Now that Janus has encouraged us all into the Christmas spirit with the poetry how about something a little more challenging?
We all have our little secrets and anecdotes from the past. How brave are we to relate them on here?
A little anecdote, the only rule being that it must be true and it must be about you.
A prize will be awarded for the story voted as being the funniest, most interesting, or downright unbelievable.
Voting begins after 20th December 2015, ends at midnight on 31st.
I will collate the votes and award the prize on New Year’s Day (if I am sober)
I dare you 🙂
Boadicea's Chariot 
Any number of entries per person is allowed for someone who has led an extraordinarily interesting life.
One day, somewhere south of Cape Villano in my uncle Gerald’s boat ‘Truant’ we were under power with the sails up but no wind. Visibility was about fifty yards in sea smoke although the sky was clearly visible.There being no wind Gerald decided that we should take the sails down and while doing so I accidentally lost my grip on the main halyard which ran up to the sheave at the mast head but was stopped from running through it by the figure of eight knot at the rope’s end. Truant had originally been gaff rigged and such an error would have been a lot more exiting with the gaff crashing down and possibly braining a crew member. As it was mainmast was now Bermudian rigged so no boom and limited excitement. Anyway I had to retrieve the halyard, not too difficult as Truant retained ratlines on her shrouds. As I reached the masthead I emerged on top of the fog and at the same time heard the screeching of seagulls. Looking in the direction of the sound I saw a cliff and rocks, no more it seemed, than a hundred yards away. Forgetting the halyard I slid down the shrouds and dived into the wheelhouse and pulled the starboard gear lever straight through to astern whilst shoving a retired Group Captain off the wheel and putting it hard over to starboard. I set a course 90° to the original to take us offshore.
Serendipity ?
BTW ‘Truant’ is the boat mentioned in ‘Isobel and the Sea’ George Millar’s account of sailing through the French Canals and into the Mediterranean.
In the 80s, I had a good friend, John, whom I’d met regularly at an industry standards committee. Same kind of age as me, married to a lovely Ulster lady. He invited me and Mrs J to stay at their Somerset house, where his mother was also visiting. As dinner conversations often go, we soon chatted about our parents and eventually their war experiences.
John’s mother told how J’s father, a military doctor had been posted to the Faroes and spent much of the war there. How strange! quoth Mrs J, my uncle had a similar posting; in fact his wife, Mrs Jensen, also lived on the Faroes, even though her husband was mostly elsewhere. Oh, retorted J’s mother, THAT Mrs Jensen!
After an embarrassed silence, we talked of other things and all enjoyed our weekend. But when we left Mrs J explained that her aunt, Mrs Jensen, had a son while on the Faroes, whose arrival surprised the family back home; her husband had not been there at the appropriate time. And when I first met John, she said, I couldn’t help noticing a resemblance to my cousin.
When I was four I stopped believing in the Christ Child. Actually, I had had my doubts about her existence for some time — well, for a four-year-old a year is a long time! My mum, aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandmother insisted that I leave sitting room and not return until called. The year before I complied, but I was suspicious. They told me that the Christ Child was a kind, loving and caring spirit who wanted to surprise me. I asked “if she is so kind, loving and caring why can’t I meet her any thank her personally”?
On my fourth Christmas I was determined to either meet this Christ Child or catch them lying. I waited 10 minutes or so from the time that they sent me away to storm into the sitting room. They were shocked and tried to send me away, but the damage was done. I began screaming at them for lying to me and told them never to treat me like an idiot again. They tried at first to say that I scared the Christ Child away but I told them that they were liars and that I had already known that they bought the peasants, not the Christ Child and that there was no reason why they couldn’t be honest with me about that. After that they didn’t bother doing it again.
Gaz, just between us Nuneatonites, this boring lot have done nothing exciting! 😭
Well seeing that some stories could actually end up putting one in a jail cell you can hardly wonder can you?
CO: I could tell you about my father, but that would be too depressing.
CO, statute of limitations. Do tell! 😊
CO: I raise the ante—-it’s now a double dare 🙂
Well, I must admit that as most of us are of an age well past mid-life I would have expected a lot of interesting or at least embarrassing anecdotes, or is Janus right?
Okay, I will raise the ante a little.
When I was fifteen, during the school holidays and dating a girl out of my class (school class, not upper class 🙂 ), we decided to stay at her house during the morning. As is quite normal for two hot teenagers (or at least it was in the early seventies) one thing led to another and we found ourselves in a state of extreme undress.
During a moment of utter excitement three things happened simultaneously.
1) I began to tremble, not through nervousness you understand.
2) The front door opened
3) My girlfriend remembered, much too late, that her father had a doctor’s appointment and would be home early from work.
I ran out of the back door holding my jeans up with one hand and clutching a pair of underpants with the other. As he came down the hallway I ran around the house zipping and buckling, stuffing the pants in my pocket and jumping on my new racing bike.
I then pedalled down the road as fast as I could, half expecting an angry father to be driving after me, when my unerpants fell out of my pocket onto the road. In a second I considered two things. Should I stop and pick them up in the hope that no-one saw me or should I just ride on. I then saw that a woman was just coming out of the corner shop and had seen the garment fall onto the road.
This complicated the issue somewhat. Has she seen them? Does she know the family? In a fit of fifteen year old panic, I stopped, picked up my underpants and blew my nose on them, before putting them back in my pocket and riding off.
I have often wondered if she realised.
I guess that I must add that the girlfriend became my wife, although we did seperate twenty odd years later.
Gaz, Backside is always right. 😝
Well here’s one that can’t get me into trouble now!
