Sally-Part 15. INTERLUDE. THAT'S ALL I NEED, A BLOODY HUNT !

Shirley is occasionally a little impatient and things, me for instance, don't always come up to her expectations. Having given up foreign holidays and two night breaks I thought that, perhaps, a day out with a nice meal in a pub would please her. Well of course, having suggested the idea to her, she then spent three days on her laptop trying to decide where to go. Eventually Lindisfarne, known as Holy Island, was selected and off we went yesterday, sixty miles north into a bright and remarkably warm (16 degrees C ) Northumberland.

As it was so warm my ex-army rucksack only contained her boots, spare shoes, that bloomin anti-thigh-rub gel, wellies, two litres of water, wet flannel, binoculars, camera, two apples, two oranges, four rounds of sandwiches, two Tunnocks wafers, a selection of various weights of spare clothing, a picnic blanket  a beach towel, a mobile phone and a spare mobile phone in case the signal couldn't find the first one, the AA extra large print "Touring Guide To Great Britain And Northern Ireland" and several printed out sheets of weather forecasts for the various beaches on Lindisfarne, which were all within half a mile of each other.

I marched confidently into the ancient low-beamed pub all ready to be hale and hearty to be met by the haunted eyes of three other couples trapped behind their bowls of homemade soup and plate of chips being eaten in total silence, imploring us to leave before we made the same mistake as they had. Should have turned and left really. I ordered safe Scampi for me and the more problematical roast beef (Roast beef is always problemmatical as it's invariably , in Shirley's case anyway, hard, chewy, tasteless and "all they've done is open a bloody catering pack) for Shirley before returning to my table where I was immediately aware of "that" look that wives give their husbands.

"This is a dump!" she hissed, " and what on earth are we doing paying twenty five quid for what I know'll be crap?! And the table's filthy and everyone's staring at us and the ugly woman at the next table keeps kissing the twit who she's obviously met through the internet!"

She was correct. It was the perfect example of what English pubs do worst, serve mediocre reheated frozen food at ridiculously high prices to idiots who daren't complain.

There wasn't a scrap of food left on either plate! Full, we set out and actually had a fantastic couple of hours walking and sunbathing. Yes, sunbathing and for Shirley a paddle in the North sea  to cool down her steaming feet  and sweated thighs, attended by me,  her butler, holding her towel. For those watching from afar, in wonder and shock and awe and total disbelief, I, as usual, could be seen struggling after Shirley, bent double beneath the weight of her "requirements", before starting out on our return down a long country track, following her as quickly as all my strength would allow and subserviently replying "Yes dearest, I'm doing my best " as she shouted, "Hurry up or we'll miss the tide and then we'll have to spend a night in this Godforsaken hole at what cost I dread to think!"

"Coming dearest!" I called but I thought darkly of murder!

After a short while and admittedly it was windy and sound was distorted, Shirley shouted over " That's all I need a bloody hunt!"
" What? "
" Can't you hear it you deaf idiot? Bloody guns and shouting and barking dogs! A hunt and it's coming this way! "

I couldn't hear a thing but closed in to protect her. Around the corner, in the distance and not terribly threatening walked a woman with two puppies on leads and further in towards the town, we passed a farmyard with a cockerel crowing in it. Oh and a shepherd in a field rounding up his sheep.

"Hunt?" I dared to ask

"Yeh! Well! I thought it was and a lot of good you would have been!"

No winning really chaps, Eh?

Ah!! And People, if you're old and ugly and fat or a combination of any of the above or even young and tremendously attractive, please don't kiss in public or at least at the next table to me. That's the second time this week! It happened at The Boar's Head too!

Sally-Part 14. MUM! WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY "SALLY ON MEDICAL PROGRAMMES" ?

Once again, her phone rang and after the familiar twenty rings because she had already fallen asleep due to her under-active thyroid, for which her doctor discovered  later, she had been taking eight times the safe limit for years, without any apparent benefits or damage, I jumped in and  in my normal voice, "Hello mum, David here, well that took a long time didn't it? I suppose you were asleep?"
" Yes darling I was. Can I call you back in two minutes? I need a wetty."

So half an hour later my phone rang and I said,"Mum?"

"Sorry darling, I needed a daily as well and I couldn't find my teeth!"

Oh! God! I'd better explain. Well "daily" was the word used quite naturally in my house, but in no other as far as I know, though I haven't asked too many new girlfriends what pet names their families used for bodily functions, for the other you know what! Again, what an embarrassment it was until I learnt to speak colloquially to put up my hand and ask the teacher if I could "go for a daily?"

And this brings back two other life- wrecking memories. I think all five brothers learnt very quickly in life that unless you called out "I need the toilet" as you walked upstairs to the bathroom, you would find the bathroom door wide open with Sally sitting enthroned with her legs even wider apart wiping her works with hard "Izal" toilet paper and staring down at herself with no shame and she would smile and say, "won't be a moment darling I've just had a daily. She hadn't needed to inform us as we ran to open a window!

The other scarring memory is her teeth. Badly fitting false ones that we all watched slipping out of her mouth as she fell asleep. For a laugh we'd wait til they'd dropped out and then shout, "Mum! Teeth!" , and she'd half snort herself awake and say, "Someone must have knocked me!" and fall straight back to sleep!

