Mr Montgomery's Moustache
From the Editor
On a regular basis Jamie Keddie sends out the LessonStream Post – a story or storytelling idea for the classroom. It's free to sign up and you can do so here: https://lessonstream.com
Here is an example of what you might get.
I used to have a piano teacher called Mr Montgomery. Mr Montgomery was a young teacher and he was a bit of a character. He lived in a cottage on the main road between my village and Edinburgh. It was a very isolated place on a very busy road and I remember thinking that it was a strange place for someone to live.
One evening, my mum dropped me off at Mr Montgomery's cottage for my weekly piano lesson. I rang the door bell and he answered.
"Hey Jamie. How are you today? Come on in!"
I looked at my teacher and noticed that there was something different about him. He noticed me noticing.
"Ah, you've noticed that there's something different about me."
“Yes – it's your moustache”, I said.
“Exactly – last week I had a moustache and this week I don’t. What do you think of that then?”
"What happened?" I asked?
"What happened? What happened? What a question! I don't know if I should tell you. You really want to know?"
Mr Montgomery told me how he had lost his moustache. This is how I remember his story:
| ", it was a couple of nights ago. I had been drinking in the village with some friends and I got drunk. I mean really drunk. I mean so drunk that I could hardly walk. When the pub closed, it was time for me to go home. And I had to walk – about two miles. Two miles, Jamie! Can you imagine that? Anyway, as I said, I was so drunk that I could hardly walk. But I had no option – I had to get home. So I staggered along the side of the road and about half way between here and the village, I fell over. So there I was lying on the side of the road – so drunk that I couldn’t get up. And in the distance, I saw some headlights. It was a lorry and it was coming towards me. Can you believe that Jamie? Now this was really bad because although my body was on the side of the road, my head was actually on the road looking at the lorry that was coming towards me. And I thought, "This is it. I'm a goner! There's no way I'm going to survive this." And the lorry got closer and closer and just before it hit me, I somehow managed to get my head out of the way – just in time. It was incredible. I don't know how I did it. But it was so close that the wheel of the lorry actually brushed across my face. And as it did, it pulled my moustache off. It took it clean off. I couldn't believe it. I guess I'm lucky to be alive. But it's a shame about my moustache, don't you think? Anyway, how did you get on this week? Did you practise that new piece I gave you?" |
Later, my mum picked me up. In the car on the way home she said, "Oh I see that Mr Montgomery’s shaved off his moustache."
"No. That's not how it happened", I said. And I told her the story.
My mum thought that this was hilarious. She laughed so hard that she actually had to stop the car.
"Why is that so funny?"
“Oh for goodness sake Jamie. You don't actually believe that do you?"
I paused for a moment.
“OK", I said "So how did he lose his moustache?”
“Jamie, let me explain something to you", my mum said. "As a general rule in life, people don’t usually ‘lose’ their moustaches. They usually just decide to shave them off.”
PS
I hope you enjoyed my story. Don't forget that I was only nine or ten years old!
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Mr Montgomery's Moustache
by Jamie Keddie, Spain