Do you know the way to Suckham?
During one of those drives to the beach, when it feels as if someone must surely have moved the place that you're heading for by at least 100 miles, we got talking about those stupid word tricks you can play on people. Our favourite of all was the one where you stop someone to ask for directions for a place called Suckham. You stop someone, and say
'Excuse me, but do you know the way to Suckham?'
When they reply 'no, sorry, I don't' ,you say 'you go like this....', and make a load of slurpy noises, and then run off, laughing at your own wit. (Suckham/Suck-'em..Gedditt?)
On a long, dull drive to the beach, on a cold wintry day, it's funny. Trust me on this one.
Being wild and crazy guys, coupled with the fact that in the car with us was Rob, who could be easily encouraged to do insane things, we decided that just talking about it wasn't enough. Someone had moved the beach, and we needed to kill time, so we decided we'd give this one a go. Rob was up for doing the talking, so we started looking for a likely victim. After driving for what seemed like at least several years, we had reached the long straight road at Slapton. Surely we would find a victim here...
There he was-an oldish chap. Not so old that we felt like sadists making fun of the elderly, but old enough that he probably wouldn't spot the joke straight away... We pulled up, and called him over, very politely. We still weren't sure that Rob was actually gonna do it, so we all waited to see what was gonna happen as he walked over.
"Excuse me, do you know the way to Suckham?' The chap looked blank, while we tried not to laugh. "hmm" he replied, "I've not heard of Suckham, where's it near?" Uh oh, he was suposed to say 'No' for the joke to work, he wasn't following the script. Everyone else in the car is making snorting noises, trying not to laugh. Rob was starting to flounder, "um, it's a surfing beach...?"
"D'you mean Bantham?"
"um, no...its called Suckham..."
Rob was drowning fast. The rest of us were laughing openly now, so the old chap probably thought this was a car full of day release patients or something. Rob was whacking Rup, who was driving, on the knee, mentally screaming at him to drive off, but everyone had tears in their eyes, making driving a little difficult.
"I've lived here for twenty years, and I never heard of Suckham. Hang on, I'll just ask me brother.."
"No..no..don't, its ok" mutters Rob. As the old chap turns to yell at his brother, Rob turns to Rupe, red-faced, and tells him to drive, for fucks sake. Rupe finally slams his foot down, and we hurtle off, laughing our heads off, leaving a probably extremely confused old guy behind.
The rest of the drive involved the discussion of whether or not the bloke saw through us straight away, and was just laughing at us back, or was he just trying to be helpful? Which, if he was, means we were being pretty cruel, but it does make you wonder whether he asked his mates in the pub that night, whether THEY knew the way to Suckham, cos he'd never heard of it...
By Jon
