I work for The British Red Cross and the organisation is greatly dependent for its ability to function professionally by relying on the help provided by its valued volunteers. One such volunteer at King's Lynn Centre, where I both work, and live, is the Centre Organiser. This is a chap called Bill, who in his spare time sometimes operates as a childrens entertainer, both as a clown and a magician.

Now I have a somewhat strange sense of humour, and it can manifest, appear at any time. At the Centre a chap called Alex, who manages Emergency Response for The Red Cross in East Anglia is based for a few days a week, and as I am becoming more involved in rolling out Emergency Response volunteer training in West Norfolk we have regular chats. One of these involved the setting up of both Rest Centres and Family Centres and I happened to mention that Bill is a clown.

To look at Bill you would not see a clown in the Krusty mode, but you would take my calling him a clown in the slight insult way....and there would some truth there. However, I can only imagine him performing for kids and a more apt role model for Bill than Krusty I cannot imagine....clipping a kid around the ear for being cheeky, disappearing for two minutes to have a quick fag....but I digress.

Alex at first did not take me seriously, but I had backing from the shop volunteers who knew Bill. The mistake Alex made was to ask me his act name. I was aware that it was Charlie Proper, but I needed a more family friendly name for him, hence Mr Fluffy! Bill is about 6'1", 16 stone and scruffy. A less fluffy-like individual than you could imagine.

Now Alex is such an infectious, optimistic and enthusiastic guy that he proceeded to include this information with all his contacts, and soon the whole of East Anglia were aware of this wonderful clown. Not being able to resist myself I dropped it into a conversation with my line manager who is also responsible for East Anglia, and soon even the Director was aghast at this new persona of Bill, producing incredulity, laughter and disbelief in equal measure.

I did get wind of a letter that Alex was about to send to Bill, addressed to him, but inside the letter it would state...Dear Mr Fluffy...and I thought that I had better come clean. I had visions of Bill's kids reading it and his life would have been intolerable. I also told Bill himself, but gave him such an explanation that even I was convinced it was a genuine error.

Mind you, I phoned him the other week and opened the conversation with,
           
          "Hello, Mr Fluffy!"

          "I'll give you Mr fucking Fluffy, Brookes"

I still smile now that to the knowledge of East Anglia, the Centre Organiser of King's Lynn is a clown called Mr Fluffy.