Haveachat with Les Shipp, Page 3

shackled to any of the suitors that had been presented. She was a romantic girl and believed that when she married it would be to a dashing young man who would sweep her off her feet. That’s what made it so right when she met Jeremey Woldercot when he was delivering stores to the Manor from his father’s grocery store. Jeremey was twenty-one years old, six foot tall, curly black hair, athletic build and smouldering dark eyes. It was love at first sight for Bethany and with her feminine wiles, conspired to get his attention.

  She really didn’t need to try as Jeremey was smitten with her the first time he saw her. He didn’t think he had a chance with this aristocratic young lady but nature being what it is he had to try. It was difficult for both of them. If Bethany’s father had any idea of his daughters thoughts she would have been sent up to London to stay with his spinster sister. Jeremey decided to throw caution to the wind and make this beautiful girl his. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy as their time together was very limited and Lord Fitzgibbon would never even vaguely consider him wooing his daughter. As their love grew they knew they would have to be very careful. They found the only way they could be together was for Bethany to go for a stroll in the garden in the evening. This cemented their love but put them in greater danger. Jeremey discussed his dilemma with his father but his advice was, “Forget it son, it’s not going to happen, look for someone from your own class.”

  It came to a head when Lord Fitzgibbon got wind of the romance and informed Bethany that within the next two months she would marry Lord Bartholomew’s forty year old son. They knew they would have to do something quickly. Bethany trusted her maid who had been her nanny when she was a child and she was also a romantic and agreed to help her escape. With Nanny as chaperone they were allowed to leave the Manor.

  Jeremey was waiting for them with a carriage and they set off in hast for Gretna Green. When Lord Fitzgibbon discovered the dastardly deed was afoot he was enraged and threatened to kill the young scoundrel when he caught up with him. He set off in hot pursuit immediately but the young lovers had too good a start and reached their destination. Not very romantic but they didn’t care, they were married in the blacksmiths shop by one of the anvil priests. Bethany’s nanny was one of the witnesses. It was in 1754 and England had just passed a law forbidding a couple under twenty-one to marry without their parents’ consent but in Scotland this law didn’t apply and virtually anyone could be a celebrant.

  Jeremey knew his new wife would be a widow if they didn’t escape, so the three of them hired a boat to take them to the main harbour at the mouth of the Esk River. It was a great relief when they were able to procure a passage on a sailing ship for the three of them leaving almost straight away for France.

  NEW AGENDA.

  It’s a good thing that a new agenda 21 is being thought of because the old one died before it was born. The 21 refers to the 21st century but the rest of the idea has faded into oblivion. Some Americans believe it to be a document on sustainable development cited by U N C E D held in Reo de Janeiro in 1992 and again in Johannesburg in 2002.

  There never will be a centralised control over the world in this century and perhaps not ever. It would indeed be great if there was a centralised control over climate change but imagine the Asians falling into line with that one. They are all laughing their heads off as countries like Australia bend over backwards to have climate control, sending companies broke with heavy taxes to force them to produce less pollution.

  The Asians say well done as they go full steam ahead with their industrial plans now they have wider markets. What does it matter if some of their people die of smog related illnesses, there are plenty more to take their place. The big chiefs are ok, they can buy up all the land they want in the clear air of Australia. The Australians are too dumb to see the big picture so the Asians must make hay while the sun shines and entrench themselves in clean air before they get caught out.

  Agenda 21 is for the world to be governed by one government. Not so say some investigators looking into this matter. They came up with a scenario of how America would end up. They say a generation ago there was a place called America, and now after a worldwide implication of a U N led programme called agender 21 it is now simply known as the republic. There is no president, no congress, no supreme court and no freedom. There is only the authority. The authorities are governed by the world government.

  What a frightening thought and at this stage I stopped researching the matter and thought back to what my agenda was.

  I lived in an ideal time in the scheme of things. If there was pollution we never saw it and for the climate change, some summers were unbearably hot and others were not so bad. Remembering that most people didn’t have air conditioning. One winter we would be unbelievably cold and the next one not. We had many droughts but knew they would eventually pass, the same with floods, it was just a cycle of life.

  Like Dorothea McKella wrote= “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rain”. It was how it was for me, nothing much has changed except in industrial countries, the smog has thickened up considerably and they have no intentions of doing anything about it.

  If agenda 21 does rear its ugly head, it will take a while to get going. I will feel sad for the ones having to deal with it, but for myself I should be long gone.

  THE CHORTLING CARDSHARP FROM SMOG MOTEL.

  Billy grew up in a motel run by his mother in a seedy smoggy part of town. He often worked on the desk while his mother was busy elsewhere. He was able to make lots of contacts this way as often as not they only hired the room for an hour or two at a time.

  His main activity was joining in a card game in a pool hall down by the docks. Because it was an industrial area with lots of smoke coming from the factories and fog drifting in from the river there was always a heavy smog presence about. Billy was well known at the pool hall for his card playing skills, that’s how he made his living. The locals knew not to go up against him.

  Further up the river was another pool hall that ran card games and their main man there was Jake. He had a great opinion of himself and he had seen Billy play. His opinion of himself was so high he reckoned he could do Billy like a dog’s dinner.

  He threw out a challenge to Billy and his mates and a game was set up in Billy’s pool hall. Many seedy characters turned up to watch the game and a few of the gamer ones sat in to try their luck. As the also rans lost their money and dropped out, it only left Billy and Jake, neither prepared to give way.

  Billy felt he knew Jake’s game well enough to be confident of beating him so he used his usual tactics of letting Jake win to give him confidence to bet big. Billy was right, Jake upped the stakes to his limit. With the last massive bet Jake laid out his winning hand with a flourish, with a take that look on his face. Billy however had a hand that just beat Jake’s, and with a chortle he laid his hand down.

  This enraged Jake, it was more the chortle than being beaten that did it and he went for Billy intending to give him a thrashing and get his money back. Billy hadn’t been brought up in this rat infested, smog laden area without learning how to defend himself. As Jake was all over him he drew his knife and stabbed him. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Billy knew this wasn’t going to look good to the cops and Jake had a lot of seedy mates who were bound to want revenge for his death. Billy’s grandfather had once told him that discretion is the best part of valour so he slipped quickly and quietly out of the pool hall and into the smog filled night with his wad of cash.

  He went quickly back to the motel to collect some gear, like his passport and his mother could hear him chortling away to himself as he disappeared into the smog filled night never to be seen again.

  RUNAWAY LOVERS.

  Mavis and John were teenagers when they met and fell in love. Being only sixteen and seventeen. Their parents and just about everyone else thought they were much too young to getting serious, after all they were still at school and both do
ing well and looked like going on to university after they finished school. They were determined to be together no matter what and were not interested in what the consequences might be.

  Their parents tried everything to persuade them of their folly, even banning them from seeing each other through the week but this did little to dampen their desire to be together. They had no money and were both intelligent enough to realise that for the time being they would have to make the best of it. That didn’t stop them from dreaming of the day when all this would change.

  Mavis’s parents thought John wasn’t up to scratch were Mavis was concerned when they went off to university. Mavis was sent to study medicine in Sydney and John was sent to study engineering in Brisbane. This was devastating for both of them and they let their parents know of their displeasure but it didn’t change anything.

  When they came home on holidays from their studies it was a great joy for them to be together even for a short while, but the parents didn’t make it easy for them. The parents fussed and tried to get them interested in other young people but this wasn’t on their agenda.

  The parents didn’t know that John had made many forays down to Sydney to meet up with Mavis during their