…er, um is that allowed? Surely if he’s released from chokey under license, there are sure to be all sorts of conditions, no dealing drugs, no robbing banks, no GBH, no treason, I wonder if that list precludes being in control of a moving vehicle? Perhaps he will need “R-plates” (Released)
No idea, but I thought he sounded just like Mr Toad.
Well, he’s outta luck if he’s expecting his friends Ratty, Mole & Mr. Badger to come and rescue him if he gets nabbed! (thank you Dopey & Keeper Wywyum et al (…there he is again!))
Matt was on licence and there was no question of his not being allowed to drive.
Why should having used drugs in the past unfit you to have charge of a motor vehicle? It isn’t as if he’d been done for driving under the influence, is it?
And as we know, he was never the one of that family who drove dangerously. That was Lily, not Freddie.
Into which fact I still load a great deal of faith. She could take herself, her mother & that ludicrous man-friend out in a smash as she slams on the brakes & skids into a tree having seen Linda Snell trying to speed-check her.
Linda is wiped out too & Pip & Ruth blown up by the exploding petrol tank as they saunter over to fulfill their morbid curiosity.
Well … it’s a start.
If they crash into the gasometer just off the bypass* they could wipe out the whole village…
*I don’t care, there’s one now.
Aaaah. The old Coal-Gas one they left, completely full & inflated when the UK moved to less dangerous Natural Gas in the mid 70’s. That one Joe ???
Ah, I like it! That famous landmark featured in a scenario I had in mind which involved Eddweird moving his Dad’s JCB, illegally (driving it along the said by-pass, sans lights, sans plates sans low-loader) to give his mate¹ a nelpin’ ‘and in a hafter-hours (after dark) project which involved some diggin’ (think: Whitey Bulger (geddit?))
Young Fweddie (who’s back) speeding along the bypass, suddenly finds his path blocked by something he can’t quite make out, and as he desperately tries to overtake it, the bucket arm, not having been secured for transport, swings out slicing the top completely off the little car decapitating all three of the surviving Pargetters in the process, and rupturing the fuel tank. Such a shame that the tank had just been filled. KABOOOOOM!
(…must go - need coffee!)
¹ can’t remember 'is name, but he thort Emmur to be cor blimey!
One or two little items got “lost” in the move from Pebble Mill…
Why ‘Fweddie’? He has never had a speech impediment and nor have his mother or sister.
I’ve wondered that in a vague way for quite a while.
Possibly because of the way Elizabeth habitually infantilises him, especially when compared to oh-so-mature-and-worldly-wise Lily?
That is to say, it’s comment on how Elizabeth sees him, rather than the listeners.
Ah, right. The infant Freddie whom she bullies and pushes around, as against the adult Lily in whom she confides and with whom she has been in the habit of discussing Lily’s brother in a disparaging way since both her children were about twelve.
Though actually, she bullied Nigel and pushed him around, too, so maybe in a weird way it’s a compliment to Freddie that she treats him as badly as she treated his father?
Well it’s TA; weird is normal.
Incidentally, am I weird for caring about the spelling of the name anyhow, because it is Freddie, with an ie, and Lily, with a y.
Nobody ever spells her Lillie, so why is he so often spelled Freddy?
Yes, she’s done both her children a disservice by, as Fanta says, discussing Freddie with Lily, telling her she’s the sensible one and giving him the message that he’s hopeless.
As unlikable as Lily is, arrogant and smug, Elizabeth has done a great deal to achieve that result. If the smugness is slightly rubbed off of late, well and good. If Lily hadn’t been so determined to plunge into an inappropriate relationship with a married man (sound familiar?), she’d still be - probably - enjoying her first year at university and not obliged to watch Elizabeth cosset Freddie and put up with being ignored for once. Since Glen is now managing Lower Loxley competently, Lily isn’t even the saviour of the business any more so what is the point of her lingering at home inflicting her useless boyfriend on everyone?
Maybe the experience of being overlooked will cause her to have a bit of a think about her future.
Yet, it’s correct. He really is hopeless.
No, he is not. He is eighteen. We were all that age once, and most of us made mistakes when we were that age and managed to grow up in spite of them, or even because of them.
A few people do not grow up after the mistakes they make at eighteen; they are underground. Freddie is not; he is doing better than some.
And of course a few people like Kenton don’t grow up in spite of being sixty, but continue to be stupid adolescents until they die in their eighties or older.
… nah.
He’s hopeless.
“Open wide…”