Wow, it is hard to believe that Kevin’s sister was forgotten. Kevin wasn’t his real name, but to protect the innocent and all that.

Kevin and yours truly had known one another since junior school, this would have been the 1970s and we used to hang out into our teens. Usually we went to his house to read comics or play a board game, like monopoly.

That’s where Kevin’s sister comes in. She must have been about 16 or 17 in those early days. To play some board games you need at least three and she was often willing to join in despite being older than us.

One day while we were playing on the dining room table their mother came in and started yelling at… here you were going to be provided with another alias, but what was her real name? Let’s call her Janet. So mother is yelling at Janet, a real scolding in front of two 12-year-olds, so to mask her embarrassment and to defend herself Janet tries to speak.

“Don’t you answer me back,” her mum found a whole new gear to her anger. She grabbed Janet by the arm, upsetting the game we were playing and dragged her into the living room. A moment later they came out, mum holding Janet by one hand and dad’s slipper in the other.

Janet looked right at me with such a woeful face and a level of embarrassment that was off the scale before she was dragged into the hall and up the stairs.

Kevin’s dad ushered us into the garden and we spent the next 10 minutes pretending to be interested in the roses or something.

After that Kevin’s mum made us play in his room. Kevin wouldn’t discuss what had happened but immediately went next to door to see if Janet was OK, as we could hear her crying. Naturally, Kevin couldn’t go alone, although he manfully insisted he should.

Janet was not especially impressed with Kevin’s brotherly concern, which was probably genuine by the way, unlike yours truly’s interest. She threw something at him and slammed the door.

Now recent experience has harshly revealed that what one remembers and what actually happened is often at odds and given this whole episode has only just clawed its way to the top of consciousness, its veracity is open to interpretation.

Now this is what is remembered in the brief instant that the door was open, Janet was lying face down on her bed with her jeans around her ankles. It may have been her jeans and knickers, or the last may have been added by a fevered imagination. Although it doesn’t mean that the jeans didn’t obscure the knickers. Only her legs from mid thigh down could be seen from the limited angle, but Kevin may have had a better view, hence his sister’s reaction.

The next time we were together, Janet was as nice as pie and when asked if she was OK, she said: “oh that, don’t worry, mum is always going off on one.”

Kevin would never talk about what happened or any other occurrences, but from time to time Janet was inclined to say things like, “oh hell if mum finds out I’ll get another good hiding.”

Maybe two years later, Janet was unemployed and seeing a bloke with a motorbike who let us sit on it sometimes. Then, if remembered correctly, she missed a job interview to go to a rock club.

There is a clear memory of her being dragged from the back of a motorbike and up to her room while her mother was shouting a lot. On the other hand, that may be an embellishment.

What is true is that the Saturday after, we were playing monopoly at Kevin’s and his mum and dad went out. Kevin told me that Janet was grounded, she must have been at least 19 by then, and not only that, she had to stay in bed except to go to the toilet! Talk about white slavery and punishment fantasies working over time. Nevertheless, Kevin persuaded an ever-cheerful Janet to join us because we needed a third.

“I won’t get dressed in case they come back,” she said as she entered the room wearing nothing but a shirt.

The shirt was too short and she had most of the buttons undone at the front. As she bent over the board it must have been someone’s first view of a woman’s breast up close.

Most of the game was spent surreptitiously trying to see her bottom every time she knelt up to take a card, and pondering the eternal question, knickers or no knickers. That was to be answered as it turned out.

Downstairs we heard someone come home. Janet made an all-England dash for her room, shirt flying and there was a quick flash of bare bottom as she disappeared out of Kevin’s bedroom door.

It turned out to be their Nan, who spotted at once that three people had been playing monopoly. Luckily, she was OK about it and made us all tea and gave us biscuits.

Later that day or on another occasion, Kevin and I went into her room while she sat on the bed. Her dad’s slipper was in the middle of the floor.

“What’s that there for?” It was an innocent question.

She blushed deeper than anyone ever had, a real rose pink that included her ears.

“It must have been left there,” she said.

Years later we met in a local pub by chance to see the same band. She was smoking a joint and said in passing; “You remember what happened that time that mum caught me smoking a joint. It wasn’t just my joint that was smoking by the time she was done I tell you.”

Did she mean the first time or the last time, when she was grounded? Or did it happen so often that she forgot who was there? Well it is easily done.

Janet has a lot to answer for, maybe this blog should be dedicated to her.