Inspired by the consistently excellent blog of one Mr Cyril Cacoethes (www.stupidrubbish.co.uk) I feel that it is time for me to take a voyage round my father. Not sentimentally, not poignantly, not even seriously; because that would bore you all shitless. So, by “voyage” I kind of mean a quick paddle about in a pedalo just for frivolous amusement.
To get the syrupy stuff out the way, by means of a disclaimer in case you think I don’t like him, let me just say that my Dad has a heart of gold and has put his kids and grandkids above himself ever since I was born. But he’s also a funny old bastard, a product of his times and environment and an incorrigible cynic and wit.
He drives a black cab in London; and on any given day you might climb inside to be confronted either with a sociable and garrulous Jekyl or a beautifully rude and confrontational Hyde. Whichever one you get, you probably deserve it. How he’s kept his green badge in view of the number of people he’s told to “fuck off” beggar’s belief. To demonstrate his approach to customer service, I’ll cite one of hundreds of exchanges:
Passenger (gets into taxi): Russell Square!
Dad: Which one?
Passenger: Which one? There’s only one, isn’t there?
Dad: No, there’s Russell Square and there’s Russell Square please. Which one do you want to go to?
My advice to anyone entering his cab is to say please and thank you and don’t insult him with a tip any less than a pound or he’ll throw it on the pavement at your feet and suggest that you’re a tight cunt.
You can see we’re related, right?
I think the misanthropic strain may have been developed during his 20s when he was in the Met. One of my oldest and best friends, John, himself a copper, describes my Dad as a wonderfully “’orrible bastard, real 70’s Old Bill, ready to dish out some Sweeney-style justice in the back of a van.” It’s a rather exaggerated but affectionately-meant compliment.
Certainly, growing up, we felt that our Dad could handle himself, despite not being a big bloke and any car journey was made all the more interesting for the bouts of self-righteous swearing at fellow road-users and occasional excursions out of his door. As he grew older and certainly when his livelihood tied him to the road all day, he started to calm down. Nowadays, he lives according to the cliché, “Don’t get angry, get even.” And he don’t half go out of his way to get fucking even.
Like I said, we’re related.
He raised us as cynics and Catholics and the two just don’t go together, so something had to give. Nonetheless, he feels that he has “done enough time as an altar boy” and “gone to enough fucking masses” to have got himself into Heaven, should there be one, and therefore has no time for any religious cant or bollocks these days. But he loved the superstition surrounding religion and brought us up to fear the Devil, the Banshee and the Bogeyman. From when me and my brother were first allowed to watch The Omen, probably aged about 8 or 9, Dad used to regularly give us the willies by turning all the lights off in the house and shouting up to our bedroom just one word, “Damian!” This sent us screaming and scampering back downstairs.
When he wasn’t inflicting on us these psychological scars and making us fear the dark, he was instilling in us a deep sense of amusement at anything lavatorial. There’s nothing like a good poo anecdote to bring the male members of my family to the point of tears. As a copper he once followed through while on duty and threw his soiled y-fronts in the cleaner’s cupboard at the station. The next day he saw the cleaner, asked him how he was and received the reply, “Some dirty bastard has left a pair of shitty pants in my cupboard!” My Dad sympathetically agreed that this was disgusting and may well have suggested someone else who might have done it.
Being related to him, both my brother and I have soiled ourselves in public. Keep up the tradition, you know.
As I entered the self-conscious years of adolescence, Dad was very supportive in ensuring that I avoided making any decisions that might lead to me being accused of homosexuality. For example:
“What do you want to buy those poofter shoes for?”
“You want an ear-ring? What are you, a fucking poofter?”
“Adam and the Ants? Why have you got posters of that bloody great tart on your wall for? You’re not turning poofter are you?”
Pop stars were poofters. Footballer were poofters. Unmarried men in their 30s were poofters, including the mechanic whose garage backed onto our house, Robert the Iron. Dad would say “he’s harmless enough, though” and let him take me and my brother to Arsenal a couple of times, on condition that we didn’t let him touch our bums.
If you weren’t a poofter you might well have one of many other characteristics that my Dad would seize upon. Anyone who was dull or boring or a bit wet would be part of the “Willow family” because “they’re fucking limp.” Anyone who wasn’t a priest but involved in our church was a “mad monk.” And any member of the extended family who didn’t spend more than £10 on presents for us, or buy rounds at family get-togethers, were “fucking tight.”
Should you ever meet him, he’ll judge you in advance based on whatever group in society he might choose to classify you as belonging to; but faced with an individual he is warm and magnanimous. Such is his fundamental mantra in life: Expect the worst and you’ll often be pleasantly surprised.
(Assuming of course, that you say “please” and don’t wear poofter shoes.)
No comments:
Post a Comment