Meeting Sean Connery (Not)

Now here's a strange thing. I've been trying to sort out my mother's paperwork – of which there is at least two bin-liners' worth – and I've come across many strange things amongst all the bank statements, letters, insurance policies, photographs, invoices etc. One of the most surprising revelations was a letter written by my mother to my father when she was away in hospital at a time when I was only two years old. In this letter – full of general chit-chat about life in hospital and enquiries of my father about what was happening at home - she refers to me twice, and both times as "Ricky". This is extraordinary, because I can't recall her ever addressing me by, or referring to me as, any name other than "Richard".

This led me to wonder why my parents should have dropped this earlier (somewhat jaunty) sobriquet, in favour of the rather sober and proper name by which I have since become identified. It is almost like meeting another 'me'. Who would this 'Ricky' have become if the name had stuck, I wonder? And does the name change indicate a shift in affection on their part, or perhaps a swing in opinion of who their little boy was, or was to become? I'm quite puzzled by this, I have to tell you. It's quite disturbing.

Either way, it's a far cry from what my Great-Aunt Dolores used to call me. I can't recall her ever addressing me as anything other than 'boy', 'wimp', 'cur', 'idiot', or any other abusive term that might have sprung to her mind in response to whatever situation we had found ourselves in. I recall one particular incident when she actually threw her treasured ivory cigarette-holder at my head and yelled 'Congenital cretin!' at me (a foul slur on my parents, by the way, whom for some reason she despised).

This outburst had its origins in a near encounter with Sean Connery. It was the fact that it had been only a 'near' encounter that had incurred her ire. She'd been trying to blag an entrance for us both to the after-party for the premiere of the film 'Never Say Never Again' at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Dolores had somehow manage to persuade Rocky, one of the security men, that she was one of the producers of the movie whose limousine had been hijacked by Russian mafia in a protest against the anti-Russian image so often perpetrated by the Bond films. She could be a consummate liar when she had a mind to, could my aunt, but I think what had made Rocky so credulous was the way she had coquettishly squeezed his nipples through the blue serge of his uniform with one hand, whilst stroking his cheek (face, not arse) with the other.

He was about to lift the red-tassled rope to allow us to pass when I inexplicably blurted out something about how the real producers of the film would be very surprised to find us gate-crashing their party, and wouldn't it be a jolly good wheeze. Rocky's arm stopped in mid-air, still holding the rope, and the smile disappeared from his face.

It was as we both lay sprawled in the gutter on the corner of Hollywood & Vine – my aunt's knickers in full view of the assembled paparazzi – that she yelled those insulting words at me, and when my eyeball took the full force of her burning cigarette.

'I will never, ever, try to launch you into polite society again, you ungrateful little bastard! Never!' she spat, whilst trying to pull her dress down over her knees. Perhaps it was unpropitious of me to have responded with: 'But my dear great aunt – you should never say never again', because it was probably that which caused her to pick up the still-burning cigarette and stub it out on my forearm (which had become exposed because Rocky had somehow managed to rip the sleeve from the jacket of my hired dinner suit). Ouch! I still have the scar on my arm to prove it.