“Naughty boy,” I said. “You shouldn’t steal sandwiches.”
“But I don’t like the cake,” said Pepe the poodle.
So I duly flew through the open window and looked down on my Mum’s house.
Yes…that really happened, but only in my dream, of course.
Dreams are powerful and fascinating, are they not? What prompted me to dream of my childhood home that I moved out of in 1981, and our pet dog who had died in around 1968? And Mum’s all-the-fashion-then hostess trolley…why on Earth should I dream about that when I’ve not given it a thought for 35 years?
I do have a recurring dream, which is far more understandable, though. During my broadcasting career I was never late for a news bulletin or start of a programme (there were some pretty close calls, but I always made it, even if there were only seconds to spare).
But to this day…almost 30 years since I traded in my microphone for the writer’s pen…I still often dream that I feel like I’m wading through molasses, desperately trying to get to the studio, even though I’m two minutes late.
And the presenter, bless him, carries on playing a record until I finally make it to the hot seat. Then he cues me in; I look down at my script, and what pages aren’t blank are complete gobbledeygook!
However, even that can’t really compare to the real-life nightmare I once had during my time in radio. I was due to read the 11 a.m. news bulletin and had stopped off in the little boys’ room en-route to the studio. So there I stood, the bulletin just two minutes away, with my script firmly gripped between my teeth.
That is, until a colleague walked up next to me and said: “Hi Stewart.” Unthinking, I said: “Hi Denis.”
At which juncture, gravity took charge, depositing my script with unerring accuracy straight into the soaking urinal.