If I Ruled the World...

I still call these ‘hyacinths’. (Kidding…)

Talking of the first day of spring — the year I was seven, in late October (bear with me, I know what I’m doing here…I think…) Miss Postlethwaite gave each of her Holy Trinity students a daffodil bulb to overwinter. She asked us to bring the plants back into school on the first day of spring.

I carefully slid my bulb in its faux terracotta pot to the back of the three-corner cupboard in the sitting room.

Beneath the square of carpet where the cupboard stood, I had over time hidden certain LPs belonging to my father; thus putting an end to being made to sit with my parents and brother plus various Lillians, Connies and Brendas (house guests) to listen to Max Boyce Live at Treorchy, Christmas with Pinkie and Perky and Decca Records Country Greats Volume 6. (My father sings on that Decca recording.)

I hated those LPs.

I watered the bulb as instructed. And was mortified when, by Miss Postlethwaite's first day of spring deadline, there were still no flowers, no stem, no nothing.

Shame…

My father drove me to school (illegally: he had no licence) via the Lambeth Walk market to buy me a replacement.

My mother phoned the school to tell on us. ‘Whatever daffodil Iestyn shows you this morning will be an imposter. He overwatered the one you gave him and killed it.’

I know, right..?

Not to mention, the market was out of daffodils, so my father sent me into school with a hyacinth.

Luckily (or so we hope) on this the first day of spring (2025 vintage) out of the bus window I saw a hare running.

Things can only get better, right...?

#childhood #memoir #school #spring #firstdayofspring #humor #humour

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