Green Fees--Tales of Barndem Country Club by Brian Alford

Author:Brian Alford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781482551
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2013-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

10

Sid’s Revenge

Every year, June the twenty first, the longest day, saw the reigning Barndem club captain perform a strange and unpleasant ritual. From first light to last he would sit in the muddy green water of the large pond that lay between tee and green of the short seventh hole. The expanse of water was not exactly a lake since it was very shallow and liable to drying out in drought conditions. There was however sufficient water to support a variety of wildlife and the insects in particular added considerably to the discomfort of the sitting captain.

The reason behind this strange ritual lies with Sid Pooley, now deceased but once a Barndem member . Sid was a man who possessed wealth beyond the dreams of most. Though he had been a cad and womaniser in his youth, in old age he harboured a hostile and vociferous hatred of women due to having been snubbed in later life by the one woman he actually loved. In his declining years the one remaining love in Sids life was golf and it was to this great love that Sid left a large portion of his wealth. His legacy to Barndem was considerable and the regular annual windfall from the trust did much to support the continuance of the club. But there was a catch, Sid had added a caveat to the will which was to remain with Barndem for all time. The annuity could only be drawn from the trust on condition that the club captain sat in what came to be known as Pooley’s Pond for the entire hours of daylight on the longest day.

A strange condition but one with a simple explanation. It was the club captain incumbent at the time of Sids death that had many years earlier stolen the affections of the woman Sid loved. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but hell had nothing to match the spurned Sid, for Sid was a seriously vindictive man. His perverse mind saw the proscribed ritual not only as an uncomfortable indignity for the captain but also as a way of cleaning the offending part of the captains anatomy. There was also a suspicion that Sid knew that the resultant state of the part in question following eighteen hours submersion in water would have rendered it inoperative for at least one particular function. The captain may have stolen his woman but there was at least one night when she would lie cold in her bed.

Several captains had attempted to extricate themselves from the uncomfortable ritual but the terms of the trust were quite clear. Without the annuity from the trust membership subscriptions to the club would have risen sharply. It was therefore a trivial question of a minor inconvenience to the club captain versus the considerable hostile opposition of Barndem members to increased subscriptions. The continuance of the annual ritual was testimony to which of the two options triumphed. Sid was as clever as he was vindictive. He had been aware of the continued difficulty his legacy would cause.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.