A Beer in the Afternoon...: BLOG #47 – THE ARTILLERY ARMS, CITY of LONDON, EC1

Sunday, 25 September 2011

BLOG #47 – THE ARTILLERY ARMS, CITY of LONDON, EC1

In 1961 Cliff Richard was already a household name...

...not in our house he wasn’t!

My mum had many fine qualities and attributes – a nurturing spirit, someone who I could always turn to and one of the few individuals I could rely on for loyalty and understanding.

The one thing she didn’t have was a sense of humour at times!

She couldn’t understand puerile pranks in particular; like the time I arrived home one Christmas Eve afternoon and shoved the biggest courgette imaginable through our letter box and shouted:

“Mum, mum, run for your life – the Martians are coming!”

She turned round to my father and merely said “What’s he going on about, Jim?”

Not even a smile...

Admittedly alcohol was involved in thinking up the practical joke in the first place. Why did I bother? The cost of a phallic proportioned courgette at that time of year was half a week’s wages, anyway.

But it was my mum’s dead-pan puzzled look on these occasions that was often the bigger laugh; she could be funny without realising it. That may seem insensitive towards her, it’s not meant to be. The truth is she wanted to join in – but she sometimes didn’t know how, especially if the joke was too silly for her to be bothered... I can't really blame her.

God give her Paradise...