Periodically during the performance the man next to your mother climbs over several partially empty seats in front of us, scuttles along a row and leaves the hall only to return again a few minutes later. When he is not seat hurdling he quietly hums and softly whistles along with Jack. He either has a severe continence problem and/or he is one or maybe two notes short of an octave. At first he is an amusing diversion.

As the second half of the show starts there is a strange rustling noise from our bizarre neighbour. “What’s he doing now?” asks your mother out of the side of her mouth. I lean forward and peer through the gloom, lean back and whisper out the side of my mouth “He’s got his piece out”. The seats creak and squeak as the audience within earshot of my stage whisper shift uneasily, the way sheep react when they notice a dog peering with intent through a five bar gate.

“CHANGE SEATS WITH ME, NOW!” demands your mother now rigid with fear. We change seats and I sit next to the oddball as he noisily munches a ham sandwich … or if you are a recent immigrant from Scotland a ham piece.

The town of Bonnyrigg where I spend my childhood had two railway stations. Dr Beeching closed one and my big brother spectacularly terminated the other. Fortunately, it was on an obsolete branch line which was rarely used.

The catastrophe occurred in the late 1950s during an intensely hot summer. Each summer holiday we would occupy a different location, build a gang-hut or shelter, annoy people, play games and sometimes just sit around a fire. On this particular year we were in residence in the wooded  embankment at the back of the doomed station buildings.

On the fateful day my brother Willie, a friend called Hallie and me were sitting around our fire in the manner of the cowboys that we saw in matinee films and emulated. Suddenly, a jam jar full of a suspicious and smelly yellowish liquid was produced by my brother with the claim that this would make the fire burn much, much better. Our father had drummed into us the importance of making sure a camp fire was out before leaving and we had a ritual that involved standing around the fire and peeing on it; a boy’s thing. But all the piss in the town would fail to dampen down this fire.

I’m positive that it was my brother that brought the jam jar to the party; He had previous form for this sort of thing. Only weeks before he had stumbled, screaming, out of the utility room at the back of the house with his arms alight like a Christmas pudding. At the time I was grateful
for the distraction as I was being verbally lambasted by my father; I had cleaned his bike and, as a special service polished the saddle with dark tan boot polish. He had thanked me at the time but changed his tune when he discovered that the polish had unfortunately transferred onto his light beige trousers creating a prominent external skid mark. Horrified at the sight of his eldest son ablaze the skid mark was forgotten and, in a throwback to his army days he exclaimed “F**king hell!” instantly expanding his seven year old son’s vocabulary as he sprinted up the garden path to dowse the flames engulfing his eldest son.

But back to the camp fire. We were all enthralled, kneeling and standing expectantly around the fire as Willie carefully unscrewed the lid of the jam jar and poured a small quantity of the yellow liquid onto the smouldering pile of twigs. There was a sudden whoomph as a huge fire ball rolled passed our astonished faces and roared into the tree canopy above. Our eyes swivelled upwards; we were mesmerised, but not for long. For the second time in a short
space of time I heard the new and interesting phrase. “F**king hell!” my brother screamed as he realised that he was holding a Molitov Cocktail in his hand. In an understandable panic he threw the jam jar, its contents fiercely ablaze into the surrounding tinder dry undergrowth. We were now  n the centre of a maelstrom of fire. With surprising calmness and presence of mind Willie ushered us away from the disaster zone and led us up the pathway and made us walk with studied casualness up the road to our house not far away.

We arrived home and sat at the table while our mother stood preparing our dinner at the kitchen window. “Och, it looks like someone’s having a wee fire. I hope the washing won’t be covered in ash”. This was a wee understatement. It looked as though a plane had crashed into the railway cutting; the sun along with the church tower had been blotted out. We sat quietly in the now gloomy kitchen eating our meal, my mother oblivious to the missing
eyebrows, singed fringes, faint stench of petrol and the distant clamour of fire engines bells.

