Britain's ClownWorld continues and reminds me of a true story I posted in the archived RN website
many years ago. (An edited version of it is below the video)
A True Story.
During the days of my working-life and when the world didn't seem as crazy as it is today, I used to enjoy creative writing.
I still do, but the imagination-part seems to be on a sabbatical and I'll bet it's browning it's skin somewhere on a tropical
beach instead of developing it's muscles for a invigorating return to take me on another exciting journey!
The job I had was a solitary one. In another thread, I related how it involved image manipulation for a small newspaper
and included property-for-sale pictures, advertising logos and performing procedures to keep a conservative perception
to what the readers saw.
I worked evenings in a large office with nobody else except the odd Journalist who visited from another floor to ask a
favour or to give directions on how an image should be presented. Since the work wasn't dramatically time-sensitive,
I would occasionally type out an idea for a story and if I could flesh it out enough as a short piece of fiction, I'd dare
myself to post it on the company's public website for perusal.
Sadly, the site closed and many of the tales were lost. But during that twilight time, one my yarns -'Jason King Loves Me',
received a comment from someone that brought up an unusual situation that had no real connection with the story I had
offered.
![[Image: attachment.php?aid=1211]](https://rogue-nation.com/mybb/attachment.php?aid=1211)
Jason King was a character from the television world of my youth. The late-Peter Wyngarde played a famboyant author
who doubled as a crime-fighter and always got the girl. The part came as a spin-off from a series titled 'Department S',
a British seventies spy-fi adventure series that involved a 'hush-hush' Government outfit solving high-society political
corruption.
The manner that the character was projected always made me smile and considering Mr. Wyngarde's private tribulations
that led to his career suffering, when I wrote the piece, I steeled myself from mocking the public's view on homosexuality
at that particular period.
King was a womaniser, who enjoyed the high-life and good wine. But the realities of the actor and the television
entertainment rarely meet and the latter must always outweigh the former to keep the Blue Pill real in the minds
of the audience.
Sorry for the waffling, but it needed telling!
The light-hearted story was about a young and eager television production company employee who was involved in
the re-invention of the suave and appealing character. The stage-hand's self-meditations poked fun at the actors failings
that were rarely exposed and described the indulgent manner the thespian profession enjoys.
The young man becomes involved in a dangerous situation and a vagrant, a rough-looking stranger who'd crept onto
the set, swoops in and saves the employee from certain death. The dishevelled drifter was of course, the original actor
of Jason King.
There was a descriptive comment I wrote that made a simple tongue-in-cheek tale morph into a conduit between myself
and someone I still don't know to this day. The remark was: "...The smell of old urine hung about him, but I believe that
may have been due to his sleeping habits..." -from the saved-employee's depiction of his unkempt saviour.
The story had been on the website for around a month and the comment section -just like all the other stories on the
page branded 'Tales From The Clock Tower', I guessed would be empty.
But on this one Sunday evening, it wasn't (Cue dramatic music!)
Someone with a vague nom de plume that I cannot recall, had opined "I am offended that you accused my favourite
actor of smelling of urine!"
I gulped...! Nobody had ever judged my silly tales. In fact, I had imagined that nobody had actually read my musings.
Under the single fluorescent light and with a semi-religious radio show murmuring in the background (it was a quaint local
channel and was the only frequency that the bashed-and-bruised radio set could pick up!)... I re-read the obiter dictum.
There was someone out there!
Looking around in the gloom of the darkened office, I nibbled my bottom-lip and holding my breath I typed my reply.
'Sorry... I'll change it' and I did. The sentence became something like: "...an aura of forgotten alleyways and damp
doorways"
The evening went on just as all the others before and I assumed, like the many stacked-up ahead of me in time.
At ten o'clock, I'd shuffle along to a nearby pub for a beer and roughhouse banter, then wandered back with my head
down to ignore whatever drunken bacchanal that staggered too close or asked from the shadows for a spare cigarette.
The Gotham Walk, I used to call it.
With flat-screen monitors still a facet of the 'Living-on-the-moon' dream they'd promised me as a kid, I approached my
desk from the same type of obscurity that the guy asking for a smoke lived in and wondered what the barrel-of-a-screen
would offer me next.
