Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill (33 page)

Of course, ideally it should be the parents who take on the responsibility of explaining things to their offspring. Christine and I tried, but with little success.

When Dominic was seven he asked the question we were expecting. He was always a very inquisitive child so when he asked casually, one day, ‘Daddy, where do I come from?' I was not surprised.

‘I'll get your mother,' I told him.

Christine and I sat him down between us on the settee.

‘You know, Dominic, that Daddy loves Mummy,' I told him.

‘Yes,' he replied, his little brow furrowing.

‘And that Mummy loves Daddy?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, you are here because we love each other.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Over to you Christine,' I said.

‘No,' replied my wife, ‘you are doing very nicely.'

I took a breath. ‘Well, Dominic, inside Mummy's tummy is an egg.'

‘An egg!' he exclaimed.

‘It's not a big egg. In fact it's a tiny little egg and you can't see it.'

‘I've got more than one,' interrupted Christine.

‘You have a go,' I told her.

‘And down there,' said Christine, vaguely gesturing to my nether regions, ‘Daddy has a sort of little tadpole.'

‘I have 400 million,' I told her.

Dominic's eyes widened. ‘Wow!'

‘And when Mummy and Daddy have a very close cuddle,' continued Christine, and the little tadpole meets the little egg, then a little baby forms.'

We continued with our explanation until I finally asked our wide-eyed son: ‘So does that explain where you come from?'

‘No,' replied Dominic simply. ‘I just wanted to know where I come from. David comes from Halifax.'

When I was a school inspector, I observed a lesson where a young woman teacher was explaining the facts of life to a group of eleven-year-olds. She had informed me, prior to the lesson, that she found the task daunting, and predicted that one notoriously naughty boy would no doubt embarrass her by asking a tricky question at the end. She pointed out the said child: a frizzy-haired boy with a face full of freckles and a cheeky expression.

Sure enough, after the lesson the boy waved his hand in the air like a daffodil in a strong wind.

The teacher sighed. ‘Yes Duane,' she said. Her expression betrayed the fact that she expected that, of all the children, he would be the one to ask a question. ‘What is it?'

‘Can I ask you something, Miss?' he said.

‘If you must,' replied the teacher, giving me a knowing look.

‘Will we be having rounders this afternoon?'

Getting up My Nose

I was once invited to contribute to a radio phone-in on the topic: ‘What are the things that really wind you up?'

‘Gervase,' asked the producer, ‘are there any things that really annoy you?'

‘Where shall I start?' I asked.

I will disclose what my irritants are a little later on but shall now reveal what the many listeners who phoned in found really annoying.

The show had a quite exceptional response from grumpy old men and women who vented their fury on, amongst other things, litter louts, unhelpful shop assistants, chewing gum on streets and seats, automated greetings on customer care lines, slow drivers, spitting, queue jumpers, dawdlers and ditherers, cyclists and begging on streets. Other pet hates included speed cameras, loud personal stereos on public transport, white van drivers, IKEA, backpackers on trains and shoppers who fumble for money at the checkout. One of the most unusual complaints was from an elderly woman who complained about men and their ‘genital adjustments in public places'.

I added to the list. Dog mess on the streets really really gets up my nose. Let me rephrase that – it makes my blood boil. Many dog owners are responsible, of course, and take the mess home in a plastic bag, which is the thing to do. But then there are the others. John, a neighbour of mine, was astounded to see a small hairy dog performing directly in front of his gate while the owner looked on. By the time he had put on his shoes to confront the offender, man and dog had set off down the street. Not to be deterred, my neighbour scooped up the deposit with a spade and followed the culprit until he caught up.

‘I think this is yours,' he said, holding the spade at arm's length.

Just as well the dog wasn't a Doberman.

The other people who get my goat are loud mobile phone users on trains. The whole of the carriage is privy to the most personal conversations, delivered at maximum volume.

On one London to Newcastle train, a businessman, who had commandeered the table with his Filofax, laptop, folder and briefcase, was holding forth on his mobile phone opposite a woman passenger who was clearly irritated.

‘Yes, darling!' he shouted down the phone, ‘I'll be back in Doncaster at eight. Yes, darling, the meeting went fine. No, darling, Raymond never made it. Really darling? Well, bring the Range Rover to the station. Yes, I know you're not used to driving it, darling. Well, get Robert to reverse it out for you, darling. Yes, darling.'

The woman had had quite enough and, snatching the phone from his hands, said into it in a loud and alluring voice, ‘Come back to bed, darling.'

Keeping Calm

So the story goes, Oscar Wilde was dining at the Café Royal with a group of friends and admirers. Through the elegant restaurant strode the irascible and boorish Marquess of Queensbury, the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Queensbury was carrying a rotten cabbage, which he presented to Wilde with the words, delivered loudly enough for all to hear: ‘This, sir, is what I think of you!' There was an expectant hush amongst the diners, and all eyes looked at the celebrated wit and playwright to see his reaction. Oscar Wilde smiled, nodded and held the foul-smelling vegetable to his nose. He sniffed it dramatically.

‘Thank you, my lord,' he replied serenely. ‘Whenever I smell a stinking cabbage, I shall always think of you.'

I have a great admiration for people who can keep calm and collected in the face of a furious outburst from a rude and angry person, and manage to make a witty riposte.

I took Christine out for a meal on her birthday to an exclusive restaurant. Everything about the evening was superb – the meal, the presentation, the ambience and the attention we received from the friendly waiters – until the man on the next table, a large, loud, red-faced and voluble individual came to settle his bill.

‘I hope you enjoyed your meal, sir?' enquired the owner.

