I was paying up at the checkout in Shoprite when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder from behind and a hard voice whispered in my ear: ‘I am a police officer from Operation Yewtree sir and you are wanted for questioning about a number of serious offences of a sexual nature involving under-age girls. I advise you to come quietly sir.’
It turned out to be a jolly wheeze by an old friend with an unfortunate taste in practical jokes. But it made me think.
After a long working life in the news media, with a certain celebrity attached, there might well be things in my past in relation to under-age girls – and I found out, on reflection, that there were.
In the event the girls concerned were just as under-age as I was.
In the Isle of Man of my boyhood we used to form gangs and when I was 10 or 11 I wanted to get into the Little Switzerland Gang based on Queen’s Promenade in Douglas.
I, like other boys, had to pass an initiation test. This amounted to standing stoically for five minutes with a live crab newly plucked from a rock pool on the foreshore crawling about on top of my head.
The Little Switzerland Gang was also one of equal opportunity. Little girls could join. What they had to do was show us their knickers.
I should explain here that we didn’t know anything useful about sex apart from the fact that girls were different from boys and we reckoned that the contents of the knickers would be at the heart of the matter.
The girls agreed to do it for the most part, often revealing unappetising and impenetrable navy blue garments.
The best I can say about their contents is that the girls had a sort of flat arrangement.
But, this aside, I have to confess that there had been an incident of inappropriate behaviour with an under-age girl. Only she did it to me.
Joan B – I’m not protecting her identity as this is all I remember – was a wartime evacuee from London, a city sophisticate compared with the likes of us in the Isle of Man. She showed me her knickers on request and then said: ‘Now it’s my turn.’
She reached out a hand with purpose and accuracy.
I leapt out of the way just in time.
This, then, would be my statement to the officers of Operation Yewtree if they really do come to call for it.
This would at least confirm my claim to media celebrity.
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The police sent a media release to Manx Radio appealing for information about a theft which had been “premeditated as a posed to an impulsive act.”
Somebody will cop it for this.
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Bill Hatt tells me that Marks & Spencer have introduced a new promotional tin of biscuits with a map of Britain on the lid and all the offshore islands are there apart from the Isle of Man.
Clearly the biscuits will not be on sale in the Douglas store because M&S doesn’t think there is one.
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Karl Campbell’s last, for now, Manx crossword clue is: ‘Man, for example, lies around (4) – ISLE (Weekend West Australian).