Daft as a brush.
In the part of Scotland I come from that’s how we describe someone like my mother.
She was somewhat unpredictable.
Slightly off the wall.
Or, as my daughter says about me, a bit random.
I guess the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Let me make it clear that none of these are insults.
On the contrary, they’re usually said with a smile, with affection, and even, sometimes, with a little envy.
She was a free spirit, with many wonderful and endearing qualities.
Budget management was not one of them.
Which caused me, at around 14 years of age, a problem.
Which, in turn, taught me something about my mother.
We were back in Scotland, and I was attending my sixth school in eight or nine years.
This was a side effect of my father's work.
He was a Scot and so, of course, an engineer.
He built, repaired and maintained looms in carpet factories.
My latest school, The Academy, as it was called, was a traditional establishment.
School uniform, including a maroon blazer, was compulsory.
In my first year or so there I had been suitably attired.
However, over the long summer break, I had performed one of those miracles of growth that is every mother's nightmare, and the livelihood of children's outfitters across the world.
My mother gazed in dismay at my elongated frame with its ridiculous limbs.
‘You'll need a new blazer,’ she observed sagely, measuring last year's tiny garment against me.
I knew from her tone that there was a problem.
Although we were certainly not wealthy, our family wasn’t poor.
At least I never thought of us that way.
My older brother and I had been working, semi-legally, for some time, delivering morning and evening newspapers, milk and traditional Scottish bread rolls.
Additionally, over the summer, we did a variety jobs in hotels and the local holiday camp.
All income was handed over to my mother in its entirety, and we received pocket money in return.
But, as previously noted, fiscal reliability was not her strong suit.
And somehow it all disappeared.
‘I'll sort something out,’ she promised.
Well, "something" turned out to be a too big, too loud, second-hand sports jacket of dubious origin.
I remember my disbelief, and her shrug.
Morning assembly, which preceded classes, was a ghastly affair.
Five hundred maroon blazers and one gaudy, slightly worn, checked jacket.
‘Show-off’,
‘Dickhead’,
‘Can’t afford...’,
‘Lowlife’,
‘Embarrassment’,
and a million other comments.
Each prefaced, inevitably, with the ubiquitous Anglo-Saxon adjective.
I didn’t react at all, wouldn’t give them the pleasure.
I took a deep breath, and squared my shoulders, in a futile attempt to fill the jacket.
There was significant jostling and much muttering as we moved through the corridors.
The teacher in my first class asked if I thought I was funny.
I said nothing.
I was despatched to the Rector's office.
He asked if I had a problem.
I said nothing.
He was a fair man.
And he liked me.
Because I had lived in South Africa I was regarded as a star rugby player.
‘Be properly dressed tomorrow,’ he advised.
The following day he frowned.
‘What are you doing,’ he asked.
I said nothing.
‘You know the rules,’ he said, ‘I have to punish you. I can send you home, or I can give you the belt.’
I held out my hands.
The belt, or tawse, was standard punishment in Scottish schools back then, so it was no novelty for me.
It was a leather strap, applied vigorously to the pupil's palms.
He gave me only two strokes, and a note for my mother, which I threw away.
The following day I got four strokes, and on Thursday six, the legal maximum.
He asked what my mother had said.
I said nothing.
He shook his head, told me I was suspended from rugby until I conformed.
To his credit, he didn’t belt me again, but ensured that I was put in daily detention, and had the usual privileges, like freedom, removed.
Other teachers found their own reasons to punish me, but that was probably just the nature of the beast.
I don’t know how long it was before my mother spoke to me.
‘Are you in trouble at school,’ she asked.
‘Not really.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘No more than usual,’ I replied, with a somewhat forced laugh.
She looked at me for a while, then nodded.
The following morning she asked why I wasn't taking my rugby kit.
I mumbled some excuse.
‘Don't be silly,’ she said, ‘You love rugby. Take your stuff.’
That afternoon, with no explanation, I was told I was no longer suspended.
I played my first game in what felt like an eternity.
The jacket, which I wore for an entire year, was never again mentioned.
Not by any teacher, and not by my mother.
And me?
I said nothing.
But I loved my mother.