‘No,' replied the man, ‘I can't say as I have. It were far too fancy for me. I likes plain food not this
nouveau riche
stuff. It were not my cup of tea at all. And I have to say it were very pricey for what it was. I don't want to get into an argument about it, but since you asked, I can't say as how I enjoyed it.'

‘Get into an argument?' repeated the owner, smiling. ‘No sir, neither do I, but were I to challenge you to a duel, I should select the English language as my weapon.'

It amazes me how shop assistants, waiters, police officers, receptionists and traffic wardens (yes, traffic wardens have a job to do) manage to keep unruffled when faced with such people.

Last year, I was signing books in a delightful bookshop in Cumbria. It was a veritable treasure chest, with friendly staff, superb displays and a wonderful selection of fiction, poetry and reference books.

Into the shop came a stony-faced woman with a narrow bony face and an equally mardy-looking child in tow.

‘Where are the bestsellers?' she demanded. There was no ‘please'.

The owner smiled and showed her to the appropriate part of the shop.

The woman plucked a tome from the shelf and sniffed noisily. ‘This is half price in Tesco's,' she clucked disapprovingly, before sticking it back.

‘Perhaps you might like to purchase it from Tesco's, then, madam,' replied the owner.

‘I don't like this writer anyway,' she told him, sniffing again. ‘Your books ought to be alphabeticalised,' she told him.

The owner's face signalled that he was getting rather irritated but he retained the forced smile.

The ill-tempered customer bought a guidebook, which was placed in a small brown paper bag. Then she departed. A moment later, she returned with the whinging child.

‘He wants a book,' she said. ‘Where's the children's section?'

The owner took a deep breath and showed her to the shelf.

She selected a book.

‘May I put it in with your other book, madam?' asked the owner. ‘It would save using another bag.'

The woman exploded. ‘Of course I want a bag!' She said, outraged that the owner should suggest otherwise.

The owner produced the largest brown paper bag he could find.

‘That's far too big!' she snapped.

‘Please take it, madam,' he told her.

‘I said it is too big,' she repeated angrily.

‘Please, I insist,' said the owner.

‘I said it's too big!' snapped the woman.

‘It's not for the book, madam,' the owner told her. ‘It's for your head.'

Take Care with Your Writing  

I was delighted to learn that one of my picture books,
Our Cat Cuddles
, was to be published across the Atlantic. I was told, however, that there had to be certain minor alterations to suit the American market: ‘Mum' would become ‘Mom', the ‘RSPCA' would become ‘Animal Shelter' and the reference to giving the kitten milk needed to be changed. They wanted to change milk? It was Oscar Wilde who observed that we British share everything with the Americans except the language, but I was intrigued, and asked my editor, somewhat naively: ‘Don't they have milk in America?'

‘Children are taught in schools that it's very bad to give cats milk,' I was told. ‘You'll also upset the powerful cat lobby.' It was then pointed out to me that, when Hillary Clinton dumped the White House cat, Socks, on Betty Currie, her husband's PA, when Bill's term as president expired, she came in for a deal of criticism, and her abandonment of the pet could hinder her ambition to return to the White House as the first woman president.

The same week, I received a sharp letter from a head teacher who had heard me speak at a conference. She informed me, in a high-handed manner, that the term ‘brainstorming', which I had used, was inadvisable. She pointed out that ‘people who have brainstorms would feel singled out and upset, and the acceptable term to use now is “thought shower” or “cloudburst”.' She continued to inform me that the term ‘nitty-gritty', another term I used, was ‘racist' and that ‘it refers to the nits which covered the holds in slave ships and is deeply offensive to black people'. Then she mentioned that the bully in one of my Royston Knapper children's stories was ‘a fat boy' and discriminated against overweight people. As my father would have said: ‘Well, I'll go to the bottom of our stairs!'

I have to say that I get a bit hot under the collar when the ‘language police' start flexing their muscles. I certainly do not wish to upset or offend anyone, but sometimes I do feel we go a tad too far with this creeping censorship of what we should or should not say.

Well, I earnestly hope that we do not go down the road of our American cousins. According to Diane Ravitch, an educational historian and former US government official, some of the censorship imposed on books and on teachers in America is often trivial, sometimes ludicrous and, on occasion, breathtakingly stupid. In her book,
The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn
, she reveals that a story entitled
The Friendly Dolphin
was rejected by one school committee because it discriminated against students who did not live near the sea. Another story,
The Silly Old Woman
, was barred because it contained the stereotype of an elderly woman. Other banned words and topics included ‘blind as a bat' (handicapist), ‘henpecked husband' (sexist), ‘past one's prime' (ageist), ‘mother cleaning the house' (sexist), ‘bookworm' (offensive to hard workers) and so the list goes on. One school board objected to a picture book about an old lady with too many cats. It was deemed a sexual stereotype.

Ah me, I have an idea my little picture book,
Our Cat Cuddles
, has little chance of seeing the light of day across the Atlantic, and my book on dinosaurs hasn't a cat in hell's chance. You see, all books on dinosaurs are banned by several school committees in the southern states because they imply the theory of evolution, which is not universally accepted.

Customers Are Not Always Right

I took my brother-in-law and my sister out recently, to celebrate a significant birthday. We sat in the glorious sunshine outside the Cliffemount Hotel at Runswick Bay, overlooking one of Yorkshire's most magnificent vistas: a crescent of pale yellow sand, great looming rock faces, small stone cottages with pantile roofs clinging to the cliff and tiny boats bobbing on a smooth and glassy sea. It was idyllic.