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Competition No 3731

Set by John Crick, 13 May

Confessions of a famous hellraiser on his well-spent youth.

Report by Ms de Meaner

I felt I could only pick one Keef, so bad luck, El Basilio. Hon menshes to the above-mentioned ("Mick used to say: 'Keef, you're hurting our image with all this caring bollocks' ") and Paul Brummel (Tracey Emin "smoothed away the creases and plumped up the pillows"). £20 to the winners. The overall winner is Derek Morgan, who also gets the vouchers.

My "mad axeman" of R&B tag began at Scout camp in the Fifties when I laid down a mean rhythm line on "Ging Gang Gooli" round the campfire. My mates asked me to go for a quick drag behind the tents, but I wanted to help Mrs Tuesday with her groceries. The gang called her Ruby, but I thought it was disrespectful to senior citizens (and I'm one myself now, remember) to use first names. I recall she needed brown sugar, so I nipped to the corner shop. "Here's a shilling, Keith," she said, which I'm afraid I spent in a moment of weakness on beer - ginger beer - and what's more, I drank it all myself.

I felt guilty, but helped out on Bonfire Night to make up. Some boys were trying to scare people by throwing a jumping jack around, but they were just acting flash, so I went on quietly with getting the hibernating hedgehogs out from under.

Derek Morgan

It was in Finsbury Park in the early 1960s that our scoutmaster suggested we do some rowing on the river. I liked the way the blade cut gently through the water, but I noticed that the rowlocks needed repairing, so I suggested we helped the old bloke out with his equipment.

"Never mind the rowlocks," said the boatman, "here's six pastilles. Rowntree's."

I never forgot that line. I asked him if I could help him with his business. "There's so many spare seats," I said. "True, John," he said. "They're pretty vacant at this time of the year."

I told him it was because his uniform wasn't smart, like mine, and helped him by lending him some of my mum's safety pins. "You're a punctilious lad, Lydon," he said. Nice geezer. I smartened his boats up no end, and gave him a God Save the Queen salute. Lovely.

Will Bellenger

I often stayed behind after choir practice to help the vicar clear up before the bell-ringers arrived. On one occasion, I went up into the belfry to shift some bats (the vicar couldn't get through the gap). At first I thought they looked quite cute, but after an hour of shooing them from one perch to the next and back again, my patience began to wear thin. Then, the bells started. The vicar had forgotten about me! "It's Ozzy! I'm still up here," I shouted. But it was so loud. I thought my ears were going to bleed and the bats went crazy, flapping frantically around my head as they tried to find a way out of the tower. I can still remember the feeling of their wings beating against my face as the overpowering noise thundered through my body. I think I might've damaged my hearing that night, and I've never really liked bats since.

R Ewing

No 3734 Set by Margaret Rogers

Can we have short slogans for T-shirts to mark the Golden Jubilee in your own way.

Max ten attempts by 14 June (to appear in issue dated 24 June) E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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