Jonny McCambridge: The birthday party which signals that it is almost time for the next act to begin

I had to learn the passage off by heart when I was at school and much of it has stayed with me. While I can’t reel off the lines as fluently as I once did, the thrust of the argument has always intrigued me. We all, like actors, go through multiple stages or play different roles. As a parent, you get the opportunity, like a visitor to the theatre, to watch the transition of acts up close. However, rather than there being seven stages, it may be that there are closer to 700.

It was my son’s birthday party recently. Some things have not changed over the years. I baked a birthday cake. School friends were invited to meet up to celebrate the occasion. Cards and gifts were passed over.

However, the event did make me think about the passing of time. The first birthday parties my son attended when he was so timid that he would not leave his mother’s lap. After that, we reached a stage where he would go on the bouncy castles and the slides, but only if I accompanied him. At one of his early parties he trembled with nervous excitement as the cake was presented and the kids gathered around to watch him blow out the candles.

But the stages have flown by since then. The days when 30 children were invited to a play facility and all the parents stayed to supervise have passed. Now the numbers are smaller and the parents drop the kids and drive away. Now, we organise something and let the young ones get on with it.

For this reason, my guard was lower this year. There would be seven children (including my son) attending. They would be bowling, going for pizza and then watching a movie. While my wife and I would be in the building (and paying the bills) it was made clear to us that our close supervision would not be required.

However, the success of the party depended on keeping to a tight schedule. I’m big on scheduling, admiring order and precision. P7 children, as it turns out, are not so big on it. My first intervention was required to get the bowling underway when it emerged that instead of programming their names into the computerised scoring system, the kids were instead typing in rude words.

My second intervention was necessary to get the bowling back on track after it appeared the kids had abandoned the game in favour of a spontaneous bout of all-in wrestling. As I gently nudged them back towards order one young boy called me ‘Mr McCambridge’, a second called me ‘Jonny’, while a third encouraged me to ‘chill bro!’

Lunch followed. I left the ordeal of ordering the food to my wife while I took responsibility for crowd control. One boy asked me if it was ok for him to go and get a straw for his juice. I agreed and he quickly returned holding around 200 straws. Another poured blackcurrant juice over his chips as if it were vinegar. A third covered his entire pizza in ketchup before telling me that he didn’t like ketchup.

Some of the kids also displayed a surprising interest in the food they were consuming. One asked me if I could find out which sort of tomatoes were used in the base sauce for the pizza and another enquired if chicken nuggets had been put in a marinade of buttermilk before they were cooked.

We moved on to the cinema. As I had dodged ordering the restaurant food, the responsibility fell on me to take the snacks order and programme it into the electronic kiosk. This turned out to be the most harrowing challenge of the day. Despite my appeals, the boys just would not form an orderly line to tell me what they wanted. As they ran around haphazardly, I lost count several times of who asked for sweet or salted popcorn and who had ordered at all.

Finally, after 20 minutes of struggle, I believed I had all the orders programmed and was struggling to find my bank card. One of the boys then appeared at my shoulder and asked me to buy him 3D glasses.

“But we’re not going to see a 3D film,” I reasoned.

Undeterred, he started to hit the 3D glasses button on the kiosk over and over. I had not even time to ask him to stop before the screen, containing the completed snacks order, went blank and a new message flashed up “Please begin your order”.

I fought to maintain my composure. The children were summoned back and the laborious process of ordering the popcorn and drinks began again. As each child approach, I smiled and gently but firmly advised: “Please do not touch the screen.”

And then I watched as my son and his friends, holding on to their oversized bags of popcorn disappeared into the cinema while my wife and I waited in the foyer. It was hard not to think about the scared child who once, not that many years ago, would not leave our side.

And then I had another thought. My son was in the cinema with the friends he has known and grown to love over the past seven years. By September the tight group will be scattered across five different secondary schools. What will next year’s birthday party look like? It is almost time for the next act to begin.