The father and son made their way through the underground car park of the Civic Centre in Merthyr Tydfil.

They were in luck.

They didn’t have to walk through the crowds of people that were stood in the forecourt outside the main entrance.

Pressing the lift call button repeatedly, little Thomas was happy.

At the age of seven , everything was a game….no money worries…it was like being on his own Civil List .

His father , Richard tried to fake a smile, he knew he was at the Civic Centre for more serious business.

He was there to see the Council Social Services department to see if they would call off the dogs and let him remain in his late mother’s house a little longer.

At 59 years of age and working for minimum wage, he was outside the criteria to prevent the sale of her estate assets to fund her social services care.

All levied on a house his mother and father had scrimped and saved during their work-shortened lifetime to buy…going without holidays and luxuries just to hold a small piece of the British ‘Empire’ for themselves.

An Englishman’s home is his castle…but in Monmouth Drive Merthyr Tydfil…the Welshman’s home in Castle Park was being slowly sucked away from him by a parasitic Government who had not budgeted for the working classes living beyond the biblical three score and ten and their usefulness to the ruling elite.

They could take his home- legally anyway…the Act of Parliament was given Royal Assent , but they couldn’t take his love for his only son Thomas he thought as he ruffled his fair hair.

Times were so hard, he had to cut their hair himself with a fruit bowl placed on their already rounded heads which caused his son to fight daily in the local Gellideg Infants Primary School Yard.

As they ascended, the clunk of lift mechanism , jarred him and his son, as the doors opened unexpectedly on the first floor.

An elderly woman and her husband were ushered in by a burly looking security guard.

Little Thomas looked at the woman clad in a headscarf and sunglasses, she looked somewhat familiar.

She looked like that woman who made his Christmas dinner go cold every year .

And if there was one thing he hated it was cold KFC.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a coin and checked it up against the profile of the stranger.

She didn’t have that jewel thing on her head but it still looked like her.

The lift clunked again and stopped with a thud.

The light went out for a split second before the emergency lighting kicked in.

At the same time to balance the Council’s tight budget the lights went out in the Queen Camilla Hospital Operating Theatre.

His father put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and told him ‘Not to worry’ it would start moving again soon.

The bodyguard was however having kittens talking wildly on his headset to someone in the building high above their heads.

The lift didn’t afford much room for four adults and a child and a tiny dog.

Thomas wasn’t worried.

He lived in blissful ignorance of the lift cable snapping or an electrical fire breaking out.

The risk increased somewhat as the noxious smell of a sulphur fart hit the nostrils of the little boy.

Normally, in such delicate social situations adults remain silent.

Little Thomas looked at the nervous security man….then the old wizened Greek Racist….then the old woman with the baggy trousers….and finally he sniffed lightly at the dogs rear.

He knew it wasn’t his father’s brand.

His father knew what was coming from his outspoken son.

Finally, the little seven year old broke convention and asked loudly.

“ Come on… who Shit?”

The regal strangers held their heads in the air, just above the green haze, whereas poor Thomas was trapped in the bad air pocket…like a miner in former Taff Merthyr Colliery after his mate had tuna sandwiches for lunch.

He didn’t give up.

Turning to Chris Ryan, the security man he tugged his sleeve and opened his coat in doing so…”it was you wasn’t it!”.

“ The one that got away!” he said refusing to give up as his nose had been wronged.

“ It wasn’t me…it was that Pembrokeshire Dog!” he said ….”Okay!” he barked.

“ Then you need a Corgi registered installer to sort out his gas emissions!” said the kid not believing Ryan ‘s tale.

As a result, Thomas got his first sight of a loaded gun up close and personal.

“ Cor Mister….can I have a go of that ?” he pleaded as the barrel was pressed into his nostrils.

The security man ignored the child…..

“ You are lucky it is only American troops that shoot civilian kids!” he said a little disappointed.

“ Although if you give me the Royal Assent Ma’am!”

“ How much longer are we to be kept here?” she replied cricking her fingers as if ready to snap a pheasant neck.

Speaking into his headset, he replied ….” Not long now…. Your Highness…the Council have confirmed it is a fault with the lift mechanism….they are speaking to the lift manufacturers Otis in Reading as we speak!” reported the ex SAS man.

“Otis…. Reading!” interrupted the Duke.

“I’ve heard of him….isn’t he one of those tar baby types that used to pick our cotton?” he said leaning forward past the corgi’s arse which was also in Little Thomas line of fire.

The Helen Mirren look-a-like just frowned at her husband and stood impatiently.

“ They do realise that I am over 80 years old now and trapped in a cold metal lift….at my time of life you can’t go too far from the throne!” she said fidgeting.

“ Look Missus…if you gotta piss….you gotta piss !” said the kid.

“ I’ve done it in here before and I know he did too!” he said pointing at his red-faced father.

“ He claimed it was payback for them trying to take my grannies house off him….if you go ill ….will they take that Buckingham Palace Place off you?” asked the child innocently.

For the first time the Queen looked down on her two subjects.

They were ugly, dirty, stank of old chip fat had warts on their faces and roundheads with haircuts from an old pudding bowl.

She noticed that the father, the one with the older warts was holding a Notice to Quit from her own Court .

“ I hope you lot haven’t got rickets, cholera or TB!” she said glaring at Ryan for getting her in this predicament.

“ These peasants are revolting!” said the Duke holding a silk handkerchief with perfume on his noses.

“ So what is the point of having a Royal Family in the 21st Century…when we can’t afford to fund the working man?” asked the young Republican.

“ What is exactly do you lot do for your money….his family home and arrears of Council Tax paid for the last Royal Wedding?”

“ Tourism…!” replied the Duke.

“ That old chestnut…do many tourists come and see all of the other people on the Civil List too….what about tax….do you pay any?” asked the child of Chartism.

“ Of course, We…that’s the Royal We mind you pay lots of tax!” defended the Duke.

“ Might one enquire as to whom?” said Thomas sticking a finger up his own arse and talking poshly.

“ Revenue & Customs!” said the Duke .

“ Who’s exactly?” continued the baby Blairite condescendingly.

“ Her Majesty’s!” came the reply.

“ Exactly and we know where that is spent….not in Merthyr as you can see by our lift services!”

The captives were interrupted by the sound of the doors above being forced open.

The gap unfortunately was only one foot wide…only the corgi could get out.

“ Hurry up will you…she’s busting for a piss!” said Thomas eloquently.

“ If her waters go …I’ll be drowned first in the Royal Wee !” he said.

“ Remember, Britannia rules the waves…..not me!” he shrieked.

In the gap above, a selection of the Council members could be seen peering at them from a height above the lift.

“ At one time to be higher than the Monarch …I could have had them all killed!” said the Queen.

“ Like Diana…you mean!” alleged the straight talking kid.

Both the Duke and the Queen turned their heads of state, the child was below 10 and therefore below the age of criminal responsibility.

It was then the QE2 started to leak angrily.

“ I know it is your ‘Golden Jubilee’ but I don’t want a Golden Shower!” said Thomas.

“ Dad …get your camera-phone out….take a picture of the Queen in mid-flow…we’ll make a fortune….Hello Magazine here it comes….the other ‘celebrities’ take the piss…why shouldn’t wee…..we can save the house!” he declared triumphantly.

In a second the French made -camera flashed and all were blinded by the radiance of Louis 14th the Sun King- .

“ I can’t allow that to happen!” said Ryan.

“ Why not !” protested the child….” It is not illegal!”

“ Taking a shot at the Queen is….now I’ve been Civil….give us the camera-phone!” ordered the soldier.

“ 1789…Liberty, Equality, Fraternity….all them lot are my witnesses…democracy rules in Merthyr!” said Thomas pointing up.

“ Besides …dad has already uploaded it to my face-book account and only I know the password!” said the youngster.

“ What’s your surname kid….said the Duke….the British Government doesn’t negotiate with blackmailers.!”

“ Cromwell !” said the boy proudly.

Looking at the child with warts on his face, a roundhead and a puritanical attitude, the Queen felt a chill running through her blue blooded veins…..history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

Her cavalier attitude changed.

“ Get ME out now!” she demanded as the level of urine reached ankle level.

Reaching up through the gap with her white Gloves…the gathered elite couldn’t be sure if it was Michael Jackson, the Queen or the snooker referee Len Ganley speaking.

“ If I am not out in five minutes…heads will roll….starting with you!” she said looking at the Council Leader.

After calling in the Council DSO, the gap was widened and she was pulled out albeit indignantly in less than five minutes flat.

The Duke followed.

The same way they responded to other pensioners trapped in the St Tydfils Court, Caedraw Lift.

“ What about the other three?” asked the Council workmen.

Tossing in to the lift shaft a jam sponge, a left over from the delayed bunfight, she said casually…” Let them eat cake!”

“ What’s to become of us?” asked the three sets of eyes peering out of the dark…like a cellar in Lower Thomas Street .

“ Send them to the Tower!” she ordered.

“ Thanks Ma’am…Tower Colliery!” said Richard Cromwell hoping at last to get a better paid Valleys job.

“ Tower of London…peasant!” she said shaking off the drippers through the gap.

The Divine Right of Kings and Queens had been restored.

..

“ The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful...let it snow, let it snow let it snow!...Nos Da!” declared camp weatherman, Derek Brockway live to the nation from the BBC studios in Cardiff.

“ Since when have you been interested in the weather Charlie?” asked Tommy ‘Hilfiger’ Silverback to the leader member of the Lavender Road Mob.

“ Duh!....since I learned that the boss man Mr Bigg gets coded messages over the BBC about his delivery times for his drug shipments!” laughed Charlie Kong.

“ Mr Bigg...who’s dat den?” asked Alan ‘Tit-che’ Guevara.

“ He is the man who got our leader sent to clink and I need to hit back at him to show our power ....make him an offer he can’t refuse....!” declared the New Gurnos Godfather.

By virtue of the fact he had a CSE from Penydre School in woodwork, he was the leader by natural selection of the ‘Gurnos posse’ following the incarceration of Urko Fosse, the previous Urban Guerilla leader.

Looking at his watch, he felt the familiar buzz of a light helicopter overhead flying towards Cefn Coed Y Cwmmer.

The three wise monkeys, stood on the Gurnos ‘Ring’ Road roundabout, in amongst the embers of their bonfire, lazily lobbing the remainder of their stones at the back of the Lakeside Gardens Houses and Heads of the Valleys Road.

It was reminiscent of a scene from the Arthur C Clarke film ‘2001’, except that it was in fact 2009 , and the only ‘hal’ in sight was the halitosis on the breath of their leader , visible in the night air , as he strained the follow the helicopter towards its pre-arranged rendezvous point on Cilsanws Mountain.

As it passed overhead , Tit-che was dazzled by the red lights.

“ Was that a UFO then or wot?” he asked his fellow crew members.

“ Well me homie, me tinks dat ET is in da hood!” declared Tommy in his red and white tracksuit and Peruvian Indian style hat.

“ Speak in English not Ghetto pimp ...you are not from the Bronx but from Lupin Close man...I’ve told you before, you stand out as a drug dealer dressed like an extra from N-DUBZ ...you need to dress casual like me ...smart ‘French Connection’ brand man from Q9 (lads & ladette’s) clothing.....see this jumper...it has some ‘snow’ sown into the inside material...I call it my ‘Polar neck’..... so there’s no obvious link to my dealing”

“ Anyway, I want to get one of you soldiers on sentry duty up there before the next ‘Bigg’ Drop.!”