" How are Shirley and the children darling?"
"Fine mum but look, is there any chance that I heard you on a medical phone-in this morning?"
"Yes darling! Did you hear it?"
"But mum, didn't you ask the wrong question?"

The family were starting to gag hysterically again!

"Well yes I did I suppose but I did try and explain to that silly arse that I hadn't been listening and I only turned on once I'd fed the mouse and wouldn't have asked the wrong question but one about her dying of kidney failure instead!"

I forgot to mention that Sally might have incorrectly read the Radio Times because her eyesight was very poor; minus forty or something, for which she obviously wore very thick specs which she could never find because her eyesight was so poor (!) and ended up with a broken pair of my daughter Gemma's whose  eyesight was equally bad and had given mum her spare pair which although without arms and one lens and which mum used upside down, served her reasonably well for years.
If mum wanted to watch our nine inch, black and white telly she would stand in front of it, blocking the screen and bend forward from the waist with her skirt riding up and over her enormous rear end (big enough to be a Grobanite!) .When we sensed that this was about to happen we would all pray silently that she was wearing underwear for a change!

And she didn't just have one mouse. The house was overrun with them.

"But mum, why "Sally"?
"Oh! Darling! I'm "Sally " on medical programmes"

I was starting to feel uneasy."What do you mean"Sally" on medical programmes?"
"Well, I'm Amy of Forest Hill on gardening ones, Julie of Forest Walks on DIY ones, Sophia of Forest Glade on car maintence ones and Jackie of Forest Green on sex guidance ones and I think that that's about all of them, so you see I'm not just some silly old woman who needs bringing down a peg or two!"

As I repeated each bombshell to my lot, except the last one, they had started stuffing cushions into each others mouths to quieten their uncontrollable squeals.

She sounded quite hurt by her treatment. "But" she crowed "Guess what? A lovely group of men from the BBC have called to ask if I could ask the same question again in a fortnight so there!"

Reverting to Serbo-Croat,  I cut in," Zally, Zat were me viz zilly voizes!"

Ten seconds silence and then, "You bastard!" And she slammed down the receiver!

Sally-Part 13. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH GROBAN !

THIS MAN IS COSTING ME A FORTUNE ! TAKEN AT MANCHESTER 2011. YOU CAN'T SEE SHIRLEY AS SHE HAD ALREADY BEEN TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT BY THE MARAUDING MOB OF FANS !

It wouldn't be right for me to carry on my tale without mentioning that today the 27th of February is a very special day.

 It is Josh Groban's birthday!

 What? Why? Who? I hear through the ether. Well several years ago on the tiny Hebridean island of Colonsay Shirley tuned into the fledgling TV channel Classic FM and saw a young American man with an amazing voice singing a beautiful song and was hooked for ever.

 Josh was essentially discovered by David Foster, appeared in a geeky role on Ali Mcbeal, sung with Celine Dion, standing in for Andrea Bocelli at a rehearsal and has risen to the highest ranks of international recognition, selling 30 odd million or so albums to date, touring to packed houses everywhere and yet if I mention his name here, few people know of  him.

Well my house is covered in pictures of him! And his are the eyes piercing your soul when you turn Shirley's laptop on!

 Our box room has become a shrine to all things Josh; with framed tour programmes, album covers and shelves of Josh soft toys. Each outfit Shirley wore to the concerts has been mounted and labeled in a frame just like famous football shirts and on a central table you will see the birthday cake she baked for him today and which we will sit around at tea time singing "Happy birthday to you", wearing Shirleys own hand-knitted Josh jumpers which she refuses to sell on the internet to other Grobanite nutters despite their begging entreaties !

'Tis he who has captured Shirley's undivided attention for all these years by which I mean fandom of an order I thought possible only of an adolescent Beatles fan, which she was..

But I'm not to be thought of as jealous because I've been to seven of his concerts including the amazing second night of Chess at The Albert Hall in London and although the only man in the auditorium and there mainly to carry Shirley's spare shoes, anti- thigh-rub gel, water, spare water, plastic bag with a wet flannel wrapped inside another wet flannel, wrapped inside another wet flannel, anti-cough medicine in case she got an unexpected cough during the show, autograph pen and book, spare autograph pen and book, spare spare shoes, seat raising cushion selection and for her to be able to sit on my shoulders round at the stage door in the hope of a fleeting glance, I thoroughly enjoyed watching him perform, singing, playing the piano and drums brilliantly, chatting effortlessly to the audience between numbers and together with a fantastic set of musicians giving a master class for two solid hours. I also sing and play the guitar but my wife won't even accompany me to a pub session and so has never heard people cheer me, applauding loudly and women, much younger and lighter than Josh's fans, quietly asking if they could buy me a drink. So jealousy does not come into it.

The truth is that his fans are generally of a senior age group and noticably much larger than the average sized woman 'up top' to the extent that if I see such an enormously norked woman walking towards us, I'll say "Grobanite?" to Shirley and get a good kicking.

I  don't think that Windows could log the hours Shirley has spent reading over the millions of reviews of each of Josh's hundreds of concerts that Shirley has read and each time she calls me in to listen to a report I am as captivated as she is by the minutiae of a life watched through an electron-microscope.

Yeh! Right!

