CLOSE

Reginald.

When my friend Danny Kelly was about sixteen, his school was ruled by a terrifying, hard-as-nails fifth-former called Chet. And because Chet came from a family of vicious thugs, there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. One day a kid called Reginald arrived from Nigeria. He was big like Chet but a gentle giant. His accent and skin colour made him an obvious target for Chet’s constant taunting and racial abuse. One day, to the astonishment of the whole playground, Reginald turned round and beat the shit out of him. Following this, Reginald was expelled. Not because he’d given Chet such a brutal beating, but because it transpired that he was 22 years old. There is currently a concern about child migrants arriving from Calais, in that some may be much older than they claim. However, if they’re anything like Reginald, this might be no bad thing.

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header