London Letter: The brats are back

BOTH our brats were home for Christmas for their first University holiday and to say we did things differently when I was a student is being bland.

In my day, a phrase I’m increasingly boring people with, I would either catch the plane home or hitchhike.

So when the brats said they were coming back, I thought it would be a simple case of leaving the key under the mat.

Alas, not. The first brat agreed to catch the train but said he had too many suitcases. As he was coming back on a Friday when both management and I would be at work, we had to drive to Birmingham to fetch his luggage (mainly dirty washing) the weekend before.

Not that we minded, you understand, but we did have other things to do.

Anyway, to say thank you, he said he would take us to the world famous German market in Birmingham’s Bullring shopping centre, a tourist attraction that attracts visitors from around the UK.

To say the ‘world famous’ market was merely disappointing would be kind. All it consisted of was a bunch of plastic log cabins selling Steins of lager and bratwurst.

I bought us foot-long wurst in baguettes that tasted like processed supermarket junk.

It was – we later found this wasn’t the renowned German market at all, but a Christmas rip-off.

The brat sheepishly admitted he had never been there before either and so thought he could fool us with fake Teutonic tat.

But on the other hand it was really worth it as we got serious mileage out of ribbing him.

The other brat gave up all pretences of making his own way home and asked to be fetched.

His university is 50 minutes away, so I said we would be there at 10am.

We were halfway there when he phoned and in a sleep-riddled voice asked if we could rather pick him up in the afternoon.

There had been a bit of a Christmas party the night before, you see, and he had to vacuum his room before leaving. Management told him where to stick the Hoover.

That evening all travel woes were forgotten as they entertained us with fun stories of campus life, many of which made their mother’s hair stand on end.

I had forgotten how much we had missed them. They then slept for 14 hours straight.

The next night they made arrangements to meet old school friends that they hadn’t texted for at least a day. So it was vitally important to catch up, you understand.

The following morning I went downstairs to find bodies strewn over the lounge and woke the brats to find out what was happening.

They said they collectively only had enough money for one taxi and as our house was the closest, they’d all come here.

The irony is that most of their friends live in mansions that make our three-bedroomed home look like a shed. Yet they all use our place as their base. Go figure.

It got worse. In their jolly state, one of the brats broke the key off in the front door lock, so we couldn’t close it properly. Instead, I had to force another key through the other side and yank the broken section out with pliers.

Everyone slept happily while I laboured.

So yes, things were different in my day – and maybe for the better.

I mean, as I was writing this last week, the one brat was getting ready to do a 12-hour shift at a butcher’s yard lugging hindquarters of beef for pocket money, while the other was studying furiously for law assignments that he had to submit in early January.

I never had to do either.

Ah … the good old days.