The Girl from Dorothy Perkins

Years before Bret from Flight of the Conchords there was – Ben.

Ben was a reporter on the Cornish Guardian while I was a reporter at the Western Morning News, almost ten years ago.

Cornwall is one of the most beautiful parts of England but it can be a bleak and miserable place, especially when you are in your twenties and your girlfriend lives about 3,000 miles away.

Fortunately, Ben was always there to cheer me up. He was adept at getting into odd scrapes, such as the time someone broke into his car in Newquay purely for the purposes of using it as a toilet, provoking an anguished appeal by Ben to Devon and Cornwall Police to test the offending material for DNA. Or the time he tried to intimidate a bouncer with the only threat he could make – “I write things down” – which, needless to say, didn’t get him very far.

But Ben was also gifted with the ability to come up with odd songs at a moment’s notice. My favorite ditty was “Dorothy Perkins,” which Ben composed about a girl who worked in a clothes shop opposite our offices in Bodmin.

Ben now lives in Coventry and writes a blog about Coventry news. (His video about the perils of Coventry Ring Road is a must.) He contacted me recently to say that when he mentioned his songwriting to a local band they offered to record Dorothy Perkins professionally. The result is embedded below for your listening pleasure.

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