Truth or lies?

What follows was written for both the Sunday Scribblings prompt ‘Superhero’ and my dear friend Lucy! It was she who honoured me with a Creative Writing award, and in accepting it I agreed to come up with 6 ‘facts’ about myself, some of which are truthful and others which are out and out lies! I leave to you to decide which ones are which! To help you, only 2 are true!

1. This week’s Sunday Scribblings prompt reminded me about a money making idea a friend and I came up with when we were teenagers. We invented a hearing aid and we gave it the catchy name Super Hear-O! We advertised it on cards in a few shop windows and claimed it was a new invention which could be purchased for a very small outlay. The idea was to send our customers a piece of cardboard and a little roll of sticky tape. We would enclose a leaflet instructing the user to roll the cardboard into an open-ended cone shape, secure it with the sticky tape, then hold the pointy end to the deaf ear! In retrospect it was probably a good thing that we sold none!

2. I was clambering up a crowded staircase a few years ago when a woman came rushing downwards and nearly knocked me off my feet. She grabbed my arm to steady me then apologised profusely. I then realised she was Dynasty star Joan Collins. Even Blake Carrington never got a ‘sorry’ from Alexis!

3. Whilst on the subject of celebs, I was once minding my own business having a pee when I realised the man at the next urinal was Paul McCartney! We had a brief chat and before we went our separate ways he shook hands with me – after he’d washed then fortunately!

4. Most people my age are rapidly becoming grumpy old men or women who like nothing more that grumbling and moaning about the younger generation. I’m different because my best friend is a young lady half my age. My piers can’t understand what we can possibly have in common. Well, to be honest we don’t have anything in common except our birthday – we share the same date! I suppose the thing which makes our friendship special is the way we make each other laugh, really laugh! She even enjoys the way I tell stories about her which anyone else would be slightly embarrassed or even hurt by!

5. I once ran a little deli in Eastbourne. One of my regular customers won a huge prize on the National Lottery. No sooner had he received the news than reporters and cameramen from all over the country assembled outside his house in the hope of grabbing a few words, and a picture of the unseen face behind the name. He called me and asked me to deliver a few bits and pieces so he could stay hidden behind closed curtains. I had a bit of a job getting past the assembled crowd, they were asking me questions about him and even trying to go through the contents of the bags I was carrying. I managed to smuggle myself through the front door. The new millionaire said it would probably be easier for me if I slipped out the back way and climbed over the back fence and into the road behind. What he didn’t know was that a gaggle of reporters had positioned themselves there too in case he attempted a discrete escape. When I propped down from the fence I was immediately surrounded by the rear guard press who assumed I was the lucky winner and started photographing me! I shouted ‘no comment’ and ran for it around the corner and into the rear of my shop, locking the door behind me! I decided to stay closed for the rest of the afternoon as I now had a crowd of reporters of my own outside in the street. Imagine my surprise when I switched on the TV and saw my picture on the local news with the subtitle ‘is this the mystery millionaire?’

6. And finally I must tell you about the time I actually won something! It was during my annual visit to the horse racing at Glorious Goodwood when I thought it would be fun to do a bet known as an accumulator. It involved predicting the name of a horse from each of the 7 races which would finish in the first three places. The odds were huge. I stuck on a £10 bet and I won over six grand! £6700.87 to be precise!

So that’s it! Over to you to decide which 2 are the true ones! At this point I am required to pass the award on to 6 of my favourite bloggers, but most of my friends post in a style which wouldn’t suit this type of writing. Instead I’ll break the rules and invite any of my friends that feel so inclined to join in, then help themselves to the award in recognition of having taken part!