Developments

It is too hard to take pictures now because it is too easy.

For me the rise of the digital camera might mean better and more creative photography but marks the decline of the photo. I have treasured photos, not only of my own childhood but also of family and ancestors which, although gently fading, are at hand to be seen. In comparison I have over a hundred photos from my last holiday alone either still on my camera or filed away on my computer hard drive ready to be accidentally deleted at a moments notice.

The camera I remember the most from my childhood was a black and silver Kodak 44A camera that belonged to the family. All the photos from the first ten years of my life came from that camera and every one of them that was kept beautifully captures memories and places in the clearest and brightest colours. It produced large, square prints similar in size to a Polaroid snap, simply framed with a white boarder.

For my eighteenth birthday I received what I considered my own ‘proper’ camera. It was a Canon with zoom lens, focus settings and all manor of knobs and levers. Also it was a single-lens reflex; basically this meant that looking through the viewfinder you saw by way of a mirror through the lens and could focus and centre as you saw fit. Prior to that I had had a cheap 'flat' camera where the viewfinder was positioned miles from the lens and meant that if you were too close to someone you ended up taking a photo of their ear. The other thing I loved about my ‘proper’ camera was that it had a timer so I could occasionally appear in my own pictures, although I often did this anyway by taking moody shots in mirrors - I was a teenager still after all.

I would very quickly use a roll of film, alternating between colour and black and white, and quickly have them developed. From a roll of thirty-six I would be happy to get half back as what I considered to be good pictures. I remember Boots went through a stage of putting stickers on prints which they deemed to have “gone wrong” with helpful hints on how not to make the same mistake next time. These were quickly pealed off and discarded but the picture was kept; blurry doesn’t matter if the memory is in focus. Packets of prints were indexed and kept, but the good stuff when into albums or fames or up on the wall. It was this camera which chronicled much of my student life and which today provides much reminiscing (and embarrassment) on Facebook.

During my limited acting career the camera received less and less use. Finally the advances in technology, coupled with the change in circumstances brought about by parenthood, saw me finally abandon my camera for something more digital and portable. Although I have managed the occasional shot that I’m really proud off, and keeping some memories in place for the future, I still missed photos. My only solace these days is thanks to a little App called Instagram. It takes single, square shots which you can filter to give it that old school, faded look and can even a white boarder – yester-year revisited!

However, on a trip to Norwich recently we saw a shop full of old cameras, mainly for display but with some which I guess still worked. Nestled amongst them was a Kodak 44A and I was very tempted to take the full step back in time. But I was amazed and excited when my daughter on seeing them all declared that what she wants for her next birthday is an 'old' camera that still works, “Something to take real photos”. She’s nine years old and looking at what she has already achieved photographically on phones and little digitals I am expecting great things.

Looks like the future of capturing the past might be safe after all…

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Donkey

With Christmas fast approaching parents everywhere are waiting with baited breath to hear the news – which part has our child got in the school's Christmas Show. But what is the must have role at Christmas?

Now traditionally the Christmas show would be a Nativity but that isn't always the case. During my own years a primary school the parts I played included:

A carol singer

A roving reporter

A dashing but dim fairy-tale hero

And a caterpillar!

But if your kid’s school is going for a full on ‘Star’ story, or derivative-Navitivative as is more often the case these days, then the part-pecking order is normally straightforward.

For girls there is one true goal – the Holy-Mother-Load that is Mary. All dolled up in blue dress, white scarf, blue headband and holding baby doll or plush-toy Saviour-substitute. She may not be much of an action girl, being far more homespun, but most girls still want to be Mary. Second fiddle is the celestial-big-hitter Angel Gabriel. As God’s spokes-person A.G. gets to chat to the parents to be, scare the socks of the shepherd and (sometimes) does some moonlighting at star-lighting in order to bring the Wise Men from ‘Far’ to ‘Here’. So more you’re go getting, globe-trotting type. Plus you get to boss the other Angels about!

