…because nearly everyone else seems to be writing about it.
At the age of three or four, I had a meltdown watching a Punch and Judy show. This was the seventies; Punch and Judy was ‘traditional’ back then, that is, Mr Punch had a stick nearly as big as himself, which he used to beat Mrs Punch and their baby, and the policeman, and anyone else with the temerity to tell him he was wrong.
I can remember the puppet Punch, with its hooked nose (antisemitism, much?) beating its wife while shrieking That’s the way to do it! That’s the way to do it!
I started screaming.
Around me several dozen children were laughing so much the tent seemed to shake and billow around me. They saw Mr Punch hitting and hitting, and to them it was the funniest thing imaginable. You know what small children are like when they find something enormously funny; they jump out of their seats, they wave their hands, they shout encouragement.
And I kept screaming.
The next thing I remember I was outside, with my parents apologising to other adults for the fuss and laughing at how I’d got so worked up over a puppet show.