CONTENTS

       Title Page

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

       CHAPTER ONE

      I don’t know how you would handle four weeks on a tramp steamer with a couple of nymphomaniacs, but I was right knackered at the end of it, I can tell you. The second mate was carried off the boat on a stretcher, and he managed to barricade himself in his cabin after the first week. By the cringe, it was a voyage and a half. Now I know what they mean when they say ‘see Naples and die’. Nat and Nan found me skulking in an empty lifeboat the night before we docked and I nearly kicked the bucket with my first glimpse of Mount Vesuvius. Talk about insatiable–I can now, because I looked it up in the dictionary–if those two birds were rabbits it would not have needed myxomatosis to kill off half the male bunny population. I am not unpartial to a bit of the other but–blimey! There is a limit. After the first couple of hours it is becoming more a penance than a penis, if you know what I mean.

      Anyway, for the sake of those of you who missed my capers as a Holiday Host with Funfrall Enterprises, I had better explain what I am on about. My period of service on an island off the Costa Brava had come to an end for a number of reasons–not the least of them being that my Dad had burned down the camp. Accidentally, of course. Everything Dad does is an accident, which accounts for how I happen to be about to write this. Anyway, that is another story and I would be the last person to put anybody off their cornflakes by telling it.

      My presence on the boat with Nat and Nan–my pen starts shaking uncontrollably every time I write their names–is occasioned by me being left to clear up after the blaze. Once I have sifted all the dentures out of the ashes and paid off the local labour, I am expected to make my way home on a battered tramp steamer calling at every port in the Mediterranean. I would not normally be the first person to start whining about such treatment, were it not for the presence of the deadly duo already alluded to. Also, another lively bird called Carmen who fortunately gets homesick after a couple of days and dives overboard to join a passing fishing boat. Nat and Nan have the same attitude towards sex as those small birds that eat ten times their own weight every day, only in their case, forget small birds and substitute bleeding great vultures. Not that they are unattractive, oh, dear me, no. They are beautiful girls and living tributes to the efficacy of National Health Milk and free dental care. The only trouble is that they do have this disconcerting habit of tearing the trousers off every bloke they meet. And on a few thousand square feet of tramp steamer it gets so it is not worth putting your trousers on again. Your turn is going to come up in another few minutes, buster, so lie back and enjoy it.

      Luckily, I have had experience of these girls (I laugh hollowly as I write that) and for the first few days I manage to keep out of the way while the crew run amok. By the end of the first week they are running a mile. Every time the Terrible Twins come round a corner, the sleek smiles slide off their greasy faces faster than blobs of fat off a hot plate. By the end of the second week they are threatening mutiny and by the end of the third week they have twice tried to abandon ship in a lifeboat. One bloke dives overboard the minute we get into the Bay of Naples. How he finds the strength to reach shore, I will never know.

      My attempts to avoid being pressed into service–a not altogether happy, but very accurate description of what takes place–founder on my natural desire for food. I am intercepted on a sneaky trip to the galley and from that moment on I am making progress towards a frayed tonk like every other male on board.

      By the time we get to Liverpool I never want to see another woman as long as I live–or at least two weeks–and the crew have burned all their pin-ups. The captain has not been seen for four days. Every time anybody taps on the door of his cabin a feeble voice keeps repeating–‘Don’t let them get me. Remember the RNVR.’ The poor basket has obviously gone round the twist.

      When we get to Scouseland and can actually see the Liver Building the crew fall on their knees like pilgrims getting their first eyeful of Mecca. There is hardly an Englishman amongst them but they all know that this is where the girls get off. The expression of unspeakable joy on their faces as we go down the gangplank is something I will always remember.

      My own feelings are typical of those of any son of Albion returning to the land of his birth–bitter disappointment. When I was on the Isla de Amor I could not wait to feel the native sod under my feet but now as I see some of the native sods in person I wish I was back in the land of the antique plumbing. At least there was sunshine there and I could not understand the newspaper headlines. My tan has been fading since the Bay of Biscay and Mum and Dad and Scraggs Lane seem about as tempting as two weeks in a leper colony.

      But that is not my immediate problem. Having seen Nat and Nan closing fast with a group of unsuspecting dockers, I have legged it off in the opposite direction and made my way swiftly to Lime Street station. This being the point of departure for The Smoke, and the bosom of my family. It is mid-morning and British Rail’s excellent inter-city service is decidedly under-patronised. I buy a copy of a book called John Adam–Samurai, which looks as if it has a few juicy moments, and settle down to a couple of hours of peace and quiet. Outside the compartment the sun is breaking through and my spirits begin to lift. Maybe dear old England is not so bad after all.

      ‘Ah, so there you are! Creeping off without saying goodbye. That wasn’t very kind to your little playmates, was it?’

      ‘Decidedly unkind, I should say. Not the sort of behaviour Uncle Giles would like, eh Sis?’

      Yes, folks; it is Nat and Nan, the girls who gave up the idea of group marriage because they could not find a group large enough. I should mention that the Uncle Giles they refer to is Sir Giles Slattery, Chairman of Funfrall Enterprises, the grave concern that is employing me–and hopefully paying me some much needed moola for my heroic efforts during the last few weeks.

      ‘After all, we’ve been through,’ says Nat reproachfully.

      ‘Speak for yourself,’ I snarl. ‘Now for God’s sake leave me alone. You lay one finger on me and I’ll pull the communication cord.’

      ‘It won’t do any good, darling. The train isn’t moving yet. I’m very disappointed in you, Timmy. I thought we had a chance of liberating you but you’re still very uptight, aren’t you?’ That is another thing about these nutty birds. They believe that if everybody sublimated their aggressions in sexual activity there would be no more wars. That is their excuse, anyway.

      ‘Take your hand out of my trousers,’ I say. ‘Uptight? After what I’ve had to endure in the last four weeks? I’m slacker than a four-inch nut on a toothpick.’ Nat draws away from me reproachfully and the train jerks into motion.

      ‘I was hoping we were going to be able to put in a glowing report about you to Uncle Gilesy,’ she says. ‘But if you persist in continuing to be a reactionary slave to bourgeois convention…’ She shakes