Boys on the other hand get a bit more choice. You might think Joseph would be the top banana but is in fact quite a weak character. Years of pantos and kids shows just reaffirmed to me what most children instinctively know - that the most boring part in the whole show is the hero. Far better to be either the villain, such as Herod (who really needs to be stroking a white cat), or the comic relief, as in a shaky shepherd or a dippy donkey. Or you could wish to be King for a day!

Yes, when my school did finally go for a more traditional story I got just what I wanted - Wise Man number 1! Whoa-yeah! Better still because I was taller than the other two they put me in the middle to balance things out. However, I did fail by being last to arrive at the costume fitting. Our school was lucky in that parents made a lot of costumes, this was in the days before the Nativity-dressing-up isle that appear in Wait-cos or Tes-da supermarkets. Also parents donated them to the school so at the back of our stage was a wardrobe of costumes that would have kept The Doctor happy through a hundred regenerations!

Robes and gowns were ten-a-penny but the problem was hats. For some reason crowns weren’t an option (obviously Herod and his moggy had got there first). Instead there was one silver tipped sampan style hat (with fur trim), one orange ‘Mongol Horde’ hat (with a single fluffy spike, like a squirrel's tail with rigor mortis) and a fez (which was mine). Now, Matt Smith's Doctor has of course brought the fez back to the world and it was also the hat of choice for the great Tommy Cooper. But it didn't have quite the gravitas I was looking for from my Wise Man role...

King 3 - "Born this night to man the son of God!"

King 2 - "How shall we discover this child?"

King 1 - "Just like that! Ah-hr-hr-hr! Baby manger! Manger baby! Ah-hr-hr-hr!"

Luckily my mum put in some work and sewed a nice gold-lame doughnut around the brim which showed more Eastern promise. But somehow I just couldn’t shake the magic man bit as it now cried out Ali Bongo!…

King 1 – “We bring gifts of gold, frankincense and… a bunch of flowers!” 

But the performance was a success, even if I did get my leg tangled in my robe while kneeling to adore the My-Little-Messiah (batteries not included). It called for a little limb bending and knee wiggling as I stood up, but then I was The Gold-Lame King after all... 

King 1 – "Thank you very much!"

No, for me boys want to be kings first, Herod second with animals and sheep worriers bring up the rear. After all who really wants to be Joseph? Mary gets all the attention along with a bit of plastic with tinsel round its head! While Joseph is the ‘Everyman’ that most boys will almost inevitably end up being anyway - the stereotypical useless husband.

Mary – "I ask you to do one simple thing! One bloody thing! Book a room at the inn! But can you do that? Oh no!”

Joseph – “No dear. Sorry dear” 

Mary – "Having to come all the way to bleedy Bethlehem - because you were born here might I remind you - and in my condition!"

Joseph – “Yes dear. Sorry dear” 

Mary – “And as for the transport you arranged to get here... first class my ass...!"

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Bricks

My time as an actor was not what you might call the most glittering of careers. Instead I moved from one fringe production to another and in between tended towards children's variety more than anything else. In fact, given how much fun I now have making my kids laugh I probably missed a trick there.

My biggest entertainer stint came when I worked for two years as a actor / performer at the then quite tacky Thorpe Park in Staines (a story for another day). After that I vowed never to work in a theme park again but hold out for only 'proper' acting roles. So I was more than a little surprised to find that out of the blue I suddenly had an audition for a new theme park which to be opening up - Legoland Windsor. To this day I can't remember if I applied for the job and then blotted out the memory or whether my name was simply given to them because of my record of park work. Either way I wasn't ready to pass up an audition (just getting one was at that stage was proving harder than the audition itself).

So on a cold and foggy day I turned up at the newly built visitors centre at Legoland Windsor and immediately felt I'd stepped into an episode of Dr Who. Everyone already working there wore a coloured blazer on the lapel of which was a small Lego Mini Figure holding a name tag. I assumed it was the name of the person wearing the blazer but it could just as easily been the name of the Lego person being transported around by their human servant! (*Multiplex voice-over*) "Taking over the world - brick by brick..."

