At Thurstons by JB Priestley 1st attempt

JB Priestley's unfound billiard essay found.

All connieuseurses of billiards have read 'At Thurstons', the essay on the famous billiard hall written by JB Priestley earlier in the century. What you may not know is that the published version was not his first attempt at the work. His great-grand-daughter Yeck, found the original manuscript in the attic of her ancestors dog kennels, gathering dust for half a century. It has been said Priestley hadn't been well on his first visit when this piece was written. His brother Elvis agreed. She gave it to me as swappies with my 1972 action man. I will be forever grateful. Here it is in it's entirety then. Where's me passport?

At Thurstons by JB Priestley

I parachuted head first through the butchers cellar floor and found myself in hock to a fine Amazonian dwarf named Donald. We had nothing in common, save encephalitis. I left him crying in a pool of gout juice and made my merry way on one roller skate to the nearest Post Office, my weekly ration of hat awaited me. The tiller got up at the count of three and served me in a most professional manner. Bowler, Topper, Trilby, the surnames of the nuns I'd devoured on my last voyage to Pitcairn. It was all coming back, Dutch flying stick insects inside empty margarine jars with Ethel my ex-fiance. 'Don't swallow the stoat, don't swallow the stoat' shouted Mrs Stoat to her elders. I had to pull myself together, my legs being across the street. I had to get to Thurstons to watch a 1-legged Judge play nursery cannons ad hoc with the Bishop of Liverpool.

I'd always thought cue sports to be the trampoline of the animal kingdom, the oxtail in the bath, the cheddar of Leningrad. The main door to Thurstons was in sight, only cause some bloody fool from the 20's held up a large photograph in front of me. I was still 3 tramstops and a flange away in reality. After 3 eggings and whooping cough I finally arrived in a lead lined coffin covered in plum-paste for my high tea on low ground before the game. Pictures adored the walls. Portraits of great seamstresses of the past. I thought I saw Scarlatti by the piano, but when I got there it was BaldTwatti the cleaner. Thurstons had lost none of it's class, still shat where you sat, if you were lucky. My old pa Diggle came out once, pockets full t'brim of dead horse eyes. Don't know where they came from but he would shove two up his nostrils and chase the neighbours round Hampton Court for hours at a time, goading, goading.

The referee of the match said 'Pray silence please for our two bliddy players, the honourable Judge Heebie and The Bishop of Liverpool, Alvin Stardust. No rattles and no horse gelding in the front two rows please.Ok, lets whittling start for Count Yorga's bloody sake!". Heebie looked good, swanning around, his head under his arm, a quart of paint-stripper in his dressing gown pocket. He had class that lad. Knew how to play a shot, knew how to hunt his opponent down and kick him where it hurt, right in the cobblers. He had hopped for Britain in the South east Asian games before Pompeii, that finished him as a serious competitor. He and his pal Inoff Wheckle had won two divvy games runners up casserole dishes in the three-legged and spoon race. Wheckle had taught him billiards, the losing hazard his favourite losing hazard.

The Bishop of Liverpool was a different mullet of shortbread. His mitre was made of conkers for a start and he wore a great big bloody black glove on his bridge hand. He said it was to clean the windows in his house but I knew fine well he dwelt in a tepee with Rachel Hayhoe-Flint on Walsall high street. He'd played billiards from being a small child, instead of him walking round the table his father and three uncles would put him in catapults and fling him over the top. They were still doing it when he was 58. Of course they believed in the old ways, walrusses always do. The game settled down, Heebie going for a upwind ipinozu but Liverpool headbutting him on the sole of his only leg for first blood. In-off, in-off, in-off, in-off, half a league, half a league, Heebie pulled away, the filthy sod. There were Ottomans watching too, he should have been shot the swine. I took a nap for good measure.

I woke to the resounding click of billiard balls, the match was finely poised, like a woman with a fat arse on a unicycle. Wheckle lay in a pool of vinegar, his head sharpened at non-sensical angles, Liverpool had got to him. I though I heard 'Hurrah!' but it was Judge Heebie shouting 'ayah ya bastard' after getting both balls stuck in the jaws of the corner pocket, which one I do not know, they all being fairly non-descript. Liverpool needed two more points to win, Heebie three fouls or a submission and a snooker. I noted a man watching with a patch on his eye, a three-cornered hat and no legs. It was a half-Nelson. The crowd roared happily in despair when the Bishop of Liverpool collapsed and died of a blackhead on his ear, all liposuction in despair as he passed away. The match was declared nil and void and I had had enough of this inexorable farce. I demanded fleece from the manager, he said 'Murgatroyd, bottle this bugger and feed him to the swans' so I legged it as fast as me bike would carry me, it were tandem n'all. My visit to Thurstons had been a lovely experience, one to repeat next century at the battle of Hastings in my pomp. It's goodbye from me JB Priestley.