Although this book is a completely new venture for Des, he is no stranger to writing.

Way back in the 1970’s as a member of the Chesham Light Opera Company, he took part in many Musicals, including ‘Showboat’ - ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ - and many Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta’s, although he admits that, without doubt, his all-time favourite Shows were the Old Time Music-halls.

It was during the infancy of these Music-halls, that he was asked to stand up on stage at one of the local village halls and ‘do’ a Bernard Miles monologue. Never ever having appeared on stage in his life at that particular time, his first reaction was ‘you’ve got to be joking’ - but they weren’t joking!

Of course, being an avid Bernard Miles fan, he knew every last one of his hilarious Rustic monologues off by heart, so he thought - ‘why not, at least I don’t have to learn anything!’ Unfortunately, he only wrote a handful of them, so after several Shows, it became quite clear that Des was fast running out of material, and if he were to continue - “and I really wanted to” he says “because it felt great making people laugh” - then he would have to start writing his own sketches, which was of course, a whole new ball game!

So he did - but not before writing to Sir Bernard Miles {as he was then}, explaining that he had used his monologues on stage, exhausted all of them, so could he offer some advice on how to go about writing his own. Almost by return of post, he received from Sir Bernard both a severe rollocking and sound advice. The severe rollocking, amounting to use of his material without written permission taught him a sharp lesson, and the sound advice he still uses in his writing to this very day.