Later the catastrophe was on the front page of the weekly local paper. Our father tut-tutted while poring over the pictures of the devastation and a photograph of a startled Mr Black the local coal merchant and funeral director who had heroically prevented the fire from spreading to his yard, a vast area of piles of coal and tanks of various liquid fuels, and the accidental cremation of his late clientele awaiting burial.

“Why did Nanna have to die?” she asked, totally out of the blue, causing me to grab the nearest, and probably most expensive, pack.

“She had a disease called cancer. Sometimes people get better, but Nanna was too poorly and she died” I replied, never quite knowing how little or how much to say.

“I wish I could have met Nanna, Mummy” she said looking up at me with her sad eyes, squeezing my hand. Looking at her, right there, in the toilet roll aisle I felt a new wave of grief as I saw myself 24 years ago, two years older, looking up and hearing the news that my Mummy had died.

(just for the record I didn’t break down in the supermarket)

Later, that evening, she announced that there weren’t enough pictures of Nanna in our house. I agreed and decided to fill another frame, for the living room, with a picture of my Mum. The 7 year old commandeered it “Can I have that in my room?” she said tracing my Mum’s face with her finger.

I gave her the framed photo and she took it upstairs.  Later at bedtime, when I went to say goodnight, I found her sat looking at the picture. I reached for the photo, to put it on the windowsill but she held on firmly.

“I wish she was here” she said putting the picture under her pillow.

I never thought the ripple would reach that far. That she would be missed by the granddaughter, who never knew her but keeps her close while she sleeps.

It is a clear cold November 5^th sometime in the late 1950’s. I stood with my father and mother watching with, frosty clouds of bated breath, my elder brother Willie von Braun proudly preparing his rocket for take off.

Influenced by the famous schematic centre page drawings in the Eagle comic and recent news of Russian dogs and monkeys being sent into orbit, Willie had decided that he would design and build his very own rocket, a large one. Amongst other components propellant was required; a lot of it and he had persuaded our gang to donate the gunpowder from our fireworks as fuel for his projectile.

This was a big ask. We revelled in our seasonal activities which involved harassing the town’s population by lobbing penny bangers, our weapon of choice, at innocent bystanders, creating shock and awe; mostly shock. We roamed around like small Hamas suicide bombers with our pockets crammed with explosives, probably enough, in the event of an accident, to blow a leg off at the thigh.

Willie constructed the rocket with our proud father looking on in admiration. It was large tubular object with a pointy nose cone, fins and supported on four spindly legs. Based on my avid reading of comics featuring daring stories of the Second World War I saw a bomb; our father impressed by Willie’s scientific endeavours, a Starship.

Over the weeks leading up to Guy Fawkes Night the body of Willie’s rocket was gradually filled up with gunpowder from our dismantled bangers and other fireworks. I suspect that other chemical substances had been added. The previous Christmas, to my brother’s manic glee a chemistry set had been his main present; a reckless gift in my opinion. Soon after strange smells and noises seeped from the utility room and odd events occurred. A hole of about two inches in diameter appeared in our garden bench, a church pew salvaged the demolished surplus village church. The hole with scorched edges had been blown clean through the two inch thick seat panel. My mother and father looked at the hole, scratched their heads and talked in hushed voices of Acts of God and meteor particles from outer space. But I knew; not how but who.

The launch day arrived and on a clear moonlight night Willie’s rocket stood proudly but precariously on a board in the middle of the lawn pointing menacingly at the stars; the centrepiece of the that year’s display.

After a paltry firework show Willie advanced confidently across lawn and lit the slow burning fuse, a product of his chemistry experiments, and retreated. Precisely two minutes later the rocket burst into life; more fizz than roar. It jigged about like a demented Riverdance performer then, failing to defy gravity, slowly toppled over to lie facing our small family group hissing threateningly. My father was now brought to his senses and, drawing on his wartime experience as a Master Gunner in the Royal Artillery he now, at last, saw a bomb not a rocket. and swiftly shepherded us down the garden away from the potential blast zone.  Thankfully there was no explosion; the rocket, in it’s death throes finally roared into life and sped around the lawn in ever increasing circles before finally expiring in the rose bed.

