"The Wild Man Of Hurtna Pore" was a book that I could not quite fathom, despite the fact that my uncle (known pseudonymously as 'Rachel Mildeyes') had written it in the Twenties. I was in my childhood when he was actually at work committing it to paper, although I suspect it had been percolating in his mind for some years before I was born.

At the risk of appearing churlish, I ought to state that the book only received professional publication after the painstaking efforts of an agency revision-writer, of whom we knew nothing other than the fact he lived in Southend-On-Sea. He deserved much of the credit (or blame). But he is probably dead now, given the law of averages.

I can hardly remember my uncle. He was a chintzy little individual with a penchant for snuff, sporting half-moon spectacles and a toothbrush moustache. You could see your face in his shoes. He often came into my nursery brandishing the latest carefully folded edition of 'The Times', ready to discuss with me, if I wished, the latest comings and goings of the "smart set" and the esoteric undercurrents of the Court Circular. It was mostly above my head, really, but I took a perverse delight in listening to him speak of this or that scandal, affecting monarchs and man alike. His ill-defined face was ageless to me.

Reviewing those far-off days, I suppose the actual span of time which they covered was as short as my sensation of them, as a child, was long. The tawdry three-piece suit he managed never to wear out figures somewhat more vividly in my memories than the real man who filled it up with his body. I admit that his shoes, burnished to a veritable mirror, continue to glint in my mind from those late afternoons of yesteryear's endless sunlight: those clock-quiet promenades in times past echoing, even now, in my contemporary ears; my uncle's face, however, other than its resemblance to a vixen, no longer holding purchase upon my slippery souvenirs.

The first mention of the Wild Man came one tinkly teatime. My uncle sat with a straight back in his high-chair. Because of his stature, he needed such underpinning, like me, to bring him level with his peers (my mother (his sister) and my father). But, unlike me, he did not need bars in front to prevent him falling to the parquet, nor a bib to catch food.

My parents I can recall with the precision of the Brownie snapshot that I still treasure: in its oval gilt frame hung upon my back bedroom wall. I often stare at it, as the family makes noises in distant rooms. They no longer visit me ... no, that's a lie, little Gordon comes occasionally to see if the nurse, employed by the family, is caring for me properly. She is indeed a dab hand with the blanket baths, I inform him.

Returning to my parents ... and my uncle ... there is no photograph extant of the once renowned 'Rachel Mildeyes', which seems incredible following all the social discourse which went on about his Wild Man book. So, in short, the picture of us around the gleaming tea-table is incomplete. I can clearly see my mother and father in all the finery lent to them by rose-tinted nostalgia; but, there in his high-chair is the ghost of my uncle simply lingering undetected amid all the other blurred reminiscences. Nevertheless, I can still hear his words on that fateful day, during an otherwise random afternoon tea. As far as I can recall, it was probably my first ever memory...

"You ask me what's in the crate?" he said. "That, my dears, is one of the examples of the continent of Darkest Africa's life forms. I did not travel those bleached deserts and entangled jungles for nothing. It's a creature that neither lives nor dies ... nor sleeps, for that matter, I believe. It's in a state beyond all those things. It was found by my sherpa near unto a cave ... at first, he thought it was a corpse of a mutant savage ... but, on testing its pulse and breathing, fitful though they were, he realised it was not a corpse ... its two heads, yes, two heads, my dears, were not upon one set of shoulders ... it had no legs but, where legs should have been, a second set of shoulders-neck-and-head ... and these two heads breathed in a gentle alternating rhythm ... the tongues lolled out but did not speak nor even grunt ... the heartbeats echoed from chest to chest ... but no other sign of motive force ... the two pairs of eyes were just weltering moons, seeing nothing ... entranced even beyond Mesmer's ability..."

The speech was punctuated by my parents' comments but, unlike their bodily counterparts, what they actually said is lost to me. My uncle, however, went on to say that he was about to write a book about the "Wild Man Of Hurtna Pore". He had studied the creature during the long voyage home and claimed he had won some form of mind to mind communion with it. All this, in the days before telepathy.

I forthwith looked with new eyes upon the crate. It was stationed in the middle of the parlour before the roaring coal-fires that were banked up night and day by my ministering parents. My uncle scampered around the house like a royal arse fly, sometimes screeching at the top of his voice, often dandling me upon his lap, in his slowly diminishing moments, as I later gathered, of sanity. My parents often scolded him for swinging from the light fitments.

The day the Authorities unnailed the crate, I was hustled away with the Nanny to watch a pantomime in the West End (I forget which one). Whatever was inside had been removed from the house by the time we returned; although I did find a few straggly hairs in the hallway carpet which the Ewbank had missed. I was nearer the floor than anybody else, in any event, so it was not surprising for me to notice such things.

I am no longer allowed in the dining-room or parlour. I am unaware of what has become of my high-chair, but little Gordon tells me it is still there for when I get better and need food again. But the way I'm developing, food is the least of my desires.

They are not a bad lot. They keep me supplied with paper and blunt pencils and games. The world is waiting for my novel, I suppose. At least, I am clever enough now to realise it always was a novel. Perhaps that revision-writer in Southend will help me - he must be about one hundred years old now, I guess.

The Authorities still print the Court Circular in 'The Times', but it now seems so unplanned, so haphazard. The Princess Royal may visit me today. I shall have to spruce myself up. Thankfully, I no longer need to polish my shoes. That was always a chore. Bodily incontinence (wherever I caught it in the five land-masses) is no longer a problem, having no bum to speak of.

Catching up with one's memories is like slow-motion reincarnation. Meantime, the family have given me a pack of cards, without the Kings, for Patience.

"Secrets are safe with a mad man, for nobody will believe him."
Rachel Mildeyes (1887-1972)

Published 'Red Eft' 1994