Pack it in - NOW!

When growing up there were five main Parental and Elder sanctions for bad behaviour that were always threatened. 

Our own adaptation of the global standard of “wait until your father gets home” was specifically tailored to the head of our patriarchal unit with our often exhausted and exasperated Mother pleading “Donald, put your foot down”. 

The term "In Loco Parentis" which to us kids summoned up images of either mad adults or mad adults on a steam train referred to the obligations of others to ensure discipline and control and this invariably included teachers, other Mums and Dads, Scout or Brownie Leaders or anyone else assuming a role of responsibility over us even if only for the duration of a school day, a kids party or Troop session respectively. 

The only real sanction available to these proxy guardians consisted of shouting and gesturing towards an actual or fictional naughty corner. 

Back at home, if someone in authority or another concerned parent spilled the beans about indiscipline we could suffer yet another sanction of being sent to our room although to be honest, being one of five children I found the prospect of a bit of quiet respite in isolation and amongst my prized personal possessions as most welcome. 

Perhaps the scariest weapon in the parental armoury was about falling victim to the bogey man playing on the fear of something unknown which is so much more accentuated that a tangible persona. 

However, the ultimate sanction in my childhood was the prospect of being sent to Timbuktu. 

Nowadays you can probably get a cheap flight from just about anywhere to arrive in Timbuktu in a few hours but within the perceived extent of the world of an under 10 child at that time in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s it sounded like it was somewhere on the very edge of civilisation and humanity.

A despatching to Timbuktu was a common storyline in my regular comic books with, I seem to recall, Herge’s Tintin being a regular potential recipient of that fate as well as the likes of Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace and his hound Gnasher and many other cartoon favourites. 

Disney animation did not shirk the fear factor and in The Aristocats the scheming butler Edgar Balthazar is punished for his badness by being packed off to that place. 

My own fear of being sent to Timbuktu was plainly irrational as I knew nothing about it. I was not actually sure if it was a fictional or real place. 

The phonetic sounding was not altogether unpleasant or menacing with a nice tripping off the tongue.

So what was the source of the terror that it invoked in me by its mere mention? 

To a young, excitable mind it was easy to imagine Timbuktu was unbearably hot. 

This may have been a sub conscious reference to the fire and brimstone of the Underworld but nicely packaged for children's literature and popular culture. 

I had a vague notion that it was possibly in Africa but nothing more specific than that. 

This was based on the most common illustrations in print or images on the small or big screen of a desert landscape and with vast wind furrowed and blasted sand dunes only interrupted by small compact clusters of date palms around an oasis waterhole. 

Having only ever lived and holidayed in the UK in my formative years and being constantly exposed to a cold and wet Northern European Climate the prospect of soaring temperatures and inhospitable conditions only compounded the underlying fear. 

The ultimate feature of being exiled to Timbuktu however was in the most common mode of transport- that being nailed up in a wooden shipping crate or as with Edgar Balthazar in a Travel or Cabin Trunk. 

I did, as a youngster, have a fear of small spaces and even today do not relish the prospect of crawling into a confined area or being hemmed in by walls or barriers. 

So the combination of forcible incarceration in a box like container and a long uncomfortable sea and overland journey to an unforeseeable fate far from home was sanction enough to keep me well behaved, polite and respectful.

Footnote; Timbuktu is an ancient and heritage city in Mali- yes, it is a real place!!