Lottery Mania: Swingle Matravers

LOTTERY MANIA by Brian George  

Preamble:

MARY JOHNSON AND THE VILLAGE OF CORFE CASTLE.

Mary Johnson was 87 when she died in the year of 1998. An unremarkable woman living an unremarkable life in an out of the way part of the world namely the medieval Corfe Castle village, Dorset, England.

What was not so unremarkable, was that Mary Johnson had just become richer, courtesy of the still new Lottery, by one hundred and twenty two million pounds.

Corfe is an ancient and civilized center of population;  situated two miles from the equally ancient but less civilized location of Swingle Matravers. known to the Governments Benefits Agency as: Swindle Matravers, due to the nature and character of its inhabitants; but we will leave that until later...

Both villages were ancient and picturesque, but there the similarity ended. The population of the respective villages preferring to keep as far apart from each other as possible. Indeed anybody would think war had been declared! Well, perhaps that was not so far from the truth, as you, the reader of this story of human skulduggery, intrigue and plain conniving mischief, will soon discover.  Set, as it is, in the  idyllic rural heart of Dorset on the south coast of England.

Let the mayhem commence.

CHAPTER ONE

SWINGLE MATRAVERS IS located 8 miles from the seaside town of Swanage, and about 15 miles from Poole on the South Coast of England. Corfe Castle and Swingle Matravers having all the attractiveness that tourists find fatal to their wallets and purses. Corfe through its castle, and Swingle (or 'Swindle'), through sheer cunning...

Fred Driver is as large as the pigs he owns. He is the owner of one of the biggest pig farms in Dorset. Acres of it.  Massive barns full of pig pens. At least a thousand pigs, changed every six months. In addition there are three smallholdings. These created out of spare land for the benefit of his three large teenage sons. They use these smallholdings for a variety of activities - not all to do with the land.  Fred's youngest son Tom being fined recently for running the first rural brothel in Dorset for the benefit of summer tourists.  'Popping out for a quick one' becoming the new tourist phrase of the area and not connected with drinking at the Drunken Cow. Certainly not something that Tom Driver's clientele would be doing for a while, if the size of the council fines were anything to go by!

Jane Driver, was Fred's wife and living proof that some people truly come to resemble the animals they own. Unfortunately Jane's fondness was for pigs. 'Large White' being the species that she identified with most. A truly formidable pig possessed of a truly irritable nature and which, Fred thought privately, just about summed his wife up completely. Though he would never dare to tell her so to her face for fear of landing up in all the excrement that pigs, and his other animals created.

The farmyard was full of this particular breed of Large White pig, and every time that Fred went out on his tractor there seemed to be more of them when he got back! Usually as a result of telephone auction bidding that his wife did when he was away on his various nefarious activities connected with the 'Committee for Wealth' of which we will hear more in due course. His wife ‘forgetting' to tell him about the auction purchases until later.

All these purchases usually being completed at the weekend, resulting in nasty scenes, when Fred, stepping out of the old cow byre on a Monday morning with a mug of tea and a hangover, would see an enormous cattle lorry drawing up into his yard with the unmistakable high pitched squealing noises of what sounded like five hundred extra piglets.

All this extra live stock to plan and organise for – without his having been told about it beforehand, was enough to send Fred running to his doctor for more of the blood pressure pills that had lately become such an essential part of his life.

Fred headed up the: 'COMMITTEE FOR WEALTH OF SWINGLE MATRAVERS' which had been formed one dark night at the back of the Drunken Cow public house in the village high street. This in answer to the global recession and the fact that most of the villagers £150.000.00 emergency fund had been lost when the Iceland banks fiasco had swallowed their money whole.

Due to Iceland's attitude to the outside world. Most of this had  yet to be paid back to the UK by that country.

Also the British Government in London had not been overly sympathetic to the attempts by the Dorset villagers Swingle Matravers: ‘Committee for Wealth,' approaching them for a refund!  A committee decision to invest in the arctic country of Iceland,  being aided by many pints of Swingle scrumpy consumed at the back of the Drunken Cow after closing time.

The scrumpy being concocted from: A very old formulae going back to Victorian times, which of course meant that nobody had the faintest idea what was in it. Giving a completely free hand to the publican at the Drunken Cow putting whatever he liked in it. Mainly for the benefit of all the bearded real ale types walking in for their pie and chips or whatever else they fancied at lunch time. The publican hoping that the Customs and Excise, or the local ‘Elf and Safety' lot were not about when he worked the pumps.

