Hector rocks on

3:54pm Friday 18th April 2008

Previously: When a rock'n'roll act by the name of Dirkus Thrust, dressed like a Roman centurion, turned up to audition at the Boilermaker's Arms, The Scribbler thought there was something familiar about him. Now read on.

Hector Mildew! Can that really be you?" cried The Scribbler, after the apparition clad in Roman armour and a flat cap had greeted him with "I don't BELIEVE it!".

"It can, young man," replied the other, shaking him vigorously by the hand. "It is indeed none other than me, one-time curmudgeonly columnist for the T&A's axed old codgers' page. And you're the one they call The Scribbler. I remember you well from my weekly visits to the office."

The Scribbler turned to Thelma. "This is Thelma Gusset (pronounced Gussay'), the T&A's women's editor and light of my life," he told Hector.

"I don't think I've had the pleasure," said Thelma, with her best smile.

"Haven't you, my dear?" said Hector with a smirk and a wink. "Well never mind. But have we met before?"

The Scribbler thought that perhaps he'd preferred a curmudgeon to a dirty old man. But he, Thelma and Hector sat down at one of the pub's wrought-iron tables while Bradford's least-lovely twins, Brenda and Glenda, took themselves off to a corner to practise the backing harmonies they needed to accompany the centurion singer during the forthcoming audition.

"Well tell me what's been happening to you, Hector," he said. "Are you still grumbling?"

"Not as much as I used to," said Hector. "I've vowed to take life less seriously. Grumbling doesn't change anything. Mrs Mildew told me that one day when she had a good grumble about my grumbling. I needed a complete change. I'd spent too long sitting there in retirement, brooding. So I decided to pursue a lifelong ambition. When I was a teenager I used to dream about being a rock'n'roll singer but never did anything about it. Nearly 60 years on I thought I'd go for it."

"Why the Roman outfit?" asked The Scribbler, his keenly-honed journalistic instincts prompting him to ask a pertinent question.

"Everybody needs a gimmick. I was going to be a Teddy Boy at first, and call myself Dirk Thrust - you know, like Billy Fury, Vince Eager, Marty Wilde and that lot. But then I realised that Teddy Boy rock'n'rollers are ten a penny. I got the idea for the name when Mrs M and I went on a charabanc trip to Hadrian's Wall. I thought of the Roman soldiers pacing up and down there in the bitter cold, and wondered if they sang to warm themselves up. And then the idea came to me. Dirkus Thrust, the Rocking Centurion. No-one's ever been one of those before."

"True," said Thelma.

"Have you had many bookings?" asked The Scribbler.

"Not a massive number," replied Hector. "Well not a number at all, actually. This will be the first, if Wilf the Woolman decides to book me. We've been composing songs and rehearsing and rehearsing, me and those two over there." He nodded in the direction of Brenda and Glenda, who were still bickering about when they should "Doo-wop", "Wah-wah" and "She-boom".

"Composing songs?" explained The Scribbler. "You mean you don't just perform the rock'n'roll standards?"

"Certainly not!" said Hector indignantly. "I'm an original act. Me and Mrs Mildew have been writing some new stuff. I do the words and she picks out a tune for them on her banjo. Then we get it put on a backing track on that machine over there." He gestured to a console near the doo-wopping twins.

"Ready when you are, Dirkus," called Wilf from behind the bar.

Hector took a deep breath and adjusted his cap. "Right then ladies," he said. "Here we go."

To be continued..

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