the cuckoo

The cuckoo is a mysterious creature rarely seen (I have only ever seen one, which was at the top of a mountain in North Wales). When I was a child It puzzled me, because the evidence was apparently all around us. Copious amounts of so-called ‘cuckoo spit’ festooned the plants where we played. It was hard to believe that one or two cuckoos were responsible (even a gang of pubescent schoolboys would have difficulty providing that amount of saliva). Now, I know it is created by a small insect called a frog-hopper. Then there’s the weird business of laying one egg in an unsuspecting bird’s nest and kicking out all the other babies. It’s a kind of lazy yob of the bird world. These oddities added to the suspense and mystique of the event I am about to describe. This story is not about small birds in clocks, or spit. I doubt if anyone else has heard of this because my grandfather invented it. It was an annual affair that rated in the same scale of excitement as Pancake Day and Bonfire Night.

This is what he told us. ‘Every Spring, the Cuckoo comes and if you’ve been good children, he brings a small present for you.’

We believed that ‘The Cuckoo’ came with gifts for me and my sister and our close neighbourhood friends. First it would fly into a nearby tree, then if all were well, into our parents’ bedroom. It opened the window slightly (not an easy task for a bird laden with gifts) and waited for us below to shout for him. To make him deliver the goods, we had to shout ‘cuckoo’ repeatedly as loud as we could. After a while, a small wrapped present slowly made it’s way down to us on the end of a piece of string. It had a name written on it and that person would take the gift. We would all shout again for the next present until we all had one.

Grandad was a canny old chap and who loved a practical joke or trick. He would wind us up to fever pitch by telling us he’d just seen The Cuckoo in a tree, then disappear upstairs to act it’s part. To add excitement, he kept us waiting and shouting and came out periodically to ask if The Cuckoo had been. Sometimes the present got half way down only to disappear again before we could reach it, which caused more frantic “cuckoo” shouting. My friend usually got over-excited shouting ‘It’s Barry here cuckoo’ in order to ensure his present reached him ASAP.

Naturally, we never caught sight of the fabled animal (it was extrememly shy according to grandad). We couldn’t figure how it opened the sash window in the bedroom (even Dad had difficulty with that one) and carry several presents. We assumed it had similar magical powers to Santa Claus and as there was a present involved in it, we didn’t really care. The event finished with grandad nonchalantly appearing again and asking us if he’d been yet. To grandma’s disgust and for those who still had any vocal chords in tact, the finale was a singing session of ‘John Brown’s Cow went frrrrrp (raspberry blowing) against the wall’