Mike Lockley: Danny's ashes to top the bill in a fete worse than death

Jun 27 2010

THERE was a good reason why the plug was pulled on our village carnival 15 years ago. It stank.

At its peak, the event was opened by such luminaries as the chap from Police Five who said ‘keep ‘em peeled’, Auntie Jean from the Tinger and Tucker Club and Crossroads’ Adam Chance. It also featured a cavalcade of floats.

By the mid-90s even the policeman from TV’s Allo Allo with the wonky English accent declined our invitation to cut the ribbon.

The procession was reduced to one mobility scooter wrapped in ribbon, the carnival queen was seven months pregnant and the police and fire brigade, who once insisted on playing a part in the big day, only showed up if we deliberately torched a barn.

I spent the last three years of the dying event as the left hand side of a human fruit machine, which was embarrassing, but a good earner. Someone once bunged us £50 to hold-up three bunches of grapes: heaven knows why – the jackpot was a Victorian sponge.

Even the ‘bee man’, who displayed his insects under a glass case, pulled out because they had a fungal infection. No one wants to see fuzzy green bees.

Our local rag dubbed the final carnival ‘a fete worse than death’.

Now, according to this week’s parish newsletter, a new carnival committee wants to rekindle the event and is urging villagers to ‘rally round’. “If everyone,” wrote someone with too much time on their hands, “took just three days off work to decorate floats, put-out stalls and put-up bunting and posters, I know we’ll have an event that will put this parish on the map.”

That is something I don’t want. Being ‘on the map’ means having your picture on Google Earth, which concerns me greatly. The frosted glass in our toilet doesn’t work.

They want the event to be more relevant to today’s ‘yoof’. The model-making club are going to let them sniff the glue.

I’ve been asked to handle PR for the carnival, on the grounds I’m a journalist, which is flawed rationale. The chap over-the-road is a mechanic. They haven’t asked him to knock-up a few lorries for the procession.

“Can you,” asked the excited secretary, “get something in a national newspaper, preferably a glossy Sunday supplement?”

I can’t. I was thinking more on the lines of a couple of paragraphs in the local evening paper. Farmers Weekly might be interested, too. And our undertaker reckons he can pull a few strings with staff at trade magazine, The Embalmer: “you won’t be a bored stiff at…,” that kind of thing.

You’ve got to give me an angle, I pleaded. She leant forward and whispered: “What if I said Danny La Rue is opening this year’s event?”

I gave a puzzled glance. “I’d say he’s dead.”

“Really!” gasped the shocked secretary. “Well, his name was put forward by the undertaker.”

She gathered herself and leaned forward again. “What if I said Danny La Rue’s ashes are opening the event?”

I gave a puzzled glance. “I’d say he couldn’t pull out the winning raffle tickets.”

The secretary sighed and admitted: “You’re right. Looks like we’ll have to go with the bass player from the Rubettes.”

Yesterday I got a call from an excited young hack from our evening paper. “Congratulations,” she trilled, “on reviving the carnival. Is it true you’ve tracked down one of the original morris dancers and he’ll be doing a turn?”

“That,” I told her, “is a tragic story. The endless battering by pig bladders gave him tinnitus, which, on the plus side, means he doesn’t need bells on his trousers any more.”

“As an interesting aside,” I added, “he’s impotent. All those fertility dances did nothing for his sperm count. Thought that might make quite a nice colour piece.”

“Have you got anything that will really make this story stand out?” she near pleaded.

I thought hard. “Well, Donna, who was the carnival queen in 1995, is going to be queen again this year. She was pregnant then and she’s pregnant now.”

“That is a great story,” gasped the reporter. “That makes her 15 years overdue! May I ask, did the carnival committee ask doctors not to induce her?”