Eric Tha Half A Bee

Monty Python's Flying Ccircus produced a sketch called Eric the Half a Bee, it revolved around a character who tried to get a licence for his pet cat Eric, his pet fish Eric and so forth and culminated in a song called Eric the Half a Bee.

So for some unknown reason a small bunch of slightly insane boys from the Bont started calling each other Eric. For instance, I would go round to see Eric (Chris Downing) and he'd say I'll meet you at Eric's in half an hour". We would then both arrive at Dai Bones house. Similarly, we would arrange a meeting at Eric's and arrive quite happily at Phil's.

Then one fateful day I knocked at Dai Bone's house, his mother answered and told me he had going round to Eric's. "Oh, I've just passed Chris's house on the way here" I said. "No he's at Eric's" she said and I replied "you mean Phil's". "No he's popped round to see a friend of his from work, his real name is Eric".

It felt as though the bottom had fallen out of my world, the fact that a real Eric had turned up made the sky darken and the ground trembled at the thought of what was to come. I said goodbye to Dai's mother and went home, I played some Hawkwind and tried to unravel this cruel twist of fate.

Many years have passed since that time, the name Eric brings a tingling to the hairs on the back of my neck but that may just be nits.

It's a shame really that we have all gone out own way, Chris still lives in the Bont and runs his own company. Dai lives in Swindon and still works for Busby despite a period of work in Saudi Arabia, not got a clue about Phil or the legend that was John Llewellyn or the others that used to make up our happy gang.