I don’t know about other families, but dinner time for us was clearly a spiritual experience. Well, that’s what Dad always wanted anyway. No food was ever consumed without giving thanks and no meal could ever be completed without the necessary bible reading and prayers. No doubt about it, Dad was earnest in this pursuit, but he did not always get the required response from those that he had begat. (The bible’s description for us kids). Whilst Dad’s thoughts turned to thanksgiving to the creator of the universe at the start of each meal the begat often practiced the evolutionary doctrine of survival of the fittest. You see, there were usually only 7 complete and intact place settings for this extended family of eight. The eighth place setting usually consisted of a knife with no handle, a fork with forward and backward prongs and a spoon of the Uri Gellar vintage. The object was clear, that during the eyes closed and heads bowed grace period at the start of each meal, you needed to swap your bad cutlery for a better one held by your brother or sister. Any kid that followed completely in Dad’s footsteps soon found that he had a full set of unusable utensils with which to eat the evening meals. So, most of us soon learnt that at the announcement of grace to place our hands firmly on those utensils before us that we did not want swapped. Grace was a ‘time window’ of opportunity in which to set yourself for the meal ahead, so there was much hands across the table doing the Baskerville Swap. This went on at every meal until one night when Dad was giving thanks to the almighty; he picked up his spoon and proceeded to whack any hand that was reaching across the table. Knowing that the Lord may not understand this squinty eyed approach to grace, Dad continued his prayer with all the fervency that would normally be required at this sacred moment – and so ended the Baskerville Cutlery Swap.