As Tit-che whispered to Tommy out of earshot of the boss...” I just thought he had ‘Buy Polar disorder!”

Mechanic Alf ‘Keanu Reeves’ Feta-mean, stood in the pit changing the oil sump on the battered Ford Orion that had just returned from France.

His garage, ‘Brake Lines’ was recognised by everyone from Marseille to Amsterdam as being a recognised international specialised dealer.

He had himself been in the import and export business since his shareholding in the Pentrebach ski-slope went downhill.

Now he had decided to diversify into a different snow business .

As he removed the sump, he would normally be covered in black oil...this time he did not have to worry about dermatitis, a bubble wrap package covered in coffee beans fell out into the pit.

He smiled as was his ‘custom- ary practice’.

*******************************************************************

Carwyn McMuffin looked nervously into the rear-view mirror, checking to see if he was still being tailed .

At 17 years old , he had passed his driving test first time, but had regretted telling his Lupin Close neighbour , Tommy ‘Hilfiger’ Silverback he had a clean licence.

Forced into collecting a car from Marseille in the South of France, he had caught the Ferris Coach bus service straight to Cannes and hitch-hiked the rest of the way.

Nobody at the Merthyr Driving Test Centre told him on his test, that they drove on the right on the continent.

He had found out the hard way by putting his new found driving skills to the test , squeezing between two oncoming Petrol Tankers and the central reservation barrier with all the skills of Colin McRae.

He had proved his mother wrong ...the hours spent on his Playstation 3 , had been of use to him.

In-continent, he felt as his underpants bore more skid-marks than Brands Hatch.

His mother was also a concern , he had been gone three weeks and he knew he should have told her where he was going, because he had seen his face on the back of a Paris milk carton.

He hoped that his Pen-y-dre Headmaster , would believe the handwritten note from his mother, that he had run off to join the circus but would be back in time to re-sit his woodwork GCSE.

Carwyn was very worried in deed, because he could smell a sickly sweet perfume aroma burning from his vehicle and was being followed by a motorcycle cop.

He had been warned by his employer ‘Keanu Reeves’ not to go over 70 KMH , as the car had a ‘maximum speed’ and that the car was likely to explode...but his school education hadn’t explained MPH and KMH conversion rates.

He looked nervously at le Motorway sign and noted he was only 10 KM from Calais.

The motorcycle cop was being engulfed in the grey smoke coming from beneath his car.

The cop signalled him with a hairy garlic hand to pull over.

His weak joke that it was a Q9 ‘Polar neck’ sweater , not a pullover was lost in translation.

As he pulled into the layby , the traffic cop dismounted and approached the car in a Gaullic swagger.

“ Gendarme ...can I help you ?” asked Carwyn nervously handing over his child passport , worried that his mother would see his faced splashed all over the news by Interpol as McMuffin the Drugs mule.

“ Sir...I forget why I az to stopper u... (looking at the passport)...McMuffin ....do you have any thing to eat as I seem to have what you Eengleesh call ze munchies...non?”

“ I have a hairy wine gum stuck to the bottom of the front seat...I was saving it till Calais...but hey any port in a storm !” Carwyn replied handing over the sticky mess.

As he drove away, Carwyn was pleased to see that his Cannabis stashed in the Oil sump had finally stopped burning.

******************************************************************

Tommy sat completely inconspicuous in a bright red tracksuit and Black and White Peruvian Indian hat, high up on the Cilsanws Common overlooking the golf course and the ‘posh’ part of Cefn Coed.

He could see in the distance the Morlais Castle ‘ set to the backdrop of a million stars in the early November evening.

He was freezing , he wished he had a Q9 ‘Polar neck’, as he waited vainly with only his stolen mobile phone for company with one bar left on his battery.

He thought about how he had got caught up in the clutches of the Lavender Road Mob.

He had been shit on all his life...he reckoned that he had the reverse of the Midas touch....everything he touched turned to bling....a kind of ‘fecal attraction’.

Latchkey kid since he was three , his mother was in the Matchstick Man pub smoking and drinking away his inheritance.

Like Romulus and Remus the founders of Rome , he had been brought up suckling the milk from the multitude of teenage mothers on his estate...brought up by the Mob.

Tommy was proud of the fact he was part of the underclass.

His warped logic meant that he was responsible for keeping the only people in Merthyr with jobs employed.

His ‘one man crime wave’ ‘supported’ a lot of jobs in Merthyr...if it wasn’t for him there would be less policemen, firemen, prison staff, DSS staff, court staff and shop security employees.

Unlike New Labour...New Gurnos was head of ‘job creation’ in the economy.

It had not been Tommy’s fault.

The Penydre Careers Teacher had computed his skills and come up with promising careers in burglary, car theft or rap music for Tommy.

Burglary ...that reminded him, his mate was getting married on Thursday, at the Castle House Marriage Registry Office and his house and his future-in laws house-would be empty all day.

The sudden ring-tone awoke Tommy from his hyperthermia based slumber.

“ E-s are good...E’s are good...Ebeneezer Goode!” by the Shamen rang out on the silent common....as his mobile phone lit up like a Christmas Tree in the darkness.

“ Derek Brockway just said that Cilsanws Common would be full of ‘Galanthus’ this evening..... !” announced Charlie.

“ What about Mr Bigg’s cocaine delivery?” asked Tommy

“ Galanthus is a flower....snow drop...it’s code...!” shouted Charlie

....” I know it’s cold .....but is it still on for tonight...because I’m freezing and my gonads are so wizened they look like Paul Daniels forehead!” moaned Tommy.

“ Its CODE not Cold....what about the chopper ?” asked Charlie

“ My choppers fine ...me nan knitted me a Peruvian willie-warmer....its my balls that are wrinkled.!” replied Tommy as his reply was drowned out by a noise from the sky.

“ Look at that Twat in the red tracksuit holding that phone...announced Helicopter pilot Bob Boner to his passenger ........... .I think he is a foot soldier for the Lavender Road Mob.... if I swoop down low do you think you can get him!”

Tommy could hear the sound of the ‘Flight of the Valkeries’ but didn’t realise it was ‘Apocalypse Now’ as the helicopter ‘gun ship’ hovered above him red light flashing.

Tommy still thought this was a UFO and stood transfixed waiting for the music to change over and start to communicate with him by short blasts of ‘beat box’.

Tommy’s red tracksuit turned to brown as he was suddenly deluged in a downpour of shite.

As the contents of a former ‘Winchfawr’ septic tank were poured over the sentry, he had ‘close encounters of the turd kind’ as Tommy’s star trek ended with a Captain’s Log .

Dripping in sewage, Tommy admitted defeat , as he turned tail and fled home to the sound of much laughter from the helicopter crew.

As the chopper dropped off its load from the air –a strange delivery of stuffed Llamas , Alpacas and Donkeys were hastily packed into a horsebox trailer and whisked away by the waiting shadowmen.

As he squelched his way back to Lupin Close, Tommy tried to make up a good excuse for his failure to intercept the ‘snow’ for his posse.

“ What the Hell happened to you?” asked Charlie as he slid through the front door.

“ It was those Aliens they tried to abduct me... you gotta believe me....there were farm animals flying everywhere on that common....da horse...da donkey...da llama...!” bleated Tommy.

“ Da pigs?” asked Tit-Che.

“ No police there man !” he replied removing a ‘ baby stool’ from his earhole.

“ Mr Bigg...he is out of order....!” snapped Charlie slamming his fist hard down on a stolen blue ray DVD player with a Heolgerrig Postcode.

“ Tit-che I want his house in Cefn staked out ...I want to pay him a little visit!” said Charlie ominously.

A different kind of smell was on the mind of Carwyn McMuffin, how could he get his car and its illicit contents past French & English Customs - smelling the way it did.

He began to shake rattle and bang his aging catalytic converter, until it began to stink to high heaven.

He also remembered a trick that the IRA had invented at H Block, in the Maze prison, opening a packet of maltesers, he placed a few of the chocolate balls in the bottom of his cotton shorts , smearing some on the top of his legs .

The customers official motioned for him to wind down his window , and stuck his head close to the car.

“ Anything to declare Sir?” he asked .

The combination of the smell of a sweaty Penydre- pupil who hadn’t washed for three days, in a car without sunroof and air conditioning, together with the stench of the dodgy catalytic converter and the sight of the brown balls rolling from his stained shorts, meant he moved through customs quicker than Kevin Spacey at gate 7 of American airlines.

Carwyn smiled to himself , as he was waved through without challenge, sniffer dogs falling like flies as he went past onto the ferry.

Next stop ...’Brake Lines’ garage he thought.

Rhys Wonka couldn’t believe his eyes...one minute he was scrambling ‘Walkers & Wilding style’ across Pontycapel Road - the next he had slid off into a secret glen of stuffed donkeys and other animals hidden at the back of a massive mansion underneath the Cefn Viaduct.

‘Perfect’ he purred like his finely tuned engine...’we need a guy for the bonfire tonight....’ selecting one of the stuffed animals ...he declared that this ‘ass was toast’.

Taking off his helmet, the ‘easy rider’ put it on his stuffed pillion passenger and headed for the bonfire site at ‘the black patch’ Cefn Rugby field.

“ I know where Mr Bigg lives!” cried Tit-che in triumph.

“ Where?” asked Charlie.

“ Underneath the arches .....down Pontycapel Road!” the street boy sang like the recently departed Danny La Rue.

“ How did you find out....from your homies?” asked Charlie suspiciously.

“ I heard in the Gurnos Club , that his daughter’s marrying someone on Thursday and the house will be empty all day.....we can pay him a little visit then!” laughed Tit-che.

“ Roll on Thursday!” roared Charlie ...”I can’t wait!”

******************************************************************

“ I found him...I get first hit of donkey ‘Hote’!” shouted Wonka as the rugby boys hoisted the stuffed animal up the old oak tree.

“ Piñata ... Piñata... Piñata” the boys squealed as one , as Rhys Wonka swung his stick at the stuffed creature hanging like he was from Bridgend, high up in a tree.

As he struck its hide, huge clouds of white dust covered the schoolchildren.

“ Hey !” said Blue-bottle....”that powder gives me a real buzz!”

“ Careful...it could be ASS- bestos!” warned Zebulon the Prop.

“ I think its sherbet” second-rower Monsters Inc.

“ I thought it was washing powder...if I could be so Bold ...that was my automatic reaction !” laughed Dodger the scrum half.

“ I think it’s Cocaine.... dabbing it on his finger....I think that is ‘Columbian Marching Powder’” declared Polish boy JOW.... ‘and it’s a bad omen!”

“ We should get rid of it!” declared Bluebottle.

“ Let’s burn it ...like that witch Joan of Arc!” said Monsters Inc.

“Don’t be daft...half of Cefn Coed will be high...they will all think their on the stairway to Cefn !” said JOW.

******************************************************************

Thursday morning came and the Lavender Road Mob watched as the Silver Mercedes left its drive, dressed up to the nines in full wedding regalia , electric gates closing slowly behind it.

“ Now we move!” said Charlie to the rest of the mob as Mr Bigg’s vehicle disappeared down the narrow lanes towards Cefn High Street.

The three hoodies made their way expertly over the wall gaining entry to Bigg Mansion with the flick of a stolen credit card on the ‘yale’ lock.

Once inside the house, each of the Lavender Road mob knew their ‘modus operandi’ like a ‘crack’ team from Oceans 11.

Charlie removed the tapes from the security cameras.

Tommy located the loot – which was hidden as usual in used notes in the mattress of the King-Size main bed..