Myself and my fellow auditionees were herded into one room where the most senior Lego / human hybrid, who shared the name Brian, explained how the day would proceed. The Brians were the entertainment manager and gave a brief outline of the sort of actors and performers they would be looking for. The moment they started speaking I began to get an odd sort of tapping at the back of my head which threatened to put me off my stride. Whether it was nerves or just my subconscious trying to remind me of my pledge to avoid any role that used the line "Behind you!" I wasn't sure, but I fought it down.

The main part of the audition was of course a prepared speech but unusually we didn't go one at a time into the a room to perform these. Instead we sat in a row of chairs along one wall in a large room while the blazer wearing panel of five, and their symbiotic plastic figures, sat behind a long table in front of us with the Brians in the middle. My turn came and with it the return of the brain tap. I pushed it back once more and did my piece, then answered whatever questions about my previous experience were asked and finally sat back down. As the next person carried on my eyes were drawn to the Brians and again the tapping began but this time finished with the mental equivalent of a soft "Ping".

My eyes widened in wonder as suddenly visions of teddy bears, silly songs and Saturday afternoons swam before my eyes! Not being able to contain myself I lent over to the person next to me and whispered,

"That's Brian Cant!"

Ah yes dear reader - Brian Cant. To those of a certain age he is an unquestionable god! Readers of my previous post 'Glimpse' will know of another day when I met a TV hero of my childhood and here, twenty years later, I was face to face with the Supreme Leader of all Playaway presenters. The man who could turn a cardboard box into a rocket ship! The man who knew Jeremy Irons before he revisited Brideshead or the Borgias and Tony Robinson before he joined 'Time Team!' The man who could really dish the dirt on Big Ted, Humpty and Hamble! And I was performing for him!

Needless to say I was rather quickly brought back to Earth when the person I'd whispered to said, "Who's Brian Cant?". The penny dropped then that I was probably one of the oldest people at the audition, everyone else being fresh out of one drama school or another and therefore too young to remember the Golden Age of 'Play School' and 'Playaway'. Not to be put off I threw myself into the rest of the day with gusto, including an over energetic and possibly highly embarrassing dance we had to learn to a Janet Jackson song. Nothing mattered now. Brian was watching and I was going to show him just what I could do!

At the close of the day, when the entertainment staff said their thank yous and told us we'd be informed in due time as to the results, Brian walked among us once more. I also got to speak to him briefly, although I did refrain from saying how much I'd adored watching him as a child or how many jokes, gags and silly voices I'd copied off him or how many songs and sketches I had learnt off by heart as a kid from Playaway albums. Somehow I didn't really see that over enthusiastic hero worship from a twenty-five year old man would help me get a job.

Either way a few days later I received a call to congratulate me and to offer me a role at Legoland Windsor for the Summer. However, in the time following the audition the stars had fallen once more from my eyes. I'd thought again about how I didn't want to be typecast as kiddies entertainer, still feeling that my real break was somewhere round that impossible big corner. I therefore politely turned the job down, possibly leaving a Lego man with my name on it out in the cold.

And so I moved away from what I said at the beginning could have been my true purpose in life. Not only that but from the opportunity to have learnt at the feet of the true master...

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Glimpse

There are so many brightly burning stars in the world of film, television and pop culture, and all we mortals wish for is the chance to meet one of two. Especially as a child.

Nowadays everyone gets to feel a little like a friend to the famous through the magic of Twitter or Facebook, although it seems to me more akin to 'licensed stalking'. However, back in my childhood touching the hem of the great and the good was far more personal. Back then it was about writing fan mail and hoping for a reply. Or clutching an autograph book while waiting hopefully in opportune places. Or though chance meetings in obscure locations.

