ONE of the advantages enjoyed by the Portreeve of Holsworthy Court Leet is the complete absence of democracy.

Not for him the problems of a minority Government — once appointed his power is absolute. When Portreeve, John Addicott, opened the 863rd yearly meeting of the chartered Court Leet at the Memorial Hall on the eve of St Peter’s Fair he did so confident in the knowledge that he didn’t need to curry anyone’s favour and was free to make whatever decisions he wished.

The Government was in a mess, he declared, and he had decided to take over all Brexit negotiations so far as they related to the Manor.

His first task would be to sort out the rights of alien residents by appointing a select committee of the Court’s officers to set an established residency test, which would involve a minimum number of years residency and questions on their knowledge of the Manor’s history (which would have the added benefit of testing their grasp of spoken English.) No time should be lost and he proposed to make an early start in Beckly Terrace.

With no change of officers required, he called on the Town Crier to read the Roll. Given that there were no changes, one might have thought that the Town Crier would have no difficulty with this task. That would underestimate his ability to mess things up and he was not very popular with the Aletasters when he omitted all of them from the Roll.

Eventually order was restored and the full Roll was as follows: Portreeve John Addicott, Town Crier and Beadle Roger Dunstan, Keeper of the Records Nigel Clark, Keeper of the Purse Barry Megson, Constables Douglas Beeley, William Oke and Russell Dymond, Aletasters Michael Johns, Philip Cole and Richard Brown, Reviewer of Encroachments and Nuisances Dennis Veale, Janitors Christopher Osborne and Terry Allcorn, Parkers Ronald Gerry and Pamela Johns, Breadweighers Barry Parrish and Elizabeth Oke, Hedgeviewers Philip Ford and Robert Painter, Houseviewers Allan Jones and Hilary Vivian, Lane Drivers Clifford Gilbert and Crispin King, Pinder Michael Reynolds, Haywards Brian Soby and Annette Dennis, Custodian of Weights and Measures Andrew Stacey, Sealer and Searcher of Leather James Rowland.

Apologies were received from three officers who had provided valid sick notes and from Ron Gerry who was on holiday somewhere on the high seas. Normally the Portreeve would have fined him heavily for going on a jolly instead of attending, but since he had left a petition with a colleague to present in his absence, the Portreeve decided to be merciful and let him off with a caution. No apologies were received from Bill Oke, because, to general surprise, he was actually present. He had at last found the road from Wells to Holsworthy, which merited a round of applause.

With no matters arising from the record of the previous meeting, thus proving how accurate they were, or more likely how bad the officers’ memories were, the Portreeve proceeded to welcome the Lords of the Manor and other distinguished guests and to present Citizenship Awards to Louisa O’Dell and Finley Sleeman from the primary school, and Adele Nosworthy and James Barriball from the community college for their particular contributions to their schools and the wider community.

He also presented a cheque contributed by Holsworthy Lions for the purchase of art materials to Zoe Wooldridge, who had been nominated by the community college as their most promising art student.

It was now time to turn to the Ancient Chronicler, who has been described in the past, usually by himself, as the perfect example of Celtic man, for a brief report on happenings in the Manor during the past year.

In August psychic and singer Marisa Tremecka received what should have been a fresh supply of flyers for her act at the Edinburgh Fringe, only to find to her surprise 5,000 flyers for Holsworthy & Stratton Agricultural Show — strange really, you would have supposed a psychic would have foreseen that this was going to happen.

The third Holsworthy Food Festival had been a great success with everything from Turkish delight to blackberry gin on offer plus a number of different activities.

In September the North Devon Hospice Long House celebrated its first birthday with the Mayor Jon Hutchings in attendance in his fine red gown. Shortly after, the mayor popped up again on the football field to celebrate the town’s acquisition of a community helipad.

In September and October several local people were involved either in dressing up, or in undressing, and having their photos taken for a calendar with the proceeds going to local charities.

Happily Robert was able to reassure the Court that he was one of those dressing up rather than undressing. The thought of Robert flaunting his beach perfect body on camera was unsettling to say the least.

If the production team for Love Island had seen it no doubt he would have been a reality television star within weeks.

Also in October, after 40 years, Holsworthy Lions had decided to admit women with the first Lionesses being Mel Allcorn and Tammy Hutchings.

October seemed to be a busy month, particularly when, for whatever odd reason, someone deliberately set fire to a toilet seat in the ladies’ public conveniences. Some people were definitely weird.

