In honour of both Father’s day and my parents’ sticking at “it” for 36 years, or as my mother calls it “two life sentences”, my brother and I decided that we could all manage an evening’s entertainment.
A big lover of fairground bingo, we wandered into the Mecca bingo hall in Bolton. With bingo being a great leveller, we were all excited and hopeful that the stars may shine in the Saunders household that night.
The only thing ultimately twinkling was my eyes to see if they could still see as Mark and I had to play twice as many games, those of my Dad, who could not keep up with the bingo caller. My brother and I were stamping and dabbing and blotting out numbers so fast, we could have got a job in the Post Office.
When she was not expressing her disbelief at the £19 entrance fee, the £1 charge for pens, the cigarette smoke, my mum had a great time and my dad did what he does best…. sit there. The General Manager told them off for asking too many questions, scolded me and my bro for tearing my Dad’s game into two manageable parts (“we can’t pay out if you rip the books!!!”) and then uttered his shock that we were able to cope with 12 games every 3 seconds. Call me Lewis Hamilton now. My parents left with no cash prizes but they were elated. As for me, my pupils were dilated. They had seen so many coloured balls, symbols and numbers, they could crack the bloody Da Vinci Code.
I woke up this morning with solutions to algebra problems I was set 20 years ago. I think the movies were invented for families like us.
And that is where we will stick.