As for the tourists, the grand strategy for dealing with them had been hammered out by the ‘Committee for Wealth' headed by Fred Driver and six others. Being circulated in conditions of greatest secrecy around the village during the small hours of the morning.

THE LATEST CAMPAIGN WAS ON!

Various money making schemes were hatched and were listed by the committee as follows:

'MRS HITCHINGS MEDIEVAL PIE AND PASTRY SHOPPE.

Established 1864'. 'Home baked pasties a speciality'.

The fact that the date was two centuries out for a ‘medieval' shop did not seem to bother either Mrs Hitchings, or anybody else. .

It had formerly been an Estate Agents that had overcharged its client's and gone bust. Not helped by the arrogant 28 year old male who ran it and had a habit of turning up an hour late at clients homes and forgetting to leave a copy of the contract with them.  Then claiming that they had received it previously when the annoyed client rang a month later demanding to know where it was.

Couple that with getting clients room measurements wrong, the spec wrong in a dozen other places and making arrogant comments about points on peoples driving licences when checking their identity. His receptionist, the only other person in the business apart from a freelancer who took photos of the clients properties (and charging an enormous sum in the process for his services). There sales patter took the form of:

Neal was born in the area you know, so knows the area – that your house/flat/barn etc is up for sale in. 

Complete eyewash as he came from the back streets of Bolton, Lancashire, and had lived in a dozen places, including prison, before landing up in Dorset.  Usually owing money to landlords and businesses wherever he went. Appearing on Crime Watch TV programmes and having: 'Do you know this man' pronouncements being made about him.  Viewers being invited to ring a hotline with details of any sightings....

These being just some of the reasons why: Dorset's leading estate agency run by this arrogant 28 year old called Neal, had closed down. The man himself being hunted by the local council for unpaid business rates - and by the police for a whole lot more. 

Meanwhile the local council, desperate to have the empty premises occupied for the summer months rather than allowing it to become yet another empty shop window in the high street, had agreed to a ‘Knock down leasehold sale price' negotiated by one Mrs Hitchings, a resident of the ‘new' converted barn hamlet of Lytchett Stourpaine, north of Wareham.

The unfortunate expression 'Knock down' used by the Council's Estates Department being fervently what most of the local inhabitants wished would happen to Mrs Hitchings medieval Shoppe after being foolish enough to believe her Guarantees of food hygiene, that Mrs Hitchings had displayed in bold lettering on the packaging. 'Medieval' being a good word to describe her Cornish Pasties.  Some would use other words...and often did.

The old shoppe, being located in the middle of Swingle's High Street. The leasehold conveyancing being rushed through by the council desperate to get the premises let and not making the proper change of use checks Resulting in Mrs Hitchings opening with the minimum of structural alterations. What alterations there had been were made by Mrs Hitchings herself using her world renowned carpentry skills derived from a book entitled: Weekend Carpentry projects for Beginners. Well the last word in the title was true at any rate.

For Mrs Hitchings Home Baked - a lot said half baked - pasties and doughnuts - were being prepared on premises which were, quite palpably, never designed for food production in the first place. 

Mrs Hitchings was the daughter of a village Blacksmith and Farrier from Stourton Major, a village based not far from the county town of Dorchester.

Some would claim that the earthen floor of old Mr Hitchings  blacksmiths forge at Stourton Major, with farm hands tramping in and out getting their plough horses shod; made it all very reminiscent of Mrs Hitchings pie and pastry shop. The floor having the same filthy pock marked appearance.  In the case of Mrs Hitchings shop, not just the floor!

Old Mr Hitchings had visited the shop from his local council run Alms houses accommodation, where he was now living in venerable old age. He had taken one look at the pie shoppe and walked off shaking his head at what his daughter was up to. Not the first time, the locals said, had he had done that.

Since the Medieval Pie and Pastry Shoppe had opened, the local cottage hospital - Nurse led - Minor injuries  - Dr Mohammed Singh local GP and getting on a bit, presiding.  Instead of the few people coming in each day complaining of sun burn or colds he  had found himself inundated by people of all ages complaining of gastric disorders of the very worst and most disgusting kind. Not all of them making it to his door in the surgery when he pressed his buzzer. The receptionist was getting used to using a mop and bucket in the waiting room.

The local cottage hospital had had to step up purchase of antiseptic sprays and gels for washing the hands before (and hopefully after), patients had used the drop-in center's  facilities.

