My Grandfather's Eulogy

On the 4th of April I lost my grandfather. I haven't spoken about him on this blog, but only because I tend to hide from what I'm afraid of. I was aways so scared of him dying, and almost believed that if I wrote about it, it might happen sooner. This is the eulogy I delivered at his funeral. It was difficult to write because I had to confront a world of pain to do so, and I'm not happy with it even now and wish I could have done better for him. Nevertheless, here it is.

Growing up around Grandad was like growing up with your own version of Roald Dahl, though I sometimes wonder if the real one was less mad. His infectious sense of fun and mischief filled our childhood with magic and laughter, and some of my happiest memories exist because of him. He was always so much more concerned with playing games with us children than hanging around with the boring old grown-ups, and consequently, we all have a lifetime’s worth of crazy antics to remember him by. In fact, there were so many crazy antics that I had trouble choosing which to reminisce about today.

Not all of you will be aware of the range of our grandfather’s abilities. It may surprise you to learn that he spent some of the early 1980s as an astronaut. Indeed, he was a very talented co-pilot and accompanied me on many important missions to the moon. To the untrained eye, our spaceship looked suspiciously like my grandparents’ dining room table, which had to be boarded by getting down on our hands and knees and crawling underneath. As you have gathered by now, Grandad wasn’t like other grown-ups, so he was the only one who could see the magnificence of the ship. He also had the patience of a saint, which is a good quality to have when you’re co-pilot to a three year old girl during a moon-landing. He wasn’t always as professional as he could have been, sometimes he fell asleep mid-flight, but I found he soon woke up again if I shook him hard enough and yelled at him to do the count-down.

Eventually, I moved on to new things, Grandad hung up his space helmet, and his knees gave a sigh of relief. With so much free time, he decided to turn his hand to horticulture. To this day, I’ve yet to meet another person clever enough to make a shoe-tree bear fruit. The tree in question grew in the street outside the front of our Grandparents’ house; it had been there for years and hadn’t done very much at all until Grandad decided to work his magic.

One day, he took me outside and pointed up into the branches. There, hanging by its tiny laces, was a single, perfect baby’s shoe. I peered at it with wonder, and perhaps a small amount of uncertainty, but Grandad’s enthusiasm quickly caused me to suspend all disbelief. As time went on, the tree began to produce more and more fruit, until none of us could doubt that this was indeed a real, bonafide shoe-tree. Either that, or there was a glut of shoeless babies in Ilford, being pushed around in their chairs by perplexed mothers.

Looking back, it wouldn’t surprise me if he really did manage to grow a crop of baby shoes. After all, this was a man who could charm the birds down from the trees. I know this because George told me so; George was a close family friend and neighbour. George was also a blackbird that Grandad had somehow tamed enough that he would swoop down into the garden when you called his name. It wasn’t quite like the Disney image we’re all used to, George didn’t flutter down to perch on Grandad’s finger whilst whistling A Spoonful of Sugar, but it was as close as you’re going to get in real life. All you had to do was go outside and bellow “GEORGE!” at the top of your lungs, and the bird would be there. He’d even come into the kitchen for some crumbs. Eventually, Grandad also recruited a song-thrush and a squirrel. The man had an affinity with animals that would have made Saint Francis of Assisi jealous, and his compassion for them knew no bounds. I am proud to say that this is something he has passed onto all of us, though he never did tell us how to charm the birds, which is a shame because it would have made a nifty party trick.

Wherever he is now, I think we can be certain that Grandad has been reunited with one of the great loves of his life. A lady so important that she brought a wistful look to his eye every time her name was mentioned. Beautiful, graceful, fur all over her body, Fluff had it all. She cast such a spell over Grandad that after she passed on, he could never bring himself to own another pet. Clearly a one-cat man, I recently discovered that he had been marking her birthday on the calendar every year for the past thirty years. Like Grandad, I’ve been told that Fluff used to enjoy the odd drop of whiskey, so they’re probably somewhere enjoying a sip together right now…

All that remains for me to say is that Grandad was, and will always be my hero; he was the first man that I ever adored, and it is impossible to express just how much he’ll be missed. I decided that the best way for me to round things off would be to share with you some rather profound words that he taught me years ago: I’m a yella bazzellican conquadores from Arizona/Ragtime cowboy/Talk about a cowboy/Ragtime cowboy Joe.

