FLASH MEN AND FIREPLACES.

Flashman had died. Or rather the wonderful actor Richard Morant who played the character of Flashman in Tom Brown School Days has tragically died. I never met him, but I had recently met his stunning wife Valerie, who is the kindest person you could ever wish to meet. My heart goes out to her and her family.

Morant also played a handsome character in Poldark although I was never a Poldark groupie like my teenage peers at the time. But I remember at the age of seven, while other girls were role playing as nurses and dancers, I was role playing as Tom Brown being tied up to a fireplace by Flashman. It may have been broadcast at four pm on a Sunday afternoon but that series was definitely pseudo erotic. I didn't care if I ever met Tom Brown, its Flashman I wanted to meet. And that was at seven. The character of Flashman was the bully, the attractive bounder, the dark side of Jane Austen's Darcey - an author who never got why women are so attracted to wankers. Forty years later the idea still has it's appeal. Although knowing the flash men I've met over the years, they are nothing like the Flashman of those school days. Today, these men invariably have insurmountable self esteem issues, and are invariably the ones who would prefer to be tied to the fireplace.