Hugh Ouston

gets his teeth into the difficulties of dealing with

childhood's myths

EVERYONE can remember where they were when they heard that Kennedy had been shot. Now there is a new conversation piece: where were you when you heard Portillo had lost his seat? Well, the answer is: watching the telly at three in the morning of course. It is what you did next that matters. I went through to wife-and-three-year-old in bed and woke up the former to tell her, which was most uncharitable, though I was forgiven. An acquaintance who lives in the country nearby took all his clothes off and ran round the steading in the dark, stark naked. When his wife reminded him of this at breakfast (not very much later), he replied ''Did I?''

These rituals and myths are faint adult echoes of those childhood rites of passage which we all shared as well. I can still remember vividly where I was when I was told that there is no Santa Claus. It was at the foot of the stair in my friend Michael's house in Dundee. He was six months older and a lot less naive.

I can't remember how the news leaked out, but I can still recall the unnerving realisation that it was true and the embarrassment of knowing that he knew I didn't know, as well as the panicky feeling of pretending that I knew already. Such gentle deceptions last long, long after childhood is over. It is, after all, the only way to draw a secret's sting.

Now I am, as they say in the country and western songs, a father myself, I am amazed at how easily these myths slip off a parent's tongue. What is less amazing is the way children wish to believe them.

When Santa's sleigh came down our road in the dark of late December and the children stood with us at the front gate warm in their night clothes and our jackets, you could have wrapped up their excitement and put it under the tree.

Along came the sleigh and the white-bearded figure with the voice like Katie's dad. Why is it being drawn by a car they asked? ''The reindeers are tired because they've been out delivering presents all over the world.'' A light of belief and wonder reflected from the orange streetlights into their eyes, along with a streak of greedy green. The presents were for them. They wanted to believe.

It's like that with the tooth fairy, of course. A month or two ago, we had a time to cast away teeth and a time to gather teeth together. The gathering was done by Louise, the baby who grew rather quickly a set of eight effective incisors. Suddenly she seemed grown up. There were a lot of sentimental recriminations about how quickly all four of them had passed through various stages of physical development, tempus fugit, etc, etc. Then Philip, the oldest, announced that he could wobble his front tooth. Shortly this advanced to the stage where it was hanging by a thread and he could turn it round in its socket - strange how you can remember exactly how this feels, though for me it was long before Profumo (let alone Portillo).

So we had to come clean about the tooth fairy. If you put the tooth under your pillow, the tooth fairy will come and put some money there in its place. With some trepidation, I began to make inquiries about how much this was. Both children and other parents agreed, rather surprisingly. A pound a tooth. That didn't sound too bad until you add up four little mouthfuls and it comes to 98 quid, over the piece. Just as well they don't all fall out at once.

But there was no escaping it after the conversation with a classmate in the back of the car next day: ''I know there's a tooth fairy because Adam Craig says he seen it.'' ''Yes, he told me too.'' Their faith was absolute: in the words of St Augustine, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. Mainly the former, I think. Then there was another problem: the tooth was so small.

When he suddenly announced that his mouthful of toast had a crunchy bit in it, there was a moment of controlled panic until the little white enamel square was extricated before it was masticated. Already in the tiny gap there was a hard edge under the gum, pushing upwards like the future. Out of its home, the baby tooth looked very babyish. Surely something so little couldn't have chomped its way through all that scran?

We carefully put it on the side in the kitchen. After bathtime, we couldn't find it. Had we swept it into the bin? Had it fallen in the cat food? Eventually, we lifted up the microwave and there it was, dried and apparently shrunken even more. So it was carefully wrapped in a piece of kitchen roll and placed under the pillow of an excited boy.

Once we were sure his breathing rhythms had slipped to sleep, we crept in and put the pound (a coin, I'm afraid, not a guid Scots note) under his pillow. So far, so good. Downstairs. What now? D'you fancy a bottle of wine? Will you go up to Victoria Wine? How much cash have you got? Rummage, hunt. Two-fifty. Oh dear. And so it was back upstairs again, even more quietly. Slide the hand under the pillow and draw out the coin in clammy fist. If he had woken up it might have helped him to sort out truth from fiction, though I had plenty of fictions ready just in case. It felt like theft. Yes, we did feel guilty. Yes, we did enjoy the wine.

Yes, we did find another cache of cash in a jacket pocket and restitution was made, so there is no reason at all for Philip not to believe that the tooth fairy came. And no reason for us not to fork out next time, too.