Tit-che planted the stolen knickers.

Placing the mattress against the external wall, they then got to work on the garden.

Carwyn McMuffin , the drugs mule was easing his way up the A470 happy in the knowledge that he was on the home strait.

Oblivious to his surroundings , cameras flashing meant little to him...it wasn’t his car.

His check of the vehicle at a service station had revealed Cannabis , Cocaine and Amphetamine with a street value of 2 Million pounds.

Pulling into the ‘Brake Lines’ garage he was met by the smiling owner Alf Fetamean.

The smile changed to a frown as an unmarked Police car pulled in behind him.

“ It’s a fair cop guv....!” he said in a TV ‘Bill’ style confession...(which happens all the time in the real world.... ) ...”but how did you know there were drugs in the car?” asked Alf & Carwyn simultaneously.

“ Speed Cameras!” came the reply....” that and the fact you phoney sump was marking a different kind of ‘white lines’ in the centre of the road!...the trail led us here to you!”

Knock Knock....came the sound.

Charlie looked at Tit-che nervously.

It was the sound of a schoolboy knocking the front door of Bigg Mansion.

“ Penny for the Guy Mister?” asked the angelic two foot Dodger.

“ Guy...? “ said Tommy...that’s not a guy it’s a donkey...!” snatching out of the hand of Dodger.

“ How did you get in here anyway...this gaff has electric gates!” asked Tommy.

“Threw Donkey Hote over the top and limbo-ed under them!” replied Dodger.

“ How come you can afford a place like this then ...are you a drug dealer or a gangster rappa ....anyway can I have my donkey back now?” he asked politely

The boot up the arse was the only reply.

“ I’ll get him back somehow!” ...pledged Dodger belying his size and picking up the mattress carrying it Masai- style on his head towards his rugby mates massed up at the entrance.

“ Penny for the Guy ...or Five Pounds a sniff!” declared Rhys Wonka to each of the boys as they passed into the Cefn Rugby Club.

He had only been sat outside for half-an hour, but he had made over £500.00 thanks to the generosity and stupidity of the older boys.

Prop Milo O’Shea- Bray, the only rugby boy with a single uni-brow placed evenly on his face, handed over a crisp £5.00 note.

Sniffing deeply, the tail end Charlie, he raced towards the rest of his mates who were heading towards Cefn Viaduct to see the impromptu ‘U2 concert’ of local man ‘Dai’ Van Halen’ had set up his amp.

Head full of ass and nose full of Charlie, he tore off his shirt and dived headlong at his friends who lifted him up and over their heads until he reached the front.

The prop was mad and lived life in the fast lane.

He had once tried to give himself ‘liposuction’ with a Dyson vacuum cleaner and a pen knife resulting in a lop sided gut – but Dirty Sanchez just sent the tape back unused.

The Dirty Sanchez effect was one thing , but the ‘Jackass’ effect was ten times worse.

This left Milo totally ‘West-life’ as he was caught up in the music he ‘went ahead and ‘Jumped’ over the side of the bridge.

‘Flying without wings’ the Prop went into survival mode stretching his flab skin like a flying fox squirrel.

Full of ‘the real thing’ he felt in his own mind like a shaman joining in with the Condor spirit soaring high on the thermals below the bridge and landing triumphantly on the Swansea Road side of the bridge.

“ Those ‘Nasca’ lines were brilliant!” he dribbled picking himself out of the gorse bush .

“ That’s a nice touch !” laughed ‘Don’ Charlie ‘Kilo’ Kong noting that Tommy had placed the head of the donkey in the bed in true Godfather style.

“ I am going to make him an ‘Eeyore’ he can’t refuse!” he quipped Don ‘Ki’ Kong.

The finishing touch was the calling card bearing their Christian names in the areas of the garden that they had worked.

“ Where’s that mattress gone?” asked Tit-che suddenly.

The bonfire was in full swing .

Gone were the days of old tyres billowing out black smoke.

The rugby boys ‘ donkey pyre’ had caught fire instantly and a huge pall of grey and white smoke drifted into the night sky...like they were electing Pope Don –key ‘Hote the First.

Fire ‘egg- spurt’ Frank Heavens, sat eating his sandwiches in the ‘Green goddess’ provided by the Fire Authority in his Don Estelle shorts and Jesus sandals looking like a pyromaniac staring intensely at the hypnotic flames .

“ I bet you a tenner... that pine tree will be a goner by 9.00pm !” he said to his Station Commander George O’Dowd.

“I haven’t had any overtime since those mysterious grass fires started in my garden last year!...lucky I found my own well to pump the water!” continued Frank.

The blaze continued well as the mattress and ‘Donkey Guy’ erupted.

“ Boy George ...can you smell money ....?” asked Frank sniffing the air.

“ Okay .....two hours tops and try not to burn the hose pipe again.!” replied O’Dowd.

“ And shut that bloody tender door....you might wear sandals in the Autumn ...but I don’t want another back-draft.!”

The helicopter buzzed back and forth over the usual Cilsanws common drop off point , but there was no sign of life.

Finally, a small flicker of a cigarette lighter was moved back and fore ... by and like a rocker with an afro in a Van Halen concert and the donkey derby was on again.

The ‘Mule Train’ was sent down the quite lanes from Cilsanws passing the aptly named ‘Drovers Arms’ and onto the viaduct before being tipped over the edge into the soft landing area in the garden of Mr Bigg’s mansion.

“ Jesus...!” said Tit-Che as another donkey narrowly missed him landing with a squelch, in the marshy area around the stable in the garden, he was working in.

“ Tell them there is no room at the inn!” laughed Charlie watching Tit-che dodging the incoming Ass-steroids.

“ I’ve heard of frogs and locusts but you don’t want a kick of one of them things!” said Tit-Che.

“ Hurry up with those signs Tommy ....I gotta feeling the ‘heat’ ain’t far behind!”

With that there was a giant explosion from the Common high above Cefn .

Mr Bigg stood on his door-step and just as he put his key in the lock...the explosion ripped through the air.

“ Good fireworks this year in Cyfarthfa Park!” he exclaimed...” There goes the tarmac budget again!”

As both he and his wife climbed the stairs, loosening his Colombian neck-tie, he noticed that his bedroom door was open and that his ‘Peruvian’ mattress was gone...and in its place was a donkey’s head and some stolen used ‘Evans outsize’ knickers were in its place.

“ What have you been doing while I was out....Muffin the Mule is one thing , but muffin the mule in garters is a criminal offence.!” said his wife.

“ Criminal offence...that’s music to my ears announced Drug Tzar Nicholas Shepherd!” appearing on the landing behind the pair.

“ Take some photos lads...!” he announced waving a search warrant.

“ What evidence have you got!” asked Mr Bigg rising up to his full height of 4 foot 10 realising that the mattress and all the donkeys had gone from the house.

As the pair walked out through the patio doors , Mr Bigg’s jaw dropped when he spotted his garden had undergone a transformation , while had been in the wedding.

In the centre, there was a giant igloo surrounded on all sides by a bumper crop of cannabis, coca plants and magic mushrooms.

Thinking on his feet, Mr Bigg said ...cannabis plants have grown wild in this country before 1957 ...and besides it is for my own personal use....the magic mushrooms ...too are primitive LSD but are natural products.....

“ Okay ....Mr Bigg explain why you have an six foot igloo and a door so small only you could fit in made entirely of crack cocaine..... !”

“ I’m an Eskimo...!” was all he could stutter by way of reply.

“ Well you are ‘Inuit’ up to your neck!.....besides..... who did your garden...?”

As he read the graffiti sprayed signs......Charlie, Tommy and Tit-che (Marsh)

“ Ground Force?”

******************************************************************

High up on the Cilsanws common, the explosion was the result of another ‘Ground Force ‘ battling with an ‘Air Force’.

The non-nonsense Drugs Tzar Nicholas Shepherd had a zero tolerance attitude when it came to drugs. He wanted to ‘can’ it completely...and put the perpetrators in the ‘can’.

‘Coke Zero’ was the mission code-name , after he had ordered the helicopter to be shot down by a surface to air missile imported from the Afghanistan Taliban.

Noting that the helicopter was registered to a local Doctor in Cefn they decided to take it down.

Dr U. G. Baron was clearly a pseudonym of Mr Bigg.

As soon as the crosshairs on the missile launcher caught the track of the helicopter, the pilot and his remaining cargo was toast.

In the face of adversity, there was no way in the world that Bob Boner could keep his chopper up and the huge explosion glowed red like a Merthyr Blast Furnace in the night sky.

“ And we have a special message from the boys in blue from Tregaron!” .. announced Derek Brockway live on BBC ‘weatherman talking’ .....” apparently Julie has had an Operation which has been a great success ...and wish her a ‘speedy recovery’....

“Finally, before I tell you about that Fete & Gala in the Woodwork Department of Penydre Comprehensive school, this Friday with loads of fairy cakes ...I love fairies don’t you.... there is a special message sent in by e-mail from Nicholas of South Wales....Red Sky at night...Shepherd’s delight.....Drug Dealers chopper on fire...Nos Da!”

“Good night and good luck!” said the Curator Derek Dunny as he locked the huge wooden front door of the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum.

The only Grade 1 Listed Structure in the whole of the Merthyr Tydfil Borough was imposing looking at the best of times, but on a dark wet Winter’s evening it was downright scary. Safer Merthyr employee Dicky Knight looked around nervously. It was his first night as a security guard and he didn’t feel very safe.

“Everything looks so much more scary in the dark!” he said to his shadow, who was his only companion for the night. Merthyr Council too had to comply with Central Government Budget cuts and were warned that they had to make savings, which is why they employed a youngster on the National Minimum wage to guard their museum, lit at night by solar powered lights.

This wouldn’t have been a problem anywhere else, but as most Merthyr people will confirm, we don’t get sunlight for six months of the year. Knight looked around him dimly, the old stuffed animal heads on the walls seemed to glower at him menacingly and the suits of armour looked ready to follow him as soon as he turned his back. His first ever night shift was going to be a long one. He sat down at the counter on a chair, with just a Pound shop flash light with a Polish battery in it for comfort. His senses were on high alert for every sound or movement as his imagination ran riot. The swirling high wind and driving rain outside didn’t help matters either .He had a mobile phone but he only had 20p of credit left on it – just enough to text HELP to his girlfriend – if he needed to.

In the half-light he carefully unwrapped his silver foil package peering in to see what sandwiches his mother had packed for him -hoping in anticipation for salmon. All he had was cheese- with bread so hard it could have been from Swansea Road. Bored silly after just ten minutes, he began to throw peanuts into the air and catch them in his mouth. He began to throw them higher and higher until one lodged in his left nasal chamber and he nearly choked to death. He sighed to himself as he checked his watch with the flash light 6.40pm....ten minutes gone only another 11 hours and 20 minutes to go. He knew he had to do something so he decided to pluck up enough courage to patrol the place.

After checking the entrance door was locked firmly, he made his way into the art gallery section filled with furniture not good enough for St Fagan’s Museum of Welsh Life. As he walked in, all the portraits on the walls seemed to looking at him. In his mind’s eye, Dicky could see the eyes moving behind the oak panel wall partitions and Frans Hals ‘Cavalier’ seemed to be laughing at him.

“I don’t know what you are laughing about....because the Roundheads kicked your arse pal!” he said aloud to the oil painting.

