Diaries, straitjackets and Wakefield Cathedral spire - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

Written on 7 July 2011

Every now and again I try to get one or other of my young great-nephews to appreciate the value of reading as an aid to writing. I am doomed to disappointment because none of them can see the point of reading a book, let alone a great-uncle’s website, and the only writing they seem to do outside school work is on their iPhones and that in a language that I need help to understand.

Full of enthusiam, I filled all 64 sides of a brand new exercise book. That, my first magnum opus, was a fictional story called "Death in the Cathedral".  It was a murder mystery set in Wakefield Cathedral. My Headmaster at St James’ Junior School, Mr Paterson, was quite aggrieved when I handed it in because school exercise books were still in very short supply following the war shortages and he presumably considered that I had wasted mine. However, after he'd quickly read through the story in my presence, that was not the only thing that bothered him. He turned up at our house unexpectedly that evening. He told my startled parents that he was concerned about the gory content of my epic and wondered where I had learned such things. Mum and Dad had not seen my work before had handed it in so they did not know what he was going in about.

My story was partly influenced by Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books that I’d been reading in the preceding months, partly by the exciting adventure stories about Sexton Blake that came out every few weeks and which consumed quite a lot of my pocket money, and partly by a climb a school pal and I had made a week earlier up to the base of the spire of Wakefield Cathedral. My parents didn't know about that either! You could do that in 1947 without bothering about things like asking permission, or health and safety considerations. Peter Moore, my best friend, and I had been watching for some weeks while workmen had been doing some sort of work right at the top of the 247 foot spire.

The officer in question was nowhere near as senior as my Dad so he probably assumed Dad knew what I wanted to do. He took me along to the padded cell (there  was only one apparently) and, with the help of a colleague, he strapped me tightly into a straitjacket. To my horror they then left me alone in the windowless and sound-proofed cell and shut the door. I panicked, being unable to move either of my arms,  and I fell to the padded floor and rolled about. I remember screaming and shouting for Dad.

It seemed an age before the door opened and I was released. When Dad returned he asked what all the screaming was about (my screams must have been audible when the padded cell door was opened) so I told him what the officers had done. Dad was very angry and told me not to tell anyone else about the incident because it would get the officers into trouble!

I didn’t tell anyone else until now when, browsing through my 1949 diary and seeing references to short stories I was writing, I was reminded of my earlier adventure. The murderer in my story had thrown his victim from the platform where Geoff and I had been. He had been caught, sentenced to death by hanging, and confined in a straitjacket in a padded cell to await his fate. I suppose I should have been grateful that the helpful officers had not decided to show me the gallows!

Diaries can be such useful aids to memory as long as they are written regularly and conscientiously. I can't now remember any other details of my story because the Headmaster destroyed my manuscript in the presence of my parents. So much for saving paper, I thought.