They started me in Bubs, as the kindergarten grade was called. They sat me and the other bubs on the floor with a board and pencil both made of slate and told us to draw. The spine tingling squeal that arose might well have reflected our torturous efforts.
“No, no, Zed,” the teacher said. “Put it in your other hand.”
“No, in your other hand, I said.”
“Oh Margaret, this one is left-handed.”
“Come on, Zed. Try harder. If you can do it in your left hand you can do it in your right.”
“He does seem to be a lot better with his left...”
“Well, now’s the time to fix that, isn’t it.”
“Before it gets out of hand, so to speak.”
“This is no time for jokes, Katrina.”
I knew all about gibberish too. On radio I loved The Goon Show most—it might have been because everyone else in the family hated them. The truth was that I could hardly understand anything they said, but I found the silly voices endlessly hilarious. Bluebottle and Eccles. I’ve no idea whether the jokes were funny but the gibberish was wonderful. Conversely, the common circumstances of radio listening for the family was everyone else telling me to shut up, or stop whatever noisy thing I was doing. The Goons provided the exception, even if the true nature of their humour lay far beyond my comprehension.