David's PLAN B

Another idea to save our charity shop

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I don't suppose you remember this, but we actually have a male volunteer in our charity shop.

He's called David, but he rarely gets a mention on this page because he is modest, unassuming and just gets on quietly with his work. He did once appear in the shop in a bright red cardigan and a bow tie, but we soon broke that habit. He used to work in advertising, or perhaps marketing, and he has one of those very neat beards that you used to see on actors in black-and-white TV dramas.

Anyway, I thought I ought to give him a full briefing about the campaign to get rid of Mrs Protheroe, who is our newish manager.

It is her ambition, as I might have mentioned before, to turn our little shop into the charity retailing equivalent of Harvey Nicks.

Everybody but her agrees that this is a silly idea. What with that and the fact that she's a terrible snob, we – that is my friend Wendy and my sister Deb – have agreed that she has to go.

'Yes,' said David. 'She's not gone out of her way to make herself popular here.' David is very keen on understatement, which is not what you'd expect from somebody who has been slowly marinated for many years in the advertising business.