Phoenix rising

"Hello, is that Mrs Stocks?.....My name is Ernie Brown, my wife tells me that I'm booked in to speak to your ladies group tomorrow afternoon at 2'o'clock, is our meeting still going ahead?......Good, good, is it still at the Town Hall in Grimsby?.....Okay, I'll meet you there at around 1.45pm, if that's alright with you?......I do have one small concern though, what is it you want me to talk to your group about?.....It's just that well, did you know that I'm no longer the Chairman of Grimsby in Bloom?..... ahh, I did wonder whether you'd seen the report in the paper or not. My problem is that I don't think that I should really be talking about that side of my life without their approval, but if you want, I could just talk about myself and some of my plans for the year ahead. How long do you want me to talk for?......Only 20 minutes, that shouldn't be a problem at all Mrs Stocks. In fact, you could easily find yourself having to shut me up if I go on for too long, I do tend to get a little carried away with myself once I get started.....That's great Mrs Stocks, I'll see you tomorrow, 1.45pm, at Great Grimsby Town Hall.......Goodbye for now."

I've done lots of public speaking over the past few years and the thought of standing up and chattering to the Grimsby Ladies Phoenix Group held no fears for me at all, especially as the theme of the talk was to be Ernie Brown. I couldn't fail, it is, after all is said and done, my favourite subject.

I could easily have been described as being maybe a little bit too blase' about my attitude towards the afternoons performance, a fact which became obvious to all, when I arrived in a very muddy and dishevelled state of dress at Great Grimsby Town Hall. My mud splattered overalls and the ingrained dirt covering my finger ends gave the game away, I'd clearly come straight from work. "Would you like to freshen up before we make a start, Mr Brown?...We don't mind waiting while you go and have a wash if you'd like."

"That's very kind of you Mrs Stocks" I replied, taking off my scruffy black beret and showering the Town Hall carpet with pine needles. "I've come straight from working in a garden on Humberston Avenue and as you can see from my clothes, I really need more than a quick wash so, if you truly don't mind my appearance, I'll just leave my muddy boots in the corner and carry on."

I'd brought along with me a good armful of the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and District Civic Society's local Heritage Trail booklets of  Cleethorpes and Great Grimsby town centres, which I'd written a couple of years ago. I passed the booklets around the group and explained to the ladies there, that as the Chairman of the Heritage Committee with the local Civic Society, I regularly lead guided walks for groups around both towns.

   "That should get them away from the subject of Grimsby in Bloom", I'd said to my wife earlier that morning.   We've been absolutely inundated this last few weeks with questions surrounding our bombshell resignation as Chairman and Secretary of the Gold Award winning Grimsby in Bloom committee. It's not that I don't want to talk about our sudden, unexpected departure, it's just that well, although I still feel quite negative about some aspects of it, I really don't want to be a harbinger of doom and gloom, I don't want to appear to sound negative and I definitely don't want anyone to think that I've been stuffing my face with a bowl full of sour grapes.

"Good afternoon ladies and thank you very much for that wonderful introduction Madam Chairman. I did speak to Mrs. Stocks last night and I asked her then, what she would like me to talk to you about this afternoon. For the last 3 and a half years I've been the Chairman of the Heritage Committee with the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and District Civic Society and you've all got copies of our local Heritage Trail booklets in front of you, so if you'd like me to talk about my work with the Civic Society, I can do that - or maybe, you'd like to hear about my attempt, last year, to become Great Grimsby's Member of Parliament and my relative success, polling nearly a thousand votes, making me one of the highest polling independent candidates in the country.  If you'd like, I could talk to you about my time as Chairman of the Great Grimsby Founders Festival and my journey along Alexandra Dock in a Viking long boat dressed as Grim the fisherman, the founder of Great Grimsby, carrying a shield and a battleaxe and leading a parade of 250 people through the town centre towards St. James Square, where a fierce battle for the crown of England and Denmark took place in front of Grimsby Minster."

I waited for a brief moment, looking around at both the expressions and the body language being displayed by the ladies before me.

"Grimsby in Bloom" they replied, almost in unison.   "Tell us all about Grimsby in Bloom, will it survive now that you've left and why on earth did you both leave so suddenly?"

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Get ready to wash down your work surfaces and put on a clean pinny, next week, we'll be baking bread on Ernie's latest Sunday night blog, Trivial Background Noize.