Slow Reader

In bed, I watch Mr O reading. His eyes fly over each page in what seems like a matter of seconds. In one night, he can read what would take me a week. I envy the speed at which he consumes books; my university career would have been a lot more convenient if I were able to devour a text in a single bite. But this thing called “skimming” has never come naturally to me. We’re certainly not strangers, at times I have even done skimming –I wouldn’t have made it through my studies otherwise. But the fact remains that if I don’t mind skimming a book, it’s a book I’d rather not be reading.

Early into our relationship, I always assumed that Mr O was skimming everything, newspapers, computing texts, novels. The sight of him skimming a novel used to hurt me the most. After all, what is the point of reading a story if you're missing most of it? One day it became too much, I pressed him on the issue and discovered that he was not skimming at all, he was just reading very, very fast. Inhumanly fast. So fast that I failed to see how he could possibly retain the information and grasp the plot, unless he was a machine. This was something I’d suspected for a while anyway, and his ability to recount the finer details of plots and subplots seemed to confirm it. And if he wasn’t a machine, perhaps there was something wrong with me.

I’d never been in a special reading group in my life, but it was time to wake up to the fact that I was a slow reader. It was a bitter pill. The only literary pitfall I’d ever experienced was in primary school, where two brassy Essex reading-mums put me on a struggling list. It was later discovered that my reading was excellent, but the mums made me anxious and tongue-tied. I got over the slight very quickly, and continued my love affair with books into adulthood.

I took great pride in my little library. I’d lovingly collected some great books over the years. But it didn't matter how widely read I thought I was, I’d clearly been wasting time contemplating every last word. It didn’t seem fair. Mr O had far fewer interests than I, yet read so much faster. If I could learn his secret, I could be some sort of intellectual titan, or at least make the first cut of Mastermind.

But now, when I look back over almost a lifetime of slowly-read books, I realise what I’d be losing if I were a fast reader. University tomes aside, (though I’ve become quite close with some of them), every book I’ve ever enjoyed reading has been more than just a past-time. They have been places of retreat and sanctuary, places where I have escaped the humdrum of my ordinary life. When I have been numb from depression, they’ve reminded me that I can still feel. When I’ve been in between relationships, they’ve even gotten me off.

As a nerdy teenager with few friends and not a boyfriend in sight, I began to live vicariously through the characters in books. I would carefully recreate the author’s world in my head and breathe life into every last fictitious person, especially the dishy ones. In my defence, I wouldn’t be allowed out for the night until almost eighteen, and even then, I was expected back by about nine o’clock, ten if I was lucky. What was a horny adolescent goth supposed to do? Read books alone in her room, until she could almost feel the fangs sinking in, that’s what.

But you won’t feel those fangs if you’re a fast reader. You won’t get a sense of each character’s voice if you’re zipping through pages, either. When I read a novel, I need time to build a relationship with the book, I want to know what each character looks like, how they sound, how they move. I need to know them intimately enough that I begin to care about them. Isn’t that one of the keys to good fiction: characters you care about? I’ve never understood how one can care about anything if it’s just a blur of information in the race to the finish.

Mr O says I become too invested in characters, but if I didn't, I wouldn't read on. The other day, he looked at me with disdain when I lamented the demise of a character I'd barely met. It was an untimely end. He appeared, full of promise, and utterly beguiled me. How was I to know the author would smite him two chapters later? I almost threw the book across the room in outrage. The only thing that stopped me was my hatred of cracked spines and bent covers. Of course I went back for more, because that’s what a good story is supposed to do, hook you in, make you laugh, make you cry, have you on the edge of your seat with eyes like saucers. I’ve never seen anyone speed-reading on the edge of their seat with eyes like saucers.

