Ramblings
Saunterings
Ramblings: about North-West England
Ramblings is a set of articles about North-West England, of unknown authorship and
indeterminate date, believed to have been written for amusement on rainy days,
which are not unknown in North-West England.
40. Drama in Court: Ladies’ Bigamy Case Halted
The Eleven Ladies of the Lakes bigamy case was abruptly
halted at the start of the second day when the magistrate, Mr
Mucklethwaite, said “I have slept on the complexities of this case
and, after a sleepless night, have concluded that my legal training
is totally inadequate. Moreover, as a result of our numerous
encounters in recent years, I have developed an affection for the
Ladies that makes the necessary neutrality impossible. I therefore
step down from the bench”. Which he did.
The first day of the trial had been spent enjoyably reviewing
the background to the case and less enjoyably trying to determine
the precise nature of the alleged offence.
The Eleven Ladies of the Lakes, as the tabloids and then
everyone else called them, had become national icons after their
legendary run over the Old Man of Coniston (Rambling 10). The subsequent
appearances on TV, film and YouTube had made their names so
familiar that children in their playgrounds chanted “Annie Bensal,
Celia Clapperclowe, Sheila Corkin, Mary Drissin, Sue Kelk, Linda
Ledder, Meg Powse, Helen Slaister, Sandra Targe, Liz Whezzle and
Dorothy Yedder”, much like boys of a previous generation intoned
the names of the 1966 England World Cup winning team.
The Ladies went beyond celebrity-hood, a concept tainted
with wanton excess and triviality. The Eleven Ladies of the Lakes
were a preternatural essence that permeated the nation’s collective
conscience, suffusing homely, comely Cumbrian attributes.
Their status as national emblems was confirmed by their
appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, when they showed how
people may support one another in harmony. This revolutionised
the moral culture of the country. When they left the Big Brother
house, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, commented “What a night
for sound-bites! They are truly the people’s Ladies, and we are
the Ladies’ people. Their values must become our values. They
become us, as we must become them. Forever and ever. Amen”.
Then he melted.
The Celebrity Big Brother DVD became essential course
material in all schools, despite the protests of the Society for the
Preservation of English Real Men, who felt that the DVD confirmed
that men were an irrelevant and disruptive influence on society.
The Ladies’ tremendous contribution to the nation did not
come without its side-benefits. Their inevitable neglect of their
housewifely duties led to marital tension, and in due course they
all freed themselves of this distraction.
The Big Brother experience had confirmed the Ladies in their
mutual love and, to national rejoicing, the Rev. Fenella Fenestra of
Keswick carried out a day-long ceremony at Castlerigg Stone Circle
at which all pairs of Ladies were joined in a civil partnership.
This communal euphoria was, however, somewhat deflated
by the Home Secretary, who said on Newsnight “While I share the
nation’s happiness, I do wonder if this kind of event is quite what
New Labour had in mind when it passed the Civil Partnership
Act in 2004”. The Crown Prosecution Service wondered too, and,
to be on the safe side, thought that it had better bring a charge of
bigamy.
Mr Sneezeweed, defence counsel, immediately objected when
the trial opened, saying “How can you say that these Ladies are
guilty of bigamy when it is impossible for you to point to any
particular partnership and say that it is an instance of bigamy?”
This abstruse point was further muddied by mathematicians from
the University of Cumbria who proved that there had been 55 civil
partnerships enacted at Castlerigg, that between 50 and 54 of them
had involved a possibly bigamous relationship, and that there
were a total of 99 possibly bigamous acts. But they couldn’t say
which they were, as there was no record of the order in which the
partnerships had been sealed.
Every time the word ‘bigamous’ was used Mr Sneezeweed
leapt to his feet. On each occasion, reading from legal precedent or
from a dictionary, he argued that ‘bigamy’ meant ‘twice married’
and a civil partnership is expressly not a marriage under the law.
An exasperated Mr Thornbush, prosecuting counsel, said “If
we were to allow multiple civil partnerships, where would that
leave those of us in traditional uncivil partnerships? In fairness, we
would have to permit multiple uncivil partnerships, a prospect that
doesn’t bear thinking about”.
At this point, Mr Mucklethwaite complained of a severe
migraine and adjourned the court. And, as we now know, on his
return he announced his retirement from the case and, indeed, from
the judiciary. He will be sadly missed, at least, by me.
Photo:
Castlerigg Stone Circle.
Comments:
• But what about the Ladies? Was there a re-trial?
• Who cares?
• I do. This could set an important legal precedent.
• Well, the case has lapsed. Now we have same-sex marriages
partnerships and marriages are clearly different.
• Oh. So you can have multiple partnerships? Can you have a
partnership with one person and a marriage with another?
• I feel a migraine coming on.
Ramblings
Saunterings
© John Self, Drakkar Press, 2024-
Top photo: Rainbow over Kisdon in Swaledale;
Bottom photo: Ullswater