Doris Makes My Day

Among my treasured childhood souvenirs is a 1951 soccer annual which I stole from my brother in 1952.

But my most prized possession is -- or to be more precise, was -- a letter sent to me by Doris Day in response to a fan letter I sent to her.

The missive from Ms Day read: 'Dear David, it is always a pleasure to hear from my young British friends.

'I wish you every success in your endeavours and hope that you, too, will find success in life. Kind regards, Doris.

'P.S. It is very warm here in Hollywood. I hope it is warm where you are.'

Warm? Blimey, it was freezing cold where I was -- a draughty terraced house in a cobbled street in murky Manchester.

But my 12-year-old pumping heart was positively on fire the morning I picked up Doris's letter from the hall mat.

I must have read the thing a hundred times before bolting down my breakfast and belting round to my pal Eric's house.

'Guess who's written to me!' I yelled through the letter box.

Eric, still in his pajamas, opened the front door and yawned. 'Not flaming Doris Day again.'

'Again?' I asked puzzled. 'But she's never written to me before.'

Eric yawned a second time. 'No, I meant again in the context of you going on about her again . . . and again.'

Context? Eric sprinkled his sentences with words that few other 12-year-olds knew.

My pal took the letter from me, read it and sniffed. 'It's no big deal but I'll swap you my spud gun for it.'

Eric possessed a plastic pistol which fired pieces of potato and which explained why his mother served strangely-shaped chips at teatime.

'Swap my Doris Day letter!' I shrieked. 'Are you mad!'

Eric shrugged. 'Suit yourself. It's not me that's fixated with Doris Day.'

Fixated? There he goes again with the big words, I thought.

'I'm not fixated,' I said. 'It's just that Doris rules my life.'

'Yeah. Fixated,' said Eric.

'Oh,' I said.

I grabbed back Doris's letter and while Eric went inside to get washed and dressed I fired off a couple of rounds of King Edwards at the painted bull's-eye on the dustbin in his backyard.

'Fancy a game of soccer on the croft this afternoon?' asked Eric as we strolled to the corner shop to buy sweeties.

'Can't,' I said. 'My mum's taking me to the dentist. I need a filling. Too many sherbert dips.'

It was a lie, of course.

While Eric and the rest of the gang would be chasing a football, I'd be getting my kicks on the front row of the cinema watching my Doris in Calamity Jane -- my third visit that week.

I congratulated myself on how clever I had been at concealing my dates with Doris from my pals. And they would never, ever find out.

'Oh, come off it!' tutted Eric. 'You're going to the pictures to see you-know-who. Nobody goes to the dentist three times in three days. And I should know because I'm going to be an orthodontist when I attain maturity.'

Orthodontist? Attain? Maturity even? There he goes again with the big words, I thought.

'I really was in love with Doris Day,' I laughed some 40 years later as I partook of a pint with my big brother.

'It was more than love,' he chuckled. 'You were fixated.'

'Oh,' I said.

We reminisced some more and my brother said: 'Isn't it weird. I was the one who collected stamps and yet you were the one who was unhinged.'

'Talking of which,' I said, 'You never did show me that stamp.'

'And what stamp was that, little brother?'

'The American one that was on the envelope which contained Doris Day's letter.'

My brother looked uncomfortable.

'Come to think of it,' I said, 'I never even saw the envelope. Just the folded letter on the doormat.'

My brother downed his pint and my heart sank with it.

'She never did write, did she? It was YOU pretending to be HER!'

My brother looked decidedly guilty.

'What a terrible trick,' I said bitterly. 'All those years I deluded myself that Doris liked me when all the time it was you doing the dastardly deluding.'

'That last bit makes no grammatical sense,' my brother said. 'But I get your drift.'

I pointed an accusing finger at him. 'You took away my childhood dream!'

My brother pointed an accusing finger back. 'And you stole my 1951 soccer annual!'

So there we sat with our accusing fingers crossed until I left the pub and marched into the nearby dental surgery.

'Do you have an appointment?' the receptionist asked.

I pulled a tattered piece of paper from my wallet.

'Just show this to your boss and ask him if he still has his spud gun.'

by David Silver