Pass the parcel

I met Sue, my first wife, on Thursday May 3rd 1979. It was at a meeting of the Pooh Club at Monash University. And what, I hear you ask, is the Pooh Club? A club of those devoted to the inspired creation of A A Milne. Yep, we serious 18somethings (I was 24) gathered to argue the merits of Hunny and Piglet.

A lot of fun actually. We mainly drank beer and talked about Piglets fascination with blue trousers. As evidence of how such things can continue into later life I well remember laughing myself sick at the age of 46 with my then girlfriend Ruth over Piglets trousers. A A Milne's Pooh books are still among my favourite books of all time; up there with Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows'. Toad is my all time favourite dramatically comic character but Piglet isn't far behind!

My approach to Sue was something less than subtle. I and a red haird youth I barely remember clocked her and approached. Some witty banter was required to engage her attention. I came up with the idea of making her the priestess of our new religion. Sue, no one's fool, agreed provided that she could be our virgin priestess. Stymied! :-)

I must have exuded some kind of charm because she became first my girlfriend and eventually my wife.

About a month after we met we went camping with the Pooh Club at Daylesford, a small town 60 K's or so from Melbourne. The Pooh Club were still focussed on Pooh Bear and they did the most childish things. One of those things was a pass the parcel game where the parcel was passed to whomever most closely fitted the clue. They hadn't done their homework.

At the end of the game the parcel was supposed to have been passed to Sue who would open it to find shampoo and conditioner and such like. But the clue was who had the longest hair. I had the longest hair so I won. Much embarassment all round. Not that it mattered much; by that time Sue and I were sharing shampoo.