THE children are always asking us to get them things for school. Will you get me a new folder...compass...ruler...rubber...pencil sharpener...real ink pen...drawing pad... So we didn't worry too much when our eldest, now aged 14, asked the usual question: "Mum, could you get me something for school?"

"Yes, write it down for me, so I don't forget," she said, casually.

He handed her a piece of paper. On it were written two terrifying words: PIG'S HEART.

Mum, a vegetarian, nearly choked on her breakfast: "A pig's heart?"

"Yeah, I need it for biology - we're going to cut it open to see how it works," he explained. She looked up at me with one of those looks: "You'll have to do it," she said.

I came over a bit faint and had to hold on to the table: "Do I have to?" I replied, weakly.

A week earlier, I'd been posing as a nose model for my daughter's art homework. This time, it was the heart homework which was posing an even bigger problem.

Why she was asking me, I don't know. I've always been distinctly queasy about organs. I can't even watch Casualty on the telly in case they show some blood.

I suddenly saw myself as the woodcutter in Snow White when he's ordered to take her into the forest, cut out her heart, and bring it back for the wicked old queen (not that I'm calling my wife a wicked old queen, you understand).

Like the woodcutter, I simply couldn't do it. In the end, I remembered something I'd learned on a course at work: "Delegation is the art of good management."

We telephoned Auntie Hazel and asked her to find us a pig's heart. She's been working as a nurse in an intensive care unit - she'd know what she was doing.

None of us realised how difficult it would be to get a pig's heart. The butcher said he'd need more notice but he'd be able to get a lamb's heart.

The boy was notified by phone: "They can't get a pig's heart but they're going to order a lamb's heart," said Auntie Hazel.

"Oh, they haven't killed it just for me, have they?" he asked, sheepishly.

He was assured that they hadn't and the heart was picked up on Saturday morning. Auntie Hazel showed it to the boy in a scientific kind of way, pointing out how much fat the lamb had around its heart.

"This heart is less than two years old and the lamb's never smoked and there's still a layer of fat around it," she said. "Imagine what Grandad's heart must be like." (Grandad's 80 and has smoked all his life.)

"How do you feel about all this?" I asked the boy on Sunday evening.

"Fine. It's sad in a way but I'm quite interested in medicine as a career, so it'll be interesting," he said. He cycled to school on Monday morning with the heart carefully wrapped up and placed in a Tupperware container.

The biology lesson went ahead as planned and the lamb's heart was duly dissected. According to eye witnesses, the boy went green.

"How was school?" I asked him that night.

"Absolutely gross," he replied, pulling a face and declining to elaborate.

Suffice to say that I don't think we have a future surgeon in the house.

Being a son of mine, I didn't have the heart to tell him that I suspected as much.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

Those attending a meeting of the South Durham U3A in Bowen Hall, Cockerton, Darlington, were full of memories...

DENNIS Jolly remembered the time his daughter Beverley came into the kitchen from the living room when she was five and asked: "Dad, Dad, what's a period?"

Dennis nearly choked on his tea but regained his composure to say: "Why do you want to know that?"

"Because it said on the television that we'll have sunny periods tomorrow," replied Beverley.

BOB Beevers told of the time a little girl was going through some old photographs with her grandmother.

The grandma showed her a picture of the far-off day when she was a bridesmaid.

The little girl looked at the photograph, looked back at the grandma, and said: "Oh, why did you have to change?"

JOHN Sutcliffe came up with the one about his nephew who'd taken part in a swimathon and raised the grand sum of £3.75.

"Do I have to give all this money away?" he asked.

"Yes, it's for deprived children," he was told.

"Well, how do you know I'm not deprived?" he replied.

* More from U3A next time.

DAD AT LARGE 3

The latest book: "Dad At Large 3 - Whose Paper Round Is It Anyway?" will be launched at Ottakar's bookshop in the Cornmill Centre, Darlington, on Saturday, November 6. Peter Barron will be signing copies between 10am and 3pm. The book costs £5 and raises money for the Butterwick Children's Hospice.

Published: 21/10/2004