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Private Notes
The sun is setting on 12 tons of pickled onions. A dynasty is dying - and who's left?
A little late love for Nellie - but was it worth keeping the home fires burning?
If you go a funny colour, lie low; it's all in the mind. They can cure anything these days.
""Of course I need a private secretary"", says Eli. ""Fifty copies of the Annual Report in pencil just isn't on these days"".
The elixir of youth - an old wives' tale or a racing certainty? Well, if it worked for Stan…
An accident of birth - but does it really matter what you are? It happens in the best families.
As captains of industry the Pledge's have a certain standing in the town of Colne; but when you're in court charged with causing a breach of the peace, can you ever hold your head up again?
A week at the seaside for the pledge's. Majorca or Blackpool? There isn't really much choice when the holiday money's already spent. So it's a holiday on home ground. The Blackpool boarding house is coming up in the world to meet the challenge of holidays abroad. But not Mrs. Rowbottom's where the notices say ""after using the bath in the high season guests are requested to make the bed again"".
Eli Pledge is a drinking man; most of his adult life has been one long lost weekend. One momentous morning, suffering from a size nine-and-a-half hangover, he goes teetotal. Lips that have touched liquor will never touch his…But then the withdrawl symptoms begin.
Eli is showing an unusual amount of brotherly love - but can it really be just because it's Nellie's birthday? And is the Starlight Roof, Colne, the ideal place for a quite birthday treat?
After many years of faithful service to Pledge's Purer Pickles, the time has come for the firm's entire transport - Stan and his cart-horse Storm - to go into retirement. But what kind of a send-off should Stan get? He's the first employee ever to retire from Pledge's. All the others have died on the job.
Nellie finds herself bedridden and bedsore. But, she says, it's all a mistake. Eli had the symptoms - why should she end up in the blanket-bath?
The problems of parenthood arrive at the Pledge's home in the form of Nigel, the teenage son of a cousin. Nellie and Eli, homely and sensible Lancashire folk, arrange a children's tea party for him, but jellies and Eccles cakes are not quite Nigel's cup of tea. Precocious fellow that he is, Nigel has more mature things on his mind in the shape of ""birds"", and some searching questions for Nellie and Eli about those ""birds"" - and bees.
Walter and Lily, the Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman of Colne, have been together now for 24 years, and their marriage has always seemed, to outsiders, to be one long honeymoon. Nellie and Eli move in as marriage-maker and marriage-breaker when Lily confesses that the relationship is not all it appears.
Labour relations have always been good at Pledge's Purer Pickles; the last strike there was solved quite happily when Winston Churchill ordered the troops in. Demarcation disputes are unknown; cauliflower cutters get the same piece-work rates as gherkin girls, and the beetroot-boilers are totally happy with their two shillings a week danger money. Fringe benefits are good. You can take home as many misshapen pickled onions as you can carry. So why is there the smell of revolution in the air?
Considering they're brother and sister, Nellie and Eli Pledge aren't the best of friends. Perhaps they never stop to find out what the other is thinking or never listen or talk enough to each other. Life's too frantic to take time off and discover what makes someone tick - until one of those long-lost weekends when you find yourself with too much time on your hands.
Hard times arrive at Pledge's Purer Pickles when a pirate pickler undercuts their prices. It's like the Depression all over again and Nellie and Eli face the possibility of having to dispose of some of the family heirlooms like Stan and his cart-horse Storm. But will it come to that? Can the graph of gherkin sales be made to rise again?
Boxing Day at Pledge's Purer Pickles. The factory is quite. The last consingnment of special gift-wrapped gherkins for Christmas has long gone. Nellie and Eli find time to spend a few peaceful hours with the family. It is a small family circle these days and the Pledge's are left with Lily and Walter, affectionately known - by Eli at least - as the Christmas Fairy and King Rat. But is it a good idea to hold a séance to try to get in touch with old Joshua Pledge who has been dead these two years? Is Lily really a medium? Can the ghosts of picklers long departed really roam the factory? Is dad trying to get in touch with Nellie from that great pickle factory in the sky? And, for that matter, what was that noise? It couldn't be the sound of phantom clog-steps…could it?
Nellie and Eli have never been all that friendly, though up to now their relationship has never been actually murderous. But when Nellie stands to draw a useful sum in cash if anything nasty happens to Eli…Well, accidents will happen - especially to Eli.
Eli Pledge has been a dedicated bachelor for well over 40 years now, and it has never seemed a day too long. So when he breaks the habit of a miss-spent lifetime and brings home a fiancée, you can't blame his sister, Nellie, for feeling that there is something fishy about this romance. Any woman who is ready to take Eli for better or worse must have something to hide - and Nellie won't rest till she finds out what that something is.
Nellie Pledge is nobody's idea of a flighty piece, but one fine morning when Eli rolls home after yet another night on the tiles she decides that there must be more to life than bed and work. She wouldn't flit, would she? ""I'd flaming flit in a flipping flash"" threatens Nellie - and she does. But her new life as a bed-sit girl brings it's own peculiar problems...
