CHAPTER  59


Vignettes from my Life

19.  Easter 1968

Anne and I went down for the pre-Easter performance at the ballet school.  Again, we were very impressed.  Jody was becoming a star in parts which needed a certain flair, panache, and, yes, showmanship.  Not overdone, but giving an edge to his dancing.  Coming up to seventeen soon he would be in his last year from September.  Stephen was now a suave, very precise young dancer.  In the last few months he had started his growth spurt and was now about five feet four.  The paediatrician who examined the youngsters regularly said he was right on course for a final reasonable height.  He was also still well-proportioned, not all arms and legs as my lanky two had been.

     Anne had gone to the office at the school to check on anything needed or any instructions.  I went with Stephen to his room and finished his packing.  He was quietly excited about something.  He went over and shut the door.

     “Dad, I've got to tell you, I can do it!”  He laughed.  “I had one of those wet things soon after I got back after Christmas.  James and Khaled had told me about them and Jody said the same thing had happened to him when he started.  Safar said I had to tell you.”

     “How did Safar know?” I asked as the boys hadn't seen each other since Christmas.

     He grinned.  “I 'phoned him.  Didn't he tell you?”

     The boys were always answering the 'phone, or were asking if they could 'phone friends so I hadn't really noticed.

     “No, he didn't, I expect he wanted you to tell me your news yourself.  Congratulations, you are really growing up!”

     He grinned.  “Gosh, I am growing up, aren't I.  It's great isn't it?”

     “That you can do it, or, how you feel?”

     He laughed.  “Both!  The others said it would be good.”

     “Is there anything you want to ask about?”  I said, just as I had asked the others.

     He smiled.  “Safar asked me that and said you would as well.  James and Khaled explained about all sorts of things and Jody's been very helpful.  I don't think there is at the moment.”

     “Jody's been helpful?”

     “Of course, he's my friend.  Got to help friends!”  He giggled.  “Jody'll be mad I've told you that, but James said you know all about boys.”

     “True,  I was one myself quite a few years ago!”

     “Yes, I know that, but it's that book as well!”

     Well, I wasn't surprised Jody and he were wank-buddies.  Stephen had shared his room with James, Safar and Jody who were all, quite obviously, seasoned masturbators.  He must have been so frustrated waiting for it to happen.  But, the book?  I expect he and his room-mates at Christmas had pawed over the last section of the copy which had mysteriously vanished from my study and appeared there again the evening before the general departures.  At least the pages weren't stuck together!

     When we arrived back Khaled and Safar were waiting.  I didn't know but accommodation had been re-arranged again.  Stephen was in his usual room with Safar, and Jody, all smiles, was bunking in with Khaled in Francis's and his room.  Francis would not be seen yet as he was working and staying with Grunty next door because they were having some exams as soon as term began.  Also, James had decided he would pop up to Chester to stay with Uncle Edward and Aunt Della for a few days.

                              *

     Of course, things didn't remain quiet when James returned from Chester on the Tuesday after Easter.  More rearrangements.   Francis decided too to return to his room, but brought Grunty as well.  Why they couldn't have stayed next door I never fathomed?  'Change of scene' was the nearest to a sensible remark I got from Francis.  That meant Jody and James went into the small guestroom leaving Khaled and the two trainee medics together.  Either Jody had given up snoring or James was no longer bothered by it was also a question unasked and so unanswered.  They seemed more than happy to be in together.  Hatching more pranks to play on the unsuspecting populace.

     Given that it was holiday time and given that adolescents love their beds James was not a typical adolescent, late or otherwise.  He had always been an early riser and was always of the opinion that the others were lazy so-and-sos and would be better off up and getting on with things.  The second day he was home I was up a ladder in the stairwell, changing a couple of light bulbs and trying to work out why one was flickering, just on eight o'clock in the morning.  It was rather a delicate balancing job and I'd just completed getting the ladder into position when I heard James fling open the door of the room in which the three older lads were sleeping.  From my vantage point I caught a glimpse of him dressed, very simply, in an old pair of navy blue rugger shorts.

     James had a fog-horn voice.  “Wakee, wakee, rise and shine!   Hands off cocks, on socks, you lazy lubbers!” he bellowed.

     We had had words with him about the wake-up call before.  He pointed out when he went sailing with Uncle Flea's and Uncle Georgie's Sea Scouts they were always woken with that call and it was an old sailors' reveille call.   If it was good enough for the Royal Navy, and if it was good enough for the Sea Scouts, then.......  It was no good arguing with James so, periodically, as long as Grandma wasn't in residence, he awoke tardy bedlovers with his bellow.

     Someone must have been awake because we heard James's squeal which always occurred when retribution was meted out by a recipient of one of his capers.  In fact from the succeeding squeals more than one person had grabbed.  There were two slaps on bare skin from the sound of it.

     “Ouch!” James's dignity as well as his backside was hurt.  “Give me back my shorts, Cally!  I only came in to wake you up.  It's a lovely day.  And that hurt, Francis.  I bet I've got hand prints.  I'll go and show Mum and she'll tell you off.”  James usually razzed his retaliators with threats to tell his Mummy!  This went back years and always invoked further retribution.

     “Shut up, Squirt, or I'll give you something to tell Mum about.  I know, I think I'll practice my first circumcision on you.  Hold him still, Cally, while I find some nail scissors.”

     This provoked more squeals from James and giggles from Khaled and Francis.

     “And you can have a neat job like Cally's if you like,” said Francis to renewed laughter from the pair, “I can use him as a model!”

     “What the hell's going on,” came from Grunty.  Grunty was a heavy sleeper and did not like being woken up.  “Oh, it's him!”

     “Francis is assaulting me!” came James's anguished cry, “And get your knee out of my face!”

     “I've only offered to tidy him up a bit.  Most unsightly all that skin.  And it'll be practice for me, won't it?”

     “Talk about yourself then, we're the same,” James said in a dismissive way.  “Gosh, Grunty you have got hairy legs!  Francis likes hair...ry....Ow!”  Another slap.  “.....And what are you doing, Grunty?  That's not nice for a boy your age.  I'll tell your mother!”

     “Shut up, Squirt!” came Grunty's growl, “I was only scratching myself.”

     “Didn't look like that to me from this angle,” came incorrigible James' reply.  “You want to be careful or you'll have to wear glasses like Francis.”

     Francis's acquisition of reading glasses when seventeen after complaining of headaches when reading had provoked a deal of mirth at his expense; from James especially, exclusively referring to certain habits.

     “Once Francis has finished with you I think I might perform a double orchidectomy.”

     He and Francis laughed.

     “What's that?” queried James.

     “Dictionaries are not provided. You'd soon find out!  Little Squirt-no-more!” said Grunty.

     “Ouch, let go!” squealed James again.  “It's not fair, there are three of you.  I'll go and get the others.”

     “How, brother dear?  Little James is going nowhere.  OK, Cally, while I hold him you find his most ticklish points.”

     “I'll help,” said Grunty.  “I have a theory that if you tickle someone enough and they're laughing you wouldn't need an anaesthetic.”

     “And here's the other one!  Grab him, Grunty!” called out Khaled.

     Jody had come exploring and his squeals were heard next.

     “He's got his pretty panties on,” I heard Khaled say.  I suspected these were some dreadful boxer shorts he'd bought in some Oxford Street tourist trap which depicted a large arrow pointing downwards on the front and the legend 'In Case of Fire'.

     “Get 'em off!” said Grunty and there were more squeals and two more slaps on bare skin were audible.

     “Ow!, what was that for?” came Jody's aggrieved voice.

     “For aiding and abetting Bogmop here and for whatever you two are planning to do next,” said Francis.  James had been called Bogmop recently because of an unfortunate visit to a new barber who had massacred his hair so it stuck out in all directions.  “God!  You stink, Fuller!”

     “Well you have got your nose in his armpit.  You're just kinky, Francis..., Ouch!”  Another sharp slap was heard.  He wasn't stoppable.  “Hi, Grunts, here's something to tax your little brain. What d'you call a blonde on a boatie's arm, eh?”

     A non-committal grunt from Grunty.

     Jody chirped up.  “I know!  A tattoo!....  And you know there are three types of boatie!  Those who can count and those who can't!.......       Ouch!”    Another slap to a boy's muscular bum.

     “Give that boy first prize!” chortled James.  “And don't do that to him, Grunty!....   We know you like......  Yowwww!   Stop tickling me, Francis, you've got rough hands.  You've got corns on the palms of your hands and we all know why!”

     “Shut up, toad, we haven't finished with the pair of you yet.”  More squeals from James and a renewed giggle from Jody.   “And from the sight before my eyes we could get a bit more practice in, eh Grunts?”

      “What practice?” panted Jody.
     “Snip, snip,” went Khaled.  What he did I had no idea but there were renewed squeals, from both this time.  I guessed he must have grabbed the two foreskins and stretched them.  “And what's the other one, Grunty?  Orchids something, you said?” Khaled went on.

     “Orchidectomy,” said Grunty, “Orchis is Greek for this....,” There was a concerted squeak as two handfuls of prime gonads must have been clutched.  “......and 'ectomy' is for cut 'em off.  And if you two don't scuttle back to your horrible smelly little pit and leave us to rest and recuperate there will extra rations for Old Mog next door.”  Old Mog, alias Winterbourn Master, was the most beautiful Siamese cat belonging to the McIntyres.  There were even more squawks as the genitalia must have been squeezed again.  “Go on, scamper off you pesky pair!”

     Even though Grunty was smaller in stature than either Jody or extra lanky James, what Grunty said was law.  Or else there would be disorder.  Two scurrying, giggling creatures rushed from the bedroom and a pair of shorts and a pair of boxers followed them and hit the wall just as I had found that the second bulb holder was hanging by almost a bare wire.  A job for an electrician.  Not even for Luscious Lucius.

     “No need to wake the household!” I called out from my position on the ladder.  Two nude creatures came to the top of the stairs and looked curiously at me.  Neither were at all abashed at being bollock naked.

     “We've been threatened by the ugly mob,” said James.  A call of 'We heard that' came from Francis.  “They threatened all sorts of things, Dad, you ought to go in there and sort them out!  Big bullies they are!”

     Jody just stood and laughed.  He was used to James's pleas for aid when he'd managed to incite reprisals.

     I was used to it too.  My six foot two son, standing displaying his all, was no different from the child of seven pleading that I do something as Francis was threatening to lock him in the cupboard to stop him pinching pieces of his jigsaw.  “James you are eighteen now, you great baby.  Fight your own battles and go and get washed and dressed the pair of you and I'll take you to Ely this morning as I've got to take some books over to one of the canons.”

     “Can we come?” called out Francis.

     “No, you can't, it'll give you and Grunty a chance to do some of that work you're always talking about.  I'll take the other two as well and Khaled can stay and study in peace.”

     “Aw, Dad!” came a concerted trio of discontent.  Even Grunty called me that at times!
     The last noise had woken the other two, or, at least disturbed them.  Two more nude creatures poked their heads out of their door and then advanced into the corridor to see what was happening. .  From the looks on their faces there must have been some morning activity going on as two inquisitive creatures would have been out earlier to see what the rumpus was about.

     “What's going on?” demanded Stephen, “Is it James misbehaving again?”
     “What do you think?” I said, folding the ladder.  “Where there is noise James can't be far behind.”

     “He's got a big behind,” came a cackle from the other room.

     “True,” said Safar stepping round him.  “Getting fat.  Not enough exercise.”

     “Not the right type!” came the voice again.

     “Shut up, Francis!” said James, “And as for you...,” he made a grab for Safar who scuttled past him into their bedroom.  He went to follow him but his way was blocked by the smaller figure of Stephen.

     “Wher're ya going to, big boy?” he said, in a not very passable American accent.  “I'm a'hoping ya ain't 'ntending ta hurt that li'l critter, 'cos ya'll hev me and my sidekick Safar the Terrible to contend with?”   Stephen put up two fists and assumed a boxer's stance.  “Yeah, big boy, ya've got the double S ranch to deal with.  So one step forward and ya'll hev the double S brand on your fat backside.”

     Safar had reappeared.  “Who's calling me a little critter?”

     “He is, Midge!” James called out over Stephen's shoulder, “Little Big Slug here.  Call him off before I get my Dad after him!”

     “No way,” I said from the stairwell.  “You've disturbed everyone with your noise, James.  You're the one who needs to be dealt with!”

     That was the signal for a flurry of activity.  James was on his back in seconds, squealing again, with Stephen lying on top of him.  Safar, aided by an apostate Jody, was nipping at various bits of exposed anatomy.  A moment later three other equally nude figures from the other room joined in and James was lifted bodily and carried, screeching, into the bedroom where, from the sounds of it, he was given summary punishment in a most enjoyable way as there were howls of laughter all round and giggles and bouts of silence punctuated by more laughter and giggling.  I took the ladder downstairs and put it in the garage thinking one could imagine a modern version of the 'secret' book as no doubt those seven would not be averse to adventures in a castle.

     Still, four clean, washed and smartly dressed lads were ready by ten o'clock.  Stephen and Jody had done their class while the others were in the bathroom using all the hot water so there were complaints that their shower was lukewarm.  My remark that I didn't want him in the car with smelly armpits had Jody on his back over the kitchen table being sniffed by Stephen and James.  Both pronounced him wholesome and so we set off.

     Ely always reminded me of Kerslake, a small city dominated by a huge medieval cathedral.  I went off to the canon's house and the boys took Jody up the tower and the lantern.  The others had all been up before but were always fascinated by the view; flatness with farms, villages and water for miles around.  When I got away from a very learned discourse on Madame Recamier and her relationship with Madame de Stael we wandered down to the river and had a snack at a pub there.  A beautiful, quiet English country day.
                              *
     Khaled was really working hard.   He had decided he wanted to do a degree in Economics with French as a subsidiary.  His first choice would have been the London School of Economics.  This was sadly vetoed by his father and advisers because it was thought to be too much of a hotbed of politics and student unrest and he would need to be shadowed all the time.  I had a word with a couple of friendly dons at Trinity and he had been offered a place there.  There were the usual provisos of interview, test and suitable results at A levels.  He was doing Economics, French and Geography for his entrance and I'd been coaching him in French and, I will say, he was very fluent and had read the texts with good understanding.  We chatted together in French at every opportunity so I got to know all sorts of things he was thinking about.

     We were sitting in my study one afternoon drinking tea and just talking, as much as possible, in French.  He was in a loquacious mood and thoughts and worries and all manner of things came tumbling out.

     He said he'd talked to his father and said he knew he'd be happy enough if he didn't go back to his country.  But, he was coming up to eighteen and there were pressures for him to marry and produce his own heir.  He said the custom was really an arranged marriage.  Some girl from a suitable family would be chosen.  He wouldn't see her until his wedding night.  He grinned and said the deed had to be done and as long as there was a male outcome he needn't see her again and he could marry up to four wives as his grandfather and his uncles had.

     He said his father had only married once and he and Safar had been taken from their mother's care once they were five and they had lived then with two cousins of about the same age.  They were then taught by tutors until the plans were made for them to come to England.  I asked about his mother.  He said he didn't really remember her.  All he knew was that Anne had become his mother and that had made him very happy.

     We discussed the possibility he would be almost forced into the marriage.  I suggested he talked to his father and if it was so why not have everything done in London.  I knew the Embassy had flats in St John's Wood as I'd visited Sayed there on a couple of occasions.  “No love involved,” he said, “Just procreation!  And it will be next year, no doubt.”

     On another occasion we talked about the family.  I knew how close he was to both my sons and he had also accepted Stephen as a brother.  Now there was Jody, and the contemplative Khaled and the effervescent Jody had gelled straight away.  There was something so strong and solid about Khaled, I could see so much of his father in him.  A boy who could be playful and mischievous with the best of them, but under that a great strength of character.  I said I was thankful he was around when James had his lapse of judgment.

