F1 overload?

When I was first dispatched to a boarding school, one, the other or both of my parents thought that what every seven-year-old new boy needed to see him through the months before he could fly home was, you guessed it, a briefcase. My father was an accountant so until any unexpected evidence comes to light, my finger of suspicion will always be pointed at him.

I remember it well: black, ovoid in shape like a traditional doctor’s case, with a gold buckle with three different slots from which to lock it, according to just how crammed full of stuff it happened to be.

My mother, by rather dramatic contrast, was the freest of free spirits with a healthy element of honest to goodness subversion thrown in. So my money is on it being her who filled said briefcase so full of sweets that buckle was left on its loosest setting and only just coping with that. Inside they were all there: Spangles, Caramacs, Opal Fruits, Flying Saucers, Sherbet Fountains, Space Dust and so on and on and on.