It’s good to know other folk can be as feel as me.
Like my pal last week. Having given her 14 and 16-year-old granddaughters money for their birthdays, she took them to Union Square. However, after trachellin’ aboot the shops for half an hour, she declared hersellie plootered in the heat and her gammie leg knackered. She’d sit ootside and wait for them.
That’s aboot the last she can recall until a scraikin’ in her lug: “Granma, wake up!” Yes, while a wooden bench took the strain, this peer pensioner simply and speedily zonked oot. Not only that, as she slid deeper into dreamland, so her snoozie upper body meandered sideways and doon.
When her girls came upon her, she was spark-oot, heidie restin’ on the seat of the bench. As she said: “Spik aboot black affronted. It’s a wonder I didna get mistaken for a bag lady… or worse!”
As a youngster, I took for granted mum and dad noddin’ off, fartin’ and splutterin’, in front of the telly. But it came as a shock when I was barely into my 40s and discovered I was battling sleep in the most dangerous situation – office meetings. The boss burblin’ on aboot some super-duper new feature in the EE but, if it was mid-afternoon, I’d lose the will to live.
I’d struggle to stifle yawns. Keep staring my eyes, lest the lids drooped. Occasionally, when I actually lost then regained consciousness, I’d let oot a strangulated snort. I recall one sarky boss declaring: “Moreen. I hope we’re not keeping you awake.” Sod.
Now in my dotage, I can sleep anywhere, any time – except at night in my bed. I can be deep in slumber on my couch in front of the telly, but the moment I on jammies and into my scratcher, I’m wide – and permanently – awake. Hence, constant daytime drop-offs, usually in the privacy of my home, although often with the grandtoots as sleep police, when they spot the droopin’ lids and screech: “Nana, you’re going!”
Long have I dreaded travelling alone on plane or train, where I nod off with no one to nudge me into consciousness. Because, you see, and this is the worst of it, I snore. Imagine being this lone growler surrounded by shocked strangers…
I’ve dropped off – and made affa noises – at such inappropriate times. Like on the first day of a holiday, with the rep taking us through the itinerary. Mo, even after several nudges from my embarrassed man, lets oot this huge “huchchchghgh”.
But surely the worst was after a magnificent but inadvisable trough of spag bol before a showing of The King’s Speech. Luuv Colin Firth. Luuv the story. But that wasn’t enough to keep me compos mentis for only a few bits of the film at a time. The rest – much to my mate’s horror – had me deeply zonko, uttering various “chrzz, skulltz, ffffs, grlxxnst” sounds. As she said in her fury at the end: “The folk around us didn’t know whether the noises were from coming from you or the poor, stuttering king!”
Happy birthday, Beano!
Congratulations to The Beano on its amazing 85th anniversary. Because the EE is also owned by veteran publishers DC Thomson, that means Dennis the Menace, Gnasher and The Bash Street Kids are stablemates of mine. Fit an honour.
Like all bairns of the 1950s, I was passionate about comics, starting off with Mickey Mouse, The Dandy and The Topper. The other day, I pondered why I was never a Beano reader. ‘Ken ‘is, I think I’ve worked it oot. I reckoned The Beano, starring Dennis, was for boys, while Beryl the Peril was the quinies’ heroine in The Topper. Mo gender stereotyped at an early age. And quite happy, too.
Later, I went on to the real stuff for lassies in those days: School Friend, Bunty and Girl – deffo nay for the loons. Stories about posho females in private schools, adventures in the country and dormitory midnight feasts.
Nothing in the least to do with my life, but I devoured them, because they were all about girls being best friends with girls.
Then came the real staples of a teenager’s life: Judy, Jackie, Mandy, Seventeen. How to backcomb your hair, black-liner your eyelids, act on your first date. Even the basics of yer first kiss. And Ask Agnes; that agony aunt we took more seriously than oor mums. We couldn’t have got through an adolescent week without those mags.
Looking back, thank you DC’s for all your help when I was growing up. Now, to fit comics did the loons graduate? I suspect that, if they ever grew oot o’ The Beano, it would have been Superman.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
