Dear Dreary.
My best friend at work was recently made redundant and this has been affecting both my life in general and my performance in the office. I just can't get him out of my head and cannot seem to shake off my depression. Colleagues were sympathetic at first but i sense that their patience is running a little thin as it is now a couple of months since Kenneth left. If they only realised the full story. Kenneth had in fact told me that he loved me and would never leave me. We were extremely close and tended each other's vegetable patches every sunday morning. His onions are legendary in the local community.
At weekends he also sings in a band,playing the local pubs and clubs,and one night he sang a song he said he'd written about me,a touching number entitled ''Summer In The Fields''. From that moment on i knew he was the one for me,even though at first he found it difficult to return my feelings and I had to raise the difficult subject of halitosis and his somewhat trembly alto singing voice. Then it happened. It was after he had left that i emptied his drawers and found it. It was a letter from our colleague William,expressing his undying love and affection. I was devastated. That evening I confronted Kenneth with the letter. Unfortunately, when he admitted to the relationship, I lost my temper and in a stupid act of revenge that i now totally regret, i snapped his clarinet in two. He responded by pissing into my flat cap. Can you see any hope for us? I would still like us to keep in touch,and we actually have tickets for a Bucks Fizz concert next month,but he seems to making loads of new friends in his new job at the mortuary so i fear any offer of reconciliation would simply be snubbed. Will he willingly want wee Willie's winky like he once wanted mine? I can't bear this. The least he could do is give me back my '' I Love Peanut Butter'' y-fronts. Crunchy, of course. Yours brokenhearted, Charles Whoretree, Dungeon Ghyll.

Dear Charles.
You need to try and see where your relationship has gone wrong and why he fancies old Willy in the first place.
I bet Willy looks like you which may be of some comfort. Tall, rugged, a bit thick, bespectacled and away with the fairies.
It's a cry for help. Whilst your fella is taking one from the pavilion end from old Willy I bet he's secretly wishing it was you.
Think back how you have treated your loverboy and this may be where the answers lie.
Have you ever poked fun at his tubby tummy? Laughed at every song he's ever written? Taken the piss out if his love of disco music? Out dressed him in the office perhaps? So all the boys look at those military creases in your shirt and scoff at his tramp like appearance? I bet all he ever wanted was to be like you. An apprentice upon your milk float dripping head to foot in your gold top. Leaving you an extra pint perhaps?
This could be the last of the summer wine. Offer him a drink from the brim of your flat cap and perhaps get a couple of tickets for Saturday Night Fever.
That should do the trick!
Dreary. x
Thanx Drears. I can see that you may be correct. Underneath that skin of bravado and bluster, there is a sensitive, loving person. He just needs to take care of himself a bit more, cut out the daily pack of hobnobs and the creme de menthe breakfast. I'm not hoping for Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, more an elegant Jim Bowen.