So perhaps being a slow reader isn’t so bad after all. I might not get through so many books, but each one will be a spectacular performance in glorious technicolour. Rather than racing towards the end, I’m content to enjoy the journey, even fall in love a little. Endings are those bittersweet moments when you’re desperate to know what happens, without wanting to finish. Happily, I am currently on page forty of a seven-hundred-and-seventy-six page book. I may be some time.

The Gym

On and off, I’ve been visiting the gym for several months. This is so out of character that friends fear for my mental health, even I’ve noticed that pigs are flying past my window. I have a robust hatred of physical exercise, which I’ve been cultivating from the age of five. PE and I got off to a bad start and our relationship never recovered. In fact, PE continued to be a constant source of abuse throughout my school career.  I was always picked last for teams and I always came last at races. I used to consider it a bonus if I didn’t fall over my own limbs during Sports Day.

In maths class, teachers accept that some students need extra help, and they stream them into appropriate classes or get them a TA. In PE, it’s just assumed kids who are rubbish at sports aren’t trying hard enough, which makes them fair game for teachers and classmates alike. The thought of being in a lower set in my other subjects would have horrified me, but I’d have volunteered for bottom set PE. Sadly, the faculty of Physical Education didn’t believe in mercy.

With that in mind, it will come as no surprise that I got to the age of thirty before sucking up enough guts to start working out. Whilst not unattractive, I look like Olive Oil with a big bum, and my knees are decidedly knocked. The odds were against me. Sport and gyms might as well have been alien worlds, full of PE teachers and other monsters. Even walking past a Sports Direct used to make me panic, and not just because of the chavs inside. When I first went in to buy my trainers, I hunched over trying to look inconspicuous. I felt like I was at school again, that at any moment a bully might jump out and try to pull my t-shirt and bra off. As a side note, that actually happened to me, and the reality was not as titillating as the stuff in your head.

Beyond all of those fears, I wanted to hide the fact that I just didn’t have a fucking clue. What sort of trainers would I need? What sorts of trainers were available? Should I splash out on a fetching holdall that says “Nike”?  Was Nike still cool, or was there another label I should be buying? I remembered being harassed constantly at primary school for being the girl with the generic, unbranded trainers. I grew into a woman who’d rather wear patent platform boots, so up until my introduction to Sports Direct, trainers hadn’t mattered.

Once kitted out, I had another mountain to climb; I had to make my gym debut. The first time was the hardest. For three days I planned to go and promptly lost my bottle. When I finally took the plunge, the place was full of people who knew exactly what they were doing. All the women had tight little buns in tight little running bottoms, and little lycra-tastic vests encasing their little bosoms. I was wearing a pair of M&S black leggings and a baggy black t-shirt with a skull on it. Being a tall and goofy soul, I’ve gotten used to people looking at me, but this was unknown terrain, and I could feel all those athletic eyes burning into my big, un-toned backside.

Everybody seemed to be in the know when it came to operating the machines. It was like I was in a cult, except someone had forgotten to initiate me. When I attempted to figure out the controls on the elliptical trainer, I had to turn my iPod Shuffle up really high so I could pretend no one else was watching. And of course, no one was, they were all immersed in their own workouts. Unfortunately, I believed that operating sports equipment was akin to performing magic and it made me incredibly nervous. The first time I did it successfully, I felt like I could conquer the world.

Ever so slowly, I started finding my own way. One day, I discovered that the elliptical trainer has a program called “Round the World”, the various mountains are represented on the screen as bumps made up of red lights, and resistance is increased as one “climbs” them. I thought it was Christmas.  No more being bored for me, oh no. Now the machine would tell me each time I travelled to a new continent. Who cares about people gawping at your lack of physical prowess when you’re traversing oceans? It meant that I could spend time worrying about more useful things, like the fact that the other women could keep their hair under control, whilst mine was a wild, wispy mess after five minutes. I began to clamp my hair down with clips before every workout. It took hundreds; I have a lot of hair.