     “I love James as my brother,” he said, “I couldn't see him get into such trouble.  I might be younger but we know each other so well.  I can tell you this because I know you'll understand.  James was so hurt because that Angie called him 'Ten-second Thomson' and told the other boys that, and that he might be well-hung but he was no good at using it.  Of course, he got every one telling him and twitting him about his new nick-name, especially that Dirk.”  He laughed.  “Dirty Dirk we called him as everyone believed his tales about getting it off with every girl he went out with.  It's true.  He never.”  He shook his head.  “I told you I like his brother and we work together well, and he told me the truth.  That's why I was so upset with James.  He was set up.”  He looked at me earnestly.  “You don't mind me telling you about it?”  I said whatever he wanted to tell me was OK.   “That woman.  I knew she was a slag and I knew James did as well.  She's got a reputation.”  He shook his head.  The memory was obviously painful both for himself and his concern for James.  “She called me a fucking little black bastard.”  He shook his head.  “Nobody's ever called me anything like that.  So that's why I was extra angry, not with James, but with someone like that.”  He waited a moment.  I didn't say anything.  “I would have hit him if you hadn't have come along, and I would have regretted it for the rest of my life!”  He shook his head again.

     “Two hot-blooded young males,” I said, “One cut off from his intended rut and the other seeing his great friend about to make an awful mistake.  But you resolved it.”

     He smiled.  “Yes.  In the best possible way.  I love my brother James even more since then.   And thanks for appearing when you did!”

     I said that was accidental, all due to a cancelled meeting.  He grinned and said “Fate!”

     I went on, “But, you seem to have come through your adolescence unscathed.”

     He shook his head.  “Only because Francis and Grunty took me in hand.”  He giggled.  “Not always like that.  No.  I had a few fights at school because of my skin colour, and my looks and because I wasn't very big.”

     I looked at Khaled.  I had never thought of him as other than looking a bit sun-burnt but he had those Arabian aquiline features, a rather imperious nose and high cheekbones.  He had a really beautiful face and large brown eyes which, once he knew you, were full of friendliness.  But I could see that pale-faced boys with small minds and nondescript features would see him as different.

     “I've got to confess.  Francis intercepted a couple of notes to you from Housey-Housey saying I was being reprimanded for fighting.”

     Housey-Housey was the very suitably named, Mr Barrington-House, the boys' Housemaster at the school.

     “So your black eye that time was not due to over-enthusiastic tackling, then?”

     He made a moue and shook his head.  “But I won, not like James!”

      I laughed.   “And what about Safar?” I asked.

     “No problems.  He's got two very good friends who'd make sure no one ever says anything to him.  Anyway, they all know I'm his brother and with me being in the First XV now no one would dare tangle with us.”

     “I worry sometime about Safar,” I said, “He's so gentle.”
     Khaled laughed out loud.  “You don't know him then.  He's quite fearless when he's playing and I wouldn't like his clutching hands tackling me when he's roused.”

     I laughed too, remembering the squealing Giovanni in the pool with Safar grabbing his balls. But that was just boyish fun.  I told Khaled what I'd noted.

     “That was play.  You should have seen him after his pal Martin got booted in one of the inter-House matches.  He told me that in one of the mauls he got his hand up this other lad's shorts and pinched the top of his leg really hard.”  He shook his head.  “Il n'est pince pas ses couilles.”  He didn't squeeze his balls.  “But he knew it would hurt!”

     Khaled achieved the usual ten O levels all at the top grade.  Like the others he disappeared into his college only to emerge during vacations as far as we were concerned

                              *

     The hiring out of Ulvescott Manor was most successful.  Jem and Sam arranged all the catering and the hiring of staff.  The kitchen was re-ordered and updated and good English food was produced.  The boys went and helped out too.  For them, the two bedrooms were unlocked.  Francis was there with Grunty the first night, acting as waiters in dinner jackets and bow ties.  Jem was in full college butler's dress with Davy as assistant in striped waistcoat and apron.  Candelabra and crystal on the long table which seated the lot. Francis said the Americans were open-mouthed as they entered the dining-room to be confronted with such a set up.  

20.                         1969

     At the end of January Lachs came for a couple of days rest and recuperation.  He said the aftermath of all the student demonstrations and the contacts the ringleaders had with various very radical and anarchist groups on the continent meant he was working flat out.  We'd had more than a few contretemps and sit-ins in Cambridge and as for the London School of Economics that was completely shut down at the moment.  I said I  thought the only thing to do was just to carry on as normally as possible.  Lachs laughed and said he thought things might escalate a bit more before anything like normality returned.

     I found he'd been seconded to the Anti-terrorism Branch and he was contemplating moving into that permanently as he would be at the equivalent rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.  Cartwright had recommended he did this and he would know by Easter.  He also said that Sayed was becoming the Ambassador for his country from the middle of February.  I asked how it would affect the lads.  He said both could continue as they were.  There might have to be a bit more security at times but their intelligence was that really no one knew or cared where the boys were now.  The only fly in the ointment was, as it were, the insistence of part of Sayed's family that Khaled should marry.  I said Khaled had realised this was a duty but he wasn't happy about it.  He grinned.  “Look at me!”

     Jody was nearing the end of his training as he was coming up to his eighteenth birthday.  He had been highly recommended to a London ballet company and the representatives, when they saw him give a demonstration and then do an incredibly difficult dance from a Russian ballet, offered him an immediate job.  He moved into the flat with Ma and Pa after Easter.  She then had plenty of free tickets to the ballet.  I said that after 'Murder at the Adelphi' we could expect 'Battered Ballet Boys' as her next novel.  She just said that if I paid a little more attention to detail I might have spotted that when my author wrote 'ansa' he probably meant 'hansart' as it would sound the same, so my guess at 'handle' (anse) was clever but it was really 'cleaver' which was more appropriate for Will the butcher.  Ma!  You don't improve!  Thank you!  If ever it goes to a second edition I would have to thank my mother for drawing my attention to the euphemistic 'cleaver' referring to Will's substantial prick!

     So:  Extract from a possible Second Edition!:
     '......Will finding a stain upon the shirt he was to wear that eve and the lazy serf who laid his clothing from the press upon his bed had gone he called to lusty Robin whose spacious room was next to his.  For your good friend's sake have you a shirt I could wear at table this night.  Jacob has gone and he does not answer my shouts.  He has taken all for washing and has left me with one so stained Milord would chastise me for being slovenly.  Robin said gladly there is a fine cambric here fit for St John himself.*  Will hurried in wearing but his long hose.  Robin spying that he was excited laughed.  I would hold that [handle**] I perceive.  Would that I could rouse my serpent with such ease.  Looking at his friend in puris naturabilis*** Will shakes his head. Your serpent sleeps little said the wanton rogue and with Allan's pipe I could awake it as did the swarthy Indies man at the summer fair with his strange discordant sounds luring that forked tongued beast.  But see it stirs as I whistle and seeks the air and a sturdy grip about its neck.  I would gladly it rouse and see it spit as did that monstrous cobra's head for we have time enough to pleasure both before....'
     Footnotes:
*    The text has 'batiste' (cambric) and the reference is taken to be to the 'Baptiste'.
**  A reading of 'anse' (handle) has been assumed for the textual 'ansa'.  However I am indebted to Lady Jeanette Thomson, aka J T Fountain (for the benefit of her myriad fans),  for the suggestion that J-A L, her four times great-grandfather, may have meant 'hansart', a butcher's cleaver, which would fit the context admirably.  A modern reading of 'hansart' could be 'chopper' which is a term commonly used by schoolboys to refer to their, or a friend's, penis, especially when of a goodly size.
*** naked

     So lives the life of an academic!  And humble with it!!

21.                         Easter 1969

     I had a pleasant duty to perform just before Easter.  I had to go to Birmingham to be external examiner for a PhD candidate.  I'd arranged to stay a couple of nights with my cousin Alun and his wife Gwen, who lived on the outskirts of the city.  As it was the beginning of the Easter holiday I had suggested their son, Simon, now aged about fifteen and a half, could come back with me for a stay and meet up with the boys again.  No bother, as I was driving up and his parents could come for a weekend stay later to collect him.  They had been rather infrequent visitors and I hadn't seen them for about a year.  Alun was very busy anyway, a senior manager now and tied up a lot of the time with labour problems.  Gwen was also busy as senior science mistress in a Girls' Grammar School.

     I arrived the first night early evening, just in time for a very nice meal.  Alun always complimented Gwen's cooking saying it was always good as she taught chemistry, and cooking was only practical chemistry!  In fact, as soon as I'd unpacked I was called down to the dining room.  And there was Simon.  The long-haired ungainly six-footer who merely grunted a greeting was quite different from the rather sweet-natured twelve-year-old or the growing fourteen-year-old of previous acquaintance.  Not only did he grunt but he also had the bane of adolescence.  Like his Uncle Rhys at a later age he had the most unsightly crop of spots which must have added to his uncouthness at meeting his Dad's cousin again.  He was certainly well ahead in growth than I remembered myself or my cousins at his age.

     Monosyllabic grunts for more accompanied the lightning demolition of three platefuls of rather good roast lamb, roast spuds and other veggies, which he drowned in copious amounts of the very tasty gravy.  Alun looked at me as forkfull after forkfull disappeared down Simon's gullet.  All right, Alun, I know I was Gannet Number One in your book when I was that age but that's your son!  Another member of the family with a healthy appetite!

     When it was indicated he might help by carrying out a few dishes there were more grunts, sadly reminiscent of the times I'd grunted, actually silently, when asked to do things at the same age.  I tried a few questions.  Nothing about school as I knew that was anathema to ask about such mundane things.  My own had never come out with anything other than 'OK', or a sneer when asked about progress.  I found his interests were centred on 'music' which I discerned, and heard in volume later, were entirely based on the decibel-rich outpourings of one particular pop group called the Rolling Stones.  When I said I thought they were old hat having been around for years I got a series of grunts which I interpreted as meaning something on the lines that I was an old fart who didn't understand.  Luckily, my lot seemed to have some discernment and seemed not to go for the over noisy, cacophonous row I'd heard when some of their friends brought records over.  Luckily, also, he sloped off to his room as Gwen, Alun and I settled down for a post-prandial drink and a chat.  Unluckily, he decided to give us a full-scale rendition of something Alun referred to as 'Bugger's Basket'.  Gwen told him to behave himself, no wonder his son was going through adolescent trauma.  Alun then said he just wondered how I coped with that houseful I had.  I said as long as you threw  them sufficient food at frequent intervals and put up with unwashed hands at the dinner table one coped.  Gwen laughed and said she knew exactly what I meant but one was enough for her especially with his habits.

     The next day the viva went well.  Miss O'Hara was a red-haired, vivacious young lady who had just done two years at Lyons University writing up a very detailed exposition on her chosen subject.  Two hours later Dr O'Hara left the room looking very pleased with herself.  I stayed and chatted with her supervisor and the internal examiner, who was my old undergraduate buddy, Francis Thornley.  So, I was in a happy mood when I returned to Alun and Gwen's.

     Unfortunately, Grunter, as I had mentally labelled him was already home as it was the last day of school before the holidays.  Grunter, not Grunty, who was as different from him as chalk and cheese.  He did let me in.  I went through to the kitchen.  There was an open packet of biscuits which he had been munching his way through.

     “Any tea?” I asked.

     “'pose so,” came an almost inaudible murmur.

     I went over and filled the electric kettle and switched it on.  He stared and munched a biscuit.

     “Tea?” I asked.

     He pointed to a cupboard where I found a box of teabags.  I saw a teapot, held a bag up indicating did he want some.  He nodded.  I made tea and poured two cups.  I'd found the milk in the fridge, meanwhile.  And, meanwhile, he watched and munched.

     “Are the biscuits nice?” I asked.

     “'pose so,”

     I walked over and picked up the almost depleted packet of chocolate digestives.

     “My favourites,” I said and took two.  He gave me a look as if I was stealing food from a starving child.  I deliberately put the packet down near me.  The silent battle continued.

     “More tea?” I asked.

     An impassive face.  I waited for the “'pose so” but got a grunted “Please” instead.  At least it still had some manners left over from prepubescence.  I poured him a second cup.  “Biscuit?” I asked.  “Please.”  I passed him the packet.  I wondered if I should try an operant conditioning experiment a la B F Skinner which students at various times had explained to me who were doing joint degrees with Psychology.  They assured me that what they did with their rats was universal learning so I assumed it could be applied just as well to getting-on-for-sixteen year-olds with acned visages as long as they were starved and then fed as a reward for producing the wanted response.  I sighed inwardly.  I doubted if I had enough time, or biscuits, to couth the uncouthful.

     I think my incitement of Simon to a modicum of civility must have exhausted any tiny reservoir of refinement which still remained from previous years.  He virtually snarled his way through dinner that evening.  Alun, unfortunately, had an urgent 'phone call and  had to rush off to sort out some Union bother leaving Gwen, me and the Grunter to our own devices.

     I was sitting in the drawing room scribbling a few notes to tidy up for my report on the viva and then had a look at the Guardian crossword.  I could hear Simon giving Gwen grief in the kitchen.  He was in a very bad temper over something.  Probably because I'd had two of his lovely bikkies and he'd had to say 'please'.  Gwen was too even-tempered to give in and knew the wiles of adolescents from her experience with girls with their moans and groans.  In the end Simon came heavy-footed into the drawing room, switched on the television and lumped down on the sofa next to me.  I was in for some kind of punishment.  He couldn't sit still and then he started zapping the channels with the remote control.  After twenty seconds of each about four times round I leaned towards him.

     “Must be difficult being as big as you are, spots and all, and you're not even sixteen,” I said very quietly and confidentially fairly close to his right ear, “But all boys are the same.  I was, your Dad was, and my lot are grief all the time.  I know, why don't you just pop upstairs, have a nice wank, relax, and then come down with a smile on your face.”

     He went rigid.  He blushed.  He stood up, dropping the remote control, and hurtled out and up the stairs.  I switched the telly off.  Gwen came through about five minutes later.

     “My, it's gone quiet,” she said.  It had.  No telly and, definitely, no Beggar's Basket or Jumpin' Jack Flash, other than Simon's emulation of the latter as he leapt up the stairs.  “Did you say something to him?”

     I nodded.  “Nothing too awful.  We'll just have to see what he's like in the morning.”

     “Thank God someone else has had a go.  He ignores Alun.  I can cope.  A class of stroppy girls are twenty times worse than my little Simon!  And you've coped, too!”

     In the morning Simon was waiting for me with his backpack as I came downstairs.

     “May I put this in the car, please?” came a pleasant adolescent baritone.

     “And then, after breakfast we'll set off, eh?”

     “Yes, please.”

     The previous evening's conversation wasn't mentioned on the ride to Cambridge.  I heard, with no prompting, that he was very interested in conservation and intended to become a biologist and wanted to do research on endangered species.  I don't think even Gwen and Alun knew that.

     Anne had arranged for him to be in with Stephen and Safar and after I'd told her about the little altercation she said it would be interesting to hear sometime how they got on with him.   Things went well from the beginning.  They knew he was a chess fiend from previous visits and as both loved playing the three were constantly having tournaments or solving chess problems in the bedroom.  As the double bed was the only one slept in I expect other tournaments were played.  Confucius he say, boys with problems on mind wake up with solutions on chest.

                              *

     About ten minutes after Alun and Gwen had departed with Simon after his and their stay I was in my study hunting for a couple of students' essays I had mislaid under the usual pile of paperwork.

     “Are you busy, Dad?” came Stephen's voice at the door.

     “No, just putting the world to rights, as usual,” I said, “Come in.”

     Stephen and Safar came in with grins on their faces and Safar, as usual, giggling.
     Stephen shut the door carefully.  Always a prelude to a confidential chat.

     “Can we ask you something, Dad?” said Stephen.

     Safar stepped forward.  Down to earth, straightforward Safar.

     “Did you really tell Simon he should go upstairs and have..,” his straightforwardness evaporated.  “....you know.., do it and come down with a smile on his face?”

     “Of course.  Why not?  You smile enough most of the time.”

     Stephen sniggered and poked a slightly duskier Safar in the side.

     “Told you he did.”  He looked at me.  “He said he didn't know how you knew.., ....you know, that he did it.  He said he wondered if his Mum had told you because she caught him in the bathroom about a week before, then he accused us of telling you 'cause he was here a year ago.  But no-one here told you, did they?”

     “I think you've done a James,” I said laughing.

     Stephen realised that cat was out of the bag.  He wasn't concerned.  He knew I knew the lot of them at least wanked themselves and each other.  So whatever they'd done with Simon was commonplace.  He was a fourteen-year-old then and fourteen-year-olds wank and like to be wanked.  Common knowledge!

