Skidmark Sid and Herbert Hives (who lived together) asked their neighbour, ‘Margaret with two small melons’, round to share a bath. Sid liked Margaret, Herbert liked Sid, and Margaret liked to be naked; no touching was involved. After three months Margaret inherited a million pounds from her pet greyhound, Slim Jim. They talked about what best to do with the money, and decided to open a department store. They called it ‘Skidmark, Melon and Hives’; it wasn’t a success.
At the
opening press conference, a journalist, thinking perhaps that Sid had once been
a motor racing driver, asked how he came by the name Skidmark. Sid told the
truth: sales plummeted, particularly in basement lingerie (a speciality of
Herbert’s), and soon they had to close the shop. Herbert Hives then came up
with an idea: he painted a red cross on the side of some old tin cans, and went
round the local area collecting money. Soon, he had a million pounds. ‘It’s
such a great idea, I don’t know why no-one thought of it before,’ said
Margaret. They used the money to open a restaurant. Realising they had made a
mistake with the name before, they played safe and called it ‘Neighbours’.
Quite by accident, it became extremely popular: hungry punters arrived from all
over thinking it had something to do with the famous Australian daytime soap.
To cash in on their unexpected success, Skidmark Sid changed his name to
Harold, and ‘Margaret with two small melons’ changed her name to Madge;
Herbert, however, changed his name to Skidmark because he loved his friend and
wanted to be more like him.
