Rubble Club Archives

Hello, Rubble Clubbers, this is Madge Dumpling, your Chairman and pet rock expert, speaking to the pet rock-owning membership from  Rubble Club H.Q., which is my cosy cottage buried in the north east corner of the back yard of the magic Wand Factory Shop in Blackpool. That extra special corner, recognisable by its  artistically arranged pile of grit and rubble,  is known in Undergrowby as the Rocky Headlands corner of the back yard. The Rocky Headlands appears dotted around the world wherever there is a north east corner filled with rubble, next to a mountain.  You who know Blackpool will know there is even one on Blackpool beach. Some call it the “cliffs” or the” lower Promenade”, but it is no accident that it is on the north shore, east of the beach, and features a giant pile of rubble cemented together to look like a mountain. It was obviously built by the ancient gnoman ancestors of the land of Undergrowby who knew exactly what should belong where. We Growbies, ever keen to recreate Undergrowby wherever we go,  have dug out a nice new tunnel network just under the surface of the “cliffs” with lots of useful entrances and exits. If you are small enough to squeeze in, Rubble Clubbers, the entrances are open to you, as you will see if you go walking by. Pop in any time!

If you have a spare north east corner in your own back yard, or even a corner of a shed or a cupboard, all you need is a nice big pile of rubble complete with at least one pet rock in residence somewhere in the heap,  and you too will qualify for the right to call it the Rocky Headlands corner.   If you want to build me a nice pretty holiday cottage under the rubble, let me know what bus to catch and I’ll be there next week with my designer knitted bag (from Linda) packed with a few more pet rocks for you by way of a reward.  I can’t stay for long but  the pet rocks can, and wherever I go, others will follow because I am something of a trend setter, as you know. Soon, if you play your cards right, every corner of your garden, shed or cupboard will be full of Growbies of one sort or another. It will be a lovely holiday camp-like  refuge for little people and their pet rocks. Your luck will be in, because good luck follows us wherever we go!

Linda from Kilmarnoch, the Rubble Club’s deputy Head Prefect and Chief Knitter, has come up with another fabulous idea. There is, apparently, a Scottish gnewspaper called The Sunday Post, in the middle of which is a magical section, according to Linda, perfectly suitable for an article about my magical self and my magical ways with pet rocks. I am wondering how I am going to go about contacting them and getting myself in the paper without appearing pushy. Perhaps I should catch a bus to Scotland and pay them a visit…maybe bribe them with a few pet rocks, some rock cakes  and a flask of gravel tea, show them my magic laptop and my knitted bag designed by Linda, one of their native countrymen, and my postcard collection of famous Scottish beauty spots, all signed by the famous Linda from Kilmarnoch in person. If only I could speak Scottish. If I hang around the gnewspaper office for long enough, posing prettily in my summer hat, reading out loud to a large quantity of happy, smiling pet rocks from my book of pet rock bedtime stories, one of their photographers  is bound to recognise me and take my picture. (Well, I am world famous after all!)

I have noticed that this week there have been hundreds of lovely Scottish people wandering along the Promenade in Blackpool, eating chips oatcakes and tartan shortbread in the sun. It seems that Scotland has moved to Blackpool for the week, so I shall save my trip to the Sunday Post till they go home again. While they are still here I am too busy to take any trips. I am shouting myself hoarse from morning to night, telling them all to go to the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, and make sure they browse around   Madge Dumpling’s Pet Rock Emporium till they find themselves at least one pet rock to adopt and take home to Scotland. I shall never give up until I have drummed up a constant queue a mile long outside the shop. This is an unmissable opportunity for hundreds of eager pet rocks to emigrate to the ancient Rocky Headlands of Scotland, where history-loving pet rocks love to go. I am doing my absolute utmost.