District Nurse Hopkins, lately transferred from Poole General Hospital and looking for a quiet life before retirement and hearing the Swingle Matravers cottage hospital was regarded as a place just waiting for it’s closure notice, had seen nothing like it.  Neither had the elderly GP in charge - namely Dr Singh - with whom Nurse Hopkins thought was a bit of an old sweetie. Someone she could rub along with for 8 months before her retirement. Not since accounts of her Grandmothers diphtheria epidemic in 1931 had she heard or seen anything like this! 

As for the very passive retiring Dr Singh, he had threatened to go as early as next month, and preferably back to India!  His previous experience of medicine being his late fathers GP practice in a dead end part, and then some, of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands; which assuredly had never been anything like this!

Dr Singh himself had married very young and had found himself being expected to take over his late fathers practice. His wife Usha and her own older family had developed a very overbearing attitude towards her new husband. A result of him taking a far too easygoing attitude at the start of his marriage. Especially where the In Laws were concerned. 

When his father had died his wife's family had thought it there God given right to move into his late Fathers well appointed three bed semi-detached house on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. Complete with an acre of landscaped garden that was so good it had featured on two television gardening programmes for its variety of variegated plant life. (His father having been a very keen gardener). All this moving in by marital relatives, without a by or leave to Dr Singh Junior! 

His wife had underestimated him however.  For her new husband  had promptly got in touch with his solicitor about selling his Fathers property (he had his own anyway), only to be told on the phone that all his In Laws were moving in Friday afternoon and taking up residence without asking his permission. A string of taxies had been seen to draw up outside the house and a ton of luggage was being unloaded. Numerous In Laws disgorging themselves in all their Indian regalia from the said taxies. Much to the horror, it had to be said, to a lot of the well to do neighbours, who had never seen anything like it before in Balmoral Drive. 

All this without any word to him the newly qualified Dr Singh Junior. Even though he was next of kin and the new owner of the freehold of his late Fathers property. He had, he explained to his solicitor most certainly not given his permission for such access.  He had promptly instructed his solicitors, who knew of a firm that dealt with this sort of thing, to evict the In laws who had no right to be occupying the house and grounds anyway. Some twenty thugs had turned up out of nowhere in a covered lorry and had turned them out of the house.  Their luggage had ended up all over the pavement and several of the In Laws in hospital.  His wife had hardly spoken to him since. The worm in their marriage, namely her husband, had well and truly turned!

The locks had been changed on all the doors in his Fathers house, the For Sale sign had gone up and Dr Singh Junior had moved to Dorset making it quite clear to his wife that it was a matter of supreme indifference to him whether she came with him or took herself and her relatives off back to the Sub Continent....

He gave her, through his solicitor, a thousand pounds in travel expenses for herself (her many relatives could make their own way) and told her in writing never to darken his doorstep again.

+ 

Back to the Committee for Wealth and their money making ideas: Next in line of money making ideas came the AROMATHERAPY CLASSES run by Miss Jane Dodswell, from the Adult Education Center that also doubled as a tourist office overlooking the river.

Miss Dodswell, as she preferred to be known nowadays, was decidedly not the sort of person to get on the wrong side of. Once a very kind and forgiving person, it was thought that her attitude changed completely, especially towards men, after having been gilted by one Percy Higson, a London railway signalmen recently come to Dorset. Who thinking that he had got Miss Dodswell in the family way, had promptly cleared off to Pembrokeshire, in darkest West Wales. That was some ten years ago and now, at the age of thirty Miss Dodswell's view towards men had not mellowed in any way. 

Ever since, it had been wise, if you were a man in Swingle Matravers, to keep well away from the Education Center, especially when Miss Dodswell was practising her 'Healing Arts'. For Miss Dodswell did spiritual healing as well as back  massage. However the way Miss Dodswell did things, there was very little that was ‘spiritual' about her ministrations where men were concerned. A strange gleam coming into her eyes as her hands moved inexorably down towards that part of a man's anatomy usually regarded as being out of bounds to anybody other than, perhaps and not even then always, to a wife or partner in the marriage bed.

The hapless man lying transfixed upon the Healing Table, waiting in dread for whatever the outcome of this innocent visit to the Education Center, would bring. Tough gnarled middle aged men used to dealing with livestock on the farms and being out in all weathers would lie their, there eyes staring down the table watching where those glistening large red hands of Miss Dodswell were going to go next, as she worked in the: 'Aromatherapy healing oils' into the skin.  A visit to the Dentist was balm compared to this! 