     “No, I knew nothing.  You never told me and his mother didn't, though she did hint at habits, but that was after he disappeared upstairs.  Went like a rocket!”

     “He does, too,” mused Safar, then realised what he'd said and went slightly more dusky.

     “Went upstairs, you fool,” said Stephen, laughing.  He turned back to me.  “Thanks, Dad, for telling us.  Actually, he said it was a good thing you said it as he was worried about coming here again and what you said meant you knew about boys.”  He sniggered.  “Safar showed him that book.”

     One copy of  'That book' was in the habit of disappearing from my study.

     “Sneak!” said Safar, “You kept telling him about it.  I only said it was on the bookshelf.”

     “So you've got a copy in your room?”

     They both looked rather sheepish.  “You did get six spare copies from Kanga so we just borrowed one,” said Stephen, “And Francis has explained all that stuff about free-will to us.”

     “And James?”

     They both snickered. “The rest,” said Safar.  They turned and went from the room laughing.



22.                    September 1969+

     Safar was now safely in the Sixth Form.  He beat cleverclogs James as he took twelve O levels and got As in all as one of the youngest in his class.  He said his favourite was the extra subject, Music, and he was doing this with French and History for A levels.  'Keep it in the family' was his motto.

     Of course, I had reached a milestone.  On September the thirtieth I was forty.  I sat and contemplated my life so far.  It had been full of experiences.  Rich, rewarding experiences as well as sad ones.  But the happy ones really outweighed any others.  I had lost my first wife and great friend to a cruel accident.  But, I had two wonderful sons, as long as I never told them or their heads might swell.  The support Ma, Pa, and Helen and Gerald Marcham had given was immeasurable.  I could never have survived those early years without their help, guidance and generosity.  I had many good friends.  From early days there was Tony, Matt and Tom, Nobbo and Cleggy.  There was Mike in Rome, now a Monsignor himself.  My 'gret dark cousins', my French and Swiss cousins and the golden pair Lachs and Flea.  There were my Uncles and Aunts and that seemingly unceasing ancestry and its many branches.

     I'd had the honour of being the student and friend of a great scholar.  I'd had luck in my own scholarship and was now a Fellow of my college.  My adopted son, Stephen, was a great joy and those other surrogate sons, Khaled, Safar and Jody had made us a real family.  Sayed was a friend too.  I treasured his sons as I treasured his friendship.  Anne was a wonderful companion and family life revolved round her.  There were so many others in college, academic colleagues and those other such good friends like Willy and Maggy Roberts, Jem, Sam, Davy, Lucius.....  The numbers just went on because there were those at Garthorpe, and those who had welcomed me to Ulvescott but were sadly gone.  Ulvescott, now a place I had joint responsibility for.  And that presence there, so real for so many of us in turn, of that loving spirit whose own life never reached fulfilment.

     I was sitting in the garden early that morning contemplating all this when Francis and James came along with two wrapped presents.  There was a magnum of champagne and an early French psalter which I had seen in a bookshop in St Edmund's Passage.  It had cost a bomb.  The boys said it was from everyone with their love.  The card with it was signed by many of  the people I had been thinking about.  Safar and Khaled came along and said how happy they were to be in the family and handed me a card from Stephen and Jody.

     We had a quiet dinner party that night - with the magnum of champagne - and it was arranged that we would have a super party at Christmas when everyone could be present.

                              *

     Francis and Grunty had successfully passed all their exams so far and had been awarded BAs and were now set to go into their fourth year when their clinical work would start in earnest.  Both had decided to stay in Cambridge to finish their training.   In fact, they announced they would be moving out of college and taking rooms in Tony's house.  He had just finished a year as Visiting Fellow in Creative Writing at one of the newer universities and had almost finished off his 'growing-up' book.  In between he'd polished off a very funny and graphic account of life in Hollywood which would be out for Christmas as well as writing a couple of scripts for television plays.  Both of these last two commissioned by the well-established production team of Clarke and Smollett.

     Then, Tony and Francis came to see Anne and me one evening early in the term.  We had a meal and Safar disappeared to his room to study.  Tony was soon wreathed in smoke and I, being a perfect host, produced the brandy.  I saw Tony look at Francis.

     “Dad and Mum,” Francis began, “I've got something to tell you.  I'll come straight to the point.  You know I am going to live at Tony's.  Actually I want to live with Tony.   We love each other and I know he's nineteen years older than I am but I don't care.  I've loved Uncle Tony for as long as I have known him.  I knew I loved Tony as a man when I really knew I could only love a man.  He's my man.”  He looked at us.  “Dad.  Mum.  May I have your blessing?”

     We both looked at Tony.  This was something I had the feeling might happen.  But the age difference?  Tony had been my lover.  I loved Tony as one man loves another.  Now my eldest son was professing his love for Tony as well.  Was Francis seeking another father?  Was this a form of incest, or even displaced incest?  Had they already consummated that love?  Tony was Francis's biological uncle in any case.  I knew Anne must be thinking along the same lines.

     He looked very serious as he spoke.  “Anne, Jacko, I ask you humbly to give your blessing.  This is not something sudden.  We have talked together and discussed everything possible for the past three years.  I know you both have probably suspected that Francis and I want to be more than friends.  I love your son deeply.   Jacko, all those years ago I confessed I could have fallen in love with your cousin Johann, since then I have had a picture in my mind of my ideal companion.  That picture is Francis.”

     He turned to Francis sitting next to him on the sofa and took his hand.

     “I pledge my love for you, Francis, outwardly and openly.  Would you be my companion for life if we have your parents' blessing?”

     Francis leaned over and kissed his cheek.  I looked at Anne.  We both stood and linking hands we knelt in front of the pair.

     “You have my blessing,” I said.

     “And mine,” Anne added.

     A scurrying figure hurried into the room.  “And mine too!” said Safar, “And I can tell you something it's about time.  We've all been waiting ages for one of you to pop the question!”

     A rather startled Francis looked at him.  “What on earth do you mean, Midge?”

     “Oh, come off it,” Safar said, laughing, “It's been so obvious for yonks that you two are made for each other.” He knelt down too and put a hand on Tony's.  “We all love you but Francis is the one for you.  Just wait until I tell the others!”

     There was little Anne or I could say.  She and Safar went off to 'phone the others or leave messages for them to 'phone back.  I sat and looked at the pair smiling at each other sitting closely side by side.

     Tony looked at me.  “You look a little stunned, Jacko, but you have that smile on your face as well.  I promise I will look after your son.  He will be loved and cherished for ever and ever.  We needed your blessing as we haven't taken that final step.”  He turned to Francis.  “You know I love your father, but he was not my first lover.  Your mother's friend who was killed with her was my first.  I may have had many experiences but I can truly say that the only ones I have really loved were Roo, Matt, dear Tom and your father.  I want that love to be for us now.  It will be.”

     Francis smiled.  “I have pledged my love with my brother, with Grunty, with Khaled, with my cousin Brad and my lovely Italian friends, Silvio and Bruno.  As I have told you I am not inexperienced but I want our love even to transcend that.  It will.”

     “You both have my blessing for ever and ever,” I said, “Francis is twenty-one.  He is free.  Don't be long.”

     They smiled at each other and then at me.

                              *
     Although there was a general rule that we didn't want to see any of the perishers during term-time there were always emergencies.  Or what passed as emergencies as far as they were concerned.  Grunty came round one Saturday afternoon after visiting his parents next door.  He was limping having been kicked viciously, so he said, by some opposing team member in the game that afternoon.  He had been to see his mother to see if she had some magic potion to rub in to relieve the pain.  From the smell which preceded him it seemed like the old favourite, Sloan's Liniment.  I knew Francis had accompanied him.  Mainly to dump the load of dirty rugger kit in the washer without father knowing.  Unfortunately Francis was in the utility room and he had to shout to get his Mum to hear as she was in the kitchen.  From the conversation I knew  Francis was harassing Anne trying to wheedle her into baking a cake for Tiger's birthday the next week as his mother said she wasn't that good a cook.  I was in the garden in front of the utility room, just thinking.  I greeted Grunty and he explained the purpose of his visit next door but I realised something was bugging Grunty.  When Grunty was bugged he was very formal.

     “Dr Thomson,” he began again, he was certainly bugged!  He had reluctantly started to call me Jacko recently, but usually it was Dad, or Dad Two.  “You don't mind do you but I want to ask you something?”  Usually when the boys used that tactic it was generally money they were after, James being the past-master with that ploy.  But, No, not with Grunty.  I waited.  “Well,” he went on, slightly hesitantly, “James told us you'd said your friends did other measurements.  May I ask you what they were?”
     I smiled.  The medical researcher was asking, very formally.  “Actually, one was measuring  and the other was observing,” I said.  He cocked his head attentively.  “Yes, amount of output and observing motility.”

     His lop-sided grin was there.  “Tried the first.  Only three of us though and the same with peering down a microscope.  Didn't dare extend to others.”  He looked thoughtful.  “How many?”

     I said I thought there were about ten in the output sample, at least there were when I checked the arithmetic.  I said I didn't know about the other but I had heard there was quite a queue of interested participants.  I said Cleggy and Nobbo were very popular.

                              *
     On the following Tuesday a very happy Grunty came rushing up the stairs to my study.  “Come in,” I said, “What have you got there?  Not another emergency?”

     He was almost waving a couple of sheets of photo-copied print.  “No!  It's important though!  Found this.  Is this them?”

     I took the two pages.  It was a research note published in a medical journal some years previously.  I looked at the names, Anthony Arthur Clarke and George Padmore Clegg, nicely alphabetically ordered I thought.  “That's them,” I said, then read the title of the research note.  'Measurement of Output of Semen of  Adolescent British Boys'.  I goggled.  I read the summary at the head of the paper:

     'A sample of 30 adolescent boys, aged between 14 years 6 months and 16 years 3 months, each provided between eight and ten measured ejaculates.  Each was required to provide the single ejaculate in any twenty-four hour period.  The mean of the 281 ejaculates was 3.55ccs, median 3.5ccs and mode of 3.4ccs, with a range of 4.3ccs and a variance of 0.549ccs.  Further analyses are discussed within the article.'

     I looked at Grunty who was almost hopping up and down.  “I only knew of ten,” I said, “I know that because I checked the figures for them.  I didn't know about medians and variances then!”

     “So you don't know you're famous, then?”  His grin nearly split his face.  I looked down the page to the body of the article.  The first bit was dealing with the sample, 'boys from a Grammar School volunteered to take part', then there was the method of collection which I remembered very well, having sorted it out for them.  Grunty was getting impatient.

     “Well what is it?”  I asked.

     “Have a look,” he said, jabbing a stubby finger at the second page.  “There was some boy who skewed the results.”  He looked at me and couldn't contain himself, he just shook his head and laughed.  “You see in lots of articles in medical journals they give the initials of the person, Patient AB or whatever.  Look here,” he pointed again and, as he read it out, I read the print.  “'However, if subject JT who consistently produced the most ejaculate, on average 6.3ccs, range 5.8 - 7.3 ccs, is eliminated from the calculations then the average for the 29 subjects is 3.45ccs, median 3.25ccs and a variance of 0.29ccs.  The overall range falls to 3 ccs.  This subject produced, on average, 3.15 times more than the lowest average (CD: 2.0ccs).  Both boys were within two weeks in age at the time.'” He looked at me.  “Were you JT?”

     I scanned the rest of the article.  Four other sets of initials appeared with various comments as well as JT and CD.   RB, TB, PM and PF.  I did a quick think.  RB, must be Rupert Barnes, Roo who was killed in the car with the lads' mother.  TB, could only be Tom, now a Chief Inspector of Police!  So PF, yes, Pete Fry.  I'd lost touch with him.  There was no CD in our form so if he was two weeks difference in age from me he must have been in the form below when I was in the collection process and so they must have got him as a participant later when he was in the Fifth Form and they were First Year Sixth.  So the collection had gone on!  CD?  Yeah!  Christopher Dickens, I bet and his pal Paul Marsh in the other parallel form was PM.  Chris, I think was now an accountant in Kerslake and I would have to find out about Paul.

     I had to confess.  I nodded.  “I most certainly am!  Oh, my God!!”

     Grunty was laughing merrily.  “Something else that runs in the family!”  He did a James and clapped his hand to his mouth.  “Ow, cat out of the bag!  Stand in the corner, Grunty!”

     We both laughed.  Excited boys always told the truth!  “Doesn't surprise me,” I said, “I've had to change their sheets many times!”  We laughed again.  “Does Francis know about the article?”  I asked.

     “Yep, Dad,” came a voice from just outside my study, “What it is to have a famous father!”

     “Come in here!” I said with mock sternness, “You're not supposed to be here and if this gets out....”

     “...You'll be the toast of the Senior Common Room,” said Francis, loping in with a grin on his face, too.  “What with the 'secret book' and now this, your reputation's made!  They'll make you Vice-Chancellor next!  Emphasis on the Vice!”

     “And you'd be cut off with a shilling in my Will if you spread any gossip.  Anyway, Grunty's blabbed about you and I suppose the other urchin...”  I turned to Grunty.  “I need to know figures!”

     Grunty pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his jeans pocket.  Francis made a grab for it but Grunty fended him off.  “I know it by heart,” he laughed, “Subject FT, age 16 years 1 month: total ejaculations 7, average 6.1 millilitres and Subject JT, age 15 years: 15 ejaculations, average 6.05 millilitres.”

     He handed me the paper and it was very neatly laid out.  It was Francis's turn to hop up and down as I held the paper away from him.  It was my turn to laugh.

     “No stamina, Francis?  Seven against fifteen for your brother?  Uhn, and GG, age 16 years 4 months, 12, average 4.8ml.  Well, well, well!  Much above the group average the lot of you!  Statistically significant, eh?”

     “Dad!” came the usual response.   Francis laughed.  “But I beat him.  He tried to see if he could, but not quite!  And we're perfectly level pegging on something else.  He either stopped growing, or I just caught up!  That didn't please him either.”  He looked at me and almost whispered, “I told you he was a little Newark!  And now you know why we call him Squirt!   And as for Grunty!”  That was much louder.

     Grunty took a friendly swipe at him and both burst out laughing again.  I folded the paper and put it in the top drawer of my desk, turned the key and withdrew it.  I held the key up.  “Any statements from that other source and that will be revealed in its entirety....”  I paused.   “....But I did beat  the lot of you!”

     “Dad!”

                              *

     The celebrations at Christmas were stupendous.  We had more than a houseful it seemed.  I think we managed to seat twenty for Christmas lunch and scattered them around for sleeping.  Then, on Boxing Day, Tony and Francis had an 'At Home' and their house was flooded with well-wishers for their now-known union.  And Grunty was there with his fiancee!

     Not only were they and Grunty being congratulated but what I didn't know was that there was also to be a surprise party for my fortieth birthday which I had thought of as long gone.  What a surprise!

     We'd been to the 'At Home' drinks at midday and had left before three with the injunction to reappear for proper food - a dinner - at seven thirty.  Anne had sensibly arranged for us to be transported to and from the dinner by taxi.  At seven twenty it arrived and Anne and I got in but there was no sign of any of the boys.  We assumed they would find their own way there.  Tony and Francis's house had a very imposing front door and as the taxi drew up it was flung open and Jem in full fig as a college butler welcomed us in.  In the wide hall was a banner which read 'HAPPY 40TH'  and in a row up the staircase were nine familiar figures, actually ten.  From the accoutrements they were carrying I knew they were the nine characters from 'Audace' - the tenth was the witch-like figure of Madame Hairy-Twat herself, lank black hair, blackened teeth and clad in a black dress and black and white hat, a great bunch of keys on a chain round her waist and a long wooden staff.  A real fright!

     As we came in and Willy and Davy stepped forward and took our coats and scarves the first figure stepped down.  It was John the Blacksmith, alias Francis.  He was wearing a very posh doublet and hose in a rich dark red and carrying a large hammer.  He bowed low.

     “Milord, your vassals await.  To entertain is our delight but within the covers of a book we do cavort.  This night our capers will be more circumspect but each will offer a greeting meet for thee.  Step forward Will and show thyself!”

