Category: comedy blog

Chalky Purple

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Is chalk used in schools anymore?

When I went to my south London schools, it was always very evident.

I used it on my first day – as a drawing implement where I depicted my mum looking like a giant potato with no arms – and on one of my last days, when I had a piece imbedded into my skull, thanks to a particularly irate music teacher. 

Having had a mis-spent youth, my O-level results were reflected by the amount of chalk inside my waistcoat and behind my ears. 

During my O-level year there was so much chalk on my hands, anyone would have thought I’d taken up weightlifting. 

Chalk was much in use in my school playground.  You knew who was best at maths as the hopscotch grids went in the correct numerical order.

One of our class’s dads was a toy salesman; with a stolen set of Crayola multi-coloured chalk, we had yellow penalty areas, turquoise lines outlining the Double Dutch rope-swinging area and purple stumps.

We were the ‘60s equivalent of Kerry Packer!

Let them eat doughnuts

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Every morning, on my walk to my Tooting secondary school, I’d pass a baker’s.  The smell coming from the shop was so awful it deterred me becoming a baker.  I assume it must have been the yeast?  Probably why I never enjoyed our family holidays on the hop farm.

In the early ‘60s, a shop, which you could have found on the Champs-Elysées,was brought to Balham High Road in the shape of La Patisserie.   The pastries and bread were lovely and you’d almost expect Jean-Paul Sartre to be sitting outside; although, this could have been dangerous should a 155 bus suddenly veer off the road. 

I spent a lot of time in there as my mum was friends with the owners.  Lots of French Fancies, very few Gallic philosophers.

Being a baker is one of those occupations where you have to get up early.  I couldn’t have coped with that as a youngster.  However, these days, in increasing age, I wake up stupidly early.  So early, I’m thinking about getting “Debbie does doughnuts” out of the library and starting my own bakery.

I’d certainly continue with the French theme: I’d call the shop Les beignets, c’est nous; wear a beret; a Thierry Henry shirt and mock people when they try and speak French.  

Blowpipe dreams

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I’m surprised I never ended up in Madame Tussaud‘s Chamber of Horrors given the toys I had as a kid.

By the age of six, I’d become very adept at using a tomahawk.  Luckily, it was made of rubber and therefore the chances of me chopping people’s scalps off was remote.  

As if encouraging the art of decapitating wasn’t enough, my father once brought home a blowpipe.  A German client of his had sent it to him.  I scoured all my Christopher Isherwood, Goethe and Sven Hassel novels, but never found any mention of blowpipes. 

When I was given the gift, I had the sudden fear we’d be leaving the safety of our Balham flat and moving to New Guinea; my new-found prowess with a blowpipe ensuring we’d become self-sufficient the moment we got off the boat or plane from Croydon Airport. 

The blowpipe darts were, of course, rubber-tipped.  The worst I could do was take one of my parent‘s eyes out as they entered my bedroom brandishing my evening hot chocolate. 

As you get older, there’s a medical test where you have to demonstrate your ability to blow.  Little do these doctors know, I’d been trained by Pygmies from an early age with my blowpipe and, during the test, I imagine I’m trying to kill a mammoth.

It was a few years ago now. 

Playtime conkers all

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As you get older, so you complain more about the vagaries of the weather. 

During my south-west London school time, during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, I can never ever remember there being “wet play”. 

We had two 15-minute breaks. (I still think of a quarter of an hour as one-playtime).

As boys, we would invariably play football.  However, there were two dangers in our playground.

The only boy who didn’t play football, ran round the playground pretending to be a Ford Zodiac.  There was the danger that he’d take out our team right-back when mis-timing his turn round the school water fountain.  And a Ford Zodiac, for those who can remember, was a very big car.

The other ever-present danger was the girl who thought she was a golden retriever.  Not only could her lead get caught up with your legs as you sped down the wing towards the opponent’s goal, but there was the constant danger of catching rabies if she bit you (she had a note from her mum saying she didn’t need a muzzle).

If it had ever rained, we’d have been in our class struggling against pretend carbon monoxide fumes and the smell of wet dog.  Still, it was preferable to Music and Movement.

Setting a small bar

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The few times I was allowed to go with my parents to socialise at other SW17 houses, I was always amazed where the drinks where kept.

In our flat, if you were a visitor, you’d assume my family were sponsored by Bell’s or Gordon’s.

The drink wasn’t stored in some fancy cabinet; in our flat, it was in the mandatory brown sideboard, next to dad’s old Chelsea programmes.

In other peoples’ places the Black & Decker had been working overtime as one wall had been transformed into a small bar – albeit without the dartboard and cardboard sleeve of packets of pork scratchings.

One family had a globe.  The globe would open up and a selection of alcoholic beverages were instantly displayed – I assumed Marco Polo had a similar container?  I tried spinning it once and nearly broke my wrist.  Although, only until recently, I thought gin came from Abyssinia (it was an old globe) and Soda Stream was a lake in Africa.

Some families had clearly won decanters at various fetes; many had collected glasses from Esso.  In 1970, they may have swapped them for a card featuring Martin Peters.

Once, trying to help out, I thought I’d move the pineapple off the Borrowers-sized bar; having picked it up by the top, ice-cubes suddenly scattered to all parts of the shagpile. 

For the remainder of the evening I was condemned to sit, and not move, by the Dansette record player.  It’s not unusual.

“…because tonight, Michael…”

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There’s always someone on the telly you feel is on every programme you watch.

Growing up, watching my TV and listening to the radio (or wireless as my nan called it – she was ahead of her time), for me, it was Eamonn Andrews.

I was too young to listen to his famed radio boxing commentaries, but do remember “What’s My Line?”. 

