Radio Boy and the Revenge of Grandad

Oddly enough, I’ve never seen anyone else having to wear this particular design of vest.

‘It’s for health and safety, you see, Spike. I wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to you …’ said Fish Face with fake sincerity as his fishy grin showed all his revolting coffee-stained teeth (and one golden one). Had he even been to a dentist this century?

If he ever did find a dentist unlucky enough to take him on, they’d need the industrial-strength jet washer to get those brown coffee stains off. And they’d need to have their own oxygen supply to protect themselves from his honking bad breath. Mr Harris can wilt flowers with just one small sigh.

No better way to spend your lunch break than wandering around your school in a high-vis jacket with a giant metal claw, picking up rubbish, as I did today. A constant soundtrack of ‘Hey, you missed a bit!’, as kids deliberately dumped sweet wrappers and crisp packets on the ground behind me. Let me say, for the record, it takes an awful lot of precision and skill to pick up a Curly Wurly wrapper with a giant metal claw.

Without realising, though, Mr Harris had actually done me a favour. At least, rubbish-collecting around the school grounds, I didn’t have to listen to his lunchtime show on Merit Radio, which was blasted into every classroom and corridor. There was no escape – even in the toilets.

Things had changed on Merit Radio too. Before Mr Harris was arrested for breaking into my garden, the official school radio station had been presented by Martin Harris, with his dad barking orders in the background. Now Fish Face had decided to freshen things up and had put himself on air. This meant his son had a vastly reduced role. Martin had gone from presenting the show, to only speaking once an hour, with his new feature, Martin’s Minute. In reality it lasted no longer than thirty-one seconds.

I almost felt sorry for him. But not quite. Once again, Fish Face was behaving like a wannabe dictator. In history we learned that some countries aren’t like ours, and instead of an elected government, they have a ‘dictator’ who controls everything, even the radio and TV channels. They are only allowed to broadcast good news that’s been approved by the mad leader. I think this was what Mr Harris had modelled Merit Radio on.

I’m pretty certain Mr Harris would be far happier running a small country like a crazy dictator. Banning things like jugglers, terrapins and the colour purple.

Anyway, back to Martin’s Minute. This sound bite of radio gold had poor Harris Junior reading out official school ‘good news’ approved by his dad, to anyone unfortunate enough to be listening. All spoken like he had a gun to his head.

Merit Radio – more like Hostage FM. If this was on TV, Martin would be blinking ‘free me’ in Morse code.

‘Good news … the leaking tap in the boys’ toilets has been mended.’

Good news?! Only to plumbers and fans of all things tap-related. Back to Marty’s minute.

‘Further good news: the school cat is four years old today. If you see Cat, wish him happy birthday.’

That’s not a spelling mistake, the school cat was actually called ‘Cat’. It had been Fish Face’s job to name it. Cat. Which sums up the man’s creative powers.

Yes – it was Martin’s Minute. But it felt more like Martin’s Endless Boredom Torture Hour.

‘Grandad is here,’ I shouted, after I spotted him coming down our front path after school. It was a cold March day and Grandad was about to brighten it up.

‘What? Why? Oh no,’ cried Dad in a horrified way. Dad is never very excited about seeing Grandad Ray, which I’ve always thought is odd. I mean, it’s his own dad.

I opened the door excitedly and hugged Grandad.

‘Spike!’ he said in his typically booming voice. He was wearing even more aftershave than Artie, as well as the big shiny gold necklace he always wore below his high, open lapels. I noticed he had two suitcases with him.

‘Dad. What’s going on?’ came my dad’s irritated voice from behind me.

‘Well, I thought I’d come and stay for a few days. See my grandkids, help out around the house. That OK, son?’ Grandad asked.

‘Um … of course. Is Mum all right?’ asked Dad suspiciously.

‘Yeah, yeah, fine,’ muttered Grandad Ray, pushing past him into the house.

Grandad Ray isn’t like a normal grandad. Let me explain.

Firstly, the hair. It’s not grey or white, like most men his age. It’s white with a black stripe down the middle. It’s also big. High and swept back. Never a hair out of place. It doesn’t even look like human hair any more, after all the years of hair-spraying. It’s actually a hair-based work of art. He always wears black cowboy boots too. No matter what the occasion. I think he even has cowboy-boot slippers. All of this would’ve looked perfectly normal if he was a part-time cabaret singer and ranch owner in Texas. Which he wasn’t. Except he was a singer, of sorts – or had been – and in his mind he still is.

