Julian Bean and his mournful suspicious wife

Julian Bean was famously capricious. That’s not to say he was famous because he wasn’t but if he had been, it’s surely his capriciousness that he would have been famous for and this made his wife Morwena Bean more than a little bit suspicious.


As with all people noted for their capriciousness, sometimes Julian Bean wasn’t capricious at all. But it’s like he said more often than was necessary: “Hello and welcome to my world. My name's Julian Bean and I’m characterised by and subject to the forces of whimsy, I’m as unpredictable as a sea monkey at an improvised comedy workshop, but I can’t always be capricious, can I? Would you like to dance?"

Julian Bean enjoyed very much welcoming people to his world, which he considered with a swath of superiority to be more original, more fun and generally better than other people's worlds. This firmly held conviction was objectively unprovable (of course) but what was no matter of debate or opinion was the fact that Julian Bean couldn't dance. He could do a fair number of things, he was a zesty conversationalist, an enthusiastic climber and a dab hand at spotting a rare bird when it behove him to do so but he was intrinsically, woefully incapable of moving his body in any vaguely rhythmical fashion.

Because Julian Bean was defined by his wild and sporadic changes in mood and behaviour, it came as no great surprise to those who knew him when he suddenly passed away for no particular reason.

"Capricious through and through", said the vicarious vicar at Julian's impromptu funeral which was held on a tugboat in Monkton Park, as part of the Chippenham River Festival. "Julian Bean was at a loose end for the first time in his life and it would appear, incomprehensible though it may seem, that this, understandably, is why he finally snuffed it."

His mournful and suspicious wife carried on living after Julian's death right up until the time of her own, but she always slept in fancy dress, as Greta Garbo one night, Attila the Hun the next, in the vain hope that her dead husband might capriciously one day come back to life.