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By Root 123 0

We sat in well-worn chairs with antimacassars. She rang a brass bell, the clanger fell out. “It’s always doing that.” The summons brought a thousand-year-old butler carrying a papier-mache tray loaded with what looked like papier-mache cakes. The tea ritual. “The cakes are made locally,” she said, and should have added ‘by stonemasons.” It was all a ploy. She is a spiritualist in need. So, would we boys like a seance? So saying she pulls the curtains and we sit at a circular table not knowing what to expect. Now, would anyone like to get in touch with a loved one? Yes, says Marine Paul Robson, one of our shanghaied dancers. “I’d like to get in touch with my mother Rosie.” Mrs Morris goes into a trance. “Are you there Mrs Robson, are you there Rosie…” A little louder. “Are you there Mrs Rosie Robson…” She opens her eyes. “She’s not hearing me.” What Robson hadn’t told her was that his mother wasn’t dead, but was living in Brighton. “She won’t be able to hear from here,” he said to a slightly bemused Mrs Morris.

Does anyone else want to get in touch? Yes. Bill Hall would like to contact his grandmother Lucy.. Forewarned, Mrs Morris asks, “Is she dead?”

“I hope so,” says Hall. “They buried her.”

“Are you there, Mrs Lucy Hall?” she intones, eyelids fluttering, as she places a collection box on the table, giving it a shake to agitate the coins inside. Suddenly Paul Robson lets out a scream and runs from the room. Mrs Morris calls a halt; he has ruined the ‘balance’. We must all leave now as she is expecting another ‘tea party’. In the hall we meet a group of unsuspecting soldiers who can’t understand our stifled laughter.

We ask Robson why he had run out screaming. He says, “I felt there was something nasty in the room.”

“There was,” says Bill Hall. “The cat done it.”

Secombe and I have hit it off with two waitresses at the hotel. One fat, one thin. He calls them Laurel and Hardy. They weren’t exactly beauties, but then neither was Secombe or I.

Hardy (mine) 12 stone 3 lb Laurel (Secombe’s) 7 stone 3 lb

We would meet them ‘dopo lavoro’. They will show us a ‘nice Boogie Woogie Club’. It sounded like a weapon. By the kitchen we waited, our romantic interlude broken only by the slops boy emptying rubbish into the reeking bins. Finally they appear, smelling of cheap perfume and washing up water. Secombe give me Hardy. She’s too full for him. We were taken to what by day was a sewer. An Italian trio are trying to catch up ‘with the jazz scene. Through a fug, a blue-chinned waiter shows us to a table the size of a playing card. By intertwining knees we are seated, we appear glued together. Secombe is chattering in Anglo-Italian: “You molto bello,” he tells Laurel. There’s another fine mess he’s got us into. We drink some appalling cheap red wine that leaves a purple ring round the mouth; Secombe looks like a vampire.

Laurel takes Secombe to do the ‘Jitterbuggery’ and they are lost in the steaming melee. I too am sucked in by Hardy. I am trying to move her bulk round the floor, but I really need a heavy goods licence. Still, it was nice holding a girl, even if her load had shifted. A gyrating, arm-pumping, steaming, farting and chattering, all teeth and glasses Secombe zooms past. “Having fun?” he shouts. So that’s what it is. Away he goes in twenty different directions. It’s getting on for two a.m. The girls say they must ‘andare a casa’, they have work in the morning. There follows the traditional groping and steaming in the doorway.

A mist has risen from the Arno, infiltrating the town and Secombe’s trousers. I can hear the hiss of steam as cold air hits his boiling body. We depart virgo intacto, trousers bursting with revolving testicles and dying erections. We retrace our steps to the hotel. We are lost. “Fancy,” says Secombe. “Who in the Mumbles would dream that I was lost in Florence?” I tell him I gave up: who in Mumbles would know he was lost in Florence.

A tart hovers by. Lily Marlene? She knows the way to the hotel. Do we want a shag? It’s only fifty lire after ten, she’ll do us both for forty. Sorry dear,