Grandad Ray used to be a cabaret singer on cruise ships, which is where he met Nan. His stage name was Toni Fandango. He quit dramatically after he was downgraded to performing on car ferries to France.

‘I’m wasted trying to sing Frank Sinatra classics next to the fruit machines, Spike.’

Grandad blamed the end of his career on another, younger singer, Kriss Kristie. We all secretly knew, however, that it was due to his age and panda hair.

He opened his mouth and started to sing, right there in the front hall, at the top of his voice. He often broke into song without any warning.

‘Youuuuuuuuuu ain’t nothin’ but a—’

Sherlock, my other best friend and full-time dog, immediately started barking.

‘Bleedin’ dog, shut it!’ yelled Grandad.

‘Ray, Ray, you sweet old man!’ said Mum as she came rushing into the hallway.

‘Here she is, greatest woman on Earth, what you saw in my son I’ll never know,’ Grandad said.

‘How lovely of you to come and see us for a few days. Spike, take your grandad’s bags,’ ordered Mum.

I gladly obliged, but had a quick question.

‘Um, where shall I take them?’

‘To your room, of course, Spike. He can have your bed. You’ll have to sleep on the inflatable mattress.’ Awesome! Grandad Ray and I would be room-mates. Sure, it meant me having to sleep on the world’s most uncomfortable bed, the dreaded inflatable mattress – like sleeping on a bouncy castle – but that was a small price to pay.

It took me two trips to lug Grandad Ray’s suitcases upstairs. I passed Dad at one point and said, ‘Look, snakeskin suitcases, proper showbiz.’

‘Snakeskin! Fakeskin more like! The label on them says Poundland. Not sure a pound gets you a pair of authentic snakeskin suitcases.’ They still looked very cool to me. At least no snakes had been harmed in the making of them. I’d love my boring school bag to be snakeskin like his suitcases. That’d soon catch Katherine Hamilton’s eye.

‘Oh, I love your bag, Spike; what’s it made of?’ she would coo.

‘Python,’ I’d say casually and saunter off.

‘Here, you’ll need this,’ said Dad, snapping me out of my daydream as he threw me the foot pump for the blow-up bed.

‘You owe me ten thousand pounds! Right NOW! Pay up! But … oh no … you don’t have enough money, which means … I WIN!’ yelled Grandad Ray as he cheerfully helped himself to me and my sister Amber’s last bits of paper money on the Monopoly board.

Now he had bankrupted his grandchildren, Grandad Ray started doing a victory lap round the living room. He looked like a footballer who had just scored a hat-trick, trying to pull his shirt over his head – though his high hair got in the way.

‘SUCKERS!! LOSERS! LOSERS!’ he shouted while pointing at us. Grandad really likes to win. ‘You snooze, you lose,’ is just one of his supportive phrases.

Monopoly is without doubt the WORLD’S WORST GAME EVER. What a fun way to spend time, financially ruining your family members, taking all their money and property. Fun for all the family. NOT. I bet the only kid who ever liked playing this was Donald Trump. I can imagine the young Donny chuckling to himself as he made his own grandmother bankrupt and homeless.

What’s the second worst board game in the world?

Pictionary.

Every Christmas Mum insists we play it. Amber and I are forced to go with a grandparent each, who, once the game starts, reveals that they cannot draw anything from the modern world.

This was my nan’s picture of a mobile phone:

And guess what this is?

Alien, anyone?

Grandad’s phone rang as he continued to point at us and jeer. He paused, and answered it. ‘Hi …’ he said, suddenly going very quiet and meek – for him.

He listened to the person on the other end, then spoke.

‘Unbelievable! I’ll pick the rest up later this week, you harridan,’ he said angrily, and tried to hang up, but it took him a while to find the right button on his phone.

‘Everything OK, Grandad?’ I asked.

‘Yes! Yes! Fine, just FINE,’ he said in a way that suggested it really wasn’t.

‘Who was that?’ asked my sister.

