The other day I sent Bill's imagination into overdrive by hinting about the time my grandmother lost her underwear in Tunisia; of all places. It wasn't
quite the adventure he's been hoping to hear about, but here goes.
1981. My first time abroad; a week in Tunisia with various assorted tribal members, including Nan.
Now, Nan was a Londoner. Not a Cockney it's true, but the next best thing; an Eastender. It's difficult to convey the way she spoke with that rough, tough accent, but I'll do me best!
Nan was born in 1908, left school at thirteen or fourteen and went into "service", that is; working for the idle rich, or the "nobs" in the Big House.(Oops! My left wing innate rebellious peasant tendencies are coming out)
She then married and went to live in the country, bringing up five children on a pittance during the War, coping with rationing, working in the nurseries to produce food for the War Effort, and keeping rabbits and chickens to supplement the food supply. She liked playing cards, draughts and bingo, and loved a good night out.
How the family persuaded her to go to somewhere like Tunisia, which to her must have seemed like another planet, I'll never know. She would greet us every day with "Is it gonna rain jew fink?"
So there we were in a hotel in Tunisia.
The women of the party shared a large family room, where everyone used to gather.
Like most holidaymakers, we had rigged up a washing line on the balcony, upon which we hung our smalls, or in Nan's case, our not-so-smalls. She is probably looking down at me now, aghast at me telling you this story.
One morning we were all gathered together, when a voice called out from the balcony:
" ' Ere! Anyone seen mah knickahs?"
" Your knickers, Nan?"
" Mah noo knickahs. Yer seen 'em?"
"No. Where were they?"
" On the washin line. They've gorn!"
" What do you mean, gone?"
" I pu' me noo knickahs aht 'ere last nigh',and now they've gorn. Someone's 'ad 'em orf the line!"
Cue hysterical laughter from the rest of the party.
"Let's have a look then Nan."
Sure enough, everyone else's smalls were still in place, but hers, it seemed, had gorn.
"Are you SURE you put them there Nan?"
" Course I'm sure!"
" Well, they must have fallen off the balcony and blown away."
"No they ain't! I've bin 'angin' washin' aht fer years and I never lost nuffin. Noo they were and now some dirty old Arab's 'alf inched 'em".( For the benefit of Bill and co. "half -inched" is rhyming slang for "pinched", meaning stolen)
" Ssssh Nan!"
" Why would anyone pinch them Nan?"
" Some dirty old man wanted them".
"What for? His camel?"
"Or maybe as a parachute."
By this time she was purple with rage and the rest of us were crying with laughter and clutching our aching sides.
"Hang on a minute. We're four floors up. How could anyone get onto the balcony?"
"Especially with a camel."
"Someone broke in din they?"
" Nan, why would they take your knickers and nothing else? You either lost them or they blew away."
"NO! Someone took 'em! My noo knickahs!"
We searched the room, the balcony, the garden below, and even the beach, but we never found those knickers. She continued to insist they had been "'alf-inched"
for the rest of the week.
Three years later Nan was gone, and I like to think of those voluminous undergarments flapping around the North African desert somewhere as a kind of memorial to her. Noo they were.
Oh, and young Bill also made a reference to being whisked away by sheiks.
Well, ahem, whilst in Tunisia I received a proposal of marriage from a man who said he owned twenty camels; which I take to have been a sign of wealth.
I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had said yes....
By the way we have to stop all this hugging as I seem to have caught your cold 
.
We eventually came to the conclusion that it must have been nicked.
