Some may say their meeting was written in the stars. Some may say that they were star-crossed lovers whose planets could do nothing but find each others orbit. Some may say that, but theyd be talking crap.This is the story of how two men, both adults of reasonably sound body (if not mind) joined together to make sweet music, using only various electrical appliances for assistance, including a faulty Breville, some Wensleydale cheese, a jar of home-made piccalilli and a hock of ham for good measure.Derek Sydenham, a ferret-wrangler of solid Yorkshire stock, grew up in the Dales in Arkengarthdale to be precise. A sullen and uncommunicative boy as a youngster, he found true happiness only through his prized ferrets Snowy and Scouse and a small radio on which he regularly listened to the top 40 each Sunday. Snowy and Scouse gave meaning to Derek whose existence would have been wholly wretched were it not for his live-in companions and the lifeblood of popular beat music. Happily they would laze away days together, Derek stood atop a warren as the two little fellas wreaked havoc on the rabbit population of the Dales.As an adult, it was only natural that Derek would find solace in the arms of the most notorious and beautiful ferret-wrangler in all of Arkengarthdale, Julie Mills. Mills was a large bosomed beauty whose smile was not at all spoiled by the crooked and grey teeth that jutted proudly out. But Derek was yet to meet his true soulmate.One day, as Derek patrolled the Dales for more rabbits to skin and sell to the local farmer a terrible accident befell him. He still finds it difficult to fully explain what happened, stuttering to find the words to express the pain properly. On the hospital admission sheet, it merely said: Inflammation of the trousers.As luck would have it, Derek found a sympathetic ear (and hand and leg, as it happens) in the guise of hospital orderly Pancho Villa. Back home, in Argentina, Pancho had been a leading brain surgeon, but here in Airedale Hospital he had been reduced to such lowly ranks through lack of the correct certification and an incident involving a heavily built lady from Ripons Womens Institute, a liposuction procedure and a second-hand Dyson.As the day progressed and the nurses ran test after test on Dereks pants, desperately searching for a reason for the swelling, Pancho and Derek bonded over their mutual love of ferreting and music. They excitedly recounted tales of rabbit warrens and hearing the music of Julio Iglesias, Boston and St. Winifreds School Choir for the first time. By the end of that long and fateful day, they had resolved to find a way of combining their favourite hobbies into one exciting music-based project: The Delta Sierra Clinic.If you could imagine all the best music in the world (Joe Dolce, Jive Bunny, the Macarena) all combined together, using a hi-tech computer and some new-fangled modern beats for the dancing people, Delta Sierra Clinic is most likely what it would sound like*. Says Derek: We want our music to knock the socks off all of the young people listening. If the youngsters dont feel like getting up on the floor and doing at the very least the Macarena and possibly even the Mashed Potato or Shag, then we will have failed.The Delta Sierra Clinic is nothing less than a love explosion in the rabbit warrens of your mind. Imagine a world in which everyone ate rabbit pie most nights and always knew what was happening on Emmerdale. Thats the world in which Delta Sierra Clinic exist. It may be a parallel world, it may even be an unrealistic world, but if great artists dont strive for greatness then what point is there in living?The Delta Sierra Clinic believes in living to the max, with full headlights on all the time, and even sometimes without wearing a seat belt (but only in built-up areas). They're crazy and mad and they dont care who knows. So long as Dereks mother doesnt find out.
* Subject to varying degrees of accuracyP.S. Dereks trousers made a complete recovery and are now living in sin somewhere outside Pontefract.Scouse and Snowy in their prize winning outfits.
