Bob Austin

 Bob Austin was on the news last night along with pictures from 1976 and I was thrown back into reminiscences of my Dad. Three-shed Bob, who couldn’t believe that the wildfire took all of them did that for me.

The Long Suffering Husband looked at me and said, “Bob Austin!” and I replied, rolling the name round my tongue in that satisfying way, “Bob Austin.” Try it. BOBAUSTIN

Bereavement is an odd thing. Sometimes you can forget. Your memories keep the person alive. I count myself lucky that my memories of my parents are positive and diverse, so that men called Bob Austin being on the news can remind me of happy times. 

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. They often are for anyone who has run their battery completely empty and mine took a few days before it even looked like it might recharge again. I will never be able to explain the toll that Ofsted takes, with a deep dive in your subject in a school you passionately care about on the penultimate last two days of the year in a heatwave, where the temperature broke all records, for someone who has a very severe case of imposter syndrome. However, if I mention that I slept a sum total of 6 hours over 3 nights, walked the dog before sunrise and sat in the garden talking to pigeons at dawn that might give you a clue.

Pigeons and Bob Austin.

It was on the morning of the second Ofsted day that I sat in the garden chatting to the wood pigeons. Or were they collard doves? Dad taught me that one said, “My toe hurts Betty” and the other said, “BOBAUSTIN” but I can’t remember which was which. 

That morning, though, they seemed to be saying, “Ofsted are cunts,” (apologies for the language but it’s what they said).

“A bit harsh,” I said, “They are just doing a job.”

The bird repeated itself.

“Ok,” I said, “You are probably right.”

“BOBAUSTIN!” said another.

“Right, BOBAUSTIN!” I shouted back, fearing that I might wake the neighbours.

BOBAUSTIN reminded me of another mantra of my Dad’s which was, “Blag it. Bullshit your way through and fake it until you make it.” So, that’s what I did. 

As a child, whenever he mentioned Bob Austin, which he did frequently, mainly because it rolls around the mouth so pleasantly, I would wonder who the real Bob was. I imagined that it was someone he worked with, like Andrew Peacock (also known as Drew) or Don Kibbles. You would imagine that these men with their snigger-inducing names would be fictional but I met both of them. Andrew, being a young and slim graduate (or educated fool, as my Dad preferred to say) and Don being older and stockier, with a red bulbous drinker’s nose. Don would slide back on his wheeled office chair to answer the phone. The combined effect of the speed of the chair and his general impatience making it sound like he barked, “Donkey Balls. Southend Irish Sea,” into the receiver. 

However, to my knowledge (just like the Prime Minister), I never met Bob Austin. In my imagination he was a small man with round glasses, who knotted his hanky in four corners to improvise a hat to cover his Brylcreemed black hair on hot days, which he could also use to wipe the sweat that beaded on his nose.

The LSH and I looked at the telly.

“So, that’s Bob Austin. I never thought he’d look like that!”