Paul OGrady - At My Mothers Knee...: And Other Low Joints

AT HOME I'VE GOT A BOX CONTAINING WHAT I SUPPOSE YOUmight call the Family Archives. Family Archives soundsvery grand but it's actually just an ordinary cardboard boxcontaining an assortment of birth certificates, letters, olddiaries and sepia photographs the flotsam and jetsam of livespast. There's even a pair of yellowing false teeth wrapped up ina handkerchief. God knows who they belonged to. It couldhave been any one of my long-dead forebears.

When I was growing up in Birkenhead, nearly every adult Iknew had false teeth or at least had a couple of fake chopperson a dental plate either that or no teeth at all. My mother,christened Mary but known to everyone as Molly, had everytooth in her head extracted when false teeth became availableon the National Health. She came from a generation where apoor diet and only the most primitive dental hygiene had takenits toll on working-class teeth, therefore a set of gleamingwhite gnashers courtesy of the NHS was a highly desirableacquisition.

In the early sixties, when she was only forty-four, she underwentthis extreme dentistry. I remember her then as being quiteslim and pretty, though I can't recall what condition her teethwere in. She used to say that the reason she'd had them all takenout was because she had a mouthful of teeth 'like a row of bombed houses', which was a slight exaggeration. Like everyoneelse, she had all her teeth out because it was fashionable.

The sight of her lying in bed, moaning softly, a tea towelpressed to her swollen mouth and a bucket for blood on thefloor beside her, horrified me. That nightmare scene put me offgoing to the dentist for life. Nothing and nobody could persuademe to go, and I'm still the same today. OK, I might notdevelop rigor mortis, throw myself on the front-room floorand hold my breath until my face turns a vivid scarlet at themere suggestion of a check-up any more, but if a tooth is playingup I'll stupidly ignore it until the final hour. When I'mdefeated by the pain and my cheek is as swollen as Popeye's I'llgive in and go for treatment.

My patient dad would try and gently coax me into taking thetrip to see Mr Aboud, our dentist, inevitably with no luck.Eventually my mother, exasperated by my carry-on, would getme there by means of devious trickery. On the pretext ofvisiting a clothes shop called Carson's that just happened to beclose to Aboud's House of Torture, she'd whip me into hissurgery with the speed and efficiency of the Childcatcherbefore I realized what was happening.

Mr Aboud, a dapper little man who wore neroli oil in his hairand spoke with an exotic accent if he had chosen actinginstead of dentistry he would have made the perfect HerculePoirot would place me firmly in his chair and press the foul-smellingrubber mask over my nose and mouth, telling me to'Close your eyes, child, and breathe deeeeply, deeply...' To myears he sounded just like Bela Lugosi in the Dracula films I'dseen on the telly. The gas would take effect and, slipping into acoma for what felt like hours but was actually only seconds, Iwould have wild, technicolour dreams and come to with a starton the leather bench in the waiting room, retching from theafter-effects of the gas into a bloodied bowl held by my mother.

Dentistry has a come a long way since the sixties. I've been through more dentists than I have socks over the years, but nowI've finally found a sympathetic marvel I'm a lot better. I stillwon't have an anaesthetic though; I don't like the after-effects.The dentist's creed back then was 'rip them out'. My aunty Chris,who kept all her extracted teeth wrapped in tissue in a jewellerybox in her bedroom and was always threatening to have thepoisonous-looking fangs made into a necklace, could neverunderstand 'why anyone would want to spend their lives rootin'around people's gobs' and dismissed all dentists as butchers.

After she'd had weeks of soup and soggy toast, the long-awaitedday came when Mr Aboud proudly presented my mother withher brand new set of dentures. She went straight from thedentist's to her sisters, Annie and Chrissie, and the new teethwere premiered in their back kitchen.

'Come on then, Moll, give us a gander at the new choppers,'said Annie, rubbing her hands together like a bookie with a hottip. My mum, lips pursed tightly, removed her headscarf andarranged herself by the kitchen sink so that the light from thewindow would catch the full effect of the revelation. She ranher tongue back and forth across the teeth, cleared her throatand then slowly curled back her top and bottom lips, ratherlike a camel, to expose a set of startling white tombstones. Fora moment, nobody spoke. You could have heard a pin drop.