RELUBBUS POLICE FOIL DASTARDLY ATTEMPT ON LEADER'S LIFE!

Kommandant Kolin Klemo (62) of the Kreslu Kernewek Kemmyn, pictured here in typically grim-faced pose, has once more saved the day by uncovering and foiling a devilish plot by the Bonnetti gang to assassinate the leader, Billy Spargo, 94, of the Greater Relubbus Urban District Council (GRUC).

Kommandant Klemo is an enigmatic character. After frequent early brushes with the law as a youngster, no misdemeanor was ever proven. Despite his having once been apprehended half way up a drainpipe outside the girls’ shower room at West Cornwall School for Girls at 9.00 pm one Friday evening, his explanation that he was ‘looking for bats’ was accepted by the presiding magistrate, Aristotle Klemo.

He later applied to join the elite Cornish-speaking unit of the Relubbus police, Kreslu Kernewek Kemmyn, and, in a period of just twenty years, shot to the top of this six man hand-picked squad in the Relubbus police. His exposure of the Bonnetti plot to kill is yet another in a long line of achievements.

The Bonnetti gang turn out to be a group of three cut-throat desperadoes, whose base is a lock-up garage on the Long Rock Industrial Estate. All three are Cornish born and bred but are not related. They have acquired the name ‘Bonnetti’ simply because of their taste in headgear. Their names can be revealed as:

Marcus Pengwidden (23), is a qualified window fitter, who somehow simply fell ‘by the wayside’. Formerly a regular attender at Mount St Methodist Church in Penzance and an enthusiastic member of the Chyandour handbell ringing club, Marcus began his descent into the netherworld of the West Cornish criminal fraternity by picking up cigarette butts on the Prom. This later led to pilfering cigarette packs from the RC Oates Superstore.

This, together with his habit of wearing a ‘man’s bonnet’, brought him to the attention of the second member of the gang:

Tristan ‘Broccoli’ Tregear (32) has worn a bonnet ever since he was a baby. He regards the wearing of a hood as ‘uncool’ and believes that Cornish criminals should develop their own unique sense of identity and dress code.

The fetching red bonnet he wears in this picture was lovingly made for him by his mother, Brenda, a one-legged school dinner lady at Humphry Davy School.

Tristan’s disruptive school career passed seamlessly into a steady stream of aimless small-time petty crime (including nicking broccoli for sale to his relatives) until he came to the attention of the ring-leader of the gang:


Madron ‘Bare Hands’ Trembath (49) of Colinsey Road, Penzance is a reprobate with a long history of criminal acts and a predilection for wearing a black ‘man’s bonnet’.

After a brief and unsuccessful apprenticeship as a ‘junior’ at Sally’s Hairdressing in Parade Street, Penzance, where he lost his job for stealing hair colourants, he coasted into a lifestyle of casual crime, which led to hardcore burglary, GBH and Robbery with Violence.

He took to wearing a bonnet – originally in pink – in his days with Sally, as she felt it would help him ‘blend in’ more easily in the overwhelmingly female world of ladies’ hairdressing. Having got used to the comfort of a bonnet, he decided to continue to wear a manly black colour when he left Sally’s.

Like finds like and it was inevitable that the three bonnet-wearing criminals should, sooner or later, come across one another and work together. Thus it was that, just three years ago, the Bonnetti gang was formed over a cup of coffee in the Wimpy Bar Penzance.

The revered, but somewhat eccentric, GRUC leader Billy Spargo (92) is known to travel from his official residence to the Council chamber each day – naked in all weathers - upon his beloved motorised push bike, which he leaves parked outside his house all night.

Klemo’s men caught the Bonnetti gang staking out Spargo’s home and pounced when they saw chief desperado Trembath tinkering with the brakes. Threatened by the six burly coppers of the Kreslu Kernewek, Trembath and the others gave themselves up without a fight and just the words “Issa fair cop!”

The next day, despite a bracing wind and a cutting sleety rain, Councillor Spargo emerged wearing nothing but his helmet, mounted his bike without a word, and, statesman that he is, proceeded to work as if nothing had happened.