I HAVE never quite understood the appeal of petty theft. Petty being the operative word here. Now if you're talking about serious bank robbery, getting away with millions, that I get.
But those opening credits of Trainspotting, where Ewan McGregor is legging it down Princes Street being chased by store detectives, huge smile splitting his face – that was never me. I was never one of those teenagers to get a kick out of slipping a
bottle of No 7 nail polish into their pocket or pilfering a handful of penny chews from RS McColl's sweetie counter while the shop assistant's attention was otherwise engaged. You see, I'm just so terrified of being caught. Plus, of course, I know it is very wrong.
So how mortified must John Terry be right about now? His old mum Sue and mother-in-law (also called Sue) were arrested and cautioned by police outside the Brooklands shopping centre in Surrey after being caught with a stash of food and clothes worth £800. Now let's be clear on one thing. This is the mother of the England football captain. A man who is paid £135,000 a week. Can she not afford to buy her own shellsuits and tins of Pedigree Chum?
At least Winona Ryder had the good taste to target Saks Fifth Avenue when she went on her shopping-for-free spree. Not unlike the friend of a friend, who once stole steaks from Sainsbury's when he had fallen on hard times. Not a paltry Pot Noodle, you will notice, nor an all-day breakfast in a tin; this was a man with standards, and the pesky inconvenience of poverty wasn't going to get in his way.
I'm ashamed to say that my own aversion to misappropriation hasn't been passed down the generations. The Mild One (well, they do say it's always the quiet ones) has had his own brush with burglary, having swiped several little china animals from a farm shop in Fife. It was a long time ago, and why he didn't take something more macho – like a bunch of computer games or action figures – I'll never know. But I found him later that day, quietly playing in his bedroom with a miniature faun, baby Bambi, itty bitty bunny and pint-sized pony.
When I approached he wrapped his arm protectively around his swag in an effort to conceal his guilty secret. The Old Bill (that's his grandfather, William) and I took him down to the station (actually, the kitchen) for questioning. He couldn't explain it, he stuttered through the tears. He had simply seen an opportunity and taken it. But now he had 'fessed up, how should he be punished?
In the end, he was marched back to the scene of his crime and forced to hand the animals back, accompanied by a heart-felt apology. He seems to have learned his lesson.
However, in the process of compiling this list of my friends' and families' lapses in honesty, I have unearthed a hitherto forgotten crime of my own. It was while waiting in Gatwick airport very early one morning, having missed breakfast and still with an hour before my flight left for Edinburgh. I headed into WH Smith for a healthy snack just as the fire alarm went off, ordering everyone out of the terminal. I had a choice: take brekkie without paying (the entire checkout staff had already evacuated the store), or abandon all hope of eating for the next hour and risk collapse and possible death by starvation.
I made my choice. So if the tills in WH Smith were £1.09 short one Monday in December, I apologise. It was me. But, really, £1.09 for a cereal bar? That's daylight robbery.