Soon after, a carving of a pair of hands in supplication made by Janitor Chris Osborne, with a time capsule concealed within, was installed in the parish church.

In November parking in Well Park was temporarily free when someone stole the pay and display machine. Shortly after the Lions held their annual fun day for the disabled with people attending from all over the Southwest, including the Portreeve who was photographed talking to a donkey — which looked less than impressed.

On December 2, the town centre was crowded for the late night shopping evening and switching on the Christmas lights, with the mayor once again in attendance.

The Moo Free Chocolate Company received a visit from the Lord Lieutenant of Devon accompanied by the High Sheriff Dand, naturally, the mayor, and were presented with a Queen’s Award for enterprise.

In February Dr Janet Few arrived in the town dressed as a 17th century peasant woman to address the History Society on witches and witchcraft.

In March building work started on a new pavilion in Stanhope Park, a project predicted to cost around £275,000. At about that time the town council became much exercised regarding dog fouling in the park and the mayor suggested that there may be no way to deal with it other than banning dogs from the park entirely.

In April a tractor tipped over in Chapel Street with of course the mayor soon in attendance. In the same month nominations for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor designate were voted on, with the outcome not quite as expected. There was good news and bad news.

The good news was that Torridge District Council was reported to be considering giving the bus shelter a facelift. The bad news was that the band may lose their bandroom sometime in the future and are looking for a new home.

An ‘Affordable Food Shop’ had opened in Fore Street with the mayor again in attendance. And of course when ‘Sugar n’ Ice’ was opened the man in the red gown was back. There was no doubt about it, the Portreeve may have sported his blue gown around the Manor on many occasions, but this year he had definitely been ouflashed by the man in red.

Whatever Janitor Terry Allcorn might think about the mayor’s flashing activities he certainly agreed with his concerns about dog fouling in the park. However he had a plan, which might assist. The Portreeve should issue a proclamation requiring every dog in the Manor to be registered with the Keeper of the Records who would allocate a unique colour code for each one.

There were a number of manufacturers with extensive paint palettes so it would not be a problem to do this and he produced a Dulux colour swatch to illustrate his point.

Dog owners would then be obliged to purchase a sachet of the appropriate colourant to mix with their dog’s food. Using this technology the Constables would soon be able to identify the culprits by comparing the colour of the dog waste with a colour swatch and throw the owners into the stocks for the common folk of the Manor to throw what they wished at them.

A few technical problems had arisen with the use of green and brown colours, but Sharon at the Kard Kabin had provided a quantity of coloured sparkles which when added to the dog food overcame the problem — despite the result looking disconcertingly like the fancy doughnuts on sale in a local cafe. They were now experimenting with the addition of radioactive waste to give a nighttime glow for the benefit of any Aletaster walking home across the park after an evening training session.

The Portreeve was much taken with the idea, especially since his firm happened to sell a very extensive range of paints, and he would explore the proposal carefully. The only flaw in the scheme, which neither of them appeared to have considered, was giving the Keeper any sort of responsibility in the matter. It might not work quite as well as they hoped.

The absent Parker had only escaped a fine in return for a petition, so his representative Aletaster Mike Johns, who had been bribed with the promise of a cruise along Bude canal in the QE2, was keen to speak. The Parker had written to say that he was enjoying a well-earned holiday after a great deal of hard work pursuing his search for more parking spaces in the Manor.

With increased longevity and immigration causing a large rise in the population, parking was becoming more difficult. The medical centre car park was always full, parking near a school was impossible, the only place where they had solved the problem was the hospital — by closing it and moving the parking problem to South Molton Hospital, where we are told Holsworthy people would rather go anyway. However at least the hospital car park was still available and he had managed to locate a few other likely places.

The police station was a case in point. If it was relocated to Beckly Terrace, several parking spaces could be freed up. There was more space in the football field which was free now since the town bus service ran out of fuel and further afield there was land adjacent to the agricentre, which nobody seems to know who owns, which the Parker had his eye on. Well it sounded as if the Parker had been very busy indeed on the Court’s behalf, and if we hadn’t known him better we might have believed him.

Janitor Chris Osborne stood up with the intention of presenting a brief petition, but things didn’t seem to be going quite according to plan. Something appeared to have escaped in his jacket. He chased it around his pockets for some minutes until, with a cry of triumph, he produced his glasses.

