Russell who thousands of people will probably not remember was a regular car boot seller particularly at Falmouth Rugby Club and you could not meet a more miserable and cantankerous old sod that he was, so he was. His greeting to me when I first took over at Falmouth was “You won’t last 6 months at running Car Boots” well Russell my old bird 28 years later and I am here and you are there and I have lasted a lot longer than you my lovely you old sod. Russell had a wonderful wife May whom he showed little respect and it used to really antagonise him when I used to get ‘my weekly cuddle’ from May! She used to do a lot of the buying for his stall and she would buy garden tools for him to repair in his garage for reselling, truth to tell he used to sell some unbelievable crap on his stall at times! He was rude to our customers he hated kids picking up anything to look at on his stall telling them impolitely to ‘sod off’ which resulted in complaints to me over the years.

Russell used to get on well with Jim of “I park cars” fame another miserable old sod like myself and he used to like setting up his stall next door to Jim in the hope that some of the crowds who went to Jim’s stall would spend money Russell’s stall. I won’t call Jim he was a good mate and had a great sense of humour he also has a lovely wife Jan who Russell used to go weak at the knees about her, I can understand why.
Now then, I telephoned Phyllis to tell her about Russell dying and word for word she said “Oh my god I have outlived the miserable bugger” we chatted about the old days and about how grumpy Russell had been and how when he reached 75 I gave him and Phyllis along with four other FREE to sell stalls at any of our Car Boot Sales. This crowd were known as ‘the old gits club’ because some of them were and are complete armholes at times with Russell in the lead!

A funny incident was when there were old toilets (now demolished) in the Car Park at Falmouth next to where Russell was selling, I was chatting to him when I noticed a 10 inch fat rat (Neville the Troll) walking behind him and said ‘watch that rat behind you’ he took one look at the rat and grabbed a spade from his stall and crashed the spade onto the rat which was splattered everywhere FFS! That was hilarious as Russell goes to his boot with blood and snots hanging off his spade to look for a rag to clean off the dead rat’s jibbly bits and resell the spade. Russell was apparently very courageous during the war, well done Russell.

Russell will be missed by lots including Ann who told me of Russell’s death there were people who thought he were lovely, Marge thought he were lovely but then Marge thought and thinks that everybody’s lovely dear of her. And for me, I will miss him and the memories and apologies I made on his behalf but Russell in his own way was a huge character who enjoyed being miserable. I believe as he could not look after himself in his old age with Dementia advancing he decided to go into a Falmouth care home for his remaining years where he died peacefully.
Goodbye Russell, may your god go with you!

Geoff
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There is absolutely no suggestion that Phylis and Russell were an item, none whatsoever, Phylis would ‘barf’ at the thought dear of her!