Me and the Bishop

The Rector asked who would like to be confirmed by the Bishop of Oxford.  I wasn't sure what this entailed, but he mentioned that we would need new dresses. That was all it took to bring me to religion - if he had mentioned shoes I would probably be a member of a closed order of nuns by now or perhaps an anchoress - a modern Julian of Norwich.

Confirmation lessons were surprisingly interesting - knowing so little about religion there was always something to surprise me - it was like some amazing soap opera with funny names.  The best bit came after the lesson when Mrs Rector used to make us hot chocolate and biscuits, then the Rector would turn off most of the lights and tell us ghost stories.

Confirmation day came and I put on my new dress (navy blue with a white sailor collar decorated with a couple of red anchors - I can see it now) - suspect the shoes weren't so good as I have no memories of them.  We get to church to find tens of small girls all dressed up as Barbie bride in flouncy white numbers with veils (sorry - again no recollection of what the boys wore).

I don't have a veil and am in a panic.  Mum, although not an experienced confirmation attendee, was not to be defeated - she attaches my baby sister's muslin cloth (i.e. the cloth for wiping baby puke - let's not beat around the bush) to my head.

I'm sure the Bishop winced when he came to bless me - it may have been the matelot outfit or the delicate aroma of  vomit issuing from my hair.

Me and maths

My brain isn't designed to do maths (or to use DVD players, drive cars, change light bulbs or set up computers i.e. basically anything I can persuade someone else to do as they do it so well...)

I became aware of my mathematical shortcomings when fairly young.  At primary school we had a maths test every Monday morning.  I didn't mind the test itself as it gave me uninterrupted time to think about books or food , but I hated it when we went through the answers.   The headmaster (who taught the top class) would read out the question - something like 'If it takes 20 men 50 years to fill a bath containing 45 gallons with a tooth mug how many months will it take a old man armed with an egg cup' or some such nonsense.  He would then look a round for the child least likely to know and then demand an answer.

I grew wise to this and just before 'answers' I would put up my hand and ask if I could go to the lavatory.  I would then hang around in the lav making origami animals out of paper towels until I heard the lunch bell ringing and then reappear in time for goulash and jam roly-poly.

I probably got away with this for about six months before the HM asked my Mum if there was something wrong with my bowels.

Nan and the guinea pigs

One day Nan produces a cardboard box saying she has a surprise for us.  My parents exchange anxious looks.  Inside is a heap of straw that moves as if something is going to erupt from it (think John Hurt's chest in Alien).  Nan parts the straw to reveal a small furry bundle: a guinea pig.  Orange and white with black button-eyes and wiggling furiously.
'Cousin Doreen's got an Alsatian,' she says as if this explains everything.  The box fortunately was not big enough to contain an Alsatian - even a puppy.
'He eats anything that moves so I said I'd find a good home for this little chap'.
Mum and Dad don't want a  guinea pig, but know when they have met an immovable force.  The guinea pig is christened Peachy - another top-class animal name from me (Just as well I never became a racehorse namer or one of those people who think up paint names - Farrow and Ball would have gone out of business).
The straw continues to churn.
'Well, if you are going to have the big one,  you'll have to have the small one.'   Nan reaches in and pulls out a tiny guinea pig - this one is black and brown with a little caramel sprinkle.  He is covered in tufts of hair, not smooth like the other one.  Inevitably I decide to call him Tufty.

Nan puts Peachy and Tufty down to play on the floor.  Peachy zips around, but Tufty lurches drunkenly.
'He's a bit lop-sided,' says Dad, picking him up. 'Oh he's only got three legs.'

'Yes'  I know,' says Nan as if three-legged pets are nothing out of the ordinary. ' That's why I was telling you about Doreen's Alsatian, he bit the leg off poor little Tufty - so I couldn't leave them there could I?'

me and the school tuck shop

At primary school during morning break nearly all the children would descend on the tuck shop (there were no more than 90 of us from age five to eleven).  We were allowed to go out of the side door of the school and into the headmaster's garden, through the garden, minding not to step on the plants or his wife would get cross, and then down the lane to the village shop.