     Tiger stepped down and cast away a seemingly blood stained cloak from his own patterned doublet and held up a large cleaver, no doubt borrowed from Sam's kitchen.  “Good Sir, I'm Will the butcher's lad.  I wish thee well and truth to tell thou measureth with the best!”

     There was a howl of laughter and the next one stepped down.  It was Jody as Neptune the fisherboy.  He had on a light-blue tunic embroidered with goldfish and carried a net.  “'Tis Neptune here, a strange young lad who dances for thy joy.  When I was young and very lost, you found a grateful little boy.  Now I am grown and flown the nest, I know thou standeth with the best!”  

     The next figure stepped down immediately.  I took a moment to recognise Simon in a golden doublet and hose carrying my precious corn dolly given to me so many years ago by young Georgie.   “For Mars the farmer's boy thou had a word which sent him to his bed.  He thanks you for that timely word which made him turn his head.  Your friends around send greetings fine, sweet memories from the past and those who cannot be with us have friendships which will last.”  He gave me the corn dolly and smiled.  Oh, he was just like Alun at that age!

     “I'm Robin the cellarer and bring you all good cheer, we're awfully sorry it's just old Adnam's usual beer.”  Grunty stepped forward in dark blue pantaloons and hose with an artfully ripped white shirt showing off his hairy pectorals and presented me with a plastic container.  There had been a groan at the awful pun using the name of a well-known Suffolk ale.   “For you we know have talents wide and none can that gainsay, so boaties dim and scholars wise drink to your health today.”  He bowed low and also handed me a scroll which I guessed was another copy of that fateful Cleggy and Nobbo article.

     I hoped none of the others would ask what the document was, but OK, the next one came forward.  No it wasn't one, it was a pair, bearing a large saw.  Both were wearing identical russet brown tunics and hose, with tricorn hats and long peacock feathers in them.  “I'm Castor,” intoned Safar, sweeping off the hat and almost dropping the saw.  “I'm Pollux”, said Khaled more brightly, doing likewise, “We work as a pair of youthful ...”  “...We need no rhyme, sweet brother dear, for our task tonight is very clear,” interjected Safar, with another sweep of the hat and an accompanying groan from the listeners, “We come to praise thee, so lend your ears, for words of joy from those of tender years,”   Another groan.  “We came to thee careworn and small, your family took us in, we've grown a bit...”  Here he stood on tiptoe   “....but not as tall as spotty youths and nor as thin,”   He waved his hat at the rangy figure of Francis who threatened him with the hammer.  Khaled stood in front of his brother.  “Enough of this, you prate too long!”  He bowed and swept his hat off.  “Good cheer, my Lord, so ends our song!”  More groans.

     Another tall, rangy youth stepped down, in cream figured doublet and hose and a short cloak in scarlet, carrying a small axe.  “Tis I the stripling James, in truth I have both names, for in the book the wood boy strong and lithe is James the first, while in body here with foot in mouth [he pronounced it 'mithe'] is James the second who is worst.”  Several cries of 'Hear, hear' greeted that. “But father dear, it is most clear you are the one to praise for putting up with such a crew of boaties dim and scholars wise...”  He pronounced this with the upper-class sound of 'waise'.  “Your hair is grey with worries many, but I am James so lend a penny!”  James' pleas for money were very well-known so there were cries of 'Don't give him anything!!', 'He owes me a quid already!!', from his enthusiastic confederates.

     Unabashed, he moved aside as a figure with long golden tresses and enveloped in a long dark green cloak descended half way down the stairs.  “Messieurs et Madames, vos attentions, s'il vous plait, but I have little I wish to say, for praise enough all you have seen, we nine are few but in this little play have been those characters so deftly drawn by Milord's great-granddad in years well worn.  My praise will be a merry tune when all is done upon the stair.”  At this he dropped the cloak and Stephen was revealed glistening from head to toe and clad only in an exact copy of the coney-skin belt and furry pouch as described in the book and with his flute on a cord around his neck.  There were several wolf-whistles.  He waved his hand upward.  “But what is this, an apparition so fair...”

     “...Hush, boy, your prattling cease...,”  The old hag descended and said all this in a piping, grating voice.  Oh Lor!  It was Pa!  “...I come today to hold the peace.”   He poked Stephen, gently, with the staff.  “...For if this play goes on a whiles then groans will over-weigh the smiles.  So, let us be a merry host, and for the birthday boy raise now a toast!.....”

     Out came Sam, Davy and Nick with trays of flutes of champagne and I was drowned in shouts of 'Happy Birthday' and several glasses of bubbly which went quickly down the hatch!

     What an evening!  Friends and relations were there.  Even Nobbo and Cleggy with wives - but no kids I was glad to see as if Cleggy's pair had been there they would have had Stephen's coney-skins in tatters by now!  Sayed and Ibrahim were there with Lachs, Flea and Titty Temple-Tempest in attendance.  I noticed Jem and Sam had borrowed the best college plate for the elaborately set out table.  I think about thirty or so sat down with Anne and I flanked by all our 'sons', real, adopted or surrogate.  I found that the playlet had been Jody's idea and the costumes had been begged and borrowed from the ballet company costumier.  I didn't dare ask who wrote the doggerel but Ma sitting next to Jody at one end of the top table seemed very pleased with herself.  Pa insisted on remaining in costume and was at the other end with Simon talking quite animatedly to him.

23.                         1970

     At the beginning of the Easter holiday Khaled came back from Trinity very agitated.  He had been 'ordered' to go to London for the 'marriage' and consummation thereof on Wednesday the First of April.  He was too agitated to see the ludicrousness of the date.  He was quite determined he didn't want anyone to accompany him.  Safar was a tower of strength and the two lads sat and talked together a lot over the Easter holidays.

     James, I knew, was itching to make comments but I threatened him with letting Grunty and Francis loose on him with scalpels at the ready if he so much as mentioned the event.  “No, Dad,” he said, with his grin, “I wouldn't say anything....  But I can think things!”

     As it happened it seemed to have turned out alright.  Khaled was away for five days and told me it was all very discreetly done.  He grinned and said he thought he'd acquitted himself well.  After supper that evening he was displaying a very ornately decorated dagger which the girl's family had given him.  James, of course, had to withdraw the dagger from its sheath and made great pretense at testing the sharpness of the blade.  He then winked at Khaled.  “Shouldn't be too bad.  Quite quick.  It's a boy!  Hurray!!  But, hurry!!  Swish, swish!  Khaled won't stray!”  Unfortunately for James the blade was sharp and he caught the end of a finger and the palm of his hand.  “Mum, help, I've cut myself!”

     Mum was not sympathetic and made remarks about the older he got the more babyish he was and it was his own fault for making improper suggestions at the dining table.  Still, she did take him off and put plasters on the damaged parts.

     Khaled did get his own back a bit later in the evening.  James was waving his injured hand about and Khaled very quietly said it was only a little prick on his hand and he wouldn't have complained if it was the other way round.  James looked at him quizzically, then was about to make some riposte - probably saying it wasn't little and he should know - but Anne came back into the room.  Khaled just sat with a smug look on his face.

     James was reasonably confident about his Finals.  Anne insisted he came back home while the exams were on so that he got fed and got some sleep.  It must have worked.  My second son got a First.  He was also flying the nest.  His trip to Chester the year before was to ask if he might, if he passed his exams, join the family firm and become a solicitor.  That was all settled.  Rhys was now the senior partner with Emrys as his second-in-command.  How two jokesters like Rhys and James would get on was anybody's guess.  James said he had decided to go north to give his aging parents a chance to get on with their lives.  As a present we paid for him to go to the States to stay with my cousin Chuck and travel around a bit with Brad so in June he disappeared off for a couple of months.

                              *
     I'd visited the Embassy in London a couple of times to complete the usual formalities, for Safar mainly now, since Sayed had become Ambassador.  The second time I saw him he said he was getting very tired with all the work and he never seemed to be able to relax.   I suggested that as he had a very trusted staff why didn't he just take off for a weekend now and then and come to Cambridge.  I knew he enjoyed family life and was a delightful companion.  His aide, Ibrahim, who was always in the room with him, was the young man who had been in Rome with him and was also a cousin of sorts.  I knew he couldn't be alone so I invited Ibrahim as well.  Ibrahim looked just like an older version of Safar especially and was very stately in his Arab robe and headdress which both he and Sayed wore in the Embassy.  He smiled and bowed.

     In July I had a 'phone call on the Thursday morning.  It was Ibrahim.  Would it be possible for His Excellency to visit on Friday and stay until Sunday evening?  Of course, was the response.  Ibrahim sounded relieved.  Two hours later I had a 'phone call from Lachs.

     “Thanks for inviting Sayed for the weekend,” he said.  “There's a big demonstration on Saturday here and we don't want him and one or two other ambassadors around.  I've given Ibrahim a map and he'll be driving him.  It'll be an old car we're supplying - here's the number.  If you see anyone strange around it'll be a couple of my boys, they'll be repairing telephone cables, so to speak.  Any problems dial the number Ibrahim gives you.  They'll come running!”

     Problems?  None.  An old Morris drew up in the drive in the middle of the afternoon.  Two nondescript figures emerged.  Sayed in an old linen suit and Ibrahim in slacks and open-necked shirt.  Khaled and Safar rushed to meet their father.  Both were much taller than he was now.  Ibrahim stood back and smiled.  Very gravely they shook hands with him.  Then it was tea in the garden.  Sayed asked where Stephen was and we explained he'd got a month in a London show as part of the line-up in a dance routine.  Experience!  I said he and Jody would be coming down for Sunday lunch.

     No problems over accommodation.  Sayed had the big en suite guestroom.  Khaled had commandeered Francis's room as his own but gallantly said he would move in with Safar for the weekend.  So, Ibrahim was in Khaled and Francis's old room.  All nicely sorted.

     We had a very tasty supper and sat chatting.  Khaled and Safar were gossiping mainly with Sayed, and Anne and I were talking with Ibrahim.  I knew he'd taken a degree at Oxford and he turned out to be twenty-eight, married with one son of six who would be coming to England in two years time to begin at prep school.  He'd had the same experience as a boy and was very fond of England.  Later, when Anne went out to make more coffee, he confided that he'd also had the same experience as Khaled and his, too, had been an arranged marriage with the consummation in his own country before he came back to work permanently at the London Embassy.  He'd been picked specially to be Sayed's aide and I could see there was a great rapport between the pair.

     No problems?  Except that next morning as I was laying up the table for breakfast who should come into the room but Francis and Ibrahim laughing together.

     “Dad!” said Francis as soon as he spotted me, “I come home and I nearly get murdered in my own bed.”  He laughed.

     I motioned for them to sit down and poured them both a cup of tea.  “So, what happened and why are you here?”

     “Oh, Tony's gone to talk at some conference and Grunty's gone off with his girlfriend to her home.  I watched some crappy film on the telly last night then thought lonely me would like some home comforts so I cycled over about half twelve.  You didn't hear me come in?”  I shook my head.  “Yeah, I was pretty quiet.  I slipped into the bedroom and there was a hump in the bed so I just dropped my clothes on the floor and slid in.”  He snickered and Ibrahim's cup rattled on the saucer as he put it down.  “'Gosh, Cally, you're hot', I said and the next thing I knew I was in a death grip round my neck.  I managed to say 'It's only me, Cally', and luckily this oaf here realised I wasn't about to do him in and let go.”

     'This oaf', no doubt a prince of the royal blood as well, smiled.  “Good job I knew who 'Cally' was.  I heard you call Khaled that when we were in Rome.  You're a lucky man.  Travis taught me well!”

     I laughed.  “So you know 'Neck-breaker' Travis?”

     He nodded and laughed too.  “Yes, when I got appointed as aide Mr Cameron sent me up to Garthorpe for a month for training.  That was an experience, but he taught me well, eh, Francis?”

     Francis grinned and rubbed his neck.  “When I see Mr Arthur again he'll be told exactly what I think!”

     Ibrahim patted his arm.  “Mr Arthur told me all about a very precocious little boy.  You made quite an impression on him.  I can see why.”

     True.  On every visit since to Garthorpe Francis had been reminded of that first time he'd been there.

     A bit later in the day Francis cornered me when the others were in the garden.  He had a great grin on his face.  “Got to tell you, Dad, that Ibrahim's great.  I hope Tony doesn't get jealous but Ib's the first guy I've slept with since being with him.”

     I raised an eyebrow.  'Ib's'?  Seemed almost a term of endearment.

     He laughed.  “After he'd nearly throttled me we just lay and chatted for ages....  Dad, he's just like me and Tony.  Uncle Lachs had told him about us.  That marriage of his, it was all arranged just like Cally's and he made sure it was once and once only.  He's a lonely soul.  Do you think he could come and stay more often?”

     “So were you unfaithful to my friend Tony?”

     He wrinkled his nose.  “Not very much...,  just two lonely souls...”  He grinned.  “....But if you let me stay tonight, who knows!”

     Next morning at breakfast Sayed just shook his head and smiled at me when the pair entered chattering away together quite oblivious to others in the room.  On spotting Sayed Ibrahim made a very courtly bow.  “Your Excellency, greetings.  I am sorry I am late but I was detained.”

     Jody and Stephen turned up well in time for lunch.  Jody was in the corps de ballet still but was hoping, with extra training he was having, to audition for a couple of roles in forthcoming productions.  Stephen said it was money for old rope dancing in the show, great fun though, and Grandpa said he'd got the nicest legs on stage.  The legs were on full show on this hot day as Stephen had changed into James's old green running shorts and we could all agree with Grandpa.  I looked at Ibrahim who was almost licking his lips.  But, although I knew that Stephen was not averse to mutual comfort, I didn't think he was fully inclined that way.  Francis must have sensed it too.  He looked at Ibrahim, smiled and shook his head slightly.  Ibrahim nodded.  Message received.

                              *
     Whatever had transpired between Francis and Ibrahim meant he visited quite frequently staying, generally, at Tony and Francis's house.  If Sayed was visiting then Ibrahim stayed with us and the ubiquitous 'phone repairers were quietly in the background.  Tony said everything was quite open between them.  He had made his commitment now to Francis but he realised Francis could be tempted but as long as he knew it didn't worry him.  He was often away so the arrangement seemed to work perfectly.

                              *
     Just before term began in Cambridge in October  I was awoken about two thirty in the morning by the 'phone ringing by the bed.  It was Lachs.  Very quickly he explained he'd just heard that Audrey, Courtney and Penny had perished in a plane crash just outside Seattle.  It was Courtney's private plane and he'd been advised not to fly because of impending bad weather.  But, he'd insisted it was safe and that was that.  Would I meet him at the ballet school before the newspapers arrived so we could talk to Stephen?  Both Khaled and Safar had also heard the 'phone and came along to our bedroom.  They both said they wanted to come with me and Anne said it would be best for them to be with me and she would stay at home because, no doubt, Stephen's Uncle Antony would 'phone from the States as soon as he heard the news.

     We set out in the car for London and then on to the ballet school and got there just before six a.m.  Lachs was there with the plain-clothes Marine as his driver.  The porter had been told and one of the matrons was waiting for us.

     I went into Stephen's room with Safar while the others waited outside.  He was very puzzled when Safar gently woke him.  I told him very quietly about the tragedy and both Safar and I hugged him.  He was very composed.  He'd never known his mother, or his sister, and had only seen Courtney, or his mother, on the cinema screen.  It was no loss to him.  It was only if the newspapers made any connections.  The boys then sat with him as Lachs and I discussed tactics if any nosey journalist should come sniffing.  We listened to the seven o'clock news and there was a bare mention of the plane crash.  Nothing more.  In fact, no-one made any connections.  Audrey's divorce was far enough back in the newspaper files for it to have been forgotten.  In all the publicity and newspaper articles since in their countless thousands there had never been a mention of a son, only of the daughter.  Only Antony had ever kept in touch and he was now living permanently in Los Angeles.  He alone from that family remembered Stephen's birthdays and on the occasions he had visited England had visited us.  He was always very apologetic about his sister but he had also been rejected by her.  Francis had shown me one day some time ago one of the tabloids he'd picked up in the Junior Common Room detailing a so-called 'orgy' which Audrey and Courtney had hosted.  Whether it was journalistic rubbish or truth we were not to know but Antony did say on more than one occasion that he thought the pair and their friends hit the bottle and did drugs.  Francis said no way would he show Stephen the article.

