Darth Vader and stormtrooper helmets with roses

The stall went up on the harbour road this morning, and the roses are holding, so you can stop worrying. The trouble is the two helmets. Dad dragged them out of the skip behind the fish market on Tuesday, a black motorbike lid with a grille like a bread bin and a white one with a crack down the visor, and insisted they'd make better vases than anything in the catalogue. I said no. He said a bloke who sells flowers out of a helmet has a story, and a story sells roses.

So I painted them. Stems and leaves wound round the black one, lacquered until it shone, and the white one got a band of red roses across the jaw. Then Dad wanted words, so I lettered three ribbons in the sign-writer's hand Grandad taught me: JOIN, THE, and DARK SIDE across the chin. Mrs Pilling from the bakery read them and asked if we had a rival florist. Nobody else has said much, but two lads off the trawler bought carnations for their mums and stood reading the ribbons like they were the shipping forecast.

At closing, a man in a wet anorak stopped and read the ribbons twice. 'Is this a recruitment drive?' he asked. Dad said it was a sale. The man bought the white one with the crack, paid in coins, and asked whether we took orders for the black one too, because his brother had been wanting a helmet to match his shed.

I've put the black one in the window with a card saying Not For Sale, which is a lie, because it's already got a price on the bottom in Dad's handwriting. Tell Grandad his lettering is still the best on the front. Love, Kath.