When we were kids, we lived in a household that could only afford to have the TV Times and Radio Times once a year, with my mother spending out for the Christmas editions as a seasonal treat. Even then, she would spread the cost over two weeks by buying one first with the other to follow just as the holiday got under weigh.
Inevitably, she would react vehemently to the habitual defacing of these prized listings, as my brothers and I would set about them with ballpoints, adorning Hughie Green with a fine curly moustache, or enhancing Pat Pheonix with glasses and blacked-out teeth, or just writing the word "GIT" on Reginald Bousenquet's forehead.
My mother, no fan of anyone on a TV that she never had the time to watch, still felt that there was some act of disrespect in the defacing of these hard-working professionals who had obviously made sacrifices to get where they were.
However, it was a practice that we loved, and never quite grew out of.
By the time of the first 1974 election, I'd developed the habit onto a grander scale. Armed with stolen marker pens, with my pals Chris J and Malcolm L, I helped to decorate a giant poster of Prime Minister Edward Heath, turning him into Alice Cooper (a popular singing artiste of the day).
Imagine my joy, passing our work on the bus the following day, and hearing a child cry out "Look mummy! Look at that man!" and the mothers response, a disapproving "Someone's up to no good!"
In fact, I don't have access to the psephological data from that election, but I'm convinced that it was that very poster that accounted for Heath's defeat that year!
Anyway, to my point.
I was pleased to discover this alteration to the currency recently. It is part of a dying art and is to be heartily applauded.
Hoorah!
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