AUTHORITY figures scare the life out of me. Bank managers, traffic wardens, dental receptionists - you name them, I'm frightened of them. "Ambrose Hilditch," my wife said.

"What?"

"Are you scared of Ambrose Hilditch?"

"Either you're a first-time visitor from the planet Zog or I'm completely missing the point here," I observed.

"Ambrose Hilditch happens to be a bank manager," my wife said. "You said mention a bank manager and you're frightened of him. Well, I've just mentioned one and I'd like to know if he scares you."

"But I've never met the bloke," I said.

"And you're never likely to," she said. "He's a character in a novel I've just finished reading."

I put on my coat, took our dog Brian out for a walk and wondered for the umpteenth time why I'd ever married THAT woman.

"Have we just had a daft conversation or what?" I asked my wife when I returned home.

"Of course we have," she said. "But it was just to illustrate how daft YOU are!"

"Okay," I said and wandered into the kitchen to cook Brian some fish fingers.

I walked back into the living room. "What exactly did you mean by that?" I asked.

"All that nonsense about being frightened of what you call authority figures," she said. "What you're really doing is externalising your own feelings of inadequacy and lack of self-worth. Your problem is typical of sad middle-aged men in general.

"It's not bank managers you're scared of - it's yourself," she went on. "Self-loathing is a depressing trait but, as your wife, I shall endeavour to drag you back from the dark abyss. It's all a question of self-confidence, you snivelling little twerp."

What the hell was she going on about? I wondered. Had she gone stark raving mad? Or had she perhaps secretly enrolled at night school on a DIY psychotherapy course?

Whatever the reason behind her crazy rantings, my wife was beginning to frighten me...

Which reminds me. When I was a little boy I was scared stiff of the dinner ladies at school. I was also petrified of the school dinners.

As if the lumpy green potatoes and the sardine pie covered in congealed tomato gravy weren't disgusting enough, I also had to contend with the strange-looking puddings.

"Sorry, miss," I stammered to the dinner lady one lunchtime. "But my mother once told me never to eat wallpaper paste."

"That's very discerning of her," snapped the dinner lady. "But the contents of the dessert bowl I have just plonked down in front of you happen to be ambrosia, the rice pudding of the gods."

I grabbed hold of the bowl and shook it. "But I thought rice pudding was supposed to move around a bit."

"Idiot!" said the dinner lady. "That's semolina. Anyway, the choice is yours. Either you gobble up your pudding or you stand on the canteen bench with your hands on your head until the other brats have eaten theirs."

"That's cruel," I muttered under my infant breath.

"It's not gruel - it's rice pudding!" the dinner lady growled. "Just be grateful you weren't under my jurisdiction in my last job."

"Which was?" I trembled.

"Head female prison officer in the Army stockade at Frodsham during the war."

Quivering in every bone of my pre-pubescent body, I consumed the contents of my pudding dish while the dinner lady hovered over me.

"All right, all right," she said, pulling me back by the ears. "You don't have to lick the bowl out, too."

I had something to tell my mother when she picked me up from school. "I'm not staying school dinners any more."

Mother was not best pleased. "But that means I've not only got to take you to school in the mornings and pick you up again in the afternoons, I'll also have to come for you at lunchtimes and take you back again after you've dined at home."

She counted up on her fingers. "Altogether, that means four trips a day for you and EIGHT for me!"

"But you're my mother," I pointed out. "No sacrifice should be too great."

"I suppose you're right," she grumbled, smacking me across the back of the legs for being cheeky. "But this new arrangement is definitely going to eat into my quality time."

"Better it eats into that than I have to continue eating wallpaper paste," I said and was smacked on the legs again...

"So my theory was wrong," admitted my wife. "It's not the male menopause after all. You've been frightened of nearly everything ALL your life."

"I suppose so," I shrugged. "But now that my failings have been brought out into the open, I'm going to make a concerted effort to change my ways."

"Don't be too hard on yourself," my wife cooed, patting me on the head. "I'll always be moderately fond of you even though you are a total screw-up."

"Thank you for the character reference," I sniffed.

"Which brings us back to Ambrose Hilditch," my wife said.

"Huh?"

"My library book is due back tomorrow and I don't want to be lumbered with a fine. Could you drop the book off for me on your journey home from work?"

"Do I have to?" I whined.

"Why not? It's not out of your way."

"I know," I sighed. "It's just that the woman at the library scares the hell out of me." DAVE SILVER

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