And do you know that Shirley (and I really) sent him a note about how wonderful he was, written on one of my own watercolours which we thought he would enjoy and I must have sent it to the wrong address as he hasn't written back to thank us yet.Perhaps I didn't enclose my address!

Sally-Part 12. PUSHING INCREDULITY TO THE LIMIT!

Apparently some readers are more internetedly incompetent than me, which, believe me, is pushing incredulity to the very limit. Anyway, there are now eleven parts so far with one photo of Sally and her brood at part one only until I work out how to show more. So if you haven't read or can't find all the parts there should be a list on the right of your screen when you first link to www.davidnashleather.blogspot.com

Follow the obvious route, like click on Part 1 to read Part 1, Part 2 for Part 2 etc.This message is actually aimed primarily at my brother Andy who should not have been reading about my post-radio phone call to Sally whilst invigilating an exam and guffawing revoltingly, snotting over his students and ruining their chances of success!

Sally- Part 11. A HEART PACEMAKER FITTED ?

Sidney was the only severe asthmatic I knew who followed each deep drag on a cigarette with an equally deep suck on his ventolin inhaler. Actually, Sidney was the only severe asthmatic I knew who smoked. Actually, Sidney was the only severe asthmatic I knew.

So, my mother was essentially a market trader's daughter who spoke cockney and worked the stall in her youth before becoming a nursey school teacher in the late 1930's, worked for about a year, met my father who proposed on their first meeting, got married,started breeding and has lived off her ancient and quite incomplete knowledge ever since. Her only reading material is the knitting patterns and recipes which she cuts out of  "Woman's Weekly" which she doesn't actually read but decorates the backs of chairs with.

She talked to "Aunty" Sonia for hours at a time though all you'd hear was, "I know, Oh! I know" repeatedly. Now I think "Aunty" Sonia was on the other end also saying "I know, Oh! I know" ! So there wass no actual conversation, it was a form of comfort to them both! Come to think of it, my mother's decrepid phone directory held hundreds of phone numbers of long-dead relatives whom she had probably droned to death. "Auntie" Sonia and Sally out-lived them all and couldn't kill each other off and so mutated into women able to talk endless dross for decades. I know what you're thinking men and if you want to live say nothing!

To continue.....Sally's voice had barely faded away when fear sent my guts into spasm. "Shirley! I whimpered, "millions of people might have been listening! Do you think that anyone might realise that "Sally Of Forest Gate" is the mother of David Nash of Blyth, Northumberland?! They will! Oh my God I'll be a laughing stock!" And as my hysteria mounted I once again lost control of my bodily functions. I mean, how much gas can one body produce in a panic? I can assure you a lot! Only Shirley's resounding slap across my face whilst holding a towel to her nose brought me under some form of self-control and after an afternoon punctuated by bouts of severe depression followed by maniacal laughter I gradually returned to what by my standards was normal behaviour.

By the time the children came home from school I was much calmer and managed to tell them the tale amidst floods of helpless laughter from us all.

I couldn't not phone my mother and I hadn't planned anything particularly cruel until I heard her still slightly offended voice say "Chello?"

By the way, did you hear about the old  lady who when she answered the phone with a "Chello?" heard a sex pest say, "'Ello darlin! I know what you want me to do. You want me to come round there, strip you naked, tie you to the bedposts and have my wicked way with you for six hours!" And she said, "And you can tell all zat from just "Chello?"?

I couldn't help myself and with my voice disguised with an accent somewhere between Cornwall and Yorkshire I said, " 'Ello, be thart Sally Of Forest Gate", to which she replied a little guardedly, "Yes?". "Well Sally this be the BBC ere. Now m'dear you phoned a medical phone in this mornin with the wrong question didn't you my love?"
"Oh! Yes darling I did but I did tell the chairman that I hadn't actually been listening before I called but had seen the programme in the .........."
"That's OK Sally" I interrupted, "Don't you worry about that", my accent had changed to Welsh and then  Pakistani, "Cos, in fact, we're planning to do a programme about pernicious anaemia in two weeks time and we would like you to phone in your question again."
" Well I wouldn't mind darling but I felt that your chairman wanted me off air rather too quickly and I wouldn't want that to happen again and anyway I'm having a heart pacemaker fitted in the next two weeks and may well be in hospital at the time."

Now my family were all standing around me and as the conversation flowed I would cover up the mouthpiece and repeat everything Sally said. My lot were on the floor, helpless with laughter by the time she got to the totally made up bit about the pacemaker, like the Martians in the Cadbury's Smash advert.
"A pacemaker Sally?" Now in Scottish, "Oh dear, that is a shame but nivver ye minde aboot that hen, ye jist let us know which hospital yuur ganning to be in and the BBC will get a telephone to yuur bedside."
"Ah! I, I, I'm not quite sure.Erm, I erm think it'll be Guys or The London"
"Vell don't you vorry" in German now, "Zer BBC vill find you!"

And with a final "Gooday mate" in Australian I bade her farewell!

We were done in! Never had the family howled so crazily or wept so copiously and as the hysteria faded I was accused of great cruelty and forced to phone her back as myself.

Sally - Part 10.GRANDPAPA !

Sally spent my entire life embarrassing me and infuriating the patience of every person she came into contact with.

