Redknob Hobknuckles Plans A Holiday, part 1

Foreword

… Redknob found himself at the wrong end of a Mach 5 burn-up through the hole he had so conveniently made in the café door upon his entry; what a blatantly cunning piece of forethought that had been! Poor Redknob! He’s done it again. Never mind, he will return for another toe-splitting adventure soon!

South Devon Technical College, Autumn 1972.

These are the final few lines from the end of his last great adventure – Redknob Hobknuckles Visits A Café. I am not at all sure that Summer 2025 would be thought of as ‘soon’ even by young Redknob. That story was written when I was 16 years old and a college student. I recently found an old notebook which, prior to my death, I must destroy because it has some rather drippy love-poems to my teenage sweetheart (I wish!) with titles like Ode To Sue as well as some doom-laden sci-fi poems like Flight of the Dead and Tears of Years. Those were the days!

In recent days a series of amusing thoughts occurred to me, and as these thoughts coalesced it struck me that this was not me thinking, but my old pal Redknob. So, here it is, the first thoughts of Redknob Hobknuckles Esq. in 53 years, transmitted directly to my brain via the Dimension Co-ordinator!

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Redknob Hobknuckles Plans A Holiday

Part 1

Being a gentleman of limited means I am rarely able to indulge in what I believe many people of a certain disposition call a ‘holiday’. However, only yesterday a thought of stunning veracity and invention struck me with such force that it caused me to engage in wholly inappropriate behaviour: I spilled more than a little Lady Grey from the cup and into the saucer and from thence onto the doyley beneath. For the avoidance of doubt, I should perhaps explain: I refer to Lady Grey the tea and not the slightly confused person of advanced years who resides in the neighbouring attic.

Anyway, I digress. To return to the substantive thrust of my story, the tea-spillingly good thought was something of a jolly wheeze and goes like this: how about a holiday consisting of a two day hike circumnavigating a field in Suffolk! Or, if I am feeling particularly extravagant, more than one field!!

Circumnavigating fields in Suffolk!

Magnificent!!

In a fit of near-scandalous brilliance it struck me in a painless sort of manner that I might want to perambulate clockwise one day and counter-clockwise the next. Why both directions I hear you ask? Well, it occurred to me that the appearance of the hedgerows might bear striking dissimilarities when viewed from each direction, with twig and bramble formations that may be apparent when travelling in one direction and not the other. Not to mention the placement of birds, badgers and other tenants of the hedgerows.

Of course, I am assuming they have hedgerows in Suffolk, or did Thatcher have them all shot? At this point I had yet another brainwave: perhaps I should seek the advice and services of a Travel Agent in planning my rather ingenious and hopefully inexpensive field trip. I happened to be in town yesterday – for no apparent reason – when I came across a purveyor of holidays and strolled in, after first opening the door of course. I did not want a repeat of the incident at Boots last week.

A very kindly person asked me to sit at her desk, which I thought rather odd at first as I a have absolutely no idea how to use a typewriter. It soon became apparent that I was not expected to do any work – or at least not in the usual sense of that word. I explained my idea which, I could tell, generated almost as much excitement in her as it had done in me only the day before. Like me she sat in stunned silence for a while, presumably in astonishment at the brilliance of the idea. Luckily, there was no Lady Grey in the immediate vicinity. Or doyleys for that matter. However, whilst spillages were highly unlikely I suspected something was somewhat skew-whiff.

It struck me that, having let the cat out of the bag, it would be almost impossible to get it back into the bottle, or however the saying goes. Could I have mistaken her apparent stupefaction for vexation? After all it was a rather brilliant idea, and one I had previously noted was conspicuous by its absence from any of the rather lurid brochures scattered about the place. Could she be annoyed that she had not thought of it herself? This was, after all, her profession. Circumnavigating fields in Suffolk is something she should have thought of.

Anyway, the initial tense interlude gave way to a somewhat jovial conviviality in a matter of seconds. She has forgiven me for coming up with the idea first.

I must say that the Travel Agency visit was most helpful in an exasperating way. I learned that much of the land I had thought to walk is owned by a mysterious group of people known as The Establishment. Furthermore, it would appear that this curious cabal take a very dim view of almost anyone other than especially curated members of said Establishment daring to set foot on their land. I had no idea – and must confess to having too many feathers in my brain, resulting in a degree of nincompoopsy that I had hitherto believed myself to be devoid of.

I also discovered that said fields are devoid of lavatorial facilities. Such a thought had not crossed my mind only the day before as I was dreaming of hedgerows. Likewise, there are no benches upon which one might rest one’s hindquarters, which, when you arrive at my advanced years, is a notion worthy of consideration.

The icing on the cake was that there was no icing on the cake. In fact there was no cake at all. Or any other form of confection for that matter. According to the travel experts it would appear the fields of Suffolk are utterly barren of comestibles of any kind.

And so, it was with a heavy heart and a light head that I made a rather chaotic and confused, not to mention deflated, egress from the Travel Agent.

Upon entering the high street and with every intention of heading for the No.2 bus stop I felt a nagging doubt in my mind and, suspecting that consumption of not insubstantial quantities of fermented vegetable products might provide some form of reflection and respite, made my way to The Golden Lion.

…to be continued.