2. Life's Ironies

Have you realised, as I have, that one of life’s cruellest ironies is that good things happen to you, or you learn something new, too late in life for it to have any real, long-term benefit? 

When I was seventeen, I would have given anything to have been able to fart at will.  I had mastered the art of swallowing enough air to let out a really good resounding belch but the fruity fart eluded me.  My school friends could all seem to do it, but I couldn’t. 

While in the sixth form at school, I went with thirteen other students on a geology field trip to the Isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland.  There were two male members of staff who led nine boys and five girls, and we stayed in Youth Hostels.  That wouldn’t be allowed today as a female teacher would have to be present.

The boys and the two teachers shared a dormitory with bunk beds.  The five girls had a room to themselves. I’ve no idea what they got up to in there.  

We spent all day walking up and down high hills. (When does a high hill become a low mountain?) and admiring and sketching sills, dykes and memorably, Hutton’s Unconformity.  I’ll tell you what that is later.

The evenings were spent with lectures and background reading.  It was certainly not a holiday and we were all in bed by ten o’clock, tired and exhausted.  There was no light pollution on Arran and so the nights were pitch black and the darkness in our dormitory was so impenetrable as to be solid.  

One night, ten minutes after we had all gone to bed, somebody farted.  Someone else giggled.  A minute later came another fart from a different part of the room and this one was of Olympic qualifying standard.  It came ripping and roaring around the dorm and I swear that it echoed.  We all giggled.  

From then on, the farts came thick and fast.  It was impossible to tell who was doing what but the only thing that I knew for certain was that none of them was mine.

Eventually, the trip leader, Kenny Gardner, the teacher of Advanced Level geology, said, “OK, that’s enough. Will you stop now please?” and they all did, just like that.  

“Right,” I thought, “Here’s my chance.  They’ve all stopped but I’ll start.”  

I tried and tried but it was completely beyond me.  I finally gave up when I realised that I was much more likely to crap myself than ever produce a fart.

Nowadays, I can fart whenever I want to but at my age, the opportunities for ‘show farting’ are non-existent.  Involuntarily farting is a different matter.  

Anyway, Hutton’s Unconformity is a classic, world-famous geological feature.  People who care, come from all over the world to see it, study it, sketch and photograph it.  Even after all these years, I can still remember it vividly.  We had heard all about it the night before and it lived up to all our expectations.  

We walked everywhere on Arran and by the time we got to the site, it was lunchtime.  Mr Gardner gave us a very brief introduction and then we sat on the surrounding rocks to eat our Youth Hostel-provided, packed lunch.  Lunch was brief as we still had a lot to see and of course, a lot of walking to do. 

“Five minutes,” shouted Kenny, as he walked off somewhere.  "Be ready in five minutes."

We got out our sketchbooks, notebooks, pens and pencils, and sat in a group in front of Hutton’s Unconformity ready to take notes.  

We already knew that it marked a division between rocks of two different geological eras hundreds of millions of years apart. The older rocks dip at an angle of about 50°.  Above them are rocks that are almost horizontal.  The two rock groups contain completely different fossils and the feature proves that the lower rocks are older and experienced aeons of earth movement before the other rocks were deposited on top and must therefore be younger.  

Hutton, for the first time, cited it as evidence that the age of the Earth could be based on scientific data and not upon evidence from the Bible.  Study of the Bible, by Archbishop Ussher, put the date of the creation of the Earth on October 23, 4004 BC, so that now in 2010, it is 6014 years old.  

The exposure stretches for about 400 yards along the coastline.

When Kenny came back it was obvious that he was seething with anger. He was almost shaking with fury.

“Who did it?” he screamed. “Who did it?  We aren’t leaving here until someone owns up.  I mean it.  We’ll stay the night out here in the open if necessary.  Who was it?  Who did it?  Who has vandalised this site?”

I was certain that he thought that it was me because he kept looking my way.  However, as I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, I couldn’t really own up to anything.  I really would have confessed to absolutely anything because after sitting on a bleak beach in northwest Scotland for an hour and a half in March, we were all getting very cold.

