surprisingly expert on the crane machines. In one week’s holiday she could manoeuvre fifty or sixty toy planes and tiny teddies and Poppit bracelets and packets of jacks and yoyos and pen-and-pencil sets out of those machines, enough for several Christmas stockings for friends’ children.
There was a theatre at the end of the pier. I didn’t like the journey right along the pier to this theatre. I hated it when the beach finished and the sea began. You could see right through the wooden planks to where the water frothed below. My heart thudded at every step, convinced each plank would splinter and break and I would fall right through.
I cheered up when we got to the theatre and watched the summer season variety acts. I liked the dancers in their bright skimpy outfits, kicking their legs and doing the splits. My parents preferred the stand-up comedians, especially Tony Hancock. When
Hancock’s Half Hour
started on the radio, they listened eagerly and shushed me if I dared say a single word.
We went to Clacton year after year. We had a lovely time. Or did we? I always got over-excited that first day and had a bilious attack, throwing up throughout the day and half the night. Biddy would sigh at me as if I was being sick on purpose, but Harry was always surprisingly kind and gentle and would hold my forehead and mop me up afterwards. It’s so strange, because when I was bright and bouncy he’d frequently snap at me, saying something so cruel that the words can still make me wince now. I was always tense when he was around. I think Biddy was scared of him too at first. She used to cry a lot, but then she learned to shout back and started pleasing herself.
There was always at least one major row on holiday, often more. They’d hiss terrifying insults at each other in our bedroom and not speak at the breakfast table. My tummy would clench and I’d worry that I might be sick again. I’d see other families laughing and joking and being comfortably silly together and wish we were a happy family like that. But perhaps if I’d looked at
us
another day, Biddy and Harry laughing together, reading me a cartoon story out of the newspaper, I’d have thought
we
were that happy family.
In the days before everyone had ordinary cameras, let alone phone and digital cameras, you used to get special seaside photographers. They’d stand on the esplanade and take your photo and then you could come back the next day and buy it for sixpence or a shilling.
There are two very similar such photos taken the Clacton holiday I was six – but they’re so very different if you look closely. The first caught us unawares. It’s a cloudy day to match our mood. My father looks ominously sulky in his white windcheater, glaring through his glasses. My mother has her plastic raincoat over her arm and she’s clutching me by the wrist in case I dart away. I’m looking solemn in my playsuit and cardigan, holding a minute bucket and spade and a small doll. I am wearing my ugly rubber overshoes for playing in the sand. I do not look a prepossessing child.
Biddy berated Harry and me for spoiling that photograph and insisted we pose properly the next day. The sun is out in the second photograph and we look in a matching sunny mood. Harry’s whipped off his severe glasses and is in immaculate tennis whites. Biddy’s combed her perm and liberally applied her dark red lipstick. I’m wearing my favourite pink flowery frock with a little white collar and dazzlingly white sandals. I’ve just been bought a new pixie colouring book so I look very pleased. Biddy is holding my hand fondly. Harry has his arm round her. We look the happiest of families.
----
This is an easy question. In which of my books does a little girl wet herself on stage?
----
It’s
Double Act
, my book about identical twins Ruby and Garnet.
They are jointly reminiscing about the time they played twin sheep in the school Nativity play. Ruby is being mean, teasing Garnet about
There was a theatre at the end of the pier. I didn’t like the journey right along the pier to this theatre. I hated it when the beach finished and the sea began. You could see right through the wooden planks to where the water frothed below. My heart thudded at every step, convinced each plank would splinter and break and I would fall right through.
I cheered up when we got to the theatre and watched the summer season variety acts. I liked the dancers in their bright skimpy outfits, kicking their legs and doing the splits. My parents preferred the stand-up comedians, especially Tony Hancock. When
Hancock’s Half Hour
started on the radio, they listened eagerly and shushed me if I dared say a single word.
We went to Clacton year after year. We had a lovely time. Or did we? I always got over-excited that first day and had a bilious attack, throwing up throughout the day and half the night. Biddy would sigh at me as if I was being sick on purpose, but Harry was always surprisingly kind and gentle and would hold my forehead and mop me up afterwards. It’s so strange, because when I was bright and bouncy he’d frequently snap at me, saying something so cruel that the words can still make me wince now. I was always tense when he was around. I think Biddy was scared of him too at first. She used to cry a lot, but then she learned to shout back and started pleasing herself.
There was always at least one major row on holiday, often more. They’d hiss terrifying insults at each other in our bedroom and not speak at the breakfast table. My tummy would clench and I’d worry that I might be sick again. I’d see other families laughing and joking and being comfortably silly together and wish we were a happy family like that. But perhaps if I’d looked at
us
another day, Biddy and Harry laughing together, reading me a cartoon story out of the newspaper, I’d have thought
we
were that happy family.
In the days before everyone had ordinary cameras, let alone phone and digital cameras, you used to get special seaside photographers. They’d stand on the esplanade and take your photo and then you could come back the next day and buy it for sixpence or a shilling.
There are two very similar such photos taken the Clacton holiday I was six – but they’re so very different if you look closely. The first caught us unawares. It’s a cloudy day to match our mood. My father looks ominously sulky in his white windcheater, glaring through his glasses. My mother has her plastic raincoat over her arm and she’s clutching me by the wrist in case I dart away. I’m looking solemn in my playsuit and cardigan, holding a minute bucket and spade and a small doll. I am wearing my ugly rubber overshoes for playing in the sand. I do not look a prepossessing child.
Biddy berated Harry and me for spoiling that photograph and insisted we pose properly the next day. The sun is out in the second photograph and we look in a matching sunny mood. Harry’s whipped off his severe glasses and is in immaculate tennis whites. Biddy’s combed her perm and liberally applied her dark red lipstick. I’m wearing my favourite pink flowery frock with a little white collar and dazzlingly white sandals. I’ve just been bought a new pixie colouring book so I look very pleased. Biddy is holding my hand fondly. Harry has his arm round her. We look the happiest of families.
----
This is an easy question. In which of my books does a little girl wet herself on stage?
----
It’s
Double Act
, my book about identical twins Ruby and Garnet.
They are jointly reminiscing about the time they played twin sheep in the school Nativity play. Ruby is being mean, teasing Garnet about
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