22 March, if you are wondering

Birthday parties when I was young were strange affairs. Too young to have a social circle of people with shared interests, you always had your school classmates at them instead and maybe a cousin or two who you didn’t really know. Some parties were held in fast food places or at a tailored children’s adventure centre. Most, however, were held at the parent’s house of the little school chum whose birthday it was.

The house parties always followed minor variations on the same format: Handing over presents and chatting/squealing/jumping on the way in/playing a couple of inclusive group games/party finger food of mini-sausage rolls and chocolate dipped marshmallows with smarties on top/a video of the latest rental film (not altogether age appropriate)/kicking a balloon about the sitting room/party bag given of a piece of cake wrapped in birthday paper napkin that the icing stuck to, 1 un-inflated balloon and pencil-topper figurine of a masters of the universe on the way out.

I must confess that I neither hosted nor attended many birthday parties in my extreme youth. Most of the games played at my birthdays were just me sitting with one of those plastic containers with little metal ball bearings games. In my new, birthday, jumper.

I was never one for going to parties either. So you will appreciate that I remember vividly Christine’s one that I attended. It was for her 7th birthday. I was shown to the sitting room, where many of my little classmates had already arrived. I remember thinking that her family must be rich with their white furniture and French windows.

I handed over the card and present, which were placed in the corner of the room with the others for the ceremonial unwrapping later. A Disney film was playing on the TV in the background. There was time to converse with my peers (about what, I cannot remember, maybe something about coloured pencils) and avoid the class bullies [who always seemed to get invited to parties by parents, totally ignoring the frightened pleas of their son or daughter]. Soon it was time for an enforced game – musical statutes to the song “superman” by Black Lace and then the meal, followed by the video, Beverly Hills Cop. And then hitting a balloon up in the air for a bit.

It was also at this same party where I told my first proper dinner table joke.

We were at the dinner table, some of us glad that the inclusive, enforced fun activities were over. Paper bowls of crisps and paper plates of cakes and mini-sausage rolls were being spilled and grabbed at, a cacophony of crumbs of pastry being tossed-up like shrapnel. I caught the group’s attention and said:
“I am boldly going where no man has gone before!” wait for it… “The ladies toilet!”
I possibly heard it on an episode of Russ Abbott. I know what you are thinking – this genre of comedy was a stretch to pull off at a birthday party of 7 year olds, Greville.

And, looking back, I am not sure, really, how many of my school chums watched repeats of 60’s Star Trek so suspect that the impression I gave of William Shatner while saying it was lost on most of them sitting that afternoon round the table with a She-Ra tablecloth. Jerking my body about in time to the phrasing: “I am… bodlygoing…. Where!!… noman… has…. Gonebefore… the!LADIEStoliet!”

And, analysing things forensically, being situated, as we were, at the girl’s house I would be astonished if it had both a gents and ladies separate WC’s available. Despite the inference with the French windows. In fact, I am almost certain it didn’t. I am certain, too, that I didn’t go to the bathroom after but rather, sat back down again after the punch line.

But I did say “Toilet” and did funny, stuttering movements like an electrified frog so the joke went down a storm. I would like to think that those 12 or so kids, most of whom I can no longer recall the names of or be able to pick out from a line-up, will remember that moment as fondly as I do.

All this recollecting has made me wonder: Did I not get invited to parties back when I was under 10 years old because I would turn up in a knitted jumper and reference Star Trek and Columbo for no appreciable reason or did I wear knitted jumpers and watch Star Trek and Columbo because I did not go to parties. It is the whole Nature Versus Nurture debate all over again.