My father commiserated with the young von Braun unaware of the intricate Celtic pattern scorched in the lawn which would only be revealed at sunrise.

A post by Gramps about the joys of being a Grandfather …

A typical day with my grandchildren usually starts with swimming or a visit to that wonderful venue Wacky Warehouse. Swimming has the disadvantage of prematurely tiring me out whereas a visit to the Wacky Warehouse does not need any exertion on my part; adults sit reading newspapers and magazines while the children exhaust themselves (although I have noticed that too many Slush Puppies tend to counteract the fatigue) We then return home and walk our dog Millie in the nearby field. The dog and the children startle the rabbits and the heron standing still as a statue in the pond at the end of the field. The annoyed heron heaves itself out of the pond and we watch as it labours up into the blue sky and slowly vanishes over the trees. I show the children the network of paths made by the rabbits and they follow them in Indian file to their burrows where the granddaughter barks loudly into the mouth of the burrows probably petrifying the poor rabbits and bemusing Millie who rarely barks.

A quick lunch is followed by the ever popular dam building in the stream. Each successive dam is more complex in construction and the resulting pool deeper. For this latest dam we collect dead leaves to create a seal between the rocks. The grandchildren work with enthusiasm with the occasional sibling spat and the dam today is impressive. My grandson then demands to play football as promised (recklessly) at the start of the day. I desperately negotiate a ten minute kip while they watch TV before dragging my protesting body to stand between the two trees that are the goal posts. A day of simple pleasures; priceless.

As I sit recovering from this childminding pentathlon I am content; there is a reassuring knowledge that somewhere in my grandchildren there is a small part of me being transported into the future even if it is only a memory of a day like this.

It’s been a while.  Here is a guest post from Gramps on one of his favourite two subjects, farts and poo …

My grandson looks uncannily like me when I was his age. Occasionally this brings back memories of the distant past and the recent story involving poo triggered a particularly traumatic school recollection.

Still coming to terms with primary school life I am sat anonymously somewhere in the middle of the classroom at a wooden desk, one in a regimented sea of desks. The sun is streaming in the large window, the room is warm and my mind is probably elsewhere; mulling over the latest exploits of Davy Crockett or Quatermass, a scary science fiction TV film which surprisingly my dad had allowed me to watch at the impressionable age of six.

The class, in a state of mild excitement, is about to go to the music lesson which is held in a room at the other end of the school where I will wield a triangle, the extreme limit of my musical talents.

My day begins to unravel with an unexpected and uncontrolled fart; loud enough for the teacher, a tall, thin, middle aged lady, to give me a disapproving look and the girl who is sat next to me to snigger.

The moment passes and I slip back into my default daydreaming mode.  But this doesn’t last. I slowly become aware, along with the teacher and my fellow pupils, that the room is filled with the smell of poo. My recent fart puts me in the frame as the source of the smell. The teacher, suspicious that I have suffered a catastrophic ‘follow through’ tells me to sit at the front of the class.

Even at the age of six I felt victimised; I couldn’t believe that the sheer volume and persistence of the smell could possibly have seeped from my small body.

Much later in my life my mother would often announce, to my extreme embarrassment, in her lilting but loud Scottish voice that when I was a child Doctor Sommerville had remarked that I had very large bowels; the chatter and clatter in restaurants would be suspended at this revelation.

But, back to my childhood. I am sat, probably red faced at the front of the class with the teacher taking frequent smell readings over me with her nose. Things are about to get worse.

The class is marshaled into a column of pairs, boy and girl holding hands and start the long march down the main corridor of the school in a cloud of poo smell. I am holding hands with teacher with my classmates smirking at my discomfiture as teacher stops me at frequent intervals to bend over, pull up the leg of my shorts and sniff.

