Mind Your Language - Wash Your Mouth Out!

That soap. I can still remember the taste and the smell.  Green Palmolive rubbed hard in my mouth by my very angry mother. All I said was ‘bugger or buggery’ and obviously that was all it took for my mum to drop whatever she was doing, shout at me and drag me, literally kicking and screaming to our black and white tiled bathroom. The memory is so clear, perhaps I was traumatised by such a severe punishment to be inflicted on me at four years old. Anyway, it was Nanna’s fault.

Both my grandmothers were decent, lady-like women, but Nanna, my maternal grandmother, ran pubs like we did and she was, perhaps a bit more worldly wise. Nanna often said ‘is it buggery’ or ‘does it buggery’ in answer to questions, not to me, but I heard it often enough. In her world were many buggers, too, in fact everyone was a daft bugger, silly bugger, dirty bugger, lazy bugger, etc, and being in the pub trade, lots of drunken buggers. I spent lots of time with her so I suppose it wasn’t really shocking that I should say it myself. After the mouth washing, I sobbed to my mum that I only said what Nanna says. I don’t know if she took it up with her.

I worked with four and five year olds in an infant school for quite a while – the best years of my working life and I wish I’d stayed, but that’s another story. Young children soak up education like sponges and everything else as well. They love to tell their own stories, no holds barred, so I found myself knowing all sorts about everyone’s parents, siblings and home life. I am the keeper of many family secrets and my lips are strongly sealed. There are people out there who might be horrified if they knew what their child had said at school. Sometimes, there was inappropriate language and staff were advised to be tactful and simply ask a child to say it again as we hadn’t heard properly. There were not many swear words around that age group. If necessary, I would say that I didn’t know that word, and let’s just use words we understand.

Sometimes I have to check myself, or remind my husband that something isn’t ‘bloody’ it’s only a table, or whatever the item might be. It’s a hard habit to break, but we have our grandchildren round a lot and what big ears they have. They are aged five, four, three and nearly two. I’ve already had a gentle chat with the five year old about ‘some words are only for grown-ups and not nice for children to say’. How times have changed. My mother would have scooped him up to the bathroom and he would still be vomiting soap suds after his exclamation of ‘f--king hell’ when he dropped something under the table.

We had a small, metal plant pot on the draining board. I know it was in the way, I just needed to decide where to store it, so I take full responsibility. One day when my husband was doing something at the sink and our grandchildren were playing nicely, the planter fell to the floor with a loud clang. My husband, exasperated, called out ‘That bloody tin!’, which met with three of the four children bursting into laughter and shouting ‘Bloody tin!’ We were all hysterical, adults and children alike. It was the funniest thing ever. The ghost of my mum would have run in with the soap. The small planter, or ‘bloody tin’ which it is now referred to, is safely stored.

As for having my mouth washed out as a child, the deterrent is not lifelong, by the way. Mummy might be cross, but I swear sometimes. And worse words than ‘bugger’.

My poem is a reflection of working with the general public where not everyone is pleasant. Suffering pain and Covid rules bring out the best and the worst in people.

 

So, you scream ‘eff off’ at me

From the safety of your phone.

I’ll kill your call, line now free

And you can leave me alone.

 

Lately, I’ve been chucking back

The very same words you use.

I’m not taking any flak,

I’ve developed a short fuse.

 

I know you’ll understand me

Using your language, self-taught.

Unacceptable? I see,

You’re taken aback and fraught.

 

Say ‘bugger’ then, I don’t care.

Just be yourself, you are crass.

I’m not bothered if you swear,

Sticks and stones, and all that jazz.

 

PMW 2020

Thanks for reading, take care and keep well. Pam x

 

 

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Nonsense - Self-Isolation

I listened, properly. I was perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward, hanging on to his every word. It was important that I didn’t miss anything and that I fully understood.  It wasn’t long before I felt frustrated, “Spit it out, man, stop bumbling.” Then annoyed, “For goodness* sake, Boris.” Soon I was angry, mainly with myself for waiting most of the day ‘for enlightenment’ only to find myself wading through a sea of verbal nonsense from someone struggling to string a proper sentence together. Anyway, nothing has changed for me and I will continue to self-isolate.

Lockdown is no problem to me in so far as I love being at home. I am safe here, not stuck here. As well as doing the things I enjoy, I have taken the opportunity to spring-clean and sort out. I kept putting off doing the little room. This is the upstairs box room, which was the nursery for our children. It became the computer room, going back a bit, when monitors and processors were massive. Add a desk, chair and a printer, and one person could comfortably work in there. Later, it became the study. New desk, lap-top, wireless printer and walls lined with book cases which soon got filled. Our eldest grandson calls it our library. He likes to have a bedtime story from my children’s collection when he sleeps over. This little room has also become a dumping ground for things that are in the way but still wanted and not to be confined to the attic or the shed, well, not yet.

I made a space for myself by chucking a few things out that shouldn’t have been in there then got started on sorting out my writing. Exercise books, notepads, scribblings. Unfinished poems, opening paragraphs, some completed stuff. A couple of rejection letters, kept to keep me grounded. Plenty, and I mean a lot, of written nonsense, some made it to the bin, but a few items showing a glimmer of promise, might be worth picking up again. Published work, a thin folder, but one of which I’m proud and has a self-awarded gold star. My work-in-progress novel which hasn’t seen much progress lately. I didn’t dare to start reading that otherwise nothing else would get sorted out. It isn’t nonsense, though, it needs work. I spent two afternoons just on my writting stuff and I discovered that there’s a flicker of hope on some of those hand-written pages. I have rejection letters but I also have lots of positive feed-back and encouragement, enough to tell me to push myself out there while I still can. And with nothing to lose, I must.

So self-isolation continues. The news is scary, the outside world is too scary for me. I don’t support Boris or his party but I have to pay attention, however cross he makes me feel. I won’t return to work to mix with the public before I can see my family, that’s nonsense. I think it is too soon to lift restrictions but I was disappointed at his lack of clarification. I didn’t expect him to be specific, because he isn’t, but I hoped to hear something that I could safely interpret to mean it would be fine to have my grandchildren round and see family members, even briefly. They are worth the wait.

Here’s Spike Milligan,

Scorflufus

By a well-known National Health Victim No. 3908631

There are many diseases,

That strike people’s kneeses,

Scorflufus! Is one by name.

It comes from the East

Packed in bladders of yeast

So the Chinese must take half the blame.

There’s a case in the files

Of Sir Barrington-Pyles,

While hunting a fox one day

Shot up in the air

And remained hanging there!

While the hairs on his socks turned grey!

Aye! Scorflufus had struck!

At man, beast and duck.

And the knees of the world went Bong!

Some knees went Ping!

Other knees turned to string

From Balham to old Hong Kong.

Should you hold your life dear,

Then the remedy’s clear,

If you’re offered some yeast – don’t eat it!

Turn the offer down flat –

Don your travelling hat –

Put an egg in your boot – and beat it!

Spike Milligan  (1918 – 2002)

*Choose your own word here – mine wasn’t ‘goodness’.

Thanks for reading, take care and keep safe, Pam x

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