My parents had a lifelong friendship with a couple who lived on an old farm just down the road. They had two young teenage children who took turns with the family milk round after school each day.

They were a lovely family except that the father, we’ll call him Max. who took it upon himself to play as many tricks on as many people as often as he possibly could. No one was exempt, not even my grandfather who woke up one morning to find seed potatoes sprouting forth among his prize flowers and all round the borders of his lawn.

Never a week went by but there was a tale to be told about Max’s latest activities and when I eventually became one of his victims I determined to get my own back.

Max was forever complaining that his young daughter, Nita, spent too much time at our house instead of getting on with the milk round. He was always grumbling at her and she was a lovely girl with a great sense of fun.

We won’t go into details about the tricks he played on me; we will fast forward to the start of what I had lined up for Max instead.

Nita was complaining about the cold weather and what a nuisance it was living in an old farm house with the bathroom downstairs. Traipsing down there in the middle of the night wasn’t much fun. My thoughts turned to Max’s Saturday night drinking sessions with his pal in the next village. “All that beer he drinks on a Saturday!” I said to Nita;”How does he go on with your bathroom being downstairs?” She answered, rather disgustedly, that her mother had to get the `gazunda` out and keep it under the bed on a Saturday night. That was when I had my bright idea. “I’ll teach that Max to walk off with my chocolates”, I thought and for the incident with the sooty hand…etc, etc

So when Nita next called with the milk, I asked if she was willing to go along with my plan. “Anything for that grouchy old devil.” She said. And that was how a large, heaped tablespoonful of Andrew’s Liver Salts found its way into the dry, Saturday night `gazunda`. As Nita informed us later, “It was a spectacular result, even if he did go mad!” “And all that foam!!!”

With Nita’s willing assistance, that was just the start of things to come..