HOLIDAYS TAUGHT US HOW MUCH WE HATED SCHOOL

THE school summer holidays proved strange for me last week, as I was having people come to my comedy show at 7pm with very young kids wanting to sit in the front row.

Edinburgh's Fringe is full of kids' shows, yet my stand-up seemed to be a big draw for the wee ones. Now I don't consider myself the worst offender when it comes to bad language or sexual content, but it does say on my flyer, "The most outspoken female stand up in Britain" and that should be a good indication of some rather "industrial language". Comedy is an industry and we have a language that reflects it.

It made me wonder what people do with their kids these days during the holidays.

I asked my niece Ann, who has three kids aged ten, four and nine months, and she told me trying to get a play scheme in her area to cater for the long summer is almost impossible.

She can't afford to take them on holidays and, as she is working part-time and the local schemes incur a cost, she can't afford to pay for them. She dreads the school holidays, spends many hours in the local park and tries to keep them occupied at home.

It made me think back to my childhood in the 1960s. We were basically told to get out and find something to do. If the sun came out there were no sunscreen lotions. Who could afford sunscreen in my street? No-one!

You got burnt, got covered in calamine lotion and spent the rest of the holidays peeling the crackled skin off your arms and legs like a wee Glasgow snake.

For some unknown reason, you weren't allowed in and out of the house too many times in the one day - "You're either in or out!" was all you could hear being screamed from the doorways and closes up my street. So we kids would all head for the local park with a dirty old bedspread, a bottle of diluted orange juice and a stray dog for about five hours till tea time.

It sounds like halcyon days, but it wasn't. We just knew we had to get out of our parents' way as they either worked or just weren't used to having annoying kids in their face all day. We got incredibly bored; we got into dangerous situations; we negotiated others peoples' gardens and organised rhubarb-stealing parties; we ate berries that gave us sore stomachs; and we hoped the summer would never end.

Sticks became guns and we played war and then some "rich" kid would appear with a pair of roller skates that you got tied dangerously tight to your ankles with a pair of your mother's old brown nylons through the back loops where the leather straps used to be.

The blood would almost stop going to your feet as your ankles went blue and we took turns falling and cracking our knees on hard pavements trying to master the old squeaky skates.

That was the highlight of my summer holidays.

Goodness knows how we survived, between swimming in filthy, perilous burns and rivers, climbing up dangerous factory walls to see what was over the other side and hanging on to the back of moving lorries that ran through the industrialised parts of Glasgow.

I am more than surprised we made it to our teens.

Life wasn't simpler back then; it was just different with an alternative set of dangers from today. We didn't have wheelie shoes, the internet, computer games or organised play dates. We had the landscape around us and very tired, busy parents who trusted us to be careful and not get killed till it was time to go back to school in late August.

How we hated seeing those adverts on the TV for new school uniforms and new shoes: it reminded us of the short days of freedom left before we faced a new teacher or a new school. Give us the stray dogs, the smelly blankets and the wet or hot summers. Just don't let us go back to school.

Maybe I am being nostalgic about the "good old days" but what kid wanted to give up a teatime game of kick the can and be dragged along to watch some crazy-looking woman get up and talk about funny things that happened in life back in her day?

Not me.

BEREAVED, BUT STILL THINKING OF OTHERS

ROSE Gentle was a very interesting guest on my chat show at the Green Room in Edinburgh last Friday. She is the mother of Gordon Gentle, who died aged 19 in Iraq, and is currently campaigning against the government over their treatment and lack of support for our troops in the war zone.

She has a real heart-wrenching story to tell and does it eloquently and with grace.

She told me that she is trying to get people to put necessary items like socks, toothpaste and shampoo into shoe boxes and she will make sure they reach our troops on the frontline for Christmas.

It would be wonderful if the government didn't charge her for the postage and they let our soldiers get the much-needed items that they deserve.

Her son died through a lack of military equipment, but she hasn't forgotten other people's sons and daughters.

You can contact Rose Gentle via: justiceforgordongentle@yahoo.co.uk

NO LONGER CLOWNING AROUND AS ARTISTIC TALENT DISCOVERED

ARTHUR Smith's art exhibition, Arturart is going big guns up at Queen Street in Edinburgh.

He told me that my huge painting of a scary clown is the only piece he has sold so far. I was so excited.

I did that painting on the morning of the opening of his gallery and am stunned that someone has bought it. He added that he had to go next door to a "proper" art gallery and borrow a red dot to stick on my painting!

I have decided to divide and donate the proceeds of the sale equally between the Gordon Gentle campaign and Jewish comic Ivor Dembina's campaign to rebuild homes in Palestine. My dad taught me how to paint and draw as a child and he is so pleased that I have finally found some respectability as an artist.

I am now hoping to be the next "Banksy" and take my work around the globe and let rich people fawn over my latest talent.

BROADWAY DREAMS - WITH SALT 'N' SAUCE

AFTER my piece last week about the famous Glasgow song Last Night There was Murder in the Chip Shop, I popped into my local bar in Edinburgh and met the lovely Alan Cumming, who was performing in The Bacchae next door at the King's Theatre.

I mentioned the song to him, and he knew the words, which was awesome.

Later on I was waiting in a queue at the chip shop next to the pub and the wonderful Alan waltzed in, spotted me and actually sang Last Night There was Murder in the Chip Shop to the slightly alarmed chippie staff.

I have to say hearing his dulcet tones belting out the song, I realised how surreal the situation was, but still I joined in and we took a bow.

Next stop: Broadway, with Last Night There was Murder in the Chip Shop - The Musical!