Gary Sebastopol Flinch was born twice, due to an administrational error, in Cleveleys in 1959. He first rose to prominence in the summer of '79 as a finalist in the short lived TV talent show "Show Us Exactly Why You Think You're Better Than Everyone Else" with his cat hypnosis act. Flinchmania grabbed the nation briefly between June and early August 1979 but came to an abrupt end when Flinch made some extremely disparaging remarks about TV host Choochie Playton's appearance on her live chat show "It's Choochie! Talk Me!".
Flinch went into hiding for 12 years only to reappear at the back end of the Baggy scene when he guested onstage with the New Fast Automatic Daffodils at the Cleveley's Mad For It Weekender. During their penultimate number (Missing Parts of Famous People) Flinch attempted to hypnotise 14 cats simultaneously. It was obvious to everyone in attendance that the old "Flinch magic" had definitely gone for good.
Ginchy Robinson Jnr (1958-1989?) was the son of Ginchy (a priest) and Barbara (a she-priest).
He made his great wealth when, at the age of 13, he produced the parlour game 'extreme snap'. It was an an instant hit and rocketed Ginchy Jnr to the hight of the parlour games circuit
Other games he created include:
Pony-poly,
Thuddley Tinks,
Cat Attack,
Forward-Backward,
Defend the Snakes,
Don't Use Your Shoes!
Pony-poly: An Australian Board Game,
Forward-Backward:3015
It has been noted that his attitude towards other game inventors was 'moderately obtuse'. There are also many claims of Puzzle-snatching, however there is a complete lack of evidence to any of the allegations.
In 1989 he disappeared, leaving only his Reigate Mansion which contained 3,054 dead shrews. It is feared that upon his return he will produce a game that utilises in, some part, dead animals.
Wine, women and song have been the downfall of many men but Hartley Frink (1910-1979) proved particularly susceptible to all three. Elected to parliament upon his return from World War 2, the former officer cut a blistering swathe through Westminster. Fierce in his opposition to Clement Atlee's government, on several occasions the Tory MP was moved to sit upon the modest Labour leader while consuming food from his trademark hamper. Frink almost derailed the foundation of the National Health Service in this manner, but, mindful of the important vote, Atlee greased himself before leaving home on the morning in question.
Through successive administrations, Frink proved a thorn in the side for colleague and political foe alike. For much of the sixties he insisted in bringing a working mangle to Prime Minister's Questions, for reasons that were never made clear. In the seventies he became increasingly truculent and took to lolling in the corridors of the Houses of Parliament playing wth the tin toy cars of his youth.
Hartley Frink gave up his seat on the eve of the 1979 general election. He drowned in a boggy marsh on election night. Rumours that Ted Heath had been seen in the area clutching a policeman's truncheon proved unfounded. An open verdict was recorded by the coroner.
"Those Battlin' Brazelton Boys" was the smash hit of NBC's fall 1982 line-up and Cassidy Bristol (1960-), playing Ailyn-Ann-Ann-Anne Brazelton was the breakout star in the cast. Her dewy-eyed charm and downhome style saw her poster adorning the walls of thousands of teenaged boys' bedrooms - and their fathers' dens too!
But while Ms Bristol's on-screen persona couldn't have been sweeter, her off-screen life was tumultuous. Plucked from obscurity, she soon developed a "diva" reputation, demanding ever-larger trailers and increasingly luxurious meals. Isolated from the rest of the cast, by the end of the first season she was living in a gigantic mobile stalag that dwarfed the soundstage on which Brazelton Boys was recorded. Inside, fawned over by a coterie of toadies and handmaidens, she dined on fried quail and barbecued dragonfly.
During preparations for season 2, the decision was taken that Ailyn-Ann-Ann-Anne would no longer feature in the cast. She was replaced by a robot dog named "Snuffy-91", who would eventually spin off into his own series ("LA Law").
Her reputation ruined, Cassidy Bristol struggled to find work in television and took up a position as a court stenographer in upstate New York. She is married with 12 children.
In the field of the fried breakfast, "Gossamer" Tom Dexter (1930-1991) was a legend. Obsessed with eggs and in love with the possibilities of bacon, he fed generations of Sheffield locals. His distinctive circular van was a mainstay outside Sheffield Wednesday's ground on matchdays, with many fans clutching a "Gossamer Barm" on the football special home.
Sadly Dexter, like so many other independent traders, was a victim of globalisation. In 1990, McDonalds introduced the "Egg McMuffin Sandwich" to their South Yorkshire franchises. Within six months "Gossamer" Tom Dexter was found dead of acute self-inflicted sulphur poisoning. His suicide note consisted of one word: "why?"
Dexter's passing coincided with the sudden end of a brutal string of unsolved murders in the Nether Edge area of the city.
Monty Sterling (1923 - 198?) was a card hustler and fancy man. Raised in the sleepy town of Great Marton Sterling dreamed of the bigtime and so on his 16th birthday he moved to Blackpool.
In 1955 he made a now infamous high stakes bet with the Reverend Craide Vonder that he would 'never lose a card game' . For 20 years he kept true to his word.
On the 16th of October 1975, however everything changed. A young upstart named Ginchy Robinson Jnr challenged Sterling to a game of his own creation, 'Extereme snap'. The rules of the game are now lost to history, the only records kept show that it lasted for 3 days and that both players lost.
On the 19th of October 1975, true to his word, Monty Sterling handed back the small taxidermied squirrel to the Reverend Craide Vonders
Dan Berry
