Fourteen

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God it must be great to be fourteen.

At fourteen you have your whole life to come and so many choices.

When I was fourteen I was convinced I was ugly. I wasn't - that came later. At fourteen my hair had colour and my skin was smooth. I was shaving, but only just - it wasn't something I did every day, I didn't have white stubble to worry about, and how I wished that I could grow a moustache.

At fourteen I could play rugby four times a week and not ache at all. I could run up three flights of stairs and not get out of breath, and get up and down from the sofa without making that involuntary 'Uh!' sound.

At fourteen I laughed a lot - even at things that are no longer funny, and probably never were - 'Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam'.

At fourteen I won the school art prize and chose 'Monty Python's Big Red Bok'. Not a good choice as it turned out; Lord Longford was presenting at prize day that year and was deeply into campaigning against pornography at the time (Myrah Hindley came later).

Our headmaster 'Stosh Goodall' was appalled by my choice of book and removed the typographical dust jacket so that Lord Logford couldn't easily see what he was presenting - after all Monty Python was very subversive back then. Unfortunately the hard cover beneath showed a photograph depicting a group of very entangled, very buxom, and very naked young ladies.

Stosh frantically flicked through the book, his face becoming redder and redder with each turning page. He almost exploded when he got to the page showing a soft focus, but naked, Graham Chapman obviously pleasuring himself.

I tried to argue that it was art in the tradition of Dada and the Surrealists (I was in the school debating society, and no...we didn't do it on mass), and that the image was a satirical and slightly avante-garde statement rather than an image to be taken literally - but Stosh wasn't having any of it - particularly from a fourteen year old boy who had only recently started shaving.

So, Lord Longford came and went without presenting me with my prize, and I got a reputation around the boarding boys for being a little wild - which was pleasing, but untrue.

Ironically, a few years later Stosh's son, Howard, went on to write music for the 'new wave' of comedians that followed 'Monty Python' - 'The Young Ones', 'Black Adder' even 'The Vicar of Dibley'. He's a radio four presenter now with his own classical music show on Radio Two, and I heard his 'Desert Island Discs' last December. I never even got a mention.

Yes, fourteen was good. At the time it seemed hard; exams, double maths, the six mile run, spots, trying to get into the pub...girls - it wasn't though.

At fourteen I was going to, to...

Anyway - that's my fourteen year old daughter on the beach in Wales at the weekend. Pretty isn't she.

Twig

Twig,
Look at you
Freshly green,
Budded and leafed,
And blossomed soon.
Still new.
A delight to see.
Stay this way
Always,
Do.