‘Oh … just the window salesman,’ he explained.

Amber opened her mouth to say something, but then he started doing his victory lap again.

Later, I looked up ‘harridan’ in the dictionary, and apparently it means ‘a strict, bossy or belligerent old woman’. Which I thought was an odd thing to call a window salesman.

The next two days were just so much fun. My new room-mate Grandad Ray and I stayed up late into the night, every night, playing cards. He taught me a game called ‘poker’, which was much more fun than Monopoly, and he said I was a real natural. He won all my pocket money, but assured me it was a very close game. I also had to write him something he told me was called an ‘IOU’ (which I now know stands for ‘I OWE YOU money’) for the rest of that year’s pocket money, after another very close poker game.

I wasn’t getting too much sleep, what with the late-night poker club and the bouncy bed from hell. Grandad also snored really loudly, sounding like a zombie with sinus problems.

Getting ready for school was proving problematic too. The entire family had to wait ages to use the bathroom, due to Grandad Ray’s intensive showering and grooming routine. All of this was accompanied by him singing at the top of his voice, waking up the whole house at 6am. He had a separate washbag just for his hair products.

Grandad Ray was kind enough to walk me to school, though – but not without asking to borrow my snack money. I gave it to him safe in the knowledge that my VIP fame at the school would mean I could blag some free snacks. Proper famous people never pay for anything. Cars, clothes, watches. Ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw an A-lister wandering around a swimming pool asking for a pound for the locker? Exactly. They get EVERYTHING free.1

Then, a few days into his stay, I got back from school and he was very comfortable with his feet up, reading his newspaper on the sofa. A very loud banging on our front door shattered the silence. I took a quick peek through the front window to see who it was.

‘Nan’s here,’ I cried out excitedly. She was immaculately turned out in a bright pink trouser suit with matching lipstick.

Grandad Ray leaped off the sofa like he’d been electrocuted.

‘Don’t tell her I’m here, Spike,’ he whispered desperately as he ducked down and crawled along the floor into the garden.

What was going on?

‘Hi, Nan,’ I said in a slightly confused voice as I opened the door.

‘Hello, darling. Is he staying here, then?’ she asked in a very matter-of-fact way. I noticed she had two full black bin bags with her.

‘Um … no?’ I said.

‘How do you know who I’m talking about?’ she asked.

A pause. ‘Well, I assumed you meant Grandad and … er … he’s not here.’

She walked into the house and sniffed. ‘I can smell him, Spike, so he must be here. Let me guess – he’s hiding and told his own grandson to lie? Typically pathetic.’ She wandered off towards the back door that leads to the garden. My sister and I then watched a very sad scene unfold. Our nan searching for her husband and our grandad, who was hiding in our garden.

Just then Dad came home from work.

Amber and I breathlessly got him up to speed with the events of the last two minutes and he joined us at our observation post, the kitchen window.

Our garden is pretty small, so very quickly the Grandad-Ray-hide-and-seek game came to an end. Nan had looked everywhere apart from the shed. My studio.

She rattled the door handle. It didn’t turn. It looked like Grandad Ray had locked himself in.

I heard him yell, ‘LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU HARRIDAN.’

‘That’s what he called the window salesman the other day,’ I said.

‘What?’ asked Dad. So I took him through the phone call Grandad had received and the shouting at the window salesman.

‘Well, it’s finally happened,’ sighed Dad. ‘She’s thrown him out. I wondered what this surprise visit was all about.’

Thrown him out? Can you even throw out a grandad? Aren’t there laws against that? The thought of unwanted grandads being thrown out and dumped by the side of the road made me very sad.

So Nan and Grandad argued through the shed door. Nan threw the bin bags on the ground and stormed off. Dad met her as she came back into the house.

‘I’m so sorry you all had to see that, darlings,’ she said, and Dad gave her a hug. He ushered her into the front room and closed the door.

I went out into the garden to see Grandad Ray. I tried to open the shed door. It was still locked. ‘It’s just me, Grandad,’ I said.

‘Is she there with you, Spike? Is it a trap?’ he said from inside the shed.

‘No no, it’s just me, I promise. What’s going on, Grandad?’ I asked.

‘Oh, just your nan having a bit of a meltdown. She’ll calm down,’ he said. Still from behind the shed door.

