opponent’s squidger.
‘Gnash-gnosh’ – to bite your opponent’s hand while they try to play.
‘Knicker-knocker-glory’ – hiding all your opponent’s winks in your knickers.
‘Boom-shack-a-lack’ – to fire your winks into the pot with an air rifle.
‘Winkferno’ – to burn all your opponent’s winks.
‘Knee-thumper’ – to make the tiddlywinks table shake when it’s your opponent’s turn by bashing it with your knee.
‘Snatcheroo’ – when your opponent’s wink is in mid flight and a highly trained bird of prey catches it in its bill.
‘Sticky-wink’ – gluing your opponent’s winks to the table.
‘Gigantopot’ – when your opponent is not looking, replace the pot with one that is much taller making it impossible for them to fire any winks in.
‘Poot’ – to break wind on your opponent’s squidger, thus rendering it unusable for a short while.
One Christmas, Chester bought his big sister The Tiddlywinks Rulebook by Professor T. Wink. His hope was that together they could consult the rules, and her terrible cheating would cease. However, Alberta point-blank refused to even open the book. The Tiddlywinks Rulebook gathered dust on a shelf of the huge library of Saxby Hall.
Ever since she was a child, Alberta was ridiculously competitive. She had to win. Again and again and again.
“I am the best. B,E,E,S,T!” she would chant. Her spelling was always atrocious. However, this aggressive desire to conquer everyone else is what ended up costing her relatives dear. As soon as she got her hands on some of the Saxby family fortune, thanks to Chester’s kindness, she gambled it away. Alberta played at the high-stakes tiddlywinks tables at the casinos of Monte Carlo. Within a week the woman had lost everything she had. Thousands upon thousands of pounds. Next she sneaked into her brother’s study and pinched his chequebook. Forging his signature, Alberta secretly stole all the money out of Chester’s bank account. Within days she had lost her brother’s money too. Every last penny. The family was plunged into terrible debt, from which it was impossible to recover.
As a result, Chester was forced to sell all the possessions he possibly could. Antiques, paintings, fur coats, even his beloved wife’s diamond engagement ring, all went to auction houses so Lord Saxby could fight to keep the family home. A home that had been in the Saxby family for centuries. Like any great house, Saxby Hall employed an army of staff to keep it running – a cook, a gardener, a nanny, a chauffeur and a platoon of maids. However, with all the money squandered by Alberta, they simply couldn’t be paid any more. The bank demanded they all be fired immediately. So with a heavy heart Chester had to let them go.
Except one. The ancient butler, Gibbon.
Lord Saxby tried to give Gibbon his notice a dozen times or more. However, the servant was so old, just short of a hundred, that he had become very deaf and blind. As a result it was impossible to tell him to go. Even if you shouted right into his ear, the poor old soul wouldn’t hear a thing. Gibbon had worked for the Saxbys for generations. He had been in service for them for so long, he had become part of the family. Chester had grown up with Gibbon looking after him, and loved him dearly, like he was an eccentric old uncle. Secretly he was overjoyed that Gibbon stayed at the house, not least because he was sure the ancient butler had nowhere else to go.
So Gibbon continued to roam Saxby Hall carrying on with his duties, though in a totally topsy-turvy way. Gibbon would:
– Mow the carpet with a lawnmower.
– Bring in a tray piled high with dirty socks and announce, “Afternoon tea, m’lord.”
– Iron the plants.
– Water the sofa.
– Bang a gong in the middle of the night to announce, “Dinner is served.”
– Serve a boiled billiards ball in an egg cup at breakfast.
– Polish the grass.
– Boil your shoes.
– Pick up the lampshade and say “Saxby Ball, who is speaking please?” as if it was a telephone.
– Take the rug for a walk.
– Put the chicken to roast in the boot of the Rolls Royce.
Stella’s mother and father worked tirelessly, day and night, to care for the house and grounds, but Saxby Hall was just too big for them. Inevitably it fell into disrepair. Soon they had a huge house they couldn’t afford to heat or light, and an old Rolls Royce they could barely afford to run. Through his considerable charm Chester, now Lord Saxby, just managed to keep the angry bank manager in London at bay.
