Author’s note: In the middle of a busy surgery many years ago, Mrs L brought her 7 year old daughter to see me. The story was that since the death of her next door neighbour, Sarah:
- “Worries about people dying”
- “Doesn’t like mum out of her sight”
- “We have great difficulty getting her to go out of the car”
The above was written down by mum, but Sarah also had nightmares and panics. What could I do as a harassed G.P. to help Sarah? In desperation I gave her some of my Henry and Ho-Ho stories, asking mum to read Sarah one story each night and to report back on how Sarah liked them
Mum reported that Sarah loved the stories, so I wrote a special story for Sarah – Uncle Samson’s strange gift – which cured her immediately! This was the start of my efforts to help children through the medium of bed-time stories and although it was written to try to help Sarah cope with the death of her next-door-neighbour, I would hope that it might help other children cope with death or separation.
Uncle Samson’s strange gift
The tap tapping sound was not coming from the window; besides, it was far too early to be Ho-Ho.
“Henry,” said his mother, gently tapping on the bedroom door, “are you awake yet?”
Henry stretched and peered at his mother through sleepy eyes.
“There is a letter for you, Henry, and it is marked very urgent” she declared, handing him an important-looking envelope.
“Now do tell me if you don’t understand it, and I’ll explain it to you.”
She waited for a moment, expecting Henry to open the envelope, but Henry slowly drifted back to sleep, wondering who could be writing to him very urgently…. Perhaps Patrick the policeman was having trouble with a difficult case, or perhaps someone needed rescuing or perhaps…
When he awakened from the sleep, his mother had gone. Henry opened the letter. It certainly looked very important, but Henry was very saddened by the contents: his dear old friend uncle Samson had died. The letter put things in a very complicated way, but that was the long and short of it. Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered the amazing old man with his crackly old laugh and his fund of quite extraordinary stories. Uncle Samson had certainly had more adventures than anybody else in the world! Henry began to remember some of them and the way Uncle Samson told them, with those knowing winks and pauses that kept Henry spellbound.
He was awakened from his memories of Uncle Samson by voices coming up the stairs: it was his friend Bridget! Henry quickly got out of bed and slipped into his clothes, ignoring the dampness on his pillow; Henry was very fond of Bridget, who was the same age as himself and always happy and smiling.
“Is anything the matter?” Asked his mother as he appeared in the kitchen, still clutching the letter, “have you been crying, Henry” she asked.
“Not really” said Henry, as his mother had so many things to worry about, he truly didn’t want to bother her.
“Good,” said his mother. “Now Bridget has had some bad news this morning, as her father has had to go away and, so I’ve asked her round to play with you… So why don’t you take your drinks out into the garden and decide what you are going to do together?”
“…. So I just don’t know how long he will be away and I need him to be here.” Bridget finally declared, obviously very sad at the sudden absence of her father. Henry nodded sympathetically; Bridget was usually so happy and cheerful, that he couldn’t bear to see her hurting like this.
“What’s that in your hand?” She said, finally noticing the very important envelope that Henry was clutching. In sharing Bridget’s sadness, Henry had completely forgotten his own. Rather than try to explain, he handed it to her. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as she read through the whole of the letter. Finally she put it down on the grass, folded her arms, shook her head and smiled; she looked like the familiar confident Bridget again.
“You really are amazing, Henry!” She declared in quiet admiration. Apparently, the letter was not just to let Henry know about Uncle Samson’s death, but also to tell him about his will. Before he died, uncle Samson had written down what he wanted to be done with all his possessions – this is called a “will” and Henry and someone called Ho-Ho, were to be given everything!
“… But how can we get to the place?…. And who is Ho-Ho?” Bridget asked, apparently defeated.
Henry made a quick decision. Normally he did not tell people about his special magic friend, but this was, after all, a rather special and unusual circumstance.
“Ho-Ho is a magic elephant and the very best friend a boy could have” he finally declared, “… Ho-Ho will take us for the will”
Bridget became even more amazed, “Where does Ho-Ho live?” She asked.
“In this tree!” Said Henry pointing upwards.
Bridget began to laugh at the very idea of an elephant living in a tree.
“He does too!” Said Henry going a little red and peering up into the branches, “Come on down Ho-Ho, come on down…”
The two friends peered up into the tree for what seemed like ages. Suddenly there was a plop as a tiny elephant fell from the tree. Bridget watched in amazement as the tiny creature grew and grew into an enormous smiling elephant.
