Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 00:15:41 +0000
From: Jo Vincent <joad130@hotmail.com>
Subject: Aladdin's Awakening:  Part 91

Usual Disclaimer: If you are not of an age to read this because of the laws
of your country or district please desist.  If you are a bigot or
prod-nosed fundamentalist of any persuasion find your monkey-spanking
literature elsewhere and keep your predilections and opinions to
yourself. Everyone else welcome and comments more than welcome.

This is a very long tale.  It unfolds over a good number of years.  What is
true, is true: what is not is otherwise.

			    ALADDIN'S AWAKENING

				    By

				   Joel


				CHAPTER 55

			  Vignettes from My Life

				 5.  1958

Tony had finished his third book 'Under Leaden Skies' and this was being
checked for publication as was my first, 'Diderot and Aspects of the Age of
Enlightenment'.  His continued the saga of the families during the Second
World War and the draft I had read was very powerful.  He had been
approached about the film rights for the first two and had been offered a
screen-writer's post at the studios in Hollywood if he would allow the
purchase of the rights.  As he wanted to see his Uncle Lester, the
celebrated film artist and designer, he jumped at the chance and went off
just after Easter.

     My book was an analysis of some of the smaller writings of the French
author rather than his monumental encyclopaedia which had received so much
attention.  I also analysed the various types of books which were extant
and as the police of the time categorised them, those 'allowed', those
which were 'prohibited' books or 'forbidden' books - 'marrons' as the
booksellers called them - which were generally destroyed, and, thirdly, the
'not permitted' books which were usually returned to the bookseller.  In
fact, for the forbidden books there was a host of designations, ranging
from 'obscene', 'lascive', to 'libre' and galant'.  Diderot, himself, was
considered 'dangerous' and had suffered but that did not stop him being one
of the great 'philosophes' of the age.  I gave as the real come-on for my
book a rather racy translation of 'Les bijoux indescrits' of 1748 as an
appendix, with a few indications of other 'philosophical' works of a
lubricious kind of other authors, including 'Therese' and 'L'Audace'.  Mr
Blane didn't think the obscenity laws would allow me to essay a publication
of that last 'masterpiece', yet, but wanted his publishing house to have
first refusal when times changed as he knew they would!

                              *
     Just before Easter I'd had an odd telephone call from Lachs.  He said
he was calling from an outside line and wanted me to do something very
important but, also, possibly very dangerous.  I was intrigued and as we
had our pact I agreed.  He told me I mustn't tell anyone anything but just
tell Anne that Lachs was insistent I helped him so as to put any blame on
him.  It was very 'cloak and dagger'.  I had to drive to Royston, park the
car, then hire a car.  I then had to drive back to Foxton, a train stop
before Cambridge, wait immediately in Station Road by the station entrance
with the engine running, pick him up and drive like the clappers and he
would tell me where when he saw me.

     All went to plan on Maundy Thursday.  A hurrying Lachs jumped in the
waiting car and I was told to drive out towards Duxford and we would find a
pub there were we could talk.  He was rather agitated, not like the usually
imperturbable Lachs, so I held my peace until we found a quiet pub and
parked the car round the back.

     With a pint and a pie he was more relaxed.  We were the only customers
in the saloon bar so he then unwound and told me the tale.  Cartwright and
he had realised their security in Germany had been breached.  A couple of
very valued operatives in East Germany had disappeared and there was no
way, they were convinced, their cover would have been blown without a leak
from a source in their own department.  Also, Lachs himself, had realised
he was being shadowed on a couple of occasions, once while he was waiting
for an Underground train and realised he'd better stand well back from the
platform edge.  His minder had identified the follower, and the shadower, a
hanger-on from an unfriendly Embassy, was now in custody.  So!  Only three
in the Department knew of this meeting with me as he wanted my help.  A
contact in Germany was willing to talk but they needed an independent
translator - no one known to any of the translators they normally used as
they had an inkling that one of them might be the leaker.  Would I go to
Germany with him, see the bod, translate, come home and keep my mouth shut?
The assignment could be dangerous if I was recognised but they had a
reasonable plan.  I agreed.

     Two weeks later on the Friday morning I took a taxi to Cambridge
station.  'Everybody' knew I was going to London to see my publishers and
visit my parents.  By various routes and means I ended up at Brize Norton
air-base and later that day, dressed in combat dress and three pips on my
shoulders, found myself at an Army base 'somewhere' in Germany.  I was
introduced to the Colonel who was in on the scheme and he laughed at the
unlikely sight of an academic in so-called uniform.  His Adjutant, who had
been at the military academy with Lachs so was a trusted friend and ally as
well, was assigned as our guide and we had a preliminary meeting to discuss
tactics.  That night I dined in the Mess and that was where the plan might
have unravelled.  None of the officers who assembled there were at all
interested in the two newcomers, Lachs and me, as they must have been used
to a transient population and I suppose I looked a bit boffinish.  As I
said, no one took any notice except, just as I was finishing a large gin
and tonic before dinner in the company of the Adjutant and Lachs, a smart
figure in immaculate uniform with two pips, a Lieutenant, started to
advance on me beaming broadly.  Oh No!  It was Hector 'Tosser' McLeish,
wanker extraordinaire and almost-arrested cock-sucked ex-undergraduate!  As
he got to me I had to think quickly.

     "Thank you," I said, holding up my glass, "I don't think the Steward
has spotted my glass is empty."  Then, as he stopped in front of me, just
about to speak, but rather taken aback by what I had said, I added in
barely a whisper, "You don't know me, OK!  Can't tell you!"

     Years of military training had taught him not to question an
apparently more senior officer.  Years of military training had taught him
to accept what might seem strange on the surface as normal especially as I
had a Major, albeit pint-sized, by my side.  The Adjutant had heard what I
said and turned immediately.

     "Ah, Hector," he said, "I need to see you in the morning.  O seven
hundred hours prompt."

     Hector nodded, turned on his heel and walked off.  The Adjutant looked
at me.

     "We were undergraduates at the same time," I said, "Nothing to worry
about there."

     "Had me worried for a moment," the Adjutant said, "Can never be too
careful.  I'll prime him a bit in the morning."

     In the morning Lachs and I left very early in a car with tinted
windows and were dropped in a country lane.  We were both now in
nondescript civilian clothes and wandered across a couple of fields and
reached the outskirts of a village before walking the last few hundred
yards to a Gasthaus where, in an upstairs room, we met the contact.  I
translated what he had to say and both Lachs and I made notes.  It was
true.  One of the names given was someone known to Lachs although he didn't
let on then.  We also got some other information which seemed very garbled
at the time but I made careful notes of the codewords used.  The contact
must have been very well-informed as I more than half-filled my notebook
with what he told us before he said he'd better go.  He disappeared through
a side door and two English tourists then had a meal in the restaurant
before departing on their way in the afternoon to be picked up from a
railway station by a taxi which left them in a lane where the car with
tinted windows waited in a lay-by.

