33) The Things They Say
Kids say the funniest things and parents think that they will never forget that, but they do. I know there are lots of amusing things that my two have said that I just don’t remember so my advice to all of you with kids is to keep a record of the things they say. It will make wonderful reading later on. Think of how you can embarrass them at their 21st birthday party or at their wedding reception. Or how you can just have a quiet chuckle years later.
I remember once when Dominic was small he wrote in his “news” at school ‘we went to the theatre and got thrown out’. His teacher had visions of us causing a rumpus of some kind and being asked to leave but it was not quite like that.
We decided to take the boys to see a pantomime; everyone has to see a pantomime at least once in their lives. I rang up and booked the tickets telling the lady in the booking office that I want to book for the Thursday after a public holiday that was coming up. It was a silly way to book, I should have given her the correct date but I did not. She thought I wanted the tickets for the coming Thursday, the week before the date I wanted. I picked up the tickets and did not look at the date, just put them away for safekeeping. On the day after the public holiday we presented ourselves at the theatre and the theatre staff obviously did not look at the tickets properly either as we were admitted and shown to our seats. As we were waiting for the show to start another family were shown to “our” seats. We were asked to present our ticket stubs and we confidently showed them, knowing that we were in the right place. Yes we were in the right place but we were a week late. The house was full and there was nowhere else we could sit so we just had to leave. The management were very understanding and gave us tickets to see the show on another night but as you can imagine I was very embarrassed and the boys were very upset that they could not see the show there and then.
The next week we, (after checking and double checking the date) went once again to the theatre. We were admitted and took our seats once again. When we got to our seats we saw that on each seat there was a Bingo card and were puzzled about it. We settled down and as one does, looked around at the other people around us and were very excited to see just a few rows behind us the Prime Minister Ian Smith and his wife Janet. If we had not had that mix up we would not had seen them.
After a little while the lights went down and the show started. The star of the show was an English comedian called Kenny Cantor. I remember his ‘trade mark’ was that he wore huge spectacles, so that one always recognised him. He started the show by introducing himself and telling us that it was good to be in a theatre again as so many of the theatres in England had been turned into Bingo Halls. He thought that it would happen in Rhodesian too and so he wanted to show us how it worked. Now we knew what the bingo cards were for. A girl wheeled on a lovely TV set that was to be the prize for the first person to get one line right. So we started to play, I was helping Dominic with his card and doing mine. Jonny was doing his own and helping Jonathan. The first three calls were in one line on Dominic’s card and I was about to show it to Jonny but the forth number was called and we had a line. I just jumped up and shouted “Bingo” I was so excited. But when I looked around I realised that Jonny and half the audience had also shouted “Bingo”. We all looked at each other in dismay. We were just puzzled at what had happened, and then it dawned on us all almost simultaneously, “it was a put up job”. We all burst out laughing and laughed and laughed for goodness only knows how long. The next act was a young singer but I don’t think anyone heard her song as we were all laughing so much. It was very cleverly done as the cards were not all the same, every alternate card had the winning line but not in the same place and in the same order so one would have had to take particularly special attention to notice the similarity. A little later the comedian asked us not to say anything to anyone about his joke, as he wanted to catch everyone in the coming weeks. The show had a few more weeks to run and I spoke to a number of people that had seen it but no one mentioned the trick until it had closed.
I don’t remember anything else about the show but I know we enjoyed it. When we left the theatre we joined the crowd of people who had collected to watch as Mr. and Mrs. Smith were escorted from the theatre to their waiting car. The couple chatted and shook hands with people in the crowd and Jonathan and Dominic got to shake hands with them. I had met Janet Smith some time before when she had given a talk at the Salisbury Mothers Club and had been very impressed with her. She was a very down to earth person with a keen sense of humour and a great love for her family and her country.
I remember once when Dominic was small he wrote in his “news” at school ‘we went to the theatre and got thrown out’. His teacher had visions of us causing a rumpus of some kind and being asked to leave but it was not quite like that.
We decided to take the boys to see a pantomime; everyone has to see a pantomime at least once in their lives. I rang up and booked the tickets telling the lady in the booking office that I want to book for the Thursday after a public holiday that was coming up. It was a silly way to book, I should have given her the correct date but I did not. She thought I wanted the tickets for the coming Thursday, the week before the date I wanted. I picked up the tickets and did not look at the date, just put them away for safekeeping. On the day after the public holiday we presented ourselves at the theatre and the theatre staff obviously did not look at the tickets properly either as we were admitted and shown to our seats. As we were waiting for the show to start another family were shown to “our” seats. We were asked to present our ticket stubs and we confidently showed them, knowing that we were in the right place. Yes we were in the right place but we were a week late. The house was full and there was nowhere else we could sit so we just had to leave. The management were very understanding and gave us tickets to see the show on another night but as you can imagine I was very embarrassed and the boys were very upset that they could not see the show there and then.
The next week we, (after checking and double checking the date) went once again to the theatre. We were admitted and took our seats once again. When we got to our seats we saw that on each seat there was a Bingo card and were puzzled about it. We settled down and as one does, looked around at the other people around us and were very excited to see just a few rows behind us the Prime Minister Ian Smith and his wife Janet. If we had not had that mix up we would not had seen them.
After a little while the lights went down and the show started. The star of the show was an English comedian called Kenny Cantor. I remember his ‘trade mark’ was that he wore huge spectacles, so that one always recognised him. He started the show by introducing himself and telling us that it was good to be in a theatre again as so many of the theatres in England had been turned into Bingo Halls. He thought that it would happen in Rhodesian too and so he wanted to show us how it worked. Now we knew what the bingo cards were for. A girl wheeled on a lovely TV set that was to be the prize for the first person to get one line right. So we started to play, I was helping Dominic with his card and doing mine. Jonny was doing his own and helping Jonathan. The first three calls were in one line on Dominic’s card and I was about to show it to Jonny but the forth number was called and we had a line. I just jumped up and shouted “Bingo” I was so excited. But when I looked around I realised that Jonny and half the audience had also shouted “Bingo”. We all looked at each other in dismay. We were just puzzled at what had happened, and then it dawned on us all almost simultaneously, “it was a put up job”. We all burst out laughing and laughed and laughed for goodness only knows how long. The next act was a young singer but I don’t think anyone heard her song as we were all laughing so much. It was very cleverly done as the cards were not all the same, every alternate card had the winning line but not in the same place and in the same order so one would have had to take particularly special attention to notice the similarity. A little later the comedian asked us not to say anything to anyone about his joke, as he wanted to catch everyone in the coming weeks. The show had a few more weeks to run and I spoke to a number of people that had seen it but no one mentioned the trick until it had closed.
I don’t remember anything else about the show but I know we enjoyed it. When we left the theatre we joined the crowd of people who had collected to watch as Mr. and Mrs. Smith were escorted from the theatre to their waiting car. The couple chatted and shook hands with people in the crowd and Jonathan and Dominic got to shake hands with them. I had met Janet Smith some time before when she had given a talk at the Salisbury Mothers Club and had been very impressed with her. She was a very down to earth person with a keen sense of humour and a great love for her family and her country.
posted by JC at
5:03 pm
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