Guilt is a Negative Emotion and Other Chants

As a child, I used to spend a lot of time staring out of the window. This more closely resembled fun when it was raining, and I could watch the drops zig zagging their way down the window pane. Life became massively more exciting with the new television that arrived in the house one day. It was black and white, and had cupboard like doors to open with an intriguing black sun shade contraption that fitted across the top of the them. Trying to make out what the picture was was challenging. This big contraption was soon replaced with a portable model, with little knobs with numbers on, 625 and 475 . You could change between the two (yes, two) channels by clicking the knob. There was a bit of a palava over where to put the aerial, and one person quite often had to stand holding it in different attitudes while the other person dictated where the picture quality was best. Frustratingly, this always seemed to be when the other person (usually me) was behind the set and standing on tip toe holding the aerial high above their head. Not a brilliant viewing situation. Later on, we were one of the first families in the road to get colour TV. We had a Sony Triniton and had to chant, 'Such clear definition! Such wonderful colour!' each time we turned it on to keep my father happy. Chanting was quite a common occurance in my family. There was a very expensive tea service kept in the spooky 'window' cupboard upstairs which was used on Saturday mornings. When we got it out, we sang a fanfare, 'The paragon! The Paragon!'. Other chants were the ones to make sure we stirred our father's tea well enough; three renditions of, 'Nothing but the best is good enough for Daddy Gnome' (I'll come on to the bit about the Gnomes in later posts). Then there was, 'Guilt is a negative emotion' and 'Money spent on female education is money down the drain'. This sat badly with the chants that came out when school reports were brought home, 'Roedean and Girton!', 'Chemistry, Physics, Pure and Applied!' leaving a female of the species Gnome somewhat confused about parental ambitions. This was further compounded by the fact that marrying money was seen as the required thing to do. When I had a small motorbike my father actually seriously suggested I drive into the next Rolls Royce I see, whereupon the guilt laden (although it is a negative emotion) driver would visit me in hospital, fall in love and marry me, ensuring a healthy bank balance for all eternity. I actually fell off my motorbike on a roundabout and was nearly squashed by a juggernaut. I don't think this quite matched my father's ambitions.