Captain's Day

by Terry Ravenscroft

  Warning: Captain’s Day contains strong language and explicit sex. (All the more reason for buying it then - Author)

  The problems posed by having a transvestite on the course were as nothing however once Philip had gone through the operation that transformed him into, if not a whole woman, then minus a set of male genitalia a whole woman. For it was then that Philip Hill, now Phyllis Hill, sought to play in the ladies’ competitions, rather than the men's. Not surprisingly the Sunnymere ladies’ section would not even contemplate the proposition. As far as they were concerned Phyllis Hill was still very much a man. That he was a man now minus a penis and testicles, in addition to being the proud owner, thanks to hormone treatment, of a pair of small but blossoming breasts, didn’t even enter into the argument. The way the ladies saw it was that although Philip Hill may very well no longer have male genitalia he certainly still had the same muscular six feet two inch frame that he’d had before, as well as the two strong arms of the plasterer’s mate he had been (and still was) for the last fifteen years, and therefore had an unfair advantage when it came to propelling a golf ball round the course, especially off the ladies’ tees.

  In an effort to reach some sort of compromise Phyllis had offered to play in the ladies’ competitions but off the men's tees, but to no avail. The ladies would not allow her to play in their competitions full stop, and that was the end of the matter. The club chairman George Grover had pointed out to the ladies’ committee, as delicately as he could, that Phyllis now had a vagina and bigger breasts than his wife, in fact bigger breasts than quite a number of the lady members, but the ladies had been adamant in their rejection of the new member without a member.

  “Better than sex” – Lee Westwood

  “Not as good as sex” – Tiger Woods

  CAPTAIN’S DAY

  Copyright © Terry Ravenscroft, 2010

  Cover by Tony Colligan www.tctoons.com

  A RAZZAMATAZZ PUBLICATION

  *****

  About the author

  The day after Terry Ravenscroft threw in his mundane factory job to write television comedy scripts he was involved in a car accident which left him unable to turn his head. Since then he has never looked back. Born in New Mills, Derbyshire, in 1938, he still lives there with his wife Delma and his mistress Divine Bottom (in his dreams).

  email terryrazz@gmail.com

  facebook http://on.fb.me/ukZ78e

  twitter http://bit.ly/t0mVyB

  website www.topcomedy.co.uk

  Also by Terry Ravenscroft

  FOOTBALL CRAZY

  JAMES BLOND - STOCKPORT IS TOO MUCH

  INFLATABLE HUGH

  DEAR AIR 2000

  DEAR COCA-COLA

  LES DAWSON’S CISSIE AND ADA

  STAIRLIFT TO HEAVEN

  I’M IN HEAVEN

  THE RAZZAMATAZZ FUN EBOOK

  ZEPHYR ZODIAC

  (Will be published early in 2012)

  Sample pages of each of these titles can be read at the end of this book.

  *****

  CAPTAIN’S DAY

  PREFACE

  Today, Saturday the 25th of July 2010, is Captain's Day at Sunnymere Golf Club. In addition to Mr Captain, who quite naturally we will be seeing a great deal of, and his good lady wife Millicent, we will be meeting many other people who have been brought together on this, the most important day in a golf club’s calendar. Amongst them will be Robin Garland, the vice-captain of the club, known to one and all as Mr Vice, who doesn't have too good a day of it; and Andrew Arbuthnott, the club treasurer, who has a much better day of it, choosing the occasion to play the best golf of his life. We will be meeting George Fidler, a man who always plays Top Flight four golf balls, until today that is, and Richard Irwin, a man who firmly believes that ladies should be allowed on the golf course each and every day between one-o-clock and six-o-clock....a.m. We will spend time with long but wayward hitter Dogleg Davies; Sylvester Cuddington, a man who is the proud owner of a newly-modelled golf swing; club throwers supreme Dave Tollemache and Graham Burton; the orally challenged Rhys Jones-Jones; and Trevor Armitage, a man whose mind is not always one hundred per cent on his golf. We will meet The Red Arrows; club professional Dave Tobin and his new assistant, Darren; the cheating Adams brothers; several of the lady members; the weird and wonderful Phyllis Hill and the even more weird and wonderful Dance DJ Daddy Rhythm. Finally we will be meeting a few people one wouldn't ordinarily expect to find on a golf course; police officers Fearon and James; firemen Jeffers and Blakey; helicopter pilot Green and film cameraman Morton; two young lovers; and members of the press and local radio. So welcome one and all to Captain's Day. Have a good round.

  7.30 a.m. Mr Captain at home.

  In an ideal world the person chosen to be the captain of a golf club, all things being equal, would be the most suitable candidate available. However it is not an ideal world and things are very rarely equal; a fair number of the club’s members will not have the time to devote to a position which has so many demands placed upon it, whilst others, even if they have the time, do not have the inclination. On these occasions it is possible for a less than ideal person to be chosen for the job. At Sunnymere Golf Club such a year was 2010.