Gradually, my neuroses began to bubble healthily in the background, the more I went to the gym, the more I became desensitised to its horrors. I started to feel very proud of myself, and my confidence almost increased. So much so that I began to nonchalantly stroll past various weight machines, secretly eyeing up the instructions on the sides, but pretending I was taking a breather so no one spotted my knowledge gap. Before long, I was pumping iron. I was thrilled. I noticed that the other people who were also pumping iron did not look nearly as thrilled as me. There they were, taking their athletic ability for granted. Clearly, they’d never suffered vicious abuse from a PE teacher who didn’t think they were trying.

When I started noticing positive changes in my body, I almost fell over with shock. That exercise could make any difference whatsoever to my physique was a revelation. I had already written myself off as bad at sports, and was convinced I was such a pathetic specimen I probably wouldn’t reap much benefit even if I “did” sports. And don’t get me wrong, I remain utterly rubbish at physical activity, I still trip up, fall over, throw badly, complain loudly. But it turns out that I can manage just enough to be a bit healthier, and look a little fitter. And though it doesn’t sound like much, I’m proud of that, because for me, it was a giant step. I’ll always be the gym misfit, but that’s OK now. I don’t wear grips in my hair anymore, either. I just scrag it back, and let nature take its course. When I run on the treadmill and glance in the mirror, I still see Olive Oil with her huge butt bouncing, and I smile, because it is now a fit butt.

Private Eye

If he hadn’t been so well brought up, Max Stirling would have wedged five cigarettes between his fingers and smoked them all at once. Instead he worked his way through the packet, one after the other. Swigging whisky from his glass, he contemplated the bottle of scent that had been left on his desk. One of Stirling’s clients was convinced her husband was fucking some cheap whore, and this was the stuff he came home smelling of every night. Thing was, it didn’t smell so cheap, didn’t smell so bad at all. Stirling slumped in his chair and wondered whether he should risk going out, weekend nights were always worse, too many people.

Knocking back another gulp of liquor, he wandered over to the closet and threw open the door. He’d been halfway through putting on some newer threads before the need for more nicotine distracted him. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he decided he looked almost convincing. The new shoes weren’t exactly a perfect fit, though.

He was in the middle of trying to pull them on when the intercom went off. BUZZZ, Stirling almost soiled himself.

“Mister Stirling, I decided to work late after all. These papers aren’t gonna file themselves. Anyways, I thought you’d be leaving soon, so I wanted to get the keys so I can lock up when I go... Mr Stirling?”

“Shit!” Stirling launched across the room with shoes hanging off his feet and smashed into the floor.

“Mister Stirling, are you alright in there? I heard a bang. Wait a second, I’m coming in,” Max Stirling crawled round his heavy walnut desk and scrabbled into his chair just as the door opened,

“Jesus fucken Christ, Nancy, I thought you’d gone home an hour ago!”

“Well I was going to, but it ‘aint like I’m going out anywhere nice –is everything alright, you look a bit tense?”

“I’m fine, everything’s fine. I just didn’t expect to see you, that’s all,” Stirling smiled feebly,

“It’s your workload, isn’t it? I told you to give yourself a break, even the best detective in New York City needs some time off once in a while. You never listen to me, how long we been working together now?”

“Three years, and I –”

“Don’t know what’s good for you. Here, let me pour you some more Scotch.” Nancy started making her way round the desk,

“No! I mean, no. No, thank you. We don’t have any ice.” she took a step backwards, her brow furrowing with confusion,

“But Mister Stirling, we hardly ever have any ice...”

“And I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble!” Stirling began to feel a little hot and tugged at his collar. He watched Nancy take another three steps forward,

“That’s ridiculous, I often pour your drinks,”

“Nancy, you can’t come round here,”

“Are you drunk, Mister Stirling?”

“No. I just haven’t got any pants on. I was changing my clothes when you came in.”

