I didn’t see it.

Though I really wish I had.

They told me that the explosion was really quite spectacular.

Some Bramfielders conga-lining around the car park at the back of the Jolly Gardeners, singing in the New Year and the new millennium, thought at first it was a firework display that the Laird had generously laid on for them.

The charges had been so perfectly placed, you see, and the beauty of it was, as I later came to understand, they were not triggered by any pre-set timing mechanism. The Doveston had let fate set them off.

Allow me to explain.

It had been his obsession that the end of civilization as we knew it would occur at the stroke of midnight on the final night of the twentieth century. He said that he knew it. Had seen it. Had felt it. Whatever. And he was so absolutely certain of this, that this is how he triggered the bomb.

A simple cut-out switch linked to the detonator. As long as the electrical mains supply to Castle Doveston remained on, the bomb remained harmless. But should the power fail, the cut-out switch would trigger the bomb.

And so, of course, if the Secret Government of the World had not really engineered the Millennium Bug and sabotaged all those computer systems, the power would remain on. But if they had and the National Grid failed...

The Big Aaah-Choo!

And, at the very stroke of midnight, the computer systems went down and the National Grid failed.

From beyond the grave, he’d had his revenge.

And, love him or hate him, you had to admire him. It was a masterstroke.

But I was telling you about how the charges had been so perfectly placed.

Three separate charges there were. Cunningly angled. They totally atomized Castle Doveston. But through the nature of their positioning, they did something more. They sent three rolling fireballs into the sky.

Three rolling fireballs that formed for a moment the triple snake Gaia logo of the Doveston.

Pretty damn clever, eh?

But, as I said, I didn’t see it. The big lorry I was trying to drive smashed through the gates, hurtled along the road towards the village and then came to that rather tricky bend just before you reach the Jolly Gardeners.

Well, it was dark, very dark now, no street lights or anything. And I hadn’t managed to figure out how to work the headlights on the big lorry and there was a lot of ice on the road and we were going very fast.

I turned the wheel and I put my foot down hard upon the brake, but that bend was rather tricky at the very best of times.

‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!’ went Norman.

‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!’ I agreed.

I do have some recollection of the big lorry’s rear end overtaking us and all these trees appearing out of nowhere and then suddenly we were rolling over and then everything went rather dark.

We missed the Jolly Gardeners by inches, but we did hit that very picturesque-looking Tudor house opposite. The one with the carefully tended knot garden and the preservation order on it and everything.

It didn’t half make a noise, I can tell you.

I awoke to find that Norman and I were all tangled up together on the ceiling of the cab, which had now become the floor.

‘Are we dead then?’ Norman asked.

‘No,’ I told him. ‘We’re not dead. We’ve survived. We’re safe.’

Now, I don’t know why I said that. I know I shouldn’t have. I know, as we all know, that if you say that, then you leave yourself open for something really bad to happen.

You bring down upon yourself THE TRICK ENDING.

Don’t ask me why this is. Perhaps it’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. But I did say it. And once I had said it, I couldn’t very well take it back.

‘What’s that funny noise?’ Norman asked. ‘That funny scratching noise?’

That funny scratching noise. Now what could that be?

Could that perhaps be one of the chimeras that had somehow managed to get aboard the big lorry and was even now making its wicked way along inside the back, before plunging into the cab to rip us limb from limb and gulp us down?

Well, it could have been, but it wasn’t.

It was just the wind in the trees.

Phew.

‘Tell me we’re safe,’ said Norman.

‘We’re safe,’ I said. ‘No, hang about. Can you smell petrol?’

Of course we didn’t die.

We weren’t blown to buggeration.

We were out of that lorry and into the Jolly Gardeners with seconds to spare before the fuel tank exploded.

There was hardly any damage at all done to the pub. The Tudor house took most of the blast. Which was a pity, seeing as how it was so old and well kept and picturesque and everything.

But, as I’ve told you before, I’m very much a Victorian man myself. I could never be having with Tudor architecture.

Norman had no money on him, so I had to pay for the pints.

Not that there were any pints on offer. Not with all the electrics off. The pumps wouldn’t work any more.

‘All the bloody power’s gone,’ declared the landlord. ‘It will be that centennial mouse we’ve been hearing so much about.’

‘Millennium Bug,’ said Norman.

‘Who said that?’ asked the landlord. ‘I can see sod all in this dark.’

Actually it really wasn’t all that dark. The light from the burning Tudor house opposite offered a comfortable glow.

‘Just give us two doubles out of the nearest optic,’ I told the landlord. ‘And don’t trouble yourself with the ice and a slice.’

‘Coming right up.’ And the landlord blundered off.

‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’ said some old bloke in the corner. ‘This reminds me of the war. Why don’t we all have a sing-song, eh? Revive some of that old Blitz spirit, that made the working classes what we were and what we are today.’

‘And what are we?’ I asked.

‘Shufflers,’ said the old bloke. ‘Shufflers and proud of it.’

Well, that was good enough for me, so I sang along with the others. These were my people. I was a part of them and they were a part of me. I was home at last amongst my own. And we sang, our voices raised. A song that we all knew and loved. A song that meant so much to us.

It was a song of hope. An anthem. A song that said, in its way, everything there was to say about us.

There were tears in my eyes as we sang it.

‘Here we go, here we go, here we go.

Here we go, here we go, here we go-oh.

Here we go, here we go, here we go.

Here we go-oh, here we go.’

I forget how the second verse went.

What happened as the clocks struck twelve on that final night of the twentieth century has now passed into history. Oral history, that is. Because there is no other. Oral history, fireside tales, and no two tales the same.

As with the assassination of JKF, everyone remembers where they were on the night the lights went out.

Because, for most of us, they never went on again.

A chain, it is said, is only as strong as its weakest link. We learn that in infants’ school. So what of technology’s chain? All those systems, linked together? All those computer networks, exchanging information, feeding off each other’s data-flows?

Throughout 1999, the British government had worn its bravest face. At most, only one per cent of all systems will be affected, they said. A measly one per cent. Nothing much to worry about.