There was an impasse.  After another half an hour of sitting in silence on jagged rocks, giving each other questioning looks, we were all shivering and very uncomfortable.  One of the girls was whimpering.  Then, the other teacher, David Thurgur, went over to Kenny and whispered something in his ear. 

“Let’s go,” said Kenny immediately and off we went.  Off to look at another bloody dyke and believe me, when you’ve seen one dyke on Arran, you’ve seen all the dykes on Arran.  

Later, as we walked between sites, my mate Nick, told me that he knew what had happened:  

During lunch, he had needed a poo and had gone about 80 yards away to some bushes.  While there, he saw Mr Thurgur approach the rock face with his geological hammer and carefully and painstakingly carve “LCGS  1964” into the exposure.  (Lowestoft County Grammar School 1964).  

Nick said it was a really nice job and looked great.  I wonder if it is still there.  It should be.  

The matter of the desecration of the historic site was never mentioned to us again but I wonder if the two teachers ever spoke to each other again.

Another thing I learnt to do much too late for it to have any lasting benefit, was to play an on-drive along the ground.  I could always clout or slog the ball over midwicket but it is a shot fraught with risk and often ends up as a catch and therefore the end of your innings.  

Suddenly, during the cricket season of 1995 when I was 48, I found that I could hit the ball just as hard, in the same direction but along the ground and therefore with absolutely no risk of getting out.  I have no idea what I was doing differently but whatever it was , it worked.  If I had discovered how to do that 35 years earlier, I would have certainly been a better player than I ever was.

Last week, when I had to go into a bank in George Town, Grand Cayman, something else happened that never happened to me when I was 20.  I went to customer services and was greeted by a really beautiful young Caymanian woman in her mid-twenties who wore a name badge - Sandra.  She was delightful and I was captivated.  

I sat opposite her in a booth and ogled.   I'd had to go to the bank because a standing order that I had set up a few weeks ago was not being paid and I had to sort it out.   
A minute into proceedings Sandra looked over my shoulder, waved and said, “Hiya girl, like the shirt.”  I turned around to see another beautiful girl walking past wearing a bright red blouse.

“Do you like my shirt?” I asked. 

She stared at my grey, drab T-shirt.  “It’s a bit dull but I suppose that it suits someone of your age.”

What a fantastic put-down.  “Thanks,” I said.

She needed to know my account number at the other organisation that was to receive my monthly payments but I didn’t have it.  I sat in front of Sandra and rang them on my cell but they refused to give out any details over the phone.  I was told that I would have to go in.

“Walk there.  It’s good for you,” said Sandra. “Exercise is good for you.  You’ll lose weight too.”

“Do I look fat?  I’m not walking.  It’s half a mile away and it’s 95 out there and I’ve got a bad knee.  Besides all that, I’ve got an exercise bike at home and I use that every day and please don’t give me that look, because I do.  Do I look as though I need to lose weight?  Do I look fat?”

“Well, you’ve got a bit of a tummy.  Do you drink?”

“Of course.”

“I mean alcohol.”

“No”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

“Never?”

“Not for three years.”

“Do you regularly get out of breath?”

“Yes, I do sometimes.”

“Sometimes isn’t regularly.  Do you eat a lot of cookies and candy?”

“No, I don’t but I do have a lot of sex,” I said, getting a little irritated by now with the cross examination. 

Sandra said nothing.  Her face was expressionless as she looked down at her desk and shuffled her papers around.  

“Oh no,” I thought. “You’ve done it now, you pillock.  You’re in Cayman, not in London. She’s a nice, unmarried 25-year-old Caymanian girl.  She almost certainly goes to church twice on Sundays.  You idiot.  You total, stupid idiot.  She won’t think that was funny.  She’ll probably report you for sexual harassment.”

I stood up to leave.  Sandra looked up at me.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “it could work.”

“What?”

“What you said you do a lot of.  If you did it really energetically, you’d lose weight.”

“No, I wouldn't.  It's not like England here.  It's much too hot to do anything energetically in Cayman."

Then I suddenly had a thought.  Was she flirting with me?  I looked at her again and she smiled her delightful, captivating smile.  I think she was.

And that’s something else that never happened forty years ago!