inner fear.
But that night, as I watched my friends drink themselves to oblivion,
I realised I’d become a pastiche of myself.

But, like the characters created in Brideshead by Evelyn Waugh,
that posh literary soldier who encapsulated the divide in Britain,
during those years before the war, I’d refused to accept it.

So being rejected from that TV series because I didn’t look like a runner was poetic justice.
Why, being an athlete was the only thing I’d found hard.

All those tough track sessions I missed through depression,
being too embarrassed to admit it, not even to an NHS therapist,
but in the theatrical world it’s quite accepted, a hazard of the profession.

The next day I was approached by that movie chap, Milo,
who said, ‘Didn’t we run together at Oxford?’

Then I suddenly recognised him, ‘Oh yes, I remember you – Milo with the Biro,
you were always writing ideas for a film.’

‘Indeed, and I made quite a bit of money from ’em. 

'Anyway, last night I thought I knew you. 
Then it hit me – you used to do that Brideshead quote a lot.

'Quite amusing, but not after the 20th time.

‘Do you fancy a part in my movie?

'I’m just finishing off the plot.
It’s about an old runner’s reunion.
‘You’d play an old bore, suit you down to the ground,’ he said,
without even the hint of a smile.

Intrigued, I asked, ‘And what happens to this chap?’

‘He’s murdered, and this will amuse you, the chief suspect
is played by Bunty Buffers-Buntington.

'Now, isn’t that a coincidence?

'Did you know he’s an actor and producer on
that TV detective show, Country Constable?’

I was astounded. 'You mean the one where,
instead of chasing poachers and dishing out fines,
the local cop’s investigating murders?’

‘That’s right, apparently it’s based near the place we’re filming.
I think it’s called Middington-Muddle.

‘Sure you don’t mean Middington-Fiddle?’

‘Oh! Anyway, you’re found dead, with a copy of
Brideshead Revisited strapped to your middle.’