Thursday 10 June 2010

Heartening Catholic Anecdotes #4

In a pre Sacred Heart post we return to the hot hot summer of 1976, my first at school.

It was so hot that when we visited my cousins' new house which had a permanent paddling pool in the back garden, I was told by one of them (probably a mighty 7 years old) that the Prime Minister had said that they could not fill it with water. Thus I understood just how powerful he was that he could reach into their back garden.

Anyway, at playtime all the infants would queue for the drinking fountain, like the playground was just one queue (how British!) No other games. When it was your turn someone would thump you on the back to the count of 10 and that was yer lot. These were the dark ages of leaking Tupperware beakers and Ribena in glass bottles, so you didn't bring a drink with you to school.

Into this desert came Fr Koch with his car boot full of ice lollies. Imagine. 350 in one car! The excitement. Fr Koch, it would be fair to say, was a little off putting for the small child, though clearly understood child psychology very well, because I never forgot when the Feast of the Sacred Heart was.

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