In my last true story I described how as a 12 year old boy I used to try on and wear for a whole day my father’s spare high astigmatism glasses, and the huge buzz it gave me. I did this every Saturday on and off for about 5 years when I would be left alone in the house while my parents ran their business in town. It was my guilty secret, and my guilty pleasure, and I knew it was wrong and damaging, but I just couldn’t stop it as the positives completely overwhelmed the negatives. My mother had high hyperopia all of her life, which got so bad in her later life that she just couldn’t read without a large magnifier reading lens which she kept round her neck. She had old pairs of glasses lying around the house, and it was on one Saturday that I decided to try wearing a pair.
The difference to my father’s astigmatic glasses was phenomenal. The whole world was rushing up at me, and as I turned my head it passed at amazing speed and rushed off the ends of the lenses at amazing speed. That’s what it seemed like anyway. I could still see distances reasonably clearly, but the big difference to me was that I could see everything close up absolutely crystal clear, and almost twice as large as life. I couldn’t believe it. I grabbed a newspaper and read the lovely large clear letters. After the initial shock I decided on a plan. I searched in my room for a book which was one of my favourites. People used to buy me “Rupert the Bear” annuals every year, and all I would ever do was look at the pictures. I always found it too difficult and tedious to try to read the text, and the best I ever did was to read the little two-line couplets that accompanied each picture. Now I sat down for the whole afternoon and read all of the text in the 1958 Rupert the Bear Annual. Over the coming weeks, months, and dare I say it, years, I became an avid reader at home on a Saturday, and read all of the books I had received as presents and neglected. “Black Beauty”, “Alice in Wonderland”, Kidnapped", and many many more. It was strangely comforting to be wearing my mother’s glasses, and even more strange and weirdly exciting to be wearing a woman’s glasses. I was beginning to understand the feelings it was giving me.
Of course, by now I had realised that I really should have had glasses of my own - I was definitely hyperopic. I started junior high school that year, and the school nurse gave me a note for my parents to take me to the optician. Although I would have loved to have glasses of my own, I just couldn’t go through with it for reasons I will explain. I made sure the note was eaten by a fictitious dog on the way home! It was the same dog that sometimes ate my homework! Now, let me explain the “no glasses” decision. My junior high school was a jungle, and the occupants were wild animals. If you are familiar with the Beano comic, the school was based on the Bash Street School from the comic, and my fellow pupils were a hundred times worse. Glasses for a boy were a complete no-no. Bullying was rife, and any little perceived weakness was pounced on and used to make your life absolute hell! Girls, on the other hand, got away with it. I will always remember a full-time glasses wearer there called Laura, and she was my goddess! When it became apparent that I was the new number one victim for bullying, she walked me home, held my hand and said she would protect me. Can you imagine that? A beautiful girl with glasses protecting me? LOL big time! That was a non-starter, but God, she was nice! Then a strange chain of events took place.
After the initial months of bullying, mainly just because I had slightly bandy legs (any weakness picked on!), I discovered quite by chance that I could make people laugh. I won’t go into details, but it happened one day after school in the boys toilets when we used to have belching contests and get marked on a scale of one to ten. I had been practicing for some time at home to be able to talk like Donald Duck, and I had it almost to perfection. I tried it out that day, and the result was unbelievable. All of the big butch bullies were in a helpless state of laughter. They all wanted the show to continue for another hour, but a teacher came along and put an end to that. Another story! However, my status had by now dramatically improved. I was in demand!