Dicky almost expected him to answer but no reply came. Dicky had heard wives’ tales for years of the Castle being haunted ...but apart from his teachers at the school, he never saw any monsters. Passing along the Crawshay dynasty, he refrained from spitting in the face of the Ironmasters who had abused the Town and its poor people. He looked around him at Lady Charlotte Guest, translating the Mabinogion into English and realised he was in a place of priceless historical importance to the people of Merthyr. Even so, he didn’t care...he just lit up his little roll-up fag and blew out a smoke ring onto the face of Richard Trevithick.

“Narrow Gauge ...he puffed closing his mouth... Broad Gauge!” he said opening the aperture.

As he grew more confident in his explorations, his stomach started to roll so he decided he would have a sniff around the cafeteria area known as ‘Crawshay’s Truck Shop’ and see if there were any freebies on offer. As he entered the dark underground area , he was disappointed to see that everything was shuttered down and locked up for the night. There was however, a single vending unit sponsored by Diet Coke, containing various chocolate bars , crisps and full sugar cans of coke to encourage healthy eating in the Borough. Dicky didn’t have any coins anyway , but he certainly wasn’t prepared to spend £1.00 for a Mars Bar in any event. He bent down, opened the metal flap and tried lifting his remaining hand up to flick the goods off their metal shelves. The machine was designed to stop this sort of petty pilfering. Bored further he decided to use the toilet. Sitting in peace he relaxed as he sent two beautiful ‘corn dogs’ down the River Taff. Dicky’s peace was shattered, when he looked across and realised that the Council cutbacks included toilet paper too. No velvet...like the brand his Mam and Dad had ‘pampered’ him with at home.

“Shit!” he cursed aloud . He suddenly had a thought. “What about those velvet drapes in the portrait room?” Walking with his trousers around his ankles, he shuffled along like a penguin until he reached the room with the soft curtains. careful to use the inside of the green and brown velvet, he noticed that they were beginning to stick to the wall near the window reveal.

“Shit happens!” he said as he raised his trousers and adjusted his clothing.

And then it hit him. Looking through the doorway, directly at him was a small Egyptian Death Mask of King Tutankhamen, in a small glass display case. It wasn’t the pharaoh that caught his eye but the rod of Osiris next to him. It was perfect to knock off a mars bar from the machine. He made his way to the cabinet and was dejected initially to find it locked.

“Now where would a Merthyr curator hide the key?” he said aloud.

Spying a plant pot, alongside the entrance door he went and checked and bingo there it was.

“Safer Merthyr....that’s training for you!” he said as he flicked the key high in the air, being careful not to throw it high enough to lodge in his nose. As he opened the cabinet, he grabbed the rod of Osiris and made his way back to the cafeteria. He returned minutes later with armfuls of chocolate, three bags of crisps and a can of coke, smiling inanely as he carried the magic rod in his teeth. Putting down his ill-gotten gains, he returned the rod to its place in the cabinet. As he did so, he noticed a cutting about the curse of King Tut and the mysterious death of museum benefactor Lord Caernarvon.

“I‘m not Brendan Fraser ...he said “ the only mummy I’m afraid of is my own!”

He placed the death mask on his face for a second and a few bits of wrist jewellery as a costume and ‘Walked like an Egyptian’ with the ‘bangles’ on. He then foolishly picked up the book entitled ‘Necropolis’ and began to decipher the hierographics. As his dad was a former postman , he had no difficulty in reading the writing out loud. As he finished the last sentence, he heard a dog howl in the distance. Like his father, he too had an innate fear of dogs and that sound was not unlike the sound Lord Caernarvon had heard seconds before his dog dropped dead at the exact time, when Howard Carter opened that tomb, in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

“Anubis...the Jackal Headed God!” said Dicky....”Guardian of the underworld!” he said reading the papyrus parchment scroll aloud, which crumbled to dust as he spoke.

“Where are those drapes again?”

As he made his way to the window overlooking the rear of the castle, two likely lads were digging in the woods behind the castle, looking for the money that a local drug dealer had allegedly buried there.The Gurnos pair of Mac Head and his brother ‘H’ were digging away, trying to find the buried loot. Sudden movement in the window above was noticed by the pair. The movement was the bare arse of Dicky , reflecting the moonlight , as he used the velvet curtains for a purpose not originally intended. Mac picked up a stone and launched it expertly at the aperture. It sailed through the gap in the sash window and landed on the table containing a priceless vase from the Ming Dynasty. It teetered on the table edge tantalisingly for a second, as Dicky lunged like Edwin Van Der Saar full stretch to catch it, in doing so knocking over a Bronze age cup –the only one left in existence- found by Tony Robinson and the Time Team in Swansea Road- as proof that civilised man HAD once lived in Gellideg.

The vase fell all the same and shattered into a thousand pieces.“ I want my mummy!” said Dicky sucking his thumb for a split second , until he realised it wasn’t just the drapes that were humming. When Dicky opened his eyes he was hoping it was all just a ‘nightmare’. But he could see the two teenage drug dealers making their way home with their ill gotten gains on the back of a black horse. More disconcerting to Dicky was that he could see a small bulldog looking at him slobbering away, with ectoplasm dripping from his mouth.

“What the Hell are you....Anubis?” stuttered Dicky.

Beyond the dog in the entrance hall Dicky could hear strange guttural noises – oh...um...chukka...oh um chukka....

Dicky backed away from the dog eventually circling the wall and running towards the strange sound. Dicky stopped ‘dead’ in his tracks, as he witnessed a strange bearded man step down off the canvas of Rolf Harris. He was all in white, like an outline of a person and was almost transparent.

“What are you...?” stuttered Dicky... as the trickle down the back of his leg began to fill his white socks too.

“Can’t you tell what it is yet?” asked the spectre .

Dicky stood white as a sheet (bar for his socks) shaking his head in terror.“ Are you a Rolftergeist?” he eventually stammered.

“I won’t harm you....different to him...he said nodding at the dog....he could put you in ‘Animal Hospital’ if I was to say the word!”

“What word?” asked Dicky.“

Churchill.....he’s my spirit guide...helping the recently bereaved to find their way in the afterlife....a ‘loss adjuster’ if you like ....oh and by the way .... that vase ....it wasn’t me....for insurance purposes....he nodded at the dog....I don’t want to lose my no claims bone-us....it was them out there....those ‘Two little boys’ on their ‘wooded horses’. said the ghost.

“Do you think I should go after them?” asked Dicky pretending he was brave.

“So let me AsBO’s go...son.....!” sung Rolf...singing to the tune of Tie me Kangaroo down sport .

“That’s the trouble in Merthyr ...said Dicky....I haven’t made the place any safer...I had my car wheel trims pinched from this very castle forecourt...and the GTI sport ones cost a fortune....thank God my father gets money in the mail regularly...!” said Dicky growing more confident.

“I know what you mean cobber....lot of ‘poor little blighters’ in the town...they’ll steal anything in Merthyr from scrap metal signs to shitty drapes ( Dicky blushed red at this point)...I even had to tie my kangaroo down sport to stop it being taken from the Park!!! So what are you doing here so late at night Sport?” asked the phantom.

“Having a little ‘Walkabout’ like you really!” said Dicky. “How come you live in that painting?” he asked not so scared now- safe in the knowledge that the dead wouldn’t hurt him.

“Every artist leaves a little bit of their soul behind in their work...you as a fellow arsetist chose to leave your impression on a different material- the drapes...for example!” said Rolf.

“But one thing I don’t understand....I know your career is dead...but I didn’t know you had gone to ‘Dreamstate’!” said Dicky.

“Neither did I until about ten minutes ago!”.......I was stood before the Queen ...she had previously given me the CBE & MBE honours....before she saw my 80th birthday painting of her....she said I was to be made Sir Rolf....for my services to animals and art and anoraks sales ...but then the flunky, told her that David Cameron had rung first, then Nick Clegg second and they had told her that the Royal Family were not immune to the public sector cuts.....then she went all ‘Helen Mirren’ on me.... and the next minute I’m ‘condem’ned to talking like Anne Boleyn.... !” said Rolf putting his head underneath his arm.“ Now I’m looking for a Stairway to Heaven!”

“Stairway to Cefn...I can help you with ...but not that one...you best follow Churchill.....!” said Dicky.

No sooner had Rolf uttered the ‘immortal’ line then the sun came up behind the shitty drapes. “Sun Arise!” wailed Rolf as he headed for the light. As he did so, the front door was opened by the returning curator.

“Enjoy your work experience?” he asked hopefully.

“I quit mate....once a Queen always a Queen...but once a Knight’s enough ....like Rolf Harris head....I’m off!” said Dicky tucking in his chocolate bars.

The curator looked at him somewhat bemused and shut the door behind him.

The sound of a helicopter buzzed overhead as the terrified Welshman cowered in his impromptu sand dune bunker.The soldier dressed in green khaki combat gear stood out like a pork pie in a Jewish buffet against the yellow sanded backdrop of Helmond region in Afghanistan. The war on terror wasn't working as far as Harry R. S. Crack was concerned.

The sound of explosions all around him sent him deeper down the steep sides of the bunker as he began to suck his thumb for comfort. He suddenly realised that he was not alone, as a ginger haired soldier dressed in a German Africa Korps uniform complete with Nazi swastika and black armed band dropped into his hidey hole.

"First Crusade Old Boy?" questioned the stranger. "My family has been at it since the Middle Ages! You get used to those dumb-shit Americans. I ran too...they cant read a map reference to save their lives, or ours come to think of it......it's only friendly fire, it wont harm you!" said the soldier trying to reassure the nervous Harry."

"Tell that to journalist Terry Lloyd!" replied Harry from his foetal position.

"Whats your name soldier?" said the Erwin Rommel lookalike.

"Harry Sir!" said the scared squaddie staring at the pips on the black tunic.

"What a spiffing coincidence, so am I ....although most of the boys call me Captain Wales!" said the stranger.

"What regiment are you with?" asked the Sandhurst-trained officer, as shrapnel flew over their heads.

"I am not in any regiment. I'm from the TA's. I signed up in a drunken stupor in my local pub on Friday Night, the Tredegar Arms in Dowlais, do you know it ?.... and got press ganged into coming here by accident. They shaved my beautiful hair off while I was drunk and that bloody military policeman from Brecon mistook me for someone else from Merthyr who was AWOL and shipped me out here under protest!" said Harry.

"Oiks.. so you could say you went from the TAS to the TAS and from Jarhead to Jarhead!" said the Captain.

"Rough deal, its like being born WITHOUT a silver spoon in your mouth!" he continued.

Shells exploded all around them as a Yank induced Sirocco wind blew about the pair.

"If it helps I was like you the first time. This desert and these sand dunes, its enough to drive ONE Barchan mad, still do you know what is under this sand and the REAL reason why us Brits care about this Allah-forsaken Hell-Hole?" said Captain Wales.

"Like Iraq and Kuwait its got oil reserves and rich mineral deposits....war on terror my royal arse...I want to grab a piece of this for Granny!" said the military man.

"Take a tip from me too and collect as much of this shrapnel as you can find ....the price of metal back home,  like this casing shell, has gone through the roof....... slip a couple of quid to the RAF pilots and it'll be home in Brize Norton before you know it!"

The shelling stopped for a brief moment and silence returned.

"Never worry about those Taliban weapons, we sold them too them years ago. They're rubbish! Even the Thatchers sell better quality ones than those old bangers!" continued the Captain.

"Me..I prefer Eton Rifles, like this one when you are in a Jam!" said Wales producing an enormous sniper rifle with a telescopic lens from his lederhosen shorts.

