TALK about being well and truly shellshocked…
Christopher, our eldest, was woken from a deep sleep with the devastating news: “Nigel’s dead!” announced his partner, Lisa, who was up early to go to work.
“Oh, my God!” replied Christopher, instinctively holding his head in his hands in anguish, and picturing the face of a man he’d known nearly all his life.
Nigel Dowson is a larger-than-life character who has been the family hairdresser for more than 30 years and become a close friend.
When Christopher was four, he climbed on a pile of towels in Nigel’s Darlington salon, looked in the mirror, and demanded “a Noddy cut”.
That was a first for Nigel but he did his best to oblige and the little lad went home happy.
Since then, all four of our children have had their hair cut by Nigel, followed in turn by Christopher’s eight-year-old daughter, Chloe. We’ve spent so much money with him on haircuts over the decades, we’ve probably paid for Nigel’s house.
“I can’t believe it – he was such a great bloke,” groaned Christopher. “What the hell happened?”
Lisa took a big sigh: “I don’t know,” she explained. “I just found him floating in the fishtank.”
Christopher fell back on the bed as the reality dawned: “Oh, that Nigel!” he shouted, overcome with relief.
“Yes, Nigel, the snail,” said Lisa. “Who did you think I meant?”
Nigel, the water snail (pictured below), had been living in the fish tank downstairs at the family home in Hurworth-on-Tees for the past year, alongside an exotic type of catfish with the unlikely name of Smokeysocks.
Oh, and Nigel once made international headlines when he raised a lot of money for charity by performing the world’s first underwater haircut at the Dolphin Centre pool, in Darlington, while wearing scuba gear.
Anyway, once Christopher had recovered his composure, he went downstairs to deal with Nigel’s body and prepare to break the sad news to Chloe that another of her pets had bitten the dust – following on from Miles and Mister Roly, the guinea pigs, and a goldfish called Crivens.
However, upon closer investigation, Christopher discovered that Nigel wasn’t dead after all. He was just having a morning swim!
And it doesn’t end there. A few days after reports of Nigel’s death were greatly exaggerated in the style of Mark Twain, there was another twist in the snail.
Christopher woke up to another shock – Nigel had given birth to some baby snails.
He’s now been renamed Nigella.
