Musings by Paul Wigmore

Crimes and questions

I still blush to think of my one appalling childhood crime. Mind you, I was never criminally inclined. I didn’t have the nerve for it. My brother tried very hard to guide me into evil ways but gave it up. I was too keen on drawing things. And, oddly enough, it was this passion for scribbling that led me to my major crime.

The Ramsgate aunts did once have reasonable grounds for doubting my total innocence. Staying with them one summer I was alone in their sitting room and enjoying myself at the family gramophone. It was the sort you had to wind up in order to make the turntable turn. My winding technique was brisk. I loved the smoothness of the feeling as the spring became tighter and tighter. I wondered just how tightly-wound I could make it. It decided to let me know the answer in an unkind way. The clutch gave way, sending the ebony handle flying backwards and cracking the back of my hand very smartly indeed. I remember the comforting arms of various aunts wrapped round me but got the distinct impression that I was not popular.

My father’s surprise entry into in my bedroom late one night ended in a well-remembered chat about the ways of the Devil, including the warning never to let a man put his hand on my knees. The next morning I examined my knees. They looked pretty much like all the other boys' knees. I could find nothing interesting about them. If anyone wanted to put their hand on them, they were welcome. The chat contained nothing by way of explanation. He would have been too deeply embarrassed.

One bit of terrorism I did find most attractive. Walking home from school one afternoon with a friend hesaid, 'Y'know the old house? Ivy and stuff? I was thinking - the windows. We could smash one. You and me - see who can smash it first!'

We turned from School Lane into Police Station Lane, gave the constable standing on the steps of the big red-brick building a cautious glance and crossed the main road to our usual short cut. It took us past the very old and derelict house. We picked up one stone each.

'Bags I go first!' he said, threw his stone and missed. I threw mine, and scored. We looked at each other. He grinned.

'What about it - smash the lot?'

I reminded him that we were in almost full view of the Police station. He shrugged, and smashed another window. We carried on until six sets of four jagged, gaping black holes stared back at us. The delight in doing something illegal gripped me. But then the scariness took hold. Supposing the police had spotted us? Would there be a knock at our front door? But the police seemed either to know nothing of it or were sympathetically inclined.

My brother and I had been given peashooters. He felt they had potential for something dangerous and said I should join him. I didn’t need persuasion. It did have a certain attraction. At the busy corner of our road and the main road we stood, peashooters hidden and a couple of dried peas on our tongues. An approaching red sports car attracted him. ‘Ready?’ he hissed.

‘Yes.’

‘Now!’

We shot a volley and saw one pea bounce off the driver's door. But the car was slowing and stopping. The driver was getting out and looking our way.

‘Run!’ yelled my brother.

We burst through our back gate and stood, waiting for Nemesis. But Nemesis, like the police, was not interested.

I reached my criminal nadir in our sitting room. My parents were out. I had been given a fountain pen. No other boy in my class at school had a fountain pen. One particular thing about it delighted me. If I let the nib touch the paper very lightly it produced the smallest possible dot. I did dotty drawings in imitation of the dotty newspaper photos.

I was standing at the deep windowsill and idly going through the contents of a flamboyant chocolate-and-gold biscuit tin where the family snapshots were kept. Mostly they were picnic groups and holiday pictures. Always, the snaps were of people, smiling at the camera. I thought how comical it would be, how my parents would laugh, if I did something that only I and my fountain pen could do. I spent a happy hour.

And that is why our snapshots now show family and friends still smiling but cross-eyed.

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And now for something completely different. I’m grateful to one of my readers who suggests that others might like some clarification of terms I used in ‘Wetting my pants’, Parts 1 and 2. She also suggests a comment on ‘photoshoots’ and their ranking in the importance of things generally. Here are some quick answers.

A ‘transparency’ is a photograph on colour film. But the term is widely used (as well as ‘slide’) to describe one frame of this film mounted in thin cardboard. The most popular kind is 2in (5cm) square, holding one 35mm transparency.

A ‘lightbox’ is the picture-editor's device. It is simply a wood or metal box containing a light source and a top surface of translucent glass. Transparencies laid on the glass may then be examined, usually through a magnifying glass, by means of the light from below.

Detailed descriptions of professional ‘photoshoots’ can, to the bystander, sound overblown. The making of photographs by professionals is an expensive and highly critical undertaking. In all commercial and educational fields, much can depend on the results being exactly right for purpose. The job is fraught with hazards that jeopardise success and this does tempt the diarist to make the most of the dramas, small and large.

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Text and illustration ©Paul Wigmore 2010