For all the world it was like a scene from Roger Rabbit!

There is something about a log fire that evokes a sense of reminiscence and reflection on times past and an 'all's well with the World' ambiance. It is quite fake of course, those good memories of toasting bread on my Grandmothers open coal fire then spreading thick dollops of dripping on it and gulping them down with glee are just that, good memories. Roasting Chestnuts that I had collected with my Dad, falling asleep at my Grandparents in the reassuringly cosy warm after glow of a dying fire are all good memories. My Uncle playing the piano in a darkened room with just a candle to light the music and the dancing shadows of the flames from the fire being the only other light in the room. The whole family gathered together, closely huddled around the coal fire, for once all as one, a comforting close nit family playing 'Snakes and Ladders'. Those were my childhood memories, my happy childhood memories, my comfort blanket of memories if you will, memories that make me yearn to return to the uncomplicated days when all was well with the world.


Well of course that was absolute nonsense, all was very much not well with the world and those halcyon days were a fallacy. We were all gathered around the open fire and eating anything that we could cook on the fire because for the third time that week we were thrown into a blackout as the miners were on strike along with just about every other Tom Dick and Harry in a Union. We had no TV so we had to play Snakes and bloody Ladders, again, whilst Uncle John tried to deaden the silence by banging out some tunes on the old Joanna (Piano).  We were all 'gathered' around the fire because we were bleeding freezing. There were no street lights as the power cuts simply knocked out great swathes of London, no traffic lights, nothing but chaos and mayhem.


How many of you have recalled those memories any time in the last 20 years? Not many I would venture. No, the memories we pluck out of the bosom of our breast fed ageing memories are the comforting ones, the recollections that represent security and that we stumble upon by serendipity.
We may be thinking of one thing and out of the blue a memory suddenly discloses itself slipping out like a dollop of Mayo oozing from the other side of a burger landing squarely on your lap you think where the hell did that come from? But you actually know where it seeped from and actually you were caught off guard as you were not really expecting it just there and then.


Last week I was in a shop in Norwich and I went into a lift, pressed the button and prepared for lift off when suddenly a little nipper run in just as the doors were closing. As we stood there staring at the stainless steel doors, in the customary silence that we have all come to take for granted, a wry smile developed almost involuntary as one of those dollops of mayo squeezed out all over my respectability.

Now I have to tell you at this point that this very story has caused me to interrupt the tale as another recollection has spiked itself into my easily led mind! I saw a great experiment carried out in a lift once that thoroughly intrigued me. It was set up to show the immense power of peer pressure.
     A man joined a group of people who were already in a lift. As is the norm (I mean by that, the usual thing to do, not that his name was Norm, although of course it may have been but that is not important right now), he turned and faced the inside of the lift's doors as were the rest of the crowd.
The lift started on it's way skywards and very subtlety the crowd (all of which were 'in' on the experiment) slowly turned clockwise and faced the side wall leaving the guy in social terms the 'odd' one out. His discomfort was tangible and a few seconds later, just as subtlety and just as slowly he too turned to face the same wall. As soon as he had joined them they again did the same manoeuvre with the same result of him following suit. They eventually ended up by completing a full 360 degree turn just as the doors opened and managed to make this guy follow them at every turn, just by peer presure and not a word was said throughout. Just brilliant!


So anyway back to my other drop of mayo. The circumstances of me and this child being in the lift reminded me of an incident many years ago in a Supermarket in Brighton. We were raising money for children in need or some such foolishness and as such we had gotten dressed up in fancy dress. The entire Management Team had agreed to all dress as hippies with long flowing wigs, sun glasses (so no one could see the embarrassment in our souls) vivaciously coloured flouncy shirts and flared trousers that could have covered Big Ben.

What we didn't consider was the frequency with which we had to deal with drunk (and druggy) shoplifters. We were on the 'Dark Side' of the A23 in Kemp Town and everyday we would be sitting on top of some violent shoplifter, if not two or more in a day. However, Brighton is as a 'Cosmopolitan' a City as you could get and even in our Bell Bottoms we really did not look out of place as we run down the street like exaggerated Laurence Llewelyn Bowens chasing some guy with a scar slashed across his face clinging on to a bottle of Jack Daniels for all he was worth. Just three more hippies in a City full of such attention seekers, honestly no one seemed to batten an eye lid!

Well one shoplifter made a bolt for the lift with his ill gotten gains and the lift doors just closed when I got there. I immediately pressed the button for the other lift as there were no stairs to go up. A second or two later my butchery Manager and his Supervisor joined me. They were dressed as Fred and Barney from the Flintstones and had really good shop bought masks which were very accurate likenesses indeed. The lift opened and we piled in, turned to face the doors and to continue on this Keystone Cops farcical chase.

As we stood there and just as the doors were closing a small boy managed to squeeze into the lift too.
He immediately turned to face the doors as well and there we all stood in total silence, me at the back dressed as the most way out of all hippies, Fred Flintstone to the left of the little boy and on his right Barney Rubble both of which were brandishing a cave man's plastic club. All staring at the doors, waiting in anticipation for them to open, I can honestly say that I don't think I have ever been in such a surreal situation in my life. In his haste to catch the lift the boy had clearly not picked up on this oddity and it was not until we were about half way up that the poor kid realised what he had walked into, for all the world it was like a scene from Roger Rabbit!
   It was so funny to see him slowly turn his head to the left and continue to look up to see Fred Flinstone followed by a glance at Barney Rubble to his right. He said nothing and returned his stare to the doors once more, probably preying for them to open. The two butchers stood motionless and a few more seconds passed, we were nearly at the upper floor now. Then just as the lift was settling Fred Flintstone suddenly turned, without any warning, brandishing his toy club he took a giant step in front of the boy and shouted "Ha!"
 The Boy jumped, Barney jumped and even I jumped.
The doors opened and the poor little lad run out of them as a Hare from the greyhound. VOOM.... and he was gone.

I hope and prey that he has successfully suppressed that memory and that it is not to be his blob of mayo many years hence.

Oh and no Fred, Barney and the old Hippie never did catch the shoplifter.







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