The shop, which doubled as a post office,was tiny and we were only allowed in three at a time.  The elderly woman who ran it didn't like time wasters and would start shouting if we took too long deciding (no suggestion of the customer always being right).  I would often start planning my purchases on the way to school or even in bed the night before.  The enticing glass jars I hold responsible for my imperfect gnashers.    My favourites were sherbet dabs - always discard that rather medicinal liquorice stick (they look alarming like leeches) and use the finger,  That way the flavour could be savoured all day and at story time you had the comfort of the wrinkled yellow finger to suck if bored.  Other favourites were flying saucers - sherbet again, rainbow drops, black cat chews and fruit salad chews, Love hearts were good .  Liquorice  shoe laces - red or black - tasted vile, but were useful for garroting people or tying their hand together (we played a lot of kiss-chase at primary school and the boys weren't always compliant so restraints were necessary).

Me and Dad's razor

Before or after?

Strange how something as natural as female body hair is now something women are told they should be ashamed of.  I'm concerned that we are in danger of creating a generation of John Ruskins and that when the full bush makes a comeback (as it surely will - think the modern obsession with vintage) all these young men will be traumatised and have to undergo graduated exposure therapy.

The fair-haired tend not to be very furry, but as teen I realised that even blonde hair on legs was thought unacceptable - someone stroked my leg (uninvited I should stress) and said that my leg felt like his guinea pig (hope he meant one of those smooth ones, not the tufty type).  Now I love guinea pigs, but I don't think  it was a compliment.  So I borrowed my dad's razor (to both his horror and disgust), shaved my legs and managed to gash the back of my thigh open (scar still there) - the bathroom looked like something from Psycho.  But the said legs did feel rather nice - once the scabs had gone.

Having got the hang of the razor (despite dad's protests - and when have I ever taken notice of them?)  I decide that my eyebrows are grotesque (blonde version of Frieda Kahlo crossed with Breshnev) and need some attention.  There are no tweezers in the house (we didn't have a phone - we're hardly likely to have tweezers), so I take the heavy razor and apply to my left brow - that goes quite well.  I then apply steel (or whatever razor blades are made from) to the right brow, the razor slips and removes half my eyebrow - unfortunately not the outside bit which could easily be hidden.

In despair I inspect my denuded brow - it looks a bit like a baby mouse, pink, naked and vulnerable.  There is no such thing as an eyebrow pencil in our house (Mum being dark and not having need of such things) so I fetch a felt pen and try that - I look a bit like Bette Davis, scrub it off (funny how brown felt pens leave a blue after-stain - chromatography I vagely remember explains this).  So the glowing naked brow is now bright pink with a blue aura.

Disguising it is going to be difficult - I don't have a fringe, just a floppy sheet of hair that will not cover the nude brow.  The hair stays in place if I hold it in my mouth - sadly not practical in the long run.   So I adopt a very low parting - female version of the comb-over.  I think it is hidden quite well, but immediately I go downstairs Mum asks where my eyebrow is, Dad inspects me, looks a bit cross and says, 'In my razor - I expect'.

I would like to say the eyebrow grew back, but sadly it is still patchy.  Perhaps this should serve as a lesson for anyone shaving their punani - be warned it may not grow back  (possibly safer to stick to waxing) - then when fashion changes you'll face a lifetime of wearing merkins.

Me and when I'm not allowed to have a good time

I have a role in a school play as a Sultana (wife of Sultan rather than wrinkled currant-type thing) - don't ask as I remember very little about my Thespian experience.  My 'Sultan' is from the year above – not typical passion material as he is very keen on physics, but he makes me laugh like a drain, steals my pencil case and  spends a lot of time pushing me off chairs (such are the inexplicable courtship rituals of the young). 

Term ends and I am parted from this fascinating creature.  Living in the countryside is a bit of a pain as we don't live in the same village and transport is limited.  He can not phone me, as for some reason, my parents don’t have a telephone (we also have a black and white TV unlike everyone else I know).

One day Mum holds up a crinkly envelope and says, 'Who is writing to you?'  