‘Has she thrown you out, like Dad’s just said?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly, Spike. I’m just being a … gentleman and letting her cool off for a few days. She will soon see she’s behaved very badly and come back round and apologise.’

I looked down at the bin bags Nan had dumped on the ground.

‘Are these all your clothes?’ I asked the shed door.

‘Yes, erm … I … I asked her to kindly drop a few extra bits off,’ the shed door said.

‘Dad, she’s gone home,’ yelled my dad from the back door. ‘So you can stop hiding in the shed now. Come inside when you’re ready, we need to talk.’ The door unlocked. Inside the shed, the Grandad I saw was not one I recognised. He looked broken.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘Just thinking about your nan. Hurts like hell, Spike …’

Oh no, song time. He grabbed an imaginary microphone with his right hand and pulled it to his mouth:

‘Well, since my baby left me …’

He sang most of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, then sort of slowly stopped and froze on the spot, his mind and heart elsewhere.

He seemed the loneliest man in the world. I didn’t want to catch his eye, so glanced around at all my radio equipment crammed into Dad’s shed. Grandad must have seen me looking at it.

‘This where you do your show, then, is it?’ he asked me.

I immediately came alive, telling him how it all worked and where we all sat. Then an idea hit me. ‘Hey, Grandad, why don’t you come in on the show?’ I asked him. ‘You could be our first guest.’

Grandad’s eyes widened and a smile appeared on his face for the first time since Nan’s bin bag dump-and-go visit. It felt good seeing that smile. I was saving my beloved Grandad Ray. No one threw away my Grandad Ray.

GRANDADS ARE FOR LIFE, NOT JUST CHRISTMAS.

‘Yes! I thought you’d never ask!’ replied Grandad eagerly. He smoothed back his coiffured hair with the silver comb he always carried in his back pocket. ‘I guess if you wanted, I could sing …’ he said, and produced a list of songs he had apparently made on the off-chance I ever invited him on to the show.

‘That would be amazing!’ I replied. Grandad would be our first live-music guest.

By now, Dad had come out to the shed and must’ve overheard my offer. I saw him give me a worried look, raise his eyebrows and sigh. I ignored him. ‘Come to the shed, our studio, after dinner and we will get you on air,’ I said to Grandad.

‘Right ho! I’ll bring my best stories.’

As it started to get dark outside, I went back down to the shed to get the studio ready for that night’s special guest show. I was testing my microphone when Artie and Holly came in.

‘Hey, guess what – you know my grandad has come to stay?’

‘The one with the big hair, and cowboy boots? Used to sing on cruise ships?’ asked Holly.

‘Yeah, that’s him – Grandad Ray.’ I doubt many other grandads fit that profile. ‘Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited him on the show today.’

‘Cool, that certainly should be fun,’ said Artie, unpacking his vinyl records for the music on the show.

I put us on air and the MIC LIVE sign glowed red, meaning we were broadcasting to the world. But mainly the kids at my school. Midway through our first live link, Grandad came flying in through the shed door, kicking it aside with one of his cowboy boots. It slammed against some paint pots and one fell off the shelf on to the floor.

‘HERE I AM!’ he shouted. The smell of his aftershave immediately made us start coughing. He had to duck through the shed door to make room for the hair that followed him. The cowboy boots made him taller, adding to the extra height of the hair. His quiff caught a cobweb, or did the cobweb catch a quiff?

‘Erm, this is my Grandad Ray, listeners,’ I explained.

‘Heyyyyyy, all you dudes out there, how you doing?’ Grandad Ray said in a deep fake American voice. Who was he trying to be, a Texan cowboy DJ?

I leaned into the mic. ‘He’s staying with us at the moment—’

‘Yeah, and I’ll tell you why I’m currently sleeping in my grandson’s bedroom. My wife doesn’t understand me and my talents and now she’s thrown me out … Diane, what have you done?’

Holly watched, her mouth wide open. She needed to be careful she didn’t catch one of our resident spiders in it. I don’t think she’d ever seen a grandad like mine. But he was only just getting started.

