ROYSTON VASEY NOTES AND NEWS

Apart from Viral Bassoon’s Salon there is another place in Royston Vasey you can get your hair cut. I won’t denigrate a whole profession by calling it a Hairdressers. Nathan Ackroyd has a little shed at the corner of Sewer Lane and Ashpit Fold. When you go in Nathan asks “Short or Medium” . Medium is what politically incorrect Redskins would call a scalping. No one to my knowledge has ever asked for short.
Nathans is always full, a few heroes waiting to have their hair cut, some just reading Nathan’s paper, some calling for “something for the weekend” though as the population gets older that trade has got less, though he does well out of young lads who don’t want to ask a young lass for the necessary in the local chemist. Some call in to buy maggots and other fishing tackle that Nathan sells, great fisherman is Nathan. He does a bit of that sub Aqua stuff as well. It was him that got rid of that big pike in Sparth Reservoir, down in Slaithwaite.
Nobody knows how it got in but it decimated the Angling Clubs fish they had put in. It grew to an enormous size, some said it was due a chemical leak from the Chemical Works nearby but they denied it. After it had eaten all the fish it started taking any unsuspecting wildfowl that landed on the res, the lucky ones got away just minus a leg. There were so many one legged ducks in Slaithwaite it was like a Long John Silver Convention, somebody suggested training green budgies to sit on’t ducks shoulders and say “Pieces of Eight” for a boost to tourist trade but it was never taken up.

Of course they tried to catch it, it would take any bait but once hooked it would chew through the trace and off it would go again. It had so many hooks through its jaw it looked like a Goth ready for Dracula Week in Whitby.
Anyroad Nathan thought up a cunning plan that involved Piggy Smiths tractor with the winch, some High Tensile Steel Wire and a dead sheep.
Dead sheep was easy. It was one of them A62 sheep that stand and defy you in the middle of the road. Most drivers drive round them, not wanting to damage their cars. Well this one made the mistake of defying Master Li who had had a very bad day, was hungry for his tea and was driving the firms big wagon. “Never felt a thing” said Li ” Don’t know about sheep, never said a word”
With sheep sorted, the next day they all went down to t’res, Nathan in his frogman outfit.
The lads threw the sheep in at one end and t’pike started worrying it, Nathan slipped into the water and swam up behind it and slipped a noose of the high tensile wire over it’s tail and pulled it tight. The pike was so busy trying to get through the wool that it didn’t notice. As soon as Nathan was out of the water Piggy started the winch and eventually dragged the pike up the bank, it still had the sheep in its jaws.It was a big bugger, all of 5 foot long. Nathan had it stuffed and it is in a glass case on the wall of his hair cutting hut.
I was in there yesterday sat in the chair.
Nathan winked at me then nodded towards the pike
“Second most frightening thing in Royston Vasey, Cloggy ” he said
“Oh yes” says I “What’s more frightening than that thing”
“Nana Tourettes” said Nathan “She’d still be the most frightening if that were a Great White Shark” .