I wonder if it might be an answer from the agony aunt in my ‘teen’ magazine giving advice on how to stop your mother steaming open your letters?  But no, it is from Jerry inviting me to a gathering at his house which I am informed is ‘in aid of nothing, but having a good time’.

Sounds good to me, but Mum obviously doesn’t want me to have a good time and strictly forbids me from going. Her main reason being that she knows just what 'having a good time' means - I find this very hard to believe. (She may have had a point - I was probably about thirteen or fourteen).

I am distraught, slam doors and sulk.  I phone Jerry from the phone box and announce I am not allowed to  ‘have a good time.’  He comforts me saying that it won't be long before school starts again and we can see each other.  I am not comforted - this is a tragedy of epic proportions.

I sit at home that Saturday night glaring, but as Mum and Dad had gone to the pub my glares were wasted on them.  I then look mournfully out of the bathroom window in the direction of Jerry’s house and concentrate really hard on making him think about me and hope he isn't having a good time.

Eventually the Autumn term starts.  I return to school sporting that fetching combination of knee-length grey woolly socks, a skirt that should be on the knee but is rolled up revealing lots of mottled thigh.  I suspect it was accessorized with a slightly too short fringe - Mum would have been busy with the nail scissors the night before.

I go into the classroom where Jerry can usually be found and find him sitting on one of the huge cast-iron radiators that heat the school.  Sadly he is not alone; he is snogging (I will not dignify his actions with anything as delicate as kissing) a girl called Susie from the year above him.   Such public displays of affection are rarely seen at school (or in the hours of daylight in Oxfordshire).  I am not amused, actually I am furious - all those evenings of thought transference wasted when I could have been watching TV.

I decide to play it cool - in my dreams.  I get very red in the face and shout at them, ‘You'll get piles!'
I am then mocked, for the rest of the term by the boys in his year, as the girl who thinks that (what can I safely write here?) ‘physical congress’ gives you piles.  It didn’t matter how often I repeated ‘cast iron radiator’ they still laugh.

Me and sex education: boy in the bath

For  Фома́

When this takes place my son is five, he sits in the bath while I read Thomas the Tank Engine to him - I curse the Rev Awdry on a daily basis.  Suddenly he (Son, not Awdry) turns to me and asked,  'Muma, where do babies come from?'

I am not prepared for this, I break out in a sweat and start to hyperventilate.  This is an important, if premature moment.   I  make him play with dolls and watch Disney princess films - he is to be a new man - women in the future will thank me.  No, don't get excited - let me just say that my experience had shown that nature beats nurture hands-down.

I have always said I wouldn't lie to him - how easy to say this when your baby can't talk and ask awkward questions - Dutch courage is called for. I tell him to sit still, not to touch the taps and that I will be back in thirty seconds.
A pair of penetrating blue eyes judge me as he tells me I'm not allowed to leave him alone in the bath, in case he drowns and that Alfie's mother (thanks Shirley Hughes) would stay and read about Thomas.

Little prig - I think disloyally.

I run down to the kitchen and had a quick glug of neat gin (mother's ruin? No, more like mother's rescue remedy).  Run back upstairs and sit outside the bathroom where I can see him, but he can't see me. How to start -  birds, bees, hamsters?  Play-dough models - oh God -  should I do diagrams, what about Lego - he loves Lego?

'Muma, where are you?'
Damn, where is his father when you need him - this is man's work?  I take a deep breath and go in to the bathroom; the gin is being to work - I'm beginning to feel slightly less tense.
'You know you were asking about where babies come from?'

No , I can't do it.  Perhaps I should wait until he's older - keep it on a strictly need-to-know basis - the full horror of this thought hits me, perhaps after all five isn't such a bad age for sex education.
'Now about babies...', my voice is strange and wobbly.
'Mama, who do you like best - Gordon or Henry or do you like Annie and Clarabel because you are a girl?'
My lovely boy with a memory akin to a goldfish.

Thomas the Tank Engine I embrace you (not literally - there are limits, although I believe there are women who fall in love with inanimate objects) and am sorry for all the rude things I usually say about you.