     We spent the evening sorting out my notes and Lachs whistled a few
times at the quality of the information.  He said that from the internal
evidence, and from what he already knew, our contact was genuine.  He said
what I had done was invaluable and would save quite a few lives as he now
knew who was going to be retired.  I didn't like to ask what 'retired'
meant but had a good idea.  Also, there were pointers to some of the
planning going on in East Germany.  All in all very successful.

     The Adjutant reported that Hector was more than satisfied by the
spurious explanation that I was visiting to look at some documents which
the Nazis had hidden at the end of the war and which might be sensitive
still.  He also said we hadn't been observed or followed and the contact
was back safe and sound.

     So, Sunday evening, I arrived back in Cambridge, unmissed, but with
the more than grateful thanks of Lachs and Cartwright.  Life in Cambridge
would seem dull after that little episode.

                              *
     With the Suez Crisis now well in the background and Mr McMillan now as
Prime Minister there were rewards for support for a number of faithful
Conservative backbenchers.  Among the recipients was Uncle Edward, the
third brother, who got a knighthood.  The tabloids were full of it.  Never
in recent history had three brothers been knighted.  As one of the more
lurid rags had it above the photos of Uncle Dick, Pa and Uncle Edward,
'Three Knights In A Row'!  Family celebrations were quite spectacular.  Of
course, the boys kept asking when would it be my turn as Mum really
deserved being called Lady like Grandma, Auntie Fay and Auntie Della.  They
seemed to think it was a Thomson prerogative to acquire such status.  I
said Mum and I were proud enough of being called Doctor.  Francis wrinkled
his nose at this and stated that grandpa was Doctor as well.  You can't
win, especially with nearly ten-year-olds.

     With Dr Butler now retired and writing his magnum opus he had donated
large numbers of his books and papers to Harvey Levine and myself.  With
that twinkle in his eye he not only told me to keep the black-bound copy of
'Therese' but also gave me a couple of other dubious volumes he'd acquired
when a student in Paris well before the First World War.  One was a copy of
various pamphlets published in the mid 1600's - a bit before my main
interest, but interesting in themselves.  Most were libels on Cardinal
Mazarin and the court of the time.  One pamphlet consisted of a very
scabrous poem about Mazarin describing him as 'Bougre au poil, et bougre a
la plume, et bougre du plus haut carat!' best translated as 'Hairy bugger,
feathery bugger and bugger of the highest degree!'.  No wonder they clapped
authors in jail!  I doubted if I would get a knighthood if I published even
scholarly works containing translations of such works!

                              *
     Matt came to visit at the end of term and we spent several days just
talking and reminiscing.  He'd spent just over a year attached to the
British Embassy in Paris and I'd met him in Paris earlier in the year when
I did a flying visit there to give a bound copy of my papers on the
plagiarised book and a copy of my translation of the 'secret' book to the
librarian at the Lib Nat.  My librarian was still the same though he did
manage a smile of recognition when I handed him the volume.  I was ushered
into his boss's office and was most warmly greeted and was told to make
sure I visited them more often.  I loved Paris and said I hoped I could.

     I stayed with the LaRiviere's overnight.  Dodo wasn't there as he was
busy in Riom sorting out his mother's inherited vineyard and staying at the
house there with his fiancee.  He'd decided to take a course in viticulture
and work in conjunction with his friend Philippe and his father in the wine
trade.

     Matt's father and mother had retired down to Devon and we all had
invites to visit them.  Matt was hoping his promotion to Commander would be
gazetted soon and he thought he would do another five years and then retire
himself.  Not really retire.  His friend, Jaimie Morris, and he were
planning to start a yacht hire business in the South of France and were
going to explore the possibilities over the next few years.  He did let on
that he and Julien made use of the flat in Paris fairly regularly and the
'old bat' had said how generous the tall young Englishman had been so they
had to bribe her as well!  I bet Julien was pleased at these liaisons and I
wondered if he was on the receiving end of the length of Matt's fondly
remembered 'grande queue'!

                         6.  1960

     Jem and Sam had gone from strength to strength with their house
projects.  They had also purchased the house next door to their first and
Lucius was in charge of both.  It suited him.  He had no real ambition in
life and this was perfect.  He was an honorary uncle to my boys and they
were always pestering him for trips on the river and he was always happy to
comply.  One of his few accomplishments was that he played an assortment of
wind instruments so Francis and James had been started on clarinet and
trumpet, respectively, over the last couple of years and the house
resounded to practice when their Mum threatened them with no supper unless.

     Lucius, quiet and composed himself, had a very calming influence on
students as well.  We always had a few who would fall by the wayside
because of worries over work, over love, over anything!  Jem and Sam were
very considerate landlords and with Lucius there as a helpmeet and a
shoulder to cry on, many students who would have come a cropper lived to
tell a tale another day.

     Of course, in any population of mainly male students they were many
who were uncertain of their sexuality.  I had discussed my own case with
Anne and she had accepted quite readily that I was bi-sexual.  I'd had long
talks with a very sympathetic medical don who said he was sure that the
great majority of men were bi-sexual in some way.  In his experience many
of the seemingly most masculine adolescent males had had some sort of
sexual release with friends.  I knew this to be absolutely true from my own
experience in that every boy of my age I had known at school had no
compunction at all over some form of joint activity, even if it was only
out of curiosity.  However, the great majority of these lads who had taken
things even further than the casual joint wanking session were now married
and had kids of their own.

     I was sure the camaderie of the boaties and the rugger-buggers was an
extension of, and for many, a resolution of their homoerotic feelings as my
medical friend described them.  I'd observed many slightly drunk hugs in
the baths or in the bars after games or after a strenuous outing on the
river and from my reading of such situations there was a very fine line
drawn for many of them and quite a few stepped over it to much mutual
satisfaction.  I had made my feelings known to the Dean who was very
sympathetic and we had steered a number of lads towards rooms in the
'Outhouses' as Jem and Sam's emporia were known.  They did have a few
incidents of 'bitchy' encounters between residents especially when
'friends' moved on to other conquests, but Lucius was the one to whom all
turned for advice, tea and sympathy.

     Of course, the legal climate of the time precluded any truly overt
expression of such feelings and there were always cases of students and
dons being found in compromising situations.  But, as one student said,
lamenting to me that his best pal had been caught in the Parker's Piece
bogs servicing a very willing young policeman, who had promptly arrested
him after spraying the lad with a copious load of spunk, 'there's a lot of
it about!'.

     There certainly was according to dispatches from the film capital of
the world.  Tony was having a whale of a time according to the frequent
letters we received.  His Uncle Lester was extremely rich having worked on
many films and had a great reputation for ideas for sets and decoration and
was in constant demand.  He had a large mansion somewhere in Beverley Hills
wherever that was near Hollywood and seemed to have a menage of young
helpers for his model making and drawings.  From Tony's descriptions they
were all between eighteen and twenty-five and it all sounded like a
real-life version of 'L'Audace' as older ones were always leaving to move
on into jobs found for them and new ones joined from the seemingly
limitless pool of young, hopeful males, artists or actors, who came to
Hollywood to seek their fortune.  I got the impression Tony was never short
of a companion to share his bed but he and his Uncle kept apart.  He said
the old boy, at about 60, was quite insatiable as the lads title-tattled to
him over his demands, but he was very kind and generous and there seemed to
be little rancour even amongst his favourites.