Sundays usually meant ten or fifteen feature images for a nice article about a fancy nearby mansion or a group of photos
that lend optics to a story on the days of steam trains. Tomorrow's deadline had passed and these were for Tuesday's
editions. Cropping, removing blemishes -especially with old images and colour appreciation were in my quiver and my
verve to deliver was my bow. The Journalists will be wanting to go home.
After appeasing the Gods on the next floor, I took out my last sandwich and reducing the work-board of my Photoshop
application down onto the lower bar on the screen, my late-evening meal trembled in my hand.
There was a reply to my reply.
"I was only joking, I like your stories" it said and my wide eyes glanced again towards the shadows, in case someone from
the newspaper company were playing tricks on me. Could it be one of them upstairs...? Could it be those purported to be
scribes of the public were revelling in mirth over my tenderfoot prose?
There was a small pile of hard-copy photographs resting in the Out-Tray on a day-shift employee's desk and I thought it
would be a good idea to deliver them back to the originators. If there's a group of Journalists guffawing at the ruse, I
would soon find out with the use of surprise.
I raced up the stairs and gathered myself before entering the News-desk.
"Er, here's Sally's photos" I mumbled, nonchalantly passing the only Journalist in the room and giving the clock a look-see,
I remembered that a Sunday midnight usually meant an early finish for the wordsmiths.
The young man in the poor tie waved a hand and went back to his typing. I dumped the pictures on Sally's desk and
wandered back to where the Journalist's clacking was the only sound in the room. "If there's nothing else, I'll get my
stuff together and call it a night" I said whilst scanning his computer screen. Looking up from his electronic alchemy
and offering features that translated to 'piss-off', he nodded and went back to his snooty high-magic. The internet on
his computer wasn't active.
Realising that running down the two flights of stairs after drinking beer and sitting on my ass for a living wasn't a
great idea, I steadied my breath as I looked at my own screen again. "I was wanting to ask you some advice and
I've emailed you something" the sentence said.
Oh Heavens!
.......................................
That long-dead server, once filled with websites showing ancient photographs of sepia seaside images, clunky gifs
decorating accounts of resurrecting a favoured post-war vehicle and someone pretending they could write fictional
tales, had the application where a viewer could contact the owner of a particular station.
I'd never used it before, but after a few single-finger endeavours, I arrived at the only message I'd received since
creating 'Tales From The Clock Tower' It was from the Jason King fan.
The email went something like this:
'Hello, I've been reading your stories for some time and I think -considering your place of work, you can help me.
I'm a retired teacher and along with my wife -who's still teaching there, was employed at a private all-boys school
that receives it's funding through donors and tuition fees.
During the years that I taught at the school I will not name, I noticed that many of the pupils from overseas seemed
to disappear. I know this sounds odd, but I assure you it's true. They would be in class for a couple of days and then
just not attend anymore. The housing of the pupils is on the school premises, but there just never seems to be any
commotion when a boy would stop going to class and unjustifiably leaving the school.
I was dumbfounded by the lack of concern and the Headmaster at the time advised me to just leave it alone.
He remarked that in many of the instances, the boys would just up-and-return back to his own country for various
reasons and luckily, a refund wasn't requested.
When I retired, the Headmaster also called it a day. A new chap took his place and to be candid, he reminded me of
a used-car salesman. From my wife's information, he looked on the disappearances as merely abscondence, a developing
youngster finding his manhood in a new country and the school keeping the price!
Due to my wife's position at the school, I cannot tell you anything more about the school as it may effect our income.
I apologise for the lack of details, but I wondered if your newspaper could investigate in such a way that offers no
impression of my contact.
What do you think?
Yours, the reader.'
I switched off the computer and put my sandwich box into my satchel. This wasn't right. My taxi-ride home found me
nodding at whatever the chirpy driver was telling whilst my mind roamed the world of Sherlock Holmes. "What do I think?"
-I mean, what could I possibly think?!
Young men from other lands coming here under the guise of being educated and then -either being kidnapped like out of
a drunken Enid Blyton story and kept for possibly barbarous acts, or slipping away to meet cohorts in the dead of night for
reasons of cunning and dangerous means.
