Drawn a Yarn: The A'eth to B'eth Zip-linear Express.

Chapter 1:

          If you ever find yourself stuck in Horley just outside London, and need to get out quick, you may be interested to know that I might be able to help. If you need to get to either High Sulkington outside Worthing, or Great Yawnmouth that is.

Located half way up an unassuming Oak tree behind a small parade of shops and conveniences, that include a Chinese restaurant I am almost certain is run by Mickey Rooney, is stop A.5 of the A'eth t B'eth Zip-linear Express - A fully neglected once operational Zip-line that starts on top of Worthing's High Sulkington and reaches allll the way to Great Yawnmouth. With One-Stop on the way for nibbles in Horley.

Conceived and constructed by myself one hot November's eve, the necessity and origins of the often mistaken and long mused 'A'eth to B'eth Zip-linear Express' are not generally known. Folks know it used to stop mid way for nibbles and hydration purposes in Horley, but this is the story of why that zip-line came to be, and why it started and stopped where it did:


So it seemed like a good idea at the time...I had been seeing a girl I met whilst clam jousting off Sheerness Pier. I was in the semi-finals and she was the judge. She called me in on a technicality - Shocker - and before tossing me off and out the competition we exchanged personals. A few happy summers went by with me visiting her up in Yawnmouth, and then I got myself a job - whilst still living in Sussex - painting Stern Warnings on the back of boats for the yearly Maritime Festival in, yes! Yawnmouth! Unbeknownst to Grape - that was her name, Grape, I'd stowed away aboard one of the vessels the day before tally hoe. I did this so I could surprise her at the Vineyard she co-owned through inheritance with her brother. Her name was an aptonym by the way. Her brother’s name was Boris, and his was not.

Something happened the first night I was tucked away in the bottom deck. The captain fell very ill. I think the First Mate was helping the Skipper untangle a Scalextric set, so faced with no real choice I came out of hiding, because the only way to save him was to take drastic measure. Harnessing all the health and safety knowledge I had amassed over the years I did the best and only thing I could, and with one heaving scoop motion I hurled him off the side of the boat. 


When I got to port early the next evening word soon got out about my ordeal, and I was hailed a champion. Although unfortunately, my swift thinking had not cured the Captain, but my fast reactions and good intent made me the 'Jimmy-good-shoes' of the whole town, and at one point I was even in the running’s for Mayor. This was all very well and good, perfect you could say, and it was. Except I had a present arriving 2 weeks late from a 9 month voyage, so to speak, back in Sussex. Grape, the good Captain, Boris nor even I saw that coming.

Chapter 2: 

Back in Sussex, and missing my new life with the girl of my dreams, I set to making the Reliant Scimitar kit-car I had ordered and quite forgotten about. Unsurprisingly since it had taken nearly twice as long as the estimated 5 month delivery time. The kit car never worked, but seeing my efforts, people would drop money into a hat for me as I toiled away. "Another new job." I thought and never being one to pass up an opportunity I scrounged quite a profitable failure out of my bungled attempt at auto-mechanics, and used some of the spare parts to construct the Zip-linear on the side to get me from my job - flipping and rolling parts of a car across my forecourt in frustration - to my gal.

I gave Grape the boot when I found out she'd been kicking it with an old cobbler down the road. I'd lost the right one anyway, so they were no longer a pair. We broke up soon after that. 



I often think of Grape. She went on to become an Actress whose early day’s Riddlin' Ruub - custodian and her first creepy fan – remembers well, when he used to watch from his vantage point up in the dusty rafters during her time at the Rose Bruford Academy; "She used to try and tackle really long sentences in one breath that were meant to be executed in two or three. Then she would, nearing the end of her lung capacity, try and remain relaxed causing her to sometimes pull funny faces - like dropping her jaw, a little bit in the fashion of Gordon Brown and protruding her tongue in clandestine exasperation whilst turning slightly magenta. This once, I heard a raspberry" Hm, creepy. Thank you Ruub. For that.

She changed her name - as was the done thing in that line of work - to Helen Hill, though I liked the name Grape; Simple, British, Traditional. Well it couldn't have done any harm as she had her new name outside all the Music Halls everywhere you went, and before I could say 'Max Millers a cheeky chappy' it was the same throughout Broadway for her first lead role in the 1950 hit talkie film 'Home Sweet Home'.

Strangely, I bumped into my Grape - the fans Helen - again, this time for the last time. It was the late 1950’s and we briefly came back into each other’s lives for one fleeting moment down a side alley, where they used to throw out all the drunks, stoners, and supporting acts. All in one miserable salutation come the end of a working night. Both of us now in the big city, travelling. Both from the same kind of small rural village life. She was the vineyard hand. I was a Stern Warning adherer. We chanced upon each other at the side of the Theatre Royal in Brighton (this was at a time when Brighton was still known as Gaietyburg, before it was changed due to the adjective for gaiety becoming offensive). I was working as The Shadows first touring agent dealing with some unsavory business, and Grape was catching some fresh air and a cigarillo mid-way break into a taboo soiree with David Niven in an adjoining hotel.

She helped me scrub the mud off of Sir. Cliff's - or Ricc-Hhard as he was known at the time - diamond boots, and as we crounched there over the boots in the turd tattered alley we, or at least I had, for one brief moment a memory of an alternative past where she hadn't stolen my boot, and we didn't end up parting ways. An alternative life where we zipped in tandem from one coast-line to the other, sharing tall tales and One-Stop bought Bloody Mary mixers...Perhaps it was the smell of the Indian strength boot polish getting up my nosepipes, but I thought if there was one girl I could ever share my zip-line with, it was Grape. It could have been great.