Heidi Glum

I have had two situations in one day of being challenged as to my identity and purpose.

You hear about horrific tales of identity theft with consequential losses in monies and no end of trouble in, when the deception is revealed, just trying to establish to the Authorities that you are who you say you are and not someone who just claimed to be who you are.

Mine was not a matter of any third party passing off as me. For a few moments in both situations of being asked "who are you and what are you doing?" I forgot everything. That does not give a very good impression to the interrogator and immediately sets the alarm bells, both figuratively speaking and actually, ringing to raise the alarm.

In the first of the embarrasing moments I was stood on the pavement outside my Mother's house of over 30 years.

I had lived there on and off for about 8 years out of the three plus decades and being the one of five offspring closest to the family seat I was a regular visitor as a dutiful son hopes to be.

Ahead of me, up the garden path and just working her way through the outer porch door was my eldest daughter. It was a legitimate and, Hannah assured me, permission granted entry using the spare key for the purposes of retrieving a few of her possessions left there for safekeeping during the summer of our upheaval in moving house.

A white Scotty dog was at my ankles and at the end of one of those extendable leads was a lady, perhaps in her mid to late 70's, appropriately dressed for a late winter afternoon walk on the windswept acres of the Town Common.

"Margaret is away, I believe" was the first testing and probing question. I felt like an old Eastern European Spy with my next few words in reply determining if I would be accepted as plausible or rounded up and shot.

"Yes", I mumbled " she has gone to see her daughter in West Yorkshire".

This wording in retrospect did not help in identifying myself as a family member.

I did not help the stand-off any bit by joking to Hannah, still on the doorstep and curious about my adversary, " just go for the gold".

Then the inevitable demand for crucial information

"who are you and what are you doing?".

My hesitation must have seemed like floundering but it was borne out of sheer shock.

"I am Peter, Margaret's son".

The lady replied "I haven't met you before, have I, but I have met all of the others".

"That's strange" I said, "I am the one who lives nearest. The others refer to me as the idiot son closest to home". This attempt at humour did not go down well. I felt like making an appeal to the dog because he I did recognise from the fantastic photograph taken two years prior on the Common of friends and acquaintances of my late Father, all with their faithful hounds.

I commented about this momentous celebration of the Man and his great life and this seemed to satisfy the curiosity, albeit based on good neighbourliness, of the lady. I even walked a few yards down the road with her but our conversation was forced and was going nowhere.

Within a few minutes my second challenge arose.

This time it was two small, elderly women, clutching onto each other for security and stability. Their amalgamated form resembled a two headed mythical creature and this caused me to hesitate again when that inevitable double edged question reared up. I suppose that I was behaving in enough of a suspicious manner to justify the "who are you and what are doing?".

I had been trying to identify the lock-up garage, one out of three blocks of 5, that belonged to the key that I had been given by the Estate Agent for a nice top floor flat just around the corner from Margaret's House.

The key was an older type and so I could eliminate half of the garages on account of their newer replacement doors. The remainder were dispersed through the three terraced blocks and I was working methodically on inserting the key and trying the locks on all of these.

Unfortunately, at the very moment of being approached by the pair, I had rattled the door on the garage belonging to one of the old ladies and she did not approve.

They squared up to me, only about 5 feet tall both of them but about 6 feet in combined width as old ladies often metabolise into what with copious amounts of tea and cake.

I stuttered my reason for what appeared to them to be attempted breaking and entering. It must have sounded like "top flat", "no numbers", "trying doors" in that or any combination or order.

At least one of these vagueries seemed to pacify the duo and they then, unnecessarily went into a protracted back story of the owners and occupiers of the top floor flat as old ladies are prone to do when they have cornered a young man in a captive situation against a garage door.

They eventually pointed out where I needed to be in the courtyard but kept a pair of keen eyes on me as I inserted the key. It did not work even though it had fitted the lock quite nicely.

I could feel another awkward moment but quickly turning over the key I was able to validate my whole story, identity and purpose by triumphantly throwing up the flimsy metal door.

The ladies shuffled off, no doubt heading for more tea and cake in the flats.

I crawled into the darkened space to wait until my escape route was clear. By the Assistive Light on my phone I got out my driving licence just to verify that I was who I felt and thought I was after all.