Gary Bollard could hardly believe his luck after spotting a mouth-watering "Without obligation!" advertisement in Tit-Bits magazine. Not only was he being offered the chance of purchasing a "magnificent sample of commemorative stamps" at a "bargain basement price" from "the Welsh capital's premier philatelist emporium." He was also being given the option of returning these magnificent stamps "without charge" if not "completely - and we mean completely - satisfied!" For 'Stanley Gibbons' Bollard, philatelic king of the prefabs, such a chance was far too good to miss.
For the next few days Gary was on tenterhooks. He began to have nightmarish visions of the stamps being mistakenly sent not to Twiverton but to the dreaded Tiverton in Devon. Then - quite out of the blue and almost two weeks late - the "magnificent sample of commemorative stamps" finally burst its rapturous way through his letter-box. The rapture did not last: it was a case of philatelist interruptis. It looked as if every size twelve boot in the post-office sorting room had spent the last fortnight jumping up and down on his magnificent sample. If the commemorative stamps had gone twelve rounds in the ring with Jack Dempsey or Rocky Marciano - or even twelve rounds with Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano - they would have been in far better shape.
Gary promptly posted the battered package back to the stamp dealer's de luxe Cardiff emporium with the words "GOODS RECEIVED IN DAMAGED CONDITION" written in large capital letters on both its front and back. These finely engraved capital letters were to be of no avail. Before you could mutter "Joseph Stalin" and "rootless stamp-collecting cosmopolitans" a fuming-at-the-mouth letter had catapulted back from the de luxe and emporium in Wales's capital city. "Contact will be made forthwith with the Twiverton police unless a compensatory payment of two pounds and ten shillings is received forthwith! Our sample of stamps appears to have been deliberately trampled underfoot!"
Of course they have! What else do you expect if you send commemorative free samples to prefab estates! The moment any items of value land on one of our door-mats we drag them into the blood-stained coalhouse, put on a pair of mud-splattered hob-nail boots, and start trampling them under foot.
After a consultation with lawyers in the My Full Moon Gary 'Stanley Gibbons' Bollard finally caved in. He bit the bullet and sent off a postal order to the de luxe Cardiff emporium. At least he was able to console himself with having learnt a salutary lesson about the dangers of succumbing to the meretricious blandishments of capitalism. No more glad, confident mornings would be spent idly leafing the inviting pages of Tit-Bits magazine. His new plan for the future was to "keep it tight at the back."
After being told of Gary Bollard's travails the old man recalled some words of wisdom from his youth in South Wales: "Experience is a hard school, but fools will learn at no other."