     Uncle Lester's pool parties were legendary.  Tony said he was
introduced to all manner of movie moguls, executives, directors,
politicians and stars - all exclusively male and all seeking satisfaction
of certain desires which the entourage more than readily supplied.  He said
I, who never had time to go to the cinema, would be amazed at some of the
idiosyncrasies of quite a number of male movie stars.  He went on at
length, in more ways than one, of the proclivities of one he identified
only as Rock the Cock.  Lester always instructed at least three of the
best-looking lads never to be too far away from him with drinks, eats and
showing off their well-packed swim-suits.  I got the impression he was more
than well-packed with the contents before the night was out.

     Tony was working flat out, so he said, checking scripts, rewriting
scenes and so on for a number of films and quite a few of his assignments
came through conversations by the poolside.  His English erudition and way
with language was prized.  He also said he had ideas from his experiences
for at least a couple of books and was scribbling away on his own account
with gentle breaks to be fucked or sucked by willing helpers.  I assumed
the last from the sentence in one letter 'just put down a few thoughts on
paper codifying a few happenings relayed to me as well as being put down
and Cody-fied after a more than relaxing massage from the aforesaid; strong
hands and a willing member....'

                              *
     The boys were going from strength to strength.  Francis and his
next-door neighbour friend Grunty had both transferred from the Junior
School to an Independent Grammar School in Cambridge which took day pupils
as well as having numerous boarders.  Grunty's brother, Terry, was already
there and, being two years older, had his own circle of friends and ignored
the two lads while at school but acted as a real big brother to both them
and James when at home.  At fourteen he was squat, broad, with a
gap-toothed grin and a newly broken nose which did nothing to improve his
features.  The broken nose was due to his fearless membership of the Junior
Rugger XV and was seen by him and his rather jealous mates as a badge of
honour.  Notwithstanding his rather fearsome appearance he was honest,
cheerful and mowed my lawn for a modest payment and a mound of scones and
cakes supplied by Anne.  Young adolescent's hunger was no new experience
for me.

     Young Stephen had followed his brothers to the Infants' school and had
celebrated his sixth birthday in April.  With the others being about six
and five years older he had made friends with the McIntyre girls, our other
neighbours.  As the two girls went to dancing classes, so Stephen, at the
age of four, demanded to go as well.  As the dancing classes were for
ballet mainly he was now getting most adept and was extremely
well-coordinated for a six-year old.  His brothers never teased him about
his interest in dancing as he was also a very strong and independent
character and took all their other teasing and tickling and general
horseplay all in good part and often set them off with his own playful
ways.  He and James were particularly close and they often quite
spontaneously set off on their own joint ventures, generally involving poor
Lucius or one of my students punting them up the river with Lucius,
generally, making up a picnic for them to have after the trek to
Grantchester.

     Over the past year I had earned quite a sum translating two books for
Kanga, now in charge of that section of the publishing house, and from my
book which, surprisingly, had sold quite well.  One of my colleagues at
High Table one night said it had even been read by his sixteen-year old
son.  I don't know whether he was being complimentary, or boastful at
having a precocious son, or just hinting that the lad was an ardent wanker.
  I think the last, as the only reason I could imagine for a
sixteen-year-old to read a rather obscure book on a French philosopher was
for the descriptions in the 'Indescrits' which were likely to set his right
hand flying.  One of the best descriptions of books like that at the time
was that they were 'one-handed literature'.

     Having a sizeable sum at my disposal, before the taxman got his share,
decided us to take the boys to Switzerland for three weeks as soon as
school finished in the summer.  Both Anne and I refused offers of speaking
at conferences as we felt time with the lads was more important.  I also
wanted a couple of days to visit Herr Vogel who had written several times
imploring me to visit him.  As he and his wife lived just outside Stuttgart
it would be quite easy to get there from Neuchatel by train.  Francis asked
if he might come with me.  I readily agreed but James said he would rather
stay in Neuchatel, this time!

     Herr Vogel was so pleased to see us.  And, surprise, surprise, he had
Hans and his wife staying with him as well, they had left their daughter
and son with the grandparents.  Francis was treated like a young lord.  He
and Hans got on particularly well - the blond giant tried out his more than
adequate English and Francis tried his best with the German he'd picked up
as I had started my mother's habit of speaking the other languages whenever
possible to me.  Herr Vogel was just the same and his wife was a lovely
lady who was so proud to entertain us.  We stayed three days and it just
seemed like yesterday sitting chatting to him.  He said Mrs Crossley wrote
to him regularly and he was sad old Lady Bing had died as he'd had to go in
for conversation every day he was working at Ashburn House.  He was now
principal of a gymnasium and I remembered Cleggy and Nobbo's mistaken
belief that it was just where boys did exercise, or at least exercised
their appendages and have them measured.  His daughters were both married
and away from home so we had plenty of room in their commodious out of town
house.  It was odd looking back to those war-time days as a youngster and
now as a full-time academic with three growing sons.  How times change!

     Francis said as we journeyed back that he had wanted to find out more
about his Dad when he was a boy.  When could he and James and Stephen go
back to Ulvescott as well as they loved that place.  I said as soon as we
got back home we would go and see their other grandparents.

     My cousin Johann was now a full partner in his father's law firm and
was planning to get married in the autumn.  He said that Hubert, in
particular, had confided in him that although he and Heinrich were still
friends they were not as close as before.  In fact, Heinrich had been so
upset at being discovered by the English boy, meaning me, that was why they
were so enraged that day.  They would have beaten the shit out of the two
Swiss boys if it had only been them so I had saved their bacon, so to say!

     Pascal was now, with his brother, the joint managers of two hotels and
a caf‚ but young Walter was destined for the academic path.  He wanted to
study medieval Swiss and French literature when he went to University and I
invited him to come and stay with us.  He smiled shyly and said he would
love to do so.

                              *
     Back home we also had to say a slight farewell to Georgie, his wife
and twin sons, as he was off to a lectureship at a new University being set
up in the South of England.  His PhD had been successfully completed and he
was a rising star in the technical and most esoteric areas of symbolic
logic.  He countered all this with a superb mastery of the piano and a
wonderful wife who kept him firmly in the real world.  He said his only
reason for taking the job was that he could take up proper sailing again.
Pa, who had a special bond with my oh, so, intellectual friend, said he'd
better tie all his passengers in as there was danger of them getting more
than wet.  Pa in later years went sailing with him and the imp, Flea, on
many occasions and complained that although he always came home wet he
never got the opportunity to push Georgie overboard.  Although Pa would
have loved to move to the South Coast he decided to take early retirement
and he and Ma had moved while we were away in Switzerland to the house in
Pin Mill, now empty as both the great uncle and great uncle of Lachs and
Flea had sadly died.  The flat in London now reverted to the Parker boys,
with the proviso that anyone else was welcome to come and stay.