     Stephen heard many months later that the only legacy he would be getting was just under thirty thousand dollars.  All the enormous sums of money the pair had earned as quite well-known film stars had been frittered away and that was all that was left.  I think hearing about the money upset Stephen more than the news of the plane crash.  He didn't want the money.  It came from someone who had rejected him entirely.  Lachs arranged for it to be put in a long-term investment as a pension for many years ahead when he could accept it.

                              *
     On Sunday December the twenty-seventh just as we were about to sit down for lunch there was a 'phone call for Khaled.  It was Sayed.  He had just heard of the birth of Khaled's son, to be named Iyad.  He would come to see Khaled the next day and stay for a few days if he may.  Khaled's face was a picture when he came back in to tell us.  He burst into tears and rushed to Anne.  “My son,” he cried, “What can I do?”  The other lads crowded round him, full of smiles and congratulations.  Anne waved them back.  “You must wait until he's old enough to come to visit you.  You know he'll always be welcome here.”  The others then hugged him and said the first thing he had to do was 'phone James and tell him.

24.                         1971

     The year passed quite peacefully.  In May Khaled had his finals and finished with a good First as well.  He was relieved as he'd found the last year's work quite difficult.  No worries.  Almost immediately he joined the staff of a finance house with a base in Cambridge and carried on living with us.  Francis and Grunty were now fully fledged doctors having passed everything most satisfactorily.  They were staying on at Addenbrooke's as housemen and Grunty was going to specialise, as his father had, in developmental studies.  Francis thought he would continue in general medicine.

     It was Safar's turn to depart.  Again, a law unto himself, like James.  In his quietly determined way he'd gone for an interview at King's, had impressed the music faculty with his piano and flute playing and had been accepted for a joint degree in Music and French.  He passed his A levels easily so in October he moved quarters to the college.  However, I saw him regularly as I gave him extra tuition in French, but in my college room.  As with the others he was banned from home during term time.  As with the others, though, washing seemed to get through the cordon.  When he came home at Christmas I fished out from an unclaimed pile of shirts, two pairs of football socks, a rugger shirt and underpants, all in rather small size, plus a bright blue jockstrap.  He claimed the lot with no compunction and grabbed the jockstrap from me saying all the team had had them dyed as they were convinced it was their lucky colour.  Not much luck, he admitted, they'd lost the last match 21, 6.

25.                         1972

     Stephen would be eighteen in April so would be finishing his training in the Summer.  He was now five feet eight and was beautifully proportioned.  He said that he was practising very hard for the Easter performance as all the representatives from the theatres and ballet companies would be there.  His reports had always been consistently good and each praised not only his technique but also the way in which he interpreted any role he was given to dance.

     We had the usual invitation to the performance and a large contingent from the family assembled to see what he was going to do.  Whatever it was had been prepared in great secrecy - at least as far as the family was concerned.  We arrived all agog and scanned the programme.  There was the usual 'class' demonstration by the youngsters then several solo or group dances with, strangely, the big extravaganza for the whole school, at the end of the first part.  The second part was, again, solos, pas de deux and some short ensembles and then the last piece was baldly announced as 'L'Apres Midi d'un Faun' interpreted by Stephen Cameron Thomson.

     We had been ushered into the front row and I was sitting between Anne and James.  James had wheedled a couple of days off from work in Chester as he had said he wasn't going to miss seeing his little brother in his tutu.  At least that's what he informed Stephen before the afternoon started.

     As usual the whole series of performances were superb.  Lisa had a very interesting pas de deux with a very accomplished young man.  Stephen did appear as one of a pair of Chinese mandarins in the extravaganza.  There was much chat during the interval about the strange way the programme had been designed.  Usually, the big 'show' was at the end.  What was this?  A solo dance?  I heard several very elegantly turned out ladies, who looked like retired ballerinas, discussing the second half quite avidly and there was Ma chatting up someone I found out as we sat down was the ballet critic of the Times.  She said he had told her there was a fair sprinkling of theatre and ballet group representatives around.

     What was also interesting was that it seemed that all the performers from the first half had joined the audience.  Most were still in their costumes and two of the older boys had squeezed themselves into the second row behind us.  They, too, were whispering avidly and I heard Stephen's name mentioned several times.  They were obviously friends of his.  Each of the dances in the second half drew great applause.  I heard one boy say to his neighbour it was 'a damn good year'.  It certainly was.  Then we reached the last item.  An expectant hush fell over the audience.  The lad behind whispered to his mate, 'This is it!'.

     As the first eerie notes of the flute sounded so the curtain rose to reveal a grassy knoll.  Two statuesque figures dressed as nymphs were at the back of the stage, but, draped on the knoll was a strange creature.  Short golden hair with a golden circlet, a golden body, with trunk and legs encased in dappled tights with a short, brown, curved tail.  The faun was asleep.  At the first chord within the orchestra it began to stir.  To gradually stretch.  Silence, then it stretched again as the horn and flute intertwined.  For ten minutes we watched the most sensuous dancing one could ever imagine.  Once awake the faun explored around, spying on the pair of nymphs, catching butterflies with movements so controlled you could almost see them darting about.  There were gentle leaps and then as the music swelled at points there were more daring leaps.  The two nymphs moved very slowly as if bathing but did not detract from the solo figure in front of them.  One could feel the sultriness of that perfect afternoon as the faun picked handfuls of the gleaming sunlight, soared with imaginary birds, its legs scissoring, and pursued small creatures twisting and turning, then, for the last two minutes of the exquisite music, gradually, tired from his exertions, went into repose again.  But how does a faun end an afternoon of bliss?  As the flute exchanged melodies with the violins so the faun began to caress himself.  Beginning by stroking his back but then just as the oboe took over the air it became perfectly clear what the faun really loved caressing although we only had a back view as he lay contentedly back on the knoll.  To the final harp and strings chords the faun's buttocks gave four sensual twitches.  The music ended and the curtain dropped.

     There must have been almost ten seconds of absolute silence and a collective gasp followed by such a storm of applause.  We had witnessed something truly beautiful and sensational.  People began to stand, clapping as loudly as they could.  The two lads behind remained seated but others were up and shouting out 'Bravo'.  I went to stand but James put out a restraining hand.

     “Don't stand up, Dad, please. I can't!” He just about gasped out.

     I looked at him.  He was red-faced and had a glazed look in his eyes.

     He looked at me, slowly closed his eyes, and opened them again.    The curtain rose to reveal the single standing figure of Stephen.  The applause was deafening.  James leaned over to me and whispered  “I did shoot a load that time.  What did he do?”

     There had been a real gasp from both the lads behind us, too.
     I turned and looked at the two boys.  I closed my eyes slightly and nodded towards James.  They both nodded.  Neither of them were able to stand up.  Truth to tell I had a hardon as well and I defied any male, straight, gay, bi-sexual, hermaphrodite, satyr, faun, whatever,  to have sat through that performance without experiencing the sheer sensuousness of it in a very positive way.

     Stephen took his bows with an impassive face until one of the small girls shyly brought him a bunch of flowers.  His face lit up into that Stephen smile.  I looked at James.  Tears were coursing down his cheeks.  “That's my brother,” he whispered.  Stephen took four curtain calls and the applause was still going on.

     “I need to go to the lav, Dad,” whispered James again.  “Will you walk there with me before anybody stops to talk to us.”

     The boys in the row behind were still in their costumes.  Luckily, tunics and hose.  One leaned over and tapped James on the shoulder.  “Happened to us, too.  He's a star!”

     He smiled, turned and said, so proudly, “That's my brother!”

     People were too busy talking to each other to notice a lad and his father closely followed by two costumed boys.  They smiled at James as they went through a door at the side of the stage.  They would need to clean up, too.  I had a pee as James went into a stall.  I heard plenty of toilet paper being torn off.  Having finished I sauntered back out.  There was a large group congregated round Stephen who now had a cloak round his shoulders so he didn't get cold.  Lachs and Flea were talking animatedly with him and then he was commandeered by three men with notebooks with Anne standing by him - one I recognised as being the chap Ma had been talking to earlier.  Ma was sitting with Pa at the end of the row with Jody between them.  Jody looked so happy.  He beckoned me.

     “I don't think anyone here has ever seen anything like it.  Nureyev will have to watch out in a year or two!   God!  I couldn't have done that!”

     Ma said she had never seen anything so beautifully executed.  Pa just had a dazed look.  I looked round for Francis and the others.  They were in a group surrounding Lisa and a bevy of nymphs, shepherdesses and assorted others, mostly female.  Francis came over and sat by me and Ma.

     “That was really something, wasn't it.  Tony's talking to a big-shot from the Royal Ballet over there.”  He waggled his eyebrows.  “He knows him well.  I heard him say he'll be offered a contract if he'll accept.”  He looked around.  “Where's James?”

     “Problems of a delicate nature,” I said quietly.

     “I am not surprised,” he said emphatically and grinned.  “I had to grit my teeth and think of Patagonia myself!  I think those two lads behind us had problems, too!”

     We had been sitting for a while and Anne had left Stephen to come and sit with us.

     “There'll be things in the papers tomorrow.  Times, Telegraph and Guardian all asking questions just now.  Stephen's taking it all with such coolness.”

     Time passed as so many people wanted to say something to Stephen and the two ballet lads, now dressed in shirts and slacks, came up to us.  “Are you Stephen's Mum?” one of them asked Anne.  She said she was.  “He's so good,” he breathed, “Please tell him, he'll just think we're joking.  We're friends.  I'm Barry and this is Dave.”  He smiled.  “He's a great lad!”

     At long last Stephen managed to get away.  He came over and stood in front of Anne and me and put a hand out for each to hold.  “I don't think I could run a mile like James, or pass all those exams like Francis, but I can dance.  Thanks for everything, that was for you!”  He smiled that open, sweet smile.  “And Uncle Lachs....,” He always referred to his father like that.  “....has made a reservation at the Cumberland Hotel for us all for dinner tonight.  Got to go and change.”  He scurried off, a golden, dappled faun, only stopping to tell the two ballet lads they were invited as well.

     Stephen accepted the contract and Jody soon joined him within the Royal Ballet company.  They shared a room at the London flat.  Stephen told me he wasn't gay as everyone assumed as he lived with Jody.  Jody was, but other than being with Stephen, did not seem to have any entanglements.  Stephen said Jody had instructed him to tell me this.  I said I'd guessed it long ago and he could tell me himself when he next saw me.  Stephen laughed and said that was exactly what he'd told Jody.  Anyway, they were very good friends, but - and he said it with that twinkle - they could act the parts if necessary.  I added the unsaid, 'frequently'.  The other bit of information, which again I had guessed, was that Buck and Fabien were the two boys Stephen had mentioned as sleeping together and were the ones who had helped Jody come to terms with his gayness.  The news was that both wanted to be together and were moving to Canada to Montreal to be in the same company.

     Of course, our other big celebration was that on Easter Saturday, April the First of all days, Grunty married Valerie Michaels and a great time was had by all.  Francis was his best man and Lisa and Caroline were bridesmaids.  Caroline got married the next weekend to an aspiring actor, Garth Ravendale,  she'd met when doing a stint behind the scenes at the ADC theatre in Cambridge, so the festivities were duplicated.


26.                              1973

     The year opened with sad news, Uncle Dick, the eldest of the three brothers, had a heart attack and died.  I went with Francis and James to the funeral.  It was a big affair as he was a well-known figure.  My three cousins and their families were there.  Gareth was putting on weight.  He was now on the board as head of production of a large engineering works.  He was complaining that our manufacturing base was disappearing fast.  The steel industry that Uncle Dick had worked for was moribund and the pits were closing fast.  His son, Graham, another 'gret dark cousin', had completed a BSc and was working for a PhD in Plasma Technology.  After three minutes I was dazed by the technicalities and the apparent future usefulness so was glad we were interrupted by his sister, Amanda, who told him to stop boring the pants off everybody.  She was just like Auntie Faye, vivacious and lively and extremely pretty.  She had obtained a BSc in Psychology and was now training to be a clinical psychologist.  Neither of the kids had followed Mum into a medical degree.
     Rhys was there with his son, Richard, named after his grandfather.  Under the circumstances Rhys was as lively as ever.  He gave his usual good report on James who had settled down well and was very popular with clients.  “And what about the stunner he's got for a girl friend?”  This was news for Francis and me.  He'd certainly kept that quiet!  We were told she was the daughter of a prosperous farmer who was a client of the firm and Richard's comment was “She's a bit of alright!”.  Richard also intended to join the family firm because he was at Pa's old university, Manchester, reading Law.

     Simon, that over-developed, truculent nearly-sixteen-year-old was now an even taller, most self-possessed twenty-year-old.  He was in his second year, also at Manchester, and the two second cousins shared a flat.  He was reading his planned subject, Biology, and was off next summer on a collecting trip in some remote part of Peru.  He had a prominent piece of sticking plaster on his forehead and a bandage round two fingers on his left hand.  “Had a bit of a barney in the scrum,” he explained.  Another foolish boy, playing rough games!

     As soon as James came back to Francis and me, where we were talking to Gareth and his daughter Amanda, Francis asked him immediately about the girlfriend we knew nothing about.

     “What's her name?” he asked, “And how long has this been going on?”

     “Her name's Diane and I'll murder Richie when I get hold of him, I bet he told you!”

     “More, more!” demanded his brother.

     James wrinkled his nose.  “She's OK.  I like her.” He grinned at me.  “Just have to wait and see.”

     He certainly wasn't going to disclose more.

     A bit later he cornered me and I thought I would have heard a bit more.  No, he had other news.

     “Dad, you know that name crossed out in Piers' diary at the time of one of the vicar's sermons things.” he started without preamble.

     I thought back.  Yes, I knew the name.  How could I forget as it was connected with one of Tom's strange outbursts.  “Yes, it was Gordon Thomas, wasn't it?”

     He smiled and nodded.  “Thought so,” he said, “Funny coincidence.  I've just had to deal with a Will and estate for someone who's just died.  His name was Gordon Thomas.  Major Gordon Thomas, late of the Indian Army and an old boy of that school.  He was seventy-three so that would be right, too.”  He looked at me, carefully.  “He wasn't very nice.”  He paused.  “When I tell you that, there were some peculiar stories about him which I heard when I had to visit the village he lived in.  He had a big house in the village but that had gone to rack and ruin.  I was told he'd been at odds with half the village over disputes about land he said he owned and he was banned from the local pub.  There were other stories, too  He had one son who wanted nothing to do with him because as he said to me his father had been cruel and intolerant of him as a kid and he used to get beaten regularly for no reason so he'd left home as soon as possible.  So it was all rather awkward.  I got the general impression he'd been a thoroughly nasty character.”  He waited a moment.  “What happened at Ulvescott?”

     I was in a quandary.  But I suppose I could tell my lawyer son the truth.  We went into another room in the hotel where we had congregated after the funeral.

     “I'll tell you the whole story, James, but it is between us.”

     He nodded.  I then went through the whole story of how Tom on two occasions seemed to be acting in another's character.  His second sight.  I said he'd tried to rape me.  James started back at that.  I assured him nothing happened and Tom seemed to have no recollection about it.  I said about finding the entry about Gordon and how his name had been crossed out and I guessed he'd tried to rape Piers.  James nodded gravely.  I went on to tell him about the second occasion when Tom seemed to have acted out being Miles.  I said the names were Thomas and Buchan, the second being pretty close to Tom's surname.  I said Tom had also found the black market stuff and knew where the dog was and his mother had said he'd shown he had the second sight on other occasions.

     I think James was quite relieved to hear this.

     “Dad, I have to tell you this.  Uncle Tom made a correct prediction for me.  It was after Great-Granddad died they came for a weekend.  I remember it now quite clearly, I think I was about fourteen at the time.  I was in the kitchen and Uncle Tom came in and  put his hand on my head.  'You're going to be as good a lawyer as Granddad Thomson'.  I didn't think anymore about that until I was actually at Caius and the first case we dealt with was something about Buchanan versus Buchanan.  That was odd, too, as the lecturer said he wasn't sure why he had chosen that example.  As soon as he said that I remembered that hand.  I knew then I had to do well.”