Before marrying my dad my mother was lucky enough to have brushed shoulders with several famous people. Firstly as a teenager when she danced in Summer Season in Weymouth and again when she later worked at the BBC. There she was part of the production team of, among other shows, 'This Is Your Life'. I always remember two photographs of my mum which sat with pride in my grandparent's house. One was of her in a chorus line of dancing girls with Benny Hill in the middle and another was of just her and Eamonn Andrews standing together in a corridor at the BBC Television Centre. Although she moved on from there to raise a family Mum still knew people who worked at "The Beeb". One day, thanks to one of these friends, we all got to take a trip around the Television Centre.

I think her friend was an assistant producer at the time and would later on go on to work on 'Only Fools and Horses. Just then she was working on a small comedy ironically called 'Mr Big', staring Peter Jones, Prunella Scales and Ian Lavender. On the day we went there they were rehearsing the show prior to shooting in front of an audience. We first got to see briefing inside 'The Booth' where the production team worked and then sat in the studio itself  while the cast ran a couple of scenes.

I remember thinking how small the whole place appeared to be. In front of us was the set which the actors were working on; the regular 'home' set which was used for every episode. To the left of that a second set waited ready for a later scene. Stacks of lights and monitors hung from the ceiling obscuring most of the action. I don't remember the dialogue but we basically watched them pretend to cook some beans on their small stove for about twenty minutes while the cameramen slid backwards and forwards in their own little ballet. Unfortunately as they were working we didn't get to meet these particular stars before continuing with the tour.

We walked round the circular corridors of the inner part of the building looking at the statue of Helios in the central courtyard and taking in Mum's old office. We also had a drink in the infamous BBC canteen before sticking our heads into another studio. Here they were rehearsing that badly conceived yet amazingly popular 'Black and White Minstrel Show'. It seems impossible to believe that such a programme ever made it to mainstream TV but that was the seventies I suppose. I'm just glade that things have improved since then. Being a rehearsal there was no make-up so it was just the 'White and Whiter Minstrel Show'. Still doesn't excuse it but at least makes for a better memory. With or without make-up they meant nothing to me so we moved on again.

Just as we we finishing the day, and having yet to actually meet anyone face-to-famous, I saw someone I truly idolised. If I tell you I was seven years old at the time you may understand my wonder when there in front of me stood - Derek Griffiths! He was strolling down the corridor towards us, as cool as anything, top to tail in denim. I know that to children of the seventies there are certain names which even when spoke softly to oneself will evoke the warmest of feelings. Names such as Chloe Ashcroft, Johnny Ball or Fred Harris. Floella Benjamin, Carol Chell or Stuart McGugan. These are names from the two big roles of honour; 'Play School' and 'Play Away'. And of them all Derek Griffiths was my hero as he clearly was the joker in the pack.

To my joy he stopped and chatted to the family, gave me his autograph, joked with us and also called over and introduced Toni Arthur who happened to be passing by (there you go - another warm, fuzzy name). After what seemed to me to be hours of banter he said goodbye and went off to work. I left the TV Centre feeling like I was stepping off Mount Olympus having shaken hands with a god...

Altogether now... 

"It really doesn’t matter if it’s raining or it’s fine, just as long as you’ve got time 
To P-L-A-Y play-away-way, play-away-a-play, play-away-way, a-play-away, play-away..."

(Many years later I was to have another brush with a icon from the 'Play Away' hall of fame, but I'll save that for another day...)

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Key

There is a new era dawning...

He's taken his first steps... He's survived being on his own in the big bad world... But from September he will reach yet another milestone.. My son will get his own front-door key!

Yes, with the advent of secondary school, and the careful positioning of our new home so as to be in walking distance, there only the small matter of giving him the ability to actually get into the house to be faced. But am I worried? Of course I'm blinking worried! He's eleven! Not only does he have to remember to take his key with him he will also need to remember not to lose it! And I was eleven myself once!

Actually, for a while it wasn't an issue as my mother didn't work when I was first at secondary, making that long walk back home so as to pocket my bus fare (See 'Intervention'). But when my sister went off to college my Mum decided also to go back to work and for the last few years of my school life I too became a latch-key kid. Difference was that I didn't take a key with me. Instead we had one hidden outside the house.

