Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

The car people (and the big insurance companies) were apparently so alarmed by this invention that they put pressure on the British government to gag the manufacture of this device. Not only did Robin have British intelligence on his tail, but members of a series of dangerous gangland fraternities, who were keen to get their hands on The Key Maker to fulfil their own questionable agendas.

Eventually Robin and I were forced into hiding (which meant I was obliged to abandon my promising career as a woman pilot). We destroyed all evidence of the prototype, and came up here, to Burley Cross, where we opened a bed and breakfast.

This move was entirely funded by the sale of another of Robin’s inventions: ‘The Cat Pill Remedy’, which is a remarkable aid to the ‘concerned’ cat owner in feeding prescription medication to fussy felines (and we’ve had a few of these ourselves, over the years!). I won’t bore you with all the details, but the device effectively transforms the prescription medication (whatever its original constitution) into a curious gel (gels really are Robin’s speciality) which can be applied to any part of the cat’s body (apart from the head, obviously!), and the cat will lick it off, immediately.

We have never understood why this invention has never gone into formal production. From what Robin can glean on the internet, the company went into liquidation shortly after it purchased the design but has still fiercely maintained its ownership of the copyright.

Given that Mr Booth is fascinated by ‘the mind’, I imagine that he might be interested in Robin’s wonderful stress-busting device, aka ‘The Heart Beat’, which is a small, iPod-style object (tiny, hand-held screen, earphones etc., very portable) which completely alleviates panic attacks by reproducing a slow heartbeat (aurally, and as a palpable vibration), combined with a special visual graphic pattern which (and I won’t go into all the science, but it’s truly fascinating) automatically bypasses the conscious mind and instructs the unconscious mind to calm down. It can even put those who are especially susceptible into an involuntary trance!

It works within twenty seconds, without fail. The people at NASA have been on the phone twice this week, already. Google (a ‘web engine’) are apparently ‘champing at the bit’ to get hold of it. Apple want to integrate the device into their top-of-the-range mobile phones. It’s all very exciting!

Was Wincey only waxing lyrical when she mentioned that you’d said Mr Booth was actually the by-product of a secret tryst between a prominent individual from the Salvation Army dynasty and one of the legendary Trebors (who I believe invented Extra Strong Mints)? What an utterly intriguing heritage that is!

Robin’s great-great-grandfather actually invented nail polish (although my heritage is singularly unspectacular, I’m afraid)!

As I said on the phone, we would certainly consider reduced rates for Mr Booth (and yourself) on the basis of a small mention in the tour programme…

Do get back to me if you have any other thoughts or queries. Wishing you all the happiness of this wonderful season,

Yours Faithfully,

Brenda Goff

PS Please forgive the awful spelling mistake in the second paragraph of the brochure. That should be ‘can’t’.

PPS The photograph of the entrance hall needs to be updated. It was actually fully retiled in November.

1, The Old Cavalry Yard

21/12/2006

Hello there, Nina,

I know this must seem a bit strange — me writing you a letter, when you’re sitting at the post office counter not fifty yards down the road from here — it’s just that I’ve been in about five times to try and speak to you, in person, but each time I’ve reached the front of the queue my nerve has gone (and I’ve ended up buying stamps, or airmail letters, or asking stupid questions about my television licence — for the record, I do actually know you don’t need a special licence to watch TV programmes on a computer).

And then there’s always the people waiting in line behind me; gossip spreads like wildfire in this place. Everybody always has their nose stuck into everybody else’s business. I didn’t want you to feel awkward, basically, or to put you on the spot by asking if I could meet up with you, privately, after work — just for a quick drink at The Old Oak or something — in front of… well, Emily Tanner on Monday (which was bad), Jill Harpington on Wednesday (which was pretty bad — she’s thick as thieves with my mother), then Bunny Seymour on Thursday with — drum roll — Sebastian St John directly behind her (classic combination! I might as well have broadcast our imminent exchange from a public Tannoy system!).

The point — if I can actually get to it — is that I really didn’t want anyone to misconstrue my intentions for something they patently aren’t (although, to be perfectly honest with you, Nina, I’m not entirely sure what they are , as it currently stands).

I actually tried bumping into you as you were leaving work on Friday, but you always seem to have somebody with you. I even went so far as to follow your car (in my car — this was about a week ago), in the hope of attracting your attention on the road and getting you to pull over (I’m cringing as I type this — it all sounds so pathetic. It is pathetic! I don’t really know what I was thinking… I guess I wasn’t thinking — not coherently. In fact I probably shouldn’t have told you. You’ll definitely think I’m a freak, now — if you didn’t think it already. You’ll think I’m stalking you or something.

I’m not stalking you, I promise. I’m just… I’m just making a monumental arse out of myself — same as always, I suppose).

Lucky for me (or unlucky for me — I’m not sure which), just as I was pulling out of town (trailing you, in my car, like a psycho) I got hauled over by one of Baxter Thorndyke’s Road Safety Committee monkeys (it was my dad, actually) who gave me a massive, public dressing-down for speeding (I’d barely changed into second gear, but he insisted that I had already reached 50mph. Showed me the reading on his special meter).

This completely freaked me out. I was already feeling a little weird about the whole thing. I mean it isn’t normal to follow someone home in your car just because you’re too socially inadequate to speak to them in public, is it?

(Is it?)

In my own defence (and I don’t deserve defending; what I’m obviously crying out for is a massive, involuntary dose of horse tranquillizer, followed by a few sharp clips about the head), I was beginning to feel kind of desperate. But when they pulled me over (Dad pulled me over, dressed in that ludicrous yellow poncho thing — like some nightmarish, Day-Glo, neo-Nazi — a tragic, mid-life crisis in jack-boots) I suddenly started thinking that perhaps I was behaving irrationally and that I should just leave you the hell alone. (Let sleeping dogs lie. Butt out. Grow a backbone. Stop humiliating myself. Get a hobby: paragliding. Archery. White water rafting. Squash. Needlepoint. Karate. Anything)

I’m well aware of the fact that you have an awful lot on your plate with Glenn at the moment. Is he still very depressed? (Bollocks. Scratch that. ‘Is he still very depressed?!’ What am I thinking?! Of course he’s bloody depressed! He had both feet blown off in a roadside bomb in Iraq for Christ’s sake! Why wouldn’t he be bloody depressed?!)

What I mean to say (and I’m typing this very quickly to try and push through my pain/embarrassment threshold) is that I fully appreciate the fact that you’re under a huge amount of pressure right now, and I really don’t want to add to it. I would never forgive myself if I upset you or made you feel uncomfortable — that’s the last thing in the world I want.