My father was ex-RAF and had spent much of his younger years pootling about the skies in a selection of very fast aircraft scaring the crap, sometimes quite literally, out of various cows, sheep and the inhabitants of a fair few towns with his low flying antics. Thus it was hardly surprising that when he left the forces it was for an exciting job in middle management in the DIY business much like many of his former colleagues.
Malcolm however, was different and had swapped his Biggles-like life of swooping about the skies shooting down ‘bandits’, strafing the natives in the various foreign conflicts of the 1950s and bellowing "Tally-ho chaps!" for the heady excitement of being a sales representative for a well known firm who purveyed dairy goods to the trade. The perks were good though and as Uncle Malc’ was a frequent visitor to our house being one of dads drinking mates we got a fair share of them. Thus it was that one Wednesday in the middle of August 1973 he turned up and unloaded from his van a quantity of a new brand of Yoghurt and what looked like a small oil drum of something. The something turned out to be prawn cocktail.
Now as anyone who grew up in the 70s knows, prawn cocktail was the sophisticated dish to serve at your gatherings. No intimate soiree was complete without a bottle of Blue Nun, prawn cocktail and throwing your car keys into a bowl at the end of the evening. Okay, round our way the whole key throwing thing had skipped people by, probably as most of the people who drove only owned a set of tractor keys and the rest had only just crawled from the 19th century and were still wondering what all the fuss was about the internal combustion engine but prawn cocktail was big and suddenly we had about two gallons of it. Naturally enough we got well stuck in and rather tasty it was too.
The following day we had prawn cocktail for breakfast, lunch, dinner and we did the same the next day. In fact I think mum even served up prawn cocktail sandwiches and prawn cocktail on toast at some point. By day three I wanted something other than prawn cocktail, even the 30 year old tin of Spam kept in the kitchen cupboard had started to look appetising but we still had a load of the sickly pink goo nestling in our old gas powered fridge.
Saturday came and with it came my older cousins Phil and Laura who lived just round the corner. My aunt had promised to take them and myself into town to buy various supplies for the new school term and they had come to collect me. Naturally enough as kids do, Phil started poking round in the fridge to see if he could find anything to eat and discovered the prawn cocktail. Having never had it before both he and Laura asked mum if they could and the answer was “Yes!”, anything to get rid of the stuff and make room for the Sunday joint so they both piled in and against my better judgement I did too, noting as I did that it tasted a bit ‘different’ than it had before but being seven I did not consider anything of it. After that we wandered up to my Aunts house and spent an hour or so mucking around in the back garden as she had a few chores to do before she took us into town. Time to go came and we climbed into the back of her Triumph Herald for the drive into town. Unfortunately for us, it being a summer Saturday, the traffic into town was backed up and in the car it began to get a bit warm. I started to realise that there were distinct rumblings in the Balkans and both Phil and Laura were awfully quiet. Arriving in town and being able to emerge from the car was a blessed relief.
Our first port of call that fateful afternoon was a large and well known gentlemen’s outfitters that also had a small section devoted to school uniform for the local schools. The shop itself was old fashioned with wooden counters, hats stored in hat boxes and various items of attire displayed on shelves. It was also cramped, dingy and on that August afternoon decidedly warm. Little did the assistant who emerged to serve us know of the apocalypse that was about to follow. He had just finished measuring Phil for a new blazer when everything erupted, well, when Phil erupted with a monumental “BOIYLLLK!” that covered the counter, a display of shirts and a rack of ties that happened to be in the way. The assistant, big manly man that he was screamed like a girl and leapt backwards just in time to avoid Phils stream of vomit but unfortunately straight into the path of Laura who with a massive and perfectly timed “HOOOORRRP!” sprayed him and an elderly gentleman who had up to that point been innocently trying on hats nearby not expecting to be puked on by a nine year old. In some ways it was good that he was trying the hats on as it meant that unlike my cousins who by now had covered half the shop in vomit I had something to throw up in, the hatbox, which I grabbed and added my own “BLLLEEERCH!” to the proceedings. It was only after that I realised I had grabbed the wrong box and had just brought my boots up over a brand new Homburg.
Aunt Anne, being the kind, caring and responsible adult she was, was by now trying to vacate the shop without drawing attention to herself, pretending that she did not know us and had not really brought three apparently demonically possessed children into the shop to let them abuse the customers and staff with foul demonic emanations. Unluckily for her she was spotted and we were ushered back into her care with the words “We’ll send you the bill!” ringing in our ears. It looked like our chances of getting any pocket money for the next twenty years were seriously screwed.
Swiftly we were ushered back to the car and in a style of driving that the ‘Sweeney’ would popularise the following year we sped out of town with us kids going a delicate shade of green in the back unsecured by seatbelts and subject to an un-merciless bouncing as Aunt Anne hurtled up the sea road.
Now those of you who come here from the Scaryduck blog will know of his frequent bouts of being “sick inna hedge”. It’s very possible we outdid him that day as no sooner had we reached countryside than the Sweeney-like speeding became a stop-start crawl as one of us bolted from the car every two hundred yards. We were sick in hedges, in fields, in a dustbin, in some poor sods Lupin patch, over several walls and in Phils case ‘onna dead badger’ which made him throw up again seconds later. Never have the words “Are we nearly there yet? I’m gonna be sick!” inspired so much terror. Finally though we reached home and as I pelted through the door heading for the bathroom and its merciful absence of shrubbery and dead wildlife I noticed mum and dad tucking in to bowls of prawn cocktail. Impending disaster was not far off.
