Wanting to be a mermaid’s all a bit fishy!

Students of Katie Price’s numerous autobiographies will no doubt remember an explosive moment in her second volume, A Whole new World (2006).

It was Katie’s wedding day — her first — and somehow it had all gone wrong. Her wedding skirt had dug into her skin, leaving her ‘scratched and bruised’. Also, her corset top had been laced too tightly, causing her pain.

Her neck, too, ‘was really hurting from where I’d had to keep bending it, with the weight of the crown, to double kiss all my guests’.

Furthermore, two guests had collapsed on the dance floor, so a couple of ambulances had to be summoned.

she had also ‘hated every single minute’ of being photographed in her finery for OK! Magazine.

‘Feeling drained,’ Katie went and sat by her grandmother, who, sadly, was not in the best of moods. ‘she moaned to me, saying she was appalled about where she had been sitting.’

For Katie, this was the last straw: “thanks a lot, nan. now you’re ruining my day as well!” I said.’

Yet Katie’s nan should be remembered not only for her crotchety outburst. In her day, she had been almost as glamorous as her granddaughter.

In Being Jordan (2004), Katie revealed that in the Fifties her nan had worked on Hastings pier as a topless mermaid.

nan, it transpired had been hired to pose in a fishy tail behind two sheets of glass containing water and bubbles ‘with only her long red hair to preserve her modesty’.

Alas, nan was caught smoking. this destroyed the illusion of being underwater, so she was given her marching orders, if mermaids can be given marching orders.

I was reminded of Katie Price’s nan while reading reports that being a mermaid is the latest craze to sweep the world.

After a lull of 60- odd years, mermaids are back in fashion, with an International Mermaid swimming Instructors Association, a Merfolk Convention and an annual Miss Mermaid pageant. Both Bournemouth and Manchester have mermaid academies. Meanwhile, the Hirea-Mermaid agency has 20 semiprofessional mermaids on its books, ready to grace parties for a fee of up to £400. do they bring their own paddling pools, or do they simply sit in the kitchen sink? We are not told.

It’s all a far cry from super-Balls, Krazy Foam and Gonks, which were all the rage when I was a child. It’s hard to see why any of these crazes caught on, but harder still to fathom the attraction of mermaidism.

‘For me it’s the sense of freedom and escapism capturing that essence of magic,’ says Jessica Pennington, 27, who learned how to be a mermaid in Cornwall last year.

‘ You don’t have to face the stresses of everyday life while you’re part of the mer-world.’

But what could be more stressful than having to live as half-a-fish? And it’s not even the right half. Given the choice, I’d have a fish’s head and torso, and two human legs, but I concede this is a matter open to debate. Inevitably, there is already talk of a ‘ merfolk community’. For the time being, Jessica Pennington insists that it is ‘ one of the most loving and supporting communities I’ve ever come across’. But in no time the bossyboots will take over. no doubt there will soon be strident merfolk representatives sounding off on BBC Question time or flaunting their scales and complaining of backbiting on Celebrity Big Brother.

she doesn’t say what the merfolk do when they get together. I imagine they gather in shoals, look vacant and blow bubbles.

Let’s

hope they take care to avoid stray worms or brightly- coloured flies dangling from tell- tale pieces of string.

nor does she make it clear how long it takes to transition to full mermaid status.

Before you turn into a fullyfledged mermaid you presumably have to get the feel for life as a fish. this must involve spending hours hanging around in plastic bags at funfairs, or lying down in newspapers, soaked in vinegar and surrounded by chips.

What starts off as a dream turns swiftly to a nightmare.

Personally, I’d be horrified to notice that my wife had started growing scales and making sucky noises. small wonder that Katie Price’s nan was driven to cigarettes.

she’s better off out of it.