I was recently asked to write about what I would do if I was given £10 to spend on anything I wanted.
This was my reply...
I will be spending my £10 on tin peaches...
When I was a small child I was never allowed tin peaches. My mother’s penetratingly shrill response to my countless requests was always - “Tin peaches are special and for guests”.
Guests! Who invites people over to their home and serves them tin peaches? No one. That’s not normal. But I didn’t know that then. Subsequently the following 15 years of never being offered tin peaches when visiting friends felt like a perpetual personal rejection. It seemed I wasn’t a special enough guest to be offered tin peaches.
Days, months, years went by and still no one even discussed the possibility of popping a few tin peaches in a bowl for me. This offensive snubbing lay the foundations to my disproportionate lack in confidence, self-doubt and a shit load of stealing. Not one tinned peach had entered my mouth at home or away.
By the time I reached the crushing age of 14 my self-esteem was too low to make the right choices so when Michael Bell urged me to take off my top and show him my boobs, I did. There I sat, on my birthday, on my bed, wearing my half birthday suit, as topless as a page three girl but without the looks or the boobs, (size 26A, cotton wool buds would have sufficiently covered and supported those little grapes). To add to the humiliation he kind of tapped one boob a bit and then just stared at them in silence. For a while I think he expected them to speak to him. Well none of us had anything to say. It was a silent, haunting and chilly experience.
Now as a fully grown adult, I know that no one, thank god, will ever offer me tin peaches when I’m a guest in their home, because that’s not normal, and I can have tin peaches whenever I want because I’m normal. Neither do I take off my top and show my boobs to anyone, because… no one ever asks.
So spending £10 on tin peaches should keep me stocked up nicely for the time being.
This was my reply...
I will be spending my £10 on tin peaches...
When I was a small child I was never allowed tin peaches. My mother’s penetratingly shrill response to my countless requests was always - “Tin peaches are special and for guests”.
Guests! Who invites people over to their home and serves them tin peaches? No one. That’s not normal. But I didn’t know that then. Subsequently the following 15 years of never being offered tin peaches when visiting friends felt like a perpetual personal rejection. It seemed I wasn’t a special enough guest to be offered tin peaches.
Days, months, years went by and still no one even discussed the possibility of popping a few tin peaches in a bowl for me. This offensive snubbing lay the foundations to my disproportionate lack in confidence, self-doubt and a shit load of stealing. Not one tinned peach had entered my mouth at home or away.
By the time I reached the crushing age of 14 my self-esteem was too low to make the right choices so when Michael Bell urged me to take off my top and show him my boobs, I did. There I sat, on my birthday, on my bed, wearing my half birthday suit, as topless as a page three girl but without the looks or the boobs, (size 26A, cotton wool buds would have sufficiently covered and supported those little grapes). To add to the humiliation he kind of tapped one boob a bit and then just stared at them in silence. For a while I think he expected them to speak to him. Well none of us had anything to say. It was a silent, haunting and chilly experience.
Now as a fully grown adult, I know that no one, thank god, will ever offer me tin peaches when I’m a guest in their home, because that’s not normal, and I can have tin peaches whenever I want because I’m normal. Neither do I take off my top and show my boobs to anyone, because… no one ever asks.
So spending £10 on tin peaches should keep me stocked up nicely for the time being.