                         *

     Just before Easter I had to go to Kerslake to see the firm of solicitors there who were dealing with the leasing out of Ulvescott Manor to the American university.  As a trustee they needed my signature on documents and Tony was in the States having been summoned there by his uncle who said he was not well.

     I arranged to stay with Tom and his wife Betty.  He was now a Superintendent and in charge of policing in the Kerslake area.  Their son Alistair was home too.  He was at St Andrew's University in Scotland in his first year reading Art History and was quite a talented artist.  I asked him if he was going to join the police.  He was a big lad, like his dad, but he said he didn't think so, but it was an option.

     Both Tom and I had plenty to chat about and Alistair sat quite transfixed as we reminisced about schooldays and I caught up with all the pals I had left behind.  A couple had come to his professional notice and he said that Danny Ross had been unfortunate in his marriage and the police had been called more than once to deal with domestic rows.

     I asked him about Duncan.  I hadn't seen Duncan and Mary since their wedding and had only seen their son, Rory, in photographs which arrived with Christmas cards.  He was a month younger than Alistair.  Alistair said his uncle, who he saw quite regularly as he spent weekends with them, was now the Headmaster of a Grammar School on the outskirts of Edinburgh and Rory seemed to be having a career in a pop group as a lead guitarist.  Alistair laughed and said he was tattooed all over and made out to be a real tough character.  He said the tattoos were fake and that Rory had told him he was going to make as much money as he could then he would do what he wanted.

     What he wanted, according to Tom, had never been divulged and his brother was getting a bit fed up with being labelled the 'father of the Bannockburn star'.  Bannockburn was apparently the name of the pop group and it meant the group had quite a following among the Scottish Nationalist students and its fame hadn't fully migrated South of the border.  Alistair laughed and said it was all a big con as Rory and his mates just settled on the name more as a joke.  It meant they had to keep up the pretense and a big hit in their show was when they came on dressed in their kilts and in one raucous number bared their bums at the English.  I said I remember having seen a review of one of their concerts but had never heard any of their music.  Alistair beetled off and came back with their latest single.

     “Mum's fed up with hearing it so you can have it,” he said handing me it with a grin.

     His father shook his head.  “Play it soft though or the neighbours'll complain!”

     We were still chatting when Alistair said he was going to his bed as he was playing for the Kerslake team the next day.  Betty said we weren't to talk too long but she was going to bed as well.   When they'd gone Tom poured another snifter of whisky for us both and I said James had told me about the prediction.  Tom said he didn't remember it and often if he had a thought he had to write it down or it would be lost.  I plunged in and asked him if he remembered that visit to Ulvescott.  He smiled and said he remembered bits.  He patted me on the leg.  “When that lad was there,” he said.  Then looked puzzled.  “I said that, but I don't know why?”

     “That lad was there,” I said, “It was Piers.  He's watched over us all.  Even when you were Gordon Thomas.”

     “Gordon Thomas,” he mused, “I know that name.  It's been at the back of my mind for years and I've never known why.”

     I told him the whole tale - of what he had tried to do, how he had seemingly forgotten.

     “I didn't hurt you, Jacko, did I?” he asked quite contritely.

     I said he hadn't.  He had stopped but then he had become Miles the next time.

     “You've cleared up two of my niggling memories,” he said.  “I wished I'd had the courage to ask you before.  It's odd that second sight has been very useful over the years.  I've solved a few cases without knowing why,” he smiled.  “If I tell you this and show you something it's confidential and I would value your advice on it.”

     I said, “Anything”.

     He went into his den and brought out three largish photograph albums.     He put them on the table but didn't open them.

     “I'd better tell you a bit before you look at them.” He grinned.  “After what we've been through together I know what trust is.  I just need to know what to do with them.  It's like this.  At the beginning of February I was in my office when I heard one of the Sergeants saying to a Constable he'd just had a call saying old Bertie Prosser, you know, who used to be Mayor, had been found dead.  It was odd...,” here he smiled, “....I don't know why, but I said I would go along as well.  I said as he had been Mayor it was probably politic if a senior officer went along.  I know the Sergeant looked at me rather strangely but off I went with the Constable in tow.  We got to the house.  It's one of those big ones on Cathedral Row.”  I nodded.  I'd run up there many times and my experience with Henry Gale was in one of the side roads.  “He had a sort of housekeeper and she'd found him in a chair in the study and she'd 'phoned for an ambulance and the police.  We got there just as the doctor was coming out with the ambulance men.  He said the old boy was dead and it looked like natural causes.  Guess who the doctor was?  You know him.”

     I said I didn't know but it could have been Cleggy's brother who had taken over the practice.

     Tom shook his head.  “No, it was Benno, you know, Benno Crabbe, he's in the Clegg practice with Cleggy's brother.” Oh, I remembered now.  Cleggy had told me that years ago.  “Anyway, I went in and told the Constable to take a statement from the housekeeper.  I went into the study and the old boy was still there.  But it was odd.  I knew I had to look in a cupboard.  It was locked but I found Benno, or the ambulance men, had emptied his pockets and there was a bunch of keys on the desk.  I opened the cupboard and found these, plus some other rather interesting books including a copy of yours.”  He looked at me and nearly burst out laughing.  “By the way, Betty was most intrigued with that copy you sent me!”  I had sent a signed copy of 'Audacity' to him with the inscription 'To the memory of a youth well spent'.  I had thought it contained sufficient of a double entendre for Tom to appreciate all the times we'd spent together.....  “By the way, Alistair has read it, of course, and was very quiet the next day.  He said 'Did Uncle Jacko write that?'  I said of course he did and all he said was 'Ow'.”

     Another youth helped to nighttime fantasies, no doubt!

     “Anyway, seeing that made me curious about the albums.  Have a look.”

     We stood by the table and I opened the first one.  It was more 'Wooow' than 'Ow'.  There was page after page of mounted photographs, all beautifully photographed in a sepia brown, all of nude youths each holding some item of sports equipment.

     “That first volume dates from 1930 to 1940.  There are one hundred and sixty photos in this one,” said Tom as I turned the pages.  “I've identified most of them as there are either initials or first names underneath and they are all boys who lived here and, I guess, attended that gym old Prosser ran.  Mostly there are two of each, sometimes only one and rarely three or four.”  He laughed.  “Look at this one.”  It was a thin lad of about seventeen holding a cricket bat, looking very serious and showing off a short length almost hidden in a great tangle of pubic hair.  I shook my head.  “Taken in 1935.  He's a vicar now down near Margate now.  And this one...,” he turned a couple of pages.  “Same year.  He's a high-up Civil Servant down in London at the Ministry of Labour.”  This one was a stocky lad, same sort of age, standing legs apart, showing off a well-developed cock and this time very sparse hair around it.  He had a pair of rugger boots slung round his neck and had a cheeky grin on his face.   The second photo of him was slightly more of a side view while he gave the camera a wink.  

     We continued turning the pages.  Tom noting several including the owner of a restaurant now in Kerslake and two employees at the City Council offices.  He giggled as he got near the end.  “This one is 1939.  He's just retired.  He was one of my Sergeants.  Has his own security firm now.”  This one was a tall, imperious looking youth with well-developed pectorals and muscular thighs holding two heavy barbells which showed off very hard-looking biceps.  His major attribute was a pair of low-hanging bollocks which were particularly prominent in the second photo, again more of a slanted side view.  In fact there were four views of him.  Obviously a prime photographic subject.

     Tom pushed aside that first volume and opened the second.  “This is from 1940 to 1950.  There's about a hundred in here and we know quite a few.”

     “But two from 1941, numbers 176 and 177 are missing,” I said.

     He looked really astounded.  “How do you know?  Surely they're not you?  You'd've been too young!”

     I shook my head.  “Not me.  But I saw them.  And I'm not likely to forget them.”

     I then told him about finding the two photos in Chris Gardiner's chest of drawers along with all the others and how they were burned when he came home on leave.

     He whistled.   “Yeah, there are two blank spaces.  I wondered about that.”  He laughed.  “Chris is my dentist.  I saw him last week when I went for a check-up.”  He nudged me.  “Was he well-equipped - he's got five sons?”

     “Not like his brother-in-law Matt!”
     He laughed again.  “Matt the Tassel we used to call him in our class.  I liked Matt.  We had lots of fun together, didn't we.   How is he?”

     I said the last I'd heard he and Jamie were coining it in with their yacht hire business in the south of France and Tony and Francis had taken Pa down last summer for a fortnight's holiday on one of their boats.  I said I thought from what Pa had said he was mesmerized by the sight of so much bronzed, bare flesh of the young crew and he just wondered which Navy they'd served in.  Tom snickered.  “Sounds as if Matt is enjoying himself!”

     As we turned the pages I recognised more and more of the lads.  I'd seen Chris but here were photos of the others in his snapshots, now much more professionally photographed.  Huggy's son, Vaughan, was there.  One could see the likeness.  No wonder he was shipped off as he had extremely well-developed equipment which any High School girl would drool over.  He had a most self-satisfied grin on his face and in a sequence of five photos went from four or so inches of droopiness to a near seven inches of full tumescence.

     “There aren't many with hardons,” Tom said, “mostly a bit later as you will see.  But have a look at the next two lots.”

     These were two sequences of thirteen photos each.  The first was of Chris Prosser, the second of Johnny, his brother.  From the pencilled captions they both showed the full developmental sequence of the boys from the age of twelve and a half up to eighteen.  Both Chris and Johnny were big and brawny, Chris especially as he had outweighed his opponents in the boxing tournaments.  Both lads were almost doubles in their development.  At twelve and twelve and a half they had identical, uncircumcised snails and small ridged sacs.  In the second photo for each here was a hint of hair, but pale.  At thirteen the snails were uncurling and the balls lowering with strands of black hair just forming a slight moustache above.  From then things developed fast.  By fifteen both had thick sausages with a bush of hair above and pendulous knackers below to go with their increasing height, girth and muscularity.  That was how I remembered Johnny in the showers at the time.  Then, at seventeen, both had pricks which had thickened and lengthened more with those magnificent balls which each possessed hanging below.   I remembered particularly Chris's balls, walloped in the boxing match and tended by a young SJAB member.  I told Tom about that incident.  He laughed and said no damage had been done.  Chris had three daughters.

     As the later 1940's photos came in view so did many more familiar lads.  In sequence I recognised Cliff Bates, Martin Coombs, Brian Marsh, Henry Gale, Paul Wright and the arch-wanker himself, Billy Clarke.    It was odd seeing these, immortalised as it were at seventeen or so.

     I pointed to Billy's two photos.  “Head of some TV production company now.   He and Ma are great pals.  He and Roddy escort her to the theatre and so on when Pa doesn't want to go.”

     Of course, that set off questioning on Tom's part.  Who was Roddy?  Etc.  etc...  I explained they'd been in the Army together and lived together now.  Tom got the message.

     The next pages showed Tom Rankin and Andy Symes.  I wasn't surprised about them but then there was Jim McDonald who always seemed a rather weedy character when he was in the Second Year Sixth and I was in the First.  My!  As he never seemed to play games I never knew what he had tucked in his undies.  Matt, old boy, you had a rival!  Coupled with a very serious look on his face and a smattering of hair on his chest and a black trail from his stomach down to a prominent covering to his lower regions there depended a long, thin snake with a long floppy foreskin which gave him a couple more inches than all the others seen so far.  I pointed to it.

     “Wonder what that was upright?” I mused.

     Tom laughed.  “I did see it once!”  He snickered.  “He was roped in when I was playing before I left.  The others were ribbing him about his cock and it just went up and up of its own accord.  Must have been well over seven inches but that....” he pointed at the drooping foreskin in the second photo, “....gives a wrong impression.  It was about the same length up as hanging.”

     From then on the roll call continued.  Tom's old 5K was very well represented as well as six of my old form, 5S, other than Johnny Prosser.  Most seemed to have been in the Cadets and Tom reminded me they were encouraged to toughen themselves up by attendance at the gym.   There were others, too.  I had noted some of the Catholic boxers and rugger players.  There was Sean and, My Oh My!, Pat O'Halloran, fists up and his well-remembered cock dangling.  What a roll-call!

     The next few pages reminded me of some of the initials in Cleggy and Nobbo's article.  Here were CD, Chris Dickens and PM, Paul Marsh.  Both at seventeen with very well-developed equipment with both carrying baseball bats of all things.  There was even the circumcised cock, plump like its owner, of Lionel Jacobs.  Probably sent to the gym, like Mike had been, to get some muscle on him.  Oh, my God!  Almost the last in that book were five of my six rugger lads, Beckett, Clowes, Fisher, Hawks and Hunter.  Oh, my God!  Beckett, with the non-appearing Mark Collins, was now on the science staff of the old school!

     The third volume was thinner and finished in 1952.  I asked Tom why?

     He smiled and tapped the last photo.  “This one's the photographer's nephew, Wesley Stanhope.  Well-built lad, eh?”

     I started.  I had completely forgotten to ask Tom who had taken the photos.  I remembered wondering who had taken Chris's at the time.  They were evidently professionally done from the quality and, at the time, I had mentally compared them with the studio portrait of my mother and father.  Stanhope?  Of course!  Stanhope's was the city's most prominent photographic shop.  Stanhope?  I tried to visualise the owner.  A thick-set man as far as I could remember.  Then, Billy's diary.  Nobbo said there were initials.  I think I remembered P, probably R and almost certainly S.  P for Prosser.  S for Stanhope.  I blurted all this out to Tom.  He put a hand on my arm.

     “Hold it, Jacko,” he said very calmly, “Tell me all that later.  I'll explain what happened in 1952 first.”

     We sat down again and he poured more whisky.  “Slainte!” he said, raising his glass, “To old friendships, the new generation, and confusion to our enemies!”

     I raised my glass, too.  Tom looked at me and winked.  We were both remembering those adolescent times together when our great friendship crystallised.

     “Anyway,” he went on, “In 1952 Reggie Stanhope died.  He was found in his developing room and the verdict was accidental death.  He'd been experimenting with some process using a cyanide salt and the coroner said he must have inadvertently got some in the cup of coffee found by him.  When I was home on leave Dad told me about this at the time and said it sounded very fishy and he thought he'd done it deliberately.  He never elaborated on it but when I took over as Inspector that Sergeant I told you about was just retiring.  He didn't say anything about his photo but he let on that Stanhope had had a business in supplying 'gentlemen', as he put it, with risque photos of various sorts.  I assumed he meant female ones but Sergeant.....”  He winced.  “Oh, I nearly told you his name!  Well, he said just before Stanhope died there was a complaint, later withdrawn, by his nephew that he'd been assaulted at the gym by a couple of men he couldn't, or wouldn't, identify.  The Sergeant said that three weeks after Stanhope died the lad, Wesley, went off to Australia and there had been a withdrawal from Stanhope's reserve account of ten thousand pounds a month earlier.  My guess is it was a pay-off and when Stanhope realised he could be black-mailed for more he topped himself.”

     I then told the whole tale about Nobbo finding Billy's extra cash and decoding the diary entries and his belief that Billy was 'selling his arse'.

     “I'm not surprised,” Tom said.  “There's been plenty of rumours.  That other initial is probably for Vic Rogers.  He moved away from Kerslake in 1949 and was arrested in Hull a couple of years later and jailed for five years for assaulting two of his teen-age assistants at the clothes-shop he ran.”  He laughed.  “Probably didn't get them in the right mood.   In fact, I've found out since he ran a string of rent-boys here during the war for visiting troops.  His boys were cheaper than the local pros and I've heard he nearly got lynched by some of them because he was under-cutting them.”  He laughed.  “It's amazing what some of these old biddies tell you when they're brought in.  The one who told me that was sixty if a day and still had a string of clients.”

     He reminisced a bit more about some of the cases he'd had to deal with.  Some quite sordid and two were murders, both of which he was instrumental in solving.  He said, with a grin, with outside help.  Then we got on to family life.  He said I must have had great patience in dealing with my tribe.  I told him about the reluctant Francis.  He knew he was now living with Tony.  He was rather amused at James's scrapes.