My own earliest memory is of sunny afternoon in a garden with other children, boys and girls, possibly relatives but as we called everyone Aunty or Uncle I can't be sure whether the Uncles laps I sat on were real Uncles or their children real cousins. We were alll about three and in our trunks in a paddling pool but only I wore hand-knitted woollen ones which itched like mad when dry and hung down to my ankles when wet; the Devil's own design.

Although you might think that a three year old would be unaware of pecking orders, social correctness and disdain, as a man I remember the deep psychological wounds that pressed in upon me that day. I still recall as clearly as if it was only yesterday the silence that greeted me as I stepped out the pool with my water -laden crotch dragging on the ground, apparently caused by me being hung like a donkey!

 Little boys and girls are aware of the differences between the sexes even at that age and whilst the boys collapsed squealing with contempt the girls stared, up then down then up and down again and then fainted. Their mothers, gagging,  ran to rescue them. Sally carried on talking at the mothers, sublimely unaware that anything was wrong.

 My world collapsed down on me. The birds stopped singing and the sun stopped shining. I swore that I would one day kill her. Because of that day I have never learnt to swim and I never appear in public in shorts or trunks.

Never, never do this to your small sons.

So where did my mother come from? Why couldn't she be like other children's mothers; kind and funny and compassionate; the mother that every child deserves? Why couldn't she cook or at least cook without burning everything to cinders or have a meal ready on time? Why did she drive my father to distraction day after day?

Well she was born in 1918, one of two children, to a hard working mother who ran a haberdashery and carpet shop and market stall in Queen's Road, West Ham, and a lazy, philandering father who terrified the young female shop assistants by threatening to sack them if they dared to let out so much as a squeak whilst he interfered with them from his chosen perch, lying on a shelf under the shop counter as they served customers!

I never knew the old sod beyond a fleeting glimpse on a visit from his new home and mistress  to where he'd moved after squandering my grandmother's money and then deserting her after the second world war.

A handsome man you might think; with a rakish grin and a Clarke Gableish moustache? Oh no! I have a photo of him, published in a history of the East End.  A little man sat in a hall with a tin hat on, probably five foot six tall and eight stone.

Grandpa Lothario. Front row Second from the right !

 My bloodline. I never stood a chance really

 . His son, my uncle Sidney was a brilliant atomic scientist who developed the process of irradiation that fresh fruit is bombarded with to preserve it and a successful womaniser by all accounts, with several marriages and lovers but who was born with a monstrously deformed chest which makes me sick to think of. The sternum was pushed back to within an inch of his spine, forcing his heart onto the wrong side, upending it in the process which wasn't discovered until he joined the army and had a medical examination. He used to make us clench our fists and see how far we could sink them into the cave!

Ah! That explains my early fear of caves!

 I don't know how any woman could give herself to him! It seems that he expected every woman to succumb to his charms and this included my new young wife who meeting him for the first time outside my mother's house as our cars arrived together bent forward for a polite greeting peck, all of which displays of affection she hates and dismisses as middle-class crap, only to reel back in horror as Sidney thrust his tongue deep into her mouth!

I should have knifed him on the spot but in those days Shirley was concilatory and held me back saying that she thought she might have imagined it and didn't want to cause a fuss in my parents' house!

Absolutely seething with indignation I challenged my mother to say something to him but she dismissed my pleas with, "Oh darling, he does it to all women! He even does it to me!"

God I wish I'd been born with a spine!

If any film makers are reading this and think that there could be a great film made of that man's life, could I play my grandfather in the shop with Pippa Middleton and Cheryl Cole as the shop assistants?

Sally - Part 9. WHO NEEDS A PSYCHIATRIST ?

Try and keep up with me! This is now really Sally..............

Not that my father didn't play his part in my complete weediness. I was so nervous that if he even looked at me I would wet myself and cry, right up to leaving home at eighteen. If he spoke to me, which he rarely did, let alone look at me disapprovingly,  I would wet myself and as the third of five sons each born a returning-ambulance-from the-maternity-hospital-ride-apart, I was basically anonymous and unnoticed until I discovered this way to attract attention to myself.

Not surprisingly the family name for me became "Waterworks".

ME WITH THE FACE ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE BUT DIDN'T ! OK! OK! I'M JUST GOING FOR SOME SYMPATHY!

 I must have done things that required admonishment but as I was able to be put on a rug from which I never moved until I was four doing nothing more offensive than looking as squarely ugly as my ancient Aunt Mary, I can't imagine what my crimes could have been.

My mother, the good cop and knowing that my father was about to have words with me, would urge me to go for "A wetty".

 What a word! What an expression! One which I naturally refused to use after the age of sixteen. My fellow pupils all went for a "slash" or the braver ones a"piss" but I went for a "wetty"!

If I sensed trouble and heard him aqpproaching and before wetting myself , I'd wet myself! And still as a man, any threatening situation makes me feel like sullying my nipple-high jeans. That's why I'm a wimp. Not because I'm scared of a fight but terrified of the public scorn as disgusted onlookers howl at my soaking crotch.

 So why, when I actually do need a pee in a public toilet, do I stand frozen to the spot unable to produce a drop, let alone a stream unless I shut my eyes tightly, hum loudly and stick my fingers in my ears thereby creating the logistical problem of support. ( A Psychiatrist answers........)

I know that I'm not alone in this but please don't e-mail me.