"Dear me,..now that is an enormous weapon!" said Harry unfurling himself from his hedgehog ball.

"This was what I was concealing in that photograph of me in Las Vegas playing strip billiards. Being a Royal isn't just about rest and play. Britannia still rules the waves with a little bit of help from across the pond against these terrorists. President OBomber, I mean..at least I can understand him because I thought the former President Dubya Bush with his Texas drawl had declared war on tourism and the causes of tourism to boot!" continued Captain Wales.

"But isn't one mans terrorist just another mans freedom fighter?" asked Harry nervously.

"Do you want me to shove this telescope sight up your arse and send your balls into orbit around Pakistan?" asked the Captain menacingly.

"Sorry, it's not that I am a traitor to the crown. I just think that young men dying and being disabled for a couple of sand dunes isnt right!" replied Harry.

Captain Wales ignored this last comment as his focus was on the horizon. Laying down the gun stand on the ridge of the sand bunker he closed one eye, held his breath and squeezed gently on the trigger. In the far distance about 1.5 miles away a black shadow dropped to the floor.

"YEEESSS!" said the new Prince of Persia clutching his hand into a fist in an aggressive way. Handing Harry a set of binoculars he pointed silently ahead.

"Why are those women walking in front of that group of men. I thought in the Muslim culture women were classed as second rate citizens and had to walk five paces behind men!" said Harry ignorantly.

"That was BEFORE landmines!" said the Royal. This McMillan TAC 101 sniper rifle can blow the nuts of a fly on a camels back at 1.5 miles away....in the dark too!" boasted the Captain.

Taking off his military hat the young Captain scratched his ginger hair and reached into his pocket. He began gnawing away nervously at his fingers.

"Well, I am surprised with blue blood running through your veins. I thought you would have better etiquette than to bite your fingernails!" said Harry returning to his cheeky self now the bombing had stopped.

"Oh these aren't MY Fingernails! said the Royal. Want one?" he said tossing a dismembered digit towards the horrified Harry. "SAS training in Hereford....eat what you can when you can. PPPPiss Poor Performance and all that....nose to the grindstone...fingers to the bone! My Mum was Queen of Hearts and all that but I prefer something lighter!" said the Captain. "The vultures will only strip them clean anyway. Lets look in here to see whats for desert!" said the Windsorite Bear Grylls looking in his tucker bag.

"Scorpion leg?" he offered politely.

"I cant eat the pickled eggs behind the bar in the Tredegar Arms so what chance have I got of surviving out here!" said Harry returning to reality.

"Hubbly Bubbly?" offered the other Harry, cannabis stick in hand. Some great shit out here mind you. You want to try the Kandahar Poppy! Blow your mind it will, better than any IED !" said the Royal. "As my relatives would confirm. Its a Knockout! We better get a move on Tiger Woods mate.....you don't want to be caught in the same bunker for long." he said brushing the sand with his hat.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Harry.

"Covering my tracks mate. Out here there is a fatwa on me crown. That Zabihullah Mujahid put a price on my head. He's the only one that still thinks my real father is Prince Charles. Little does he know.!" he said pointing at his normal size ears.

"Gotta hide the prints of Wales!" he said brushing the area free of signs he was there.

Do you think it was wise to have HRH cut into the soles of those shoes then? asked Harry the commoner.

"Those aren't MY prints...look at YOUR soles mate!" laughed Captain Wales. "We are all Spartacus out here private. Except me of course! Never heard of Montys Batman?" he laughed.

"What me?...take a bullet for you?" asked Harry. "Im Welsh!" said Harry. "You only have to see a Wales V England Rugby match match to see how much we hate the English!" he continued.

"Common mistake.....but I'm not English......nobody truly is. We are a mongrel nation. We Windsors are German and can trace our bloodline back to William the Conqueror... French. Grandpapa is Greek and Prince of Denmark too and that doesn't even include the Hewitt strain.!" said Harry's new found pedigree chum. "Besides I have been to the odd rugger game. Quite good at it actually. We had a game once back at Kabul HQ.... wrapped a head of an Afghan Hound in a cloth and no-one could get the rag-head orf me!" boasted Captain Wales. "I booted it so high over the base that I nearly got put on report for taking down an Apache helicopter!" he continued.

"So how long does your average squaddie tour of duty last?" asked Harry.

"About 1001 Arabian Nights or three months if your lucky. I'm popping back to Blighty for a game of polo or something, perhaps you might want to crash at my place but don't expect a palace!" said Wales.

The sky suddenly darkened mysteriously. The Captain went back in to survival mode instinctively. As Harry looked to the horizon, he could see strange shapes of Afghan men and mercenaries from the neighbouring countries approaching cross-legged on beautifully coloured flying rugs.

"How bazaar!" said Harry. "Watch out those crazy insurgents....they are CARPET Bombing again...we need to find some cover!" said his Highness.

As they did so an Afghan policeman appeared at the edge of the wadi wearing a massive clock-face. Captain Wales wasted no time in shooting him dead.

"How did you know he was one of them?" asked Harry.

"Never ask a policeman out here the time besides he was ticking!" said His Royal Harry-ness.

The Captain suddenly lifted his head as on the hot night air in the distance could be heard a faint bell ringing.

"Whats that ?" asked Harry.

"It if rings twice it means that a new camel train has arrived and you don't want to get stuck with an ugly one do you?" said the Captain.

"I thought you had a girlfriend!" asked Harry.

"Chelsy has been relegated to the subs bench out here besides the bell rang five times!" said the Prince.

"What does that signify?" asked Harry.

"The only toilet in Camp Bastion is free and whilst I am third in line for the throne of England you need to get there before 20,000.00 squaddies on a diet of curry and beans!"

“ What’s their pool team like then boyz?” questioned Fast Eddie Felson dressed in his white hat and black and white brogues as he sat in the back of the minibus.

“ Not bad- they have a few Welsh players but nothing we can’t handle on and off the table!” said Bobby Mogzy cricking his knuckles.

The boys in the team minibus, had set out from the Iron Horse Public house in Galon Uchaf Road ,Merthyr Tydfil at 6.00pm to arrive for 8.00pm.

They knew if they arrived late, they would be docked a frame every twenty minutes.

It was a best of nine pool match in the South Wales area ‘Rhymney Brewery’ sponsored cup knockout competition and the two teams had more scores to settle than just the outcome of this grudge match .

Both the Iron Horse Public House and the Eden Bush Inn in Cwmaman were both featured in the television mockumentary on Sky TV as being two of ‘Britain’s Hardest Pubs’.

There were however, no prizes for finishing second.

There was also a bit of a personal too as two of the boys had a had a ‘two’s up’ with the pub landlord’s wife around the back of the Kooler Nightclub two weeks ago.

As the six Merthyr boys got down out of the clapped out minibus last used for transporting flying pickets in the 1984 miners strike- they sensed that they were on forbidden territory.

Mogzy stopped pissing through the hole in the floor of the rust bucket as they hit Aberdare’s Sobell roundabout.

Snake Valley…. home to the River Cynon….and Valley rivals of Merthyr since the 1926 General Strike when the blacklegs (with no legs) slithered back to work on their bellies.

The contaminated ground upon which they stood seemed to ‘hiss’ defiantly at the Merthyr Iron Warriors- or was that just the pollutants from the nearby Abercwmboi phurnacite plant.

As they arrived at their destination there was an air of trepidation.

From the outside the Eden Bush Inn, Cwmaman looked like a dive.

From the inside it looked worse.

As ex- army man and veteran of the Falklands Island War pushed open the door of the Pub - the entire region became ‘ a silent valley’.

Only the sound of a single stereophonic album being played on a cassette tape could be heard in the distant still air of a Valley that once was full of noisy heavy industry but now no longer had any work.

Mogzy was joined by Jim Remploy from the Gurnos , Richard ‘Hannibal’ Stevens- a known face and ear biter from Galon Uchaf and three other likely lads, as they passed in single file through the narrow entrance to the Inn.

The Dowlais Boxer, Jezzie Jones carrying his metal cue case slammed it down on the bar sending some of the alcoholic crowd and more timid creatures scurrying for the shadows.

Kellog Scalper was next replete in waistcoat, metallic chalk-holder stuck to his belt and matching knuckledusters on both hands.

“ Six pints of Snake-Bite-Bow and Lager and do you do any food my good man?” asked Fast Eddie politely to the slob behind the bar dressed in a grey string vest that had at one point been white.

Three arrows thudded into the bar as he said so.

The barman threw a packet of pork scratching onto the bar and asked for £2.00.

Fast Eddie thought that was a bit steep but handed over a £2.00 coin anyway.

“ We don’t take ‘forged’ Merthyr money….there ain’t no thing as a two pound coin!” said Bob Slobb, landlord of the Eden Bush Inn tossing it back at Fast Eddie.

The bar went silent again as Fast Eddie weighed up his options carefully.

He knew if there to be a fight BEFORE they had won the pool match his team would be thrown out of the competition and the £5,000.00 prize money disappear in a flurry of fists.

“ Sorry, my missed snake…mistake !” …..he said putting four old style no longer legal tender 50p pieces on the counter.

Bob seeing real money instead of IOU’s and giros for a change grabbed greedily at the coins.

“ That’ll be £1.80 for the six pints too!” Bob demanded with menaces.

“ Great to be outside civilisation sometimes….at these prices!” said Remploy.

“ Now where’s the pool table at?” asked Jezzy.

Over by the toilets, the Iron Warriors Pool Team caught sight of a huge blue pool table with a Simonis – no nap cloth- new back in 1981- the last time the place had been cleaned.

There was no baulk line or D….only three rings where pint glasses had marked the cloth.

“ Whose your Captain?” roared Mogzy.

“ It is 7.30pm and the game must start on time!” demanded the ex- Welsh Guardsman drummed out of the army for cruelty to the Argentine prisoners.

He was seen planting the British Flag on Goose Green in the eye socket of one of the conscripted kids singing ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina!” as he did so.

He was hard….Merthyr hard.

“ Me….!” said a barrel-chested ex Tower Colliery Miner stepping out of the dark shadows of the pool table lit by a 15 watt bulb.

“ Bryn Pica is the name….you may have heard of me!” said the bruiser face filled with scars from fists that had cut him on many a Friday and Saturday night.

He slung a white card contemptuously at Mogzy with the names of the pool players written in blood red ink on the card.

Mogzsy had heard of Bryn Pica and was aware of the fact he was the leader of the notoriously violent gang the ‘Cwmaman Cobras’ but wasn’t going to admit the fact or be intimidated by it.

“ No…never heard of you…!” he spat back with more venom than his Snake Valley Rival.

Mogzy picked up the card and wrote down the names of his six players in the order he felt best with a miniature blue betting shop pen.

He would play Jim Remploy first, as he lived on the table.

He played six nights a week – hadn’t had a job since he left school at 14 and made his living hustling pool and gambling on horses or dogs to supplement his invalidity money.

He like most men in Merthyr had a ‘bard back’ ….it was nothing to do with Shakespeare….he could bend over the table alright with it…but when it came to doing an honest day’s work for a decent day’s pay he suddenly became like the Daily Mirror cartoon character - Andy Capped.

Jim had actually been found abandoned, having been born under the pool table of the ‘Matchstick Man’ Public House in the Gurnos and had been adopted by the Landlord as one of his own.

He did literally LIVE on the table….having been conceived there to….with the stain mark still visible on the baize cloth where his twin brother had just missed out.

When the landlord registered his birth of the pool prodigy , the first name that came to mind for his father was Riley….and little Jim had lived the life of Riley ever since.

