Mantford Mountfichet, the world’s worst astronaut, sat on a beam of light.
He made a grab for it, but it slipped from his grasp, so he returned to his
home in the Wiltshire village of Middle Mallet.
Hearing of his escapades in The UFO Watcher’s Journal, professor ‘Star Struck’ Samuel Sopwith, of the Institute of Dreams, turned up at The Horse and Ass, the borough’s only pub.
‘I’m starry eyed,’ he said to the barmaid,’ Dorothy Dasher, a star of Mallett Harriers Athletic Club.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘I vowed to meet Mantford Mountfichet, for I’m told he’s a remarkable man.
‘I’ve been watching all the sci-fi films, War of the Worlds in particular,
with machines shooting deadly rays.
‘Ah, but they fell apart, didn’t they,’ asked Dorothy, ‘when shaken by a massive sneeze?
‘Anyway, are you sure this chap is all he appears to be?
‘I don’t want to burst your bubble.’
‘For he’s known to imbibe what locals call ‘super-charged’ grass, as groundsman for the rugby club.’
The professor bid her a reluctant ‘good night’, but unable to wait, walked up to visit his idol.
There was no answer, but he could see a lawn mower speeding into the sky,
emitting a stream of fertiliser above the pub.
‘Ah,’ he mused, ‘Maybe the barmaid was right, and the grass is super-powered.’
To his amazement, Dorothy leaped over a gate, crying ‘Quick!
I know where Mountfitchet will land, he’s been setting off for Mars on his lawnmower.
But he always turns back, confused by the region known as the Frederick Funcia Stargate.
‘Named no doubt after some clever sod like you, Prof.
‘But never mind him, come and cuddle me in the hay rick.’
There a bond was forged among two unlikely souls, one from a world of academia,
and a young woman whose education was affected, due to her being dyslexic.
She talked of her wish to leave the constraints of her locality,
‘I’m told I can excel at middle-distance.
‘As one night, my PE teacher, Gary Gumshield, a former boxer,
saw me racing across the common to reach Unmanning-Manor College for Girls’,
before lights out, and thus avoid the wrath of headmistress, Frederika Fanstock.
‘He threatened to tell all.
‘So I gave him a kiss, and his wife found a shirt covered in lipstick.
‘But he did tell me that high altitude boosts anaerobic ability.
That’s necessary for distance running.
‘So, let’s escape this low-lying plain, nick his mower and head for the heavens.’
They found the astronaut asleep, cuddling a fox, so took over his flying mower.
The missing barmaid was believed to have run off with a PE teacher from a college for girls,
but she popped up at the Olympics, winning a gold medal.
Her story Medalling with the Stars, became a bestseller,
much to her old headmistress, Fredirika Fanstock’s consternation,
who’d mocked her inability to spell, claiming she was a fraud,
with stories of outer space travel, even claiming to have discovered a new constellation.
Nevertheless, these tales helped her former pupil become a celebrity,
campaigning for those who, like Dorothy, are dyslexic.
But her husband Samual, kept well out of the limelight.
However, he did ask Dorothy, ‘What’s happened to our flying machine?’
She laughed, ‘Guess who was in the pub, none other than Mountford Mountfichet!’
‘Really? I know he’s a regular at The Horse and Ass.’
‘Yes,’ his wife agreed, ‘but last night he sobbed into his ale,
as he admitted to wimping out from an outer space journey,
crying, ‘I grabbed for a beam of light, but it slipped from my grasp.
‘Oh, I am a coward!’
‘To encourage the poor sop, I said I’d achieved my ambition.
I added, ‘So why don’t you?
‘Then he took it, our space hopper I mean.
‘The one people say isn’t real.
‘There he is, heading into a cloud, on his final adventure.’
To conclude, Mantford Mountfichet is no longer the world’s worst astronaut, as reported in The UFO Watcher’s Journal.
The publication also reported that scientists are examining his barn in
Middle Matchet, for the secret to his flying lawn mower.
