8th October

Morning Corporal,
Much against popular belief it is now quite obvious to all that there is actually a Mr. Peabody. Seems the dear fellow works away a lot at the foreign office, well the story of Mrs. Peabody’s little display had got that far, aided by an opportune photographer who happened to be taking pictures for Ned the gardener at the time. The old chap was entering some of his prize blooms for the flower show next week and wanted to capture some of them for posterity, well when the shutter clicked all he got was a posterior! The photographer soon had them developed and were posted all over the officers mess. Some ne’er do well decided to post one of the copies to his mate in Whitehall who happened to be on the next desk to Mr. Peabody. Poor fellow got the shock of his life! Although how exactly he recognised her underneath the vicar and covered in dust and debris I’ll be damned if I knew at the time. He was straight on the train to come back and ‘have it out with the Vicar’. Well it developed into a right old farce after that, worthy of a good script if you ask me. He caught the Vicar and Mrs Peabody at another inopportune moment. Imagine the picture if you will, the Vicar running through the gardens at the vicarage cassocks and robes flowing out behind him clutching his bible. Mr. Peabody, one hand on his head to keep his bowler firmly in place, the other clutching tightly his umbrella like a native with a spear and Mrs. Peabody, her housecoat unbuttoned to the waist, her naked ample bosom doing their best to blacken both her eyes as she chased after Mr. Peabody trying to prevent world war three. Carruthers was just running around touching anyone he could get close to and shouting ‘you’re it’! Mrs. Peabody’s daughter was sat on the steps to the conservatory to get the best view whooping with delight and shouting ‘go Dad go’ at the top of her voice.
Well eventually everything died down, Mr Peabody felt sure he could feel his old hernia coming back, the Vicar fell over his cassock and Mrs. Peabody fell over and is now suffering from whiplash and concussion. Not from the fall you understand, from the effect of being battered by her ample naked breasts as she had been running after her husband. Carruthers ran off into the wood and was last heard shouting ‘I’m ready, come and find me’ from the inside of that hollow tree. Well, it turned out in the end that Mr. Peabody was not so concerned about his wife as he was the fact that him and the Vicar had for some years been having a little dalliance with a couple of choir boys and the Vicar had called it all off when he found someone else. Mr. Peabody had taken it all quite badly and had buried himself into his work in London awaiting the return of the Vicars affections. When the photograph turned up on his colleague’s desk it was not his wife that he recognised but the Vicar’s arse. Carruthers has now moved out of the tank and is living in the hollow tree and can be seen most mornings stood on top of it saying, ‘I’m a tree, I’m a tree!’ At least the milkman can now have his engine for his float re-fitted and we can all have our milk delivered again.
Got to go Corporal, cup of char is called for.
Over and out.

1st October

Morning Corporal,
Carruthers clutch of eggs have all hatched out now and he is strutting around the back of the parade ground with a dozen little yellow chicks following him. He managed to negotiate with the doctors to allow him to keep the eggs after his little episode in the chicken coup and he took them down to the tank and hatched them all out down there. Mighty peculiar business if you ask me.
Speaking of peculiar businesses, Carstairs and Ringbotham, Carstairs has got himself posted as Ringbotham’s batman and seems far too at home in a floral apron and feather duster to me. He saw Ringbotham off to the office yesterday with a wave of what appeared to be a lace handkerchief from what I could see of it. I can’t help but think that there is something rather unhealthy going on there!
I think the mystery of the new engine in Carruthers mobile home has been solved, no-one has been getting any milk this week and everyone was blaming the milkman’s little dalliance with Mrs. Peabody’s daughter for his inactivity. Eventually the sergeant was sent to find out the cause of the problem and give him a piece of his mind. When he got down to the dairy he found the milkman stood in the empty engine bay of his milk float, scratching his head. It is only circumstantial at the moment as nobody can get near Carruthers and that ruddy tank to find out. He was bad enough before, but now with a brood of chicks to protect he is firing those blank shells at anyone who comes near. Bit of a rumpus the other day, when he got hold of a live one! Carruthers thought that the General was getting too close to his chicks and let loose a shell, well not only has the car got no sides, it has no boot now either; although the General has taken to calling it a trunk, of course. But fortunately for the General the shell didn’t go off; however it did go off when it came to rest against the end wall of the garage where Mrs. Peabody keeps her car. There is now no uncertainty at all about whether there is anything going on between the vicar and the good lady. The garage completely disappeared and revealed Mrs. Peabody spread across the bonnet of her convertible wearing little but a smile, and the vicar spread across her, although he did still have his dog collar on! It gave Ned the gardener quite a turn; he is eighty if he’s a day and deaf as a post! He was on his knees tending the border at the back of the garage when the incident occurred, of course he didn’t hear a thing but when he looked up after the garage had disappeared, all he could see was the vicar’s bare arse bobbing up and down! He thought it was the sunflower in full bloom to start with, although given the shape and colour of the vicar’s legs I can understand the mistake.
Anyway Corporal, must dash, I think I can hear Carruthers trying to start the tank again. Always best to keep a low profile when that engine starts up I find, just in case he has found another live shell.
Over and out Corporal.