     “I know Alistair's not a virgin,” he said.  “I doubt if many of his friends are as well.  All their girl-friends are on the Pill and Ali's been quite open about it.  He says he's got a steady up in Scotland and they'll probably get married, or at least live together, when they've finished their degrees.  Modern times!”  He looked at me confidentially.  “Not that he hasn't experimented the other way.”  He grinned.  “He and a friend, Phil Brown's son... you remember Phil, he was a couple of years ahead of us... well, his son Wayne and Ali were thick as thieves all through school.  I discovered the pair of them in bed one wet and windy afternoon indulging in a rather intimate activity...” He smiled.   “...such as others we know well have enjoyed to the very full.  I'm afraid Ali is rather vocal at times and he certainly was that afternoon having just given Wayne the benefit of his seventeen year old implement!”  He snickered.  “He still doesn't know Dad spied on them through the crack of the half open door.”

     “Amazing what father's see,” I said, holding out my glass for a refill, “I saw my son Francis receiving similar treatment from his best friend.  He was also vocal on the receiving end.  And the times I've heard squeals and squawks from behind closed doors is nobody's business.”

     The whisky was beginning to loosen both our tongues.  I related about finding the manuscript of the 'secret' book and how I'd discovered the relationship with my French 'cousin' Daniel and how the birthmark seemed to have confirmed it.  Tom's only comment was that I was always a randy bugger, which was true in more ways than one.  We giggled almost uncontrolledly over the time Dunc had been upended and I'd made sure, in the only way possible, that his kilt didn't get soiled.  I then said about the Nobbo and Cleggy article and told him he had a minor place somewhere in medical history.  He was miffed when I said he wasn't identified at all by initials but if I remembered correctly he was average in output.

     “Yeah, I remember that quite well.  Being me I got muddled about the measuring to begin with but after about the third attempt I was OK.”  He laughed.  “Most enjoyable that experiment.  Couldn't feel guilty at all, could I.  Doing it for medical research!”  He laughed again, “I think I was 3.4 ccs near enough.  I remember Nobbo said I was average.”

     I said they'd gone on and collected data from thirty lads in all.  Tom nodded.  “Yep, I knew the Fosters were in it and then there was Geoff Wells and  Dave Noonan, I knew that because we three were all in the Boys' Brigade and I guess Niggy Mann and Jimmy Marples were as well as they use to sit together and were always looking at bits of paper and giggling.  Of course, I left at the end of that year so I wouldn't know about who was in the rest if they were younger.”

     I said Chris Dickens and Paul Marsh were two of the younger ones and we both knew them but I guessed the pair must have made full use of the upcoming Fifth Years when I was in the Sixth.

     Tom giggled, “Upcoming, good description.”

     It was then we decided to go to bed.  He slapped me on the back at the bottom of the stairs.  “Wouldn't have missed those years for worlds, eh?  Same for you?”

     I said it was so for me.

     He then said he didn't know what to do with the albums.  Should he destroy them?  I said they were probably a valuable archive for a researcher such as Professor Gibson.  All the photos had been taken at the same distance from the camera and all with the same pedestal by the side of the subject.  It wouldn't take much to work out comparable sizes.  I said I thought he'd already built in a yardstick.  In fact the pedestal was marked off with a black line at what was probably six inch intervals and the pedestal must have been exactly thirty-six inches high.  “Trust you to spot that,” was Tom's response.  I said I would take the albums and give them to Harold Gibson with the proviso that if he didn't want them he should destroy them and, if any were published, then the head should be obscured..  In fact, Harold was very pleased to have them and made some comment that they would supplement Tanner's work quite well as this showed a large number of lads all within a month or so in age and the two sequences would be most useful for teaching purposes.  So, unknown to them, generations of Kerslake boys would be useful to medical teaching, just as a generation of Kerslake boys had provided evidence of their output as well.

     Tom had to go off to give some briefing in the morning so I was alone in the living-room, Betty having gone shopping, when Alistair made his appearance bearing a large plate of cereal.

     “Can I ask you something?” he began almost apologetically.  I nodded.  I had just solved two clues in the Times crossword and wanted a pen to write in the answers.  “It's about that book.”  He grinned.  “You're quite famous as far as students go.  At least your book does the rounds.”

     I said as long as students bought their own copies I didn't mind but passing it around depleted my royalties.

     He laughed.  “Don't worry.  I've seen three different copies in the past few months.”  He got confidential.  “I don't know how to ask you this, but....,”

     “.....Do boys do all those things?”  I said, “Is that your question?  Well the short answer is, yes.  And as far as I know many do with some regularity.  I've had a good number of letters asking the same question and almost the same number from people telling me what they got up to as youngsters.”

     He looked most relieved.

     “Confessions?” I asked.

     “Of course,” he grinned.  “Guilty as charged.  I've got a steady girlfriend and we have..., You know...,” I nodded.  “....But I've done all three with pals at school.”  He grinned even more.  “Don't know which I prefer most.”  He snickered.  “At least boys know how you feel.  You'd better add me to your statistics!”

     I said he was no different from my lot.  He nodded.  I realised then his visit when fourteen for that weekend must have opened his eyes, if not other parts of his anatomy, to boyish pleasures.  Yep.  He'd been in with Stephen and Safar in their room.  Stephen the same age and Safar two years older.

     “By the way,” he continued, “I saw that notice about Stephen in the Times.  He sounds good.  I liked him and that Safar.  He's at King's isn't he?”

     I said he'd be in his final year soon.

     “You won't tell Dad,” he said.  “He's so strict.”

     I laughed.  “Your Dad probably knows more than you guess and I can tell you he's not strict at all.  He's only interested in your welfare.  It wouldn't hurt if you had a heart to heart talk with him.  He won't bite.  I know him too well.”

     He looked pensive.  “I wouldn't know where to start...”

     “...Start by telling him you couldn't imagine not having him for a Dad....”  He smiled and nodded.  “...Then tell him a bit more about your girlfriend.....”  “Fiona...”  “Yes, he told me that you have been quite open about things....”  He nodded.  “I know he knows you've read my book so you could say I was your downfall over other things.”  

     He shook his head.  “Not my downfall.  It made things much clearer about how I and, I think my friends, felt about each other.  It's odd.  Boys are supposed to be so hetero and macho and not show emotion when I know when I've been alone with a friend we've really been very happy.  It's true.  I just wonder why we can't just accept it all.”

     “I've got friends I couldn't imagine not having,” I said, “And we've shared that happiness together.  It's not uncommon.  I think it's a bit like a network of shared friendship between so many males.  Few will admit it but many treasure it and keep silent.”

     “Dad?”

     I nodded.  He smiled.  I had a thought.

     “Look, why don't you come back with me tomorrow?  You can stay as long as you like - but Easter Monday your Dad and Mum are coming to stay until Tuesday.  They can bring you home.  Anne's sister Maureen - Maureen Parker,  will be coming this week.”  He nodded.  Maureen had just published a well-reviewed book on the Pre-Raphaelites which would probably enhance their rather faded popularity.  “Tim's conducting a couple of concerts in the Guildhall on Thursday and Saturday and if you can stand Beethoven and Brahms you can come to those as well.  Khaled's at home and Safar will be there as well and I can't guarantee who else will poke their noses in.  Easter Sunday I expect Stephen and Jody will come and Tim and Maureen will be off after lunch.”

     “Please, Oh, please!” he enthused.  “I could go to the Fitzwilliam, too.  There are a couple of paintings there I want to look at.”  He looked rather coyly at me - all nineteen years.  “And there's that rather valuable painting you have.”  He grinned.  “I could make a special study of Manet for my dissertation, couldn't I?”

     “How did you remember that?”

     “Safar told me it's the most beautiful thing he knew and we looked at it for ages when I came and stayed.”

     “He's never told me that.”

     “He said if he ever felt sad he just went and looked at that painting and he felt all right again.”

     I smiled.  My gentle, deep Safar.  Nothing will ever surprise me.

     “OK,” I said, “You're booked in.  Make certain you have clean undies or your Mum won't let you travel.”

     He laughed.  “Mum's are all the same!  All my friends say that's the last thing their mother's ask them before they go anywhere!”

     Tom laughed when he came back and said he would be glad to see the back of him for a week.  Alistair said he'd only been home three days and he was being chucked out again.  If his father didn't want him could he come and join my lot?  I said he'd better judge that after the week was out.

     Tom and I went to see him play that afternoon.  Among the sprinkling of spectators I recognised three from the old school, now come to watch their own sons play, Alec Fry, Chris Nelson and Jimmy Marples.  Oh ho!  Two of those had photos in the albums and at least one was in Nobbo and Cleggy's sample!  Afterwards we went into the clubhouse and while waiting for the lads to appear from the baths we stood, pints in hands, looking at the photographs displayed on the wall.  Alec was explaining, as an ex-Captain of the Club, that they'd found a load of old photos and had them framed and put up.  Tom pointed to one labelled 1932.  “That's my Dad.  Bloody hell, he looked a bruiser then!  One of my old Constables said he was known as 'Basher Buchanan'.”

     I looked more closely.  “Oh my God, there's Pa!”  I said, pointing at the mustachioed, grinning figure next to 'Basher'.  “That's my father!”

     Alec was not to be outdone.  “Well, that one's my Dad and that's my Uncle Artie.  They were both on the wing.  Unfortunately Uncle Artie was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and never came back.”   We moved along the row of photos.  “That's his son Philip there.” He looked at me. “He was at our school.  He was First Year when I was in the Fifth.  He lectures at Newcastle now, Chemical Engineering.”  He sniffed.  “That's where that son of mine is at, doing Bio-Chemistry.  But, great lad is Philip.  He moved in with us as his Mum couldn't deal with the loss.”  He grinned at me.  “He's the little brother I never had!”

     The boys straggled in carrying their bags of dirty clobber and we all congregated in the bar and downed several pints of beer each and reminisced, with the sons dutifully standing listening to the oldsters - standing dutifully as the wallets opened to buy more beer! - before they sloped off to join in the rather raucous renderings of the same old Rugby songs.  The four of us found seats in a quieter area and sent Tom off for another round.  It was interesting.  None of the fathers, other than me, had gone to university, but all the sons were at home for Easter, all four scattered, at St Andrews, Newcastle, Bristol and Birmingham.  Although the fathers hadn't taken any form of higher education they had all done more than well.  With Tom soon to be promoted Chief Superintendent there was Alec, the manager and part-owner of a furniture warehouse, the remembered rather dashing Jimmy Marples had a big car dealership and Chris was running his father's old established building business.

     Three more pints later and an interim visit from Gordon, Alec's son, for a replenishment to his finances, and Chris was getting very confidential.  They'd all been amazed when they found out I had six sons, real, adopted or surrogate.  “Fuck me,” said Chris, “I don't know how you've come through that.  Jeff hasn't been too bad but young Robin, he's sixteen and his brains are between his legs.  Bloody hell, I feel like bashing his head in sometimes except he's six foot already.  I can't think I was like that when I was his age.  Bloody pop groups and the succession of girls.  All we had was the bugle band in the Cadets and Sergeant Moss telling us if we didn't keep away from girls and keep our dicks in our drawers we'd catch the pox....  We were too scared to do anything but have a feel and you were bloody lucky to get that far.”  He leaned over even more confidentially.  “But we had each other.  Must say the friends I made then have stayed friends.”

     Oh.  Chris had his photos in the book.  Stocky Chris with a good-sized tool.  I wondered which of his friends had held that?  I remembered he and Freddy Cross were great buddies.  Both Cadets - and, of course, the next pair of photos in the book were of Freddy, with the same bugle on its lanyard as Chris had in his.
     “How's Freddy?” I asked, flying a kite.

     He looked at me closely.  Then his face crinkled in a grin.  I had hit the target.  He knew that I had suspected something, it was true - but mine was only a guess!   “He's fine,” he said.  “He and his wife's got a place in Spain so we go out with them for holidays.  That is, if we can prise young bollock-brain from his latest conquest.”

     The elder of the two, not-so-bollock-brained Jeff, came across with an empty glass.  He made some comment about singing was thirsty work and went off with a five-pound note and a grateful grin on his face.

     Chris downed the rest of his pint.  Looked at us and went over to the bar for another round.  Jimmy took the final swig of his and burped contentedly as he set the glass down.  He looked over to check that Chris was stocking up with five more pints and turned to me.

     “That book of yours.”  That book of mine kept cropping up.  I knew sales were good, my six-monthly royalties showed that, but the sum was never anywhere near that of Ma's.  Still she did have at least a dozen of her books still in print.  Now here was Jimmy, whose only reading matter I assumed would be Glass's Guide or What Car, mentioning 'that book'.  He grinned.  “That son of mine...”  He nodded towards the mob of singers who were going through the third or fourth rendition of 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' with, each time, a more exaggerated version of the obscene  set of gestures which accompanied it.  “....That son of mine has it on his bookshelf at home next to the Hobbit.   Hobbit and hobby in alphabetical order, eh?  Daren't tell him that.  He's in your line....  ...He's doing French at Birmingham.”

     The hobbyist was the next one to come across pleading thirst.  Two five pound notes were passed across with the instruction to get the others theirs and come back.  He did so and came across with a pint pot and a puzzled look on his face.  What did father want?

     “You don't know Doctor Thomson do you, Paul?”

     The lad still looked a bit puzzled but stuck out a hand and we shook.

     “He wrote that book you're always putting down when anyone comes near your room!”

     Not only puzzled but startled.  I thought I'd better put him out of his misery as a blush started to diffuse his cheeks....

     “Do you know Francis Thornley?” I asked.

     “He's my tutor...,” he said.  He paused.  “....And are you Jacques Thomson 'cause Dr Thornley's quoted you several times.....?”

     “....And you've read the book?”

     The blush was more than apparent now.  He looked at his father.  “We all have,” he whispered.

     As there was a spare seat next to me and the others were now chatting amongst themselves I motioned to him to sit down.  We then spoke in French for the next quarter of an hour.  He was good.  He'd spent four summers with a French family in Tours and was very fluent and had decided to read French which he was enjoying greatly and was coming up to the third term of his first year.  I told him Francis Thornley and I had been undergraduates together.  He was most enthusiastic about his work and was about to go to France for an intercalated year in September as an English assistant at a boys' Lycee.  I said Alistair was coming to stay, why didn't he come and keep him company and we could discuss any of the topics he had dealt with ready for his exams when he got back after Easter.  He was very pleased.  He said Alistair was a great pal, he'd known him since Junior School.  He was so taken with the idea that when he went to speak to his father he started in French.  I got a thumbs-up from Jimmy when it was sorted out.  Paul then went off with two more fivers to tell Alistair and buy more beer for the singers who were getting rather less musical and more and more maudlin.

     We collected Alistair after he'd downed one more pint and walked back to Tom and Betty's.  It wouldn't do for the local Super to be caught driving after six pints of best bitter.  Alistair was limping slightly and was complaining that he had a couple of bruises and a wound where someone's boot had raked him which he showed his mother as soon as we arrived home.  She clucked and told him to rub some arnica in and put a bit of plaster on the scratch and not complain, he wasn't six any more.  Alistair gave me a wry smile and I smiled back rather drunkenly.  After supper when Betty went upstairs for some reason Alistair said he couldn't imagine not having Tom as his Dad.    As I'd heard the same opening from my sons, and had prompted him, I lurched towards the loo to relieve myself of the rest of about five pints of best bitter.  I think I was one down from Tom!  When I returned several minutes later after the longest piss I'd had for ages Alistair was just saying something about his pal Wayne.  Tom's eyes were closed.  He wasn't asleep though.

     “You'd be surprised what I know about you and the lovely Wayne,” he murmured, “No need to tell me.  If you haven't been round the houses with your pals then you're not very adventurous.  And when you see that cousin of yours give him the same treatment!  Your Uncle says he's too uptight for his own good!”

     Alistair looked at me, shook his head and murmured, “Dads!”

     Before I left for Cambridge next day with the two lads Tom told me that although Rory was supposed to be a hell-raiser it was all show, just like his fake tattoos.  There were certain indications which led Dunc to believe....  I laughed and said I supposed Alistair was being set up to find out.  He nodded and smiled.  Superintendents of Police are 'gae canny', as his old mother would have said!

27.                    James Again!

     When I got home Anne was laughing.  James had 'phoned that morning, all breathless, would we mind if he got engaged.......?  Oh, James!

