I was only a little kid, so I can’t remember what I’d done, but I’d certainly be naughty enough for my lovely Mum to confiscate a pile of my absolute favourite comics, including some Claremont/Byrne awesomeness and, tragically, a Great Grape Ape annual that was my best book in the world at the time. (Although I didn’t really care about the comics featuring the Ape, I was way more into the weird Hong Kong Phooey strips.)
My parents were staggeringly young when they had us kids – Mum would only have been in her mid-twenties at this time – but her parenting skills were golden. Whatever I did to deserve this punishment, it was traumatic enough to ensure I didn’t bloody do it again.
It wasn’t until months later, while playing hide and seek, that I found that she hadn’t thrown them out at all, and they were sitting in the back of a cupboard. She let me have them back, because I’d learned my lesson, and she inadvertently ensured that I would be a comic freak for life, because that rush of getting them back after months of being deprived was so, so good.
I’ve still got the Great Grape Ape annual. I could never get rid of it after all that.
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