Category: comedy blog

Growing up in my Balham flat I didn’t exactly share rooms with Fanny and/or Johnny Craddock.  While my Mum had many kitchen utensils, she rarely used about 98% of them.

She had a percolator, but this percolated so infrequently, rather than have a sprinkling of chocolate, you were more likely to receive a smattering of dust on your freshly-brewed coffee.

My mother never baked, so the Kenwood Chef might as well have been in Kenwood rather than Balham, although it did make a rather good door stop – unless you were allergic to meringue which would sometimes form on the doorknob.

The things which did get the most use, if only by me using them to explain the offside rule to a very disinterested mother, but rather than adding some literal spice to our food, was the collection of brown (everything was brown in kitchens in the ‘60s) pottery herb and spice containers.

Such was the lack of use we, were more likely to get attacked by Parsley the Lion, weed on by Dill the Dog or assaulted by Bayleaf the Gardener than see any of them in the ingredients at mealtimes.

Mum’s piece de resistance was her egg ‘n’ chips; luckily she never added bergamot!

If you’d have asked her what she liked best about coriander, she’d have said Ena Sharples; Henry VIII was her favourite turmeric and she thought holy Basil was a local priest.

Chive anyone?

Nearly 200-years ago, Victor Frankenstein was in his German laboratory creating life; fifty-years ago, I was in the kitchen of my Nan’s Balham flat hoping to create something more powerful than Anthrax.

I never owned a “My First Chemistry Set”, so my science knowledge was purely self-taught.

I would be allowed to use anything spare in my Nan’s kitchen, as I created my “experiment”.  Having been given an old milk bottle and after I’d half-filled it with water, I’d add some Bird’s Custard and some pre-Boer war curry powder, and then venture next door to the secret supply of 19^th Century medicines, hidden behind my Nan’s cistern.

After several spoonsful of sulphur, there was Andrew’s Liver Salts to be included – gave my concoction some added fizz as my Nan tended to not have much Moët lying around; Timothy White’s Lavatory Cleanser – safety first was always a priority, and a sprinkling of Instant Robin Starch – give it a bit of body – not unlike Victor Frankenstein.

However, the piece de resistance was Senakot – as if the other combined ingredients weren’t going to make you regular enough!

Once my experiment was complete, I needed a willing patient.  My great Aunt lived next door and, because she smoked forty Embassy before she’d had breakfast, had precious little sense of smell.  She was a good sport and pretended to drink some of it; my punishment was to count her Embassy tokens later that week.

With 99.9% of my efforts still intact, we would sell it, in Balham Market, as a deterrent for foxes; something to ward off vampires or a carpet cleaner if you didn’t like your existing carpet.

In the early summer of 1968, I was on the telly.

I wasn’t the person on the test card; neither did I feature on Police 5 and nor did I have my own chat show (producers tend not to give them out to 11-year-olds).

The BBC cameras had caught me at Lord’s, watching the visiting Australian cricket team practising in the nets there.  I’d travelled there, from Balham, courtesy of a Red Rover ticket, and featured on an item covering the Aussies’ arrival on Sportsnight with Coleman.  I did wait by the phone for many weeks after as I saw myself as the next Simon Dee.

Sadly, a career in TV was never going to be a possible due to genetics.

After the 1966 World Cup there was an ad in the Radio Times inviting people to apply to be the new commentator.  My Dad applied.  Sadly, for him, Motty got the job – and didn’t we all know it – especially during Match of the Day – as Dad berated the TV screen saying – in the style of Yosser Hughes – that he’d taken his job.

It was also this natural inclination to swearing which brought my Dad’s audition on Fifteen to One to a very abrupt and vituperative ending.

My TV career was ended as soon as it had begun; I’m sure TV executives do an MI5-type search of potential show hosts.  Although, I guess I should be grateful, as my Dad’s lack of anger management and extensive swearing vocabulary stopped me from being attacked by an emu.

“Quite remarkable!”

I was around five, and sitting in my Balham flat, when I had to take a career decision: would I become a sailor or an outlaw?

Weekend afternoon TV in the early ‘60s had two excellent TV shows: Sir Francis Drake and The Adventures of Robin Hood. 

I would sit, transfixed and inspired, in front of the telly wondering whether a life on the seas would be preferable to a life constantly trying to thwart the Sheriff of Nottingham?

My complete inability to swim and possession of a toy bow and arrow made the decision easier.

I would prowl around the block of flats where I grew up knowing that King John could possibly own one of the maisonettes – I can now assume he never left Runnymede.

I’d have struggled on the Golden Hind.   They never had Kwells in the late 16^th century; I’m not a massive fan of scurvy and, although I also speak German, I’d struggle in a port-side gift shop as we circumnavigated the globe if they didn’t speak either of those two languages.

So, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor would be my metier.  However, this was Balham in the early ‘60s – a town not renowned for its billionaires – a place where Elon Musk was thought of as a type of perfume.

So, the new Magna Carta would have to wait to be written, decreeing that no robber baron could live in SW17 and Iceland would remain undiscovered.  In the late 16^th century, it was still called Bejam anyway.

Land ahoy!

One thing I miss, whenever I’m eating boiled eggs, is the Noddy eggcup I had, together with its accompanying blue hat with a bell on to keep the eggs warm.

A kitchen table is probably much changed from mine in my ‘60s Balham flat.

Gone is the Formica (which looked suspiciously like an old piece of lino) used as a table-cloth and I bet kitchen tables these days don’t tend to have mangles built in underneath (because you’re always thinking about wringing out a damp vest when you’re tucking into your muesli).

Do people still have novelty cruet sets?  My Nan’s was so old, she had representations of William & Mary on her salt and pepper pots.  Those were the days when the sell-by date simply said: ‘the end of Pitt the Elder’s government’.

The thing which confused me as a kid was when mustard was prepared.  It was put into so small a dish and served with so small a spoon I thought The Borrowers were doing the catering.

If you’re a football enthusiast, it was important to have a fully stocked kitchen table.  Especially if you were to re-enact a spectacular goal you’d seen (or indeed scored for your Cub pack on Tooting Bec Common) you needed as much condiment action going on on your kitchen table as was possible.  You cannot explain the offside rule without the use of a jar of marmalade, a pile of salt and a couple of kippers.

Pass the toast, please, Jeeves.

The only nature I experienced growing up in the ‘60s living in between Wandsworth and Tooting Bec Commons, was as I wandered across them identifying (largely unsuccessfully) various flora and fauna.  (Until I started learning Latin, I thought Fauna was Flora’s brother or a type of small deer).

These days, as an adult, what you did with plants and flowers back then, has changed.  

No longer, due to social distancing, can you ascertain whether someone likes butter or not – unless you’ve a two-metre-long stick with a buttercup stuck on the end.

The moment you own a garden the thought of blowing off dandelion spores (regardless of whether you want to know the time or not) would be abhorrent – as if you haven’t got enough weeds!  Also, I’m at that age, and up in the night so frequently, picking them and thereby running the risk of wetting the bed, is largely academic!

When you’re older you tend not to throw sycamore leaves into the air and watch them descend pretending it’s a Messerschmidt 109 you’ve just shot down.

And bending down to pop open a snap dragon’s ‘mouth’ is far too onerous – although, Antirrhinum does sound like something you’d use to stop chafing.

I’d have made more daisy chains, but this was 1960s Wandsworth – not Woodstock.

This afternoon, I’ll be making mustard and cress as, over the years, I’ve collected a lot of old flannels.