Rather than the old faithful 'flower-pot beside the door' or the 'on a string through the letterbox' methods we went for the less conventional one of 'in a plastic tub at the bottom of the chest freezer at the back of the garage'. Freezers were just becoming popular then and I'm not even sure your could get upright ones for in the house at the time. Either way what we had was a vast, coffin-like box that would open with a sucking crackle and "Whump!", followed but a rising mist of frozen air that any Sci-Fi film maker would have given their right, rubber tentacle for!

I'd arrive at the house, open the garage door and then close it behind me so that no one would see what I was doing. Then open the freezer, retrieve the key from under the animal carcasses and choc-ices and then wait. Why? Because to my way of thinking any would be burglar spying on what I was doing would think that the process of key retrieval was a far more complicated affair, involving the deactivation of several deadly traps.

"Cover over the snake pit... retract the poisoned spikes... power down laser grid... and lash back giant stone boulder..."

Certainly sounds better than "Lift up Arctic Roll and grab Tupperware!"

Satisfied that the ne'er-do-wells had been put off I would emerge with the key and go to the door. The key itself of course would be freezing cold and one day I decided to see just how cold it was.

Now, there are certain things in this Universe that just cannot be avoided. Moments of destiny which will happen again and again. For decades people have unknowingly attached suction cups to there foreheads only to be immediacy scarred by a perfectly circular bruise that lasts for weeks. Thousand of curious young men have wrongly become intimate with a vacuum cleaner! But one such event surely goes back as far as the Bronze Age. An ancient alumni which I joined that day. The grand order of the "I'll just see how cold this piece of frozen metal is WITH MY TONGUE!"

At first there was no pain. Just intense cold followed by realisation that this very cold thing on your tongue wanted to stay there and just get colder! Picture me if you can, key stuck in mouth, standing at my front door which was still locked! Now this was a Yale key and the round head of which was attached to me so for the merest of moments the thought went through my mind that I could unlock it with my tongue.

I was still yet to have a girlfriend at this time and what kisses I had experienced were of the good old-fashioned English variety and in no way Francais. So my tongue muscles were sadly not up to the task. There was simply nothing for it. I would have to pull it off. Thing was that by now there seemed to be very little difference between the metal and the flesh. You could feel the fusion of ice to tongue. But regardless I gripped the key and pulled...

And did it hurt I hear you sak. Lets just say that any burglars still holding out in their hidey-holes would most certainly have fled from the screams of pain that rushed from a mouth now stripped of a layer of skin and burnt as if by a scalding pop-tart!

So, on second thoughts maybe a nice sturdy key-chain would be the best thing for my son. Welded to his under-crackers, naturally...

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Snag

"The city looks so peaceful from up here."

"Anything is peaceful from one thousand, three hundred and fifty-three feet."

'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'

I am a great lover of heights along with the process of reaching them. I never got into climbing itself but I did scale the odd seaside cliff-face in my youth and when working in the theatre the best place was always up in the fly tower. But for me nothing beats climbing a tree. Is it an inherited gene that makes me want to do the meercat thing and find a high vantage point?  Or is it like all good mountain climbers just 'because it's there'? Or am I simply a chimp at heart? Whatever the reason those limbs of delight have always tempted me.

As already mentioned I've recently moved house and although our new garden is wonderful I was met in it the other day by a very grumpy faced daughter.

"What's up?" I asked. "Don't you like the garden?"

"There are no good climbing trees" she said. And she's right. Although we have five or six trees not one of them stands out as a being particularly good for scrabbling about in.

When I was a kid in my first house in Benfleet had much the same problem. My second house in Thundersly on the other hand was just smothered in good trees. There was an old oak tree which I used to ascend in the company of ants, who were forever trooping up and down. Then there were two large ash trees which protected the front of the house and if you had the bottle seemed to go on up forever. And lastly a laurel that not only had a natural seat at the top (plus a second spot for friends) but also included a glass-bottom-boat style viewing gallery halfway up that overlooked the footpath by our house.The temptation to drop things on people's head was only overshadowed by the exhilaration of seeing without being seen - like the Predator but without the dreadlocks.