                              *
     We said our farewells to Georgie and family the weekend after we
arrived back.  Then on Tuesday the sixteenth of August I had a very urgent
'phone call just as I was finishing breakfast.  It was from Lachs.  He was
asking for help again, but this time it was so much more important from a
personal point of view.  I'd read in the newspaper that there was quite a
bit of ferment in the Middle East and news of attempted coups and suchlike.
Lachs said he had to ask a personal favour.  Two things had happened.  One
of Sayed's elder brothers had been murdered and Sayed's two sons had been
kidnapped.

     Because of his connections both with military intelligence and with
his great friendship with Sayed he had been contacted especially about the
boys.  Apparently, they had been taught so far by tutors in their home
country.  The plan was for them to come to England to go to school.  Khaled
was ten and a half and Safar had been eight in May.  But, things had gone
wrong.  Three weeks ago they had disappeared, as well as the two men who
had accompanied them.  It had been planned that they were to spend the rest
of the summer with Giles Bastable's two sons, now fourteen and sixteen,
down in Dorset, before starting in September at the prep school chosen for
them.

     From a 'phone call, where the boys had screamed out that their father
should do as told - obviously being beaten to say such things - Lachs and
his team had identified the flat in Marylebone in London where they were
being held.  His team, including Miles Bastable, Giles' younger brother and
Lachs friend in the Marines and SAS, had raided the flat and discovered the
two men, who were the kidnappers, plus the boys and two women.  The
question was, would I look after the boys in a safe house, i.e. here at
Cambridge, in case others were involved?  The answer was, of course, an
unreserved, 'Yes!'.

     A couple of hours later a large black limousine drew up in our drive.
Lachs emerged from the back holding a small, frightened, tired-looking and
very dirty and dishevelled young lad, the younger boy, Safar.  Miles
followed close behind carrying a bigger boy, just as tearful, filthy and
smelly and looking equally frightened.  The other passenger was a large
very determined looking soldier with an equally combative looking driver.

     My boys, plus Grunty, who had been playing French cricket in the
garden with them, took over.  They recognised that the two boys needed lads
of their own age to look after them.  Anne had seen the state the boys were
in.  They had been kept locked in a room in the flat and had been given
little to eat and hadn't washed or changed their clothes for three weeks.
The younger one must have had diarrhoea which hadn't been cleaned up and
was wrapped in a towel round his clothes.  Within minutes our two main
bathrooms were in use.  Anne directed Grunty and Francis to take the older
lad, still looking disoriented and very scared, into the first, where they
stripped him and put him in one bath, while James with young Stephen were
told to do the same to poor little Safar in the second one.  The filthy,
sweat and shit-stained clothes were bundled up and put out in the dustbin.
I scoured the boys' rooms and found sufficient clean things for the pair to
wear.

     I carried a clean and clinging Safar downstairs and he sat and held
onto me as I held a big bowl of porridge which Anne had hurriedly prepared.
He was starving and kept looking up at me with his sorrowful brown eyes as
I spooned the food into him.  Francis and Grunty had an equally hungry
Khaled sitting between them hungrily wolfing more steaming porridge into
him.  I motioned to James to take over and Stephen and Safar held hands as
James helped Safar to eat.

     I went into the drawing-room where Lachs and Miles with their two
henchmen were eating bacon and eggs and drinking mugs of tea and looking
very angry but also relieved.  Lachs said he and the others had had little
sleep for two days as they had to check out the flat first to see the boys
were not harmed.  Then at six o'clock this morning they had stormed in.
The two men had cowered on the floor and confessed they were all part of
the plot, including the murder which had gone wrong as the intended victim
was Sayed's eldest brother, in line for the kingdom.  The actual
perpetrator was a cousin who had designs for himself.  Another car-load of
SAS had taken the men and the women to the airport and they were on their
way back to the country.

     I said the boys were obviously very frightened and they could stay as
long as they liked, my boys and Lachs' Stephen, now my son also, would help
them get over any trauma.  Lachs looked even more relieved and Miles said
he would contact his brother-in-law, Ludo Wilkinson, and let him know what
was happening but everything had to be kept under wraps as it was not
something they wanted the press to get to know about.  There were too many
dissident groups anyway in London and the less they knew the better.

     I went back to the kitchen and found two much more relaxed boys, still
holding on to my boys, but telling them some things that had happened.  I
had noticed while Khaled was in the bath and Grunty was soaping his back,
that he had red weals across his back and buttocks and that Safar had some
thinner but still angry-looking marks on his back as well.  I nodded to
Francis to come into the corridor and asked him to find out how Khaled had
got the red marks.  I went back to Lachs and the others and said I'd
noticed earlier that I thought Khaled, at least, had been beaten.  Should I
get the college doctor to have a look at them in case they were injured in
any way?  I said Doctor Powell could be trusted and they readily agreed.

     I 'phoned Dr Powell and he said he would come immediately and just as
I put the 'phone down it rang.  I picked it up and it was Sayed.  He was
very calm but I could hear from the way he spoke that he was very, very,
enraged.  I assured him the boys were all right.  My boys were looking
after them and they could stay with us as long as was necessary.  I assured
him we would keep them safe and sound.  He just said 'I knew you would'.  I
asked him if he wanted to speak to them.  I went in and told them their
father was on the 'phone.  I picked up Khaled first and took him to my
study and he talked to his father in Arabic.  He turned to me when he had
finished and said, in perfect English, "My father says you are my father
now until we can be together again."  He smiled, reminding me of those
happier days with his father and that smile of his.  I bent down and kissed
his forehead.
  I spoke to Sayed again and said I would fetch his other son.  Khaled
walked back and sat between Grunty and Francis again while I picked up
Safar, telling him his father was on the telephone.  Stephen and James
followed us and, again, there was a conversation in Arabic.  As I took the
'phone back from him James asked if he might say something.  I handed him
the 'phone.

     "I'm James," he said, very matter-of-factly, "We will look after your
sons as if they were our brothers, Sir.  Please don't be worried they will
be safe with us."

     There were a few moments of talk from the other end.

     "Yes, Sir," said James, "My father has told me of you and I am sorry
your sons have to meet us in these circumstances.  Don't worry, Sir, we
will see they are OK."

     I was very proud of my own son, eleven and showing such understanding.

     I took the 'phone from him.  "Jacko," said a now less-anxious voice,
"Your son sounds just like you.  I shall be eternally grateful to you all.
I will 'phone tomorrow if I may."

     The line clicked off.  I went back to the assembled soldiery and
reported.  By half past twelve they had gone.  Dr Powell had been and said
the boys just needed feeding to which there were nods from both.  They were
unthawing.  He told me and Lachs, who he had seen before at a meal at our
house, that, in his opinion, both boys had signs of being beaten.  Lachs
told him, in confidence, who they were and he whistled.  He said he would
write a report and let me have it.