This final humiliation was intense but short lived.

Suddenly, a girl in the column bursts into uncontrollable tears. The humiliation is transferred as teacher lifts her skirt to reveal a memorably large poo slung in her knickers.

We switched her food last week. Normally she has expensive stuff that you can only get in one shop in the whole world (slight exaggeration).  The Husband swears it gives her firmer stools. I’ve never questioned him further on that statement.

I couldn’t get to the dog food shop last weekend so she ended up eating the cheaper stuff this week.  Big mistake, no … HUGE.  We have spent the past seven days in a haze of dog fart.  Whichever room the children play in the dog inevitably dog wanders in to lie next to them.  Within 2 minutes of her lying down they have their hands clamped round their noses and are not only shoving her out of the room, but into the garden.

Of an evening we have watched the TV with cushions pressed firmly against our faces, watery eyes peeping over the top as another silent but deadly fart wafts through the room.  I say ‘waft’ but to be fair it’s more of a lingering haze of death.

On Friday night I took her to the shop with me (wine run).  It was 7.45 and already *shock horror* getting dark.  I tied her up outside where she sniffed the pavement happily.  When I came out of the shop I undid her lead so she was free, as I put down my shopping to put her back on the lead, she assumed the attack position and barked loudly at the shopkeeper who was standing in his doorway surveying the street, she then edged toward him.

He crapped himself, she realised it was a normal person and not, I assume, someone about to attack me and backed down as the man, in blind panic, went crashing into one of his displays.

In a sea of chocolate fingers (2 for £2.00 don’t you know) and Discovery salsa (BOGOF) I apologised for her behaviour.  He seemed fine, but that might have been the shock.  As we walked off I swear the dog rolled her eyes at me and huffed.

Maybe in her old age she’ll become famous when Mr Shopkeeper eventually sees the funny side and sends his CCTV to You’ve Been Framed. We too will laugh, from behind our cushion nasal protectors, as yet another guff engulfs the Driver living room, and we watch Mr Shopkeeper hurtling into the chocolate fingers and salsa display.

I received the following email from my Dad today …

Dear Laura

If you remember, when you announced on your blog that you were taking up knitting as a hobby I ordered a pair of Speedo style knitted swimming trunks for Christmas. Forget the trunks! I was in two minds anyway; I had a bad experience in the past with knitted swimming attire produced by my mother and I think wearing them at the baths with the grandchildren could create an embarrassing moment – at the very least!

This newspaper article made me think I would like a knitted coffin instead. I have emailed Prince Charles asking if his Royal Highness would be kind enough to forward the knitting pattern to you.

Needless to say there is no urgency for the coffin. I’ll let you know the colour choice (maybe a tartan pattern) and the personalised name in due course.

Be careful not to drop any stitches!

Many thanks

Pops

So, if you want to read my latest post ‘We both assumed roles; Me … ‘Concerned Mother’, her ‘Stubborn Teenager’ you’ll have to bob yourselves on over  there.

A Colobus Monkey

Usually when I’m feeling a bit anxious I have the spider dream.

Due to the pre-move stress I expected to be leaping across the bedroom, in the middle of the night, to escape the spiders.

This did not happen.  Not to me anyway.

The night before we moved there was a disturbance.

I woke in the night and instantly knew something wasn’t right. I stretched out to discover The Husband missing.

Suddenly the bedroom light was flicked on and there in the corner of the room was The Husband in his pants looking befuddled.

He was befuddled, and I was blind … at 3.04am.

The following morning he told me that he dreamt he was being chased round our bedroom by Colobus Monkeys.  He was very precise about the species.

Can you imagine what would happen if the Driver family’s nocturnal behaviour was synchronised … there would be the 4 year old snoring like an old man, the 6 year old screaming like she’s having her leg removed with a rusty butter knife, The Husband being chased by Colobus Monkeys and me scrabbling around on the bed shooing the 100 or so spiders away.

Picture by \\Hayley// on Flickr