Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 1 August 2019

Nine-year-old Oscar is a mentor to eight-year-old Lucas

issue 03 August 2019

My grandson Oscar (nine) shares a bedroom with his cousin Lucas (eight) and sits next to him at school. Before this year, for one tragic reason and another, Lucas hadn’t been to school for two years. So Oscar has been mentoring him in mathematics and spelling and before they go to sleep reads to him. (At the moment they’re reading Stig of the Dump.) Last week, on the final day of the school year, Lucas was given the Star Pupil of the Year award. Oscar cried.

To reward them for their combined efforts I handed out cash and took them last week to Dartmoor Prison museum, situated within the grimly massive granite walls of the old prison dairy, for a treat. The bloke taking the money was a prison officer and a Scot. As we approached his counter, he leaned over and clapped Lucas in a pair of cast-iron mid-19th-century handcuffs and promised to return him to us after a fortnight.

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