It would be Tuesday before I went back to work and I arrived early. The Editor, a man younger than myself, was busying
himself in his office when I tapped on his door. Peter was always glad to to see me and didn't hold that aloofness some
Journalists seemed to carry when dealing with other departments.
Sitting across the desk from me with a look of attentiveness, he listened as I told him what I've told you.
The vertical blinds behind him struggled to staunch the sunlight from creating a deity-like aura around the Editor as he
digested the account of of the disappearing schoolboys. I commented that it would make a good story and if true, could
promote the newspaper in the environs of a competing industry.
"You're being trolled..." Peter announced -interrupting my sales-pitch, "...whoever this person is, he's playing you because
of where you work" he added. I had pondered this before, but considering I'd never related on the website that I was
employed at a newspaper, how would the unknown contact have known I would be the appropriate person?
I put this to Peter and added that even though the larger holding-company that owned the newspaper had built the server
for local community needs and a platform to advertise from, would it really make sense to scour the fifty-or-so websites in
hope of catching somebody who had access to a news outlet?
"Your email address has a media connection, that's how he got you... " he said sympathetically "...It's not much, but it does
imply you're connected to the company". I nodded because it made sense, my lack of internet knowledge was very limited
and the obvious had slipped by.
"I'd just leave it alone, if such a thing was happening, the Police and someone from the school would've contacted us by
now" the Editor added and with that, I thanked him for his sage advice and left to start work. Later back at my desk and
as the images for Wednesday's newspaper dwindled in my 'TO DO' folder, I thought about on a stranger had gotten the
better of me and yanked my chain good and proper. When my tasks were done, I warily opened the web-server to see
if the Troll had impatiently pushed his trick any further.
The Tales Of The Clock Tower didn't appear, instead there was something called 'Tales Of The Countryside' emblazoned
itself across my screen with quaint photographs of lamb-filled meadows and a snow-blasted hill range with a huddled
cottage enduring the weather. The labourer-fingers inherited from my father had bludgeoned the wrong keys.
On my own site, the private emails contained no messages about young frightened men in school uniforms bound in
rope in a dingy cellar or a gang of foreign youths from different countries clandestinely attempting a coup of traditions.
Apart from the initial message, everything was back to normal.
Pressing 'return' and not realising that it would take me back to the amateur-photographer's domain, I sighed as I lazily
followed the pictures and descriptions down to the bottom of the page. A lone willow tree at dusk and two fishing trawlers
tied on a lonely quayside tracked my idle inspection.
You know when when there's a thing called a 'Eureka moment'? When the air around you seems to compact and stop
sound, when it seems that the tactile world you know is always there, moves slightly to the right and you're momentarily
set adrift. That was what I felt.
Right at the bottom of web-page, just like my own repository of quixotic musings -with exception that the first part of
the address, this photographer's contact information was the same as mine. The individual titles of the web-pages made
up the first part of the address, but the final part related to the whole server! Any relevance to me and where I worked
wasn't there!
I quickly accessed my messaging area, opened a 'Reply' text box and gathered myself for the serious situation I'd found
myself. Looking over the large monitor to make sure no snickering Editor or chuckling Journalists were waiting in the gloom
of the unlit room, I carefully typed my thoughts to the retired teacher who worried for his lost boys.
.......................................
That was over thirty years-ago, Tales From The Clock Tower and it's fellow websites are long gone and I doubt even
the 'Archive Machine' could even find 'em. Whoever it was that first sent that message never replied to my email.
There's been no local scoop about missing schoolboys or wealthy families from abroad concerned that letters to their
male children go unanswered.
No bloated bodies wrapped in decaying school uniforms were dredged from nearby pools, nor were lost and unintelligible
youngsters discovered walking the highways and byways of England. Nothing.
Is the unknown education facility still accepting overseas pupils and allowing them to slip away into the hustle-and-bustle
of British society and all the while, caressing the currency for such strange journeys? Could it be that at the same time I
was hailing my cab in the night, shadows darker than the shadows surrounding them met in the crepuscule of the dank
alleyways and plotted their long-term schemes of calamity?
