Tam Cowan: 'You were lucky Rishi, those days we watched TV on an Etch A Sketch'

Spare a thought for Rishi Sunak (no, really) after one of the biggest mix-ups in the entire history of British politics. In fact, I think quite a lot of folk now owe the wee man an apology. You see, dear reader, I can exclusively reveal the PM meant his family didn’t have SKYE! But they did own loads of other islands…

Seriously, though, this was heartbreaking stuff. I mean, poor Rishi. Didn’t have Sky TV as a kid (we’ll ignore the fact satellite telly hadn’t even been LAUNCHED when he was a youngster) and, as we witnessed recently, doesn’t have a brolly as a grown-up. In terms of being out of touch with the British electorate, this was on a par with the classic Peter Mandelson faux pas when he mistook chip-shop mushy peas for guacamole.

Listen, these upper-class twits couldn’t even SPELL poverty. Growing up in Motherwell, I didn’t have the proverbial pot to pee in. My dear old dad fixed everything at home with black gaffa tape that he (ahem) “borrowed” from the Honeywell factory in Newhouse where he worked all his days as a storeman.

And I mean EVERYTHING - my trainers, the pipes under the sink, the roof. Give him enough rolls of the stuff right now and, even at the age of 90, I bet he’d have a crack at the hole in the ozone layer. He also sleekitly cashed in on the fact that Fine Fare ran a complimentary bus for shoppers between the store in Motherwell and Hamilton where, conveniently, my granny lived…

Which is why, every Saturday, we’d stuff Fine Fare poly bags with coats, hats and scarves before hopping on for a free ride. (I still get Vietnam-style flashbacks at the mere mention of Fine Fare. Hands up all my fellow breadline buddies whose parents sent you to school with a luminous bag of those Yellow Pack crisps?)

We didn’t have colour telly ’til I was about 12 (a second-hand set courtesy of my Auntie Agnes who, a number of years later, also gave us her old Betamax video recorder with ONE film on tape – the Steve Martin classic The Man With Two Brains – which I can still recite to this day).

The nearest we came to modern technology was popping into my pal Alan Hunter’s house. His maw worked at Currys in Hamilton and I’ll never forget the moment I saw the latest gadget she’d got with her staff discount… it was (gasp) a SodaStream! To my pauper’s eyes (starved of Vitamin C) it was like something from Star Trek. Jealous? You bet. Later that day I nearly threw myself in front of the Alpine lorry…

At the risk of turning this into Monty Python’s famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch, we were so poor I didn’t have my 16th birthday until I was 33. (And the party was held in the local laundrette – the highlight was playing Pass The Persil.) We couldn’t afford free school meals. My dad bought me an air guitar for Christmas. (My wee pal was even less well off – he asked if he could have my old one!). We used to watch TV on an Etch A Sketch.

In 1985, rock stars in Ethiopia held a concert for us. My wee sister was made in Taiwan. Every January, we’d use last year’s calendar as toilet paper. (I’m glad those days are behind me…). My dad used to take me to KFC to lick other people’s fingers. One day, my mum gave me a button and said: “Take that to the woman next door and see if she’ll sew a shirt onto it for you…”

To be brutally honest, folks, we were so poor I didn’t even have a mum. My dad used to dress up in a frock and pretend to be a woman so we wouldn’t miss out. At least that’s what he told us…

PS. Don’t get me started on Rishi sneaking home early from Normandy. That was simply unforgivable. My grandpa died on D-Day. He was a deckchair attendant on Omaha Beach. Poor old bugger never stood a chance.

PPS. Talking of being skint, actress Tamzin Outhwaite has denied falling on hard times after selling items at a car boot sale. Nothing but trouble those events. Who can forget the fella from Airdrie parking his motor the wrong way round and selling his engine for 50p…?

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