The Oakhaven Gazette

ELEVEN IN THE LINE. That is how many were stood outside the Sweatbox on Friday night before the doors went at seven, in order, the first one there at the front.

At seven Dean opened up and they went in one after another, front of the line first. The hall was empty until the doors opened, and it did not stay that way.

By eleven there were thirty-three dancing and thirty-seven in the hall.

Christie, who is always first, was first again, under the canopy from half past six. The barmaid was working the bar all night.

“Eighth in the line and in by two minutes past. That's the Sweatbox done properly,” said Abbie Tunnicliffe of 18 Radworth Road.

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ALSO INSIDE

Head case!

A horseman on the moor with no head. Page 2.

Suite dreams

A red sandstone hotel on the hill. Page 2.

Search party

PC 2814 goes through a pocket. Page 3.

THE MOOR · HALLOWEEN WEEKEND

Head case!

ONE HOOFBEAT BEHIND YOU. That is how walkers on the moor past the edge of town describe the rider: a gaunt figure, hunched forward on a black horse, with no head on his shoulders.

Early in the night he stands side-on in the distance. Look away and he is gone, and a second later there is a single hoofbeat at your back. Later on he comes at a gallop, with a snort at twenty metres. Walk on out of town and the story ends in A&E. Turn for home and he lets you go.

He is not on his own up there. The Seven start as whistling out of a dark sky, three notes, then more, up to seven, and then a ring of red eyes comes up in the grass, eight pairs of them, low down and drifting. They are rats, and they are near enough two yards from nose to tail.

And in a hole in a field there is something gnawing. It goes quiet when you get close. Get closer and Rawhead comes up out of the ground with a shriek and a shove. Mind the other hole: it keeps on gnawing, and the thing that flies out of it at your feet is a mallard.

“I heard a horse behind me. I turned round and there was a horse. There was not a lot on top of it,” said Connor Dunmore of 18 Radworth Road.

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ON THE HILL · EST. 1888

Suite dreams

TWO AND THREE QUARTER KILOMETRES of new road climb from the ring road to the Bumoral, a hotel the size of a railway terminus in red sandstone, standing on the hill above town.

Crow-stepped gables, a clock tower with turrets on its corners and candle-snuffer roofs. The clock says J. BUMORAL. The sign says RESIDENTS ONLY.

Inside, a lobby twenty metres by twelve, two storeys high, with a gallery on marble columns, a grand piano and a Scotch egg under a glass dome. Over reception there are five clocks, for London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Skegness.

“A clock for Skegness. I have been to Skegness. It is the same time as here,” said Pearline Grant of 1 Bestholme Boulevard.

OAKHAVEN POLICE · RADWORTH ROAD

Search party

ONE BAG. That is what PC 2814 took out of a pocket by the police station car park at ten o'clock one morning last week, after a sale in the street was seen by a neighbour.

The patrol car pulled up down the street. She got out, walked up the pavement, searched him, found the bag, kept it, and let him go. Then she walked back to the car and carried on her round.

Sell where a neighbour can see you, with a patrol car close by, and that is how your morning goes.

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ROADS · EIGHT ROUNDABOUTS

Turf's up

EIGHT ROUNDABOUTS, 282 SHRUBS. All eight roundabouts are grass mounds now, planted up, with a ring of blue and white chevron boards round the edge, where there used to be flat tarmac with the road lines running straight over the middle.

The lads in the hatchbacks go round them. Ten times round Thornyholt in one evening, and every one of them kept off the grass. And on the top estate a short new road now joins Whittle Avenue to Baird Close.

“They've put a hill in the middle of the roundabout and now the lads go round it. Took them long enough,” said Brian Cotterill of 1 Barrowby Row.

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KIMBERTON ROAD · THE VICARAGE

Gate-crasher

The Reverend Helen Stubbs of 89 Kimberton Road could not get out of her own front garden on Tuesday morning: the car was parked tight to the kerb, right across her gate.

The cars on the terraces now park down the street between the pairs of gates. By the evening hers stood sixteen metres down the street.

“I prayed for a parking space. I did not mean that one,” she said.

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THE TERRACES · ROUTE 4

Reverse psychology

A taxi, a police car and the route 4 bus met nose to nose on a terraced street with cars parked down one side, and there they stayed.

“Somebody has to back up. It is never the taxi,” said Scott Hickling of 55 Thornyholt Boulevard, who drives the bus.

IN BRIEF

Awning glory

Seven shops on the hot-food row are to get awnings, each in the colours of its own sign: Kebabylon red and cream, the Radworth Balti House maroon with gold pinstripes, Golden Fortune, Slice Slice Baby, Jerk Hut, Burger Boss, and Bagshaws the butcher in oxblood and cream stripes. They hang under the signboards, so the names still read from across the road.

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CORRECTION

Floor show

Last week this paper promised a fuller floor at the Sweatbox. At five past seven on Wednesday Christie had it to herself. By eleven on Friday there were thirty-three on it. We stand by Friday.

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THE EDITOR WRITES

Mind how you go

A line at the club door, a hotel on the hill with a clock for Skegness, a vicar let out of her own garden, and a horseman on the moor with an empty collar.

Queue for the club. Keep to the grass. Turn for home when you hear the horse.

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Stripes

Red and cream. It matches my sign. I have wanted an awning over that window since the day I opened.

KHALID MAHMOOD, 116 Marlpit Boulevard

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Rats

My son says the rats on the moor are as long as a man is tall. I said that is what they said about the ones at the foundry, and they were right then as well.

AJIT SINGH SANDHU, 101 Thornyholt Boulevard

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The hotel

Residents only, it says on the sign. I am a resident. I have lived in Radworth forty years. I would like to know which residents they mean.

MAUREEN COTTERILL, 1 Barrowby Row

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Roundabouts

Plant something on the roundabout and the council will have a man out mowing it every fortnight. Mark my words.

Name and address supplied