Note for my future biographers

From an email to Carolyn:

Do you remember that 'First World War Songs' Christmas concert in 1975, when eight of us boys had to kneel down beseechingly on one knee in front of eight of you girls and sing, 'You Are My Honeysuckle'? And, wouldn't you just know it, I had to kneel down in front of you! Why on earth would anyone do that to a shy, ten-year-old boy? I was SO embarrassed (especially as my mum was in the audience, and she kept teasing me that I would marry you one day and become a vicar or a farmer).

And, after the song, the parents gave us a standing ovation, and yelled for an encore, so Mrs Coates made us do it all over again! (Still, it was a lot less embarassing than being an oompa-loompa the year before.)

Earlier in the concert, while we were singing 'Good-bye-ee', Colin Fletcher made stuff come out of my nose by singing, "...though it's hard to fart, I know" instead of "...though it's hard to part, I know". My sense of humour was pretty highly developed even then.

Actually, come to think of it, that's why Colin Fletcher and I were chosen to kneel down beseechingly on one knee in front of you girls in the first place - because he sang "fart" during the rehearsal too, and Mrs Coates saw the two of us snotting ourselves and decided to teach us a lesson.

Do you remember Mrs Coates, the music teacher? She told us that John Lennon had been a school-friend of her son, and that she had taught him music too - and Cilla Black (or Pricilla White, as she said she knew her). I didn't believe Mrs Coates even then.

See also: What do you get if you guzzle down sweets, eating as much as an elephant eats?

Richard Carter

A fat, bearded chap with a Charles Darwin fixation.

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