Pantalones de orina

                                                      Dave Allen

I was watching a drama/documentary on TV the other night about one of my real favourite comedians; Dave Allen. He was a unique comedian and most of his material was to mock the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. And who could blame him having being brought up in a catholic school in Ireland in the thirties and early forties.

There was one little scene in the film which reminded me of my time at school in Birmingham when I was learning to read; so how old would I be? Six or so.

My teacher was Miss Prime and she was a spinster of about forty; I have worked this out judging the time it was and what went on.

Now – I have told this story on stage in my one man show many times from the year 2000 to 2010 at theatres and colleges in Los Angeles and theatres in the UK.

I was sitting at the front of the class and at the other side of my tiny little desk, facing me, was Miss Prime. I can't remember if she had a book or was reading mine upside down and we shared leg space under my desk. How she made herself so tiny to do this task is beyond me but maybe she was sitting, for the only time in her life, spreadeagled? I don't think we knocked knees or anything like that but I was being tested on a page in a book; a simple book, I should imagine, and, as I have already told you I was about six.

The time was fifteen minutes before midday and the lunch break was at noon. So I had that fifteen minutes to go before I could go and empty my over filled and bursting bladder.

I have always been a bit of a pisser, never ever able to hold it. For example, when I was playing at The Hexagon Theatre, in Reading, I would travel along the motorway, after the show, to where I was staying with friends in Barnes, which is a suburb in London.

Each night we would have to stop whilst I had a pee on the hard shouder – we played there for a week so we stopped seven times – couldn't help it. (by the way I'm fine now; thanks for asking).

Back to the class room: I knew I needed a pee as the teacher sat down to test me.

If you were a casting director you would cast Miss Prime as a strict teacher; the character in The Singing Detective would have suited her. She had her hair pulled straight back from the forehead and in a very tight pony tail gripped up at the back. She wore no make up and wore very thick stockings and sensible shoes; I knew this because my mother never wore sensible shows – always high heels when out.

When Miss Prime sat down I was bursting. I had been to the loo at play time but the third of a pint of ice cold milk I drank at ten fifteen had gone through me.

At the same time as I started reading I started to fidget; I couldn't help it as my wee was nearly coming out; I was starting to leak. She told me to stop fidgeting and to read the page starting at the top line; this I did.

When she asked my why I was fidgeting I told her I needed to go to the lavatory.

'You need to go to the lavatory?'

'Yes miss.'

'Well you can go at twelve-o-clock and not until.'

So I started to read again. The words didn't come out too clear as I was really suffering.

'You can go if you want to – but you will come back and read the page instead of going to dinner.'

We all called lunch dinner in those days – I mean Dickens had only been dead a hundred years!!!

Judging from my age I was probably still speaking with a slight Irish accent, so I would be saying far instead of for, wark instead of walk and walk instead or work! So being corrected and not knowing what she was talking about made things worse; that and her stare!

I struggled on, reading and struggling and feeling the urine running in to my underpants and down my legs. I tried not to let it go and it started to hurt. She looked in to my eyes, she could see I was in pain, but she insisted on forcing me to read on.

Eventually the school bell went and I ran to the boys bogs and let it rip; so my relief so much happiness, so much steam and how cold the pee felt in my underpants.

I didn't stay to school dinner that day; I went home. I knew the way even though it was six hundred metres away which is a third of a mile or so.

I went along Hertford Street, turned left at Saint Paul's Road, right at Moseley Road and right into South View Terrace where we lived in a tiny house. There wasn't a tiny stream but there was a railway line.

My mother wondered what I was doing home and I showed her my little pair of short pants and my soaking underpants.

She took them from me, helped me get clean and fed me.

Then she walked me back to school; in her bag she carried my underpants; she came in to the class room and confronted Miss Prime.

She took the underpants out and held them up to the teacher; 'is that any way to send a child home from school' she said.

I was frightened that she was going to shove the pants into Miss Prime's face. Also I knew she had an Irish accent, which would let everybody know that I was Irish, as if they didn't know, and would say bloody a lot and I didn't want her to do that – but I can't remember much more about it.

Twenty five years later I was in a soap on television, which went out every evening at 6.35 so a lot of people saw it.

My mother was at the Alexandra Theatre, in Birmingham one evening and who should see with a load of kids? Yes – Miss Prime.

They recognised each other and Miss Prime came across and said 'we see Christopher on television a lot – we're very proud.'

And my mother said 'do you remember his pissy pants?'