     The lads were welcomed whole-heartedly.   We put them in the small spare room as Khaled had so much clobber in his and Francis's old room and we couldn't really move him out as he was a fixture, and as for Safar's room - nothing of his or Stephen's or Jody's had ever been thrown away.  I think Paul was rather taken aback with all the ramifications of having a large family and a constant stream of friends.  Tim and Maureen arrived the next day and Alistair was in his element.  He'd brought some of his sketches and she did a careful crit on them and she, Anne and Alistair disappeared off to the Fitzwilliam for some intensive tutorials.   Tim made me play duets with him - in memory of Ashburn House - and I didn't do too badly.  He was now an associate conductor at the Royal Opera House and was travelling here there and everywhere in Europe.  He said he really wanted to settle down with an orchestra for a period of time and the opera house appointment was ideal.  He said that brother John and Myf were still scraping for a living and had part-time posts as well at the Royal Academy where their son and daughter were junior exhibitioners.  He wondered if there might be a Parker String Quartet soon.  A very musical family.

     I and Safar took Paul for a tour of the colleges.  He gaped when he saw my room overlooking the Backs and the usual jaw-dropping when he saw the fan-vaulted ceiling in King's College chapel.  It never failed!  Safar showed him his 'kennel' as he called it.  Two well appointed rooms overlooking the quadrangle to which he would be returning to complete his second year.  Again much impressed.

     I had turfed out several sets of notes and copies of some articles I thought might be useful and after supper each evening we spent time going over things.  There was no doubt, he was bright.  I would write to Francis suggesting he be nurtured!

     My own Francis was also in evidence.  He was full of James's announcement and wondered when he could afford enough to get married.  I reminded him that the three of them had old Mr Zemper's money tucked away.  Francis said he'd forgotten all about it and would get Cally to find out how much he was worth now.  He grinned when I called him a mercenary toad.  He did spend a bit of money - mine - taking the lads with Cally and Safar out for a meal.  Rather liquid from the sounds as the five of them returned around midnight.  Plenty of rather too loud, SHHHs.

     My inheritance from Paul Zemper was inspected inch by inch by Alistair with a running commentary by Maureen.  And Safar took Alistair along on Thursday afternoon to hear the orchestra rehearse before the first concert.  I could see Alistair and Safar becoming friends.  They were very much alike in temperament.

     Sunday lunch was a riot.  Stephen and Jody turned up and both had much to tell.  Tim had already said that Stephen, especially, was being groomed for advancement in the company and Jody wasn't far behind.  Both were dancing in minor roles for a new production in October and they were trying out their parts already.  Not only that but Tim would be conducting.  He warned them they'd better behave themselves or he'd do what Thomas Beecham did.  He said the old boy had been annoyed by the dancers at rehearsal one day so during the evening's performance he'd gradually upped the tempo for one dance and when the sweating dancers finished he turned to the leader of the orchestra and said in a loud voice “That made the little buggers hop!”

     I think both the lads were rather overwhelmed by Jody and his flamboyant ways, much more in evidence now but they saw most of it was just show.  Stephen was the calming influence except when the subject of  James's proposed engagement came up.  After supper when the lads were sitting gawping as story after story of the London theatre scene was retold, mainly by the supreme actor Jody, and Anne had retired to bed, the subject of James came up again.  Stephen said he was very pleased brother James was going to tie the knot as he needed a knot tying in any case but he, personally, was proud to have engineered spontaneous emissions in at least six known acquaintances including James.  Again tongues had been loosened by several glasses - of wine this time - so the story of James's and the various ballet boys' discomfiture was retold much to general amusement.  I think that loosened up any remaining inhibitions.  As far as I could ascertain, as I soon followed Anne up to bed telling the boys to switch lights out before ascending, the spare room wasn't slept in that night.  Alistair must have bunked in with Safar and the two ballet stars, with Paul in with Cally and Francis who also stayed the night.  Whether 'the book' came under discussion I didn't enquire but Paul and Alistair were exchanging meaningful glances all morning.

     As well as Tom and Betty Buchanan turning up on Easter Monday so did a rather tired Tony.  He'd got fed-up with Uncle Lester and his 'malade imaginaire' and had flown home on the spur of the moment.  Of course, he didn't know Tom would be there so Easter Monday was riotous as well.  I don't think either Alistair or Paul knew what had hit them.  In fact, one tale that Tony had was that Uncle Lester wanted his art collection catalogued and he didn't want any American to do it, it was too valuable and they'd only whip half his possessions away.  Why he was getting so vindictive Tony said he didn't know, but Tony was the blue-eyed boy and he would help.  He'd catalogued the Garthorpe Library why couldn't he come and sort out the pictures?

     Tony said the old boy had quite a collection.  He had three houses, in Hollywood, San Francisco and in Florida.  Each of which was fully furnished, kept on the go and had pictures in.  Of course, having heard that Alistair was keen on art, a solution.  Alistair and Paul could go out, all expenses paid for a couple of months in the summer and at least list everything.  Paul needn't worry about practising his French as Lester had a French chef who followed him around.  The boys were even more open-mouthed at this.  After they had said they would be interested and went off back to Kerslake with Tom and Betty that evening I said did they realise the sort of menage that Lester ran.  Tony smiled and said that Lester did little work now so the entourage was down to about four or five but he was sure the boys would find it all most agreeable.  I said what if the lads took fright.  Tony just said in his experience no lad ever took fright if treated right.

     Three weeks later all was arranged.  The lads would fly out as soon as they finished the year in June and come back end of August.  All expenses paid and a bonus if the work was completed.  Tony said there were bonuses included especially as two of the present group of little helpers were quite well-hung.  He just wrinkled his nose when I said he shouldn't judge everyone by his own tastes.  “Boys are boys,” he said, “If its dangling they'll grab it!”

                              *
     Two months after the first there was another breathless 'phone call.  I had answered but James demanded to speak to Mum.  Mum listened impassively.  “Right, Saturday, August the Fourth, Chester Cathedral, eleven thirty.  Your father's here....”  There were a few moments silence from Anne and an excited buzz from the 'phone.   “....You can tell him yourself, coward!”   She handed me the 'phone.

     “What is it?” I asked, guessing straight away.
     “Dad,” he sounded rather hesitant, “I think I've caught the Thomson bug.”

     “What you mean is that Diane has caught something which will be permanent.”

     “Dad!”

     “When is it due?”

     “End of November.”

     “A virulent infection, then?”

     He giggled.  “First exposure and it was caught!”

     It was my turn.  “James!”

     “Can't help it, Dad, you should know that!  Think Francis and then think James!”

     “I am perfectly aware of what happened in the past!...  Well, congratulations and are we going to see you both before the day?”

     “Dad, it's only six weeks before the wedding.  I need lists of all you want to attend.  Dad, will you ask Francis to be my best man?  I daren't, he'll only laugh and say nasty things..., please Dad!”

     “Chicken,” I said, “Ask your brother yourself.  He's had to wipe your backside for you so he's not likely to refuse giving you away!”

     “Dad, he's best man not the bride's father!”

     “And what does the bride's father say?”

     “He's a farmer and it's unrepeatable, but favourable!”  He laughed.  “You're not angry with me, are you Dad?  I can tell you it was the most wonderful experience I've ever had...”

     “I thought that was at Stephen's performance?”

     “Dad!  You know what I mean!”

     “I know you, so we'll be there supporting the poor unfortunate girl who we have still to meet.”

     “Dad, I'm sorry, but I'm James!”

     “Yes we are well aware of that!”

     “If we come down this weekend will that do?”

     “If you don't,  Diane won't know how to cope on August the Fourth!”
     “Dad!”   There was a hurried conversation at the other end.  Diane must have been there listening.  “Diane sends her love and we'll see you late Friday night and can I speak to Mum now?”

                              *

     We'd seen a couple of photos of Diane but they didn't convey the true, wonderful nature of the girl who arrived, rather apprehensively, on Friday evening.  Over Saturday and Sunday she met and was rather overwhelmed by all the family and friends who wanted to see who was taking on the responsibility of looking after James.  I knew as soon as I saw them together they were well-matched.  She was a no nonsense, farming-stock Northerner.  He wouldn't be under her thumb but he would have to behave himself.  There was also no discussion.  Anne and I put them together in the big en suite bedroom.  He had told Anne they were living together in his flat.  His brothers were so happy for him.  Francis was there to greet him with Safar and Khaled in tow.  Stephen and Jody came down for Sunday and Grunty and Valerie and their new-born son, Nathan Francis, not yet a month old, came along during the afternoon.

                              *

     About three weeks after the two lads departed on their cataloguing expedition I had a letter from Alistair with a couple of photos enclosed.  One showed Alistair and Paul standing either side of a rather familiar-looking painting and smiling broadly.  The second showed them, quite a bit paler then the four muscle-bound hunks, all in well-packed skimpy swimming trunks, all standing in a row by the side of an immense blue-water swimming pool.  The short note informed me that the collection so far dealt with was stupendous, did I like the Hockney?  One of four!  The four others in the other photo were the last of Mr March's assistants.  Two were also extras in the next gladiatorial epic and two were artists.  I was left to work out who was which or whom!  They were 'working out' with the lads each day as well as listing all the pictures and would be moving on to the next house at the weekend.

                              *
     We altered our holiday arrangements around as we had planned to go to Rome to see Mike in July.  We would now be going in September as we had to get the wedding over first!  What an affair that was.  The guest list looked very unwieldy and Ma and Aunt Della said they would contribute towards the cost as the expense for the Harts, although quite well-off, would be a burden as they had two other younger daughters to marry off at some time.  The daughters, with Lisa, were bridesmaids and Julia and Caroline were matrons of honour.  Ludo Wilkinson, back from teaching the origins of their language to the heathen, as Pa said, conducted the wedding service.  A cleverly designed dress hid the fact that Diane was quite a few months pregnant and all us 'senior' members of the family were in morning suits.

     Both Johann and Daniel came, with wives and assorted children and the big surprise was four of the Italians, Silvio and Bruno with the two youngest, Julio and Domenico.  Silvio was with a very svelte wife whose dress was so sleek and glamourous it turned everybody's heads.  Bruno was the one now with a beard and was studying Philosophy and looked suitably studious and radical.  The youngest two were also studying hard but neither had made up their minds what to specialise in.  The two missing ones were unable to come as priapic Giovanni was in training as a priest and fully intending to take over his now very aged great-great-uncle's parish as soon as he was ordained.  Antonio had decided at the age of eighteen to enter a monastery and was happy there contemplating the infinite.  I was particularly pleased to see the now Professor Walter Suess from one of our northern universities where he had gone after spending his time in Cambridge.  He brought greetings from his brothers who were sorry not to come, but, 'pressure of business in the holiday season'.

     There were people there from all stages of James's and Diane's life.  Her school friends and friends from University as well as a great assortment of relatives.   His four other brothers were prominent and although Sayed couldn't be there, Ibrahim was.  He sat between Francis and Tony in the front pew with the other brothers there as well.  Lachs and Andrew sat with us with Andrew shaking his head and saying 'It's wonderful'.  James was a particularly favourite 'nephew'.  James gathered in many people from my and Anne's life.  Old Mrs Palfrey was there, unfortunately the ascetic looking archaeologist had passed away, but Luscious Lucius, himself looking more like his father attended with Jem, Sam, Nick and Davy.  I just wondered who was looking after the Americans at Ulvescott.  The roll-call went on and on.  Garthorpe, Chester, Cambridge......

     At the reception Francis, as best man, gave a superb speech.  In theatrical terms he had us rolling in the aisles.  James sat and took all the stories stoically and was nudged by a near hysterical  Diane several times.  So James was effectively given away!  He'd come along to our room in Uncle Edward's house where we were staying before we left for the Cathedral.

     “I can't say anything much.  But thanks for everything!”  He hugged both of us

     Rory's band, 'Bannockburn', were good.  They livened up the reception no end, even though Duncan had stipulated no baring of their extremities under pain of letting the local farming lads attending have a go at them.  I heard him say to Rory he thought they were all expert at castrating the lambs so wouldn't be averse to trying out their skills on four young Scots who blasphemed about the English.  I wondered if that was how Duncan controlled the young wild Scots in his school?  I heard from Francis later that Rory was applying for a place at Emmanuel and was coming to stay with him and Tony for the interviews.  Francis said that the Scottish thistle tattoo on Rory's thigh was real as it didn't wash off like the rest.  All said with the usual raised eyebrow.

     James and Diane went off to somewhere exotic and not too taxing for their honeymoon.  We went off to Rome taking Safar and Khaled who relived that first visit they had made.  We found Mike to be as over-worked and as convivial as ever and  the Quirinale Hotel - expenses paid by an unknown benefactor! - was excellent.  We visited the parish twice, bearing the usual gifts.  One of the older boys was now the curate and both Khaled and Safar were roped in to play games.  Mike said he had high hopes of Giovanni who was, as he put it, a reformed character.  One other memorable moment of that visit was meeting the sun-tanned figure in white of Father Vince Hare, on leave from his work in Africa.  He was being sent back to Rome to teach trainee priests, many from the African countries.

     At the reception Francis had given me a letter, plus more photos, he'd received from Alistair.  Just that one meeting had formed a friendship.

     Dear Francis,

     Tell your father we are almost finished the second house.  If it's genuine we've found a Picasso!  Only a sketch on a scrap of paper.  Mr March says he can't remember how he got it but he thinks it's OK.  Each picture has actually got a label anyway - or most of them have, so we have photographed the lot.  Contrary to what it may appear in the enclosed photos we are working hard.  

       In the one that's got 1 on the back, there's Tracy, on the left.  They call him 'Beef' as in 'beef on the hoof' for obvious reasons.  He's been here since he was eighteen.   He's been in several movies in the background.  Nothing between the ears but a real old-fashioned Southern gentleman as Duke, the next one says.  He's from Texas and everything's big there - as you no doubt can see. He and Paul go running each morning.  The big blond is from Minnesota and is Neils.  He's quite an artist and I get on very well with him.  At least we speak the same language - artistically, I mean.  Nicholas is French, paints incessantly, and acts as Mr March's valet - whatever that entails.  He and Paul chatter away all the time and Paul is learning 'haut cuisine' and an extended vocabulary from Monsieur Thierry the chef.  He's seventy-five and a real fire-ball.  He chucked two pans and a long skewer at the Costa Rican kitchen lad yesterday.  Lad and Tracy seem very close as Tracy is always hanging about the kitchen.  Paul watched the altercation yesterday which finished up with Monsieur bellowing out 'et va t'faire enculer chez les Grecs' and then saw Tracy at the door and added 'et votr'ami vous carrer dans l'oignon!'  I think that sums up the household adequately.  Almost!  Mr March is charming.  The boys - they're all twenty-one or twenty-two - dote on him.  We are all great friends now!

     The other photos show us in and out of the pool.  Honestly, we are working otherwise!  That is when other things don't intervene.

     I'll come and see you as soon as we get back.
               Till then,
                    Alistair.

     Francis smiled when I gave him the envelope back.  “Do you think the pair will come back with their egos intact?” I asked.

     “Egos?”

     “You know what I mean - will they know their onions?”

                              *
     Term, as usual, started and Anne and I were up to our necks in work.  Academics are usually thought to have an easy life, long holidays and survive by tutoring a few students on a Wednesday afternoon, which unfortunately breaks up both weekends.  But, with administration and other college duties, I was being roped in for many extra-curricular activities.  The plus side was that, in general, I had a pleasant group of colleagues and, I think, we got on well.  Anne was now Chairman, as she insisted on being called, much to the disgust of the 'sisterhood',  of her faculty group and had more post-graduate students than she could possibly cope with easily.  She coped.  Safar started his final year.  He'd taken his LRAM in flute at Easter and had passed extremely well.  As he was particularly pally with one of the organ scholars at another college he thought he might try for the ARCO sometime.  When Georgie and Beth came to visit, he and Beth had disappeared for hours doing an organ crawl around the colleges.

     On Friday November the second the 'phone rang at six a..m.   It was an almost incoherent James.

     “Dad!  Dad!  They've arrived!  Dad!  They're boys, identical!   Three weeks premature...  Tell Mum!  I want to speak to Mum!  Oh Dad!...”