As a child, I loved a small seaside town called Looe on the southern coast of Cornwall. We’d drive all day in a rusty Ford Cortina, dragging a leaky, two-berth caravan wearily behind. I’d watch my dad expand as he left behind the workshop he loathed. Swell back into himself like the incoming tide. His back straightening from the hunch over his lathe. He could breathe again, and soon, he would smile again too, at least for a little while. We would teeter on the edge of the eastern cliff for one wonderful week in July, overlooking the town, the harbour, and the Banjo Pier.

I’ve since dreamt of owning a coffee shop in Looe. My own little place. Not hugely ambitious, I know - not going to the Moon, filling the Albert Hall, or lifting the World Cup ambitious, but I realised early in life that abject mediocrity was most likely my ceiling – and I’m okay with that.

You must understand, the thought of leaving the stale red-brick town in which I was made and destined to live, work, and die, where apathy hung like fog in the air, and resilience was the only quality worth having, for a life spent in swim-shorts and flip-flops, breathing cool air straight off the sea – well . . . everyone’s version of Heaven is different, I suppose.

Mid-way through my fifties, I’d smashed the shackles of that melancholy little town (which I never dared break from myself) off my kids and sent them out into the world. My wife had decided that Tony, the widowed grocer who lived opposite, was a better prospect for her future happiness than I was. She was probably right, and I bore no grudge. I packed the boot of my car and headed south, and like my dad before me, I began to breathe again.

My arrival in Looe was like coming home. Little had changed in my long absence. I stood on the eastern cliff, late in a June evening, and cried like a baby over a tangerine sunset sparkling in the windows of the returning fishing boats. The sea was glowing like the embers of a dying fire, heaving gently, breathing - a sleeping giant.

My place was small. A golden stone building with a slate grey roof, on one of the higgledy-piggledy backways not far from the sea front. It had a kitchen in the back and a small counter with space for only three small tables inside. Outside was a large patio which I filled with green, circular tables and fold-away chairs. I employed a local girl called Maisie with experience of working in a café. She had a Cheshire Cat smile, freckles, and a marmalade ponytail which she tied with an emerald, green ribbon.

Everything was perfect . . . except for the seagulls. They shrieked, swooping in waves like dive bombers, grabbing half eaten sandwiches from my customers’ hands. The screaming children were bad enough, but it was the angry parents and the refunds they demanded which really stung. These feathered, airborne rats caused trouble throughout the town, but there was something peculiar about my position, perhaps the proximity of the church tower, which offered them the perfect launch point from where they could orchestrate their raids.

I had a brilliant idea. I remembered as a child, visiting my uncle’s farm and being shocked by finding an open sided shed full of grain, or more specifically, by the dead rooks hanging from orange baling band across the opening, their wings dangling like damp rags and dried, black blood coating the tips of their beaks. I asked my uncle why they were there. He told me the carcasses kept other rooks away, which might otherwise fly into the shed and eat the grain. That morning, I rushed into town to buy an air rifle.

Seagulls are bold. They show no fear in their beady, hateful little eyes. Marching around like little gangsters, as if they own the place. This makes them easy targets. After a few early mornings, slipping down to the harbour before anyone was about, sprinkling toast offcuts around and taking aim, I had quite a haul. I strung the carcasses, like a kind of macabre bunting around the perimeter of my patio.

It worked, not a gull came near. Other cafe owners laughed and pulled faces, claiming it would drive customers away, but I found quite the opposite to be true. Business was booming. I kept my deterrent fresh, replacing any carcasses before they smelt too ripe, or bits started falling off.

One day I got a letter. I had been employing my deterrent, minding my own business for weeks, so I assume that some jealous competitor had decided to stir up some trouble. The letter stated that I had been reported to the Environmental Health Department, that they would be sending an inspector, and if what had been alleged in the letter was true, I was certain to lose my licence. I waited nervously.

The health inspector was a horrible, robust little man with a chubby square face, and grey wispy curls that swirled around his head like smoke in the sea-breeze. He arrived early on a sunny morning in late September, just as my café was beginning to fill. Immediately he saw my deterrent, he was furious and wouldn’t listen to reason. Red-faced, sweating in his brown, polyester suit, he held a white handkerchief over his mouth and swished flies away with a blue folder, of which, I must admit, there were quite a few - bluebottles mostly. I noticed one of my deterrents, twirling in the breeze like some ghastly Christmas decoration. I had a brilliant idea.

I ushered the inspector into the privacy of the kitchen, leaving Maisie holding the fort. I closed the door, and as he opened his folder and began thumbing through the paperwork, I reached into the knife drawer for my cleaver. I’m handy with an oil stone and it had a nice keen edge.

Obviously, I needed something more substantial than the garden twine I’d been using. I managed to scavenge a hefty piece of rope from the harbour, and after some ingenious engineering with a discarded lamppost, I had the old chap swinging nicely, next to the front entrance. It worked a treat, no more visits from Environmental Health Inspectors.

If you’re ever in Looe, and you fancy a great cup of coffee, or the best cream tea in Cornwall (without the inconvenience of sea gulls) please call in, but whatever you do, don’t complain, I don’t take criticism well and you just might become the next deterrent.

Jeremy lives near the Yorkshire coast, where he works in a school. He graduated with a B.A in 'English Literature and Creative Writing' from The Open University and now teaches creative writing night classes for his local adult education organisation. His fiction has been published in print, in the 'Glittery Literary Anthology Four' and ‘The York Literary Review.’ His stories have also appeared online with 'Sky Island Journal', ‘Loft Books’, 'Erato Magazine', and ‘The Mocking Owl Roost'.