A BODY in the attic and problems with a bridge drive are some of the items in a spoof set of minutes produced for Christmas by Conservatives near Salisbury.

The minutes purport to be those of Woodford Valley Conservatives between 1994 and 1995 and appear to lift the lid on the everyday problems they faced, including the eccentricities of supporters with large houses and the general bumbling and meandering of committee members.

Jane Rasch, the current branch chairman, who has produced the booklet, said: “It is just a fun thing. They were a lighthearted version of the minutes of the meetings which people have found amusing and so I brought them out as a little collection.”

She said she had originally written up the minutes at the suggestion of her late uncle, Sir Richard Rasch, who had been the secretary of the Woodford Valley branch.

She added: “It is based on a mixture of the experiences that one had going to those meetings. It has had quite a surprising reaction, because I thought they were too local in their relevance, but people who have no connection with us at all have enjoyed it.

People have got the joke. I have changed most of the names except for the Rasches. A long time ago, before they were published, they were sent to Downing Street and passed around the Cabinet table.”

Former Salisbury MP Robert Key features in several entries, while “dance band leader” and Wiltshire resident Sting is also an entry as a potential attraction at a wine and cheese and pate party. However this idea is rejected is as the party would attract enough interest “without inviting any weirdos to come along as well”.

Another entry says it was agreed that the committee was up to strength and with “the added benefit of the role of Mr Adrian Crawley (and his mother who Mrs Nancy Wilson reported was discovered dead in the attic several years after her demise...)”.

Copies of the minutes, which cost £7.50 are available from the Aldeburgh Bookshop, 42, High Street, Aldeburgh, IP15 5AB or by emailing johnandmary@aldeburghbookshop.co.uk.