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Ian Whitwam

Most things I’ve been taught have sunk without trace. But a few were so invincibly irrelevant, so hauntingly pointless as to be indelible. I’ve always known when they might come in handy. Never. They concern Survival and Defence. Be Prepared for Things Out There I was taught - usually by the transparently unhinged.

Mr. Lofty for one - Akela - taught the Cubs how to survive a night on Gold Hill Common. I was seven. For weeks Golly Goss, Geoff Mitchell and I - Peewits all - were taught essential skills. Rubbing twigs - Fire. Waving hankies - Semaphore. The Peewit Call - calling Peewits. And always lots of Knots : Sheepshank, Slip, Reef and Noose. And How to pick up Things with your Toes.

Evening fell. Mr Lofty went home to Horlicks and Eric Sykes. We were abandoned to the cold dark night. We got prepared. We soon failed to put up the tent - despite a lot of Knotting. I vigorously rubbed twigs. Fire did not occur. You need Swan Vestas or Paraffin for that kind of thing. Golly and Mitch had meanwhile zoomed off to kill supper. They came back with some berries and a pigeon shot with an air rifle. We hurled it on the fire. It went up in smoke. Deadly Nightshade with Burnt Feather was a dismal repaste.

So we legged it to the shops - not 10 minutes away - and bought Smarties, Mars and Woodbines. Huddled round embers we sang ‘The Quarter Master’s Stores.’ This, we were taught, would keep off the Hun, the Mau Mau, elephants, boa constrictors, Brownies and any other marauding hordes then prevalent in Chalfont St. Peter. Then we did a bit of Peewit Calling. No Peewits surfaced through the murk. ‘Can’t we just go home?’ said Golly. So we did. We bunked off home to our teddies and electric blankets. We crept back to camp by dawn - having bribed our Mums. Mr. Lofty never found out.

After Cubs I was taught to be a soldier. I was 14. It was the School CCF. The lessons got grimmer. The Things Out There more menacing. We were taught how to murder a sack. This sack stood, again, for any Hun, Mau Mau or Martians then advancing on the Royal Grammar School High Wycombe. A visiting psychopath barked at us as we shivered and itched in our uniforms. We carried guns bigger than us with bayonets on the end. We were urged to zoom off towards the sack in a beserk manner.

After the Murdering I had a spell on the ocean waves in the school Navy. They taught me how to steer a Minesweeper up the Firth of Forth. After the the high seas, it was Armageddon. Two ladies in tweed taught us what to do in the event of Thermonuclear Destruction. You hide under the kitchen table. Then you put a paper bag over your head. The Flash could make your eyes fall out - and you had to catch them in something. Mother wasn’t convinced by any of it. She’d seen what the Doodlebugs had done to Gerrards Cross Golf Course.

I have never had recourse to Sheepshanks, the Noose, Twigs, Bayonets, or Paper Bags. I have never had to pick things up with my toes. And I have never ever called up one single Peewit. I have never yet been attacked by the Mau Mau, elephants, the Viet Cong, a sack, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - or The Brownies.

They’re always Not Out There Somewhere. Maybe it works.