But in the first garden in Benfleet I had the choice of only one tree, a silver birch. Now I love silver birch trees as they seem almost magical with their white bark and silver-green leaves. There is something particularly mystical and elf-like when seen together as a woodland group. Unfortunately their beautiful trunks are very slippery so not good for shinning up and the branches, certainly on ours, started higher than I could reach at age 5. Luckily for me the tree grew right next to our fence which was a good sturdy one, not like the wafer thin things you get today. The fence was made of diagonal wooden beams which were easy to climb and once at the top you could sit on the fence and reach the first branches of the tree. There were no perfects spots but I could wedge myself between any one of the branches and the trunk and merrily sit there for hours listening to the wind in the leaves.

Getting down again was more complicated. Once back on the fence I'd have to execute the one manoeuvre I didn't enjoy which was turning from sitting to climbing position. I would end up either skinning my knees or scratching my stomach or slipping too soon altogether, scrapping down the fence and grazing any number of things in the process. One day I decided that the time had come to simply jump down. I sat on the fence as usual and shuffled along to be clear of the trunk. Then one... two... three... I slid my bottom off the fence and miraculously stopped, just hanging in mid air!

I could fly!!!!!

Well no, obviously I couldn't but my brain was unable to immediately deduce exactly what had happened. In actual fact the belt loop on my trousers was caught on the top of the fence, resulting in my unlikely levitation. Again, it's a credit to the workmanship of the age that the trousers held my weight with nary a rip nor a tare. However, this also meant that no amount of wriggling would release me. Thankfully being a nice day my Dad was seeing to his self-sufficiency vegetable patch. He responded to my pitiful cry for help by making his way from the between the rhubarb and the runner-beans to see what was going on.

"You can fly!"

Actually, I don't think he did say that. But being the excellent Dad that he is he would have given me a conspiratorial smirk at my predicament, collected a step ladder from the shed and unhitched me.

Thankfully there were no scars mentally, physically or arboreally. I continued my tree climbing throughout my childhood, then also at Drama School (there was a particular tree that several Thespians in training made use of) and so on into adult and parenthood. The time may now finally have come to leave it to those younger, more nimble and carrying less weight than myself. And in particular my own kids. To which ends I have my eye one tree in the garden which may not be a climber from the ground up but with some work has another more exciting possibility... tree-house!

But that's a project for another day and possibly another Random Word. In the meantime if you're able I urge you to go climb a tree and let it give you a boost... 

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Radical

As I mentioned in a previous post (see 'Evil') the lexicon of Playground Language throws up some interesting definitions. The word 'Radical' takes me back to my school-days once more and in particular all things BMX...

"Wow! Radical wheels!" "Radical moves!" "That is just soooo radical!"

Sad to say I never owned one of these "Radical" icons myself, asking instead on my eleventh birthday for a silver Raleigh Grifter. On the morning of my birthday it was standing in the hall of my house like something out of a Yellow Pages advert. I remember it was a school day so the bike stayed there until I got home. As soon as I was in the door, and still in my school uniform, I straddled it. As I did so the Blakey on my shoe scratched the paintwork on the hefty central bar leaving a scar which would forever be there to remind me of my bike's arrival.

I somehow equate that bike with taking a step towards manhood. This was no toy but rather a solid and study steed with a twist-grip-handle-gear-change-thingy (with three gears!) With it I made my first solo cycle trips around the streets and paths of Thundersly. I even went as far as taking it to the wooded playground of my youth - The Glen. It would have been there that I discovered the first big drawback of the Grifter. Its rugged frame and big, thick tyres gave it the look of an off-road vehicle but unlike the BMX a Grifter was much, much heavier. It was therefore "Radical" going down hill and "Reasonable" on the flat but "Ruddy Ridiculous" trying to go back up again!