I often wondered, possessing the worst, illegible signature in the world, what the panel would have made of me?  Doctor would be the most courteous answer; psychopath, the more obvious. 

I noticed they never invited Lady Isobel Barnett to sign in – latterly, of course, her “line” was shoplifting. If they’d have let her have a go, she’d have probably have nicked the pen and drawing board.

Holding his red book for “This Is Your Life” was a must-see programme. Again, I often wonder who they’d have dragged out if I’d featured on it?  When he last presented it, in 1964, I’d have been seven, and therefore not have had much of a “life”. 

My guests would have been two nursery school teachers and the cleaners in my Balham block of flats – most of whom hated me and called me “Michael” – something I’d have found deeply distressing on live television.

“Crackerjack”, for my generation was another programme he was on.  I’d have never gone on that due to my allergic reaction to cabbages.

A chocolate is not just for Christmas

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I was given a box of chocolates the other day.  The chocolates were made by Lindt, something I thought you found in a First Aid box.

Inside was the list of contents.  Some of the descriptions were so long, Tolstoy could have written them.  By the time you’d read what was in the box, you’d have lost your chocolate craving and not worried about ordering a higher potency of Statins.

At Christmas, inside my Balham flat, there would always be the obligatory tin of Quality Street. 

Inside the lid, there’d be a chart showing which chocolates were inside: “Fudge”; “Coconut Éclair”; “Toffee Finger”; what it didn’t say was: “Flown, First Class, from the cacao fields of Mexico; fermented, dried, roasted and grinded for your delectation and mixed with hazelnuts (because, hazelnuts seem to feature in every chocolate these days) and lovingly shipped from Turkey”.

All I need to know is, IS it a COFFEE CRÈME?

But what if you’re colour blind?  You really don’t want to be mistaking a Strawberry Cream with a Toffee Penny.  It’d be like eating a giant handful of Revels – your palette wouldn’t know what day of the week it was; would it be hard or soft and would you be needing an emergency dentist’s appointment later that week?.

But one thing, which has remained the same is: at what stage do you start tucking into the second layer?  Probably when there are only Praline Surprises left on the top.

Deep, fat Friar

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As if going to big school, and having to wear long trousers in September 1968, wasn’t alien enough, what I didn’t anticipate were the new words I’d have to learn.

We were told about prefects.  At my first playtime I expected to see a fleet of Ford Perfects lined up on the rugby pitch.  How surprised I was to see several bigger boys, adorned with their badges of authority, checking no one ventured onto the rugby field.  The rugby field confused me too.  Why had they built two longer poles above the football goalposts? Clearly they’d had a job-lot delivered?  And where was the penalty spot?

During the lunchbreak we learned about a thing called “the tuck shop”.  I was a massive fan of the ITV series Robin Hood, which ran in the early ‘60s; I thought we’d meet one of Robin’s merry men.  I was, however, praying it wasn’t a travelling barber’s.

We were also informed, should we ever need to temporarily leave our Tooting school, we’d require an exeat.  At primary school we’d not studied Latin.  We’d learned how to a throw a beanbag, pretend to be a tree during Music and Movement and drawn lots of dinosaurs; we’d never had to conjugate Latin verbs.

But the most confusing word for me was: homework.  My inability to get my head round this word was duly reflected in my 1973 O-level results.

Gloria sic transit (Gloria was ill on the journey).

Eyes wrong

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I went to the opticians last week.

I’ve been going since I was five, a consequence of failing to pick my dad’s googlies playing cricket against the garages by our Balham flats. 

“Can you read that car registration number?” asked my father. 

“What car?”  Off to the opticians in Tooting High Street we went.

They now have many more tests than they did in the early ‘60s; but the one constant is the 1930s sci-fi apparatus they put on your head.  This certainly hasn’t been designed by Prada; Ray-Ban or Hugo Boss – some of the options for later should you need new glasses.

By the time I was eleven, I couldn’t see the large letter at the top of the table in my left eye.  Back then they couldn’t make the lenses thinner, so my left eye looked like the lens had been made by Unigate rather than Carl Zeiss.

The use of glass from this famous east German glass manufacturer worried me as a kid – clearly watched too much Emil and the Detectives at Saturday Morning Pictures.  I often assumed that, because these were where the glasses were coming from, all opticians were spies.  Although at our local optician, Burgess & MacLaine, they all seemed terribly nice people.

“Shut up, Eccles”

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As a kid, I managed to get most of the childhood illnesses: measles; mumps; scarlet fever; chicken pox (I can still smell the calamine lotion) and German measles (which, oddly, the Germans don’t call English Measles).  I’d have had diphtheria, except my mum couldn’t spell it.

I’d had all these by the age of ten, and wished there’d been an I-Spy book for me to have ticked them all off.  I never got West Nile Fever (25-points), even though we did live near the River Wandle.

When I was ill, it was my dad who looked after me; my mum invariably had “one of her heads” – Balham’s answer to Cerberus – so caring for the sick fell to my dad.

Whether it was dabbing calamine lotion on me; pumping me full of penicillin or just sitting on the bath while I occupied another piece of bathroom furniture, he’d chat away.  Usually about sport or comedy.

Dad would ask whether the Tommy Baldwin/George Graham swap was good for Chelsea; how lucky Kent had been with wicketkeepers through the years, as he extolled the virtues of the (then) very young Alan Knott and would suggest getting comedy records out of the library, as he wanted to introduce me to The Goons.

All this lead me to feel better – however unwell I was.

If ever I’m unwell now, I talk to myself in the style of Eccles, Bluebottle and Minnie Bannister.  More effective than kaolin & morphine.