Dear Simon and the collective,

Hearing the discussions about devolution for Scotland on Radio 2 recently I
was reminded about how I caused my wonderful daughter some grief, oh and my step son too....

In September 2008, my eldest son went to begin his studies at
a University in a Northern English town close to the Scottish Border, and being the dutiful mother, I took him there along with my 12 year old daughter, fully grown up husband to be and my 14 year old future stepson.

It was a lovely autumnal day so we decided to go for a look round
the Castle. As we meandered round the walls, I spotted a very
redundant dusty old tank just parked in an alcove. My future step son enquired,"What's that?". To me it seemed so very obvious but, well, sometimes you just have to go with your thoughts..... "It's there to protect England from the marauding Scots" I replied. Expecting to be told not to be so stupid, his inquisitive expression allowed me to continue; "You see,
Scotland and England still don't get on too well and so the army placed
the tank here so that it can be used to repel the Scots when they begin
to invade England. You see, only so many Scots are allowed into England
each day and if they go over the number then the tank is sent to the
border to repel the visitors."

At this point I again thought he'd just tell me not to be so silly, but ......no... so I enlisted the help of my elder son and together we invented the ten o'clock curfew! This, we lied, was the time that all good citizens of England had to be behind black out curtains and in their homes, if at all possible. His enquiry as to why was followed by my reply "It's not a pretty sight watching them being repelled". He looked a little shocked.

As we ambled into the city centre, he then asked a simple question; "How do they know if too many Scots are coming over the border?" As luck would have it, an RAF helicopter happened to be flying overhead at that moment. "There you go, you see the helicopter? Well, it's monitoring the border right now and it alerts the army in the castle if they see too many cars coming over the border" I explained.

Well Simon, still he believed me and for the next couple of hours future step son kept muttering on about this ten o'clock curfew. The evening passed with the group of us going out for a meal, but as nine o'clock approached, he became quite agitated as we casually mentioned that we needed to get back to our hotel ready for the ten o'clock curfew.

So worried was he that he made one of his frequent trips to the loo. Whilst out of earshot, my daughter had a go at me saying how horrible I was being to her future stepbrother, but I casually mentioned that if he was silly enough to believe me then it was on his own head.... her reply..... "But mum, you're a teacher, of course he believes you!"

When he returned he said he’d mentioned the curfew to the guy in the next ‘stall’….who told him to go away and stop being so very stupid. Which says it all really.

I beg forgiveness for this tale firstly for upsetting my daughter who got a whole load of abuse from him, saying that she should have told him the truth much earlier, but also from my gullible stepson, for allowing him to believe that everything wicked step mothers' who happen to be teachers tell him is true.

Nicki