Granny and Grandad Gray, my shopkeepers at the above-mentioned shop,  have had a delightful customer this week(sadly, not a Scottish one, but never mind) who is world famous, almost as world-famous as me. He is a many times world-champion darts player called Phil Taylor, who has been appearing at the beautiful, plant-filled Winter Gardens Pavilion, throwing his darts sideways into the air as only he can. He, or one of his friends, must be having trouble with the naughty pet rocks because he paid a lot of money for a Pet Rock Behaviour Therapy Unit, complete with therapist. If you are here at the Rubble Club, Phil, or Phil’s friend with the naughty pet rocks, please come back to the shop and collect something special which I have wrapped up specially for you, from me, the world-famous pet rock whisperer, Madge Dumpling…it’s a snow-white rune rock with an arrow-shaped  rune on it. I wondered who it was for when it turned up on the rubble heap…they always come with someone in mind. You deserve it, Phil Taylor, for your extraordinary dedication to pet rock welfare, doesn’t he, Rubble Clubbers?

If you have never had a pet rune rock and are jealous of those who have, all you have to do is ask Granny Gray, next time you are in the shop, if any rune rocks have turned up recently. You don’t need to be world-famous, don’t worry. I am world-famous enough for us all. Friends, you may be pleasantly surprised how a simple trip to the Rubble Club can open secret doorways to places and things you would never have known about if you had been lazy and stayed at home. Rune rocks come to those who need them in exactly that way. Just ask!

This week’s linedancing session has been moved to the Hotel Parisienne on the North Promenade this week, where Linedancer, our Head Prefect, has booked the main ballroom especially for us. Well, if we are to win the international pet rock linedancing chamionships we have to get used to performing in a proper ballroom. We will only need the north east corner of the ballroom, thank you Linedancer, and could you make sure the floor is sprinkled with some of my own home made blend of dancing grit please. My husband Malcolm will grind some for you and carry it up to the Hotel Parisienne on his back if you ask him nicely. Make sure you sweep it all up and pop it in the hotel safe till next week when the rehearsals are over. We don’t want anyone else’s linedancing teams practising on it, do we?

Auntie Hatty, the pet rock hat designer, wants me to say hello to a kind new pet rock owner, Sophie from Glasgow, who took great pains choosing between the hats on Auntie Hatty’s hat shelf for the two lucky pet rocks she adopted. Even Granny Gray, the shopkeeper, who sadly has little fashion sense herself,  was impressed by the lovely Sophie’s clever hat choices. Next year, when Scotland comes to Blackpool again, Sophie, I will make sure there are lots more hats and hat shops and hat-loving pet rocks for you to buy, and in the meantime I will keep on bullying and pestering Grandad Gray into put all my pet rock paraphernalia up for sale on the website, so you can get it all for Christmas through your magic laptop. Welcome to the Rubble Club, Sophie and all other newcomers! Send me a letter and tell me all your pet rock gossip.

And with that I must leave you to get yourselves dolled up ready to go off to the Hotel Parisienne. They do a nice line in rock cakes, not up to my standard, but not bad, so I have left the buffet up to them this week. Please save any cocktail umbrellas you may spot in the bins and give them to me next week. I am running out of them. When you are ready, form an orderly queue with your cowboy-hatted pet rocks in your hands and Linedancer will lead the way along the Promenade. If I were not so busy, I would come myself, but I have my hilarious cartoons to design for the Sunday Post and of course all my usual routine pet rock whispering to do. Until next week, then, I remain your self-sacrificing chairman and endlessly faithful friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello, this is Madge Dumpling, expert pet rock whisperer and over-worked Chairman of the Rubble Club speaking you in person. As I speak I am ticking your name off on my register of world-wide pet rock owners (for security purposes…well,…there isn’t room here under the rubble heap to just let anybody in!) and welcoming you into my snug underground parlour for another scrumptious buffet and rock-friendly little gathering.

Please feel free to let your little pets sit with the others and have fun. Linedancer, my Head Prefect, will make sure they don’t run away or come to any harm. She is teaching them another advanced line-dancing move this week now the weather is a bit cooler. She is getting them ready for the international pet rock linedancing competition which I am trying to organize for later in the year. There are lots of nice ballrooms here in Blackpool so I am quite spoiled for choice. I have thought about the Tower Ballroom but there are too many stairs. My ladder would be worn out just trying to make my way to the stage to announce the winners. If you know of a secret ballroom all on one level with gnome flaps to all entrances, use of a kettle, cups and plates, a cosy fire, a buffet table, a dancing table and a nice sandy floor, please let me know and I will check it out. You know me, Rubble Clubbers, I am unstoppable when I have set my heart on something. If I can’t find the perfect ballroom I will have to get my husband Malcolm to build an extention to my parlour big enough for an international event.

