Pip!

I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this, so please bear with me.  I’ve mentioned before that I’ve recently had a birthday (which is a huge improvement on not having a birthday) and it tends to make one a little introspective.

I’ve had a very vivid picture in my mind, over the last few days.  In this, I’m sitting on the floor (and it was the floor, in fact the bare floorboards – there was no furniture) of our Front Room, at our first house in Anglesey Road, Burton upon Trent.  I’m quite young, possibly 5 or slightly earlier.  I’m reading a book.  It is one of those books designed for young readers, with a large, colourful picture on each page, supported by a few lines of descriptive text.  I am sitting there, choking back the tears that are welling up and, the ridiculous thing is that I didn’t know then why I was tearful and I still don’t!

As far as I can recall, the crux of the story I was reading was that a young boy was being asked by a young girl, who was his neighbour, if he would go and play with her.  He replied that he would like to but that he had promised his father that he would help him with something or other.  The girl points out that she has a nice, juicy apple that she would share with him.  The boy clearly finds himself on the horns of a dilemma, he wants to go and play, and share the apple, but he has a duty to his father.  So, the story closes with the little girl going away, disappointed, and the boy going off to help his father in some 1950’s masculine pursuit, wearing a brave smile but clearly regretting his choice.

As I said, I have no idea why this particular story affected me in this way, and did so every time I read it subsequently.  I’m equally not sure of the point the author was trying to foist on his or her readers.  Presumably it had something to do with putting duty before pleasure but I’m not sure it achieved that.  I remember feeling incredibly sorry for the young girl and I wasn’t at all sure the boy had made the right choice.

I think the story had a particular resonance with me because my friend, in fact my only friend, at that time, was a little girl (Elaine) who lived, intermittently, with her grandparents two doors away from us.  I recall countless occasions when I would peer under our garden hedge to see if she was there and available to play, and vice versa.  Turning her down to do something laudable would have been unthinkable.  Shutting the door on your only friend would not have been a sound choice.

However, I do wonder if this tale had a deeper and more lasting impact on me than I realised?  My wife has often accused me, with some justification, of having a ‘martyr complex’.  If I’m faced with a choice of outcomes, one of which will result in some form of negative outcome for me, I’m almost always drawn to it, particularly if it helps someone else in some way.  Please don’t think that I’m trying to portray myself as some sort of ‘plaster Saint’, I’m most certainly not that.  I can imagine those who had dealings with me during my career in H.R. might well greet these revelations with a hollow laugh and I would agree that the desire to ‘do the right thing’ at all times often came into conflict with the commercial imperative, and I’m not always proud of the choices I had to make under those circumstances.

I also absolutely hate disappointing people.  This, I’m sure, definitely links with the story because the emotion I felt was overwhelming sadness at the obvious disappointment the little girl with the juicy apple felt at being rejected.  Disappointing people is, unfortunately, a not uncommon feature of working in H.R.

I remember when I first told my uncle that I was going to work in what was, to all intents and purposes, a Personnel Office and his first reaction was “Why would you want to do that?  Everybody will hate you?”  I thought he was completely wrong, but after a few years I began to see that he had a point.

All of which seems a long way away from my reaction to that story, all those years ago.  My Dad always called me ‘Pip’, after the main character in ‘Great Expectations’, but it rather oddly carries on the ‘apple’ motif first introduced in the childhood story.  There was absolutely no chance of being diverted into some ‘manly pursuit’ with my Dad because he had much the same attitude to practical work, like D.I.Y., as I do now, we avoid it like the plague, so I don’t think the story in the book was reflected in my real life.

So, what have we learned from all of this?  Not much, I expect, although I would imagine amateur psychologists far and wide would have a field day with it.  I suppose the real link to the little boy sitting on the floorboards in his Front Room, choking back tears he couldn’t explain, is that I realised at that point the power of the written word to provoke powerful emotions.  I can still feel the sadness of that story and I would love to see that book again.  Word are still my go-to place when dealing with powerful emotions although, unlike my childhood author, I’m more often than not trying to provoke laughter, rather than profound sorrow (although some of my critics might disagree!)

Unusually, it seems that I’m the Pip that follows the apple, rather than the other way around!

This is a new story in what I call my 'nostalgedy' series, all about growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.  If you fancy going back to the very start, check out 'Steady Past Your Granny's'