Hello, and welcome to a new series of articles in which I, Peregrine Eggewysc, the Vervoid’s very own out-and-about, go-getting reporter go out and about exploring the highways and byways of this sceptred isle, meeting the people and exploring some of our most beautiful towns and cities. Which obviously rules out Reading, but you can’t have everything. No, it remains my firm belief that the people of this country, with their funny ways and traditions, remain the salt of the cream and the cream of the earth. And it’s that cream that I’ll be lapping up on what will hopefully become a regular basis, swallowing down mouthfuls and mouthfuls of the lovely white stuff- and who knows, it may be your alley I go up next time.

I began my tour of Britain in the small Somerset village of Nether Itching- not to be confused with the nearby village of Much Scratching in the Nethers. Now while Nether Itching may be unknown to many of you, its famous sons include Ned Huckaback, the long-serving groundsman at Somerset’s cricket ground in Taunton, Ed Huckaback, well-known for his pig-rearing (although nothing was ever proven), and Ted Huckaback, the inventor of mumps. It’s also the home of a firm of cider makers who are making quite a name for themselves in the usually sedate and laid-back world of cider. Several years ago, the local cider factory seemed to have a one-way ticket to closure; orders were down and many of the burly cider press workers were forced to go on the game in Weston-super-Mare just to make ends meet. Then, however, a mysterious Romanian investor otherwise known only as Count Vlad appeared one evening, paid the existing owners Huckaback and Huckaback a large sum of money for the factory- and now Nether Itching Cider is winning awards and new enthusiasts worldwide. I was fortunate enough to be granted an interview with Count Vlad, which he gave me one evening after the factory had closed for the night.

"So, Count Vlad, would you like to tell me a little bit more about yourself and how you came to own a Somerset cider factory?" I began, with the kind of delicately-weighted opening gambit on which I have built a long and successful career in broadcasting.

"I am, as you are aware, the last in a long line of my race, from a desolate and mountainous region of Romania. For centuries, my ancestors ruled their district with an iron grip, inspiring terror and hatred in the hearts of the peasantry, who started to tell bizarre legends- that we were vampires, lords of the elements, in league with the very Devil himself and able to change form into a vampire bat or a vicious wolf at a moment’s warning. Then under the Communists we were forced either into exile or into a secretive existence in the wild places of the countryside to preserve our existence. But now that Romania’s joined the EU, we’re just buying up clapped-out old factories and keeping them going using cheap labour from Eastern Europe." Count Vlad took a sip of the famous Itching Red cider from the glass on the table in front of him.

"And I understand you’ve introduced one or two new lines as well?"

"Ah yes, the Itching Red is based on a traditional Romanian recipe with one or two special ingredients."

"So what is it that makes Itching Red just so special?"

"Blood."

"Blood?"

Count Vlad looked slightly flustered. "The blood, ah, blood is the- that is to say, cider is the lifeblood of the beautiful county of Somerset, and our workers put their body and soul- that is to say, their blood into the cider."

"Literally?"

"Don’t be silly."

"So the cider doesn’t have blood in it?"

"Well, occasionally we have an accident and somebody is careless...I mean in a cider factory, all those apples, you’re bound to get a few rats and mice in every now and then..."

"But no human blood?"

"Would you like a tour of the factory?" Count Vlad rose from his seat and showed me to the door. He led me along an illuminated gangway in between the enormous vats where the cider is produced- I could have sworn I saw something black fluttering in between the vats in the darkness at the back of the building, but it was dark and I may have been mistaken. At the end of the walkway was a large X-shaped cage roughly six feet in height and big enough to hold a man, suspended from the ceiling by a series of chains and pulleys.

"And what’s this, Count Vlad?" I asked, looking down to see the cider apples bobbing down a channel of water into the first stage of the cider pressing machinery.

"This is where we put our victim before we cut his throat and drain the delicious blood into the cider press," he replied, looking gleefully up at the cage, running his finger down one of the bars and licking something off it.

"I’m sorry?"

"Ventilation," he added hurriedly, turning around as if he’d suddenly remembered something. "This is a new ventilation device devised by our chief scientist, which we hope will improve efficiency and the quality of our lovely Itching Red."

"Ventilation?"

"Yes."

"Not human sacrifice?"

"Only on Tuesdays."

"Pardon?"

"No, no, not at all."

With that, I thanked Count Vlad for the interview and returned to my trusty motor carriage and returned to the village inn, where, due to a slight misunderstanding over bookings, I found three young ladies waiting for me in my bedroom with very little in the way of undergarments and very much in the way of teeth. After a forceful discussion with the landlord, the young ladies were persuaded to move into another room- while I’m all in favour of encouraging groups of young people from overseas to come to our country to experience our culture, three to a room seems to be taking advantage when freelancers such as oneself are paying full whack. And so, the following morning, after a hearty breakfast with plenty of fresh black pudding (locally made, my host assured me), this scribe bade a fond if slightly relieved farewell to Nether Itching, only noticing on the way out that a hoarding in some fields on the edge of town proudly advertised under construction the new headquarters of the National Blood Service.