Many years ago, when I was in my twenties, married to No1, we bought a house up near Cambridgeshire near to where he worked in a small, ever so respectable village. This house was an old cottage at the end of a row of three. The house next door changed hands at roughly the same time, they were very Irish, but appeared respectable, lived very very quietly, a married couple and a brother that visited every weekend.
They appeared to have property in Chelsea and shuttled too and fro.
I have to admit we never had an inkling of what the real sub text was!
They threw a party and told us that they had ‘friends from town’ coming en masse and we were invited, “Great” we said.
All hell let lose, the most scrofulous gang of pond life, overdressed and undermannered turned up. In those days one didn’t lock one’s house. For some reason I had wandered back to my kitchen for something. Just in time to see an argument between two total strangers turn into a knife fight turn into a stabbing, turn into an attempted murder! Ooops.
I didn’t actually say anything (For once!) The next door neighbours swung into action so smoothly one got the feeling that they had some marginal experience in such affairs.
Evidently he was taken to the nearest A&E, dumped anonymously on their doorstep and was life and death for a month in intensive care before he actually survived.
I contented myself with cleaning up and bleaching the floor.
Now then, I always did have a great sense of self preservation and am very careful of giving out information.
I did the steel trap routine. This did not have the hallmark of ‘light recreation’. I was either in the middle of a London gangland killing or the IRA, or both
The last thing you do is call the police! They would only hang you out to dry and make you the guilty party! No way! Interestingly the police never appeared on my doorstep and the neighbours were very guarded, pretending they did not know who the guy was etc etc, gatecrashers etc etc. Total tosh.
Soon after that , No1 and I called it quits and I moved to London.
Strangely, or not so strangely, I ran into the two guys from next door rather regularly in pubs on the Kings Road!
I like bar work and my rent was expensive. So I took a couple of evening’s work a week in a large pub in Buckingham Gate. A few weeks later some guy becomes rather regular and start chatting me up. Then it was could he drive me home. Then we started going out. I then find out he was Flying Squad!
In due course it came out that as I had been seen associating with known IRA sympathisers in London, they had followed me for a fortnight and decided that I was totally clean.
“Really” said I!
Needless to say, the brothers didn’t like my new squeeze! They turned up and made intimations that things could get rather nasty if I talked too much to the new police boyfriend . By this time I had found out that one of them was one of the most successful cat burglars in London and the other one was an antique upholstery expert who worked virtually exclusively for Buckingham Palace! Both up to their necks in the IRA. Not that I mentioned either. No wonder they could afford a second place out of town!
Pointed out that had I wanted to speak they would have been nicked by now! Also the upholsterer fancied me which I think helped keep the sword of Damocles poised.
Time to take out insurance. I wrote a full exposee of what had happened and lodged it with my solicitor to be opened upon my untimely demise. I marched into a housing project near the river. Visited their mother and told her what I had done and that I really thought it better if they didn’t come near me again. She agreed, we would settle for a Mexican stand off.
All sorts of things happened next. the flying squad guy started getting terrible stomach trouble and dropped out of my life. He died of stomach cancer not long after.
I thought it politic to leave town and got a good job on the South Coast and didn’t leave a forwarding address.
A good ten year later I met someone from that party who knew the ins and outs in Marlow High Street, who told me the results, evidently the police looked for years as to who did what at where to no avail!
As he had turned over a new leaf we agreed to never mention that we had seen each other.
Years later I had the police turn up to see if I had seen some low life IRA type, why they thought I should know God alone knows or how they found me.
And, utterly bizarre, the housing project in which the mother lived was built on land that was compulsorily purchased from my second husband’s father after the war. Seriously small world!
I always took the moral of this tale as how you can get caught up being at the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of your own.
And if so, keep your bloody mouth shut. Especially if it is one bit of low life doing over another, saves the taxpayer money form putting them in jail!
Never involve the police they always end up blaming you and hanging you out to dry, seen it again and again over the years happen to other people.
Life is one hell of a crap shoot.
Now that was a nice story wasn’t it?
My ghast is suitably flabbered, CO! We witnessed a drug-fuelled stabbing in the next building when we moved to DK but as per your advice: saw, heard or spoke no evil!
Well come on Chariot, only ten days to go.
So far we have:
1) Jazz’s boat
2) Janus’s gene mystery
3) Christopher the Super Child Prodigy
4) Gazoopi’s teenage antics
5) Christina’s flying squaddy
Surely there is more to come otherwise Janus will be proved right and we can’t have that !
It’s the old man’s prayer: Lord, let me be wrong! 👼
Alright, I give in. Here is one from my courting days. I just hope Mrs FEEG does not see it, as it concerns her!!
At an early stage of our courtship, I had just about persuaded the future Mrs FEEG to sit on my lap. This was fine as we were listening to a record and munching at the odd choccie or two, so she sat down. Suddenly, she got some dust or something up her nose, and started sniffling. Then she had an enormous sneeze. This was bad enough, but it also it also caused her to let go of the most gigantic, pant-ripping fart on my lap.
Oh dear, that’s torn it, I thought, she’ll be so embarrassed she’ll never speak to me again. However, when I looked at her, I saw she was in helpless fits of laughter. That is when I decided that this is the girl for me 🙂
Haha FEEG, as flatulence tends to increase with age , I think it would have put me off. I hope that you never lived to regret your decision 🙂
We’re goong to yell her!! 😱
How does she feel about Trump? 🙂
What I meant to say was: We’re going to tell her!’ Oops! 😡
Gaz: OK so far, in spite of both of us loving hot curries, especially Dhansak, which contains lots of lentils!
J:: You wouldn’t, would you? 😦
Don’t forget the curried beans expert, Let Wan Go…. 🌷😷