The scariest thing...?

What's the scariest thing anybody has ever said to you? Mine goes back a long way to the time when I was serving the Queen in one of her armed services (putting it less posh I was conscripted into the army) and having been born in London I was sent to do service in the Tower of London in an infantry regiment. Well, because of bad organisation it was discovered that there weren't enough spaces in the Tower after I'd been there several months and some of us were told we had a 72 hour pass and so we all shot off home.

Lulled by the comfort of the parental home for 3 days I lost sense of time and arrived back late. I reported back to the guardroom and I suppose in a sort of casual way I shuffled in full of apology. It was then that I saw a minor skyscraper lurking in the corner watching my shuffle. You see, there is a certain rather clever manipulation (should be pedipulation I suppose) of the feet that you have to do when you present yourself in the guardroom and I just couldn't hack it because I have very bad co-ordination. The minor skyscraper turned out to be human (well sort of) and spoke with an Irish accent words that I can't repeat here but the gist of it was that he didn't take too kindly to my footwork. He made me go out and come in again but the result was the same - even worse. He made me do this six times in all and even to his dulled brain there came the realisation that here was a hopeless case. Then came the unforgettably scary sentence. 'I will see to it, (pause here while the brain changed gear) 'that you' (pointing at me just in case there could be confusion) 'never get out of this Tower of London as long as you live'. I wanted to say: 'Oh come on, it's not that bad' but I simply shuffled out. Years later I took my young children to the Tower on a day out and as I entered the premises, I could hear the threatening Irish voice of that Regimental Sergeant Major intoning: I will see to it that...