Rescue Me

Last night, my brother sent me a text message: GU24 8AT. Google Earth. He's a chap of little conversation (having spent far too many years in Yorkshire).

If you care to look it up - and I cannot see why you would and not just take my word for it - you'll see the very large roof of a very large house and some trees. But what you won't see is an extravagant horse chestnut close to the front of the house.

You won't see it because when I was twelve years old, I got stuck in that tree - my knee firmly wedged in the forked trunk - and the Fire Brigade had to cut the tree down in order to rescue me.

(I am turning into my grandmother who, whenever she saw piles of bricks where a row of mean terraced houses had been demolished, would exclaim,"Look at those houses! They've gone!")

My mother had thrown warm soapy water over me - well, it helps dislodge tight rings from swollen fingers, so why not a girl from a tree? - and a drunken baronet (cashiered from the Royal Naval Pay Corps) had come too close for comfort with a chain saw. Meanwhile, I had lost all feeling in my feet and my brother (who had far too much to say in those days) was running round in circles chanting "I told her not to climb it, Mum, I told her not to climb it, Mum!"

I didn't like the house at GU24 8UT. We rented a flat there and were a family oddly at sea, scattered over three floors. My books from that time have a plaintive message scrawled inside the cover: Moptop, 1978, living in a house that I HATE. (Doubtless, I left them on my mother's pillow, bookmarked in case she missed the point.)

Having been forced to trip merrily down Memory Lane by a text message, I started thinking about all the times I've been rescued. (I shan't list them all; you'll only worry.)

And then I realised that I haven't been rescued in ages.

So I'm thinking of sitting in an airport lounge and getting repatriated somewhere. A Government Official could carry my hand luggage onto the coach - it'll be a photo opportunity. In fact, he could carry me onto the coach. That's bound to be worth a constituency or two. I'm talented at looking exhausted. If I pop a pair of the Small Boy's socks in my pocket I'll pass the she-hasn't-washed-in-days test and my hair is naturally unkempt.

I could pretend to be Welsh. Anyone can speak Welsh. Cobble a handful of consonants together and make throat-clearing noises - you'll easily pass as a Child of the Valleys. And then I'll get repatriated to the Welsh-speaking region of Patagonia. (From where I'll pretend to be English and get rescued again.)

But even if I just get carried onto a bus - and immediately frog-marched off it again - well, that little rescue will be enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndO80eh9YwI