THE NEWSLETTER

THE NEWSLETTER

by Richard Banks                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The  Lodge,                                                                                                   High Bumstead,                                                                 

 Sussex

Dearest Friends,

With the New Year only a few hours away I once again put pen to paper to record the events of the year so nearly gone. So much has happened that without my diary I would be hard put to remember it all. Like my diary, I will begin in January.

         Well, what can I say about Bermuda that hasn't been said before? Definitely my favourite Caribbean island. What a blessing it was to be lying on the private beach of a five-star hotel while Arctic blizzards brought Britain to a standstill. At least that's what the Daily Mail said. Thankfully I wasn't there to see it. By the time Mike and I were back at The Lodge, the weather had changed to the usual winter crispness so cherished by those of us with triple-A heating systems. Needless to say, we were as snug as the proverbial bug in a rug and eagerly counting down the days to the birth of our first grandchild who arrived ahead of schedule on 14 February. No surprise then that Lucy and Jed decided to call him Valentine. Our little saint weighed in at 6 lbs, 11ozs and is the most beautiful, blue eyed baby you could ever wish to see. His full name is Michael John Valentine Weir and he was christened in St Peter's by the Bishop of Wensford. Mike was as pleased as punch to have the baby named after him and gave our Lucy a rather large cheque, which should, come the time, take care of his school fees. Needless to say, we have put him down for Winchester.

         What with the reception, which we held at the Lodge, this baby has already cost us a small fortune. Well, I suppose it's only money but it did mean that economies had to be made, so we cancelled our Easter tour of the Pacific Islands and settled for the more frugal option of the family villa in the Loire Valley. However, we still managed to have a jolly time and being close to Nantes where son, Tristan, lives we saw plenty of him and his gorgeous supermodel wife, Jeanette, plus her twin daughters by Nicos, her first husband, who may have died in an earthquake. The children are very sweet but terribly exhausting so going back to The Lodge felt more like a holiday than the holiday itself. Still, it was great fun.

         What a wonderful summer we have had this year. I don't think I have ever seen the garden look more lovely, and our new summer house is a splendid addition to the meadow. As usual, we hosted the village show in July and Mike won first prize for his Jerusalem Artichokes. He has also been elected Captain of the golf club which means that we frequently have to shell out on entertainments and the like, but one of the perks is that we get VIP tickets to events, like the US Masters at Augusta.

         In September Mike flew to Spain on business so I went to London to spend a long weekend with the Wilmot-Green's. Their daughter is a débutante this year and as several Royal persons – who I'm not allowed to mention – are on the lookout for wives, they are not without hope that the family may soon feature in Debretts.

         On returning home I received a telephone call from Tristan informing me that Jeanette, his gorgeous supermodel wife had left him for an unknown admirer believed to be a merchant banker. I said that this really wasn't acceptable and that it would make for very sorry reading in my annual newsletter. As Mike is an advisory member of the Banking Ethics & Morals Committee I felt sure that on his return he would soon identify the mystery banker and compel him to return the gorgeous Jeanette to the bosom of her family. Regretfully I must sully these pages with the lamentable news that the mystery banker is none other than Mike. He confessed all in an email to Tristan and myself which ended with a post-script saying, 'hope no hard feelings, Dad'. What Tristan said I have no intention of repeating, here or anywhere else, especially as I may have used similar language when learning that Mike has closed our joint accounts and transferred the monies therein to goodness knows where. To make matters worse it appears that Mike has been laundering the ill-gotten gains of a Columbian drug baron. Any hope that I would be left in possession of The Lodge was dashed when I received a letter from HBOS telling me that it had been re-mortgaged and no payments received for several months.

         To cut a long story short the house was repossessed last Thursday and I am now illegally squatting in the summer house. It seems that bad news travels fast, especially when it appears on the front page of the Sun. My reputation is in tatters. Not only am I the known associate of a crooked banker but under investigation by the Police for complicity to defraud. It seems that I signed a number of documents that were not quite what I thought they were. My friends, if that is what they were, are conspicuous only by their absence; the golf club have cancelled my membership and the Wilmott-Green's are saying they never knew me. Even the children don't pick-up the phone. I am, as they say, a social pariah.

         Needless to say, this is one newsletter I will not be sending out. At least I won't have to shell out several hundred pounds on postage. As I do not have several hundred pounds this is indeed a blessing. But as Scarlet O'Hara famously said 'tomorrow is another day' and I look forward to the New Year with an optimism I can only attribute to the half bottle of brandy I took from the wine cellar.

         Tomorrow is the 1st of January. Another year, another diary. I wonder what I will write in that?   

Copyright Richard Banks