All This Jazz: Uuuuuuummmmmm
The irrepressible Jill Grant, a columnist who generously donates a chuckle in every paragraph she writes, tells of childhood encounters with the Goody-Two-Shoes Mafia.
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Uuuuuuummmmmm
No – haven’t taken up meditation – or even maditation. Come to think of it, some meditation is maditation – I’ll come back to that later
That strange sound above, last heard by me in my primary school days (yes, those again), was made by a particularly loathsome species of self-righteous little girl. The kind who took delight in catching me out in some wrong-doing, and announcing their intention of turning me in to the SS Aufseherin – er, sorry, teacher, in this fashion:
“Uuuuummmm! I’m telling on you, Jill Grant! Ummmmmm!”
They all seemed to dress in the same way – white socks to the knee, black T bar shoes (Start-Rite is ringing faint bells), hateful needlecord velvet pinafore dresses in tasteful shades of bottle green or maroon, white blouses and nubbly cardies, knitted by their loving Nans, no doubt. The Goody-Two-Shoes Mafia.
(Incidentally, my spell checker has just quibbled at Nans. Too middle class by half, that spell checker.)
It’s not as if my sins were anything other than venial. A mildly vulgar version of the old music-hall chestnut “Tar-ra-ra-boom-di-ay”, perhaps? Something about nether garments flying away but returning yesterday. I regaled some friends with that only the other day – results most gratifying.
Or even the famous “cigarette joke”. It related a tale of courtship, including extra-marital shenanigans and their inevitable result, using only the names of popular brands of fag and baccy. Oh the anguish that one caused me! A friend told me, and I was silly enough to tell the Goody-In-Chief, Nesquik Mudwrestler (not her real name, obviously, but not entirely dissimilar) who insisted I write it down for her. So what does she do but take it home with her, for Mummykins to find?
The following day, Nesquik bounced gleefully up to me in the playground, intoning (all together now, one two three:)
“Ummmmmm! You’re in trouble now, Jill Grant! My Mummy found that joke, and she’s coming to see Miss Best about you, so there! Ummmmmm!”
I went hot. I went cold. I went white, green, red. A bit like those revolving lights at discos. Thus far I’d managed to stay out of Hilda Best’s hair (what there was of it) but I’d seen her in action. I knew I was in line for boxed ears and a good shaking.
Sure enough, at afternoon break I saw Mrs Mudwrestler stomping her way up the stone stairs, her red face and bad perm carrying all before her. Once again I resembled a disco light with a touch of traffic light bilious amber thrown in. Nothing happened. “Old Best must be hanging out the agony” I thought.
When I got home I wouldn’t eat my tea – and it was my favourite, steak and kidney with dumplings. Mum spotted something was up (not difficult, I suppose), and wormed it out of me. “Well, come on then,” she urged, “tell me this terrible joke!” So I did. She started to giggle, and reassured me that it was unlikely that Miss Best would make a fuss about something so trivial – no swear words or even graphic anatomical descriptions. “It’s quite clever, actually”, was her final comment.
Nothing did come of it, so Mum was right. Nobody’s fool, Mum – and nor was old Best, it seems.
And just when you thought I’d forgotten – maditation. Examples of this abound, but one in particular springs to mind. A former boyfriend of mine (eh, I couldn’t ‘alf pick ‘em) was dead keen on a band called Quintessence. This was in the early Seventies. I listened dutifully to a couple of their albums and was too polite to tell him what a pile of poo I thought they were. One song, amidst much twang-adge of sitars, contained the immortal lines:
“Things look great in Notting Hill Gate
We all sit around and meditate”
Well, I’ve heard it called some things in my time……..later on came a refrain informing the listener they were “getting it straight in Notting Hill Gate”. Eh? Getting what straight? Oh never mind, Granty! Some questions aren’t worth asking.
I learned later that they were a bunch of ex-pat Aussies. Odd of them to prefer damp, dreary and in those days, rather seedy Notting Hill to the sunny expanses of Australia.
Still, it was the fag-end of the hippy era. “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end” But they did, thank God.
TTFN, folks.
