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By Michael Casey

We are having a lazy Sunday here in Birmingham, our house hunting is still fruitless and we’ve had another valuation on our own home. Why take 5 mins when 30 will suffice, is the rule for estate agents, though personally I give them short shrift, but it’s a Pantomime we all endure when we look for a new house.

So today we are relaxing and I’m having a lazy look at the newspapers. One thing that was of interest was an Irish guy who had an email correspondence with David Bowie, not knowing for ages that it was the man himself. Then one January it was all over, that was a year ago now. I read that Ronald Reagan had a penfriend who used a code on the outside of the envelope so that the letters could get to him quickly. I believe this went on for a number of years, but you can ask Google or the Reagan Library to confirm this.

So this got me thinking, what if I had the Queen as a pen friend, would we exchange views on paint. Everywhere the Queen goes there is always the smell of paint, as everybody tidies up before she comes. I just wish she’d visit my girls’ bedroom, then it might be tidy. Or perhaps visit our house, all of it, then somebody might decorate it before she arrives, which will help us sell it. Not unless the Queen, or Marg as she prefers to be called, not unless Marg, Majesty,  decides she wants to stay at our 3 bed house while the Palace is decorated. Which could be 10 years.

Would the Queen confide in me, spill the juice on Theresa May, do they slag each other’s fashion. Then laugh like drains before having a pint of Guinness, with their schedule they would need it. Or do they swop tips via email? I’m sure Mrs May wouldn’t tell me a thing but if I posted some pork scratchings to the Queen, maybe I could bribe her. Marg loves pork scratchings, she shares them reluctantly with the corgis, and Al the Alsatian who follows her around with Dennis the dog handler.

What else could she tell me about being called Marg, she did insist on being called Marg you know, she told me in one of our emails that Ken Dodd insisted and she allowed it, just before she reached for her sword. Ken started to run away, falling over his tickling stick in the process, he had flashbacks about being in court for tax evasion as the Queen raised her sword. But she only knighted him, arise Sir Ken Dodd. I thought you were going to run me through said the new Sir Ken. I’m the Queen or Marg to my friends, I don’t run anybody through, I leave that to the granddaughters, mind you in that fat ginger singer’s case, I could be tempted. Then she laughed like a drain.

I did exchange tips about schools and so forth, all the teachers in my family and the high levels my family achieved. But then she changed the subject, so I told her I knew all the words to “ I’m walking backwards for Christmas across the Irish Sea” but I forgot some, turns out she is a Spike Milligan fan, that Prince Charles of hers led her astray or is it ashtray. So me and Marg have a nice little penfriend thing going via email.

Of course we have special email names, mine is anon678904423423@lamberthwalk1945.org.com and Marg’s is 1945to1812Overture@lamberthwalk1945.org.com so that’s about it for tonight really. I have to run to the Polish shop for bread now, one day I’ll learn Polish, but a smile always works, Marg told me that, just keep on smiling.

Oh I forgot what does the Queen, or rather my friend Marg keep in her handbag? She has a Kindle with all my books on. https://www.amazon.co.uk/MichaelCasey/e/B00571G0YC  and a packet of pork scratchings of course, food for the mind and for the dogs, though I’m not sure which she thinks is which.