After winning the toss of the coin, it didn’t take Jim long to break and ‘swish’ the balls from the break .

As he set himself up to pot the black into the top pocket – with his opponent not having had a shot- he could hear the crowd trying to put him off by farting, belching hissing and dropping loudly coins into the jukebox.

None of the above bothered Jim as they were all familiar pub sounds to the potting machine…so much so that he sited the black 8 ball before potting it with his eyes closed to the dismay of the other team that their underhand tactics had not worked.

His show of arrogance however, had lit an already tense atmosphere and the slow burning of the touch paper didn’t take long for the bar to ignite.

No sooner than a Billy Ray Cyrus song had started up than it kicked off as the bar turned Cuntry and Western .

“ Cocky bastard!” said skinhead Bavo Stock, as he struck Jim from behind over the head with the bottom of a pool cue from the rack.

Jim not expecting this treatment from the ‘referee’ , slumped unconsciously to the floor where he was booted unmercifully by the pub regulars.

Jezzie was the first to react, as he raced to the table and picked up the still spinning white ball and slung the heavy ivory object at the skinhead.

The ball slung with full force , hit the venomous reptile in the chest just as the Country & Western ballad picked up speed.

“ Don’t break my heart….my achey snakey heart…!” warbled Fast Eddie as his team mate Richard ‘Hannibal’ Stevens, as he leapt onto the closest person and sunk his teeth into the fleshy part of the ear of local head-banger Plisskin.

He hung on for dear life, teeth clamped like an aural version of a Calgary Rodeo rider as he rode the punches of his opponent who was in complete agony.

Plisskin would soon need to adopt a new nickname of ‘Eighteen Months’ as he was left with a ear and a half by the Merthyr biter.

The landlord joined in, shouting and whooping like a red Indian, as after six cans of red bull his adrenaline was so pumped, he leapt clean over the serving hatch and swung a long thin metal object towards Fast Eddie’s face.

“ Your ‘barred’ !” he said -expecting to see some teeth come flying through the air from the man that had knocked out his wife’s teeth a very different way previously .

But they don’t call him ‘Fast’ Eddie for nothing, as he dodged the iron bar heading his way and stuck the head into the landlord with all the crunch of an Ibex goat hitting a love rival .

Fast Eddie and co being from Merthyr were used to getting their ‘retaliation in first’.

Fists flew and cowboy boots were bloodied, as the five remaining Merthyr Iron Warriors fought against the usual Aberdare odds of three to one.

They were however forced due to sheer weight of numbers backwards through the front door they had originally entered.

It was like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie, as the snakes covered the floor of the public house….with Bavo Stock in a serious condition-- as the pool ball had smashed his ribcage and damaged his heart.

Alongside him , lay the equally mortally wounded Jim Remploy , his head and shoulders sticking out from under the pool table that now served as his blue coffin lid.

The Iron Warriors knew that they had to get the door of the pub shut -as their only advantage was to keep their attackers in as narrow a place as possible- to prevent being surrounded and overwhelmed by numbers.

Smacking heads with his metal cue case Jezzy- looked to anyone passing- like Luke Skywalker, as he wielded his ‘light sabre’ as the Warriors forced the door shut and jammed the pool case across the handles stopping it being opened from the inside.

“Kellog …..barked the leader- go and get the petrol can from the bus….lets teach these Snakes how he do things Merthyr-style!” said Mogzy…still pumped up with adrenaline from the fight…his black eyes rolling like a great White Shark about to strike.

“ The bastards have smashed the bus windows and knifed the tyres!” replied foot soldier Kellog.

“ Never mind that now...toss me that petrol can!” Mogzy ordered remembering his army days aged 17 creating Molotov Cocktails in Port Stanley.

Pouring some of the red diesel through the letterbox, he set about lighting the rag on the top of the canister as a fuse…leaving it in the doorway he glanced up at the double glazed window to see one of the rival Cwmaman Cobras taking his and the other Iron Warriors photographs on his camera-phone.

“ Let’s watch these heat loving reptiles really hiss!” he said as the flame started to engulf the door.

He nodded his head in triumph and made a throat slitting gesture at the young hooligan sat in the window.

He turned his back and walked away with his Gurnos-style pit bull terrier bollocks swinging from side to side.

The explosion thirty seconds later -sent bricks and wooden splinters flying - over 200 feet in all directions.

All five remaining Iron Warriors were deafened by the blast.

How was Mogzy to know the whole of Cwmaman was built on landfill tips full of methane- at least over in Merthyr they were put on the side of the mountains where the leachates , could harmlessly enter the water table and drinking supplies.

But one thing Mogzy did know, was that they were trapped ten miles inside enemy territory in Snake Valley - were there were most hostile reptiles than the cast of the 1970’s sci-film ‘V’.

He would have to get the Iron Warriors back to Merthyr on foot and evade patrols of rival street-fighters with such colourful names as the Mountain Ash Moccasins, Robertstown Rattlers , Aberdare Asps and the Hirwaun Slowworms.

Some of the Cynon Valley equivalent of the Bloods and the Crips were all talk…or in Galon Nouchie speak ‘all mouth and trousers’ but Mogzy knew that with only five men collectively against the numbers of the ‘Gangs of New Fork ’- it would be a real hard task.

After a brief silent minute riposte for their fallen comrade, Mogzy rallied F- troop … five men in the late forties and early fifties…men who had all been street fighters …hard as nails….men that always had his back on Soul Crew visits in the late 1970’s and 1980’s to place like Millwall, Chelsea and Manchester United.

His job was get these boys back to Merthyr alive to tell this tale.

“We need to get off the main roads as there will be people out there looking for us and baying for our blood!” said Mogzy.

He went into Falklands survival mode as he led his ‘platoon’ into the roadside bushes and ditches.

Richard ‘Hannibal’Stevens said what everyone else was thinking.

“ How will they know it was us?” he asked.

“ Well you still have a bit of that bloke’s earlobe stuck in your teeth for a start …but seeing five men with tattoos on their faces spelled CORRECTLY is a bit of a giveway….!” said the smartest one of the bunch Kellog- himself a tattoo parlour owner and hairdresser who had invented the ‘Number one down to the bone’ haircut.

Jezzie replied innocently but dimly to great amusement from the rest of the tribe.

“I didn’t know snakes had ears!” .

As they headed through the outskirts of Cwmaman, the Abercwmboyz stopped dead in their tracks.

Mogzy made hand signals to indicate silence and to drop down as two cars – a Dodge Viper and a Shelby Cobra- sped passed on the road full of men who appeared to be part of a gang of Teddy boys.

Fashion was so far behind in the Cynon Valley that it was now trendy again….and the gang known as the Abercwmboi Asps…were number one with a bullet.

The Rock-a Bully rebels complete with ducks arses , black bootlaces tied around their necks with way too short drainpipe trousers and luminous green or shocking pink socks and loafers looked menacing tooled up with bicycle chains and flick knives.

They were indeed looking for the Merthyr Iron Warriors, as the in-car radio confirmed - as the cars slowed down scanning the road-scape for signs of life.

Booming out on Viper Valleys Radio was the Martha Reeves and the Vandellas song – “ Nowhere to Run to – Nowhere to hide!”

It was ‘dead-icated’ to the Merthyr Iron Warriors as a message of intent from the Tower Colliery ‘Underground’ Movement.

The young man in the pub window had in his final moments on Google Earth, taken a photograph of the Merthyr Mob and uploaded it to Face-book.

The video of the pub burning was there too, seconds of panic before the explosion took hold and then the screen ominously went black.

Not surprisingly there was now a bounty on the heads of the Iron Warriors.

The cars seemed to stop instinctively as if the Asps had a sixth sense that the Merthyr Warriors were hiding in the undergrowth on their turf.

Their leader , Adder Jacobson - a huge man with black rings around his eyes from years of ingrained opencast coal dust- poked his tongue out on the night air as if trying to locate his prey with his sensory organ.

He pointed in the direction of the ditch the five were in fact hiding in.

Mogzy whispered to his friends to stay down, but that if they started to approach they should use their usual scatter technique – the way they evaded police- where they all run in different directions- every man for himself and they meet at the next available road underpass they found on the main route.

‘Black’ Adder had a ‘cunning plan’ to flush his foe into the open.

He got four miniature beer bottles and placed them on the fingers of his right hand and began to clink them rhythmically while uttering a terrifying ‘Iron Warriors come out to play…..Warriors….come out to plaaaaay!”

Never one to run from away from a fight- always towards one- the five Merthyr boys were sorely tempted to emerge from the ditch and give the car occupants albeit only outnumbered two to one a good hiding.

Mogzy biting his lip warned his fellow ‘Merthyr Rats’ to stay hidden until the very last moment.

They were unarmed , whilst the Asps had bicycle chains, baseball bats and flick-knives at their disposal.

The two vehicles reversed slowly back around the S bend snake valley road towards the hiding men.

“ Wait for it!” whispered Mogzy.

The five Iron Warriors all crouched like a gathered clan from the film ‘Braveheart’ awaiting the signal.

The codeword as always was ‘Malcolm Price’.

The second car – the Shelby Cobra- stopped six feet away from the European funded undergrowth concealing the Merthyr Mob.

As one, F-Troop emerged, slinging rocks, stones and empty bottles that had been tossed into the roadside verges by passing traffic.

The element of surprise was their only weapon, as they raced passed the shocked Asps and out onto the railway line on the opposite side of the road.

The Warriors scattered like Gurnos tenants on rent day , as they appeared and disappeared in a flash….becoming invisible again as they leapt fences and ditches in a desperate attempt to get away.

They all manage to do so , except for Jezzy, who unfortunately caught his shiny snooker waistcoat pocket on the barbed wire fence.

Before he could undo the final third button, the Asps were on him…all five of them beating him senseless with the bats …giving him a good kicking with their blue suede shoes.

By the time the ex- Cardiff prison veteran had received his third strike to the head, Jezzy was deader than the corduroy trousers worn by his murderers.

Mogzy sprinted on…he went back 30 years to his basic training in the army…in his mind, he was still clad in a backpack containing three house-bricks, running the
‘fan dance’ and three peaks challenge on the Brecon Beacons mountains.

The combination of extreme discipline and extreme violence that he had learned in his basic training had served him well, to survive in the mean streets of a town like Merthyr.

It has not just been the birthplace of Iron and Steel for Lord Nelson’s cannons at Trafalgar but also the forge for some of the hardest men in the World.

Their codeword of ‘Malcolm Price’ was used in reverence to Merthyr’s own beserker warrior who once riled wouldn’t stop until everything around him was horizontal.

Mogzy ran on…lungs straining from years of smoking 60 a day, his heart struggling after binge drinking to excess for over 40 years (since he was 8)….as he ran for his life across the train tracks and fields towards Robertstown .

The shouts of ‘Cwmbach you cowardly bastard ‘ were hissed at him as he legged it cross country.

Mogzy had a built in fight or flight mode and on this rare occasions he ignored his rage and took to his heels…discretion was the better part of valour and he had won enough combat medals in his lifetime.

The plan to scatter was working even if it had cost him his ‘lance corporal’.

The other three rendez-voused at the concrete underpass on the A4059 near the Tesco roundabout.

They were all out of breath but more importantly still alive.

“ Where are ?” gasped Stevens…finding it harder than the others, as the wind was whistling through his ear….not his own but the partially digested one that was still stuck in his gullet.

“ We are not far from Aberdare Town Centre…up the road to Robertstown…!” said Kellog checking his app on his mobile phone.

