Oh woe is me, I can’t run any more, which amuses them at the club I ran for,
Blackpool AC, on the Lancashire coast.

It was renamed Seasiders Sizzlers, to appeal to that new breed,
the park runner – who got on my nerves, for, though you wouldn’t believe it now,
I really could run fast, so inwardly seethe when I hear them boast.

‘I’d be embarrassed to have been that slow,’ I gloat, and was banned from their company, when, I got pished, shouting ‘You’re a lot of un-athletic bores!’

But as luck would have it, I was to eat humblie pie, regarding this disparate bunch.

It happened thus – they let me back into their little band,
when budding athlete, Bill The Burglar – who took up acting in prison – cast me in a
PG Wodehouse comedy, Right Ho Jeeves! in which I was very good,
as Bertie Wooster, in dark tweed and plus fours.

But I still inwardly resented them, particularly that show-off ‘Football’ Freddie McFetesh,
who, bless ’im, invited me to join them at the post-run breakfast,
when he learned I was a former ‘quite good athlete,’ the patronising git.

Formerly an exponent of the oval ball, for an amateur club in Blackpool,
he’s now merely a fan, of our town’s professional team, known as the Tangerines.

If you want to hear about the club’s history, he’s yer man;
oh, I nearly forgot, he also wielded an impressive bat, on the cricket pitch, damn him!

Then there’s ‘Laughing’ Larry, a former soldier, who boasts of working with the Marines,
but now marches to the tune of his missus, not forgetting ‘bright spark’ Delbert.

He’s always on about the yearly trip to the island of Manzarottey,
where a feast of running is held, among the hills left by ancient volcanic activity.

But I only put up with them to catch the eye of ‘Tiny’ Tina,
who also does the park run, interspersing her running with the
acrobatic somersaults she once performed for Murgatroyd’s Circus.

Sometimes, lying in bed I would dig out my medal,
bestowed on me by a grateful monarch,
for undercover work in Colombia and Mogadishu, then get up for a pee,
to fell asleep and dream of kissing Tina under the mistletoe.

Then at the next park run, I saw her, walking with a limp.
‘I tried doing a somersault,’ she explained, ‘but pulled a calf muscle, showing off,
I guess I’m trying to live in the past.’

‘At least you can talk about yours,’ I said, ‘I’m constrained by the Official Secrets Act.

‘Oh, do you fancy a coffee?’

Surprised to be asked, I willingly accepted, but the caffeine
soon turned into wine, and I foolishly tried to impress her by talking
about my past as an assassin – James Bond had nothing on me.

The next day saw me arrested under the Special Powers Act.
You see, Tina had bugged our chat, for in a former life she’d been,
like myself, a British secret agent, who’d used the cover of a circus performer,
an ideal cover for nefarious activity.

However, she was cajoled into coming out of retirement by a young man,
calling himself Miles Marmaduke-Moonbasin, using the oldest trick in the book, blackmail.
Smitten by the chap’s good lucks, she never considered if that ridiculous 
name might be a pseudonym.

It appears that, while working undercover in the USA,
Tina was tasked with dealing with US Senator, Malachi McMalligo,
who’d threatened to tell all in a book, about our government’s part in the scandal
which had occurred under President Nixon’s term at Watergate.

But she earned the wrath of the CIA, after ignoring orders to silence
the chap – instead, arranging a new identity for him,
as a sheep farmer in the Irish village of Ballymuck.

After reluctantly completing her mission to entrap me, she was of no more use to Miles,
who flirted with the other women, making her look a right fool.

So this remarkable woman decided to get her own back on agent Moonbasin – by breaking
into the Secret Service substation, where I was held.

This innocuous department, masquerading as a sex shop,
was established to watch visitors from behind that infamous Berlin Wall,
who, after its collapse, flocked to England, eager for the saucy delights of Blackpool.

Tina wondered, ‘Could I pull off this daring rescue?’ Then remembered how,
when the KGB had captured top agent, Fergus Flattery-Flickersflate,
she’d performed acrobatic feats, impressing the guards,
who promptly unlocked the cell.

After she promised them political asylum, the disillusioned Soviets 
ran away with her, and now guard Buckingham Palace.

But it was when she broke into the Royal Mint, in Ho Chi Min City,
escaping by somersaulting over a barbed 20-foot high gate,
that ‘Tiny’ Tina cemented her place in the annals of British secret service heroines.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when in the early hours of Saturday morning,
she opened my locked cell, accompanied by ‘Laughing’ Larry, who said,
‘Don’t look so surprised, I did actually work with the Marines.

‘I was bored at home with the wife, and owe ‘Miss Somersault’,
as some of us call her, a favour, from way back in a former, secret life.’

We ran out into pitch darkness, to be greeted by Delbert,
who had sabotaged the lights, for he really was a bright spark,
and jumped into a van driven by ‘Football’ Freddie McFetesh,
then headed for the park run, where a posse of agents about to catch us
were swamped by a flock of sheep.

According to the shepherd, who had an American accent,
they were on their way to market in Skipton, Yorkshire,
and the damp morning air was filled with laughter.

Tina whispered a grateful ‘Thanks’, to the fellow,
whom she said looked like senator, Malachi McMalligo.

‘Tiny’ Tina and I now live in Manzarottey, that island coincidentally
visited every year by our pals the park runners.

If you’re wondering if the agents are still on our trail – she, clever lass,
gained entry to Secret Service Headquarters, helped by Bill The Burglar,
who opened the safe, procuring a state secret, which she threatened
to reveal if the government didn’t call off our pursuers.

Now we eagerly look forward to meeting the running lot,
on their annual trip to a feast of races, on this little island of Manzarottey,
which I even take part in, for, as you know, I used to be a ‘good’ athlete.

But we can’t talk about our escape, for, as all good spies know, walls have ears.

So her and I staged a theatrical show – she performed high-wire tricks,
on a hastily constructed rope bridge across a canyon, while I gave a comic monologue,
dressed as Bertie Wooster, in tweed coat and plus fours,
to thank the fellows whom I once called a lot of ‘un-athletic bores’.