Most of my friends at the time lived at the bottom of Bread and Cheese Hill or beyond (see 'Intervention'). Therefore I wouldn't normally take the Grifter with me when I went round to play as the trip back would no doubt have killed me. However, I did have one friend who lived near by who was a couple of years younger me and one day he told me to come round and bring my bike. When I got there I found that he and some other younger kids from his school were all cycling around the driveway of his house, being a large concrete affair, as well as in and out of the road, which being off the main drag was always relatively quiet.

A game of two wheeled Follow-My-Leader began with each of us trailing along in a line copying the route of the person in front. The bikes in use by the others were either small kiddie bikes with one or two BMXs thrown in. Finally someone in front swung out into the road, turned back to the footpath and pulling up their front wheel bumped back over the curb. The trail of bikes duly followed with myself currently towards the rear. As I approached the curb at speed I lifted my body and pulled up hard on the handle-bars to raise the front wheel but the Grifter refused to move even a millimetre. My front tyre hit the curbstone and my body, already standing on the pedals and off the seat, was thrown violently forward!

Luckily the Grifter was designed with a soft foam rubber cover between the handlebars which my chest bounced off harmlessly. Unluckily the two inch diameter bar between my legs had no such padding to cushion the similar blow to my testicles! My younger, prepubescent biker pals stared in confusion as to why a little 'knock' had somehow left me with a stunned, red face and open mouth from which issued a note to make Aled Jones proud. This was in no way "Radical" but rather a word previously heard but not yet endured - "Rupture!"

I can remember carefully dismounting before laying down in the garden. Eventually, when I had recovered sufficiently, I made my apologies and walked my bike homeward with watering eyes and a stilted gait. In retrospect I wonder if the Grifter wasn't looking to get a little payback for the time I'd scarred it. It certainly marked a change in the relationship between us. It may not have been a "radical" change but where manhood was concerned it was certainly less of a "step towards..." and more of a "swift kick in the..."

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Mixture

With Christmas just over, and my belly arriving everywhere a good ten seconds ahead of the rest of me, it’s easy to see the evil that is cake! Everyone will tell you that I have an extremely sweet tooth and have a stronger addiction to chocolate cake than would be possible with any other recreational substance. But recently I also rediscovered the joy of baking them yourself.

Kids love to make a mess and mine are no exception. So the idea of chucking around flour, eggs and milk and then finally eating it is one that none of us could say no to. A Sunday afternoon can now pass for the three of us in the joyful whirlwind of sieving, cracking, whisking, melting and baking (although the inevitable wiping, washing and mopping are always a solo turn on my part).  We currently have two signature dishes; a lemon drizzle cake which practically dissolves of its own fruition and a chocolate cake (what a surprise) whose ingredients should entitle me to a seat on the board at Cadbury.

I can remember doing the same thing with my mum as a child but with one big difference – licking the spoon! This was always the Holy Grail of the make and bake, the blissful bit that came between the mess-fest and the concluding consumption. When the cake had been transferred from mixing bowl to tin my sister and I would jostle to be the first at what was left over. Scraping and gathering every last bit of the sugary mixture and then finally licking it from the wooden spoon which to a child was like something from a giant’s table. Forget the goose with the golden eggs and the singing harp here was the giant’s true treasure.

But, alas, this is no longer the case - thanks to Edwina Currie! Though it was decades ago the seed she sowed lives on. Due to fear of salmonella parents would rather see their child and a stranger playing catch in the road with a rusty knife than come within a mile of a raw egg!

And yet somehow, having never experienced it, they still feel drawn to the bowl. Somehow, instinctively they know it would be a taste sensation. But I’m a victim of society, living in fear of the ‘raw egg police’ who pounce on those that practice a combination of spoon licking and bad parenting. So despite their pleas and moans I deny my children their rightful reward. With a sigh they slip away to find alternative distractions until the cake is ready, while I condemn the true treasure of baking to the sink of sadness…