Farewell old friend

Let me tell you about my bed.

My bed's past is shrouded in mystery. We first met when I moved into my flat 14 years ago, and I was sleeping with it almost immediately. You would think that in a 14 year acquaintance with that depth of intimacy, a few secrets would leak out, but somehow it always kept quiet.

What I know, or am about to say, I have pieced together from clues here and there. I'm guessing it probably went to Spain sometime in the 1930s to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. Or quite possibly the other way round - you know how easily beds turn. Come WW2 and it slipped over the Pyrenees to join the Resistance in a spirited guerilla war against the Nazis. Then after WW2 it emigrated to South America where it divided its time between tracking down war criminals and taking it easy as a gaucho on a cattle ranch near Buenos Aires. It fell foul of the junta and had to go underground, where its WW2 experience put it in good stead, before finally making a break for the Falklands. It lived there uneventfully for a few years until the Falklands war, when it successfully tricked the Marines into surrendering on Day 1 to give it cover as it retreated into the interior. There it fell into its old ways again of heroically resisting the invaders, lending such assistance to the SAS as was required before the taskforce arrived.

That brings us to the 1980s. Here it gets hazy. It certainly returned to the UK, and quite probably it was involved in the miners' strike, though I'm not sure on what side, and also the first Gulf War as a final fling. By now quite elderly, it decided to retire to Abingdon, where I enter the story. I have slept on it for most of the nights since 1991.

I mention all this to give an indication of how (a) old, (b) hard and (c) lumpy it had become. Well, no more. Today saw the final parting of our ways, as I took delivery of a brand new super kingsize pocket sprung divan based double bed. It takes up about 25 percent more room but I can live with that. I think I'm in love.

Old bed? What old bed?