Six or seven going on a hundred: to help you avoid making similar mistakes

Now I am six, and will be so for ever and ever[1], it is time for me to write my autobiography – hopefully for your amusement. I only want to say one thing before I start: at school we have already learnt the importance of research for our writing and citing the results of this. Therefore, I have begun as I mean to go on in life.

My life got off to a slow start. All I wanted to do was sleep, but my persistent parents pursued a policy of purposeful prodding and poking to waken me up to feed. I suppose it’s just as well they did really, otherwise I might have faded away. I would have melted into the wallpaper that fills my bedroom with Paddington Bear[2] motifs. My Papa takes every opportunity to tell me that Paddington is his favourite character, and he bought me my first book of Paddington’s adventures before I was even born.

Moving on swiftly, all this encouragement to eat turned food into one of my favourite fancies, and by the time I reached the ripe old age of nine months, I was a sturdy girl, full of pep and vigour. I was ready for increased mobility! When I was born, a gypsy had predicted that I would be in permanent motion, so now was the time for me to get going. I had already tried sliding off the sofa, but this was not well received by the grown-ups. I could envisage crawling, but my mind boggled at the idea of walking, and shied away from the process. There are so many stages to come to grips with. I could already see that at the least I would have to pull myself up to a standing position, lift my heavy legs one after the other, and advance them little by little. And to what purpose? Crawling is faster, more accurate, and I have been told that it puts less strain on the hips.

I progressed steadily in my development over the following five years, covering all the standard ground, despite often being a reluctant achiever. However, by bypassing all this somewhat boring phase, in the end we once again reach the day I was six. I may be as clever as clever, but I certainly do some pretty silly things sometimes. For example, my Maman made me a dress for my birthday. It was a beautiful sunshine colour, deep and rich like the yellow of an egg yolk. When I tried it on for my last fitting, I smoothed the material out, revelling in the touch and smell that were inimitable indications of crisp, new cotton. But, when I looked down to follow with my eyes the path my fingers were taking, I could see many little tufts of black threads spoiling my beautiful new dress. It looked as though a huge, horrible spider had walked across it, leaving traces of its web behind. I shuddered, and carefully removed all traces of the Arachnida, returning my dress to its pristine state. However, when my Maman picked up the dress, she was not best pleased.

“Where have the tacks to place the pockets gone?” She queried.

I hung my head in shame. I had to admit that it was me and my over-active imagination that had been busy at work.

“Well,” she said. “I’m not doing them again. No pockets for you, young lady.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Where would I place my handkerchief? In the end it didn’t matter overmuch, my dress was just as beautiful as I could imagine, and my cardigan pocket would serve to hold indispensable items.

Now I am Six, and supposedly as clever as clever, I seem to go instead from silliness to silliness. The worst of my antics was the day I decided to see what it would feel like to be bound up in a strait jacket. When we were leaving school at the end of one wet, dreary afternoon, I persuaded Jennifer to zip up my strong, pale blue, Danish, raincoat back-to-front. My arms were pinioned on the inside, down the length of my body. What a recipe for disaster! I managed to cross the road on the sharp bend with no mishaps, even though that particular corner scared us lots. We always took a deep breath, closed our eyes, and ran across the road as fast as we could, hoping for the best.

However, today just as we reached the sweetie shop on the other side, the heavens opened. I have always wondered what that phrase means, and what it has to do with rain. I imagine all the Angels being let out to play, but how should that affect us? As usual I am bemused and befuddled by the power of language.

There were three of us walking up to the next village that afternoon, Jennifer, Mark, and me. We sloped into the shop, having tuppence to spend, through the generosity of Mark’s grown-up cousin who had come to visit.

“Here you are young Mark,” he had said. “I remember being your age, and never having enough money in my pocket.” Indeed, having money to spend on sweeties was most unusual for us, so we took our time choosing, unable to solve the final selection between tart lemon drops and succulent gooseberry eyes. As it was Mark’s money he had the last word, but we were more than happy to act as his advisors. In the end, he settled for lemon drops, mainly because they were smaller, so the sharing power was greater… we live a closely-knit life that reminds me sometimes of the Three Musketeers[3].

Unfortunately, we had to leave the shelter of the sweetie shop in the end, but we came out with our cheeks already happily bulging with the ecstasy of a lemon drop. Our policy was to suck at sweets for as long as possible, until there was nothing left of them. We were extremely careful not to spoil the game by biting downwards.

How lucky we were. But no, mustn't forget the weather, which was appalling. If anything, the rain was coming down even more heavily than when we had entered the sweet-filled haven. Some people sing in the rain[4], but us, we sprint. We claim that we can dodge raindrops, so have no need of an umbrella, a dangerous device in our opinion that looks as though it is designed to poke eyes out. Apart from the umbrella question, I don’t know why we run as fast as we can. The wet, slippery pavement is positively dangerous. Our pride in our running capabilities will come before a fall one day.

My fall had a high chance of being a literal one that day, as I was still ensconced in my pseudo-strait jacket don’t forget. Thus, I had no lateral appendages to supply me with stability, and there was no way I could put out my hands to save myself and protect my most fragile parts in case of a fall. Inevitably, the fall happened. The front of my head connected with the ground first and hard, and it was as though I had landed on the spokes of an umbrella myself. I slid a great length, faster and faster as though I lay on a sledge. I finally wound down, halted by the wall at the bottom of the hill. My appearance shocked my friends. Blood and gore were mixing with the raindrops that I could no longer avoid, and running under my coat collar to ruin my beautiful sunshine dress. There were also red streaks all down the outside of my coat. My Maman was definitely not going to be happy with me this time. It was perhaps the moment to stop running, stop playing the clown, and consider entering the sober world of the serious grown-ups.

So instead of being six now for ever and ever, I’ll move on to seven, and linger there longer, having the answer since I’m an author.

[1] Adapted from A.A. Milne, Now We Are Six

[2] Created by Michael Bond, and first appeared in October 1958

[3] “all for one and one for all”. Novel by Alexandre Dumas, first published in 1844.

[4] Singin’ in the rain. A 1952 American musical-comedy film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds.