Where do I start? I can’t tell you them all…..not enough ink in my computer……?
I remember being around 10 yrs old…….. not far off the same size as I am now. Mother Frantony would say it was time for bed, after my milk and biscuits. Yes, for kids today, still nothing has changed. The game was how long and slow you could eat the biscuit and drink the milk. I can still hear my mother shouting now after all these years “Come on! I’m not stupid, I know you’re trying to drag out going to bed! DAVID……COME ON!”
Anyway, eventually once in bed in my brushed cotton pyjamas (I love the feel of them!!) And before I go on……bring back brushed cotton sheets and blankets!
Anyway, once in bed with my young boys dream poster Blu-tacked over my bed, of the iconic Lamborghini, (and by the way, I’m sure Blu tack is different today – my memory of it was that it always stayed sticky
and never turned hard, and it didn’t take half of your wall with it when you took it off and ripped your poster to shreds), I was tucked in tight, sometimes so tight the mattress would curve revealing the bed springs and send me rolling in to the middle (A good sign you were never going to roll back out of bed)
I loved being tucked in tight, the only problem it caused, was the worry of being caught from a previous act of trying to take one of the “V” shaped springs from the metal bed frame.
‘Why’ you ask?
Well, because they were good for making a GAT GUN.
And I’m man enough…..or…..Not man enough to admit, the last words from me as Mum or Dad were leaving my bedroom were always “Leave the door open……and leave the landing light on!”…… While I’m at it, I’ll also tell you that I would never sleep with my legs straight; they were always curled up in a ball.
‘Why’ you ask again?
Well for some reason I had a vision of an old witch that lived underneath the bottom of my bed, and if my feet would ever stick out of the cotton blankets, she would use her long green warty covered fingers and scrape her red sharp nails down the soles of my feet.
Which is impossible…..even today….as I’ve said, I’m not the tallest and if my Mother knew there was a witch under my bed she would go nuts, and anyway my Dad would have noticed when he last decorated when moving the bed.
You can now understand my dilemma when my mother told me that the blankets are going because this new item of bedding was now out on the market and in the shops….. it was called a ‘Quilt’ or should it be ‘Duvet’ and you don’t have to tuck them in. My face must have been a picture. First night with the new ‘Quilt/Duvet’ I’m sure I had a pair of thick heavy duty boots on because I knew the witch would be rubbing her hands laughing, ready to get my feet when I was asleep. I’d never felt so vulnerable not being tucked in!
Once in bed with my feet curled up, I would take the radio from my bedside cabinet and hide under the blankets trying to tune in to the Police frequency and hear what was going on in the outside world while me and the imaginary witch were in the warm; nice and safe. The radio needed to be down low so my Mum and Dad didn’t hear, I couldn’t lie on the pillow because you needed both ears to listen, between the bad frequency and low volume. So the only answer was to use the radio as the pillow, but there was a consequence in doing this. Because on more than one occasion, I would fall asleep on the speaker, waking up in the middle of the night, with the imprint of the speaker holes on my face.
Yes, I tried lying on my stomach folding my arms, but I also fell asleep like it once and my arms went numb. As I eventually released them my face crash landed in the radio, I couldn’t move as the pins and needles kicked in and there was nothing I could do until the feeling came back in them…….. I know…..a rookie mistake.
I still love radio today, I love listening to radio, I love presenting on radio, and even now, there’s nothing like listening to radio late at night when you’re tucked up in bed. If you haven’t tried it, get it done!
As ever on the Easy Blend I’m listening to some great music, today it’s Heathens by Twenty One Pilots, from the film Suicide Squad.
You can find out more about my book ‘Farrago: Ten Tall Tales’ and buy it here…. (click on the cover)
Until the next Easy Blend blog………..
Stay warm and fuzzy……..
my Hay fever doesn’t look like this…….
Centre spoiling ourselves with some clothes shopping and a bit of food. Now at this point my Hayfever was driving me mad, with itchy eyes and lots of sneezing, when we passed a Chinese herbal shop and Mrs Frantony says,
the young woman then translated to me in English, ”Dave, poke your tongue out…”
“Dave, you are a fiery person….”
looking like I didn’t know what she’s talking about.
She then told me to take my clothes off, right down to my pants.
then my face, then my head and my chest……. the only way of ever escaping was on my bum!
rub my belly, before putting a red heat lamp over the part she had just rubbed and walking out of the room, leaving me all on my own.
It felt like days and days before I saw her again…..well not really….it was 40 minutes, but at the time it might as well been days. The old Chinese woman took so long to come back, I even had a beard when she came back in to the room. She turned the red heat lamp off and took all of the needles out of me……I looked like a sieve.
Dave Frantony 