Viagra

16th February 2007

I saw on the television news today an item about baby Lewis Goodfellow, who weighed only 1lb 8ozs when he was born sixteen weeks premature last September with seriously underdeveloped lungs, and was given Viagra to treat this condition. The male impotence drug worked by opening some of the small blood vessels in the baby Lewis’s lungs to help carry oxygen around his little body. Now he is finally at home with his delighted parents. However, he was allowed home after only a month but apparently young Lewis has spent the last five months chasing the nurses round the ward.
Six months old and able to get a hard on, eh. He’s going to be a little terror when he starts playschool.
It reminded me of Arthur Simmons, a classmate of mine when I was at infants school. Until the Viagra-charged Lewis Goodfellow came along Arthur, at nine and a bit, was by far the youngest person I had ever heard of who was able to get an erection. All his classmates, me included, had to wait about another five years for this wonderful gift. Not Arthur. He could get an erection at will. He could also get one without will, which he very often did, causing much merriment for his classmates and much embarrassment for Arthur.
Maisie Marshall’s hand shot up. “Miss, Miss, Arthur Simmons had got that lump in his trousers again.”
Poor Miss Garton, her face beetroot red, always tried to ignore the problem. “Get on with your composition about Easter, Maisie.”
Maisie however was undeterred “My Mam says it must be because he plays with it, Miss.”
Now it was Arthur’s turn to blush. “I do not, Miss! It just happens.”
And it did. Often. In fact I think he spent more time with a hard on than with a hard off, if that’s the right expression.
When out of the classroom and away from the girls – usually in the boys lavatories or down the old air raid shelters – he wasn’t anywhere near so bashful about his gift, and would get out his proud penis for the rest of us to gaze at in awe on request. Sometimes without even being requested. It wasn’t very long – about four inches I would say – but as that was about three inches more than the rest of we nine-year-olds had it was well worth looking at.
He could ejaculate as well. He didn’t know he could ejaculate though, and the first time it happened he hadn’t got a clue what was happening and apparently – unfortunately I didn’t see it but I have it on very good authority  – he thought he was erupting like Vesuvius and tried to stuff the semen back down his urethra, then when it wouldn’t go down wiped his hands on his corduroy shorts. Miss Garton told the inquisitive Maisie Marshall it was wallpaper paste and sent him home for a bath.
Needless to say all the boys in the class were very jealous of Arthur and his erection. A further cause for our envy was that he was excused Religious Instruction as the teacher Mrs Dawson refused to him and his pubescence in her class.
By the time we were eleven Arthur’s erection had grown another half an inch but I don’t know how it progressed from then on as at that age we went our separate ways, Arthur to the local secondary modern school, me, having passed the eleven plus, to the local grammar school. I did see him occasionally after that when I had to go shopping for my mother as he helped out on Saturday mornings at the Co-op butchers, but we both felt it was inconvenient – and possibly dangerous given all the axes and meat cleavers being wielded in close proximity – for him to get it out in the shop.
I like to think that Arthur, having failed the eleven plus, one day reached this mark with his erection, but by the time we’d reached maturity he’d moved away, and I lost touch with him altogether, so sadly I’ll never know.
Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They are priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.You can write to me at –Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak,

16th February 2007 

Â