A Year with the Brighouse Stars Walking Club (May Part 1)

May

Can the Brighouse Stars Save the World?

Part 1 (of 2)

There were just three members of the club on the walk this particular day. To all three of the lads 9.00 am on May 4^th seemed like the start of any other glorious spring day in West Yorkshire. Cold and damp with a forecast of snow to come later. Nevertheless, the group was singularly undeterred by any weather predictions. After all, pubs had four walls and a roof, and they opened at 12 o’clock.

The three representatives of the club on this particular day – formed as we know by walkers frequenting The Star pub in Brighouse - and sexagenarians all, alighted one by one off the train at Hebden Bridge.

First off the train was St John – de facto leader of the group on this particular day, primarily as he was the only one who purported to be able read a map. Although that allegation could be disputed (and regularly was), the undeniable fact was that he was the only one who actually owned a map. One of the retirees in the club, his ambition upon leaving work had been to dedicate all his spare time to becoming an expert navigator. To date he had singularly failed.

Wolfy followed. He was the foremost engineer in the club. What he didn’t know about the installation and maintenance of hot tubs wasn’t worth knowing. On the navigation front, Wolfy did in fact have a map of the Northern Hemisphere in his rucksack, a page torn from an old school atlas, although it hadn’t seen the light of day since 1985.

Heathcliff brought up the rear. This was our first encounter with Heathcliff. Being of a somewhat capricious nature, this was the first time he’d actually turned up for a walk. Heathcliff was actually his Christian name but when everyone who knew him addressed him by his name, in his own mind he thought it sort of gave him the air of the type of character living wild on the moors, only without the sensuality (and the hair) it has to be said. To give him his credit though, his knowledge of pop music pre 1974 was second to none throughout the Calder Valley.

The day’s objective was a circular walk, with Stoodley Pike being visited at the far end of the trek and all licensed premises en route being patronised on the return journey. In reality, a distance of around eight miles but anything between five and fifty with the map at St John’s mercy.

With cagoules optimistically removed and hopefully confined to rucksacks for the day, the lads set off.

Between the train station and the approach to Hardcastle Crags, there was little to report. Conversations meandered along at a gentle pace; being in the main ideas put forward designed to solve whatever the current existential crises engulfing the country at the time were. And of course, the price of beer.

In actual fact though, there were two points of significance towards the very end of that early section of the walk, and both directly involving Wolfy.

Firstly, when the previous night’s Chicken Rogan Josh cried out for immediate evacuation, and he had to quickly identify the nearest place to act as a temporary toilet. And secondly, crouched just inside that chosen cave entrance, his eyes – which had previously been focused on absolutely nothing in particular – lighted on what Wolfy thought might well be a spacecraft.

He would later reflect on what had led him to come to that astounding conclusion and what had abruptly woken him from his curry exodus stupor. It wasn’t the sight of the large spherical shaped object situated just inside the cave entrance or its opening revealing what appeared to be a number of adult sized recesses in its walls. No, it was the humanoid shape – sporting an oversized head with only one large eye in the centre of its forehead – leaning against said sphere that clinched the whole alien deal for Wolfy.

The creature (we’ll leave it at that for now) spoke ‘You and your companions must come with me immediately’.

Wolfy reached into his rucksack for the half roll of Andrex and pack of hand wipes, ‘Just give me a minute mate’.

‘But there is not a moment to lose. The future of planet Earth and your entire galaxy rests in your hands’.

At this point, upon hearing the voices, our other two intrepid explorers turned up inside the cave.

St John gave the creature the once over, turned to Heathcliff, and whispered, ‘That’s not a look you often see outside of Todmorden’.

‘This………er, alien thingy says that the future of Earth is in our hands and that there’s not a moment to lose’, Wolfy explained.

‘Oh aye, escaped from Stanley Royd Hospital has he?’, said St John to no-one in particular.

‘Earthlings – if I may call you earthlings’, spoke the alien thingy, ‘I will explain everything on the journey, but you must all come with me immediately’.

It has to be said that at this point Wolfy’s thoughts were torn. Are we being addressed by an escapee from a secure local mental institution or has this creature thingy just disproved the Fermi Paradox?

Heathcliff, winking away furiously, said, ‘I say we hear it out. Off you go then cock. Oh, and if we’re going to be travelling through space and time with you, what do we call you?’.

The alien thingy spoke as it moved inside the sphere. ‘My name is of no import but if you insist then you may call me Lionel. But I must be allowed to explain all when we are en route. We are almost out of time. Please come inside’.

Heathcliff, playing along for now, moved forward and entered the craft, ‘Come on, we’ve nowt to lose and it might be a laugh’.

‘Will it cost owt?’ Wolfy asked.

Lionel (as we know now to be the alien thingy’s given name of choice) spoke from a recess in the wall, ‘It will cost you and your planet your lives if you don’t come now’.

‘God’s sake’, muttered St John as he elbowed Wolfy out of the way.

‘Please step into any unoccupied recess’, instructed Lionel.

All three lads were now inside the sphere and following much winking and chuckling, positioned themselves in their chosen recess.

‘Do you know how long we’re likely to be?’, asked St John, ‘Only we’re thinking of the 18.28 train from Hebden Bridge’.

‘We have to travel 950,000 light years and back, assuming your presentation is successful of course,’ Lionel said, ‘which is why time is of the essence’.

‘In that case it looks like being the 20.42 via Leeds’.

The door to the sphere then closed. To be entirely accurate, it wasn’t so much that the door closed, as that part of the sphere just - well sort of became solid.

In view of the fact that Lionel did indeed seem to be some sort of sentient being (which coincidentally cast doubt on it hailing from Todmorden), together with the disappearing door in the sphere experience, the lads’ level of cynicism was now disappearing along with the winking and chuckling.

Although there was no evidence of movement the lads assumed that they must now be in motion as Lionel seemed to relax and began to speak ‘Only now can I begin to offer an explanation for what is happening’.

‘Firstly, my apologies if my appearance shocked you. We have reproduced as best we can the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of all the galaxies that we have visited. We have tried to replicate your own particular shape but unfortunately our brains are so much bigger than yours that our heads are of a disproportionate size. The one large eye, well quite frankly we couldn’t see why you would want two small ones’.

‘Don’t worry about it’, said Heathcliff, ‘there was a bloke used to work behind the bar at Thornhill Briggs club looked worse than you. And he had a fancy piece on the side’.

‘Let me try and explain the details of your mission. We come from the planet Mexidon. For all time our planet has been the Guardian of the Universe, and I am a representative of their Executive Committee. The whole universe – much, much bigger than you are aware of – is being held together by the synergy of all known suns. All the suns’ energies are being dangerously weakened by the drain put upon them by inhabited planets so – in order to save the entire universe – only one inhabited galaxy is to be allowed to survive. Apart from our own of course, let’s not be silly. You must make a case before the Executive Committee as to why your galaxy should survive. All other inhabited galaxies have made their case, and you are the last one’.  

‘So nothing serious then’, said St John.

‘Oh, and you have one hour to make your case to the Executive who are currently temporarily situated on a space station floating at the edge of your galaxy’, said Lionel.

‘How long will it be before we get there?’, Wolfy asked, ‘only I’m wondering if we’ve time for a beer’.

‘Assuming no interplanetary traffic I estimate a further 15 minutes’ stated Lionel.

Wolfy’s eyes narrowed. The engineer in him could not be silenced any longer, ‘So how can we cover nearly a million light years so quickly?’

Lionel chuckled. ‘You earthlings took almost forever to discover quantum physics. On our planet we now teach that in reception class. Need I say more’.