My father met me at the station, the dog jumped up to meet me, missed, and nearly fell in front of the 9.23 PM Birmingham express.
My father said he had had Doreen Slater for tea. By the state of the house I should think he’d had her for breakfast, dinner and tea! I have never seen the woman, but from the evidence she left behind I know she has got bright red hair, wears orange lipstick and sleeps on the left side of the bed.
What a homecoming!
My father said Doreen had ironed my school clothes ready for the morning. What did he expect? Thanks?
Mrs Bull taught us to wash up in Domestic Science. Talk about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs! I must be one of the best washer-uppers in the world! Barry Kent broke an unbreakable plate so Mrs Bull sent him out of the room. I saw him smoking quiteopenly in the corridor. He has certainly got a nerve! I felt it was my duty to report him to Mrs Bull. I did this purely out of concern for Barry Kent’s health. He was taken to pop-eye Scruton and his Benson and Hedges were confiscated. Nigel said he saw Mr Scruton smoking them in the staff room at dinner-time, but surely this can’t be true?
Pandora and Craig Thomas are creating a scandal by flaunting their sexuality in the playground. Miss Elf had to knock on the staff-room window and ask them to stop kissing.
Mr Scruton made a speech in assembly this morning. It was about the country’s lack of morals, but really he was talking about Pandora and Craig Thomas. The speech didn’t do any good because while we were singing ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away’, I distinctly saw glances of a passionate nature pass between them.
My father is worried, electric storage heaters are not selling well. My father says this proves that consumers are not as stupid as everyone thinks. I’m fed up with him mooning about the house at night. I have advised him to join a club or get a hobby but he isdetermined to feel sorry for himself. The only time he laughs is when those advertisements for electric storage heaters are shown on television. Then he laughs himself silly.
I was seriously menaced at school today. Barry Kent threw my snaplock executive brief-case on to the rugby pitch. I have got to find two pounds quickly before he starts throwing me on to the rugby pitch. It’s no good asking my father for money, he is in despair because of all the red bills.
Grandma rang early this morning to say ‘Cast ne’er a clout till May be out’. I haven’t got the faintest idea what she was going on about. All I know is that it has something to do with vests.
I am pleased to report that Barry Kent and his gang have been banned from the Off The Streets youth club. (But this means that they are now on the streets, worse luck.) They filled a French letter with water and threw it at a bunch of girls and made them scream. Pandora burst the thing with a badge pin and Rick Lemon came out of his office and slipped in the water. Rick was dead mad, he got dirty marks all over his yellow trousers. Pandora helped Rick to throw the gang out, she looked dead fierce. I expect she will win the medal for ‘Most helpful member of the year’.
Had a letter from Grace Pool! This is what it said:
Dear Adrian,
Thank you for your charming letter of thanks. It fair brightened up my day. The girls are all joshing me about my suitor. I am due for parole on June isth, would it be possible to come and see you? Your Auntie Susan is one of the best screws in here, that’s why I obliged and made the toothbrush holder. See you on the fifteenth then.
Yours with fond regards,
PS. I was falsely convicted of arson but that is all in the past now.
My God! What shall I do?
Second after Easter
There is nothing left in the freezer, nothing in the pantry and only slimming bread in the bread bin. I don’t know what my father does with all the money. I was forced to go round to grandma’s before I died from malnutrition. At four o’clock I had one of thoserare moments of happiness that I will remember all my life. I was sitting in front of grandma’s electric coal fire eating dripping toast and reading the News of the World. There was a good play on Radio Four about torturing in concentration camps. Grandma was asleep and the dog was being quiet. All at once I felt this dead good feeling. Perhaps I am turning religious, I think I have got it in me to be a Saint of some kind.
Phoned Auntie Susan but she is on duty in Holloway. Left a message with her friend Gloria, asking Auntie Susan to ring me urgently.
Bank Holiday in UK. New Moon
Auntie Susan rang to say that Grace Pool has had her parole cancelled because she set fire to the embroidery workshop and destroyed a gross of toothbrush holders. Their loss is my gain!
Saw our postman on the way to school, he said that my mother is coming to visit me on Saturday. I’ve a good mind to report him to the Postmaster General for reading a person’s private postcard!
My father had also read my postcard by the time I got home from school. He looked pleased and startedcleaning rubbish out of the lounge, then he rang Doreen Slater and said he would have to ‘take a rain check on Saturday’s flick’. Grown ups are always telling adolescents to speak clearly then they go and talk a lot of gibberish themselves. Doreen Slater shouted down the phone. My father shouted back that he ‘didn’t want a long-term relationship’, he had ‘made that clear from the start’, and that ‘nobody could replace his Pauline’. Doreen Slater went shrieking on and on until my father slammed the phone down. The phone kept ringing until my father took the phone off the hook. He went mad doing housework until 2 AM this morning, and it’s only Tuesday! What will he be like on Saturday morning? The poor fool is convinced that my mother is coming back for good.
I am proud to report that I have been made a school-dinner monitor. My duties are to stand at the side of the pig bin and make sure that my fellow pupils scrape their plates properly.
Bert Baxter rang the school to ask me to call round urgently. Mr Scruton told me off, he said the school telephone was not for the convenience of the pupils. Get stuffed, Scruton, you pop-eyed git!!! Bert was ina terrible state. He had lost his false teeth. He has had them since 1946, they have got sentimental value for him because they used to belong to his father. I looked everywhere for them, but couldn’t find them.
I went to the shops and bought him a tin of soup and a butterscotch Instant Whip. It was all he could manage at the moment. I have promised to go round tomorrow and look again. Sabre was happy for once; he was chewing something in his kennel.
My father is still cleaning the house up. Even Nigel commented on how clean the kitchen floor looked. I wish my father wouldn’t wear the apron though, he looks like a poofter in it.
Found Bert’s teeth in Sabre’s kennel. Bert rinsed them under the tap and put them back in his mouth! This is the most revolting thing I have ever seen.