The Whist Drive

Prologue

Mrs Diana Fortescue-Slagg was very pleased. She was chairing the Annual General Meeting of the Middle England Whist Club, and there had been a highly satisfactory agenda item. It was the Treasurer’s Report.

The Treasurer, Marjorie Snatch, wasn’t a very exciting speaker. (She was a Chartered Accountant, you see.) And the Whist Club was skint.

But Marjorie was a great planner and forecaster. Which is a kind of ‘creative accounting’ term for fantasist. And Marjorie’s report hadn’t focussed much on the Club’s lack of money. After all, there are only a small number of ways in which you can say “we’re broke”. Instead, Marjorie had projected what the Club might do next year to celebrate its 10th birthday – if only it could get hold of some bloody cash.

Marjorie’s proposals had fired the imagination of the whole meeting. The meeting numbered the total membership of the Whist Club – four ladies. Diana, Marjorie and their two dear friends, Veronica Panting and Dolly Harder.

Before we go on to talk about Marjorie’s fantasies, let’s take stock of these mature and lovely women.

DIANA FORTESCUE-SLAGG, our heroine, an elegant and well-preserved redhead. She dresses in well-tailored clothes, and through these you can see the outlines of a still-scrumptious body.

When first clapping eyes on Diana, you’d say “Mmmm! Classy middle-aged crumpet!!” But then, when you get closer, your passion cools a bit. Maybe something to do with her haughty expression and posh, bullying voice.

The Fortescues are an old Surrey family, and have enjoyed centuries of feudal authority. But they fell on hard times in the 1990’s, and so Diana became a Slagg.

Sorry, I’ll rephrase that! Diana married Bill Slagg, a well-off (but dead common) hotelier. So Diana moved to Bill’s home town, Stuffett. Stuffett is not a classy place. It’s Northern and coarse. But Diana has found a few soulmates there, including ….

MARJORIE SNATCH. Marjorie is an Oxford graduate (double First in Pure Maths) and a chartered accountant with a genius IQ. Unfortunately she’s a bit of a dope.

Imagine Professor Branestawm inside the body of a full-figured blonde of about 42, and that’s Marjorie. Oh, and Marjorie’s too vain to wear glasses. Remember that fact.

VERONICA PANTING. Veronica is a long, lean, limber, blonde posho, who looks sensational when riding to hounds. Watch her bouncing on her horse, and see how her jodhpurs ripple!

Veronica’s best admired from a distance, though! She’s tough and snooty. And her ice-cube grey eyes could fillet a shark at 15 paces.

DOLLY HARDER. Dolly is about as close as you can get to blue blood in the town of Stuffett. Harder Hall used to be the palace of the West Riding. Now it’s mortgaged to the hilt, and Dolly’s only remaining asset is her knock-out figure.

Ah, there’s many a middle-aged man in Stuffett who’d love a romp with Dolly Harder. But Dolly’s cold and snobby and cruel to the lower orders.

So this was the ‘Middle England’ Whist Club. A little oasis of refinement in a dreadful, rough Northern town. Very elegant and superior, of course. But not exactly dripping with popular appeal.

So what was Marjorie’s bright idea? And why did it turn the ladies on so strongly?

Marjorie had handed round some glossy leaflets advertising next year’s World Whist Conference. “We simply MUST be there, girls!” she shrieked. Diana, Veronica and Dolly picked up the leaflets without much enthusiasm – after all, they weren’t really that keen on whist. But then they saw the venue – Coksf’yoo!

The tiny Indian Ocean island of Coksf’yoo had recently come into worldwide fame. Coksf’yoo was one of the Spice Islands, in the Zanzibar archipelago, off the east coast of Africa.

Coksf’yoo was a superb unspoiled tourist spot, with its marvellous climate, unique flora and fauna, etc. But its really unique selling point was not Nature. It was Man. Or rather, men.

By some demographic oddity, the population of Coksf’yoo was swamped by adult men under 40. Coksf’yoo men were excellent physical specimens, friendly and outgoing. And (how can we put this) very conscious of the island’s dependence on the tourist dollar.

