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Part Three - The Sunday Bastard

We'd mailed the initial press release. We had the pictures...

So, back we went to Truro (plain clothes this time - which for me in 1974 was purple jeans tastefully flared to almost cover the platform shoes, a frightening amount of primary colours above the waist, and more ginger hair above the shoulder area than anyone would believe possible)

And off to Fleet Street went the pictures accompanied by a new proclamation. Not only were the Free Cornish Army openly training in Cornwall (see accompanying pictures) but we were planning a day of action on March 7th.

We also sent the press pack to the local and regional papers. One of the papers - which for legal reasons I will call 'The Sunday Bastard' - I had tangled with before.

Cue authorial flashback: A few months earlier I had been interviewed about the upcoming Rag Week by a reporter from The Sunday Bastard. 'What are you planning?' he'd asked. 'Anything new this year?' Naturally I didn't say a word about our intended liberation of an adjoining country. But after a long list of proposed activities I mentioned we'd also hired a train to London - a commercial venture quite common in the West Country to take shoppers/sightseers to the capital for a day. Cedric's idea - he slept with a model train under his pillow.

The reporter suddenly became animated. 'Isn't that the day of the League Cup final at Wembley?" he asked. It was. 'So Argyle fans could take the train to watch the team in the final?'

This was an absurd question. Plymouth Argyle, the local football team, had reached the fourth round of the cup but hadn't the slightest hope of making the final. If there'd been a cup for never having won a cup, Argyle would have been first in the queue to receive it. But I thought I'd humour him. He might be a fan. So I agreed. 'Yes, they could.'

On Sunday the paper devoted a whole page to the interview. Along with the catchy headline. STUDENTS GAMBLE CHARITY MONEY ON ARGYLE REACHING FINAL.

It was my first and last newspaper interview. No one believed I was the aggrieved party. It was just the sort of thing I would have said.

But revenge is a dish best served on the front page. And the Sunday Bastard was about to pay big time.