Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

Just as well that Chris wasn’t destined to be a 19th century sailor…

Last weekend, we finally took my parents to see the Mary Rose. After nearly 500 years, we thought it was probably about time.

I’d been looking forward to seeing their faces on seeing that 1500s battleship restored in such breathtaking fashion, and they were predictably impressed… well, Mum was. Dad seemed more taken with a skull in a glass case. Strange chap, my dad.

After the Mary Rose and a cup of tea, my parents decided to use their all-attractions ticket to wander around HMS Victory, just across the road.

Now, whereas the Mary Rose is in a big, spacious, modern, safe environment (though not very safe for whoever’s skull was in that case), HMS Victory is most certainly not. In 2018, the Victory is almost exactly the way it was in 1805 – full of steep rope-ladder steps, slippery decks and very low beams in unexpected places.

On my own visit last year, I managed to smack my head six times in the space of 20 minutes, much to the enjoyment of my teenage daughter who unbeknown to me, after the first two strikes, started videoing me, knowing she was producing comedy gold for her friends.

How marvellous that she considered a tour around such an incredible piece of British history not nearly as important as filming a man repeatedly banging his head on the ceiling.

Anyway, my point is that, if I managed to do all that self damage, there was no saying what my dad could achieve. But, being tight-fisted, I didn’t have an all-attractions ticket and so wasn’t able to accompany them. All I could do was wave them off with a recommendation not to die.

Almost two hours later, I sat nursing a fifth cup of tea staring at HMS Victory and wondering if my parents were ever planning to come out. My wife and daughter had long since abandoned me for a shopping trip, so I decided to annoy my friend Mia (she of previous column notoriety) by texting my concerns to her. Under a photo of the Victory, I texted: Waiting for my parents to come out, or just as likely, an ambulance to go in.

Mia, clearly waiting expectantly for messages from me, replied three days later with the line Well! I’d had ag in or two, but when I first looked at that ship I thought you were collecting your parents off some cruise!

Some cruise, indeed. To Trafalgar and back, half the crew dead, and 212 years back in port. Actually, that sounds exactly like the sort of cruise my parents would have ended up on.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t still waiting at the Victory when Mia’s reply arrived, though it felt like it. When they finally came out, Dad was in considerably better shape than I’d been. I’d clearly underestimated him.

“That was amazing!” he said. “Going by the mess it looked on the outside, you wouldn’t believe the Mary Rose looks like that inside!”

No. No, you wouldn’t…