mountains of fake snow. All the taps, door handles and even toilet seats were solid gold. The carpets were made from mink fur, he and his dad drank orange squash from priceless antique medieval goblets, and for a while they had a butler called Otis who was also an orangutan. But he had to be given the sack.
“Can I have a proper present as well, Dad?” said Joe, as he put the cheque in his trouser pocket. “I mean, I’ve got loads of money already.”
“Tell me what you want, son, and I’ll get one of my assistants to buy it,” said Mr Spud. “Some solid gold sunglasses? I’ve got a pair. You can’t see out of ’em but they are very expensive.”
Joe yawned.
“Your own speedboat?” ventured Mr Spud.
Joe rolled his eyes. “I’ve got two of those. Remember?”
“Sorry, son. How about a quarter of a million pounds worth of WH Smith vouchers?”
“Boring! Boring! Boring!” Joe stamped his feet in frustration. Here was a boy with high-class problems.
Mr Spud looked forlorn. He wasn’t sure there was anything left in the world that he could buy his only child. “Then what, son?”
Joe suddenly had a thought. He pictured himself going round the racetrack all on his own, racing against himself. “Well, there is something I really want…” he said, tentatively.
“Name it, son,” said Mr Spud.
“A friend.”
“Bum boy,” said Joe.
“Bum Boy?” spluttered Mr Spud. “What else do they call you at school, son?”
“The Bog Roll Kid...”
Mr Spud shook his head in disbelief. He had sent his son to the most expensive school in England: St Cuthbert’s School for Boys. The fees were £200,000 a term and all the boys had to wear Elizabethan ruffs and tights. Here is a picture of Joe in his school uniform. He looks a bit silly, doesn’t he?
So the last thing that Mr Spud expected was that his son would get bullied. Bullying was something that happened to poor people. But the truth was that Joe had been picked on ever since he started at the school. The posh kids hated him, because his dad had made his money out of loo rolls. They said that was ‘awfully vulgar’.
“Bottom Billionaire, The Bum-Wipe Heir, Master Plop-Paper,” continued Joe. “And that’s just the teachers.”
Most of the boys at Joe’s school were Princes, or at least Dukes or Earls. Their families had made their fortunes from owning lots of land. That made them ‘old money’. Joe had quickly come to learn that money was only worth having if it was old. New money from selling loo rolls didn’t count.
The posh boys at St Cuthbert’s had names like Nathaniel Septimus Ernest Bertram Lysander Tybalt Zacharias Edmund Alexander Humphrey Percy Quentin Tristan Augustus Bartholomew Tarquin Imogen Sebastian Theodore Clarence Smythe.
That was just one boy.
The subjects were all ridiculously posh too. This was Joe’s school timetable:
Monday
Latin
Straw-Hat wearing
Royal studies
The study of etiquette
Show-jumping
Ballroom dancing
Debating Society (‘This house believes that it is vulgar to do up the bottom button on your waistcoat’)
Scone eating
Bow-tie tying
Punting
Polo (the sport with horses and sticks, not the mint)
Tuesday
Ancient Greek
Croquet
Pheasant shooting
Being beastly to servants class
Mandolin level 3
History of Tweed
Nose in the air hour
Learning to step over the homeless person as you leave the opera
Finding your way out of a maze
Wednesday
Fox-hunting
Flower arranging
Conversing about the weather
History of cricket
History of the brogue
Playing Stately Home Top Trumps
Reading Harper’s Bazaar
Ballet appreciation class
Top-hat polishing
Fencing (the one with swords, not selling stolen goods)
Thursday
Antique furniture appreciation hour
Range Rover tyre changing class
Discussion of whose daddy is the richest
Competition to see who is best friends with Prince Harry
Learning to talk posh
Rowing club
Debating Society (‘This house believes that muffins are best toasted’)
Chess
The study of coats of arms
A lecture on how to talk loudly in restaurants
Friday
Poetry reading (Medieval English)
History of wearing corduroy
Topiary class
Classical sculpture appreciation class
Spotting yourself in the party pages of Tatler
