Random reminder

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 24

Random reminder

He is 15, a clever boy. about, to sit I Schoo] Certificate, and a very keen | proponent of his chosen sport, running.: His parents have thought for some ■ time that he suffers from partial deafness: he is able to carry on a perfectly! reasonable conversation with every i semblance of intelligent participation j and half an hour later it is obvious] that he recalls none of it. Worse, he! denies that any such conversation took ■place. His parents have resigned themselves to it being just another “stage” of, teenage development but they do] wonder if this will also afflict their! younger children. If it does, they think ■ they will, themselves, run away from home. For instance, recently he baby-sat for'

I his young aunt and before he left there I was some discussion as to what he J would do if her baby woke and he ! couldn’t settle him down again. Eventually it was agreed that he would I ring his mother and she would then i dash to the rescue. [ She was not called upon, but at ! breakfast next morning her son did ask ! if the baby were a boy or a girl, confessing that he hadn’t known what to call him and was afraid of offending his aunt. I Then came the bombshell. “Actually,” he said, earnestly, “1 didn’t know they had a baby.” His parents don’t think they’ll wait: ! for manifestations of his absent-' I mindedness in the other children; they I think they’ll go soon.