Borstal Boy
When I was finally arrested the magistrate heard about my absconding from St Benedict’s and going to France where I told him that I had worked in a bar. The court looked at me smiling seemingly impressed by my adventures and not knowing that I had been charged with robbery and spent time in La Prison de La Santé in Paris they sent me to a short term approved school Banstead House in Surrey
Banstead House was run by a kind old man and his wife Mr and Mrs Gould and the first night there they played a game called Twenty Questions. I had often watched this game on television and would watch it at home with my parents and sisters to see who could guess the answer before the players on the screen; I was quite good at it and often got one right.
Mr Gould sat smoking his pipe and I as I easily got the first boy’s question in three he asked me to choose and I stood in front of all the other boys.
“Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?”
“Vegetable I replied.
“Can you eat it?” another boy asked.
“No you can’t eat it” I replied smiling looking at all the other boys’ who looked back at me with puzzled faces. Some of the boys were physically mature with muscular bodies unlike me who was skinny at nine stone.
“Can you drink it then?” another boy asked.
“No you can’t drink it” I replied looking at the stupid expressions of bewilderment on the player’s faces.
When they had all their twenty questions Mr Gould looked at me and smiled. “They haven’t got it are you going to tell them what it is Muldoon?”
“No I am going to give them another twenty. It’s vegetable, you can’t eat it, you can’t drink it” I said knowing that they would never get it.
They had another twenty questions and they still didn’t get it and I stood in front of them relishing the experience and my superior intelligence thinking that most of them were morons.
“All right Muldoon I think that you had better tell them what it is” Mr Gould the headmaster said puffing on his pipe.
“A cigarette” I answered.
