DISCLAIMER
All characters from Hi-de-Hi! and It Ain't Half Hot Mum belong to David Croft and Jimmy Perry. (I'm just borrowing them...)
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Sergeant Major Williams sat down on his chalet bed. Gladys had just left, after having made sure he had everything he needed. His wet overcoat was suspended from a hanger on the outside of his closet. Just as he was putting some of his things away in the drawer of his bedside table, someone knocked on the door. Before he could even react, the chalet door swung open. Peggy Ollerenshaw came bursting in with her trolley.
'Blimey,' she gasped, closing the door behind her and collapsing against it to catch her breath, 'it's just getting worse an' worse, i'n't it? 'Ave you seen what it's like out there? Oh, of course, you 'ave, you've just arrived, 'a'n't you? Oooh, just look at yer coat, it's soaked right through!'
'Who are you?'
'Oh, sorry! Peggy Ollerenshaw,' she shouted, grabbing his hand and shaking it, 'I'm only a chalet maid, but I'm gonna be a great yellowcoat one day, you'll see, I've got lots of go in me! Oh, I almost forgot! 'Ere's yer soap and yer plug for the sink. We keep 'em locked up in the storage chalet 'cause the campers knock 'em off when no one's looking!'
'Thank you,' he said, getting up to take the items from her.
'Well, I 'ope you 'ave a lovely week. Of course you will, the yellowcoats'll see to that! You've met Gladys, 'a'n't you?'
'Yes, I 'ave.'
'She's nice, i'n't she?'
'Very nice.'
'Yes, well...if there's anything you need, just tell me!'
'Thanks.'
Peggy opened the door again and went out with her trolley, fervently shouting 'blimey' as the wind and rain turned her hair into a frizzy blob of candy floss.
The Sergeant Major sat down on the bed again and continued to unpack his trunk. Pyjamas, bathrobe, shaving things...and a photograph. The beautiful face of Edith Parkins serenely smiled up at him from the picture frame he had carried with him for more than twenty years. Since they had met in Colchester a few years after the Great War, that photograph had always been there. It had been to India with him: to Deolali, to Birma, and back to Blighty when the last war ended. He had gone back to see her for the first time in two decades, together with Gunner Parkins, their son. But Edith was married now, and Parky bore a resemblance to her husband that could not be mistaken for a coincidence.
And now he was here, at this holiday camp. He had nothing. No Edith, no Parky, not even little Lofty Sugden or Muhammed the char wallah to shout at. Only that photograph, that old photograph of what turns out to have been a mere dream all these years.
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...to be continued.