Mary Dunwich writes: I was lying in the recovery position (Minnie was practising her First Aid on me) when James and his little gang of time-travelling hoodies stomped in. "Did you record Merlin?" were his first words to me.
Capable of communication with the dead, altering the fabric of space and time and understanding how to use industrial-strength hair gel, some tasks still baffle my son. Finding a clean pair of trousers. Carrying his plate back into the kitchen after a Golden Syrup sandwich. And pressing the "Record" button on the DVD. "Erm....no," I confessed, sitting up and starting to unwrap the bandages. "I forgot." The resulting tantrum lasted until Lizzie Higgs-Boson turned up and took Stanley and Jay home. (She must think we live in a permanent state of chaos).
"Did you go anywhere...erm, nice?" I asked when he finally paused for breath.
"1969," he answered. "We watched the first moon landings." "From Houston, or Cape Canaveral?" I asked, impressed.
"On Newsround," he answered. "On Granny Dunwich's telly." Good thinking. The Werewolf's parents had a telly in 1969, possibly even a colour one. They were at the cutting edge of home entertainment technology in those days. And they were generally regarded as odd, even by the liberal standards of the sixties.
"Didn't they mind you turning up to watch their telly?" I asked.
"We said we were Jehovah's Witnesses," answered James. My mother-in-law enjoys visits from the door-to-door religious types. When they ask to explain to her the message of the Bible she invites them in for a cup of tea and an Eccles cake. She then turns the telly on and waits for them to get bored and go away. They don't call on her any more. She must be on some sort of blacklist.
"You don't look like Jehovah's Witnesses," I objected. Usually they are in their twenties and very neatly dressed, like undertakers out touting for business.
"We said we were Jehovah's witnesses from Alpha Centauri," he answered. Mm...cunning. Granny would definitely fall for that one. She's always enjoyed people who tell her whopping great lies. "Did you see your father?" I asked a little nervously. I had visions of some great time-travel paradox if he changed his father's nappy or something. "He was out with Granddad in his workshop. They were building a model of Apollo 11", James answered. "We sat and ate red Leicester and Branston pickle sandwiches and watched Trumpton and the Clangers and then Newsround. Then we came home.
"I brought you a souvenir," he said handing me a 50p coin. I looked at it carefully. It did indeed say 1969, and certainly did look very new. "It's one of the first ones minted. Granny gave it to us. She hates them. She said they look too much like half crowns." "Well, er..well done," I said somewhat grudgingly. I had hoped the expedition would be a failure. "Pity you didn't bring back any more evidence than a coin." "Next time we'll go prepared," he answered. "We'll take video footage and everything." I'd like to see how he manages that. We don't have a camcorder.