     Anne conjured up lunch and the pair vied with the other four to see
who could eat the most I thought.  I had noted before they were unthawing.
By the middle of the afternoon they were all in the garden chatting away as
if they had known each other for a lifetime.  Lachs 'phoned to see how
things were going and I was able to say 'tickety-boo' which was a code word
from our boyhood days.  He said he wondered how they would be that night
but I said the boys would deal with that, remember the doodle-bugs?  He
laughed and said he did and we would win through again, he was sure.

     Later, Francis said Khaled told them evil men had hit them with a belt
and a thin cane so they would cry when their father was telephoned.
Francis then asked if Grunty could stay the night and his parents agreed.
I had to tell Dr and Mrs Gibson a bit of the tale and both being medics
understood about secrecy.  Tiger was away at Scout camp and they said he
would be miffed having missed all the excitement especially with the black
car and the SAS men.

     I think the first part of the night was restless for both sets of
boys.
  Francis and Grunty had Khaled in between them in the bottom bunk where
James normally slept.  He and Stephen were with Safar in Stephen's room and
bed.  I couldn't sleep and listened out as I heard both boys cry out with
the others soothing them before there was silence and we all slept.  In the
morning I woke early and put on a dressing-gown and went silently first to
Francis's room.  Three dark heads were close together on the pillows of the
fairly narrow bed.  It was a good job two, at least were small and wiry.
All three were sleeping soundly.  Khaled was between the other two with
Francis facing him and Grunty spooned up behind him, their arms
protectively around him.  As it was August and hot none had pyjamas on and
were covered only in a sheet.

     The same scenario was re-enacted in Stephen's room.  The tiny,
black-haired, dark- visaged, Safar was clinging onto my blond son with
James close up behind him an arm round both.  In both rooms they now looked
so peaceful and I hoped the boys would be able to get over any fears they
might have.  It seemed they were recovering quickly.  That afternoon, the
four decided to take them on the Cam, punting.  Lucius was roped in as the
punter.  Anne and I took the car down to the Grantchester meadows with a
picnic and two, now happier kids, enjoyed a perfect English summer's
afternoon outing.  There were no cries that night, nor for the rest of the
three weeks they stayed with us.

     It was decided, rather than going to a boarding school, that they
should live with the Wilkinsons at their house about a quarter of a mile
from us.  Ludo, like many of the dons, had married another.  It was an odd
match intellectually, he a clergyman and the Anglo- Saxon expert, she a
physicist and mathematician working on the marvels of the cosmos.  Two
delightful, but childless, people who relished the thought of having the
two boys with them.  They were enrolled at the same school as Francis and
Grunty and his brother and, although apprehensive in some ways, were
looking forward to being with their new friends.  Both were still quite
short but they took especially to Grunty and his brother Tiger who were
also short for their ages.  Tiger took them under his wing from the start
because as soon as he came home from camp he had them running all over the
field at the back of the houses showing them how to kick a rugger ball and
how to tackle.  I was surrogate father and they both wondered when they
would see their father, Sayed, again.  He was very busy in his own country
as a high-ranking officer in the Army and wasn't able to leave.  He kept in
touch by letter and by 'phone and we read those treasured letters together
and composed letters back to him recounting their experiences.

     There was nothing in the newspapers about their ordeal and everything
was kept very quiet.  Lachs and Miles were constant visitors until we knew
there would be no repercussions over here as at the end of August the Prime
Minister of Jordan was assassinated and there were more scares in the area.
However, it was many months later when Flea was staying with us that I
heard a bit more of what happened next.

     A friend of Flea's was training pilots for the country and told Flea
of something which had occurred and had been discussed in the Mess.  Of
course, the pilot trainer didn't know the full story but he'd heard that a
plane had touched down at the airport in great secrecy and the next morning
five bodies were found in a Mercedes out on a desert road.  One was a
cousin of the ruler and four were his friends and accomplices.  Only one
was still alive and he too died soon after being found from loss of blood.
The cousin had four penises dangling from his mouth.  The four others had
his bollocks and cut in half penis shared between them plus the balls of
their mates stuffed in their mouths.  Flea's friend said as soon as the
last one died the whole lot were set on fire in the car which exploded
within minutes.

     Flea knew that Lachs had some knowledge but all he would say was that
two of the men were those who had kidnapped Sayed's sons and he had no idea
what happened to the two women.

                    7.  July 1962

     Anne was grinning as she came into my study one night having checked
on the boys in their bedrooms.

     "Jacko, the time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things!"
she recited.

     Oh.  When Anne was in a quoting mood something was up.

     "Can't be cabbages and kings, I suppose," I countered.

     "No, she said, it's our eldest." she said, laughing.

     "What's he done now?"  I asked, dreading the worse.  After the
incident where he lost a tooth after a perilous manoeuvre on his newly
acquired roller-skates, the other where two panes of glass were
mysteriously shattered in next door's greenhouse and then the bungled
attempt to produce a firework last Guy Fawkes Day to demonstrate to Khaled,
Safar and Stephen his advanced chemical knowledge but which made rather a
mess of my old gardening jacket hanging in the shed, I was prepared for
anything.  Anything?

     Anne sat on the chair by the side of the desk and leaned her elbows on
it.

     "It's not so much what he's done, but what he's doing."

     I raised my eyebrows.  I think I knew - but.....

     "No, I don't mean he's doing it continuously.  Just time to time."
She stopped, giggled and looked me straight in the eye.  "Your eldest is
indulging in boyish habits.  That's what Bridget said about Mike."

     Boyish habits!  Oh, crumbs, I was right about my thoughts.  My eldest
son was masturbating.  I calculated rapidly.  Thirteen years and ten
months.  Yeah, I nodded inwardly...., ....about the same age as his father!

     "And how do you know about boyish habits," I said, laughing.

     "I've told you all that before, remember?  Bridget explained all about
Mikey and what boys did and my dear sister Maureen used to creep along to
his room at night and listen at the door.  She used to come back and report
on the level of his moaning."

     Yes, she had told me, and I had thought back at the time of the noise
Mike and I had made up at the range, plus all the noises I and my other
friends had made, many, many times.

     "But did you know what he was actually doing?" I asked, an image of
Mike's long, slim cock being expertly manipulated sprung immediately into
my mind.  And that little imp Maureen listening in at the door of the Snake
Pit!  I bet Mike never knew.

     "Not until Bridget's friend Ida told her what she saw her young
brother Eugene doing."

     "And what you've helped me do on occasion!" I said, thinking of others
who had been seen in various situations, alone or in concert with others,
like me seeing Tony being fucked vigorously and soundly by Big Jim.  I
remembered Eugene Flaherty!  A pal of Mike's and one of the team in that
photo which Maureen had copied individuals from.  So, sister Ida had caught
him wanking, eh!