Who knows...? Well, maybe a stumbling storyteller and a retired follower of Jason King do.
many years ago. (An edited version of it is below the video)
A True Story.
During the days of my working-life and when the world didn't seem as crazy as it is today, I used to enjoy creative writing.
I still do, but the imagination-part seems to be on a sabbatical and I'll bet it's browning it's skin somewhere on a tropical
beach instead of developing it's muscles for a invigorating return to take me on another exciting journey!
The job I had was a solitary one. In another thread, I related how it involved image manipulation for a small newspaper
and included property-for-sale pictures, advertising logos and performing procedures to keep a conservative perception
to what the readers saw.
I worked evenings in a large office with nobody else except the odd Journalist who visited from another floor to ask a
favour or to give directions on how an image should be presented. Since the work wasn't dramatically time-sensitive,
I would occasionally type out an idea for a story and if I could flesh it out enough as a short piece of fiction, I'd dare
myself to post it on the company's public website for perusal.
Sadly, the site closed and many of the tales were lost. But during that twilight time, one my yarns -'Jason King Loves Me',
received a comment from someone that brought up an unusual situation that had no real connection with the story I had
offered.
Jason King was a character from the television world of my youth. The late-Peter Wyngarde played a famboyant author
who doubled as a crime-fighter and always got the girl. The part came as a spin-off from a series titled 'Department S',
a British seventies spy-fi adventure series that involved a 'hush-hush' Government outfit solving high-society political
corruption.
The manner that the character was projected always made me smile and considering Mr. Wyngarde's private tribulations
that led to his career suffering, when I wrote the piece, I steeled myself from mocking the public's view on homosexuality
at that particular period.
King was a womaniser, who enjoyed the high-life and good wine. But the realities of the actor and the television
entertainment rarely meet and the latter must always outweigh the former to keep the Blue Pill real in the minds
of the audience.
Sorry for the waffling, but it needed telling!
The light-hearted story was about a young and eager television production company employee who was involved in
the re-invention of the suave and appealing character. The stage-hand's self-meditations poked fun at the actors failings
that were rarely exposed and described the indulgent manner the thespian profession enjoys.
The young man becomes involved in a dangerous situation and a vagrant, a rough-looking stranger who'd crept onto
the set, swoops in and saves the employee from certain death. The dishevelled drifter was of course, the original actor
of Jason King.
There was a descriptive comment I wrote that made a simple tongue-in-cheek tale morph into a conduit between myself
and someone I still don't know to this day. The remark was: "...The smell of old urine hung about him, but I believe that
may have been due to his sleeping habits..." -from the saved-employee's depiction of his unkempt saviour.
The story had been on the website for around a month and the comment section -just like all the other stories on the
page branded 'Tales From The Clock Tower', I guessed would be empty.
But on this one Sunday evening, it wasn't (Cue dramatic music!)
Someone with a vague nom de plume that I cannot recall, had opined "I am offended that you accused my favourite
actor of smelling of urine!"
I gulped...! Nobody had ever judged my silly tales. In fact, I had imagined that nobody had actually read my musings.
Under the single fluorescent light and with a semi-religious radio show murmuring in the background (it was a quaint local
channel and was the only frequency that the bashed-and-bruised radio set could pick up!)... I re-read the obiter dictum.
There was someone out there!
Looking around in the gloom of the darkened office, I nibbled my bottom-lip and holding my breath I typed my reply.
'Sorry... I'll change it' and I did. The sentence became something like: "...an aura of forgotten alleyways and damp
doorways"
The evening went on just as all the others before and I assumed, like the many stacked-up ahead of me in time.
At ten o'clock, I'd shuffle along to a nearby pub for a beer and roughhouse banter, then wandered back with my head
down to ignore whatever drunken bacchanal that staggered too close or asked from the shadows for a spare cigarette.
The Gotham Walk, I used to call it.
With flat-screen monitors still a facet of the 'Living-on-the-moon' dream they'd promised me as a kid, I approached my
desk from the same type of obscurity that the guy asking for a smoke lived in and wondered what the barrel-of-a-screen
would offer me next.