“Are you wearing underpants?” said Nancy,

“Yes, but –”

“Well I’ve seen you in those before when you’ve been passed out on booze, it doesn’t bother me. You know, you’re really not at all yourself tonight,” Stirling laughed unconvincingly,

“I’m just feeling a little uncomfortable with you seeing me like this. Maybe it’s because I’m sober.”  His secretary backed away from the desk and smiled nervously,

 “Listen, Max, I’ve been thinking. I know we’ve been working together for a while now, this is going to sound a little crazy, so hear me out,” she took a deep breath, “Would you like to call it a night and have dinner with me? Well, what do you think......? Max, say something......” Max Stirling stared at Nancy, his face paralysed in surprise. When he finally managed to speak, it wasn’t anything useful,

“Nancy. That’s, uh, that’s nice of you to ask and –”

“Max, is that a lady’s shoe on your floor?”

“What floor? Shoe, I mean shoe?” Stirling padded his right foot around under his desk. The fucking thing wasn’t there.

“Oh God! I don’t want to be treading on anybody’s toes. Oh God!  Well this was a mistake. No, no, you don’t have to say anything, Mr Stirling, I didn’t know you had a girl. Well, good night,”

Max Stirling watched helplessly as Nancy walked out of his office. Five foot six inches of absolute perfection, every curve in exactly the right place, lips exactly the right shade of red, and a manner that made life bearable. He had been waiting for this moment for three years. He pushed out his chair and stared at his fishnet stockings. They had fallen round his ankles.

GBT Joe and the Pink Mist

Regular readers will remember one of my very best friends, GBT Joe, from a previous post.

GBT Joe is a softly spoken soul, whose mild manners waver only during extreme mitigating circumstances, or when he is slagging off the Guardian newspaper. He exists in a world of educated civility, political discourse, and Celine Dion. Yes, you may have seen him purchasing hot-dogs off a street-vendour, and yes he often tunes into the Vanessa Feltz show, but this is a boy who was dragged up on the streets of Dagenham. Let us be fair to him.

And whilst we are being fair, whilst we consider the fabulousness of the man who gave us Thank you for the Gays, thus changing forever how I view one of my favourite songs, let us contemplate what sort of madness might lead GBT Joe astray. Bring on the "pink red mist", if you will, or perhaps even make him behave like an out-and-out thug. What might do that?

Parents come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of sanity, and it is quite common for them to believe that procreation equates with always being right. I learned this at a very tender age, when my mother flew into a fit of rage at something minor, ran into my bedroom and tipped the contents of my sizeable bookcase over the floor. This, despite the fact that she spent the best part of my childhood complaining that my room was not tidy enough. Like me, GBT Joe also learned the nature of things early on, most likely when his mother grounded him for two weeks for drawing the curtains "wrongly".

Joseph is somewhat younger than I, young enough to still be living at home and therefore condemned to navigate bouts of parental insanity until the day he moves out. As I understand it, he usually manages this quite successfully, with therapeutic sessions of teeth gnashing in his bedroom, and the venting of frustration on the phone to me. But sometimes, something has to give. Something gave profusely on a night not so long ago, and with no sibling to use as a human shield, all guns were on Joe.

It began when Joseph arranged to meet his parents for dinner at the Harvester, ah the Harvester, fine ghetto dining. And whilst his parents are by no stretch in the gutter, they do like to have a drink (and a Harvester). As we all know, drunk people are fine when you yourself are drunk, when you are sober, that's an entirely different matter. When you are their child, they quickly become insufferable. Whatever posessed Joe to suggest that his mother lay off the booze we do not know,  perhaps we never will. What we can say for certain is that Joe's mother reacted as only a small, fiery Irishwoman could. She exploded.

Family war broke out, with GBT Joe's father rushing to his mother's defence. Clearly a tactical move, designed to prevent Mum's fury from being thrown in Dad's direction. A bitter battle ensued, parents against progeny. There was yelling. Right across the restaurant. However, this being Harvester, probably no one  noticed. GBT Joe must have been mortified, especially when his parents started slinging slanderous comments across the establishment about how he spends his recreational time. Which is obviously something that I know nothing about.