“ What gang runs this area?” asked Fast Eddie.

“ The Robertstown Rattlers….!” said Kellog.

“ Small but vicious….big fans of that 1970’s film ‘Quadrophenia!” he continued….beware of anyone dressed as a Mod for the next three miles!”.

Mogzy had ducked out of sight amongst the multitude of furniture warehouses in various stages of closing down….to him it was like being on a different planet….being in Snake Valley ….like Jupiter or something.

He knew it would be going dark in the next half hour and his chances of hiding and evading capture would improve significantly.

He had spotted a couple of likely lads hanging about messing around on a small motorised vehicle .

It had been made out of bits salvaged from the local scrap-yard and looked like a cross between a scooter and a quad bike.

Mogzy knew this could be his big chance, as with his poor chest that if the snakes didn’t get him then that big hill at Llwydcoed certainly would .

At least if he failed , it would be handy for a cheap cremation but Mogzy planned on outliving the rest of his old school mates and being the first one to reach 50- ten years more than the average life expectancy of a Gurnosite.

There were about half a dozen of them in total and were distracted and busy bullying a disabled kid and his friend who had been on their way to a kiddies party dressed as Harry Potter and Professor Dumbledore.

As he crept around the back of the warehouse, he could see layer after layer of polythene sheeting on the floor.

“ Shit….these Aberdare Snakes do really shed their skin!” he said to himself.

He knew he had to work out a way of stealing that vespa scooter without being detected.

He noticed that the youth in the parka jacket with the mod ‘target’ on his back every ten minutes did a lap in the scooter- cum- quad bike between the two factory buildings.

He decided to sneak over into Philip Street and pinch a clothes line from one of the gardens.

He tied one end to the building around four feet off the ground and let his end drop.

He hid behind the edge of warehouse and awaited the return of his quarry.

With five anxious minutes hoping not to be spotted from the road the mod rider started back.

As he built up speed to show off for his mates Mogzy lifted the rope and
clothes-lined his victim knocking him clean off the scooter by the throat in the same way our Army Operatives took out German dispatch riders in the Second World War.

Mogzy grabbed his helmet off the unconscious youth and legged it after the driverless scooter in the direction of Aberaman.

The rest of the Robertstown Rattlers could not believe the ‘balls’ of the Merthyr man…they all suddenly turned their attention away from their disabled sorcerer victims…towards the Merthyr Man.

The problem for Mogzy was that he had no other option than to drive back through the pack of snakes the way the bike had come.

Like Steve McQueen in the ‘Great Escape’…. he paused looked at the crowd of six or so nutcases who were baying for his blood pushed down the mask on his helmet three sizes too small for his huge ‘Rocky Dennis’ head, revved up the engine and sent the vehicle spinning towards the gang at its top speed of 5 mph.

He rode straight at the centre of the gang who all parted for fear of collision with the quad bike as ‘Quad-rophenia reigned’.

Mogzy would have probably made it too, if he hadn’t collided with the poor disabled kid who refused to get out of the way.

Mogzy hit him full force and the bike bounced around like a metal ball until he crashed head first into the solid breezeblock building that was
‘Reptile House Interiors Furniture Showroom’.

Poor Mogzy was decapitated by the flagpole and his head -still in the crash helmet -bounced around the yard spinning wildly and head-butting the gang.

In truth, the same thing would have happened had Mogzy been alive .

That wizard- , the deaf , dumb and blind kid sure played a mean pinball - with Mogzy’s head.

*******************************************************************

To Fast Eddie , Richard Stevens and Kellog it was just another day at the office.

They had been detected by a small but vicious gang of ‘Hirwaun Hissers’ and a fist fight had ensued near the Petrol Filling station near Gamlyn Terrace and had spilled over onto the nearby Hirwaun roundabout.

Richard ‘Hannibal’ Stevens had been slugged with a sneaky shot from one of the petrol hose pumps , as he passed through as ‘tail end charlie’ and both sides had retaliated by spraying petrol over each other – to the horror of the garage attendant who was too frightened to intervene.

Thankfully, the fumes overpowered Kellog’s diesel aftershave.

The fight raged on, as the trio fought a brave retreat against the odds.

Fast Eddie was busy administering a series of left jabs- Howard Winstone -style to an overweight accountant who thought he was a street fighter.

The adder adder had lost count of how many times Eddie had punched him but he still lumbered forward at the smaller Merthyr thug.

Richard ‘Hannibal’ Stevens severed more flesh than footballer Luis Suarez at a PFA awards ceremony- an all he could eat buffet- but the snakes still kept on coming silently through the grass.

Kellog- the karate man, was busy round-housing one big fella-clad in an imitation snakeskin leather jacket bought from Rheola Market- which three sizes too small for him.

Everytime he kicked him in the face -a button would pop and an extra roll of fat would appear.

Blood and earlobes flew everywhere, until the roundabout looked like a scene from the Somme or Bristol Zoo Reptile House, as unconscious bodies lay strewn on the mud and low weeds.

How the Merthyr boys outnumbered three- to one- continued to fight was a mystery to most but not to the boys themselves.

Before they had decided on Custers Last Stand on the Hirwaun roundabout they had all had a head full of white amphetamine powder.

This had the mental effect on them that they were immortal to both fist or traffic…just like most people in Merthyr on a standard Friday night feel.

Having laid out the opposition, the three Merthyr Men decided they should start to run back up the dual carriageway of the A465 (T) and leap any traffic they encountered.

The ‘Invincibles’ raced up the Heads of Valleys oblivious to danger like Greek Warriors on their way to ‘Elysium Fields’.

In triumph, they sniffed more and more quantities of amphetamines on the two mile uphill stretch towards Baverstocks ‘Watchtower’ Hotel and the County Line.

In the distance behind them, the Aberdare Plods had heard about the melee and wanted to catch the Merthyr thugs before they escaped their jurisdiction.

It was neck and neck, as the drug fuelled trio raced passed the Llwydcoed Crematorium entrance towards the roundabout near the crest of the hill.

The blue light flashed above on the state of the art Austin Allegro Panda Car that was the Cynon Valley ‘pursuit vehicle’.

The three coppers peddling as fast as they could up the steep hill.

Standing just inside the Merthyr boundary next to the County Borough sign , the three thugs taunted their pursuers.

But Snake Valley had its revenge on the boys…well on Richard ‘Hannibal’ Stevens anyway.

“ Stop …right there!” said Inspector Gadgett through his megaphone three feet away from the thugs.

“ We didn’t do it!” snarled Richard Stevens, someone else’s nostril part sticking out from the gap in his teeth.

“ We weren’t involved in that fight on the Hirwaun roundabout nor that fire at that pub in Cwmaman !” said Fast Eddie fessing to the fuzz by accident.

“ We caught you on camera boys!” said the three Bow Street Runners that had been in the car.

“ Bollox!” said Kellog.

“ Taking drugs on our turf…!” said the copper.

“ Amphetamine in tablet form is legal!” said Richard ‘Hannibal’ Stevens…

” I know because my granny sells her prescription ones on the estate !” he said swallowing more body parts than a Jordan video.

“ Ah but you took all your drugs in one go didn’t you…there are AVERAGE speed cameras now on the A465(T) ….!” laughed the inspector pointing up at the sign.

“ Your nicked!” he said.

“ You can’t touch us…we’re in Merthyr now!” said Richards ‘Hannibal’ Stevens accidentally spitting a lip out at the Inspector.

“ Less of your lip son….you’ve bitten off more than you can chew this time!” said Gadget as he gave the pre-arranged signal to his men.

“ Fire the tasers!”

The three Iron Warriors convulsed, as they were drawn back over the county line by a combination of the electric wires and involuntary body convulsions.

The three men covered in petrol suddenly caught fire from the spark.

“We are a reasonable force ….using reasonable force!” said the boys in blue.

“ Hard lesson boys…. but you can never beat the ‘man’ …one consolation at least you Iron Warriors went out in a blaze of glory!”

“ It’s my birthday !” said Gadgett waiting for the boys to drop to the ground and roll.

“ Do you want to blow out the candles or me?”

Her long hair flowed all down her back, as should stood next to a fruit machine in Victoria Street, Merthyr Tydfil.

Her doctor had advised her to change her diet and change her habits if she wanted to live past 40.

As the reels on the machine, whirred electronically and stopped with a red cherry icon, two bananas and an orange.

She had lost her money again, even if she had nearly had her medically recommended five fruits a day.

It was Wednesday and teenager Amber Punt was skint.

She had had her state ‘benefit’ and wasted it all on hopeless gambling.

Amber was born with an addictive personality, which meant she never knew when to quit- never learned that there was only one winner with a fruit machine or that odds and cards were always stacked in favour of the ‘House’.

She could never walk past a bookmakers without placing a bet, and therefore living in a first floor flat in the Town Centre in Merthyr above a fruiterers was not the best place to be situated.

In a recession there is only one growth industry and that is gambling and Merthyr Tydfil had been in recession for over 200 years now.

Amber loved them all, fruit machines, horses, greyhounds, bingo, scratch-cards and lotteries.

If ever there was a sucker born -it was Amber.

She had her money on Monday and had frittered it away by Wednesday , leaving her penniless and reliant upon handouts from food banks, wheelie bins and friends when she was starving.

By Thursday Morning, she would be competing with the local rodents over empty food containers fly tipped in the centre of Town.

She was often engaged in a life or death struggle with a rat over an empty pack of Cheerios.

She had zero prospects, no chance of improvement and had lived hand to mouth ever since her Mother kicked her out at 16 with her baby due any day.

Sadly, she had lost the baby but in a way it was a blessing in disguise, as what child would want to be born into an endless cycle of poverty, depression and addictions?

But despite her bleak future, Amber was never down- she was grateful to be alive and lived every moment to the full.

They say that the best things in life are free, but they omit luxury yachts, foreign holidays and jet skis from that list and poor young Amber would never experience any of those pleasures during her lifetime.

She passed the remainder of her week walking around the parks, tramping around the beautiful Countryside of Pontsticill, the Brecon Beacons and Pant, walking barefoot in the fields to save on shoe leather and drinking directly from the mountain streams.

To Amber, she lived in the Garden of Eden and as long as she didn’t stray into Cynon Valley or into Sun Valley, she felt free from the temptation of snakes and Fruit Machines.

Her favourite pastime was to sit on the brow of Heolgerrig Mountain and get a panoramic view of the Merthyr Valley in all is glory.

Gone were the black spoil tips, white slag heaps and brown polluted river and its tributaries.

Merthyr had paid a high price for the Industrial Revolution but was now being returned to its natural state before the Rape of the Fair Country, with wildlife and flora restocking the once barren landscape.

Gone were the mines and ironworks, but so too   the cholera and diphtheria.

Nature too was ‘the House’ and despite the pestilence of Mankind, the Earth will always rebalance and restock long after mankind has been forgotten from the history books.

Amber sat making daisy chains for her to wear, as she gazed at how green was her valley.

Her stomach rumbled loudly, warning her she was running on empty.

She glanced across at the Mountainside and wondered, as it was September whether or not there were any blackberries out on the brambles.

The Heolgerrig Mountain was bare – picked clean by straying sheep and birds as it sat high above the treeline-with its bleak barren windswept landscape.

Amber decided to try the Cwm Glo woods lower down , as she heard old wives tales that a witches coven once met there and lived off the fruits of the forests.

As she made her way over the wooden stile, her barefeet sank into the soft grass, as she strolled towards the copse of ancient oak trees, silver birches and rowan that had inhabited the Welsh upland.

