Look, I was in a bad mood. Again. No particular reason, or possibly the weather. The silly thing is I’d been looking forward to it so very much. The builders are about to start work on an £8.5 million extension to the local school, and my grandson, aged three and a quarter, as the youngest pupil, was elected to dig the first turf in front of the town’s great and the good, and have his picture taken for the local paper. Oscar is a bright lad, but too young to comprehend what exactly was being asked of him and why. But we impressed on him the need to have his cheesy camera smile ready for the right moment. It was all he needed to know.
I wasn’t officially invited. But I wasn’t going to miss that. Surely an extra grandad wouldn’t upset anyone’s plans, I said. At the appointed hour I put on a clean shirt and met my boy and his partner at the school gates. My boy was carrying his other son, Klynton, aged one and a half, in his arms. We collected Oscar from his nursery class and made our way to the assembly point, a classroom on the far side of the school. The local dignitaries, including the mayor and the head of the Rotary club, were already present. A buffet lunch was being laid out. There was wine. The headmaster made a passionate speech, quoting Picasso about the need for the artist to see through the eyes of a child. My boy’s partner was interviewed by a reporter. A teacher came round issuing a high-visibility jacket and a hard hat each.
To our great surprise little Oscar was also given a high-visibility jacket and a hard hat. Also gloves and wellington boots. Now Oscar, even at three and a quarter, is a bit of a dandy. The boots were miles too big. The boot tops came up to his groin; the gloves, blue rubber, up to his elbows. He looked absurd. And the poor lad knew it. His unhappiness at being the only small person in a room milling with self-important giants in hard hats was already threatening to overwhelm his reserves of fortitude. Now this. The lower lip started to wobble.
If the babe in arms was coming outside, he too would have to wear a hard hat and jacket, said this woman. I thought she was joking. ‘You are joking,’ I said. Actually, it was immaterial whether I thought she was joking or not because I wasn’t on her list, and didn’t qualify for an official permit in a transparent holder to hang around my neck, or a hat and jacket, and therefore wouldn’t be permitted to go ‘on site’.
The five of us — me, my boy, my boy’s partner, the baby and Oscar — stood in an inward-facing circle of confusion and consternation. My boy said that he wouldn’t suffer the baby to wear a hard hat and was taking him home. My boy’s partner had rushed from work to be there, badly needed a roll-up, and also looked overwhelmed by the whole business. A plate of sausage rolls passing ceremoniously between us tipped her over into a kind of mini nervous breakdown on the spot. ‘You go,’ she said, handing me her permit and ribbon. ‘I’m freaking out.’
Noting Oscar’s unhappy face and now lip wobble, the teacher suggested that she and I take him on site without delay and show him the digger to cheer him up. So the three of us went outside. The site was a level, fenced-in area of neatly mown grass. There was nothing to trip over, and nothing above to fall on our heads except the sky. The orange digger was safely parked on the other side of a strong fence. She drew Oscar’s attention to it, but he was too sunk in misery to acknowledge it.
A builder in a hard hat appeared to check that the teacher was satisfied with the preparations. She said she was. Then she paused and said, ‘I can hear singing.’ We listened. An unseen workman was singing about a broken heart somewhere on the other side of the fence. She now expressed a concern that his singing, if it continued, could interfere with the ceremony.
‘We don’t want any singing, do we?’ I said bitterly. Quickly warming to my theme, I added, ‘And why are we wearing vests and hard hats? What bollocks.’ And with that I lost my temper and went into a rant, the usual one, with swearing, about how we are ruled by fear and petty regulations. She looked at me calmly. ‘It’s all about image,’ she said. ‘Bullshit,’ I said. ‘Is that what you are teaching them?’ I was fuming. But as I say, I’d got out of bed on the wrong side. Afterwards I felt bad. I should have let it go and entered into the spirit of public celebration.
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