Unfortunately his notes then decided to join in the fun and refused to unfold, and when they eventually did they were upside down. Finally he was ready to start, which earned a cheer from the audience.

His concern was the state of the pannier market. For much of his life it had been a thriving institution supported by all the surrounding farming community, whose wives would shop in the market while their husbands attended the cattle market and then they would meet in one of the local hostelries before heading home.

Now a lot of the farmers’ wives had 4x4s and had driving licences. Instead of shopping locally they could go to all the other towns and cities around, sometimes even as far as Exeter. If the wives’ licences were confiscated they would have to come into Holsworthy by pony and trap again and obviously stay for the day.

Dealing with such a task was above his pay grade, but wouldn’t be a problem for the Portreeve, who would be praised for generations as the man who saved the market.

Newish Aletaster Richard Brown seemed to be in a sycophantic mood and congratulated the Portreeve on providing firm and stable government, which had earned him considerable popularity.

He was due to retire from office next year but, given the uncertain times, had he considered going to the electorate early to boost his majority? Richard was particularly impressed by the Portreeve’s ground breaking decision last November to abandon the 95-year-old tradition of marching at the front of the Remembrance Day Parade in favour of leading the parade from the rear.

One advantage was the ability to see who else was there. Way in the distance, only visible because of his bright red outfit, was the mayor, leading the way, then Richard also spotted a splendidly dressed group walking just in front of the town council.

He thought they might be a group of Italian relatives of Constable Russell Romulo Dymond. The Portreeve had enlightened him. They were in fact a delegation from the Buffs. Richard looked around his fellow officers. Apart from the Portreeve’s Pirates of the Caribbean outfit the rest were rather drab and Crispin King’s anorak was frankly worse.

Something needed to be done — not that he proposed going as far as Breadweigher Barry Parrish, who had suggested that, since the Court was now in the position in the parade previously occupied by the majorettes, the officers should emulate their style of dress.

However, it was clear that the Court needed rebranding. To this end he had visited Coombes, and Dion Shobbrook having assured him that he could cater to the needs of the lady officers as well, he had placed a provisional order for the purchase of formal wear for the entire Court. This would be a great opportunity for the Portreeve to secure his legacy and enhance the Court’s prestige.

His suggestion may have commended itself to the Portreeve, but if he thought he was going to get approval from the Keeper of the Purse for the sort expenditure entailed, he was going to have to think again and should resign himself to admiring Crispin King’s anorak for a few more years.

It seemed that Sealer and Searcher of Leather James Rowland had been wandering — that is to say he had been wandering around Holsworthy — maybe trying to find his way out. When he was a child Holsworthy was straightforward. Basically there was North Road where posh people like his family lived, Bodmin Street where people went to chapel, Chapel Street where people went to Bodmin, Fore Street otherwise Under Street, and The Square. Now it was much more complicated and getting more and more difficult to find your way around.

Roads had obscure names like Moore Crescent and Brook’s Avenue. To assist the Court he had produced an A to Z of Holsworthy street names from Aunay Close to Woodland View. So, in rhyme, he duly numbered how many there were and the exact whereabouts of each.

For many of us there were considerably more than Moore Crescent and Brooks Avenue and Moore Crescent we had never heard of and we were surprised when he managed to name no less than 109 roads in total — an amazing change since the end of the Second World War.

Parker Pam Johns then reminded the Court of the petition presented by Breadweigher Barry Parrish last year concerning the assisted living facility recently opened in North Road and the help which some of the lady officers might give to the residents.

Alas they had not been able to provide the services he had proposed and in any event since then. The temporary closure of Holsworthy Hospital beds had been a far more important matter, which had occupied their attention. To prove her point she summoned the assistance of Houseviewer Hilary Vivian and Hayward Annette Dennis to sing a lament for the loss of such an important and much needed local facility to the tune of ‘Penny Lane’.

They didn’t hold back on their criticism of the authorities concerned in the decision, a feeling that the audience clearly agreed with and they sang it very well, so it was unsurprising that they received a very enthusiastic ovation at the end.

It seemed an opportune moment to wind up the meeting so the Portreeve reminded the officers to assemble at the cockpit at 8am on the following morning for the reading of the Proclamation, closed the meeting at the very respectable time of 8.57pm.

He then gathered the Aletasters together and marched briskly to the nearest licensed premises so he could enjoy a relaxing evening listening to a few more numbers from the Court’s new songbirds.

Nigel Clark