June 2nd. In 1953, this was Coronation Day - and the day on which I discovered the delights of alcohol. I was 3 at the time, and we were all at the Coronation Day party next door, where the flash so-and-sos had that precious rarity, a TV set. While no one was looking, I reached up to the table and took a swig of champagne. And it was good.
This would, of course, have been a flagrant breach of Ed Balls's eminently sensible guidelines advising parents on booze for the babbies. Clearly my parents should have been made to sign parenting contracts and attend a re-education course, at the very least. As for me, it's no wonder I went to the dogs and became a persistent possessor of alcohol. I blame the parents.
Sadly, as it turned out, scarcely a drop of alcohol passed my lips for years after that heady introduction. Like many youngsters of the time, I benefited from a widespread parental misconception that cider is non-alcoholic, but, unlike today's yoof, I wasn't far short of legal age before I got going with 'real' drinking.
Now we live in different times, a different world - one in which the epic, religio-magical, millennium-old Coronation ceremony that was enacted on that day in 1953 could surely never be repeated. Heaven knows that they'll come up with if Chazza becomes King...
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Great sozzled sprogs Nige, 3 yrs old and the evil champers, is there any end in sight to this depravity. At the tender age of 6 we had a canary, a crook canary. The maternal grandmother, the one from hell, had a universal cure, a spoonful of brandy, which she promptly administered to said domestic avian. After some minutes the little yellow chap became, well, deceased. For many years after this trauma I had an aversion to A/ booze, B/ grannies. However, time being that great healer, I succumbed to the dreaded liquid aged 16, Newcastle Broon, no less, foul tasting stuff, never touched it again.
ReplyDeleteAt the same age sprog no 2, frauline Malty, school speech night, Rob Andrews daughter had recently joined, so he was the guest speaker (boring sod) the sprog plus classmates decided to celebrate and fawn. Is she sort of, well, glassy eyed said frau Malty.
Cruella, the head honcho was not amused.
Is it really 55 years since the ultimate reality TV (12 inch) show. Now that was iconic Bryan.
If Charlie and Pompadour ever hold one then Brian May could be the new Handel, or Haendel, as the pedants say, instead of here comes the king it would be Charlie is me darling. Walking out of Westminster they could play the theme tune from last of the summer wine.