Last Clown Standing (SA/2022)
There's a certain irony in the fact that the only soft toy to have survived from my childhood is the one I never really cared for and used to treat with astonishing violence: an 18" clown figure with a rubber painted face and a harlequin style outfit.
It wasn't that I was scared of clowns, although coulrophobia is, apparently, a fairly common fear and many people - particularly young children - find clowns disturbing.*
In fact, I was enchanted by the sad little clown (or pierrot), who turned the roller displaying captions and credits at the opening and closing of Camberwick Green and was a big fan of the Joker as played by Cesar Romero in Batman.
But, for some reason, I was never very fond of my clown companion, although I now have a new-found respect for his endurance, outliving a much-loved Teddy Bear and even a hard-bodied Action Man.
I suppose it's a case of he who laughs loudest lasts the longest.
* Note: if this phobia is mostly related to their bizarre - sometimes grotesque -
appearance, the unpredictable behaviour of clowns can also be unsettling; no one
likes to be invited to smell a flower only to have water squirted in
their face.