24th September

I say Corporal bit of a rum old do with Carruthers, what? He’d managed to get that old tank he’d taken to living in running again, heaven only knows how, last I knew Carstairs had sold the engine to some of the lads in the village and convinced them they could fit it into their old Fordson Major! Top marks for ingenuity I say, they got it in, or more accurately, on the tractor and entered it into the ploughing championship on the estate. They were the talk of the competition; they had four ploughs and bolted them all together, sixteen furrows wide it was! Well they went through once and took up half the field but when they got to the other end darn thing wouldn’t stop! It went straight through the hedge and over the vicars bicycle narrowly missed Mrs. Peabody’s convertible, (I’m beginning to suspect that there’s a rum do developing there I can tell you!) through the car park and ploughed into the side of the General’s car and didn’t stop till it ran out of fuel outside the beer tent. But he managed to turn a lovely straight furrow. Sorry, I digress, Carruthers, he’d managed to find something to get the old tank to run with, I suspect that time will tell us from where. Anyway when the General sent the psychiatrist and his lovely little assistant nurse down to see him and try and talk him down, the good doctor got out of his ambulance and walked towards the tank and Carruthers saw the straight jacket lurking behind his back and turned the turret and fired one of those blank shells at him. Blank or not the wadding made one hell of a hole in the front of the ambulance and lodged itself under the seat between the nurse’s legs. Poor girl passed out with fright! Rumour has it that when they got to her she did have a big smile on her face and was moaning loudly! The MP’s were sent in and dragged him off to the sanitarium shouting loudly about the shadows coming to get him.
Carstairs on the other hand hasn’t been seen at the barracks since he got back from his AWOL episode, always on parade though! Rumour has it that he has moved in with Major Ringbotham and Carstairs has been seen dressed as a woman walking round the park on a Sunday afternoon on Ringbotham’s arm! I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation but I’ll be damned if I can see what it would be!
Since the vicars bicycle was trashed down at the ploughing championships he is being driven everywhere by Mrs. Peabody who he has taken to calling ‘Margie Wargie’! If her father were alive today he would have something to say about it I can tell you. He always seemed to have an unhealthy affection for his daughter if you ask me and always kept any of the chaps away from her and was known on one occasion to chase a much younger Carruthers out of his potting shed with a pitchfork and a twelve bore. It seems that from the potting shed window you could see straight into the young lady’s bedroom.
It would seem also that the General was quite taken with his staff car with one side missing, he had the other one removed and drives around speaking with a decidedly dodgy American accent smoking a big cigar and his Generals hat is now more on the side of his head than it is on the top.
Anyway Corporal, need to go and help remove Carruthers from the chicken coup, someone left his door open last night and he got out. No one realised it until four o’clock this morning when he started crowing. The real rooster was quite put out as Carruthers was better at it than he was!
Tally ho! Over and out.

17th September

Bit of a twist in the tail for Carruthers and Carstairs this week Corporal. Carstairs returned to camp early in the week, some say they have seen the blighter wearing makeup! He was marched by the MP chaps at the guard room straight up to Major Ringbotham for being absent without leave, who gave him a right old roasting I can tell you. I could hear it from the other end of the corridor at my own office, although when it came to the matter of the make-up, Ringbotham seemed far too curious if you ask me. Never did trust the bounder after the choir master’s wife filed for divorce. She couldn’t actually name the other woman, but the description of a burly build with a pronounced grey moustache certainly didn’t fit any of the totty around here that I have met. Even Mary at the Dog and Duck doesn’t have a grey moustache although her build could perhaps be described as burly. Some of the chaps are suggesting that Ringbotham’s swagger stick is more of a mincing stick when he is on parade.
Carruthers eventually emerged looking rather sheepish from the back of the old wrecker behind the parade ground and had even stopped gibbering…and then the Generals wife caught up with him. What a fearsome lady! I wonder sometimes whether she should be the general and allow the general to stay at home and tend the plants. Anyway, Carruthers is living in the back of the wrecker now and barking at anyone who gets close. Even tried sending that little hottie from the NAFFI down wearing some of that cheap perfume she uses. Well, normally Carruthers would have been in there like a shot. She said he was standing on the turrets of an old tank with a patch on one eye and one hand inside his jacket shouting ‘stand by to repel boarders’!
Still the good news is that the heat from the fire has brought the general’s wife’s tomato plants on a good four inches in a week!