The Twat Jumper

When I was about 20 years old, I was walking down the street in Farnham when I saw a good-looking girl walking toward me wearing a lovely, well-worn but cherished Fair Isle jumper. I liked it so much that I stopped the girl and asked to buy it. I offered her 50p (recently 10 shillings) and she peeled it off in front of me and handed it over. That in itself I would have given her 50p for, with or without the jumper.

I wore it constantly for the next few years and - unusually for me - took good care of it, washing it regularly and guarding it against moths. I loved it.

When I arrived in Bath I continued to take care of it and eventually gave it as a present to a good friend who took it back to Tehran with him a couple of years later when he returned to his home country.

About three years ago I happened to admire this jumper - a modern re-make of the classic Fair Isle, made by elderly, authentical women in Scotland - and it was given to me as a birthday present.

I put it on and and looked at myself in the mirror. Something wasn't quite right. The jumper was fine. It was me who wasn't quite right.

Over the preceding 40 years I had become misshapen and about 4 stone heavier, as most men do when they get older. I reluctantly decided that you have to be wafer thin, no more than 25 years old and preferably living in the 1920s to wear a Fair Isle jumper.

A friend of mine - of the same age - was given the identical jumper the same year, and we eventually asked each other why we never wore them. My answer was identical to his - 'Because it makes me look like a twat'.

Every now and then I meet up with this friend and we ask each other, "Have you still got your twat jumper?"