DRESSING for the occasion has rarely
backfired quite as spectacularly as this.
The Parkham Women’s Institute in the UK
county of Devon thought dressing as pirates
would add a humorous twist to an address
by retired sea captain Colin Darch, with
many turning up wearing eye patches and
wooden legs for a talk on piracy.
The good humour quickly went out the
window when their guest speaker started
talking about his real-life ordeal in which he
had been held hostage for 47 days by a gang
of Somali pirates in 2008.
Darch and his crew were hijacked by 20
heavily armed pirates off the Somalian coast
in 2008, only released after a ransom of
£400,000 was paid by relatives and friends.
Luckily, Darch took the honest mistake in
good humour, quipping “They seemed to be
a little embarrassed but it didn’t offend me
in the slightest”.
“In any event, the ladies didn’t look the
slightest bit like Somali pirates – more like
the Pirates of Penzance,” he joked.
“Naturally everyone was aghast when we
realised our mistake,” Parkham Women’s
Institute’ Stephanie George said.
