TWO 14-year-old girls were having a severe fit of the giggles, leaning on each other and emitting loud shrieks and caring little for the mixed glances they attracted.

The shrieks echoed along the avenues of Castle Quay shopping centre in Banbury.

What could have caused such mirth?

I followed their line of vision to a store window where a young male window dresser was doing his stuff.

He was wearing an open-neck shirt and belt-less jeans, the latter slipping below his hip bones and revealing a substantial area of backside.

He reached to the dummy’s shoulders to adjust a garment. This coincided with the jeans slipping below his nether regions to show a skimpy pair of briefs. He grasped the jeans with both hands, a move that undid his artistic work.

Next he bent down and reached into a basket from which he took another garment. On standing up, the jeans slipped again. More laughter.

As I moved off, one of the girls caught my eye.

“He thinks he looks so cool,” she said sarcastically, pointing at the window dresser as he struggled yet again to recover his modesty while holding the dummy’s detachable hand.

I nodded, but then again, what do I know about fashion?

  • You need to be beyond a certain age to recall what you were doing on February 6, 1952. It was the topic of conversation among three couples in Marks & Spencer’s cafe in Queen Street on Tuesday.

Their stories ranged from looking after a younger sister because their mother was in labour, to being on a freezing school outing to Stratford-upon-Avon.

One of the women claimed she was too young to remember – words that earned a sideways glance from her husband.

This 12-year-old lad was one of 22 boys awaiting the arrival of the headmaster who taught us French at my northern grammar school. We were making one helluva row, as unsupervised boys do.

Suddenly the door was opened by our sports master, a former rugby league player.

“Shurrup!” he bellowed somewhat ungrammatically. “The King’s dead!”

With that he slammed the door, leaving us silent, stunned and wondering if this was true or some sick joke on the part of this once twinkle-toed scrum half.

[For other memories of the day Princess Elizabeth became our Queen, see Monday’s Oxford Mail.]

  • So I don’t know my spaghetti westerns from my Dirty Harrys – as several readers pointed out. Last week, I quoted Clint Eastwood’s menacing invitation to “Make my day”, saying it was uttered in those westerns, when in fact it came from the mouth of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry character in the film of the same name and its sequels.

Thanks for putting me right – and thanks even more for reading Cabbages and Kings.