In order to overcome class-based inertia, I was blasted to school in a cannon. These days, at very least, eyebrows would be raised, and reports would be filed to fine points: but, back then, cannons were common as hand-knitted jumpers. Every church hall and workingmen’s club had its own circus, and they’d all vie for the latest ordnance to blow their clowns higher and further at the end of the nightly routines, so you could pick up a used job on any market, or from the spivs who’d tour the pubs on a Friday night. That’s not to say that cannons were cheap, and my parents made a million small sacrifices for the sake of my education. It’s an investment for the future, they’d say, as they skipped the occasional meal, and went without gravity when it wasn’t strictly necessary: and I remember them now, thin and floating, but smiling like angels in a child’s prayerbook. Of course, you can’t give them away now, what with health and safety and the threat of civil unrest, but I keep mine in the shed and oil it from time to time. Sometimes, I like to lean my head into the echoing barrel, and I’m swept away by smoke and glitter to where my parents bob like thought balloons. You’ve done us proud, they say, disappearing into their own incandescence, and I can live with myself for another 24 hours.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
.