by John Glover
click here for cast list

Episode 1: "Who Killed Reg Dixon ?"

The Fens were blowing. Gigantic clouds of soil, seedlings and filth rolled across the unbroken landscape like a chocolate fog. It was as if God was emptying his turn-ups and having a good shake.

Clunch Parsons was amusing himself during the enforced break from work by drawing pictures on the barn wall with a stub of chalk.

"What d'you reckon that is then, Hummer?" asked Clunch, pointing a grubby finger at his latest masterpiece.

Hummer Thompson gazed keenly at the cartoon. To anyone else it would have been obvious that the dusty scrawl depicted a pheasant.

"Ealham Cathedral" replied Hummer, having carefully evaluated the drwaing.

"Have another go", laughed Clunch.

Hummer gazed beyond the faded and dirt encrusted knees of his brown corduroys to the ground. There, standing to attention between his feet, was an old lemonade bottle filled with tea that he had brought from home that morning.

"Bottle of tea. Yes. Tea. Thassit. Tea".

Clunch began to laugh. "No you silly bugger. Issa pheasant. Look Hum. A grit ol' pheasant".

Hummer's face dropped and his bottom lip protruded like an infants. "What’s to laugh at Cluncher? Jus‘ cos I dint know what yor bloomin‘ picture was."

Clunch slapped Hummer on the back and wiped away the drawing with the sleeve of his jacket. "I'm only pissin' up your back. Don't take any bloody notice of me."

"Well you aint no bloody Picasto are yer" laughed Hummer and he flashed a toothy smile at Clunch just as a bloodcurdling scream rent the air. After a second there followed a second and then a third. "What in pigging hell's that ?" shouted Clunch.

He grabbed Hummer by the arm and they ran out into the dust storm following the direction of the cries. Their eyes filled with the black soil as they battled their way across the land. As they progressed towards the noise the strong wind began to die down and the sky cleared. As quickly as the wind had whipped the dry soil up into a black soup it had set it back down to earth again. The two men looked at each other. They were standing beside a drainage dyke at the distant end of John Worthington's ten acre field. Lying on the earth with a face contorted into a mask of extreme terror and with a pitchfork through his heart was an old friend of the two men. Hummer stared at Clunch and began to scream as he reached forward and grabbed his shoulders.

"He's dead Cluncher. He's bloody well dead Cluncher! Who would have killed Reg Dixon?"

Episode Two - Cast List and Episode Index

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