Amber could see that nature had provided a bounty for primitive man in the form of fungi.

Mushrooms and toadstools were everywhere- as, in Merthyr, was primitive man.

They were growing untouched out of the remains of ancient trees and were all colours and shapes.

Mother Nature had laid on a banquet for her.

She felt like Eve -except she was fully clothed and thankfully there were no Aberdare people around.

She marvelled at the cornucopia of natural produce all around her.

Amber was a little wary of eating the mushrooms but being a gambler and being starving ,she had no real choice.

The first on her menu was a yellow and orange upright mushroom- it looked safe enough.

She smelled it.

It was divine- like peaches.

Unknown to the little waif- it was a mushroom called Chanterelle and was perfectly edible.

It’s slightly acidic taste was very palatable.

Once she had tasted it – her addictive personality took over and she scoffed the lot.

Amber was the kind of person who could not open a packet of McVities’ chocolate digestives and eat just the one.

She would have to eat the lot in one sitting.

She looked around at several other species of fungi which were extremely large and were shaded   white with a brown flat cap dome.

Unbeknown to Amber these were ‘Cep’ mushrooms or penny buns.

They were highly prized by the Welsh Italian community and used for pastas etc.

They called them ‘porcini’.

They had been transplanted from Bardi in Northern Italy and this particular variety was called ‘Chiappa’- as it tasted of coffee.

They were the ‘Emperors’ of the Forest- with a taste to die for- not die with.

Once again, Amber polished off the whole glade.

She then came across a whole ring of mushrooms in a ring.

They had little wizened faced and looked like Paul Daniels.

Amber didn’t know but these were ‘magic’ mushrooms or shrooms in Gurnos dialect.

She kneeled down, closed her left nostril and snorted around in a clockwise circle.

The thirty or so mushroom she had ingested via her nasal passages were sucked down into her throat and oesophagus and joined their mushroom cousins in Amber’s stomach.

Magic mushrooms are so called because they contain a primitive form of LSD or acid which has hallucinogenic qualities.

Very soon Amber felt nauseous and like she had trespassed into Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland- as the trees looked like they had faces and their long branches like long arms.

There was a red and white spotted fungi which loomed large and bizarrely spoke to her.

It was a toadstool called Fly Agaric and was highly poisonous.

It whispered to Amber to ‘eat me’.

Amber refrained as the remaining conscious part of her brain was still working.

She didn’t like its colours and didn’t fancy shitting out her spleen later.

There was something untrustworthy about it- like the look of a politician after they had been re-elected for another term of office.

In addition, there were some green capped mushrooms and some white capped mushrooms.

Little did Amber know that the green ones were the highly poisonous Death Cap mushrooms and the white ones- the False Death Caps which were nutritious and edible.

The warring Mushroom Mafia families of the Valleys, were very protective of the food sources and didn’t want any members from outside the ‘Five Families’ muscling in on their fungi racket.

So they had planted both varieties to kill off the local opposition.

Only they and the local Coroners Department knew the difference- and they were well taken care of.

If they weren’t Bardi then they soon would be.

The Mushrooms stared back at her ominously and then started to sing a rendition of Paul McCartney’s ‘Frog Chorus’.

Amber was spooked but she was incapable of movement – and just sat like a Red Indian witch doctor transcending to a different astral plain.

Her head was spinning, her sight blurry and her speech was slurred.

Just like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky 6 -the Vampire Rocky Horror Picture Show movie- ‘Out for the Count’.

Then she blacked out.

The next thing, she was conscious of was the wind flying through her hair, as she sat astride her Harley Davidson motorbike.

She felt like she was capable of flight- a real sense of flying- as she flew down the narrow Heolgerrig Road, cornered like The Stig off Top Gear at the ‘Gambon’ roundabout passed the Cyfarthfa Retail Park and headed the wrong way around the roundabout and down the wrong lane of a dual carriageway like a cataract suffering 90 year old pensioner.

Cars flew at her in the opposite direction, as she zigzagged the oncoming traffic like she was a Hollywood stuntwoman.

Finding a small gap in the dual carriageway central divider, she hopped over into the correct lane, sending cars careering into each other for fear of being sideswiped by her Hawkwind ‘silver machine’.

In a psychedelic haze caused by the effects of the psilocybin in the mushrooms, she stared back at the wavy distorted colours of the traffic lights as they changed from green to amber.

She knew from experience on Merthyr’s roads that the sign for Amber was interpreted as ‘go faster’.

So Amber the Gambler went faster.

Unfortunately, in her hallucinogenic state she had stolen a motorbike but a disabled shopping cart with a top speed of 10 miles per hour.

Amber might have been fine if the Nantygwenith Street, Georgetown crossroads had been empty.

Regrettably, there were three other people all trying to beat the lights too.

Dick Scratcher, Merthyr Taxi Driver with his Provisional Licence to kill was the first to collide with the cart.  

Second,   was uninsured Driver, Gurnos Heroin addict, Mac Head in his tinted windowed Vauxhall Corsa.

Finally, came Polish Student Lech Walesa Junior who having worked a night shift of 96 hours solid, forgot we drove on the left in this Country.

He slammed into the side of the cart that had been knocked sideways by the taxi.

His ‘Solidarity-mobile’ made out of a Volvo with internal metal cage adorned with ‘bull bars’ and thirteen spare tyres built for Cross-Border hashish smuggling was the wrong kind of vehicle for barefoot Amber to hit.

He ‘polish’ed her off.

She became concertinaed, resulting in a mash of legs and arms that was reminiscent of back stage in a Stringfellows nightclub.

Her shopping cart was now the same size as an oxo cube and there was not ‘mushroom’ in that for a human being.

Amber Gambler had lost her bet.

And the moral of the tale is don’t drive ANYTHING under the influence of Psilocybin- as it isn’t magic or fun guys.

Phil 'Boz' Evans

He was nervous at the best of times but tonight he was positively bricking it.

The lights went down on a hushed audience at the Aberdare Coliseum and the adrenaline rush of the young fledgling comedian intensified.

He waited for the nod from the stage manager before he went out into the Cynon Valley Snake Pit.

He wasn’t being paid he was just volunteering…a YTS trainee comedian …as there were precious few jobs in the Valleys he thought he would give it a go…and his tour of the South Wales clubs was starting to take off.

After all if Rhod Gilbert could make it on television as a comedian  why couldn’t he?

He strolled confidently onto the stage heading for the centre and the single microphone that he was to make his own for the next 30 minutes.

As the initial applause of the twenty people present had died down he adjusted the stand.

As he opened his mouth to start- he heard it.

“ Get Off….you’re rubbish!” came the shout from the audience.

“ Thanks for that vote of confidence!” said the kid with the stage name of Mike Knight.

He tried to start his act.

“ Ever been on an airplane….” he stammered.

“ No…!” shouted back the voice of the female heckler.

“ Well looking at you lady…you don’t need to go on a plane….as you have your broomstick to fly on!” he railed back at his abuser- even though he could not see her.

“ Cardiff Airport…you are waiting to go on a plane…!” he continued.

“ It’s shut….!” said the heckler.

“ I wish your MOUTH was!” spat back Mike.

“ You are standing at the security check-in…waiting to go through to duty free and they pick me to be searched ….why me?” he tried to plough on.

“ Because you look like the type who’d enjoy two fingers up his arse!” said the heckler right on cue.

The entire audience laughed at that one.

“ Listen ….these people have come to see me…not you!” said Mike.

“ Actually, that bloke over there in the raincoat has come for the topless darts…not to listen to your Christmas cracker specials….!” laughed the heckler.

“ So ….the security guard says to me …occupation….and I say I know I’m Jewish but I don’t intend…..!”

“ To pinch another Country…..heard it !” said the Heckler ruining the punch-line for everyone.

“ If you think you are so funny….stop hiding in those shadows ….if you have any guts….you’d get up on stage and do this job yourself!” said Mike.

“ You should be on a stage…there’s one leaving for that Cowboy Town in Merthyr soon…it’s where you belong!” said the heckler.

The comedian novice tried again.

“ Do you worry about flying ….do you get sick?” asked Mike.

“ Only when I watch an act as bad as this…you have less talent than the panel on X Factor!” said the Heckler.

The crowd enjoyed that one too.

“ I’m nervous flying anyway…so why do they reassure you by calling it the terminal?” asked Mike resuming his act.

“ Terminal….I’ve had funnier cancers than this!” said the Heckler.

Mike tried to peer through the blackness to see who his abuser was but the footlights were too strong.

“ Look lady …if YOU are a lady that is….take that mask off Halloween is over… they warned me this place was haunted…!” Mike tried to fight back.

“ As if you are an oil painting yourself….God clearly ruined a perfect bum when he put teeth into your face…! said the unseen witch.

“ Look you women are all the same…never happy with life always criticising others- …I don’t trust anything female…anything that bleeds once a month and doesn’t die!” said Mike.

“ You know all about dying now…you are dying tonight on your arse son!” said the heckler.

“ So the check in lady asks me if I want a special seat…so I say yes on the black box please…the flight recorder to you stupid…!” he said in the direction of his verbal attacker.

“ I want to sit at the back of the plane….!” Mike carried on regardless.

“ Because you don’t hear of many planes reversing into mountains!” shouted the Heckler ruining it again for everyone.

Mike stormed off the stage and complained to the Stage Manager who looked a little like a feline version of Nicholas Lyndhurst.

“ I’ve had enough of this….my first proper gig and I’m having to deal with a heckler who knows all the punch-lines…is funnier than me …either throw her out or shine a light on the woman so I can see who is abusing me!” moaned Mike.

Doing as he was told the lighting man swung a huge ‘Colditz- like’ searchlight beam on the audience until it stopped on a woman in the ‘fringe’.

Mike was surprised to see it was a strangely attractive brunette with a slim figure who was sitting side- saddle on the top of the seats.

Her only blemish was a vulgar tattoo of a flaming battenburg cake on her shoulder.

On further examination it appeared to a drag artist- a man dressed as a woman.

“ Where you from Luv…is it Llanbobl…. with that tattoo on your back…you look like a female equivalent of Robin McBride….you cheap hooker you…come up here and fight me man to man …you granny tranny….I’ll soon have you ‘knocking on Heaven’s Door’….threatened the youngster.

The woman swung her legs over the top in doing so catching her ‘najjers’ in the velvet seating last seen in a 1970’s picture-house.

The heckler had called Mike’s bluff.

As she made her way onto the stage Mike began to get worried but the woman’s five o’clock shadow looked familiar.

“ Why are you abusing me….I’m only on work experience!” protested the kid worried that this was the Swansea Cross dresser on ‘You Tube’ that battered people for fun.

“ You know why ….’Ask Rhod Gilbert’ because you’ve been stealing his act !” said the voice of the Welsh Tourist Board.

“ Every club I have been in ….has heard my jokes before…because you’ve been pinching them!” said the heckler.

“ I keep getting paid off like Tom Jones was!” protested the tranny.

“ But there is no such thing as an original joke….no copyright on gags!” protested Mike.

“ Well…here’s one punch-line you won’t forget !” said Rhod as he gave the fellow a ‘Carmarthen Clout’ and turned the stand up comedian into a lie –down one.

The youngster lay still with an expression on his face like ‘Lloyd Langford’….as blood oozed from the YTS man’s cut face and animated stars around his concussed head.

“ Next time, leave the ‘Open Mike’ nights to the professionals!” said Gilbert