But 'Revenge against Man was sweet', as far as Miss Dodswell was concerned.

At least that's what the local womenfolk reckoned to it all. They were by now used to the spectacle of their tough farm labouring  husbands, coming home from what was supposed to be a relaxing visit to the Education Center, looking completely shattered. Demanding to be allowed to go straight up to the Drunken Cow public house to relax.  Some women would swear they could hear, on a hot day, actual screaming coming from the upper windows of the Center itself as they passed by on their afternoon visits to the shops in Swingle high street...

Aromatherapy had been introduced as the latest 'Con' in Swingle Matravers, albeit intended more for the tourists and not the locals.  Miss Dodswell's ‘healing ministrations' at least helped to swell the waiting room of the private doctor who had moved into the village near the Vicarage.

Although not intended as it did not benefit Swingle Matravers directly the private care services dotted around East Dorset! The Care Network newsletter for private carers in East Dorset now included a special section on when Miss Dodswell was going to be carrying out her sessions. 

All quite innocent of course to the outsider. Just a list of dates and times ostensibly to help visitors to Swingle Matravers who were into alternative healing, but invaluable to the private health care services of the area: giving them due warning when they were going to be extra busy (and profitable)... Oh Yes! To the private health care sector Miss Dodswell was worth her weight in gold where her aromatherapy  and healing was concerned, spiritual or otherwise..

DORIS DAWKINGS OLD HERBAL REMEDIES came next.

Her remedies being available at a big discount to the elderly, and a huge mark up to any unsuspecting tourist falling into her clutches.

The tourists being taken in by the old ladies sweet beguiling smile as she sat at the front of her Fisherman's cottage on her ancient weaving stool,(knocked up two months earlier in her neighbours shed).

Wearing an ancient tweed dress and pink fluffy shawls and looking for all the world like Janet the elderly housekeeper in the BBC's 1960s black and white production of Dr Finley's Casebook. Except that unlike Janet, Doris smoked a cob pipe. Puffing away as she did whilst attending to customers. Sending a strange piquant smell wafting over everybody who was engaged in trying to creep past down the narrow cobbled pavement. Causing some people to step off this crowded thoroughfare straight into the car and lorry traffic,  heading along the ancient narrow roads of Swingle Matravers village.

There was, it had to be said and to be fair to Doris, a very attractive display in the front window. Old Doris Dawkings knew well how to display her tourist wares in shining bottles of all sorts kept regularly dusted and that included the window itself.  More stocks of her herbal remedies being hidden behind the front door and within easy reach.

Unfortunately this same window caught the sun from mid morning onwards and this fact was not lost on Thomas, a large mangy old black cat and no respecter of window displays. Attractive or otherwise. Thomas spreading his ample flea bitten bulk over the bottles did not help the display. He was doing this of course to the get the sun. What all these people were doing staring in through the window at him was anybodies guess!

Thomas had turned up ‘out of the blue' several months earlier, as cats do and had befriended the old lady. (It had actually been winter at the time and he, Thomas, had been looking for a warm billet. But this could not be admitted to humans who tend to dote on anything looking weak and pathetic on four legs at their front doorstep on a freezing cold Sunday morning). 

He had put up with the fetid smell from the cob pipe in return for all the titbits he got from passers by. Not to mention Doris herself who provided at least two square meals of tinned cat food a day.  He lay there then sprawled across the bottles that his new ‘keeper’ was trying to sell. Adjusting his position as the sun moved round. The tourists craning their necks to try and see the various glass containers and other bits of pottery and woodwork in the window. These comprised locally made 'shed art'. Abstract pots and woodwork might be another term for it....!  Swirls and square shapes adorned with bits of tinsel and left over Christmas things. Largely made by a local student who was thought to be having a laugh with his fathers woodworking tools.  But Thomas didn't care about all that. For wasn't he getting a sun tan? 

Next came another old chestnut which had been tried with some success in years past:

DOWSING FOR GOLD IN FARMER JENKINS FIELD £10.00 entrance fee. 

So proclaimed the posters that went up within a thirty mile radius of the farm. This was, of course any particular field that happened to be available to Farmer Jenkins and not being used by his somewhat varied live stock of several types of cattle of uncertain pedigree and origin, and a very mixed range of sheep and goats. Mainly discarded by other local farmers for various reasons not necessarily reported to the local representatives of the Min of Ag and Fish, as the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods was locally known as.

