Homme Serieux
At the age of seven or so the melancholic, introspective facial expression ("Don't worry, it might never happen") for which I have always been famous was already in evidence. Curiously, a further fifty years' exposure to the human predicament has tended to make me more, rather than less, cheerful. Today, when some new example of human folly comes to my attention I find myself less despondent than wryly amused, and something resembling a smile makes its way, creaking and groaning, across my iron features.
This was taken by my mother in the "glasshouse" at the back of our house. Ours and the house next door had originally been one. When, at some unknown date, the two dwellings had been divided, our half had been made up to a minimal habitable size by the addition of lean-tos and outbuildings at the rear. The window behind me had originally been at the back of the house. Inside were folding wooden shutters, their hinges long seized up with rust, grime and old paint. The window-sill, designed to throw off rainwater, made an odd feature in the interior of a house. What domestic drama, probably in the time of some unknown and long-dead previous owner, had caused that chunk to be knocked out of the left-hand end?
Throughout my boyhood we had cats. The one in the photo was Sparkette, surpassed in my affections only by her successor-but-one, Skeats. Like all our cats she had been supplied by our milkman, Mr Till, who lived in Mangotsfield and worked for Long's Dairies. We had thought her a little boy cat and named her Sparkey until my mother took her to Mr Perry the vet to get her neutered. It was then that the unwelcome truth of her gender had been discovered ...unwelcome because sterilisation cost 7/6d for toms, but 30/- for female cats. The discovery had forced the adaptation of her original name. Sparkette was a character. She had a habit of bringing home trophies, which she deposited on the doormat. Most of these seemed to have come from our neighbours' dustbins. Among them I recall sausages, lengths of string and, once, a whole fried egg. The scooter was a Mobo.
Homme Serieux
At the age of seven or so the melancholic, introspective facial expression ("Don't worry, it might never happen") for which I have always been famous was already in evidence. Curiously, a further fifty years' exposure to the human predicament has tended to make me more, rather than less, cheerful. Today, when some new example of human folly comes to my attention I find myself less despondent than wryly amused, and something resembling a smile makes its way, creaking and groaning, across my iron features.
This was taken by my mother in the "glasshouse" at the back of our house. Ours and the house next door had originally been one. When, at some unknown date, the two dwellings had been divided, our half had been made up to a minimal habitable size by the addition of lean-tos and outbuildings at the rear. The window behind me had originally been at the back of the house. Inside were folding wooden shutters, their hinges long seized up with rust, grime and old paint. The window-sill, designed to throw off rainwater, made an odd feature in the interior of a house. What domestic drama, probably in the time of some unknown and long-dead previous owner, had caused that chunk to be knocked out of the left-hand end?
Throughout my boyhood we had cats. The one in the photo was Sparkette, surpassed in my affections only by her successor-but-one, Skeats. Like all our cats she had been supplied by our milkman, Mr Till, who lived in Mangotsfield and worked for Long's Dairies. We had thought her a little boy cat and named her Sparkey until my mother took her to Mr Perry the vet to get her neutered. It was then that the unwelcome truth of her gender had been discovered ...unwelcome because sterilisation cost 7/6d for toms, but 30/- for female cats. The discovery had forced the adaptation of her original name. Sparkette was a character. She had a habit of bringing home trophies, which she deposited on the doormat. Most of these seemed to have come from our neighbours' dustbins. Among them I recall sausages, lengths of string and, once, a whole fried egg. The scooter was a Mobo.