  Mr Captain 2010 vintage, one Henry Fridlington, was a man who, not to put too fine a point on it, was full of his own importance. It was difficult to see why, for if he had achieved little eminence in his career as a cost and works accountant he had achieved even less in his chosen sport of golf, never aspiring to anything better than a very dodgy 19 handicap, which by the time of his captaincy was back up to 23 and counting. Henry applied himself to cost and works accounting in the wholly stolid, methodical manner he felt the vocation demanded, whereas he played golf with the optimistic verve of a young Severiano Ballesteros, but unfortunately with none of that artist's great skill. It is a sad fact that had he applied himself to golf the way he applied himself to accountancy and applied himself to accountancy the way he did to golf he would have made a far better job of them both. But he didn't, and so, although a man full of his own importance, he had nothing of which to feel full of importance about. Nevertheless he was full of it; and particularly so today, Saturday the twenty fifth of July 2010. Because today was Captain's Day. His day.

  It would be impossible to overstress the significance of the occasion to Henry. Nothing of such momentous importance had happened to an individual since time began. Possibly Nelson’s famous victory at Trafalgar or Winston Churchill’s finest hour might run it a distant second, but no more than that. And in the field of sport Jonny Wilkinson’s part in bringing the Rugby Union World Cup to England and Freddie Flintoff’s heroics in recapturing the Ashes didn’t come anywhere near to it in magnitude.

  Now, as he dressed for the occasion, Mr Captain went over in his mind for about the one hundredth time the Captain’s Day's arrangements that had been made. Meticulous planning by he and his wife Millicent, a past captain of the ladies section herself, would ensure that the day would go without a hitch. Everything had been put in place to make it a perfect day. Nothing had been left to chance. The Captain's Day dinner dance that evening would be a huge success, the best ever. The dinner itself would be excellent. The main course, poached cod and boiled potatoes, would go down very well, literally, although it might not go down very well metaphorically with those diners who had complained there wasn’t an alternative to poached cod and boiled potatoes; and it would not go down at all, neither literally nor metaphorically, with the twenty two members of the club who had refused to attend the event when they found out what they were expected to eat that evening.

  The reason Mr Captain had chosen poached cod and boiled potatoes was not because he was particularly fond of the dish but because he had recentl
y been troubled with a duodenal ulcer, and to help keep it under control his doctor had put him on a fat and fried food-free diet. Mr Captain could of course have gone for a menu of roast duck, roast potatoes and green peas, with maybe a roast beef alternative, and certainly a vegetarian option, as suggested by the club secretary, and just had poached cod and boiled potatoes himself, but the problem with that arrangement was that he was quite partial to roast duck, roast potatoes and green peas and couldn’t bear the thought of everyone else eating and enjoying it whilst he himself was forced to eat poached cod and boiled potatoes. So poached cod and boiled potatoes was what everyone would be dining on, and people could like it or lump it, and as far as the vegetarians were concerned he had simply dismissed their dietary requirements as ‘faddy’.

  The dance part of the dinner dance would be sure to go with a swing, not least because this year the music would be provided not by a noisy disco, as had become the norm over the last few years, but by a four-piece band, led by the ex-lead trumpeter of Jimmy Shand and his Band, no less.

  The number of tickets sold for the event was a bit down on previous years, partly due to the twenty two members who had refused point blank to be tempted by the delights of poached cod and boiled potatoes, but mainly because unfortunately the event clashed with Ant and Dec’s Disabled Under-Fives Commonwealth Song Contest, or some such, on television - or so quite a few members who usually attended the Captain's Day dinner dance had claimed. In fact so many members had decided to give the event a miss it had led Mr Captain into suspecting that the snub must be rooted in some sort of conspiracy. Well Mr Captain could conspire too; he knew who wasn't coming who normally attended the event, and in future would be keeping a special watch on them for any contravention of the golf club rules, and in particular the bad language regulations.

  The competitions within the Captain’s Prize competition had been organised; the Nearest the Pin competition, the Golden Ferret competition, and the Longest Drive competition. But not the Shortest Drive competition, an event that had been introduced by last year's Mr Captain as a bit of a laugh, but which had been dropped by this year's Mr Captain as he couldn't see anything to laugh about in the holding of such a competition; not, as some had claimed, because it was he himself who had hit the shortest drive and had in consequence been awarded the inaugural Duffer’s Cup, which he had refused to accept, but because he considered it to be far too frivolous a diversion to be included in such a momentous event as Captain's Day.

  The previous day the beer tent had been erected on the stretch of spare land between the first tee and the ninth green. Having the beer tent would cost him a pretty penny, even allowing for the fact that he would be monitoring consumption to ensure it was limited to strictly one drink per player, but it would be more than well worth it.

  And the weather would be ideal. The sun was already warm even at this early hour; the sky was blue with not a cloud in sight, a perfect English summer’s day. Even the best planned Captain's Day would be a slight disappointment if the weather turned out to be bad, so he hadn't taken any chances and the previous evening had prayed to God for nice weather. And God had come up trumps. Mr Captain had known he would, even though the last time he’d called upon the Almighty for assistance his chrysanthemums had taken only second place at the annual flower show instead of the first place he had prayed for, the top prize having been awarded, unaccountably to Mr Captain, by a man on the sex-offenders register.

