featuring:

Cap'n Greenbeard - a portly legendary scourge of the Spannish main and his crew: LusciousLindsaybeard the figurehead, Fionabeard with her enourmous canon and the hulking brutish figure of Brownbeard the First Mate

Cap'n Yellowbeard - sculduggerous scoundrel of the seven seas and his unwilling followers: Looperbeard the Lookout and Edbeard the drunken helmsman and navigator

Cap'n Redbeard - the fairest piratess of them all and her crew; HunkyDunkybeard the first mate, Silverbeard St Clair the shipsmaid, and Richbeard the poor pirate with the purple helmet

The first skirmishes took place in the village, in fact the pesky locals stole the cunningly placed message bottle from its hiding place - the phone box and placed it in a nearbt wastebin. The rotters!

The next thing to go wrong for Admiral Chisholm (a not so distant relation of Seaman Staines) was the airfield preventing the placing of a message bottle within its borders. Like all good pirates, the good Admiral Chisholm ran off.

After an uneasy truce lasting exactly 1 hour, Captain Yellowbeard and his crew snuck up on Greenbeard who had their thoughts upon the upcoming moorland top ale house. After a short waving of cutlasses and firing of cannons, Captain Yellowbeard stabbed Greenbeard through the beard with his favourite rapier but Greenbeard got a shot off with his trusty dueling pistol which he had hidden within the cavernous depths of his pirate attire. A draw was decalred. At this point, the two crews merged by means of a 2:3 rights issue and public listing on the Aleutian stock exchange. They went to the pub.

Meanwhile, Redbeard forged onwards and nearer to the treasure.

Exiting the pub days later, the Green/Yellowbeard crews were accosted by a acouple of the local lawmen. However these were soon bribed and threatened into servitude and sent onwards to waylay Redbeard's crew who at this point were forging ahead, partly due to HunkyDunkybeards navigating and partly due to the tyranical leadership of the infamous Redbeard herself. This ploy failed as the beaters were soon keelhauled and flayed alive by Redbeard's cat o nine tails.

The Admiral, during this point was staggering around Eyam Moor looking for a stone circle. He was desperately lost and staggering through enormous swathes of razor sharp heather, cursing his navigator for having eloped the previous year with a Herdwick from Swaledale whilst stealing the compass . After an hour, it occured to the Admiral that the stone circle was quite possibly not of the size of Stonehenge and he began to despair. However, a cunningly placed and very smelly sheep carcass eventually pinpointed the position where he was able to hide another messagebottle before swashbuckling down to the plague village where he was to bury the treasure...

The treasure, aaargh!

Treasure, you see, is best never left in daylight and Eyam the plague vilage has one of the best treasure-leaving spots between Baslow and Bakewell. The Admiral arrived in his untrustworthy white chariot and just about managed to squeeze his portly frame into the murky depths of Carlswark the Wonder Cavern just as the merry sounds of pirating filtered through the surrounding woods...

The three crews arrived at Carlwark the Wonder Cavern's Gin entrance at the same time and there was much "aaaargh"ing, waving of cutlasses and glinting of eyes. A stand off in other words. Redbeard took the lead and sent her trusty HunkyDunkybeard down the cave. Greenbeard followed, making sure that the Green/Yellowbeards crew were not to be cheated. The Admiral went down there too - wearing a convenient viking helmet which was possibly not the best choice as the horns kept getting stuck in the cave roof.

It was dark down there. Muddy. And slightly cold. The Admiral even pinged a button on his navy great coat as he forced his belly through a tight bit. HDbeard was first looking in all the wrong passages and so it was Greenbeard who found the tresure first, screaming with pirate joy as the chest was openened exposing the gold and silver coins and gold bars inside. At this point, HDbeard said the secret pirate word and showed himself to be the hidden crewman of Yellowbeard. He offered to carry the treasure out of the cave himself. A task which Greenbeard was only happy to leave, as carrying the heavy treasure chest up a 20ft cave entrance would impinge on his natural good looks and beer thirst. Redbeard was waiting at the entrance, overjoyed that her crewman was the finder of the treasure, dismayed when he handed over the box to Yellowbeard who in turn was dismayed to find that his trusted Lopperbeard the Lookout was in fact Lt. Looper of His Majesty's Customes and Excise...

It never pays to be a pirate!

As they say in salty, foggy coastal villages the world over...

"Aaargh"

Pub, anyone?