In fact, I am doing some sketches here on the back page of my members’ register to pass the time between ticking your names off. It will take a seriously intensive day and night rubble collecting expedition, but luckily, I have great expertise in that line, and have useful contacts amongst the Trolleymen in the Undergrowby underground tunnel networks. I can see the finished pet rock ballroom building it now! It will fill the entire back yard of the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, spread down the back alley-way onto the main road and down to the beach, where we can have an outdoor beach section with dancing tables and umbrellas.

On to the postbag. Linda from Kilmarnoch, thank you for your suggestion about leafleting the coach drivers and hotels, so they know where to send the tourists to buy their pet rocks. In the past when I have written out important messages in my best hand-writing about pet rocks and where to find them, it has been a waste of time. When I try to hand out leaflets, no one takes any notice of me. The papers just float to the floor and turn into litter before anyone reads them. It is as if I were completely invisible! Granny Gray has nothing better to do in her spare time, so perhaps I’ll get her to try it.

Bob the Tea Boy is on his summer holidays, so we are back to my own speciality teas which you will find dotted around the buffet table. This week I present my Underwater Mystery Blend, enriched with all those mysterious ingredients I find when I go for a swim in the fish tank. Enjoy!  I had visits from my relatives this week and they have eaten all the rock cakes, but feel free to ransack my kitchen cupboards and make your own. Surprise me!

This week I came across a drunken man swaying in the middle of the road with my friend, Limpy the pigeon perched on his head. Limpy spotted me approaching and was screaching “Madge Dumpling, thank goodness you’re here! This man needs help!” although to anyone else who might not understand pigeon language, it sounded like  “Coo, Coo, coooooo! “  I rushed over, ready to administer first aid to the drunken man, but when I asked where the bleeding was, the man said he had a broken heart and only love and a roof over his head would cure it. Now, as I (and Limpy) have very little time to spare to listen to other people’s troubles, I delegated the job to a slightly deaf, but eternally cheerful, orphan pet rock, who was delighted to be of service.  Now that the drunken man has a rock-solid, dependable, loving friend, to mend his broken heart, he has no excuse for not building himself a nice house from the rubble along the seashore, like I have to do.

Which all goes to show, there’s probably a pet rock to cure every love-lorn ill in the world.

And now I am going to have a little lie down on the couch to recover from my busy week, and watch Linedancer doing what she does best. So, until next week I am leaving my register by the door for everyone to tick themselves off, and I will return to my duties next week. Till then I remain your fabulous Chairman and  useful little friend, MadgeDumpling.

Hello Rubble Clubbers and here we all are once again, gathering our pet rocks together for another rubbletastic shindig in my cosy parlour here in the Stone Quarry Cottage in the north east of the magical land of Undergrowby. My rock cake baking tins have been resting this week, because I have been too busy handing out leaflets along the promenade, advertising my pet rock emporium to all the happy holidaymakers. Instead of my world famous rock cakes, for this week’s buffet I have made some unbaked crunchy, crispy sun-dried seaweed sandwiches, with unbaked, sun-dried bread. I call them “Sunshine Surprises”. Tuck in and let me know what you think. The bottle of Bob the Tea boy’s Scottish tea juice is on the sideboard, along with a nice cold teapot of my vintage blend of gravel tea. Bob the Tea Boy is having a well earned holiday from tea-making, so you will be thrilled to know that everything on the table today is made by my own fair hands.

Bob is busy on his holidays, digging up giant boulders from his garden in the Rocky Headlands of Scotland and cracking them up into little lumps. When he and his wife Linda come to Blackpool later this year he is going to bring me a few sacks full of boulders I expect. They know how I love them. Meanwhile, I expect he is building some of them into a little holiday cottage for me in his back garden for when I go and visit.