  Mr Captain now flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the lapel of his blazer and turned from the full length bedroom mirror to his wife. “How do I look, Millicent?”

  The question was superfluous; he had no real need to ask. He knew how he looked. The mirror had told him. Immaculate, from top to toe. The burgundy captain's blazer with the gold club badge emblazoned on the breast pocket, just enough spotless white handkerchief protruding from the pocket, the starched white shirt, the burgundy and yellow striped Sunnymere club tie, the grey plus four trousers, the rather racy-looking flat cap and matching socks in the tartan of the Campbell clan (Mr Captain had no connection with the Campbells, apart from a fondness for their condensed cream of chicken soup, but the colours and design of the tartan appealed to him), the whole ensemble was just so.

  “You look very smart, darling,” said Millicent. “I am very proud of you.”

  And so you might well be, thought Mr Captain, so you might well be. After all it isn't every member of a golf club who aspires to its captaincy. One has to be made of the right stuff. He was made of the right stuff, he was sure. Hadn't he proved as much with the introduction and implementation of his Captain's Project?

  It was the tradition at Sunnymere Golf Club that during his year of office the incumbent captain implemented a project of his choice, known as the Captain's Project, which would be of lasting benefit to the club. The captain could choose anything he liked within reason. Two years ago the then Mr Captain, by raising the necessary finance through donations, raffles, pro-ams, quad-ams, sponsored golfathons, car boot sales and other fund-raising activities, and enlisting voluntary labour from amongst the membership, had planted the 2000 new trees that now bordered the third, fifth, eighth and seventeenth fairways, and which in years to come would both enhance the beauty of the course whilst making it slightly more difficult to negotiate.

  Last year's Mr Captain had vowed to double the membership of the junior section and to further encourage junior golf in any way possible, with particular regard to coaching the youngsters in the etiquette and skills of the game. Not only did he more than double the membership but he took the juniors to a runner's up spot in the County Championships, their highest placed finish in the club’s history.

  Mr Captain knew that such projects were beyond his scope, even if it would benefit the course to have a further 2000 trees planted or to double the junior membership yet again. Truth to be told it was less trees and fewer junior members cluttering up the course that he was in favour of, not more; he had enough trouble with the former as things already stood and more than enough dislike of the latter. Besides his Captain's Project would be far more beneficial to the club than a few straggly trees and even more loud-mouthed spotty youths.

  Initially it had been his intention to give lady golfers unlimited access to the course at all times. Such a revolutionary act would not only have put him in the good books of the lady members for ever more, and especially in those of his wife, but it would also have got right up the noses of the male members, the vast majority of whom he didn't get on with.

  The complete banning of mobile phones on the golf course had been another strong possibility (at the moment they could be carried provided they were switched off). If Mr Captain had had his way he would have banned mobile phones not only from the golf course but from the face of the earth. He had never been able to find anything in favour of them and had no trouble finding several things against them, the main one being that it was a mobile phone which had caused him to have an air shot when it had rung just as he had started his downswing on his approach shot to the tenth in the Sunnymere Silver Salver last year. Not only had it cost him a penalty shot but probably the competition as well, as following the incident his game had gone completely to pieces, and far from a victory had resulted in him ripping up his card for the third week running.

  A third possibility, and the hot favourite for a long time, was to ban Sunday competitions. A dedicated churchgoer, Mr Captain would have liked to have banned all Sunday play, and would have done so had he not felt that such an action would not be tolerated by the membership, despite it being a Captain’s Project.

  In the normal course of events all the club competitions, both monthly medals and majors, were played on Saturdays and Sundays, split approximately fifty-fifty between the two. It had been Mr Captain’s intention to move all the Sunday competitions to Saturdays, thus leaving people free to attend church.

  He had no axe to grind with people who played golf on Sunday, indeed he often played on Sun
days himself, but when he did he always ensured that he attended morning service when he played in the afternoons and evening service when he played in the mornings.

  When he had made known his intentions it was pointed out to him, again by the ever vigilant club secretary, that the majority of the membership would not attend church even if they had all day Sunday free in which to do so plus the rest of the week as well, and that for many of them it would take the introduction of pole dancers in the aisle and a free bar and buffet in the vestry in order for them to attend, but in answer to this Mr Captain had replied that if people chose to be heathens then that was their lookout.

  In the end however, and as appealing as these three candidates for his Captain's Project were, he came up with an even more worthy idea. To rid the club once and for all of bad language. In particular the 'F' word and the 'C' word. But the 'T' word also, along with the 'S 'word and all the 'B' words. When he had made his plans known, immediately upon taking office, the General Committee, whilst agreeing it would be a very good thing, had expressed grave doubts about its worthiness as a Captain's Project. Not a few of the members had said it was unreasonable, a few more thought it unworkable.

  Mr Captain however would have none of their objections and had insisted that making the fairways and greens 'F' and 'C' word free would benefit the entire membership of the club and 'not just people who liked trees and juniors'. There was no further discussion. No argument. Nor could there be. The Captain could choose as his project anything within reason which he saw fit, and he saw his Captain's Project as being well within reason and very fit indeed. A notice had been put up on the club notice board the following day.