GLIMPSES OF CHILDHOOD

Thie vivid recollection of childhood fame in the MayDay pageant, prompted by opening a creased manila envelope in a box of family photographs, set a process in train: surely I must be able to remember something before the age of 7 (though in the photo I look more like 5; being short was a recurring theme in my life, until the age of 18, see FESS  #21 "Short Story"). Soon afterwards I recalled, with some horror, a scenario that unfolded when I was 4 and newly enrolled in a local nursery school. I needed to take a dump, which started as  a slight feeling that it would be a good idea but then very quickly became something that needed to be done as soon as possible. In the toilets, four boys stood around blocking my way to the stall. They delighted in refusing to move, preventing me from going in. The inevitable happened as I couldn't wait any longer. It was traumatic and humiliating, and probably the worst thing that had happened to me in my life to date. I suppose it was a novel kind of bullying; it was certainly a passive kind of aggression, when I would have much rather suffered the real thing. Some years later I read William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies' which many people found shocking, because of the cruelty and violence of the little boys to each other; I found it totally unsurprising.                                      

Sometimes there is a connection between memories which is not to do with their similarity or anything else except their nearness in time. A few months after the nursery school incident I went

into the Middlesex Hospital to have my tonsils out, a very common operation in those days. It was on my 5th birthday, unfortunately, but I had my presents brought in: one was a double-barreled pop-gun

which fired corks; the other a Dan Dare telescope (DD was the main man in the Eagle comic). The lens dropped out and I dropped out of my 'cot' trying to reach it on the hard marble floor, and landed on my head. I was knocked out for a while, but despite that being 60 years ago, I found that I'd retained a very clear image of the nurses staring down at me on the floor.

I suppose the pop-gun was a more successful present, laying the foundations for my successful career as a sniper and international assassin. You may remember that the investigating team were puzzled at finding so many corks at the site of the Bin Laden shooting. I'm saying nothing.