Oh my word!

L et me take you back almost half a century. It was harvest time, in the days when farm machinery turned out square bales of hay, not oversized toilet rolls. Farmers used to leave those bales in the fields for a couple of days, hoping the sun would dry them.

In other words, they created a playground containing a supply of large building blocks.

The only logical thing to do was build a fort, so my chums and I set to it. Those bales weren’t light. It was a lot of work, involving bale-carrying over long distances and a fairly competent grasp of basic architecture.

The end result was impressive. I think we should have been lauded for our hard graft, problem-solving, and teamwork. Although the subsequent re-enactment of the siege of the Alamo might have been open to criticism for having several people simultaneously playing the role of Davy Crockett. However, just as the Mexican army was being repulsed for the 17th time (having once again failed to notice they could have just walked in the gate as we had no way of constructing a door) a policeman appeared.

We had, it seemed, been breaking the law. I blame my mate Brian for his criminally unconvincing portrayal of Colonel Jim Bowie’s injured leg.

The constable took our names and wrote them into his notebook. As he went round the circle, we began giving not our own names, but those of other boys in our school. We thought this a hilarious wheeze. It went well (amid many a hidden smirk as we gave the names of class swots and teachers’ pets) until it was my chum Doug’s turn.

He brazenly said “Alan Macfadzean”. However, the constable then asked him to spell Macfadzean. To this day, Doug’s guilty, stuttering, red-faced attempts to spell that name remain one of the funniest things I have ever seen. At one point I think he had 11 vowels in it.

Names are troublesome. Almost any combination of letters is possible. I’ve spent my life explaining there is one N, not two, in the middle of my surname. I know a woman called Rebekah and a chap called Ruaraidh who have similar difficulties.

When you put a name into writing it is imperative to check the spelling. People become annoyed when you get their name wrong. Although not quite as annoyed as a policeman faced with a recalcitrant youth who appears to be unable to spell his own name.