Have you ever found yourself being paid to deliver "balloonagrams" or even "Balloon-O-Grams", maybe, to some smart-Alec twenty-something "birthday boy" or "birthday girl", working at some town-centre small company office in Cockshott Lane, Hampshire, say, or somewhere similar (!) ?
Most of us have, haven't we, at some point in our lives! Especially those of us who've lived long-to-longish lives, and here I'm talking about myself and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, who, now at the grand old age of 78 (and counting!) have experienced most of the embarrassing predicaments life can throw at us, to put it mildly (!).
my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me, our faces showing
the scars of 78 years of some of life's most embarrassing experiences (!)
That's why we felt sorry this morning to read about poor area guy in the Onion News East Hampshire print edition (and if you've only read the headlines, "thumb" your way through to page 94 - you'll be glad you did!
Gerald's misfortune is mine and Lois's fortune this morning, however. It gives us both a chuckle to read his sad story over breakfast, especially the last bit: "Teenagers think they're so bloody funny" (!).
Poor Gerald !!!!!!
"But why that last bit of the story particularly, Colin?", I hear you cry (!). [Not me, I've given up on this 'post' already (!) - Ed]
Well, Lois and I may be a couple of "old codgers" with cobwebs growing all over us - not literally (!), but this week we find ourselves living with a teenager, something we haven't experienced since the 1990s, when ourselves and our two daughters Alison and Sarah were still "the centre of the universe".
flashback to 1990: Lois and me with our two daughters
Alison (15) and Sarah (13) on an afternoon in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
Luckily, our temporary house-mate this week, our 18-year-old granddaughter Josie, is really easy to live with, and a total delight particularly at mealtimes, when our usual spasmodic "old codger talk" has given way to Josie's infectious enthusiasm, and why not? She's got her whole life in front of her, weighing which "uni" she wants to go to in the autumn, if she gets the grades she's working so hard to achieve, bless her!
Her top choices at the moment are Bath and Durham.
We don't see that much of her, because Josie tends to be working conscientiously away on her laptop in her room from 7:30 am for most of the day, while Lois and I are doing our usual stuff - our morning walk in the Hampshire countryside, followed by our afternoons in bed, before we finally fall exhausted (!) onto the couch to watch some "telly" in the evenings, usually one of our "poncey" documentaries (!).
Lois today in nearby Radford Park with our 18-year-old granddaughter Josie
We're following their adventures this week on social media - they've been visiting some of their old haunts like the "English Bookshop" (Books and Company) in the city's northern suburb of Hellerup, and also the Rygaards International School, which all 3 kids attended.
our son-in-law, hotshot lawyer Ed, with Rosalind (16) and Isaac (14) in Copenhagen this week
flashback to 2017: Lois with our daughter Alison in
the "English Bookshop" in Hellerup, Copenhagen.
2017: Lois with Josie (10), Rosalind (8) and Isaac (60 in their Copenhagen home
Happy days!
And this week I find I can just about chat with Josie about maths, but chemistry in particular is a closed book to both of us.
I always blame my father (jokingly, may I add!) for my failure to get to grips with chemistry during my schooldays. An ambitious young schoolteacher, my father was very focussed on becoming a headteacher, so he moved jobs every few years, working at schools all over England. This was to widen his experience and lengthen his CV (!) to the max, and so work his way up the greasy pole, finally achieving his goal in 1957, becoming the headteacher of a school in Altrincham, Cheshire.
flashback to August 1957: me reading on the beach at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset,
with my father, just appointed to his first headship, and at the height of his powers
All that was good news for dad, but not so great for his 4 kids, me included, who were constantly having to start at new schools, and make friends amongst classmates who already "had all the friends they wanted or needed, thank you very much", and especially those northern kids, wary of somebody talking in a weird and "hoity-toity" southern accent! Oh dear!
flashback to 1958-9: a blurry 12-year-old me (moved just as the shutter
was pressed!), with my dear late brother Steve (6), my dear late sister
Kathy (11), and my dear sister Jill, born Manchester 1958.
There was no "national curriculum" or "STEM" system in those crazy, far-off days, so changing schools usually meant additional academic hurdles to overcome in the classroom, quite apart from the social challenges. For example, before our move up north to Cheshire in 1957, my previous school, in Hampstead, London, "didn't do science" - imagine that today!
its new premises being opened by King Edward VII, no less, in 1907
The result was that I found myself in e.g. my first ever chemistry lessons, not having a clue about what was going on (and not being given any latitude for it, or "cut any slack" either, or given anything resembling "extra help").
What madness !!!
Also, I found that moving from middle-class North West London to the Manchester area was a huge "culture shock". My 12-year-old grammar-school classmates, mainly from old Lancashire mill towns like Oldham, Bolton, Blackburn etc - all boys of course, it was a boys-only school - were much more "streetwise" than me, knew all the latest rock'n'roll hits, and were already getting curious about girls and sex.
I remember my new "northern" friend Clive, on our walk to the bus stop after school, pointing out to me a used condom that had been discarded in the grass at the side of the lane. Needless to say, I had no idea what condoms were, or what they were for, but I remember I managed to cover up my ignorance with a hasty, if nervous, laugh.
Oh dear!
flashback to 1958: me (ringed) in my first class photo
after moving from middle-class North West London to Manchester,
with classmates who came in by bus each day, mainly from the old
Lancashire mill-towns such as Oldham, Bolton, Blackburn etc
In those far-off times, days always started with a 20 to 30-minute Christian religious assembly with Bible readings, prayers etc. This school's Jewish boys were numerous enough that they had their own separate assembly on the ground floor. Sometimes I found myself passing by the Jewish Assembly Room while on some teacher's errand or other, and I remember being mystified by the strange sounds emanating from it.
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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