A few months ago, whilst passing a religious books shop in Stroud, I noticed a book entitled Jesus Papyrus. It became a source of amusement to my partners’ children, as I would often refer to myself as Jesus Papyrus, purely in a comic situation. As we approached the caravan park in Exmouth, we were confronted by a man ‘with keys’ that guarded the front gate like a Nazi patrolling a check point. As he strolled up to the car window to check our paperwork, I had a burning desire to explain that ‘I was Jesus Papyrus’ and to ask if ‘this was Haven?’. My dry sledge-hammer wit would, as usual, fall on deaf ears.
The caravan was quaint, except for the curtain rails that were in long need of A: repair, B: some curtain hooks and C: some kind of nail that would prevent the entire curtain slipping off the plastic rail when pulled open.
It was a nice break from reality and I was fascinated by the couple in the next caravan to us, who, after arriving, did absolutely nothing. Yes they sat outside the caravan for twenty minutes or so drinking a tin of lager, smoking a cigarette and the male exhibited a fine beer belly that protruded from under his ribs, but they soon ventured back inside to watch the television with their curtains pulled. I particularly enjoyed the moment that he walked stark naked across the caravan and gently pressed his butt cheeks up against the glass door as he attempted to squeeze into the small bedroom facing us.
It soon became apparent quite early on that I was in fact, in Zombieland Hell. Every young dad was shaven headed, plastered in tattoos and pushing the newborn around in a buggy, whilst the fat wives with heaving cleavage that seemed to be struggling to escape from their cheap bikinis, smoked continuously using language that I just cannot repeat on page. There were ‘Hoodies’ here too; some speaking in almost half sentences, some not quite managing that, merely grunting at one another. They just made my heart rate increase and so I imagined them getting caught up in the Military Firing Zone that bordered the concentration camp to the westward side. What chance have these children got in life I found myself asking?
As evening approached, I panicked. We were to visit the Clubhouse to view the evening entertainment in this ‘paradise’. As a child I was taken to Centres such as Pontin’s where everyone wore a red coat. Here they wore a yellow jacket with blue trousers.
This was real life ‘Hi Di Hi.’
During the bingo, a tie-breaker was announced and the compare jumped up and burst into song. ‘They must have pre rehearsed this little ditty’, I thought, ‘just in case of a tie-breaker’, choking on my pint of lager shandy, my jaw hitting the sticky table top.
The band that came on next were bad. You know to what I am referring. They were so bad that they were brilliant. Brilliantly bad. ‘There is substance here’, I thought to myself. ‘I can make ‘work’ out of this nightmare’. I dropped my head, luckily sitting in the shadows and contemplated how I was to escape from this Comedy Colditz.
As the evening struggled by and the woman with the floppy arms rocked her crying child to sleep at the table next to u, there was a sense of anticipation in the room. Bustling started, pints of lager were fetched and everyone went to the toilet as not to miss the next attraction; the adult comedian. Could it get any worse?
Yes of course it could! The lights dimmed; there was an announcement to hail the Star onto the stage, a roar went up, the curtains opened and.....after a few moments the curtains began closing again. A rumble of nervous murmurs floated across the hall from the audience. Was this stage fright? Had our Star gone home? Was I to be spared?
No of course not. There was a second announcement to hail our Comedic Star. Surely this time he would not disappoint? Had he forgotten his material? Perhaps he was having an identity crises? The curtains parted again in an almost religious gesture....there was a pause........a bit too long of a pause I actually thought...and then finally our host appeared on stage through a cloud of dry ice to stand in his moment of Triumph.
Dressed as Bob the Builder in an outfit that was a bit too snug for his physique, he opened his act by singing, with no real notes, the theme from the children’s television programme. Everyone was laughing and singing along with this madness. We were instructed to raise our arms and clap along to the beat. He was armed with a water cannon. Anyone he considered not to be joining in; well they got squired. Oh it was so funny. The comic hilarity and the sense of professionalism at his job shook any doubt in my mind that he could not be a humorous man.
My partner saw my face and leaned in towards me to speak. ‘Do you know we are the only ones here not singing and without our arms in the air’, she said. ‘Yes’, I nodded, ‘Shall we leave and go back to the caravan’.