“Hello” said Ho-Ho looking rather sheepish. If you can imagine an elephant looking sheepish, you will understand why Henry and Bridget were helpless with laughter. Very quickly, as usual, Ho-Ho joined in and soon all three of them were crying with laughter.
The journey into the city was the most enjoyable trip of Bridget’s entire life; hanging on to Ho-Ho and seeing the streets from so high up would have been funny enough, but the looks of amazement and disbelief from everyone they passed was a joy to behold. They had to ask instructions several times before they found the right place, but finally they arrived. Henry had heard of “solicitors” before, but he had thought that they were something to do with the police; he was most surprised to discover that they were the people who actually took charge of people’s “wills” after they had died.
The solicitor’s office was a rather dingy place set above some shops and Bridget was worried that Ho-Ho would have to stay in the street, but of course when the coast was clear he simply shrunk down to his small size and slipped into Henry’s pocket.
The solicitor himself – Mr Davenport – was at first quite amazed when Henry introduced himself, expecting someone much older, “… and you must be Ho-Ho” he said shaking hands also with Bridget.
The two friends looked at each other and sniggered.
“Well, it’s like this,” he said, cleaning his glasses and looking up at the ceiling, “Samson was not a very rich man… in fact, he was quite poor, and after everything has been sorted out, all that remains is, in fact, that!” He pointed a thumb at a large wooden trunk in the corner of the room.
“I’ve had a look through the contents and frankly they are rubbish, pure rubbish! However,” he added looking up with a smile, “Sam’s brother Boris will pay you £100 for the thing, and frankly – if I were you – I would take it… you children could buy lots of toys and ice cream with that.”
“£100” thought Henry, trying to work out how much ice cream £100 would buy. He was silent for a minute.
“No thanks,” he finally declared, “just help us down the stairs with the trunk.”
Henry smiled at Bridget as the look of disbelief on her face slowly changed to a smile of understanding.
Later under the damson tree the three friends were in high spirits recalling the day’s adventures and going through the contents of the trunk. Certainly the contents would seem to be rubbish to anyone else, but each item reminded Henry of one of Samson’s amazing stories.
There was the eye patch he had worn when he was bitten by the buzz-fly in the Amazon jungle and nearly been eaten by cannibals, the feather from the shrike eagle of Umteng when he had fallen from the Camaz Ridge, and the invisibility powder which he had stolen from a tribe of ferocious Indians in Central America; somehow he had never had to use the invisibility powder as his enormous strength “always got me out of trouble”. Bridget was amazed at Sam’s stories; the adventures sounded so incredible, and his escapes were nothing short of miraculous.
“Yes! That’s the word I couldn’t remember,” said Henry, “miraculous. Sam always wore a belt with real diamonds in it which he said protected him at all times of danger, the miraculous belt of Archops he called it!” Henry looked pleased with himself, and then added thoughtfully, “I wonder what happened to it.”
He dipped his hand into the bottom of the trunk, and pulled out to everyone’s total amazement an old black well-worn belt which could only be Sam’s miraculous belt!”
“If those diamonds are real,” said Bridget, “they will be worth a fortune!”
The two friends looked at each other for a full minute and then slowly shook their heads together; they both knew that somewhere Sam could see them treasuring his old belongings, treasuring his stories, treasuring his memories. Even though his death was fresh in their minds, he would have been overjoyed to see the three friends being so happy on his account.
Henry looked at Ho-Ho and realised how happy his life was: “You make me very happy, Ho-Ho” he said.
“Me too” said Ho-Ho, “even when we aren’t together.”
He looked so funny and serious that Bridget and Henry began to laugh, and Ho-Ho laughed until tears run right down all their cheeks, and in the laughter they understood how people who love you want to make you happy even when they are far apart from you and if you really love them you remember all the wonderful times and let them make you happy too.
That night Bridget’s mother returned. Bridget was happier than she could ever remember. She seemed to have learned so much today. She felt that she could never feel quite so lonely and frightened ever again. She had two wonderful friends in Henry and Ho-Ho and knew that her mother and father loved her very, very much and wanted her to be happy, even if they were sometimes away from her.
“My word,” said her mother, hugging Bridget, “you do seem to have grown up today.”
And Bridget knew that she really had.