     She grinned.  "You've told me all boys are the same so I'm not
surprised about the next generation."

     She said she had been alerted by two towels going missing and finding
them tucked under Francis's mattress.  She knew my tale about my youthful
trusty towel and had put two and two together.  Then last night, while I
was out late at the Bursar's bash, she had heard James ask Francis what he
was doing and he had been told to shut up.  So, father had to have the
birds and bees talk with his loving son.  When?  Easy.  Friday night James
was going to stay overnight with his pal Ferdy as they had a Scouting
Exhibition on Midsummer Common on Saturday.  Stephen would be in bed and
asleep, I hoped.

     Friday night came and dad was in charge.  Francis had been out most of
the day cycling with Grunty and Khaled.  After supper Anne said she must
get some work done on a paper so two sons and I were left alone.  After
they'd watched a bit of television and I had, at last, completed the Times
crossword, I told Francis that as soon as Stephen had finished in the
bathroom it would be time to get his hot, sweaty body into the bath and
make himself sweet and clean.  He wrinkled his nose at me as I disappeared
upstairs with young Stephen who demanded I inspected his latest project
with his toy theatre.

     I watched as Stephen undressed and sluiced himself in the sink
standing on the small stool.  After he'd dried off I said as it was hot he
need only wear pyjama trousers.  I combed his hair and we went along to his
bedroom where I inspected the scenery he had finished making for his latest
epic drama.  He said Safar had promised to come round tomorrow to help.  I
tucked him up in bed and kissed his forehead and watched as he snuggled
down and fell, almost immediately, asleep.  Oh, I thought, to be seven,
without a care in the world.  But next things next.

     Well, well, unusual for once, Francis wasn't going to need a second
call.  As I was with Stephen I had heard the bath fill and the usual
splashing.  I went along to my study but as I passed the bathroom, called
out that I hoped he was actually in the bath and the towels had better be
properly wet when he finished and if he didn't watch out I would be in to
check!  The only response I got was even louder splashing.  He vacated the
bathroom some time after that and I heard him padding along, barefoot, to
the room he normally shared with James.

     I gave him a couple of minutes then went along.  The door was half
open and I could see him through the gap looking at himself in the wardrobe
mirror.  He was in the nude.  I hadn't seen him like this for about a year.
He'd decided at the age of twelve he didn't want to be supervised at
bath-time.  Now he was a developing adolescent.  His dainty three inch cock
bent over and down and his still small balls were beginning to sag in their
sac.  Quite different from the snail and peanuts of a year before.  As
befitted a Thomson with black hair, the trim bush he had above his cock
looked quite luxurious.  I watched as he lifted his arms and inspected
underneath.  At the distance I was away I couldn't see anything.  If father
to son inheritance was anything then he was probably bare there at the
moment.  Inspection over he slipped on just his pyjama trousers and climbed
up to the upper bunk.  He was almost there when I entered the room and
closed the door quietly behind me.  He wasn't startled.  I even wondered if
he'd known I'd been watching.  I sat on James' bottom bunk and put out a
hand and grabbed his leg.

     "Francis," I said, "Come down here and sit.  I want to have a talk
with you."

     He came down immediately and sat about a foot and a half along the bed
from me.  There was a rather peculiar look on his face.  A sort of
questioning look, but also knowing at the same time.  Oh well.  To start.

     "I think it's about time to tell you some things," I began.

     He smiled.  "I think I know what about," he said, "It's sex and things
and what boys do and about girls, isn't it?"  Francis had never been
backward in coming forward with questions or statements and always said
things with confidence.

     I grinned at him.  The wind, as usual, quite out of my sails.

     "Oh," I said, "And where do you think I should start?"

     "I do know about growing up," he said carefully.  "We've had puberty
in Biology at school."

     I knew from the school curriculum that some Sex Instruction was on the
timetable.

     "Mr Jensen said we weren't to worry about changes we noticed in our
bodies," he continued, quite matter-of-factly.  "And he said we all
developed at different rates, some quicker than others and we weren't to
take the mickey if someone was different."  He looked at me.  "Like Alan
Barton who's over fourteen and hasn't got any hair yet, or Dan Stewart
who's got lots and he's only thirteen and a bit.  I think I'm OK for my
age, Grunty says I am."

     Oh God, here am I supposed to be the fount of wisdom and son Francis
is way ahead.

     "And what has Grunty told you?" I asked.  Grunty Gibson, the pal he'd
been out cycling with today, our next door neighbour, the squat, open-faced
lad with the broadest, lop- sided smile I'd ever seen.  They'd been pals
ever since we'd moved into the house and I knew Francis was in safe hands
as he'd shown so well when we had our first encounter with Khaled and
Safar.

     "He says all boys go through stages.  His dad gave him a book on
adolescent development and we've read through it.  According to that I'm
well-developed for my age."

     Professor Gibson as he was now, was becoming a world-renowned
paediatrician, forever circling the globe expounding his wisdom.  Whatever
information he had given his son must be first class.  I looked quizzically
at Francis.  He reddened slightly.

     "It's alright dad, we only measured each other and I'm at the
ninetieth percentile for my age."  He looked at me and grinned.  "Grunty's
only at the fortieth for his age.  He's three months older than me, 'cause
he's fourteen already - and he's not too pleased!"

     "And what measurements?" I asked.

     My son was becoming much more relaxed.  He pointed down.

     "You know, there!" he said quietly, but confidently.  "Grunty said
trust me to beat him!"

     I laughed.  A true Thomson, I hoped, black-haired and big-dicked.

     "So do you want to ask me anything?"

     He thought for a moment.  "Should I tell James anything?"

     I suppose twelve-year-old, almost thirteen James was on the cusp of
change.  I had seen the beginnings of a few wisps of almost blond hair
above the still snail-like appendage when I had seen him undress in the
bathroom a couple of weeks ago.  He was not at all perturbed at having Dad
see him.  In fact, as I wore nothing in bed all three had seen me naked
many times but Francis, for some reason, had requested privacy at bath
time.

     "What would you say?"  I asked.  "Your Mum did hear you tell him to
shut up the other night."

     He reddened a bit again.

     I continued.  "I suppose you were doing what all boys do?"  His eyes
drooped and I thought he was going to cry.  "It's OK, Francis, all boys do
it.  And at least you do use a towel."  His head snapped up and he looked
at me wide-eyed.  I smiled.  "Your mum found the towels.  At your age I
made quite a mess and your grandma asked grandpa to talk to me."  He now
stared open-mouthed at me.  "I said my friend Matt..."  His eyes opened
even wider.  "...had told me what his father had told him."  I paused.
"That night someone put a towel on my bedside chair."

     "Uncle Matt," he breathed.  "He told you?"  I nodded.  "And you'd made
a mess?"  I nodded again.  He grinned.  Father son confidences, barriers
down.  "Tiger told Grunty before it happened to him and then he showed him
'cause he asked him what he was doing, too!"

