The scene is set... It was a "quite warm", sunny May day (not actually May Day itself, a day within the month of May.) ‘Twas a Saturday, Saturday before bank holiday Monday (the second bank holiday of the month in fact!) The setting was UKC, it was 8am in the morn, a young Vaughno (Botley) and Harmie (Drury) get out of their (separate) beds. Both of them are young students studying the art of cricquet and life in general. They both live in digs in Darwin College, Vaughno has a double room, but mysteriously lives alone, Harmie a single room (this is completely incidental to the story by the by). Our two intrepid aventureurs wander on down to Darwin college canteen for a mother fucker fry up. As ever, they bump into various people on the way, people they see every day (but, of course, never talk to) such as inter alia the scary women, the Ken Bates/Richard Attenborough/Alwyn Crawshaw lookalike, the John Cleese and the bespactled Cliffe Richard look-alikes and 3 "Libby Kenedies". Oh yeah, they briefly stop off at "the missing link" too to shout out "Dave" very loudly at a corridor in the pretence that someone called Dave lives there - he doesn't of course, they are being silly! They polish off their mother fucker in haste and head of to Canterbury "town" centre.
It takes our two heroes approximately 46 minutes to get to their intended destination "Netto". They are not rich students born with "gold spoons" in their respective mouths (unlike those rugger toffs in Woody's who get on their wicks with their songs about willies and bums), so they only purchase the essentials from Netto: chocolate, crisps and cans of beer - Stella, Carlsberg and Kestrel, of course. Rucksacks loaded up, they head off back to UKC, they have an appointment with Rutherford College and the Sky Sports showing Common Room. It was the second ODI v the Cons, (I can't remember the series score, but it was at the Ovals). Our two friends were there just in the nip of time for the innings start and they opened up their rucksacks, removed the lagers, crisp and chocolate; the fun commenced - Choco, crisps and warm lager "what more do you want?"
The day passed in a haze, the Cons got a half decent score and our two conquerors were necking the Carlsbergs and Stellas like their was no tomorrow. It was not until approximately 5.33pm, that they realised they were supposed to meet Flinty. A little dazed and safe in the confidence that Michael "Atho/Hodgson" Atherstone was on his way to a ton and leading an England victoire, they left their seats for the first time in the day and went to look for Flinty (Greenock) (this was pre-Mobile phone days, you see, so this communication medium was unavailable). They wandered aimlessly and fortunatously bumped into the aforementioned Flintlock, who for some unbeknown reason was a wandering about like a bassoon around Eliot College. They grabbed him by the throat and our 3 amigos headed off to Keynes College to watch the England v South Afrikaaner fussball match at Old Trafford. Flinty and Vaughno had sunk all the Carlsbergs and Artois and all that remained was Kestrels. So, all three of our heroines started on the strong stuff (2.8% of pure alcohol). By 7.30pm, and full-time in the Voetbol (which incidentally ended Engels 2 - 1 Boers), the boys were absolutely hammered on "Kezzies".
Not perturbed, they headed off to the lights of ol' Canterbury town (bare with me guys, things are a bit hazy from now onwards!) They went to some pubs and stuff (will skip over this bit as can't remember times or venues) and ended up the Penny Theatre, where they danced the night away with each other (no girls of course - that would be considered "g@y"!) They enjoyed their time at the Penny Theatre, but had to leave and not for the first time (does "Snodland" ring any bells with anyone?), they went on a (pre-Glover) rampage. Firstly, all three of them jumped in the back of a stationery lorry in the Penny Theatre car park, why? - don't ask me? Next, they stumbled (quite literally) 'pon a trolley and they took turns to physically smash each other into the barriers outside Sainsbury's. The trolley could be used more sensibly than that surely?
Well, it soon was, it was used as the receptacle it was intended for. Road signs, street signs....
"Harmie, I am kicking this keep left bollard with all my force, but I cant budge the buggar" shouts Flintlock. Harmie has a go...
