COMPETITION

Myself when young.. .

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2157 you were invited to supply an imaginary boastful confession of juvenile naughtiness by a British politician, alive or dead.

I used to be a fearful lad,

The things I did were downright bad; And worst of all were what I done From seventeen to twenty-one On all the railways far and wide From sinfulness and shameful pride...

There follow 56 lines of detailed train misbehaviour of great comic variety. I am referring to E.V. Knox's 'The Everlasting Percy', that marvellous take-off of Masefield's 'The Everlasting Mercy'.

Few of you ventured out of this century (John Bright and Pitt the Younger being exceptions), but it was a strong and versa- tile entry, tough to judge. The prizewin- ners, printed below, get £25 each, and the Macallan Single Malt Highland Scotch whisky is Michael Birt's.

(Roy Jenkins): By the mid-teens the romance of London and in particular the House of Commons had me in thrall. On one visit in 1936 I listened to a somewhat exasperating debate on

unemployment. After a while I went downstairs and crept into the chamber unseen. From a van- tage point behind empty benches I had a good view of the Prime Minister, so, taking out a cata- pult, a treasured present from Rhys Rhyl, an Abersychan school contemporary, I propelled a small marble at Stanley Baldwin and, assuredly with more luck than judgment, hit him on the forehead. Suprisingly, the Prime Minister did not flinch but continued to speak. Paradoxically, his performance now possessed a certain elan. I was not caught in flagrante and no mention of the incident was made in Hansard. Not until April 1948 did I re-enter the chamber, this time as MP for Southwark Central.

(Michael Birt) Charles Falconer's eyes grow misty. 'I was at Queens' College and my old chum Tony rang me to head up the committee that was going to organise a party for Rag Week. He'd managed to rent a brewery and we were going to have this huge piss-up. Well, I'd never done anything like this before and I have to say that everything that could go wrong did! We had a budget of around £200 but actually we spent nearer £2,000. Even so, there was no food and no beer. Everyone said the whole thing was crap and, much to our surprise, nobody came. And that was when I did it. 'I'm sorry, Tony,' I said. This is all my fault. I'm afraid I'm going to resign.' Falconer smiles. 'Of course, I was very young. I'd never be so stupid again.'

(Jill Green)

(Gladstone): In my sinful youth (I was, I think, 11), a young aunt, Miss Gladstone of Scourcorry, came to visit. She was a spirited, generous girl and I yearned for one of the toffee bonbons or sweet- meats she had brought my mother from Harrogate. One day, when my parents were show- ing the Archdeacon the ha-ha, temptation over- whelmed me. Ah, the seductive delight of that illicit morsel. But then — remorse! In my guilty agony I took my axe and felled an avenue and a half of ancient elms. My father chastised me, dis- missing without interest the greater sin of the theft. He was a kindly man, but a Tory. But now I was crazed with desire and know not what might have ensued had not a generous God decreed that

my mother had consumed all the remaining sweet- meats during my aunt's performance of some less- er known songs of Brahms. (Nick Syrett) Sceptical noises were being made in and out of parliament in the wake of Edward Heath's bombshell announcement that he was a juvenile delinquent in the 1930s.

'People think that if you lived on the Kent Coast you spent all your spare time cruising round the harbour,' Heath had told an inter- viewer, adding, 'Far from it. We were thieves in the Garden of England. Apples, pears, cherry plums — no fruit was safe from us, I can jolly well tell you. We even had our own criminal slang — "scrumping", we called it. Young Hague thinks he's tough, but was he ever chased by an angry farmer? You couldn't do it on 14 pints. You had to be fit.'

Those who remain unconvinced include regu- lars in the Happy Sailor, a Broadstairs pub. One octogenarian commented, 'Scrumping? Tell it to the marines. We couldn't drag him away from his piano lessons.'

(Basil Ransome-Davies) (Margaret Beckett): My first love affair was with Eric and we spent all our time kissing in the dog kennel. Eric once stole a box of washing powder for me and he gave me a blue, heart-shaped pen- cil-sharpener, which I kept for years.

After Eric I met Roger. The dog kennel had gone by then, so we held our courtship in the coal bunker, Every day Roger would knock on my door and I would show him my satin knick- ers. (Sometimes Roger would bring a friend.) Sadly, Roger moved away, but his friend still came to my door regularly for a peek at my knickers.

One day, my dad caught me 'flashing my drawers'. I was given a good hiding and had to stay in for a whole week. To get my revenge, I put bogeys in the gravy one Sunday dinner. I think my dad ate one.

(Linda Shields)