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CYC-Online
4 MAY 1999
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CHILDREN

Little lies

Harry Secombe

Harry Secombe, the popular singer and Goon Show comedian, reflects on children and learning about truth.

Court Usher: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
Seagoon: “Yes."
Usher: “You're going to be in a right mess then, mate."

This little extract from a Spike Milligan Goon Show script seems to sum up rather succinctly the prevalent attitude towards honesty. We live in the age of the half truth, the slightly bent statistic and the party manifesto, which is a combination of the other two. One can only write honestly about honesty where it applies to oneself and one's relations with others; so, on the somewhat overworked premise that the child is father of the man, let us look into some of my own youthful encounters with the truth. It's not a pretty sight, I warn you.

When I was a lad I was an avid reader of Arthur Mee's Children's Newspaper and True Confessions. The first was ordered for us by our parents – and the second was read secretly when they were out. One was full of tales of honour and Empire and biographies of people like Philip Sydney and Edith Cavell, and the other told of dishonour and seduction, never explicit but hinted at by delicious dots. I must admit that I found the exploits of Mrs. X of Trenton, New Jersey far more exciting than the tribulations of St. Francis of Assisi, who must have spent too much time trying to get the bird lime off his habit to have naughty dishonest thoughts.

However, we were brought up in the belief that it was better to tell the truth and face the consequences than to tell a lie. As a choirboy, I remember sitting through a sermon on this theme, nodding sagely, my mind switching rapidly from thoughts of what was for lunch to agonised speculation on whether I should tell my mother about being caught playing doctors and nurses with Elsie Thomas by her elder sister who now showed signs of wishing to be examined herself. At twelve years of age I was too young to cope with a full surgery, and was avoiding both girls, who, to my mother's surprise, had taken to calling at our house and asking if I could come out to play. I was a junior Dr. Jekyll who was forced to hide. I was saved from a head-on confrontation with the truth by a fortuitous bout of yellow jaundice, during which I abandoned The Confessions and settled instead for a less heady diet of Film Fun and The Magnet. Just after my illness the Thomas sisters discovered an embryonic gynaecologist living in the next street, and I was spared their attentions.

Featured in The Magnet were my favourite characters, Bob Cherry and Harry Wharton, two school boys of immaculate character and impeccable honesty, and upon whom I began to model myself. I became an insufferable prig at home, telling the truth about everyone and everything until even my father, the mildest of men, was forced to comment. “If young George Washington doesn't stop his self-sacrificing, I'll sacrifice him myself," he said, waving the carving knife one Sunday lunchtime after I had pointed out that there was more meat on my plate than on my brother's – a most uncharacteristic gesture. Mind you, calling him 'Pater' didn't help father-son relations much.

This phase came to an abrupt conclusion after an incident in school. I happened to be in a classroom which was noted for its exuberance, and its rough handling of the unwary teacher. One particular afternoon we decided to play a prank – a word not indigenous to a Swansea Secondary School; indeed until I read The Magnet I thought it was Chinese for a piece of wood. The victim was the maths master, a bibulous gentleman who would come back from a liquid lunch, set us some work to do and promptly fall asleep with his mortar board over his face and his feet on the desk. On this day we waited impatiently for him to go to sleep. When he had done so we blew sneezing powder around the room, dropped two stink bombs, and, as a piéce de résistance placed a beautifully made imitation of a pile of dog droppings on his open book. Awakened by the sneezing and the smell, he took the mortar board from his face and prepared for battle. However, the sight of the mess on his book unhinged him and he fled the classroom whooping wildly.

Vengeance was swift, and soon the Headmaster faced a flushed, frightened form: “Come out the boys who did this ...' he hissed, glasses glinting. In true Harry Wharton style I stood up and went forward to the front of the class. “I dropped the stink bomb, sir ..." I said. “Of course," said the Headmaster enigmatically. “Anybody else?" I moved aside to make room for the others but nobody volunteered. Twice the head repeated his request, and still no one came forward. “Am I to believe that there is only one honest boy in the form?" I held my head high, as the rest of the boys shuffled their feet and whistled tunelessly. “All right," said the beak. “You're all on detention until further notice. You, Secombe, come with me." I left smugly, expecting a lecture and nothing more. When we got to his study the head turned on me in fury. “You're not honest, you're damned stupid," he said. “Bend over." It was then that I realised that the truth does indeed hurt. I received on my behind what he thought the class should have had, and with each stroke of the cane I cursed Harry Wharton and Bob Cherry and the whole editorial staff of The Magnet.

Afterwards I found it prudent to compromise by crossing my fingers either behind my back or in my pockets whenever I was forced to tell a lie. This led to complications later when I worked in an office where one of my duties was to make tea for the other employees. I provided the tea, sugar and milk and charged a penny a cup. There was one snag: the head of the department would insist on drinking only Typhoo Tea which was expensive and cut down the profit margin.

Eventually I hit on the idea of putting a cheaper blend into an empty Typhoo packet and spooning the tea from it into the pot whilst he watched. The first time I tried it, I brought the teacup and saucer over his desk on a little tray together with a packet of biscuits. He looked up from the huge ledger in which he was painstakingly writing in different inks all the month's output from the colliery. “Are you sure that's Typhoo tea?" he asked. “Yes," I said.

I don't know whether any readers have ever tried crossing their fingers whilst holding a full tea tray, but I can assure them that it is not possible. The resulting shambles would have had me fired had I not been called up that afternoon for service with the Territorial Army. I must have been one of the few people, apart from Mr. Krupps, who was glad when war broke out. I still cross my fingers when I go backstage after a not particularly successful first night, and I know I am going to have to be dishonest with fellow actors in order to bolster sagging egos; or when a customs official says “Anything to declare?" My own youthful struggle and eventual compromise with the truth is obviously compatible with most other people's. Which brings me to the inevitable conclusion that all world leaders and statesmen were young themselves once, and must have carried into adult life some childhood superstitions. When Chamberlain waved that piece of paper in the air after Munich, crying “Peace in our time" were his fingers crossed? Why did Napoleon always have one hand inside his jacket? Watch the next political broadcaster on television; if his hands drop out of sight when he's making a solemn promise to the electorate, don't believe him.

A thought has just struck me: if you can see that his fingers are at rest, he might be crossing his toes instead. I feel there's no hope for any of us.

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