Harmison retorts: "No, Flinty, this runt is wedged, it must be stuck to the concrete with something very strong, such as superglue or duck tape".
"Get out the way, yous, let Vaughno at it!". Vaughno kicks the keep left bollard with all of his young might and succeeds, such passion!
"That did the trick, well done Vaughno, in the trolley, old son" cheers Harmie and Flinty in unison.
The trolley was now getting full with the aforementioned keep left bollard, Canterbury greyhound track and various other road and street signage. Off our 3 very merry fellows went on their jolly way happily singing along to "You'll Never walk Alone" causing no person any harm when a police car pulled up.
"Hello lads, have you had a good evening?" enquired the WPC.
"Yeah..." was the reply from the 3 bandits.
"Have you been shopping lads? I think you better be coming with us" she reverts.
"Sorry, we'll put them back officer!" mumbled one of the 3 swines, now barely coherent.
Their offer to return the shopping items from whence they came was declined by the WPC. I wonder which snitch phoned the Old Bill and grassed up our 3 central characters? They were just having a bit of fun: Was it one of the local Canterberarians whose front door had been subject to knock down ginger and in whose garden our heros had urinated? Who knows? Who will ever know? Who cares? Anyway, there was now two police cars and one police van at "the scene". So, in jumped Harmie and Vaughno into car one and off went Flinty in t'other, he cut a lonesome but merry figure. The police van was loaded up with the various signage, keep left bollards and a trolley. They soon arrived at their destination: Canterbury police station. They were taken into a back room by a young filth, who after laughing at them, emptied their pockets and stated:
"I can't believe they've brought you in for this: Ha! Ha!"
In turn, each of our young wipper-snappers had to fill out (scrawl - they had now lost the ability to read or write) some form. Whilst doing this, the other two gesticulated (Nescafe handshake, flying Vs, single finger salutes etc.) to t'other, who laughed along merrily at the "joke". Big joke! It was less funny when they were shown to their cells (female cells) for the night. Despite being a little afraid, they all had a good night's sleep in their separate cells, only awoken by a maniac in an adjacent cell howling and barking like a cat and Harmie pulling the emergency chord at 3.30am requesting a glass of water from "room service".
At 7.30am, the idiots were awoken by the fuzz and presented with breakfast: sausage casserole - delicious! After wolfing down this delicious feast and drinking a steam hot cup of piss tea, they were in turn taken to see the duty sergeant, PC big Welsh bastard.
First, it was Vaughno's turn. Mugshot and fingerpints were taken by the friendly, but moustachioed PC, who stated he thought the boys were unlucky to be arrested for, after all, what was just a bit of fun. In his day acts such as this and scrumping (for he was in the young scrumpers guild) would have been met with a ticking off and a flicked ear "my how times have changed" was his parting comment. V was passed back his property and taken to meet Mr bastard, who exclaimed to young V:
"You have let yourself down, you have let your university down, you have let your parents down, boyo. We should tell your university about this, which would render you unable to stay in university accommodation in future years. But I won't on this occasion." He also, in an attempt to redicule Vaughno, read back his statement of the night before. He quoted:
"we're sorry officer, we thought it was funny at the time, but now we realise the joke is on us". The bastard continued: "Too right, English, the joke is on you, but can you see anyone laughing? I'm not laughing am I, boyo?"
With this, V was "cautioned" (however, strangely no yellow card was shown) and was warned that another such indiscretion within 5 years would mean a court appearance and criminal record. With that, Vaughno was on his way, seriously hungover, unshaven, dirty and smelling of booze and poo. He was ashamed, but extremely pleased with himself. The story was repeated half an hour later for young Harmie, then Flinty some 30 minutes apres cela, both in a similar such disgusting state.
They all returned to UKC separately, the walk that usually took approximately 46 minutes, strangely took about twice that length of time, but they all met up at midday at Vaughno's double room. They looked at each other for a couple of seconds and without any form of choreographing, all burst out in fits of laughter:
"We were arrested!" they proclaimed with much amusement and pride.
That was the story of the Chatham 3...