My wife, often assures me, in that gently understanding, ego-busting manner, beloved of women everywhere that I carry " A great deal of historical guilt and one huge inferiority complex beneath an outer, very brittle veneer of  remarkable arrogance, intolerance and impatience so typical of all male hyperchondriacs who remain welded to their mother's apron strings!"

 And that on one of her good days when she's feeling kindly-disposed towards me! Oh! And in one breath with eyes rolling in opposite directions in a purple face with steam coming out of her ears and arteries sticking out of her temples!

I think I'd probably asked her what was for dinner at a bad time!

Sally - Part 8. TOWARDS THE END OF FEBRUARY .... I THINK !

Anyway,  friday at the end of February.  I no longer know the date because I invested £3 on Amazon on a snazzy plain dialled watch with no date which I would be able to read in the dead of night if I woke up, ,which I never do.

 This replaced my old one which had the date and a light but which  I couldn't read when I didn't wake up as the light was feeble and me blind without my bifocals which don't focus at such a short distance and my new one isn't luminous which wouldn't have worked because luminosity needs some light to maintain an ethereal glow and Shirley can't sleep with any light whatsoever or noise except Radio 5 Live blaring out all night which would waken the dead and then tells me; "Well that's the worst night ever! Look at me! No quilt, you selfish pig and I've been up seven times for a wee and now my day's ruined ! I'm exhausted and don't even think of THAT!," as I reach out a hand to comfort her whilst still unconscious.

What a pleasure to be home from our break away. This morning, before we left and still engorged from the night before, I had Eggs Benedict, which if you want the recipe seems to be a muffin cut in half, toasted and left to harden for three days topped with two "poached "eggs which in my case I believe were two eggs broken onto a ladle and threatened with being immersed in tepid water before being poured onto the thickest sliced three week old exclusively farm-hardened ham with a yellowed sour sauce to complete another superb meal. I even managed to fail to flavour them  with flaked sea salt which looks like very large bits of cristallined dandruff and which burnt through the top layers of my tongue.

Being English I sent my compliments to the chef.

Ah yes, home a little hungry but not wishing to disturb Shirley whilst she caught up with 80,000 further tweets from or about Josh Groban ( He of Number 13 Blog ), who stares straight into my eyes if I turn her laptop on or off and frankly I wonder if there's anything I need to know,  I searched  the freezer for good old fish and chips and peas and found it almost impossible to get either the chips or the peas out of the minute holes that Shirley makes in the bags.

See to my mind the freezer keeps things frozen and therefore fresh without the danger of drying out but so as not to annoy Shirley I spent twenty minutes prising and squeezing each pea and chip out in fear of her wrath if I were to dare to snip an extra teeny weeny bit off each corner.

 It's worse with "Full Half Pounders" of boiled sweets. They just rip apart and boy do I get it in the neck for that.

Sally - Part 7. A REST IN YORKSHIRE AT THE BOAR'S HEAD HOTEL !

Shirley and I intended to have a day of complete rest today, so we started by eating more meat than we normally eat in a year. This was called a "Full Yorkshire" and frankly I hated it.

 I mean there were no baked beans to swamp the taste of heavily textured pig products that my teeth attempted to chew through in the company of several posh table-loads of gentrified elders trying to look as though their teeth were their own and well able to cope with gristle and bone!

 Whatever "Award Winning" is supposed to mean in butchery terms it failed. Give me Richmond sausages grilled to death and covered in fried onions and English mustard in a mass- produced and soggy white bread sandwich, cooked by my reluctant chef of a wife any day rather than today's selection!

Following a post-breakfast snooze, we walked thinly clothed through the Ripley Castle grounds before collapsing onto our bed for a pre-three-mile-drive into Harrogate snooze. Nowadays we would normally have booked a Travelodge for such a journey.

 Am I joking? Oh no! Last year Shirley couldn't face a 135mile trip to a concert in Manchester without two, yes two Travelodges on the way there and three on the way back! And I don't think I can bear to tell you of the trauma her vertigo caused in getting her to her seat in the arena. Let me just say that before and after each of Leonard Cohen's songs the audience were looking around for the source of the, "Oh ! The height ! The height ! David, I'm going to faint ! I'll have to go out ! Can you carry me out if I shut my eyes ? This was all your idea you fool ! I need the toilet ! Ooooooh !"

Harrogate on a cold february day is not that more attractive than Blyth. We stood with our noses pressed against the windows of "Bettys" packed teahouse wondering just who would pay £18 for tea. Obviously plenty and so packed in, all dressed in their finest.

 WE treated ourselves to the Thursday Special Curry at Weatherspoons for £6.90, including a pint, after a shopping trip which consisted of Shirley NOT buying a new hairbrush and both of us riding up and down the escalators in Marksies and Primark and feeling so exhausted by the sight of so much stuff that we immediately left both shops without even looking at anything.

At the end of Tenerife we shook hands and agreed never to go abroad again and today we shook hands and agreed never to book another two day break.

Sally - Part 6. THE SILENCE GREW THICKER!

You could chew the silence, thick and all-enveloping was it, until; "Cooee! Hellower!  I forgot to mention that if I'm in company and my wind is very bad then I strike a match to mask the smell as my mother taught me. You might like to pass that one on to your listeners."

Yet more, even thicker silence.