Sundays usually meant ten or fifteen feature images for a nice article about a fancy nearby mansion or a group of photos
that lend optics to a story on the days of steam trains. Tomorrow's deadline had passed and these were for Tuesday's
editions. Cropping, removing blemishes -especially with old images and colour appreciation were in my quiver and my
verve to deliver was my bow. The Journalists will be wanting to go home.
After appeasing the Gods on the next floor, I took out my last sandwich and reducing the work-board of my Photoshop
application down onto the lower bar on the screen, my late-evening meal trembled in my hand.
There was a reply to my reply.
"I was only joking, I like your stories" it said and my wide eyes glanced again towards the shadows, in case someone from
the newspaper company were playing tricks on me. Could it be one of them upstairs...? Could it be those purported to be
scribes of the public were revelling in mirth over my tenderfoot prose?
There was a small pile of hard-copy photographs resting in the Out-Tray on a day-shift employee's desk and I thought it
would be a good idea to deliver them back to the originators. If there's a group of Journalists guffawing at the ruse, I
would soon find out with the use of surprise.
I raced up the stairs and gathered myself before entering the News-desk.
"Er, here's Sally's photos" I mumbled, nonchalantly passing the only Journalist in the room and giving the clock a look-see,
I remembered that a Sunday midnight usually meant an early finish for the wordsmiths.
The young man in the poor tie waved a hand and went back to his typing. I dumped the pictures on Sally's desk and
wandered back to where the Journalist's clacking was the only sound in the room. "If there's nothing else, I'll get my
stuff together and call it a night" I said whilst scanning his computer screen. Looking up from his electronic alchemy
and offering features that translated to 'piss-off', he nodded and went back to his snooty high-magic. The internet on
his computer wasn't active.
Realising that running down the two flights of stairs after drinking beer and sitting on my ass for a living wasn't a
great idea, I steadied my breath as I looked at my own screen again. "I was wanting to ask you some advice and
I've emailed you something" the sentence said.
Oh Heavens!
.......................................
That long-dead server, once filled with websites showing ancient photographs of sepia seaside images, clunky gifs
decorating accounts of resurrecting a favoured post-war vehicle and someone pretending they could write fictional
tales, had the application where a viewer could contact the owner of a particular station.
I'd never used it before, but after a few single-finger endeavours, I arrived at the only message I'd received since
creating 'Tales From The Clock Tower' It was from the Jason King fan.
The email went something like this:
'Hello, I've been reading your stories for some time and I think -considering your place of work, you can help me.
I'm a retired teacher and along with my wife -who's still teaching there, was employed at a private all-boys school
that receives it's funding through donors and tuition fees.
During the years that I taught at the school I will not name, I noticed that many of the pupils from overseas seemed
to disappear. I know this sounds odd, but I assure you it's true. They would be in class for a couple of days and then
just not attend anymore. The housing of the pupils is on the school premises, but there just never seems to be any
commotion when a boy would stop going to class and unjustifiably leaving the school.
I was dumbfounded by the lack of concern and the Headmaster at the time advised me to just leave it alone.
He remarked that in many of the instances, the boys would just up-and-return back to his own country for various
reasons and luckily, a refund wasn't requested.
When I retired, the Headmaster also called it a day. A new chap took his place and to be candid, he reminded me of
a used-car salesman. From my wife's information, he looked on the disappearances as merely abscondence, a developing
youngster finding his manhood in a new country and the school keeping the price!
Due to my wife's position at the school, I cannot tell you anything more about the school as it may effect our income.
I apologise for the lack of details, but I wondered if your newspaper could investigate in such a way that offers no
impression of my contact.
What do you think?
Yours, the reader.'
I switched off the computer and put my sandwich box into my satchel. This wasn't right. My taxi-ride home found me
nodding at whatever the chirpy driver was telling whilst my mind roamed the world of Sherlock Holmes. "What do I think?"
-I mean, what could I possibly think?!
Young men from other lands coming here under the guise of being educated and then -either being kidnapped like out of
a drunken Enid Blyton story and kept for possibly barbarous acts, or slipping away to meet cohorts in the dead of night for
reasons of cunning and dangerous means.
