Another winter passed and as spring arrived so did the dread of another season with my two clowns, and sure enough they turned up like the proverbial bad pennies, however they had an ace up there sleeves, (yes, again!) in the form of a new victim.

The stranger was a chubby guy, well spoken with an air of authority, and the familiar sense of theatre that often accompanies new comers to life at the seaside, dressed in a proper fisherman's gansie and a cheesecutter perched at a jaunty angle, he looked every bit the part of the ancient mariner. I groaned to myself at the thought of yet another addition to my crew and immediately gave him the name of "Cheesecutter", however! I got a bit of a shock when Cheesecutter organised a paint job for me, and was down first thing each morning with a brand new deck brush to wash me down,. he then took up station at the top of the slipway touting for trade with a new advertising board and took the fares.

When Lil Cloud and Big Wessy eventually turned up with me ,he marched the punters down the slipway and ushered them aboard, threw the ropes off, sent me to sea, went back up the slipway and did it all again, and again. Cheesecutters reward was a free trip at the end of the day! Maybe old Cheesecutter wasn't such a bad bloke after all.

Lil Cloud was delighted too, he had blown smoke into yet another pair of eyes and this time it was working well, soon I was running non stop and paying my way thanks to Cheesecutter.

All went well until one morning Lil Cloud bounced me into the slipway only to find it empty and Cheesecutter standing there looking rather disconsolate without the usual load of passengers for me.

"Wots up, wheres all the passengers?" shouts Big Wessy jumping up from his perch on my port mooring post. "Queensbury has taken them all", said Cheesecutter in his impeccable grammar, "Al Legory says that he cant get any anglers to go fishing because you, Wesley, have put on our website that there are no fish to catch, so he is going to run seal trips instead!"

"That's not fair, but I will soon purra stop to that, cum on Cloud", said Big Wessy, "were off to see t' harbourmaster abhat it".

Off they both went and were soon seen on the pier with Capt. Windy pointing at Queensburys signs and gesticulating wildly.

They eventually returned with their tails between there legs. "The spineless git sez theres nowt he can do", said Big Wessy, "I'll write abhat this on our website".
"Do you think that's wise", said Cheesecutter, "couldnt we just start earlier than Queensbury and get away before him?"

Lil Cloud turned pale at hearing this, and no wonder as he had a reputation of being able to sleep ten minutes longer than Rip van Winkle, his memory went back to the time he had been left in command of Scarlington lifeboat covering for Dirk Cranium. An EPIRB (emergency position indicating rescue beacon) signal was detected locally and is in effect a mayday.

Lil Cloud as acting coxswain was called on his pager with no response. It was in the early hours of the day, before dawn, nevertheless the crew were assembled in minutes and waiting for Lil Cloud  to arrive, time was ticking by in what could be a life threatening situation so the Hon sec, Big Oggy, gave the order to fire two maroons, anyone who has heard a maroon sounding will appreciate how difficult they are to ignore.

More precious time slipped by with no sight of our would be hero. Fortunately Big Oggy was a former coxswain and took charge of the situation by ordering the Lifeboat to be launched without further delay,  under his command.

As it happened the signal turned out to be a false alarm, and Lil Cloud was later found to have been asleep, in his security van up Olivers Mount, at the time of the emergency.

As for Big Oggy, all he got from Dick Cranium was a bollocking for not waiting for Lil Cloud to wake up! The result was that despite already having been rewarded with the MBE for his lifeboat services he resigned his position with the RNLI.

So you can understand why Lil Cloud was afraid of early starts, and Big Wessy wasn't bothered as long as he had my portside mooring post to plonk his backside on. So things carried on as before and we finished our fifth season as usual, at the bottom of the league.

                                                                                                  Billy Inkwell Ashtray