Millie Week 48, Mon 5 - Sat 10 Aug 1991

...and the Darling Buds of May references continue. Mariette was the character played by Catherine Zeta Jones in the series. The pub name 'Perfick and Firkin' makes it one of the Firkin chain of real ale pubs that were very popular at the time. And Mr Evan is called that because he is a Geography teacher and therefore by law has to be Welsh. I don't know why, but all the Geog masters at my school were either Welsh or graduates from the University of Aberystwyth. (I'd also like to add that they were all uniformly excellent.)

Once I'd got that bit of plot out of the way I spent the rest of the week mucking about in boats, and indulging in a running joke.

The fourth strip was one of my attempts at taking an old joke and working a twist on it. As the script for the last panel says: "Well, you'd be really disappointed if she didn't wouldn't you?"

Note the partial change of handwriting in a couple of balloons in the last two strips - the result of a last minute editorial decision to change the words 'you lot' and 'they're' into 'you kids' and 'the kids' for the sake of clarity. It sounds pernickety, but if you're publishing these strips one at a time, it helps to give these reminders.