I worked on re-inventing myself as the popular comedian, and after a year or two I had added quite a few voices to my repertoire, but Donald Duck and Popeye were my best. I would often walk home from school with Laura and try them out on her. In all honesty, I just wanted to be with a girl with glasses. We always passed a wooded area on the way home, and one day she asked me to come into the woods with her. I had no idea what this was all about, so I said OK. We walked through the woods until we were well out of sight of the road. We came to a fallen tree, and she sat down and patted the tree beside her for me to sit there. By now she was filling out into becoming a very beautiful desirable girl, and she suited her glasses so well. Then she did something that completely dumfounded me. She went into her schoolbag and took out a pack of cigarettes. I frowned at her, disappointed, and said “Oh Laura, you don’t smoke, do you?” Immediately I knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She frowned back, with a “little girl hurt” look, and said “I’ve just started to try it and I like it. I don’t want to smoke in here on my own and I hoped you would join me,” and then she offered me one from the pack. I said no, and she insisted, pleading. I said “OK. I’ll try one, but on one condition.” “What’s that?” she said. “That you let me try your glasses on.” As soon as I’d said it, I couldn’t believe myself! What a stupid thing to say. She said “OK. It’s a deal.” She took a cigarette from the pack, lit it with a match and handed it to me. Then she lit another one for herself. With it dangling from her luscious lips, she slipped her glasses off and very carefully put them on me, tucking them behind my ears. By this time I was almost frantic with excitement and was ignoring my cigarette. She took a drag of hers and said “Go on - your turn.” I knew how to smoke as I’d watched my mum and dad often enough, but I had never thought about trying it. I took a drag and inhaled. A slight dizziness came over me, and I wasn’t sure if it was the glasses or the cigarette. I think it was both, and it was nice. She said “I’ll need the glasses back in a few minutes as my eyes will start to cross. I could feel my eyes starting to cross with the glasses and I realise now that there must have been a prism in one of the lenses. I told her this, and she said yes, that’s what they do. She said that she’d always had a lazy left eye, and she had to wear a patch over her right eye when she was little to force it to work. She also said she was short sighted. I was in seventh heaven with the effects of the cigarette, the feeling from the glasses, and talking about this beautiful girl’s eye problems. She said that she was to have surgery if it didn’t improve, but she was so scared of that.
Soon it was over. I handed the glasses back to her, and as I did so, I could clearly see her left eye had turned in quite noticeably. I also noticed I was seeing double after wearing them for that short while. We came out of the woods and we were spotted by some class mates who immediately let loose with a barrage of cat-calls and wolf whistles!
By now, I was seriously thinking I should concentrate more on my studies, but I was still having difficulty with reading and close work at school. Then I had a brilliant idea. At home, I had a lovely old magnifying glass which used to belong to my maternal grandmother. She used it a lot as she was almost blind, and eventually went totally blind. Nobody knew why - they just said it was due to “old age”. I took it into school, and started to use it for reading and close work. It got a few comical comments, but I worked it into my comedy routine as by now I was accepted as a bit of a weird eccentric! I used to go “small game hunting” with the magnifying glass and round up beetles, caterpillars and all sorts of creatures to innocently plant on the teacher’s desk before class started. I was bad! One day after school, it was the “Bad Boys Club” meeting in the toilets which I was press-ganged into attending to give a comedy show. This time, they all pulled out cigarettes from their pockets and lit up. I got a ribbing for not taking part, and was called “a big Jessie!” which was a colloquial term of abuse. That was on the Friday, and during the next day I formulated a plan. My father also smoked a pipe from time to time, and he had quite a few stashed away. I found one of his which closely resembled Sherlock Holmes’ pipe with the curved swan neck. I gave it a good wash out, filled it with some of his tobacco, and put it in a polythene bag. I took some extra tobacco just in case. That was going to school with me on Monday.
After school, you’ve guessed it, the “club” met again. The boys all got out their cigarettes and shouted to me “Hey - the big Jessie’s not got any!” Well, the “big Jessie” got out his big pipe and lit it up. The clouds of smoke were like a steam engine! They were all gobsmacked! I had achieved a new status, and from that moment on I was known as “Sherlock”!
By now, I had begun to notice that Laura was purposely putting off time to wait for me so we could walk home together. She was there when I came out of the school yard. We had been going into the woods quite frequently on the way home. I had been quite enjoying having a menthol cigarette with her, and she always let me wear her glasses while doing so. There was no question - it just seemed normal to her. That day I declined her offer of a cigarette, and I took out the pipe. Her jaw dropped as I lit it up. She lit her cigarette and watched me. “Can I try it?” she asked. “Oh no, it’s a man’s thing,” I replied. “Go on,” she pleaded. “I’ve got something special for you if you do.” That got my imagination racing. I handed the pipe to her and she handed me her cigarette. She took some puffs from it after I told her not to inhale it. “That’s lovely,” she said. It was a very refined mild Dutch tobacco, and was very pleasant. “OK, what have you got for me?” I asked. “Shut your eyes and hold out your hands,” she said. I obeyed. I could feel a hard case being put into my hands. “Open your eyes,” she said. I did so. It was a glasses case with pink butterflies on it. “Now open the case,” she said. Inside was a beautiful pair of metal framed glasses in a unisex style. “You can have them, they’re my old ones,” she said. I was flabbergasted! I reached over and gave her a hug, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. We came out of the woods and walked home hand in hand.
My grandmother’s magnifying glass which I still have. It has a horn handle and a chip out of the glass on one edge.
And my mother’s large magnifier which I also still have.
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