When love walks into Nellie Pledge's life it is a safe bet that Eli Pledge is holding the door open with his foot. Romance comes to Nellie in the shape of a self-made tycoon with one eye for a pretty face and the other for a quick profit, and the quickest way to Nellie's heart is inevitably through Eli's pocket.
Disaster threatens Pledge's Purer Pickles when the workers start to stay away in droves. Nellie Pledge is disgusted. ""If the workers want to go in for this absenteeism"", she tells Eli, ""they ought to do it at home"". In the meantime, production must go on, so Lily and Walter are called in to keep the pickles flowing. But, though his intentions are honourable, Walter's methods seem destined to drop any reputable pickle works well and truly in the mire.
Down-trodden Walter has never really enjoyed good health; in fact he's never really enjoyed anything. And when the Grim Reaper finally swings his scythe it's no good ducking - even if you've got the energy. In the Pledge's best bedroom - the one with the posh lampshade - he is sinking fast. The problem for the Pledge's is to get him to make a will before he goes under for the third time.
Christmas…The time for the loved ones to be gathered together in one place. But when you don't want them, and you can't get rid of them, you might find that there is not quite enough goodwill - or indeed anything else - to go round.
When a prowler prowls in the local park it is time for decent, respectable women to lock themselves in their houses. When Nellie and Lily set off in search of him - to clear Walter's name - it is more likely to be the prowler who stands in danger!
Nellie and Eli suspect that Lily's interest in the new coalman is much more inflammable than his wares. Where there is so much smoke, they reason, there must be fire - especially in a smokeless zone!
When Nellie takes over the local pub, business booms - for every other pub in the district! Eli suggests a striptease act to bring the crowds back, and that can only mean trouble, especially for Nellie and Eli.
Eli hires a new works manager from the local labour exchange; but why does the arrival of Major Lovelace [retired] of Catterick have him cowering in fear?
Burglars never worry Eli Pledge. He knows there's nothing worth pinching in the house. Why, then, do they worry Nellie? Has she something to hide?
The management of Pledge's Purer Pickles is pleased to offer a Directorship to any man who wins a fortune on the football pools, even if it turns out to be Stan.
The problems of Pledge's Purer Pickles must take second place; for each of it's co-owners is hearing wedding bells. But when the Pledge's enter the Matrimonial Stakes they inevitably fail to come under starter's orders.
Fourteen days holiday in sunny Spain for 10p all in! It sounds too good to be true. And it is…
A tiff in a launderette, under Nellie's gentle touch, bids fair to becoming a national crisis.
The Pledge's consult an industrial efficiency expert in a bid to improve production at the pickle factory. When the workers come out on strike in protest, it is left to Nellie and Eli to keep the pickles flowing.
When Nellie chases Eli out of the ancestral home, Lily and Walter come to stay…And stay…
Can dandelion leaves picked at the time of the full moon really win for Pledge's Purer Pickles the coveted Golden Gherkin? Nellie's wonder ingredient lands her greatest rival, Arnold Guttersby, in a real pickle.
The long arm of the law reaches out for Eli from the distant past; but, with Nellie in court, all is set for the Law to get it's knuckles rapped.
Nellie, Eli, Lilly and Walter play a game of Snakes and Ladders and reminisce about a childhood Christmas.
The festive season is upon us…And for the stalwarts of Pledge's Purer Pickles, there's high drama and low farce 'mid the tinsel and the turkey when Eli becomes an impresario. He tries to double the picklers' Christmas party money by sinking it into a pantomime production. ""Stinking"" seems the right word when the cast walks out and Nellie has to take over the part of Cinderella. She tells Eli: ""If there's no money, them picklers will have your ear'ole for an ashtray"". And it's as well that Christmas comes but once a year - for Nellie can't remember the script…
Harry Hampton comes to town. Eli owes him £25 but can't pay up, so, as Harry has nowhere to stay, he invites him home. So far so good. But Harry is a real Don Juan, and when he and Nellie are seen in a ""compromising position"" on the sofa, word gets around the pickling factory that Nellie must have ""something"" if Harry fancies her. And all the men start chasing her…Nellie, of course, is flattered, and starts living up to her reputation.
The Pledge's gherkins have tickled the fancy of a certain Monsieur La Vaterre in France - and Nellie and Eli fly to Paris to discuss the Common Pickle Market.
Eli thinks his holiday is going to be filled with birds and booze. He doesn't know that Nellie has booked a holiday at a farm - a health farm!
Romance goose-steps back into Nellie's life with the sudden appearance of Siegfried, a one-time German prisoner of war whom the Pledge's befriended back around 27 years ago. Trouble-shooter Siegfried invades Pledge's Purer Pickles and for Nellie it is the Battle of the Bulge all over again.
There is to be a royal visit and the Pledge's are in a right pickle. Nellie has new overalls made, the picklers have hats which keep falling off and flags are raised to mark the splendid occasion. The whole factory is keyed up for the pending visit, but there's a surprise in store…
Things not only go bump in the night, they leak, creak, gurgle and rattle when the Pledge's are forced to spend the night at a lonely moorland cottage.
