HotmailBeing Bond: Roger Moore pens memoir
 | Slide show |
 | Bond through the ages From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, see the many faces of 007 and vote for your favorite one. more photos |
Celebrity reading room |
Read juicy excerpts from these celebrity biographies. |
 |
 Kid chef cooks holiday treats Nov. 27: A 13-year-old cook teaches the TODAY hosts how to whip up a turkey risotto that is perfect for the holidays. |
Still in my eighth year, I complained to Mum that my ‘wee man’ was sore. I was hauled off to the doctor and had to stand with my trousers around my ankles while the offending portion of my anatomy was bounced on the end of a pencil. The decision was taken that, for hygiene’s sake, I would be circumcised. That, I knew, was something they did in the Bible: I’d heard it mentioned in the morning lesson during prayers at school. The word always made the girls snigger.
Knowing I probably wouldn’t get any ice cream this time either, the only appealing thing about the whole episode was that we would have to take a bus ride to Westminster Hospital. In those days the famous hospital was across the road from Westminster Abbey.
Once again I experienced what was to become a familiar routine of being dressed in a surgical gown and bed socks. Then came the oh-so-hateful sickly-sweet smell of chloroform, the tumbling down of the yellow and red rings, accompanied by rapidly increasing boom-bams!
Awakening in a large ward, I found myself in a bed at the very far end of what I discovered was the male, not the children’s, surgical ward, next to an extremely tall window from which I could see across to Westminster Abbey. I could also hear the regular booming of the bell from the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster, better known as Big Ben. I had a sort of ‘cradle’ over my nether regions to ease the discomfort of the bedclothes coming into contact with the aftermath of the unkindest cut of all.
|
At tea time the man in the next bed to mine told the nurse to give me one of his boiled eggs; a luxury supplied by his family. Picking the top off the egg I discovered that it was very runny, hardly boiled at all.
My nose wrinkled with disgust and I must have a let out a sigh of discontent, as it resulted in a torrent of abuse from my neighbor, who went on to tell me that I was an ungrateful little sod and to get on with it. I did. You would think that after that humiliating experience I would never ever complain about the way my eggs are cooked. Wrong! Three score and ten years later, I still complain in hotels if the eggs aren’t right.
When it was time to leave the hospital, after thanking the nurses and my generous neighbor, as we boarded the bus home Mum told me that, as I had been a ‘good boy’, she had a surprise for me: a new pair of roller skates. I couldn’t wait to try them out ... and it was with knees wide apart, trying to protect my very tender member, that I shuffled and rolled my way around the Square before having to surrender and wait for happier and less painful times.
The one advantage I had over the other boys in my gang was a bandage on my pecker. A flash of that bandage was enough to gain much respect. There is a lot to be said for a little suffering. For the week or so that I bore my bandage, I was the leader of our gang. Whenever there was any query as to who was boss, a flash of that bandage swiftly saw me confirmed.
Excerpted from “My Word Is My Bond” by Roger Moore. Copyright (c) 2008, reprinted with permission from HarperCollins. To read more, click here.
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM TODAY BOOKS: BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIRS |
 Brother West: ‘Being true to the funk of living’ |
| Add Today Books: Biography/Memoirs headlines to your news reader: |
Sponsored links
Resource guide