Róisín Ingle on ... team building

Some mornings, before they go out the door to school, I ask my daughters: “Who’s on your team?” and they know

– because I’ve brainwashed them – that they have to reply “YOU Mum! YOU are on our team!” My cunning plan is that whatever else I mess up in relation to them, they will know I am always on their side even when they are in the wrong or have made a terrible mistake. Especially, then.

I grew up knowing someone was on my team. I remember being 10-years-old and at the weekly Christian sing-song I used to attend every Tuesday night. It was called The Tuesday Night Meeting which I liked because it's a "say what you see" kind of name and I've always had a soft spot for Roy Walker off Catchprase.

There was a visiting preacher from America at the Tuesday Night Meeting that evening. Let’s call him Mr White because his teeth were shinier than any teeth I’d ever seen. (This was early 1980s Dublin. Nobody had shiny teeth.)

Even at the age of 10 I could tell this Mr White was a highly annoying individual. Everything about him was over the top. When he prayed he closed his eyes and went into a swaying trance. When he sang, he sang louder than anyone else, his voice booming around the mission hall in Ringsend. When he got his markers out to do his Jesus Loves You drawing, Mr White had five different coloured highligher pens when in the normal course of events the preacher might have had two. I had two words for Mr White. Show and Off. It took one to know one.

Part of Mr White’s schtick that night centered around something he called a Banana Pyjama Sandwich which had a layered filling of peanut butter and banana and jam, which he insisted on calling jelly, and he was only dying to tell us all about it. This special sandwich was an American thing, he said. We wouldn’t know about it here In Eye-Er-Land. “Hands up who has ever heard of a Banana Pyjama Sandwich?” he boomed expecting no takers in the room.

But for some contrary reason, when he asked about the Banana Pyjama Sandwich I immediately stuck my hand in the air. “I know about it,” I said. “My mother makes them all the time”.

Mr White wasn’t impressed. I had stolen his sandwich thunder. He tried to get me to admit I was fibbing but I had made this pretend sandwich and now I had to, literally, lie in it. When I still wouldn’t come clean at the end of the meeting Mr White decided he would give me a lift home. All the way back to my house, thankfully only a five minute drive, he quizzed me about my mother’s Banana Pyjama Sandwich. How many layers did it have? What kind of jelly? (He meant jam). I remained non-commital and enigmatic in the back of the car even though at the time I didn’t know what either of those words meant.

When we finally arrived home he insisted on coming in to the house to talk to my mother. I was mortified. I knew what was about to happen. This big white- toothed American was going to cross examine my mother about the Banana Pyjama Sandwich and she was going to unwittingly expose my big fat lie. I hid behind the sofa.

“Mrs Ingle,” boomed Mr White, as a I cowered on the carpet. “Róisín tells me you make a fine Banana Pyjama Sandwich but as it’s very much an American snack I have to say I strongly suspect she may not be telling the truth.” I think there was a half beat of silence before I heard my mother say in a bemused voice. “I make those sandwiches all the time.” She had made a quick judgement call. Her motherly instincts told her this was one of those times when a blatant lie was a million times better and more honourable than the boring truth.

Basically, if Mr White thought he was going to be able barge into our sitting room with his shiny teeth and boomtastic voice and humiliate me in front of my mother and my siblings he was a bigger American eejit than he looked.

My mother only vaguely remembers this incident but I can still see Mr White's annoyed expression as he sloped out the front door and I can taste the hot buttered toast my mother gave me when he'd gone. I can also hear her asking: "Anyway, what is in a Banana Pyjama Sandwich" as she cuddled me on the sofa.

Who was on my team? She was, she is and she always will be. Lucky me. roisin@irishtimes.com