On hearing "Hello darling", several things happened to me in quick succession. I screamed for my wife. My bladder and bowels lost all control and emptied on the spot and every sweat gland produced torrents of fluid that soaked me thoroughly. By the time Shirley came running through, expecting to find at least an arm off, I was pointing, goggle -eyed at the radio stammering; "It's it's mer my mer mother!"

Now Shirley doesn't like being disturbed from her life of complete leisure and before she realised what was going on her opening and comforting words to me were; " What the ****'s wrong with you? You nearly gave me a heart attack you stupid ****! I was just having a snooze! (At 10am?)

But by the time Sally had finished her question we were clasped in each other's arms staring at the radio
The chairman finally spoke, "Urm Sally,  this is a program about kidney failure,  not pernicious anaemia so we really can't answer your question though of course we are sure that our listeners will appreciate your advice on dealing with wind."

"Oiveh! Chello darlink. "Sally had transformed her voice into an ancient Lithuanian crone's,  full of Scottish"ch" sounds and the tribulations of millions . Her speech slowed, slewed and wheedled, "Ch eye erm zo zorry but eye vaz not listerning to you kindly zirs but still eye vunder vot are my chances ov dis end?
 
Her parents and Sally herself were East End cockneys  so where she dredged this voice up from I'll never know. She must have been watching too many Greta Garbo films or something!

Radio silence was once again broken by the quick-witted chairman asking , "Sally, do you have a bus stop outside your house?" To which Sally answered a little defensively "Vell down zer road along zer Vansted Flats iz vun but mine huzband alvayz drove mee in zer car zo eye never cort no buz. Vy are you askin me zis?"

" Well Sally, ( he knew he was dealing with a nutter ) in answer to your first question, we think that you have as much chance of contracting pernicious anaemia as you do of stepping off the pavement and falling under the wheels of a number nine bus!"  Delivered with a definitely cold finality!

" Oi! Eye zee darlink. Vell cud eye just ask about my zon Jonazan vot ve call David vot haz a problem viz hiz......."

"No Sally, you may not! Now we must move on!"

And the programme did move on but my hearing had gone as my body entered a new phase of uncontrollable shaking, flatulence and finally maniacal unstoppable laughter.

Shirley just quietly said "Oh ****!" over and over again as did I and I prayed that I would wake up to find it all a terrible nightmare.

"Please tell me that I didn't just hear what I just heard" I whimpered but of course I had. Sally had reached out three hundred miles and got me again! Again? You might well ask.

 Yes Sally is almost solely responsible for the Giant Redwood tree that my wife insists I carry on my shoulder.

Sally - Part 5. IT'S NOT AN EXAGGERATION!



SALLY AT HER HAPPIEST AS A SNOOKER 'BANDIT' ! SHE ROAMED FOREST GATE SNOOKER HALLS TAKING ON AND BEATING ALL-COMERS ! SHE LOST ONLY ONCE....TO RAY REARDON, SIX TIMES WORLD CHAMPION !

You may think that I have exaggerated my accusation against my mother but I haven't. I was a witness, as I was a sickly, skeletally thin child who spent most of his early school years at home vomitting copiously in a virtually permanent state of gastro-colonic collapse caused, as shown by extensive laboratory investigations, by my mother's appalling lack of hygiene,  both personal, in the bathroom or in the kitchen.

No matter what modern theorists say about today's children's lack of exposure to microbes because of their mothers over-zealous use of bleach, Mr Muscle and Cillit Bang, I was bombarded with hostile and infectious matter direct from maternal orifices to which I developed no immunity whatsoever.

I repeatedly heard her answering the phone when my father was out on his home visits; " Hello darling. Dr.Nash's surgery.  Mrs Nash speaking.How may I help?  Oh darling! How awful! Is he/she feverish? Does he/she have diarrhea or/and a headache? Does his/her wind smell wineish or meaty? Oh darling, give him/her two aspirin and if there's no improvement in a fortnight don't hesitate to call back. Byee!".

Then when my father returned, did he not think it odd that my mother told him that no one had phoned? After all, the phone never stopped ringing during the rest of the day .She never told him because she thought he was busy enough and anyway his patient list was far too big for him to notice a few untimely and unnecessary deaths. There would definitely be some interesting research findings if anyone examined the health authorities records for his practice.

It is my mother's telephone voice that I return to now. She spoke as so many do in that plummy forty's film style, Queen-like. The panel was waiting for her question:

"Hello darling, Iwas just reading the radio times on my knees on the kitchen floor whilst feeding my pet field mouse which has built the sweetest little nest behind my fridge and I saw that there was a medical phone-in. Well, I'm a seventy year old doctor's widow and my great,great aunt Rachael on my mother's side died in1874 from pernicious anaemia and I wondered what my chances of dying from it are? I do suffer very badly with wind and I feared that this my be an indication of something more serious as eating burnt toast doesn't really relieve the condition".

Silence! You could almost see the tumbleweed blow through the studio as the stunned panel sat shocked and speechless!

Sally - Part 4. IF ONLY!

If only I'd remembered to take my freshly charged camera I could have shown our attempt at Hawes to drive literally through a lake, stopping and reversing a quarter of a mile after I dared to refuse to pass a conked out BMW standing in two feet of fast running water.