‘Only a woman can take your heart and then rip it out, RIP IT RIGHT OUT I tell you, and then stamp on it, STAMP ON IT! … And then make you eat it. I hope that evil bug-eyed wit—’

‘Grandad, that’s my nan!’ I interrupted. Sure, he was upset and angry, but no one wants to hear their grandad call their nan an ‘evil bug-eyed witch’. I mean, she didn’t even own a broom.

Grandad jumped to his feet. His massive hair collected another cobweb. Maybe his hairspray was attracting them like Velcro. He pulled the microphone close to his mouth and started to sing. It was some old song about having a broken heart. His eyes remained closed for the entire song. We watched in shock and awe.

‘Whaaaaat becoooooooooommmmeeeeesss of the broken-hearted …’ crooned Grandad. Everyone was getting the full Grandad Ray experience tonight.

When he finally finished the last verse of his moving performance we all burst into applause, which, in fairness, he had encouraged us to do by means of a cardboard sign he’d made with ‘APPLAUSE’ written on it in black marker pen.

I played a song.

When the MIC LIVE light went off, Artie spoke first. ‘You have a great voice, and what a great song choice, sir. I love Motown.’

‘You know Motown music, Arnie?’ asked Grandad.

‘It’s ArT-ie, and yes I love all the old classics,’ answered Artie.

‘Great to see the younger generation appreciating vinyl – you and me are going to get along like a shed on fire,’ said Grandad.

Immediately, he and Artie began an in-depth discussion of the label’s greatest hits. United in a love for Artie’s old vinyl collection. Bonding over music. I smiled, seeing Grandad so happy again.

Then we were back on air, not that the MIC LIVE flashing light made any difference to Grandad Ray’s volume control.

‘It’s the Secret Shed Show and Radio Boy here with the gang and our special guest, my Grandad Ray. Grandad, why don’t you tell everyone about what you used to do?’

‘Well, I was a professional singer. My stage name was Toni Fandango.’

Holly burst out laughing when she heard the name.

‘Something funny, girl?’ said Grandad, in a dangerous tone.

Oh no.

‘I wouldn’t be laughing if I had ginger hair like that,’ Grandad snapped back. Looking around the shed for laughter. He got none.

Uh-oh. One thing you don’t ever do is take the mickey out of Holly’s ginger hair.

‘Well, at least it’s not dyed with shoe polish,’ Holly fired back.

Grandad Ray looked horrified. Holly glared at him. Sherlock snarled.

‘Right, um, shall we move on?’ I said. ‘So, why the name Toni Fandango?’ I asked, in an effort to stop Holly and Grandad’s hair wars from escalating any further.

‘Well, it was either Toni Fandango or Bobby Gibbon,’ said Grandad.

That set Holly off again. I shot her a look.

‘I was a proper professional singer,’ said Grandad. ‘Played on all the biggest stages.’

‘Wow! That must’ve been so exciting, singing to massive crowds in big arenas,’ said Artie.

‘Yeah, it was. Sometimes it was standing room only in the Kon-Tiki bar on the Caribbean Queen cruise. They said when I sang I made grown men cry and women fall in love with me.’

Holly sighed and rolled her eyes.

‘What happened?’ I asked him.

‘Suddenly they didn’t want an old-timer like me. Showbiz will eat you, then spit you out. Showbiz is a dog that you think is your best friend, then one day it hits you in the face with a shovel and runs you over in your own car.’

‘But dogs can’t drive, Grandad,’ I pointed out.

‘Oh, you know what I mean. Then the only place I could get work was on car ferries. Portsmouth to Cherbourg. No way for a man like me to end up.’

Much to my surprise and Holly’s annoyance, the listeners loved Grandad Ray, aka Toni Fandango. The texts and messages poured in, saying how funny he was. It gave me another idea.

‘Well, I hope you enjoyed the show and thanks for all your messages. Grandad Ray, you were a great special guest. Who thinks Grandad should join the team every week while he’s staying with us?’

‘Yeah! Come on, join us,’ said Artie, Grandad’s new best friend in antique music.

Holly glared at me, but I took no notice.

‘Well, thanks, kids, I think I will accept that offer. Always knew I’d be brilliant at radio.’

Ever modest, my Grandad Ray.

And so it was that three suddenly became four. What a nice thing to do for my poor heartbroken grandad.