I used to run for Blackpool Athletic Club,
which morphed into Seasiders Sizzlers, a necessary name change,
I was told would appeal to that new breed, the park runner.

Though you wouldn’t believe it now, I was quite fast, 
before I was called up to serve Her Majesty,
so once embarrassed myself, by calling these fitness freaks
‘A lot of un-athletic bores’, at the Saturday post-park run breakfast,
in our local pub

But as luck would have it, I was to eat humblie pie, and be proud to call myself a Seaside Sizzler.

You see, I only mixed with these new types to catch the eye of ‘Tiny’ Tina,
who would intersperse her run with those acrobatic somersaults
she’d once performed for Murgatroyd’s Circus.

As a former master spy, I’d prided myself on not being entrapped,
but am ashamed to say, fell for the wiles of an old ‘pro’.

A budding theatrical, I was cast as Bertie Wooster, in Right Ho Jeeves! 
wearing a dark tweed waistcoat and plus fours,
and to make up for my angry outburst, invited a few of ’em to the show.

There was ‘Football’ Freddie McFetesh, formerly an exponent of the oval ball,
for an amateur club, who’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,

His pal, ‘Sergeant’ Larry Lupton, who, in his cups, says he worked
undercover with the US Marines, and amuses us all,
for it’s obvious he now marches behind his missus.

Not forgetting ‘bright spark’ Delbert, who organises a yearly trip
to the island of Manzarottey’s Running Festival.

Sometimes, lying in bed I would dig out my Military Medal,
then get up for a pee, and curse my fondness for alcohol,
to fall asleep and dream of kissing Tina under the mistletoe.

I’d tried to get back in the game, which is what writers liked to call 
the world of subterfuge and deceit, that comes under the label espionage,
but was rejected, as I’d become too loose with my tongue.

I refused the chief spook’s advice to shut up, asking,
‘Who cares about boys own stuff from long ago?’
But unknown to me, was becoming a threat to the government.

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

Surprised to be asked, I foolishly tried to impress her by
talking about my past – James Bond had nothing on me.

Of course I should have shut my trap, for the next day I was
arrested under the Special Powers Act.

Tina had bugged our conversation, for in a former life she’d been
a British secret agent who’d donned the guise of a circus performer,
an ideal cover for nefarious activity.

She’d been cajoled into coming out of retirement by a young fellow who
called himself Miles Marmaduke-Moonbasin.
Smitten by his good lucks, she never considered if that ridiculous 
name might be a pseudonym.

It appears that, back in the ’70s, as part of a role swap with the CIA,
she’d had been 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.

The niave young agent had fallen for his homely charm,
so, anxious to save him, arranged for a new identity, as a sheep farmer in
the Irish village of Ballymuck.

But, after finding him in bed with the Taoiseach’s wife, she left,
and opened a fish and chop shop in Blackpool.

However, the Secret Service has a long reach.
After they discovering what she’d done, kept it under their hat,
until such time they could employ the oldest trick in the book, blackmail.

Forced to entrap me, she proved of no more use to Miles,
who flirted with the other women, reminding her of that other deceiver, the senator,
and 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 she’d broken into the Royal Mint in Ho Chi Min City,
escaping by somersaulting over a barbed 20-foot high gate,
and ‘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 her old flame, senator Malachi McMalligo.

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

Now we eagerly look forward to meeting the Seaside Sizzlers,
on their annual trip to a feast of races, on this little island of Manzarottey.

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 – Tina performed high-wire tricks,
while I gave a comic monologue, dressed as Bertie Wooster,
in tweed coat and plus fours.

By the way, do you remember that humble pie I mentioned earlier?

You’ll be glad to hear that it sticks in my throat,
as I thank the fellows whom I’d once called a lot of ‘un-athletic bores.