Les Buckley

Les Buckley was a smooth-talking salesman who conned Mavis Riley when she was left in charge of The Kabin for several days while Rita Littlewood was away visiting friends.

His said his purpose in visiting the shop was to buy a bag of Everton mints, supposedly to help him in his quest to quit smoking and he soon started to chat ten to a dozen and flatter Mavis. He told her about his sales job and the fact that he’d just pulled off a good deal for high-quality ladies tights which retailed at 10p each. Telling her that he found her easy to talk to, little by little, on two visits he started to overcome her nervousness to the point where she asked to buy one gross (i.e. 144) of tights off him. In between visits he made a call from the Rovers to an unseen associate, told him that he had another buyer and to make sure the top layer in the boxes were good ones. The next day he called back at The Kabin with two gross, easily talking Mavis into buying a second box as well and walked away with £28.80 cash for the items, leaving Mavis with his business card.

Rita, on her return, was not pleased with Mavis’s executive decision and, smelling a rat, undid one of the packets from nearer the bottom of a box. Upon holding the tights up, it was apparent that Mavis had bought faulty stock in that one leg was shorter than the other. Rita was apoplectic with her assistant and only calmed down when Mavis made a pathetic attempt to come to an arrangement to pay Rita back out of her salary, an offer which was rejected, telling her to put it down to experience. Mavis rang the number on Les’s business card, only to find that it was the phone number for the Samaritans.