As a result, Coksf’yoo became the No 1 global choice for hen parties, Womens Institute ‘fact-finding’ missions, and tired businesswomen on a winter break.

Diana, Marjorie, Veronica and Dolly rented out a top-shelf DVD recently about the island. The DVD followed some lucky middle-aged women from Essex on a week’s holiday in Coksf’yoo. (Awful chavs, no class at all, but loaded.) The Whist Club ladies had watched enviously, as the Essex girls encountered a stream of nude, charming, well-hung young Africans.

The DVD ended, with the chavs staggering bandy-legged off the plane at Stanstead Airport. And as the end-credits rolled, our Whist Club heroines each made a solemn vow. “I’m going to get me some of that African cock!”

Now the opportunity has fallen into their laps! A week’s ‘networking’ in the sunshine with these beautiful young guys. But nothing sordid – all in the good name of Whist.

This will be especially helpful to Diana. Bill might jib at bankrolling her for a week’s bonking in a hen party resort. But Whist will give a touch of class to the whole thing. Bloody hell, they were always playing whist in ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

So what about the tasteless topic of Cost, Marjorie? Marjorie has done her homework all right. By her calculations, the fares and hotel bills will be £5,000 each.

“A lot of money,” Marjorie says. “But running costs are quite low once you get out there. If you give one of these gorgeous young guys a digital camera, he’ll be your personal nude wine waiter. Throw in a camera case, and he’ll probably stir your drinks with his erection.”

The four ladies think about that for a while, wriggling slightly in their chairs. But then back to reality. “£20,000! How could we possibly raise that?”

As ever, it was Diana who supplied the leadership. Looking thoughtfully at her slightly time-worn (but still very lovely) friends, she said:

“SEX!”

Sex always sells, doesn’t it, girls? No, nothing crude. You know, something light-hearted and naughty like ‘Calendar Girls’? Why not have some sort of saucy sponsorship thing?”

Interesting!

“Yes, Diana, but calendars are no good” Veronica pointed out. “’Calendar Girls’ is old hat now. Too soft-core. That ‘naughty but nice’ market is all played out. Our calendars would have to be gang bangs in dungeons now.”

“That’s true” they all acknowledged. “The sex is getting sexier these days.”

“We need to do something that looks sexy, but isn’t”, Diana pondered. “How about a prize which NOBODY CAN WIN?”

That principle certainly appeals to the four grasping women! And so the great Naked Whist Drive lottery was born.

The principle was quite simple.....

Every working mens’ club in the North of England and Scotland was invited to buy a £10 ticket. That got your club entered in a prize draw.

If your club won the draw, you entered a whist drive with the Middle England Whist Club. The game was Strip Whist! If you won that, you got to watch a game of Naked Croquet, played by Diana, Marjorie, Veronica and Dolly!!

The four ladies posed for some good publicity shots, which made them look friendly, gorgeous and on the level. (Well, one out of three ain’t bad.) This fired the imagination of every red-blooded male in the North, and entrance fees flooded in.

At the next meeting of the Whist Club, Marjorie was gloating over the figures. “We’ve raised over £14,000, girls!” she said. And I’ve drafted the tightest contract you ever saw, so nobody’s going to be able to take this money away from us.”

“Well done, Marj!” said Diana. “We can pinch the balance of the £20,000 from Bill”. (They’d been swindling Bill Slagg for years.) “Now the next step is to make sure that we don’t lose the whist drive.”

Diana had been giving this problem a lot of thought. Like most card games, whist involves some skill and some luck. Diana and her pals were OK, but not champs. They could beat novices quite easily – maybe four wins in every five games. So the key thing was to play opponents who they knew to be pretty crap.

How to do this? Quite easy really – just rig the draw! “Let’s have a look at the entries, girls – any local people?” Of course there were local people – every bloke in Stuffett had put in for it.

“Now” said Diana, scanning the names. “Which pair do we KNOW can’t play whist for toffee?” Well of course there was one name there which Diana felt certain of. Her ever-loving husband, Bill. “Girls” she said “we have a winner!”