       I pictured Tiger, Grunty's idolised elder brother.  In fact,
idolised by all mine and any other kids who knew him, I was sure.  I'd
watched him grow up as well, squat, with his broken-nose and his lop-sided
grin he certainly lived up to the name and the tenacious nature of the
beast as a sixteen-year-old very keen rugger player, especially in the
colourful striped school shirt.  The boys had a very valuable and, no
doubt, competent mentor.

     "Showed him?" I asked.

     Francis was now in full flow.  "Yeah, Grunty said he asked Tiger what
he was doing one night when they had to share a bedroom on holiday so he
just sat with him and then he showed him.  Tiger said a picture's worth a
thousand words."  He sniggered.  "Grunty says that Tiger's the biggest
wanker in the world!"

     He clapped his hand to his mouth and looked woebegone.

     "Oh, I shouldn't have said that!"

     "I've heard that word before," I said.

     "No," said a rather contrite son, "Telling you tales about Tiger."

     I put a hand out and stroked his arm.  "I've been told all big
brothers are the biggest wankers in the world.  So watch it."

     We both burst out laughing.

     Francis was eager to tell me about his idol.  "Tiger's great so Grunty
says, he tells him everything he wants to know.  Tiger wants to be a doctor
like his dad and he wants to specialise in adolescent development 'cause he
says boys aren't told enough.
  Grunty says he talks to all the boys at school and he's got all those
graphs on the walls of his room...."  Francis grinned.  "....He's got all
his friends to measure and he's keeping records for them."

     So Cleggy and Nobbo weren't the only schoolboy seekers after
scientific information and truth!

     "Grunty says Tiger knows as much as his dad about things like that and
they often have arguments.  Grunty says he wants to be a doctor too."
Francis looked serious.  "Do you think I could be, as well."

     I leaned over and took my son in my arms.  He was relaxed now and
smiled up at me.

     "You can be whatever you want to be," I said.  "Whatever you want, and
whatever you do, we'll be here."

     I squeezed him tight and ruffled his hair.  I was also aware that as I
held him his young penis was getting hard and was pressing against me.  I
kissed his forehead.

     "I love you very much, Francis, always remember that, for ever and
ever.  You talk to James when you and he are ready.  Tell him the truth and
tell him I asked you to.  Tell him I'm always here to listen to him as
well.  Now, it's time to settle down, but first...."  I put my finger
across his lips and smiled down at him.  He smiled back, knowing I knew
what would come first!

     I closed the door and went downstairs to Anne's study.  She looked up
as I knocked first then went in.  I smiled at her and nodded.  She knew,
too.

                              *
     That wasn't the only time I learned of the wisdom of Grunty and his
brother Tiger.  At the beginning of the next term I was in the garden
making a mental note of what to get the gardener to do as Pa had visited
and left me a list of improvements as he called them.  Francis came across
from where he'd been knocking a tennis ball back and forth against the
garden wall.

     "Dad, I've got something to tell you."

     Since my almost abortive attempt to give my son the complete facts of
life according to Jacko Thomson MA PhD L es L LRAM and found he had quite
an extensive knowledge gleaned from school and friends I'd had one other
chat.  This was a couple of weeks after that when he cornered me, as today,
in the garden and informed me quite bluntly that his next youngest brother
now knew what happened to boys and was well aware of what boys could and
did do.  Hands on experience no doubt!

     I knew James had been talked to.  For several days he had eyed me
quizzically and had at last broken the silence by saying, once more in the
garden, he was growing up as he had hair growing round his thing just like
his brother and Francis had told him all about it and would I tell him what
a minge was as he didn't think his brother would know?  Wow!  I asked him
if he knew the difference between boys and girls.  He nodded.  I said some
people used that as a rude name for what girls had.  "The hole?" he
queried.  I nodded.  He nodded sagely and that was that.

     Today Francis had something to tell me.  I turned to him and we went
over and sat on the garden seat.

     "Dad," he said very importantly, "One of the boys at school said
Stephen was a poof because he'd seen him going to ballet lessons with Lisa
and Caroline and Grunty told his brother.  Tiger got the lad and told him
what people did and what they were was no business of his and said if he
heard him saying things like that about people he'd be in trouble.  Dad,
what did the boy mean?"

     Oh here goes!  I said people often thought men or boys who liked
dancing, especially ballet, were strange but it wasn't always true.  There
were plenty of strange people about anyway and I said I agreed with Tiger.
People were who they were and what they did was their own business and no
one else's.  If Stephen wanted to become a dancer, or be an actor, that was
his choice, just as he'd said to me he might want to be a doctor.  I said
that some men only liked other men and that was their business as well.  I
said he knew Uncle Tony had boyfriends, he was always quite open about it
and we all accepted it.  Francis nodded, Uncle Tony was a favourite uncle
and had recently come back from America for a short stay before returning
and he always came around with most interesting people.  Always young,
always men, but who cared!  I said that rude, uncouth people would call him
a 'poof' but what Uncle Tony did was his choice.

     "Would you mind if Stephen was a 'poof'?" he asked.

     I said I didn't like the word and anyway I thought most men in some
way liked other men.  We all had good friends and sometimes that friendship
was very close.  I said that if any of my sons decided they liked men
better than women I would accept it as being their choice and I would love
them just as I loved Uncle Tony.  I thought it wise at the moment not to
mention Uncle Matt, nor Jem and Sam who lived together in such
respectability!

     Something else for a growing boy to digest.  I wondered how far his
friendship with Grunty had developed?  Had they got to the joint
exploration of boyish passions?  I knew he was very friendly too with a
couple of his form-mates, Chris Wyles and Charlie Desmond, who were often
closeted in his room with him, supposedly doing homework and there was Alan
Barton who followed him around with a smile on his face.  I hoped that he
would try whatever fell his way.  I knew my greatest friendships were
forged through those extreme moments of highest shared bliss.  I couldn't
imagine life without Tom, Matt, Tony, Mike, Lachs or my dear, dear, Flea.
Each of us had shared ourselves completely and utterly with the other.  Our
strength and determinations in life had somehow been shaped by being able
to give ourselves completely in trust to another during our most formative
years.  I hoped my sons would enjoy such heights of friendship, too.

     One little outcome of my eldest son's, no doubt, nightly passion, was
that James asked if he might move in with Stephen so if Grunty or Alan or
anyone else wanted to stay they could have the bottom bunk.  I forbore from
asking the obvious, "Too noisy and keeps you awake?"  Stephen said he
didn't mind as he could always ask James difficult questions when he
thought of them and that was usually when he was in bed.  'Difficult
questions'?  I had three very serious sons.  Actually, at Francis's
request, the bunk bed was put into James and Stephen's room as it was quite
big and would be useful for their visitors, and a second double bed was
purchased which went into Francis's 'new' room.