Thank you, Linda, my deputy head prefect, for another lovely picture postcard from your endless Scottish travels. How do you ever find time to go to work, I wonder? Still, that pet rock of yours, Pinky, who lives on your desk at work, whom you have trained to man the telephone and work the computer, is probably quite capable of taking over from you while you pop out for a little coach trip, isn’t she? It’s good to have staff you can rely on, like I have.  It sounds as if she is so efficient, she is getting through the whole day’s work before mid-day, since you kindly allow her to take a nap in the afternoons. No wonder all your co-workers are jealous. If they got on with their work as quick as a pet rock, they could have an afternoon nap too!

Linedancer, I look forward to reading your pet rock linedancing book . Take your time and do it in your best hand-writing, that’s all I ask, even if it takes years. The Rubble Club has its standards to maintain. Granny Gray, my doddery old shopkeeper from the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, is wondering if you are still running the Hotel Parisien single-handedly, or if you have moved on, as that famous Rubble Clubber known to his friends as The Cliff, seemed to think. It is phenomenal that you can fit in running hotels in amongst doing your demanding full-time job of being the Head Prefect of the Rubble Club!

This week, the pet rocks were nearly on the telly, but alas, despite all my efforts they will not be appearing after all! It all began while I was rooting in a high class bin on the Promenade, for unusual ingredients for my speciality teas. I found a ticket. It was a free ticket be in the audience of a television talent show, clapping loudly(which I do exceptionally well, as you know), but it was in a television theatre far away in the land of Manchester. I wondered why someone had thrown it in the bin, because who would not want to be on the telly? I would, and the pet rocks would too, so I made my mind up. We would go. When they heard what a good clapper I am, all the cameras would be on us!

I gathered dozens of pet rocks into two lidded baskets, put my ticket in my pocket and set off to the bus stop. Luckily, the bus to Manchester stops nearby, and I only had to wait for two days before one pulled up at my stop. When we got to Manchester, I walked for miles, asking everyone where the telly was, but nobody knew. Then I accidentally stumbled upon it on top of a hill. A signpost pointing up the hill said Television Studios, so up the hill we went, the pet rocks and I, and got into a long queue. Everyone had tickets like mine so I was sure I was in the right place. We stood in the queue for two hours then we started going in. Then a handsome young man walked along the queue from inside the theatre and told us he was sorry but he couldn’t fit everybody in, so we would have to go home. “No.” I said “I’m not going home till I’ve been on the telly. You can fit us in, we’re only little.” but rudely, he just ignored me. It was as if I were invisible. Everyone else in the queue turned to walk away, but I didn’t. I marched up to the open door and in I went with my pet rocks, looking for the telly, but there was just a gigantic empty silent room with railings. There were doors at the other side, leading to somewhere but they were closed. By the time I had walked across the giant room, behind the locked doors I could hear people already clapping loudly, and I knew I was too late. They were not clapping as well as I could have done, needless to say.  I knocked on all the doors but nobody came, so heart-broken and unnoticed, we set off back down the road to the bus stop and three days later we got home, bedraggled, hot and bothered and determined never to be on the telly ever again, unless they build a television theatre in Blackpool with the sole purpose of  filming me clapping.

So you can see why I have had no time for baking this week, Rubblers. I hardly had time for my leaflet handing-out expedition as it was. All I can say is, if you find any of those free tickets to the telly while you are rooting through the bin, take my advice and throw them back in the bin.

We cannot go another week with no line-dancing despite the fact that Linedancer, our choreographer, is busy writing her novel, so I am going to lead the dancing myself this week, with a special emphasis on shimmying, because that is what I do exceptionally well, and soon, so will you. Get your little rockies in a line, I will be with you in a moment when I have put my pen down. Until we meet again next week, then, dear Rubble Clubbers, I remain your hard-working chairman and brave little friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello again, Rubble Clubbers. This is Madge Dumpling your Chairman, and world-famous pet rock expert, inviting you to gather round and help yourselves from the crunchilicious buffet table while I read you the latest pet rock story which I finished writing down in my best hand-writing yesterday. No, on second thoughts, you can read it for yourselves to your little rockies at bedtime because I know you will not be able to resist it and anyway, I don’t want you to think I am a conceited show off! (Although I am, a tiny bit, according to my husband Malcolm, but he adores me anyway and it’s the price he pays for having a sensationally world-famous pet rock expert for a wife).  The new story is about a famous Undergrowby Rubble Clubber called Jig the Juggler. He trained up a team of  acrobatic pet rocks from an unlikely bunch of rocks which I foisted upon him long ago. It is an heart-rending tale of tragedy and loss, which is unusual in the pet rock world, because it takes a lot to kill a pet rock. To be fair to Jig, who now has a gigantic pet rock collection to make up for his error, Tricky the Tumbler, the pet rock in question, was a bit of a shelf-jumping daredevil and it was always touch and go whether he would ever survive long enough to find a home.  If you are any good at juggling, Rubble Clubbers, do  not let this story put you off training up your own pet rock acrobatic troupe. We could hold competitions with fabulous prizes. You know how I love a competition!

