Wilf Lunn: Smiles and trials of a magical coach trip

Sep 5 2009 by Wilf Lunn

WE booked what my daughter unkindly calls an oldies ‘Tea and Pee’ coach trip to the Cotswolds.

Fortunately T & P were both very adequately provided for on the bus. Not only was there tea there was coffee and soup too.

You’ve heard of ‘stand-up comedians’ well we met another breed ‘sit-down comedians’ namely the tour guide and driver who kept us amused on the journey.

The stop at Cheltenham was to be of particular interest to my wife Liz. She spent many summer holidays there. For me it was Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum. Our first stop was at Sandbach service station where I bought a canal magazine. At the pay desk I asked if they had ‘Fishermen’s Friends.’

The girl said: “If it’s not on the top shelf we’ve not got it.”

I replied, “I thought cough sweets would be behind the counter with the aspirins.”

“Oh,” she said, “I thought it was a magazine.”

When she said top shelf I assumed she thought it would be with the ‘Gay Bikers’ magazines.

Back on the bus and on to Warwick Castle where we went straight to the cafe where a couple were trying, unsuccessfully to force feed a boy wearing a large bib. He looked about five years old.

Liz remarked: “He’s probably traumatised having to wear a bib at his age”.

I said: “I know how he feels, you make me wear a napkin bib every day when I eat my Weetabix.”

The castle is owned by Tussauds so it is peopled by wax dummies of notables who look as though they’ve been dead a fortnight. It was nice to see Winston Churchill with his red hair. We of course only knew him in black and white. I rather liked the figure lighting a fag with the flickering match in his wax cupped hands.

The other thing of note at the castle was the blacksmiths shop where they had created what I think was the authentic smell of stale horse pee. Could it have been the drains? Is this an idea for the new forge museum in Kirkburton? Nostalgic Niffs.

Then on to the hotel. Just before arriving we passed a huge solicitors’ office called, ‘Wright Hassall’. The hotel was a Holiday Inn. I once stayed in one doing a show in Birmingham. When leaving my room there, I encountered a chap from the Oxford Dangerous Sports Club. He was inspecting rubber bungee ropes stretched all the way down the very long corridor. Jokingly I said: “Do you carry them in a very long case?”

In a cut-glass snotty accent he replied: “No, we actually roll them up.” He, not wishing to give offence, left out the, ‘you peasant’ bit.