SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
WHEN I WAS A KID, CALLING someone a “softy” was our go to insult. Spending weeks trying to keep ourselves amused on summer holidays in rural Ireland involved sliding down hillsides on galvanised sheets into fields with bulls or daring each other to grab electric fences.
As one of six Beano-loving cousins, Walter the Softy (with all his exceedingly un-pc wimpy, effeminate traits) was the opposite of what any of us wanted to be. We loved Dennis, Beryl the Peril or Desperate Dan from the Dandy — heroes of chaos, pillars of strength.
My memories are all happy ones, even when the peer pressure to be strong felt overwhelming. Today, a happiness instructor or wellbeing expert would see our wild escapades as traumatising. Perhaps our parents' decision to kick us out in the morning, whatever the weather, would be declared neglect? Dennis’s