After that the mere mention of it was taboo in our house after the days of family bonding over the toilet that followed and despite its popularity throughout the 70s I don’t think I, or my parents touched it again until I was well into my twenties.
Malcolm however, was different and had swapped his Biggles-like life of swooping about the skies shooting down ‘bandits’, strafing the natives in the various foreign conflicts of the 1950s and bellowing "Tally-ho chaps!" for the heady excitement of being a sales representative for a well known firm who purveyed dairy goods to the trade. The perks were good though and as Uncle Malc’ was a frequent visitor to our house being one of dads drinking mates we got a fair share of them. Thus it was that one Wednesday in the middle of August 1973 he turned up and unloaded from his van a quantity of a new brand of Yoghurt and what looked like a small oil drum of something. The something turned out to be prawn cocktail.
Now as anyone who grew up in the 70s knows, prawn cocktail was the sophisticated dish to serve at your gatherings. No intimate soiree was complete without a bottle of Blue Nun, prawn cocktail and throwing your car keys into a bowl at the end of the evening. Okay, round our way the whole key throwing thing had skipped people by, probably as most of the people who drove only owned a set of tractor keys and the rest had only just crawled from the 19th century and were still wondering what all the fuss was about the internal combustion engine but prawn cocktail was big and suddenly we had about two gallons of it. Naturally enough we got well stuck in and rather tasty it was too.
The following day we had prawn cocktail for breakfast, lunch, dinner and we did the same the next day. In fact I think mum even served up prawn cocktail sandwiches and prawn cocktail on toast at some point. By day three I wanted something other than prawn cocktail, even the 30 year old tin of Spam kept in the kitchen cupboard had started to look appetising but we still had a load of the sickly pink goo nestling in our old gas powered fridge.
Saturday came and with it came my older cousins Phil and Laura who lived just round the corner. My aunt had promised to take them and myself into town to buy various supplies for the new school term and they had come to collect me. Naturally enough as kids do, Phil started poking round in the fridge to see if he could find anything to eat and discovered the prawn cocktail. Having never had it before both he and Laura asked mum if they could and the answer was “Yes!”, anything to get rid of the stuff and make room for the Sunday joint so they both piled in and against my better judgement I did too, noting as I did that it tasted a bit ‘different’ than it had before but being seven I did not consider anything of it. After that we wandered up to my Aunts house and spent an hour or so mucking around in the back garden as she had a few chores to do before she took us into town. Time to go came and we climbed into the back of her Triumph Herald for the drive into town. Unfortunately for us, it being a summer Saturday, the traffic into town was backed up and in the car it began to get a bit warm. I started to realise that there were distinct rumblings in the Balkans and both Phil and Laura were awfully quiet. Arriving in town and being able to emerge from the car was a blessed relief.
Our first port of call that fateful afternoon was a large and well known gentlemen’s outfitters that also had a small section devoted to school uniform for the local schools. The shop itself was old fashioned with wooden counters, hats stored in hat boxes and various items of attire displayed on shelves. It was also cramped, dingy and on that August afternoon decidedly warm. Little did the assistant who emerged to serve us know of the apocalypse that was about to follow. He had just finished measuring Phil for a new blazer when everything erupted, well, when Phil erupted with a monumental “BOIYLLLK!” that covered the counter, a display of shirts and a rack of ties that happened to be in the way. The assistant, big manly man that he was screamed like a girl and leapt backwards just in time to avoid Phils stream of vomit but unfortunately straight into the path of Laura who with a massive and perfectly timed “HOOOORRRP!” sprayed him and an elderly gentleman who had up to that point been innocently trying on hats nearby not expecting to be puked on by a nine year old. In some ways it was good that he was trying the hats on as it meant that unlike my cousins who by now had covered half the shop in vomit I had something to throw up in, the hatbox, which I grabbed and added my own “BLLLEEERCH!” to the proceedings. It was only after that I realised I had grabbed the wrong box and had just brought my boots up over a brand new Homburg.
Aunt Anne, being the kind, caring and responsible adult she was, was by now trying to vacate the shop without drawing attention to herself, pretending that she did not know us and had not really brought three apparently demonically possessed children into the shop to let them abuse the customers and staff with foul demonic emanations. Unluckily for her she was spotted and we were ushered back into her care with the words “We’ll send you the bill!” ringing in our ears. It looked like our chances of getting any pocket money for the next twenty years were seriously screwed.
Swiftly we were ushered back to the car and in a style of driving that the ‘Sweeney’ would popularise the following year we sped out of town with us kids going a delicate shade of green in the back unsecured by seatbelts and subject to an un-merciless bouncing as Aunt Anne hurtled up the sea road.
Now those of you who come here from the Scaryduck blog will know of his frequent bouts of being “sick inna hedge”. It’s very possible we outdid him that day as no sooner had we reached countryside than the Sweeney-like speeding became a stop-start crawl as one of us bolted from the car every two hundred yards. We were sick in hedges, in fields, in a dustbin, in some poor sods Lupin patch, over several walls and in Phils case ‘onna dead badger’ which made him throw up again seconds later. Never have the words “Are we nearly there yet? I’m gonna be sick!” inspired so much terror. Finally though we reached home and as I pelted through the door heading for the bathroom and its merciful absence of shrubbery and dead wildlife I noticed mum and dad tucking in to bowls of prawn cocktail. Impending disaster was not far off.
After that the mere mention of it was taboo in our house after the days of family bonding over the toilet that followed and despite its popularity throughout the 70s I don’t think I, or my parents touched it again until I was well into my twenties.
No comments:
Post a Comment