It would be Tuesday before I went back to work and I arrived early. The Editor, a man younger than myself, was busying
himself in his office when I tapped on his door. Peter was always glad to to see me and didn't hold that aloofness some
Journalists seemed to carry when dealing with other departments.
Sitting across the desk from me with a look of attentiveness, he listened as I told him what I've told you.
The vertical blinds behind him struggled to staunch the sunlight from creating a deity-like aura around the Editor as he
digested the account of of the disappearing schoolboys. I commented that it would make a good story and if true, could
promote the newspaper in the environs of a competing industry.
"You're being trolled..." Peter announced -interrupting my sales-pitch, "...whoever this person is, he's playing you because
of where you work" he added. I had pondered this before, but considering I'd never related on the website that I was
employed at a newspaper, how would the unknown contact have known I would be the appropriate person?
I put this to Peter and added that even though the larger holding-company that owned the newspaper had built the server
for local community needs and a platform to advertise from, would it really make sense to scour the fifty-or-so websites in
hope of catching somebody who had access to a news outlet?
"Your email address has a media connection, that's how he got you... " he said sympathetically "...It's not much, but it does
imply you're connected to the company". I nodded because it made sense, my lack of internet knowledge was very limited
and the obvious had slipped by.
"I'd just leave it alone, if such a thing was happening, the Police and someone from the school would've contacted us by
now" the Editor added and with that, I thanked him for his sage advice and left to start work. Later back at my desk and
as the images for Wednesday's newspaper dwindled in my 'TO DO' folder, I thought about on a stranger had gotten the
better of me and yanked my chain good and proper. When my tasks were done, I warily opened the web-server to see
if the Troll had impatiently pushed his trick any further.
The Tales Of The Clock Tower didn't appear, instead there was something called 'Tales Of The Countryside' emblazoned
itself across my screen with quaint photographs of lamb-filled meadows and a snow-blasted hill range with a huddled
cottage enduring the weather. The labourer-fingers inherited from my father had bludgeoned the wrong keys.
On my own site, the private emails contained no messages about young frightened men in school uniforms bound in
rope in a dingy cellar or a gang of foreign youths from different countries clandestinely attempting a coup of traditions.
Apart from the initial message, everything was back to normal.
Pressing 'return' and not realising that it would take me back to the amateur-photographer's domain, I sighed as I lazily
followed the pictures and descriptions down to the bottom of the page. A lone willow tree at dusk and two fishing trawlers
tied on a lonely quayside tracked my idle inspection.
You know when when there's a thing called a 'Eureka moment'? When the air around you seems to compact and stop
sound, when it seems that the tactile world you know is always there, moves slightly to the right and you're momentarily
set adrift. That was what I felt.
Right at the bottom of web-page, just like my own repository of quixotic musings -with exception that the first part of
the address, this photographer's contact information was the same as mine. The individual titles of the web-pages made
up the first part of the address, but the final part related to the whole server! Any relevance to me and where I worked
wasn't there!
I quickly accessed my messaging area, opened a 'Reply' text box and gathered myself for the serious situation I'd found
myself. Looking over the large monitor to make sure no snickering Editor or chuckling Journalists were waiting in the gloom
of the unlit room, I carefully typed my thoughts to the retired teacher who worried for his lost boys.
.......................................
That was over thirty years-ago, Tales From The Clock Tower and it's fellow websites are long gone and I doubt even
the 'Archive Machine' could even find 'em. Whoever it was that first sent that message never replied to my email.
There's been no local scoop about missing schoolboys or wealthy families from abroad concerned that letters to their
male children go unanswered.
No bloated bodies wrapped in decaying school uniforms were dredged from nearby pools, nor were lost and unintelligible
youngsters discovered walking the highways and byways of England. Nothing.
Is the unknown education facility still accepting overseas pupils and allowing them to slip away into the hustle-and-bustle
of British society and all the while, caressing the currency for such strange journeys? Could it be that at the same time I
was hailing my cab in the night, shadows darker than the shadows surrounding them met in the crepuscule of the dank
alleyways and plotted their long-term schemes of calamity?
Who knows...? Well, maybe a stumbling storyteller and a retired follower of Jason King do.
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.