Indeed to stop people moaning about the exorbitant equipment hire charge for the metal detectors - for  treasure hunting purposes, Farmer Jenkins obligingly buried a quantity of home made coins near to the entrance gate to the field in order for people to make ‘early finds'.

Punters could also take advantage of his unique: ‘Bargain priced battery Recharge facility'—available at a small extra charge of 10% of the hire fee. This being extracted from the hapless public by Mrs Jenkins who ran the farm shop café featuring her special interest Dorset Cream Teas. These comprised home made rock cakes, (not good for people with fillings), and vintage tea, (created from used tea bags donated from a care home that specialized in bladder problems...).

A discreet sign outside the farm exit pointed the way to a local National Health Service that took on temporary patients as needed.....

Finding the coins buried near to the field's entrance did, of course, encourage people to move further in with their metal detectors. These were mainly tourists from abroad, but also some of the less intelligent locals who had foolishly decided to believe the advertising! All of them wondering around the field aimlessly using up the hire time paid for at the entrance gate. Hire time which could of course be extended at extra cost as what they had originally paid for, or thought they had paid for, was always a lot shorter than they had originally thought.  This could be expensive especially if they had been foolish enough to hire at the hourly rate of £12.00 instead of the all day rate of £24.00. The latter rate  mentioned in the very faint carbon copy at the bottom of the invoice page.

If anybody complained Farmer Jenkins was always quick to point out the Reduced Battery Recharge Facility mentioned earlier. And the very generous ‘Reduced' Car Parking charge in the field next door and belonging to the neighbouring farm.  He did not mention that said field sloped sharply down from the gate and had poor drainage. More fool you if you got there on a muddy day and found yourself half way down the adjacent slope! Farmer Jenkins could pull you out of course, with his old rust bucket of a tractor. But it would cost you a good deal more than a pint of beer down in the local bar! About thirty pints to exact, if you are going to equate to the actual towing charge he made on the day or evening. If at the weekend then double pint rates would apply!! Leading to caustic remarks by the camper or treasure hunters wife in the car all the way home on a Sunday afternoon.

The rusty tractor was kept at the back of the farm in an equally rusty lean to and had chickens roosting on the drivers seat surrounded by dirty straw and other muck that stank to high heaven. Mind the latter could also be said to apply at times to Farmer Jenkins and the crudities of his outside toilet - but that was another matter. Mrs Jenkins avoided it. 

As if all this was not enough Farmer Jenkins was always willing to lend a hand with garage owner Ian Samway's little wheezes namely his latest:

FIND YOUR OWN GAS AND TAKE AWAY'.

An allusion to the fact that gas had indeed been found near Poole, Dorset and the public could, therefore, by extension, ‘find it' at Swingle Matravers some 8 miles away. 

FREE GAS - ALL YOU CAN TAKE'. proclaimed the posters. 

Special GAS Containers available at low cost from the garage in Swingle Matravers. Ian Samways, garage proprietor, being always ready to help.

The posters showed a picture of the smiling Ian, in a remarkably clean boiler suit that he kept for the advertising.

The posters were put up all over the countryside, and of course without permission. Town Hall were closed you know - which of course it always was - on a Sunday when Ian went down there. Having himself photographed ringing the doorbell beside the unhelpfully closed front door, a sheaf of application forms prominently in his hand.

Needless to say the 'Special containers' Ian used, were not quite as special as the posters made out.

Those walking past the village garage and looking through the constantly open doors could observe Ian, a cigarette hanging out the end of his mouth working on a number of wooden barrels that looked suspiciously like some of the old water butts he'd picked up from a closing down sale near Weymouth.  Applying silver coloured paint and futuristic handles that he'd bought from an ironmongers.

Of all these and many more money saving ventures by the good people of Swingle.

Last of the main ideas, but by no means least, there was the photographic studio in the corner of the high street. The studio would not only develop your photos, but for a small extra fee include a few artistic snaps of Angela who had just finished sixth form college, and was planning to be a model.

As the photographer and shop owner Julian Candy put it: 'Angela Collinson poses in six different positions in order to demonstrate to the amateur photographer the best use of background lighting'.

Her father, John Percival Collinson, retired music teacher and a Church of England Sidesman, had not been pleased when, standing in the Private Bar of the Drunken Cow enjoying his usual half pint before finding his wife down the high street - doubtless gossiping to all her friends as usual; had been confronted by a leery young man in dirty black bomber jacket and bad breath.