Previously: Exeter Montgomery Cashew, returned owner of the Boilermaker's Arms, revealed that he had sold the pub. And who was the new owner? None other than Wilf the Woolman! Now read on The assembled company were speechless at the revelation. But not for long. "Wilfred!" squealed Daphne the venerable barmaid, throwing her arms around the neck of her one-time paramour before remembering that she was at odds with him over his dalliance with Sonia (previously Sebastian) Serple, the gender-realigned social worker. She disengaged her arms and backed off, blushing.

"Hecky thump!" declared Graham the Gasman, waking at last from the booze-induced coma that had laid him low under one of the snug's tables for the past four days and nights.

"Well, what a surprise! Who'd have guessed it?" said Doris ("Happy Medium") Thrope, innocently unaware of the irony in that question.

"Where on earth have you been for nearly a year?" asked Boris the Landlord.

"Yes Wilf, tell us all about it," chorused Thelma Gusset (pronounced "Gussay"), the glamorous women's page editor, and The Scribbler, each taking out a T&A regulation-issue notebook and ballpoint pen as their keenly-honed professional instinct took over.

Here, surely (The Scribbler thought), was an exclusive that would rescue him from his reputation for producing stories about local allotment holders digging up vegetables that looked like minor celebrities.

"I'll tell you," said Wilf, taking of his heavy grey greatcoat and Cossack hat and stamping his feet to shake off what looked like real snow from his fur-lined boot.

"From Siberia," he explained, noting their surprised looks. "It's such cold stuff that it takes weeks to melt. Before I begin, Boris, I'll have a pint of your finest Old Enraptured Ragamuffin (or perhaps that should be my finest, as I now own this hostelry)."

Boris pulled a pint of the amber nectar for which The Boilermaker's was famous and Wilf supped deeply of it. Then he perched himself on a bar stool and looked around the assembled company.

"You might have noted," he said at last, "that I have returned to you minus three things." Doris Thrope and Daphne looked quizzically at each other. "I mean, to wit, the trilby hat and Crombie overcoat which were my signature outfit in the days when I made my fortune in the wool-textile industry and continued to wear afterwards when I doubled that fortune by selling the mill to a property developer."

"Thanks for that recap," interrupted The Scribbler. "I'm sure the T&A readers will be glad of it."

"The third thing is Sonia Serple. You might remember that she and I had a brief, exciting but ultimately doomed affair. Sonia's now decided that being gender-realigned isn't for her after all and has gone to Buenos Aires to begin the process of getting aligned back to being Sebastian.

"Well I took that badly, as you can imagine. In fact I was gutted. So I set off on a tour of Europe which eventually led me to Moscow. There word got round that I was a Bradford businessman and I was approached by the Russian mafia who wanted to involve me in a scheme to flood all the pound shops with counterfeit goods. Of course I refused. They don't like refusal. I had to flee. My journey took me to the wilds of Siberia where I fought off wolves with my bare hands and lived on frozen grass and berries before making my escape to Norway hanging on to the undercarriage of a light aircraft. From there I stowed away on a Newcastle-bound timber ship."

"Good heavens!" cried Daphne. "But what brought you back to Bradford, and to the Boilermaker's?"

"Well," replied Wilf with a wink, "I fancied a bit of excitement."