The Castle

About the Castle
The fine Citizens of Wellingborough were jealous, everyone else had a castle. What's more people would pay to visit these castles, The mayor on a daytrip to Warwick saw the fine stone walls, the history, the castle characters making the place come alive, the tourists, the Americans, he went down to the dungons, but most of all he saw the money! Arriving home he held a town council and said, we need a castle, and so building began. Often late onto the bandwagon (remember the fire?) this time the town was determined to build the best castle in the kingdom, complete with moat, castle gates and carpark.

By 1995 work was complete and the castle opened. The people looked in awe at this creation, but then the questions started, why isn't the moat complete?, can the castle protect us all? and from who? The Mayor was straight back on his soapbox, and said isn't it the most beautiful castle in the world? and it's only going to put up your council tax a little bit.

But it was true, who was going to attack Wellingborough? Would the Castle stave off an attack from Russian tanks? Would the hot tar be enough to pour over attackers or should they use it to surface the carpark? Fortunately someone had an idea, why did people go to Warwick Castle, was it for the history? no not in this day and age when people could sit at home and watch the Discovery channel, so why then? the went back to Warwick and had a look around, the answer they found was Entertainment!

Scurrying back to Wellingborough the Mayor stood up and said, Our fine castle will become a centre of entertainment! He called Mr Wells in Bedford and ordered ten casks of his finest ale, then he got on his phone and called up Simon Cowel (who was out), the Spice Girls (who were busy), The KLF (who had retired), the BeeGee's (who were in America) and finally managed to get the local theatre company to put on a second rate show, the decline had begun. Since that first fateful day, whenever the citizens of Wellingborough have been attacked by boredom they have fled to the castle, for it's protection. Gaining security from the second rate performance or out of date film. Knowing things weren't really that bad in the first place.

Then one day one of Good Queen Bess's advisors said "Ma'am, it's going to be the year 2000 very soon, that is a magical year your majesty, a new millennium, we should give some money to all our people in the provinces so that they may celebrate" The Queen, a realist at heart replied "Could one not just give them each a flagon of ale?" The mandarin who had been expecting this replied "Oh no your Majesty, for that is the plans for your Golden Jubilee, we should make them do something spectacular" and so it was, the people of Wellingborough sat around, and having already decided that their glorious castle should be the centre of this joyous occasion, looked for something to do.

We should get a tank for our castle one suggested, we could have a battle in our castle's carpark, for it isn't right to have a castle that hasn't had a good fight.

Now If I may intervene here this isn't quiet true, for with mine own eyes I had seen the first battle of Wellingborough Castle, a couple of summers ago, when the castle was bravely defended by the Front of House Crew, from a drunken man, who was trying to get in to see the latest production without a ticket!

Back to our story, well once they found out the cost of buying a Tank, and the insurance required to hold a battle they decided that having a proper battle would be a little more than the coffers could afford, so they decided on a pageant to celebrate war, and to ensure that there was good local connection it would include shoemaking.

In a night of hedonism the castle looked resplendent bathed in fireworks, with locals running around pretending to be soldiers and making shoes.

So if you ever find yourself in Wellingborough, go and see the Castle, marvel at its beauty, and roll down the splendid moat.

Daves Diary
You can read Dave's Diary of his dig at the Castle here

Produced, compiled and written by Dave "JCB" Digger (c) 2002 Visual Distractions