Danger

Why is it that bad stuff always seems to happen near your house whenever your parents are visiting? Once I went to pick Mum up from the tube station and on the way back, we saw a scuffle outside one of the local pubs. The police soon arrived. ‘Er, don’t worry Mum, that’s just not a very nice pub, we’ve never been in it, and the rest of the area is really nice, honestly.’

But then when she visited again two weeks ago, Wandsworth really surpassed itself. We were walking to the local cinema – it takes about 20 minutes – when we saw some bloke screaming at his girlfriend or wife to get out of the car. We shuffled past guiltily, averting our eyes so that he had no excuse to turn his anger on us. There was no physical violence, but he seemed to have completely lost it. It was truly scary.

Then as we came out of the cinema after the film, there was some huge argument going on in a nearby flat. A window was open, so you could hear it very clearly. Again, the people involved sounded completely out of control. And then as we were walking home, we saw six or seven policemen questioning a rough-looking mother with a pushchair and about six kids. A police van was perched in the middle of a road nearby.

We’ve lived here for over three years and nothing like this ever happens, at least not on the same night. So why do things like this always seem to happen when a parent is visiting? Or is it that you just notice them more when your Mum is around, as you are worried about what she must think?