And so on to the postbag. Linda from Kilmarnoch has promised me more picture postcards from her travels. Her husband and my Tea Boy, Bob, has so much time to spare since I gave him the week off tea-making, that he and Linda don’t know what to do with themselves. They are coach-partying around the world as I speak, trying to find more lovely postcards of mountains to send me because they know  I like them so much, and they bring a tear to my eye. With that generous, hard-working, coach-partying spirit so typical of the the Scots, they always put my needs first, which is, of course, why she is the Deputy Head prefect and Chief Knitter and he is the Tea Boy, and I have made them lovely badges to prove it.

Linedancer, Linda is obviously frazzled from being in the limelight so much and she has humbly suggested that you might share the podium with her by writing a book about Linedancing for Pet Rocks. Do you think it would be a best seller, and worth a year of your time to draw hundreds of little diagrams and write the instructions clearly in your best hand-writing? I do, and so does Linda. It could make you world-famous like me, but more importantly, there might be a new badge in it for you, Linedancer!

The Promenade pigeons have notified me that my friends in the Information Hut on the Promenade are about to have their hut demolished to make way for the new, improved Promenade development work. I have written to the Town Hall and they have promised me that they will build another even nicer hut for them when the work is done, and meanwhile they will give them a spot in a cosy warm building to hand out their leaflets, if anyone can find them. I would offer them a spot in the doorway of my Pet Rock Emporium in the Magic Wand Factory Shop, but it would distract the customers, and Granny Gray, my shopkeeper, would just sit there gossiping with them all day and not getting on with her work.  The pigeons have promised to follow their removal van when they leave, and let me know where their temporary home is, so I can continue to remind them to send all the holiday-makers round to buy their pet rocks before they go home.

It is still too hot for the fire to be lit, so Bob, take another week off. I can manage without you. I have found where they sell that tartan covered magic tea-making ingredient of yours that turns my nose red. It was in the Spa Shop next door to the Magic Wand Factory on Dickson Road, Blackpool.  There is no need to boil a kettle because it is just as good cold as it is hot, so I have just stirred a drop of it into this week’s gravel juice, and hey presto! It’s nearly the same as Bob’s, but with bits and bobs of my own, to ring the changes, not your regular favourites, fish tank soup, broken shells or seawater, no, I’m going to leave you guessing. Just enjoy! Oh, go on, I can’t resist…actually it’s a new thing, called Tea Leaves. I found it in the Spar Shop, it’s a foreign ingredient. You can tell fortunes with them.

When everyone has drunk up, I have invited a special guest to read the tea leaves, a fortune teller called Minnie the Mopster from the west bank of the Watery Wetlands of Undergrowby. Minnie is a good roller-skater, a world-famous mopper and proud mother of Lily-the-Lovely Wetlander,  known to all as the Stargazer. She does the fortune telling for fun, so don’t take it too seriously, Rubble Clubbers. I have emptied the dregs in the teapot onto the floor and she is gazing into the gravel and tea droppings left in the pot. She says things are looking good for this week. She can see hundreds of pet rocks scattered all over the world, twinkling with happiness. So can I, and so can you, Rubble Clubbers, can’t you? If it turns out to be different, and we all have a bad week, I shall never invite her again. Still, we have to have some entertainment while it’s too hot for linedancing, don’t we?

I’ll leave you now to consult Minnie with your personal teacups, and I shall be here again next week. Meanwhile, I remain your dedicated chairman and all-seeing friend, Madge Dumpling.