After his mother had finished spitting blood and  feathers amongst the mild-mannered chavs who were trying to have a quiet meal, she stormed out of the establishment. Left alone with his father, GBT Joe quickly learned that there would be no sympathy from him, for it is indeed easier to side with a psychopathic mother than a son who might have a fair point. Joe decided it would be better if he went on somewhere else, rather than risk going home that night.

This is the point where we learn a very important lesson:

If one decides not to return home after a parental row, one should always remember to take the keys.

That night, GBT Joe took one for the team so the rest of us could learn this important rule.

The next morning he returned home and rummaged around for his keys, but the pocket was empty. Joe rang his doorbell, but there was no answer. This was strange because he new his mother was inside the house. He knocked on the window, but to no avail. If his father had been in, perhaps things might have turned out differently, sadly he had left for work earlier that day.

A merciless battle of wills ensued. From inside the house, Joe's mother was waging a war of silence, ignoring both his calls and his relentless hammering on the doors and windows. It's hard to imagine GBT Joe pounding anything too hard, since it's common knowledge that he'd much rather be the poundee. The poundee of an entire rugby team. After being denied access to his own home for a substantial amount of time, Joseph called his father. Unfortunately, his father's best advice was to wait outside for his mother to calm down. GBT Joe pointed out that if his mother had had all night to calm down and hadn't by now, things weren't looking good. Having stood outside his house for over an hour, without any sign of his mother, or his father's spine, GBT finally lost the proverbial plot.

His mother didn't believe him when he threatened to smash his way in. In the darkest corners of her imagination she could not have conceived that her son might pick up a large rock and hurl it at the living room window. Until he did.

True, his wanton act of thuggery was tempered by the sturdy double glazing, but nevertheless his valiant effort shocked his mother enough to temporaily keep her mouth shut and let him in. In addition, his actions rendered a rather beautiful piece of contemporary art:

GBT Joe calls it "Gutter, Thy Name Is"

Miss Jobson

Miss Jobson was built like a tank. Her garish clothes and giant plastic jewellery were an assault on the senses, but this was the 1980s. She wore the hair on her head in a limp perm, and the hair on her legs extra long. I used to stare with both wonder and horror at the way it was crushed beneath her sheer tights, this was easy to do because I was five years old. I can still remember her deep, booming, northern voice rebounding off the classroom walls and striking terror into our little hearts. Miss Jobson had a slightly questionable teaching style, an unpredictable nature, and a temper. She could easily have been the precurser to one of Roald Dahl's most notorious characters.

The mildest of misdemeanors would fill Miss Jobson with crimson-faced rage. For example, during the Christmas rehearsals for that year, a boy named Barry had been talking whilst the rest of us were belting out Little Donkey. He clearly wasn't trying very hard to be naughty, because nobody new anything of it until we filed back into the classroom. We stood neatly behind our chairs, waiting for the bell that would signal our escape. The bell sounded, but rather than dismissing us, Miss Jobson began stalking up and down the clasroom rows, like a rabid giant. Her hairy tree-trunk legs brushed past me, and her voice bellowed across the room. Someone had been talking during assembly. We tried not to make eye contact, each individual praying that their formidable teacher would not choose them as a target. But Barry knew. He must have been shaking in his grey lace-ups. It was only a matter of time until the Beast pounced.

She came to a halt at his desk.

"BARRY THINKS IT IS FONNY TO TALK DURING SING-GING PRACTICE" she said, her northern voice echoing throughout the classroom and all the way down the school hall. "HOW DARE BARRY TALK TO HIS FRIEND WHEN HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE SING-GING," Miss Jobson paused to glare at the rest of us.

And then Miss Jobson's hand met Barry's backside with an almighty wallop. So much so that his little legs buckled. The rest of us looked on with eyes like dinner-plates, every child mentally clawing at the door. I remember thinking that any one of us could be next, and then, being a sensible five year old, I thought about how teachers weren't actually allowed to hit children. I had to survive Miss Jobson's outburst just long enough to get out of the room and onto the playground, where I would tell my waiting Mummy.