     In fact, Stephen was now into ballet in a very serious way.  As his
seventh birthday present in April we had a barre and mirror installed on
one wall of his room.  Every day before school and after school he
practised his latest accomplishment and James helped him as well now.
Lucius was also teaching him the flute so the peace of most afternoons was
shattered by ardent practice by the three of them, clarinet, trumpet and
flute.  As Khaled and Safar were also constant visitors they were being
shown how to play as well.

     James and Khaled were especially close with a growing friendship too
between Safar and the younger Stephen.  I found the first friendship to be
cemented when James told me, confidentially, at Christmas that Khaled could
do what Francis was doing and he was hoping he could start soon.  Oh, so
Khaled, thirteen in January, was well ahead and from what I gleaned had
been talked to by Francis at the behest of James who, somehow, I suppose on
one of the frequent sleepovers, had discovered Khaled's 'talent'.  Oh,
James, your turn will come, that word!, very soon, I was sure.

                         8.  1964 -1965

     At the beginning of 1964 my Granddad Thomson, now very aged, died in
his bed in the house in Chester and then at the end of September, his wife,
my lovely Grandma, Honor Thomson, passed away peacefully too.  I went alone
to Granddad's funeral as the weather was bad and it took ages for the
trains to traverse the country.  It would have been worse if I had driven.

     After the second funeral to which I had taken Francis and James, with
the permission of the school to miss a non-vital Friday according to the
boys, I was chatting to Aunt Della.  All the talk was the impending General
Election and Uncle Edward had decided not to stand again.  He was certain
there would be a change of government anyway and he felt it was time for
someone younger to take over the constituency which he had made a
reasonably safe seat.  He was truly a Knight of the Shires as the
newspapers dubbed the clutch of long-time Tory knights in Parliament.

     I asked her what on earth would he do?  He was on Committee This and
Committee That and was always being interviewed for his views, usually
forthright, which explained why he'd never been asked to be a Minister but
had stayed, where he preferred, on the backbenches.  She whispered,
confidentially, that Edward had been asked if he would take a seat in the
Lords and asked, with that twinkle, would she then be Lady Lady like some
of those German professors who were Dr Dr?  Andrew's mum was just as
irrepressible as her loved son.  I said there were plenty of double doctors
and even a triple doctor in the college and I was sure she could call
herself whatever she wanted as long as she put one of the Ladyships in
front of her name on her next book!  She said 'never', as she and my mother
vied with each other over their combined secrecy.  She said she'd just read
a review of Ma's 'The Paddington Triangle' where it was asserted that J T
Fountain was most certainly the most celebrated male detective novelist and
the recent repeat of the television series showed 'his' mastery of the
genre.  As the 'triangle' was the description of the mark carved on the
back of the victims I just wondered where Ma got her bloodthirsty ideas.

     I did say I had found a well-thumbed copy of her own previous
bodice-ripper in James' and Stephen's room and I said I dreaded to think
what ideas some of the bedroom scenes gave impressionable young boys.  She
laughed and said as long as it increased sales she was happy.  I was then
cross-questioned about my own next effort which was going to have certain
passages from 'Therese', 'Brother Bugger' and 'L'Audace' carefully inserted
within the context of their so-called 'philosophical' content.  I said that
Kanga was sure this would be OK and was a test to see if we could go
forward with a complete translation of 'L'Audace', because if 'Lady
Chatterley's Lover' was now accepted perhaps an even more audacious book
might get through in a year or two.  She said 'Best of luck!'.  I thought
to myself the motto for the book should be 'Best of fuck!'

     Just before Christmas we had a visit from a recently retired Commander
Matthew Ward with his companion, also retired, Commander James Morris, as
they were off to the South of France in January to start their new life
together running a yacht-hire business.  I don't think the boys, especially
the elder two, were at all concerned that they shared a room and the bed.
It was very interesting watching how they treated each other so naturally
and no one would ever guess they were lovers.  Matt told me he was happy
having someone he could truly love and cherish and I reminded him he'd been
my mentor and friend and I truly loved him as well.  He smiled and said he
would never forget that I had made him so much more confident and he was
sure he would never have achieved all he had if it hadn't been for that
Fourth Year classroom seating arrangement.

      James was also very cheerful and was certainly the anchor for Matt.
The boys took to him immediately and were fascinated by his sea-salt tales.
I had the impression that if he'd stayed longer there would have been two
future Naval Cadets in the offing!

     Christmas brought both Lachs and Flea and the boys nearly went mad as
Flea was his usual ebullient self.  My lads were now sixteen and fifteen.
Francis was just on six foot and James wasn't far behind.  Young Stephen
was ten coming up to eleven and was four feet ten.  Of course, the elder
ones were now much taller than both 'Uncles', Flea and Lachs, and everyone
teased each other mercilessly.  On Christmas Day we had a huge feast with
all of us, Ma and Pa, the four Gibsons, the Wilkinsons, Khaled and Safar,
plus our cooks, Jem and Sam and Luscious Lucius who forsook his own family
to be with us, at least for lunch.  Twenty in all!  I know as I had to
dragoon the boys and Lachs and Flea to peel all the veggies on Christmas
Eve while I checked that the turkeys, yes, turkeys, were stuffed and
trussed ready for the oven. {One to be cooked next door!} The whole tribe
of us had attended the Nine Lessons and Carols in King's on Christmas Eve
as I had managed to get enough tickets.  There were drinks and eats that
night before we went to bed.  Ouch! We were awakened Christmas morning by a
trio of clarinet, flute and trumpet playing 'Christians Awake' in three
different keys.  I thought longingly of that Christmas Day when Richard
Wagner had assembled his orchestra and they played the 'Siegfried Idyll'
for Cosima, but that rendering by the boys set the tone for the day for us!

                         New Year 1965

     On the Monday after Boxing Day two car loads set off for Ulvescott
where we had been invited to stay for the New Year celebrations.  The boys
other grandparents were so pleased to see them but one thing was missing.
There was no dog to welcome us.  After Finbar had succumbed to some kidney
malady and Lord Harford had given up breeding wolfhounds it had been
decided not to have another dog.  I found it to be very sad as I missed
that welcome and that companionship very much.  However, some things didn't
change.  My three shared the bed in Piers' room while Safar and Khaled were
in the Horsebox and Grunty and Tiger were in the African room.  It was odd
going into Piers' room on New Year's Day morning realising that seventeen
years ago my eldest son had been conceived there that day, which now seemed
so long ago.  My three sons were fast asleep snuggled together, the two
older ones with young Stephen so protectively between them.  I thought of
the times I'd had in the same room with Stephen's own father and how, I
knew, that Piers was looking kindly on all of us.  The birthmark which
bound my strand to his and to Daniel and to his own third son born in
August.  Young Pierre Armand, so the recent Christmas card said, had the
family birthmark on his right thigh!

     We had a wonderful time.  The seven boys revelled in the spaciousness
of the place and for the umpteenth time I had to go through the photographs
and explain the family connections.  Safar asked if he could come to stay
again and I said I knew he would always be welcome.  "The boy said so,
too," he replied.


To be Continued:................