Percy the parrot flew away, and bagged a lift from a Jumbo jet, piloted by Bert Smithbottom, a native of the Lancashire town of Accrington.
The plane’s great propulsion blew squirrel feathers in Old Deer Park, as a rugby referee vainly tried to blow his frozen whistle.
But the bird stopped the game, between Buffington Bashers and Packinham Peelers,
by pecking a big hole in the egg-shaped ball.
Being rather loose, he dropped his load on a comic doing an Irish impression, saying, ‘At all, at all.’
Over in the town’s mental hospital, scrabble players argued over the word ‘Fiddleflan.’
‘That’s a great word, tha knows’, remarked Micky Macklefect, an Irishman obsessed with dialect.
‘Stop doing your Lancashire expressions,’ interjected Sally Slopdoosh, ‘you’re from Ireland!’
‘I am, and that’s a fact! Though I haven’t been taking my pills, and farmer Muckheap caught me riding his bull, for I sometimes believe I’m a cowboy.’
‘You are a funny patient,’ commented Jimmy the nurse, brother of the above-mentioned pilot.
‘By the way, have you seen my parrot?’
‘Yes,’ said Micky, ‘I’ve been teaching him to speak reet Lanky.’
But alarmed to be so near a chap with a spilt personality, Percy flew off, to be hit by an egg-shaped ball.
‘It’s that bird again!’ shouted chairman of the Buffington Bashers, Charles Chicklefall, who talked posh.
He was trying to blend in, by looking ‘reet Lancasheer’, but was a notorious cheat and con man, known throughout the rugby union.
But Percy landed on his shoulder squawking, ‘Aw reet, old cock?
Can I peck at your pie?’
The amazed chap answered, ‘Yes, if you teach me how to speak reet Lanky.’
Charles bribed Percy to imitate the referees in exchange for expensive bird seeds, a particular avian treat.
He would squawk, ‘You’re offside!’ in the accent of the particular locality, causing confusion on the pitch.
Back on the ward Micky sang a Lancashire folk song, The Rawtenstall Annual Fair, and Sally followed it with ‘Will ye Come to the Bower?’ saying, ‘That’s from Ireland, written by your country’s national poet, Thomas Moore.
‘So sing that, and I’ll accompany you by tapping my feet.’
‘I wish I could,’ he said, ‘for, since I came to this land, like many before me, I’ve forgotten my past.
‘Every night I got ‘pished’, trying to speak like the locals, which sent me round the twist.’
‘Let’s escape from this mental institution and take the parrot.’
The bird in question appeared out of the bushes, squawking, ‘Go raibh maith agat.
‘I’ve never been to Ireland, that’s an Irish term of gratitude.
‘Did you know I’m multi-lingual?’
‘Anyway, I’ve escaped from that fellow who got me in trouble for imitating the linesman.’
The pair of them eloped to Micky’s homeland,
where he was remembered as a very fine man.
Coincidentally, Buffington Bashers – led by Charles Chicklefall – were playing his team, Muckledown Mashers.
At the match Charles ran off with a 1,000 Euros.
Micky and Sally were furious, but Percy Parrot was on hand and heeded Micky’s call.
Fortunately, Jimmy’s brother was flying his Jumbo jet over Co. Kerry, and spotted a familiar green bird carrying the stolen loot, chased by a red-faced gent, who was about to spear him with a harpoon he’d stolen from a fishing fleet.
‘Thanks,’ gasped Percy, landing on the Jumbo’s wing, just before the thief could shoot.
‘You’re welcome, answered a ruful pilot, ‘for my brother Jim wouldn’t half miss his bird who talks reet Lanky.’
Percy looked worried, ‘Will we be safe from that notorious con man?’
‘Aye,’ said the Oxbridge-educated lad from Lancashire, ‘stick with me, tha’ll be reet!’
