Five in the Kingdom of Geekdom

The place, Portlethen.

The year, 1988.

I was but a fresh-faced, chubby little thing who lived an innocent life in a world where rabbits could talk, bluebirds could sing and pumpkins were a resplendent mode of transportation.

If you were ever trapped by a band of rouges all you needed to do was pull a twig three times and a secret passage would open by which you could make your escape.

The only enemies in the world were evil step-aunts lording over giant stone fruit plantations and wicked headmistresses who would pluck you from your chair by your pigtails and vault you out the room.

For years I had been raised on a diet of Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Disney. There was not a super-villain alive that couldn’t be vanquished by a perfect kiss and an impish mammalian sidekick. And if you spent days on end chasing after armed smugglers and rowing to abandoned islands you weren’t grounded but rewarded with a banquet the like of which hadn’t been seen since Elizabethan times.

But in 1988 a new danger was introduced to my life, something I hadn’t yet encountered, something that threatened to pull me away from the safety of this world. Something that scared my parents to their core.

And that something was The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

A television show that featured a strange magician who didn’t randomly burst into song or transform himself and his companion into fish.

He traveled in a strange-looking blue box that landed in the middle of quarries where there were robots, cute female werewolves and…clowns.

Horrible, weird, creepy looking clowns that gave me nightmares and had me in random screaming fits whenever I glimpsed the colour red, saw a pair of oversized shoes or thought about the suburb of Watford.

My parents, alarmed at my rebellion away from the safety of talking grasshoppers and spritely foxes who were far too competent at archery, promptly banned me from visiting this intriguing new show again.

But my mind had been tainted. Dancing broomsticks and lashing of ginger beer did not have the same thrall over me as they once did, and my parents could see it.

Seeking to redress the balance they read me book after book, forced me to watch movie after movie, but I kept wishing that strange blue box would appear on Kirren Island or the Faraway Tree to lead into the world of Creepy Clowns and Cute Female Werewolves.

Seven days later, with my parents out, I defied their command and watched it again.

For the next week I was grounded, sentenced to spend seven days in a world of giant crocodiles, creepy pigeon ladies and far too easily thwarted smugglers in a last-ditch attempt to steer me away from the dangers of this strange new world.

But it was too little, too late.

Over the years dancing cats would be replaced with funny looking giant maggots made from prophylactics. Mice detectives would lose favour over giant rats from Sumatra. Innocent tomboys overjoyed at scrambling through forests would become women who stripped to silken underwear in leprosy plagued spacecrafts.

My parents had given up trying to prevent it and embraced my descent into this strange new world. Scarves had been knitted, small plastic wind-up disco dogs had been gifted and my wall was ablaze with strange 1970s dressed women that few of my classmates could identify.

Despite their better efforts  I had become infatuated with the Kingdom of Geekdom and lost my innocence forever.

Or did I?