"Look Shirl, this is only a Peugeot Partner, front wheel drive with a ground clearance of eight inches and the exhaust pipe is already submerged and it's me who will have to get you up onto the roof if we conk out, so please, just for once, let me make a decision! O.K?"

Shirley went unusually quiet, being unused to being stood up to and grunted "OK"  from between grinding teeth.

I think I probably gave her too much technical information for her to argue.

So eight hours later we arrived, exhausted but not starving as Shirley had thoughtfully packed a fruit shortcake biscuit each.

Sally - Part 3. THE SEARCH AND THE FLOOD!

It will quickly become obvious that I am technically incompetent. Last night's blog has disappeared! So here I go again.

Before I return to "Sally" this is what sort of happened.

We had recently returned from three weeks in the Canaries. See photo below. As if you weren't already staring at it, men in envy, women in rapture!

" NO SIXTY TWO YEAR OLD MAN HAS THE RIGHT TO HAVE SUCH A MAGNIFICENT BODY!" THIS QUOTE WRITTEN BY SHIRLEY IS CARVED INTO THIS PHOTO'S FRAME WHICH SHE KEEPS ON HER BEDSIDE CABINET. SHE TOOK THIS SHOT ON TENERIFE THIS JANUARY WHERE SHE TOOK ME TO A PRIVATE MEDICAL CLINIC TO GET MY 'CONKERS' BOTOXED ! THIS 'AFTER' SHOT DEMONSTRATES THE FOLLY OF SEEKING MEDICAL PROCEDURES ABROAD !

Shirley needed a break before leaving home for a six month rest in our static caravan set, south facing over the ocean, high on a hillside in Dumfries and Galloway, so she set to on her laptop ( I now have her old one to write this on as I never got a look-in before because she spent approximately from dawn til dusk following Josh Groban and weather forecasts and live web-cams in obscure places, though occasionally allowing me to reply to an e-mail, which if I took more than seven seconds resulted in great huffs of contempt and  "Are you going to take much longer? I've got things to do!" )

Eventually after two weeks of searching, comparing, re-searching, tripadvising, and re-researching she called me through to ask for my approval or suggestions. I would always approve whatever she suggested, adding my own suggestions which would generally be immediately de-suggested. So as The Boar's Head in Ripley met all the criteria of ancient coaching inn, heavily discounted and with breakfast, evening meal,  free entry to the castle grounds and teasmaid in the small double for only slightly more  than a fortnight's full board in Mauritius we decided to book, ignoring the fact that of the 40,000 guests who had written about their stay one had complained to reception that she had been woken by what she suspected had been a cyclist passing the end of the street, moaning that the receptionist, a lovely patient Madeiran, had not responded with sufficient empathy!

The sun had shone ceaselessly during the search period but the forecast warned of heavy rain and storm force winds through our intended route via the Dales but dry pleasent weather if we drove down the east coast, so obviously I recommended east only to be de-recommended.

We set out, heading ever closer to a darkening sky that swiftly became a deluge of biblical proportions, unable to see more than a few yards in front with howling winds trying to force us off the bleak moorland roads.The tarmac was awash with abandondoned Range Rovers, tractors and hovercraft. But with my manhood called into question and veiled promises of nightly pleasures to come rescinded I plunged onward.

Sally - Part 2. MY INVISIBLE WIFE!



1973. MY FIRST STALL ON THE QUAYSIDE MARKET, NEWCASTLE. WITH MY HELPER PAUL HOLDING MY FIRST BORN JONATHAN AND MY FATHER-IN-LAW, THE IRREPRESSIBLE TOM.

I really like my life. It's full of work and holidays. I go to market every Sunday and to a few longer shows during the summer.

WE ALL LOOKED LIKE JOHN LENNON IN 1973 ! MY JUMPER WAS COVETED BY MANY !

Shirley, my wife, who respects me deeply, has become a "Mrs.Mainwaring" character out of 'Dad's Army'. No one has ever seen her and we appear together in public so rarely and certainly not at market that some people think that I have made her up. People may wonder why that is and I can assure you that it is not because she dreads the world seeing her for the fool she thinks she is for having made such a crap marital choice !

 When a friend bumped into the pair of us on the day in 1993 when she last went shopping, he poked me in the ribs and said, "Hey! You're really quiet when ' THE BOSS' is around!"

I can't think what he meant!

My three children adore me and are very proud of me. I see it in their eyes as they sit at my feet listening to my words of wisdom with their earphones in and I hear love in their voices where others might hear disdain! I'm sure it's their desire to help me feel important that makes them keep coming back to borrow more money.

Because I work such long hours I have no social life, which is odd for a man who likes to hear idle malicious gossip and then spread it around without any thought to the terrible hurt that others might subsequently suffer. Shirley often tells me that I'm turning into a  woman because of this love of gossip and turning into a woman is probably the one thing I haven't been to the doctor's about !

Oh! Shirley is such a joker!

The trouble I have is that when Shirley tells me something in secret, on pain of death if I mention it to the person concerned, which she has just heard in secret from someone else who has made her promise not to tell anyone else, "Especially David! " because they had promised their informer that they wouldn't tell anyone else, I forget all about it until I see the poor victim and immediately say something like, "Hay you'll never guess what I've heard about someone, can't remember who for now.....anyway."....Etc,Etc, Etc.