But that wasn't to be the end of Miss Jobson's reign of terror.

Some time after BarryGate, their was an incident involving me. This is surprising since I was an extremely well behaved, bookish child. I loved learning and always did what the teacher told me, frankly, I am surprised I didn't get picked on even more often. But I was also extraordinarily anxious, the thought of  being in trouble used to make me feel sick to my stomach, the thought of being in trouble with Miss Jobson left me rocking back and forth in the corner.

At primary school, we used exercise books that consisted of pages with big blank spaces and a lined section at the bottom. One day, Miss Jobson set us the task of dividing the blank space into four sections in which to draw four things we did over the weekend. We would then write about the pictures underneath. I excelled at both drawing and writing. This would be a breeze, I thought. Miss Jobson barked an order of silence at us, and settled down to do some work of her own, dedicated as she was to providing a room full of five to six year olds with a fun learning experience. Still, if she was quiet and buried in a book, things were calm, things were safe. I opened my exercise book onto the next fresh page.

I was about halfway through an astoundingly good representation of my weekend when I felt a strange sensation of impending doom. Something was wrong, very, very wrong. The sixth sense that all children seem to possess was compelling me to look back through my book. Except as I did, I wasn't seeing dead people, I was seeing more...blank pages. Somehow, as I was turning onto a clean page to begin my work, two pages must have stuck together, meaning there was now an empty space in my book where there should not have been. Panic set in. What to do, what to do, what to do...? I peeked at the monster out of the corner of my eye. Yes, she was still there, and still monstrous. My mind was reeling with all the possible outcomes, none of them ended well, I began to lose the ability to think straight. At least as straight as any five year old can think in the first place. I decided to start my work all over again on the correct page. Yes, that's it! That'll make it better.

This time, I only got about an eighth of the way through before  I realised that it was never really a viable option. I had made things much, much worse for myself, and now had two identical unfinished pieces of work.  Either side of me, Peter and Richard looked on forlornly. I was done for. In between regular checks to see if the Beast had moved, I stared at my work and tried to think of a way to explain things to Miss Jobson. A way that would not get me smacked or screamed at. But there was no way. Miss Jobson was going to skin me alive, and add my hide to the pelts of those who had gone before me. I needed a plan. Whether I spoke to her immediately or not, there would be no way of avoidng the wrath of my teacher if I stayed in the classroom. Miss Jobson's rage was such that it could prompt reckless behaviour from even the most well brought up of children.

Calmly, I raised my hand and waited.

"YES?!" came the bellow.

"May I go to the toilet please, Miss Jobson?"

"BE QUICK."

I slowly got up, and in as natural a way as possible, left the classroom. All the classrooms opened directly onto the assembly hall, with mine at the far end. I walked purposefully past the sugar-paper wall displays and assorted classroom doors, all the way to the other end. There, I made a sharp left onto the coridoor that led to the toilets, and more importantly, the exit. When faced with the options of being bashed by Miss Jobson, or running away, the decision is a no-brainer. I was about to do something very bad, the baddest, naughtiest thing I had ever done. So I decided to soften the blow by actually popping to the loo beforehand, that way, I couldn't be accused of lying to Miss Jobson when I asked to visit the toilet.

And then I flew out of the school door, ran all the way across the playground and out of the gate. Thankfully, my house was only about three blocks from my school, but that's a very long way indeed when you're a five-year-old fugitive. I didn't stop running, my red and grey school tie flapped behind me, and I can remember whispering the words "I've got to make it, I've got to make it," over and over again. Young children aren't supposed to be outside by themselves, because the world can be a frightening place, and I knew that. Oddly, I felt simultaneously terrified, and surprised at how easy it all was. Nowadays, it disturbs me when I think of all the adults I passed. Not one of them was bothered enough to stop me, even though I was a frightened little kid in uniform pelting down the road during lesson time.

