AN Abergavenny man who claims he knows the location of the entrance to Abergavenny’s secret tunnel network has stressed he will take the secret to the grave with him after being threatened by some mysterious and well-dressed men.

In his fantastical quest to capture a fairy because he believed it would make him a god, semi-professional long-distance runner Johnny Turnip and his two friends accidentally wandered into Aber’s “underworld” and “found our old mate Manny from the estate guarding the portal between this realm and the next.

“When we realised Manny was employed by the fair folk as some sort of guardian of the big door, we decided to abandon our mission as a favour to a friend,” explained Turnip. “Anyhow, when we fled the tunnel and burst through a manhole in Cross Street, our hopes of having a session back at Big Tony’s were shattered when we were suddenly surrounded by about ten men in beige suits and sunglasses. Now I’m all for wearing shades, but it was about 3 am with zero sun, and unless you’re Bono, that makes you slightly suspect!”

Turnip told the Chronicle that the suited, booted, and shaded men surrounded them with “slightly smug expressions that reminded me of Ed Sheeran.”

He explained that Puerto Rico Paul broke the silence by sneering, “Who’s this then, the men in beige or the Monmouthshire chapter of the Rick Astley fan club?”

Turnip explained, “Their leader got all stroppy at the dig and tried to come back all cool with, ‘Well, well, if it’s not Jimmy Parsnip and his two side-kicks.’ But no one can match Puerto Rico Paul in a bitch fight, and quick as a flash he sniped, “There’s no parsnip here sweetheart. Just a whole lotta Turnip!’

“This stumped the chump and he had no choice but to resort to brute force to restrain our wit. He ordered his men to grab us, and although I could see Big Tony limbering up for a square go, I held my hand up to him in a gesture that said, ‘Not now Tone. 12 on three is not good odds, even for a fighting man like yourself. Let’s go with the flow, bide our time, and seize the opportunity to launch a counter-offensive when the time is right.’”

Turnip said, “It’s amazing what you can say without words but me and Big Tony go back decades and can communicate like wolves.”

Turnip added, “After they placed sacks on our heads, but bizarrely with holes cut out for our eyes, we were frogmarched towards the castle with two of the men in beige on either side. As we walked I asked, ‘So what’s all this about then boys? It’s been a long night and we just want to get drunk.’

“Their leader, who introduced himself as Mr Citizen said as we walked, ‘We know what you clowns have been up to Turnip! And you old Abergavenny types are a threat to the new town order. You’re not active on any Facebook community pages and you don’t wax lyrical about our surrounding hills. Nor do you drink overpriced coffee, eat avocados, wear body warmers, practice mindfulness, or even bake your own bread! When was the last time you even had a gong bath for Christ’s sake? Abergavenny has been voted the best place to live in Wales by The Sunday Times and your antics are letting the side down. Your continued presence threatens house prices and it’s high time you were put back in your bloody box.

‘We’re a special group of gentlemen who’ve known about Abergavenny being the centre of the universe for some time. We also know about the tunnels and the fairy realms. Yet every time we lift the manhole in Cross Street we’re greeted with a peculiar force field we just cannot penetrate. For some reason, you losers gained easy access. So now, you’ll take us to the entry point to the underworld. and from there our specialist team of marketing and content strategists will use a special mobile phone app to conquer the fairy realms. We will then use the hidden power of the fey folk to turn the whole world into a bespoke and global market town that we will rule for all eternity as an international community council!’

Turnip explained, “I could tell by the way he was sweating when he talked that this dude wasn’t the full shilling. Too much time on social media spent chasing the crack hit of Facebook likes had destroyed his mind. A night out on the lash would have done him the world of good. Yet sadly, he and his mates will never appreciate the wrong paths they took in life, because they were too busy dressing like dick heads, checking their emails, and ‘having conversations’ when they should have been waking up on the wrong side of 15 pints!”

Turnip added, “As usual, me and the boys were outnumbered and outgunned, but there’s no way were were going to lead the men in beige to the lair of Manny from the estate. We were all that stood between the Tylwyth Teg and these glorified ice cream salesmen. From school to the dole, and in Big Tony’s case, the occasional spell inside, our entire lives have been spent fighting bureaucracy, officialdom, and nut jobs in pubs. At times we may not have known what we were fighting for or why, but we got good at it, and that’s a lesson these men in beige were about to learn the hard way!”

Turnip said, “I was about to launch into the first line of The Pogues’ “Waxie’s Dargle”, which we adopted as a fighting song in our youth, and which would indicate to Big Tony and Puerto Rico Paul that the time had come for a row. However just as I was about to scream Shane McGowan style, ‘Says my aul’ wan to your aul’ wan,’ someone dressed as a cowboy and smoking a cigar came to our rescue!”

To be continued…..