EVERYMAN MUST RECOGNISE THIS.......THE 'WARNING' LOOK ! IGNORE IT AT YOUR PERIL !

Just don't tell me anything! Right?

I don't smoke because it makes my clothes stink and my lungs suffer and anyway I could never inhale in a manly way without coughing my guts up. I don't drink because after two halves of lemonade shandy I believe myself to be a most charming erudite man with a deeply seductive voice and  a remarkably wonderful sexual technique until the next day when someone tells me what a complete prat I'd been, telling dreadfully inflammatory jokes which simply weren't funny and braying like a donkey into the faces of beautiful women who were completely embarrassed  and unamused by my behaviour.

I don't recall successfully or unsuccessfully seducing any of them !

So I seek solace in music but much of what I hear is dross, presented by condescendingly smug idiots with hangers on in the background whooping and cheering. Sadly even Classic FM has it's share of them. There was an Irish one in the mornings who lacked charm and sincerity and referred to the great Leonard Bernstein as "Lennie" when he wasn't fit to tie his shoelaces. I heard him say, "Woodya beleaf it's Lennie hisself condoctin? And after dis onta der horses." !

And that's how I came to lunge at the radio to get him off and back to the hopefully better world of Radio4.
I tuned into a medical phone-in where a chairman and his panel were answering questions specifically on kidney disease .He was in mid-sentence....."And our next caller is Sally of Forest Gate in East London. Hello Sally and what's your question ?"

You see, I was born and brought up in Forest Gate and I immediately wondered if my mother, Sylvia, could possibly know Sally amongst the thousands of locals.

Sally started to speak, "Hello darling..." and my worst nightmare began to unfold for it was my mother's poshest telephone voice that the nation heard. The woman who as a doctor's wife was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of my father's patients and who as a mother produced at first four emaciated sons who can be seen stick-thin in the few family photos that were ever taken ! The fifth, born many years later, was fed on Wimpy Hamburgers and fattened up nicely !

Sally - Part 1. DAVID! THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE STARTING A BLOG!

'SALLY' ACTUALLY TURNED OUT TO BE MY MOTHER SYLVIA ! HERE SHE IS WITH ALL FIVE SONS, FOUR OF WHOM INSISTED ON THERE BEING NO PHOTOS OF THEM IN MY BLOG ! OH WELL !

I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS IS ALL GOING TO GO ! READ ON !

"Shirley ! " I said, quite forcefully for a wimp," I think that I have one of the funniest books in the world at my fingertips and I'm going to write it as a one hundred part Blog !"

 "David !" she replied, without  stopping to draw breath, " This is not the time to be starting a Blog as you're still the only money-earner in this house which you repeat so often that the whole world must know and you moan enough about having the grandchildren five days a week so where you're going to find the time to write something that no-one will ever read I have no idea still it's your life and you do whatever you want anyway so I don't know why  you are bothering to tell me in the first place now if you don't mind I've got Deal Or No Deal to watch and four thousand tweets about Josh Groban to read ! "

 This is my view on life and it is meant to be extremely funny!

My poor wife is the star and suffers greatly under my withering pen but loves it and when I see her crying with laughter at my ridiculous tales about us then I know I've achieved what I set out to do!

But first I have to start at some kind of beginning and that's with the person who inspired the title!

NORTHUMBERLAND'S MICRO CLIMATE ENSURES VERY EARLY FLOWERING OF MY PRIZE-WINNING DAHLIAS. FEBRUARY 2012 !

Apart from my children, all other members of my family refuse to read any of it in fear of what they might read about themselves or because of the way I've dealt with my own memories of my upbringing!

Sadly  for them I think that their fears and disgust are totally misplaced but there you go! 

 And especially to the niece who, drunk, said to me after 80 Blogs, " Uncle David ! Hic ! I have not read your Blog ! Hic ! I will not read your Blog ! Hic !", I say.....Go on ! Give it a go ! You might just wet yourself laughing !

AND SO HERE I GO.........!


As far as the conventional world sees me I am a complete failure. I hated school and from the age of twelve stopped trying after an undeserved humiliation by my headmaster following a field trip where I acted perfectly normally for a boy by showing off to an approaching group of girls.I realised then what tossers teachers were and quickly developed a hatred of authoritarian figures who bullied their way through their insignificant lives.I walked away from Art College and twenty years later got thrown off a four year junior teaching degree course after two years. At the first I was bored witless because there were no teachers and at the second I was appallingly badly taught by people who had no knowledge of teaching young children and had mostly been moved sideways out of secondary education following nervous breakdowns. I became disruptive !

I never lacked intelligence or intellect and given the correct boot up the arse, I could have become anything that I now wish I'd been. I enjoyed making things and gradually evolved into a leather bag maker branching out into purses, belts and painting watercolours.

 I have spent the last forty years working at least fourteen hours a day, rarely finishing before midnight. I work alone and rely on the radio, my records and tapes to keep me sane. I used to listen mostly to radio 4 and before the BBC buggered up the schedules and filled the day with whingeing women and introspective wallies, it was often interesting, informative and, at times, very funny. In fact I even once wrote to Roy Hudd to tell him that I'd cried with laughter at one of his shows, to which he replied in a single sentence " Yes it was good ,wasn't it?"  

This story revolves around the day that radio 4 nearly caused me to lose  my sanity.