OWD TOM has spent much of his life with his back to the wall. He took on Mussolini and Hitler when he was nowt but a lad and, as a Dales hill farmer, he's been fighting the weather, the Ministry of Agriculture and the European Union ever since.

He is, as my regular reader will know (thanks again, Mrs C.), not the sort of bloke to tamper with lightly. In the whole of Beggarsdale, in fact, there is really only one person who dares to take him on.

So when the Innkeeper came up to him with his mischievous grin in the Beggars' the other night, we onlookers sat back and waited for the sparks to fly.

"Well now, Tom," he asked, "just what are we going to do with you?"

Tom had just relit his foul pipe which, it has been suggested, should really be rented to the Government for incinerating Mad Cows. He waved away a cloud of acrid smoke and growled suspiciously: "What's tha gettin' at?"

"It's official now, Tom," leered the Innkeeper. "Passive smoking. The Government says it kills people who don't even smoke."

At this point, a down draught of wind blew an even thicker cloud of smoke out of the fireplace where some of last year's apple logs were smouldering and hissing. Tom disappeared temporarily from view: he had witnessed sand storms in the Western Desert which were less dense.

"Aye," said Tom. "An' a week afore that, the World Health Organisation said it dunna. Tha's not goin' ta tell me that tha takes any notice of them so called experts." The Innkeeper shook his head gravely. "It's not up to me, Tom. They're talking about banning all smoking in public places. And this, is course, is a public house..."

Tom snorted, then coughed violently - he's still suffering from the cold he caught when he fell into a fountain in Trafalgar Square after the Great Countryside March. The paroxysm over, he glared balefully at the landlord: "Tha's killed more folk with yon bleepin' fire than a pipe of good baccy ever did."

"Happen," said the Innkeeper. "But the exhaust fumes from that old Fordson tractor of yours have killed more."

Tom rose from his stool by the fire like a wrestler about to go for a neck lock: "What's tha trying to say? Tryin' to bar me or summat? Ah'll burn the place down first."

The Innkeeper place a restraining hand on his should and said: "We're having a screen put in your corner. You can sit behind it and blow your smoke up the chimney. No-one will know you're even here..."

"Tha can stuff thar screen, and thar pub," said Tom, pushing aside the hand. "Ah'll get me sen one of them there windy-o recorders an' drink at 'ome. See ah much that'll cost tha."

And he stormed out. In the porch, he almost knocked down Teacher Tess and her husband Tim, both vegetarians and passionate anti-smokers. "And tha can tha gobs shut, too," snarled Tom as he disappeared into the night. The teachers two came into the pub looking mystified. "Oh dear," said the Innkeeper. "Perhaps I went too far. Tom seems to have forgotten that it's April 1st."

The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.