I didn't stop running until I was at my front door. Unusually, my father was home, even more unusually, he was hoovering. The day was getting stranger by the minute, for both of us. I remember the look of surprise on his face, of all the things he expected to see when he opened the front door that day, I didn't even make the list. It suddenly dawned on me that I might still be in trouble, albeit a kind of trouble more preferable to Miss Jobson trouble. All of the stress and trauma of the day fell on me at once, and I burst into fits of tears. As I was led inside by a very bemused parent, I attempted an explanation, but I am quite sure I was crying too much to be completely understood. I know how distressed I must have been, because my razor sharp, long term memory becomes hazy at this point, and the next concrete recollections I have are when I was taken back to school.

It wasn't the fearful return that you might expect, my parents came with me. I was told that the Head of Infants would want to chat, but that I was not in any trouble whatsoever. Mrs Wilson was one of those primary school teachers that exuded warmth, providing the starkest of contrasts to the Beast. She seemed fairly old to me, but so does everyone when you are five. I remember her mop of short black curly hair, spectacles, and distractingly large breasts. She had the sort of matronly bosom that you wanted to snuggle into. Her kindly authority never made me nervous, and it was easy to tell her what had happened, and why. She listened with sympathy, and checked to see if I realised how dangerous my adventure had been, and I had to promise never to do it again. And that was it.

Naturally, my parents wanted to know why nobody had noticed my absence. I had asked to visit the toilet no later than ten o'clock in the morning, and hadn't been returned to the school until after lunchtime. Miss Jobson claimed that, since I was on the register for home-dinners, she assumed I had been picked up for lunch and that my parents had decided not to return me. I don't recall Miss Jobson teaching at my school for an awfully long time after that.

As an extra precaution, a sliding bolt was installed at the very top of the school gate. I was a tall child, so it's a good job I was the epitome of good behaviour.

Of Holidays and Mollusks

As a child, I saw them a few times, adorning the bathrooms of family friends. Then, as a teenager, I encountered another as my English teacher simultaneously murdered Lord of the Flies. Who would have thought that their descendants would end up on my dinner plate, years later?

On the island of Grand Bahama, they eat a lot of conch. They like it with salad, or as chowder, and they love to deep fry it. In fact, they seem to enjoy deep frying most foodstuffs. When I discovered that their signature dish was "cracked conch", I was somewhat amused. Why, it seemed like only a moment ago that Mr O had excited me with stories of the giant conch he had seen on his first snorkel and swim. Beautiful, exotic, and crawling along the bed of a turquoise sea. I was eager to see such an unusual creature. Little did I know that I would shortly be eating it too.

There aren't many restaurants in Grand Bahama, indeed, there aren't that many people. The best food is to be found in the open air beach-bar shacks that are dotted around the island. We visited the wonderful Bahama John's, famous for its ribs; and a little place called Bishop's, which served fantastic cracked conch. Everything comes with fries, and most things are bad for you, but this is a place that has had a lot of practice at making the perfect batter, and the batter is good.

So what does a conch look like without its clothes on? Rather like this:

And eaten the Bahamian way? Rather like this:

Conch doesn't have very much taste, so it's all about how you immerse it in searingly hot oil cook it. The preferred part is the white flesh, although all can be eaten. When cooked correctly, conch should be soft and tender and not at all rubbery, much like calamari. As someone with a penchant for seafood and batter, I ate a lot of conch, which frankly sounds like a terrifying euphemism.

After Mr O and I arrived home, I decided to further investigate the process by which the mollusks are removed from their shells. I was then rapidly put off eating them. Still, if you're curious, you can have a look here. You may want to skip much of the video, as "Dr Wood" takes rather a long time to hammer into the shell.

If like me, you're no longer sure about conch as a viable culinary option, I would still heartily recommend beer and food at a Bahamian beach shack. The people are some of the friendliest you could hope to meet, the pace is slow, the views are breath-taking, and you will always leave substantially more relaxed than when you arrived. And I am told the grouper fingers are just as tasty.