Cabbages & Kings

Young girls, many of them dressed to please – and in some cases to freeze, judging by their skimpy outfits – paraded mostly in groups, their efforts not missed by the boys’ approving glances.

One solitary girl sat in the Westgate Centre. She was neatly groomed and held a baby girl, whom I had remembered because of her distinctive, and I suspect, expensive pram.

Previously, baby and pram had been in the care of an attractive woman, probably in her late 30s.

“Giving mum a break?” I said in response to the girl’s smile.

“Yes and no,” she replied kindly, settling the six-month-old girl and offering a bottle to its open mouth.

My expression prompted an explanation: the woman whom I had believed was baby’s mother was her grandmother; the baby was the girl’s.

“It’s wonderful to have her to myself for a few days. Don’t get me wrong; mum is great and looks after her all week while I’m at school,” she said, adding: “Before you ask, I’m 15.”

No, she hadn’t planned a teenage pregnancy, but neither did she plead ignorance of the consequences if boys and girls played mums and dads.

“It happened – and I couldn’t be happier,” she said.

“I’m lucky to have the parents I have. They support me wonderfully. I try to help. I can’t earn much, but have a Saturday job that lets me take my baby along. Anyway, how can I regret having such a beautiful daughter?”

We talked about her hopes and ambitions. Her personal dreams were on hold.

I wondered if she would feel the same when, in a few short years, she might have been planning for university and beyond.

But she was of secondary importance, she said.

There was something about this young mum that made me believe, as well as hope, that these were not empty words. Even his mother concedes Bernard has a face that could stop a clock or prompt a comedian to consider an alternative career.

So to see this 50-year-old plumber and prophet of doom and gloom, red-eyed, giggling and speechless, was something altogether new.

“If only you’d been there…” he said between paroxysms of laughter and attempts to do justice to a pint of landlord’s best in the Eagle and Child.

“It was out of this world!”

He became incoherent again.

I was tempted to leave – but curiosity kills… Eventually his hangdog expression returned. It seemed that an hour earlier he had been with two chums in their favourite Covered Market café.

One, a hospital porter called Steve, persisted in referring to the other, an Irishman from County Kerry, as ‘Paddy’.

Sitting opposite were two starchy matrons – Bernard’s description.

One of the pair winced each time she heard the word ‘Paddy’.

Eventually it was too much for her and she suggested to Bernard that he should dissuade his friend from using that ‘derogatory and racist term’.

Hearing this, the Kerryman adopted a tortured expression and his brogue broadened. Bernard was convinced he spotted a tear in his eye.

“What’s wrong with using his proper name?” said the PC matriarch, feeling the Irishman’s reaction had justified her intervention. “What is it, by the way?”

“Patrick,” he announced wide-eyed and with the innocence of a babe.

She was not amused; but for once, Bernard was.

Surely I wasn’t alone in hearing a BBC newscaster refer to that well-known exclusive Roman Catholic boarding school for girls in Oxford as Rye Street Antony – instead of Rye Saint Antony?

I realise he worked for the opposition, but could you imagine the venerable and venerated, but now abandoned Wesley Smith making such a heinous mistake?

“Never!” chorus hundreds of women of a certain age, whose feelings of loss at Wesley’s departure from our TV screens burn like chronic indigestion.