I remember a bright clear sunny April morning around 1947 or 1948. It was one of those days when the air is fresh and crisp and you can see for a hundred miles. It was a Sunday and Grandad was taking me out on a treat "up west", for my birthday. "Make sure you're ready on time, so we can get an early start," Grandad had told me, so Mum had me all decked out in my best clothes by 8 o'clock, ready and waiting for him to knock on the door. But although it was bright and sunny, there was a bit of a breeze, and it was chilly in the shade as we waited for the underground train at Stratford station. After five minutes of waiting, my teeth were chattering, but I didn't feel too bad after Grandad let me put threepence in one of the chocolate bar machines.

We came out of the underground at Trafalgar Square near St. Martins in the fields - I remember the church bells were ringing - and we crossed over to the National Portrait Gallery.

As we turned to climb the steps to the entrance, a voice on the pavement nearby called out in a nasal Cockney accent, "Like to give the young fella a treat Guv?"

Grandad looked around at a sharply dressed young man with a brown leather suitcase at his feet. "You talking to me?" he asked.

"Yeah, wanna buy a toffee apple Guv?" the man replied with a shifty smirk on his face. "Only two bob." The spiv even looked like Arthur English, with his snazzy moustache, big trilby, wide tie and double-breasted drape suit that looked two sizes too large for him!

"Two bob! You must be joking," shot back Grandad; but he didn't move off.

"Look at these," said the young man, opening the suitcase. "Beautiful South African apples that fell off a boat from Cape Town only two days ago."

At that time we still had food rationing and South African apples were something only people born before the war had ever seen, let alone tasted. "Look a bit small to me," said Grandad sceptically.

"Yeah, they are a bit small," the man agreed. "But sweet. I've never tasted a sweeter apple," he added persuasively. "Anyway, beggars can't be choosers these days, can we? Two bob's a steal for a lovely sweet South African toffee apple."

Grandad took a closer look. "Ever had a toffee apple before, Mike?"

"No Grandad," I answered, looking at the sticky lump of scarlet goo impaled on the end of what looked like a stick of firewood.

The young man opened the suit case lid a little wider and looked around furtively. "Well make up your mind mate. I don't want to get pinched for peddling these without looking at your ration card." He winked conspiratorially at Grandad, who smiled back, recognising, I suspect, a kindred spirit. "Alright, give us one, but it better be sweet. This'll be the dearest toffee apple I've ever bought."

In a flash a toffee apple was in my hand and the young man was taking a florin from Grandad. "We'd better go for a walk down towards Horse Guards Parade before we go into the Gallery," said Grandad. "They won't let you in eating that thing!"

So we set off slowly across Trafalgar Square, me licking my toffee apple and Grandad reminiscing about how toffee apples were only a penny each when he was my age. Presently he looked down and inspected my progress. He looked a bit concerned. "Looks like they've put in a bit of colouring in the toffee. You're getting red stuff around your face. How does it taste?" he asked.

"Oh, alright, but it's a bit like cough medicine." This was not the reply he had expected, but he let it pass. All he said was, "Well don't go getting splinters in your tongue."

We continued our stroll. As we walked around the fountains, me stalking the pigeons, and him smiling happily and nodding to the visitors, he looked up at the column and started telling me about where Nelson lost one of his eyes, where he lost his arm, and similar such trivia. He seemed to know a lot about Nelson, so I asked him how he knew all that stuff. He considered, "Well, Nelson was one of England's heroes. He was the greatest sailor the world has ever seen. They were always drilling all that stuff into us when I was a kid. You got a whack on the knuckles if you couldn't remember the dates right!" That impressed me. I looked up with more interest at Nelson perched high up on top of his column.

"We all learnt about Nelson when I was a kid. When I was your age they even gave us the day off from schooling on Trafalgar Day," he continued, and we both spent a few minutes looking up at Nelson and the pigeons flying around him. I've since learnt that all the Training Ship establishments, at the time that Grandad was on the Exmouth, spent a great deal of time brainwashing the boys. They were continually told how they were privileged to be members of the great maritime tradition that continued the "Nelson touch".

Presently Grandad glanced at me and gave a grunt of annoyance. "You're dribbling that stuff on your shirt, Mike. Don't lick it, take a big bite and chew the toffee and apple up together. That's how us kids used to eat a toffee apple."

I looked down at my shirt. It was a brand new one and Mum had particularly told me to keep it clean if Grandad bought me an ice cream or took me to a teashop. "We'd better wipe this off, Grandad. Mum told me to keep this new shirt clean."

Grandad grunted again and looked around. "Give me your hanky and I'll wet it in the fountain and we'll wash it off easy enough. Mum'll never know." He dipped the hanky in the water and started rubbing. "Must be some sort of dye; doesn't want to come out," he said. He wet the hanky again and rubbed more vigorously. Then he started to curse quietly. Finally he said, "Well it can't be helped. Tell Mum a little bit of bleach'll fix it alright." He inspected me again and tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe the red stain from around my mouth. "Well let's see you take a bite at that toffee apple. Eat it, don't lick it."

At this stage I'd not yet tasted the apple. I opened my mouth wide and sank my teeth deep into the sticky mess and tried to wrench a mouthful from the stick. As I tried to complete the bite I felt my mouth becoming glued fast. I tried to extract my teeth to have another go but found they were stuck fast. So then I tried to wrench it free by pulling on the wooden handle, but it promptly disengaged itself from the toffee apple. The toffee apple remained firmly stuck to my face.

Grandad, seeing my imminent panic, came to the rescue. "Christ, stay fast, I'll get it off." He reluctantly grabbed hold of the lump of goo and twisted. The toffee apple broke into two pieces, one consisting of toffee and apple remained in my mouth, and the remainder stuck to his hand. It felt like I'd had my teeth pulled out. He stuck the stick back into the remains and carefully disengaged his fingers. He was now getting annoyed and told me to eat up what I had in my mouth and get on and finish the bloody thing or we'd never get into the Gallery.

As I started to chew the beautiful sweet South African apple, my face contorted in revulsion. "It's sour, Grandad, I don't want to eat it. This is the sourest apple I've ever eaten." He looked at me in disbelief, took a tentative bite at the remains still in his hand, and then immediately spat it out. "Uh, a bloody crab apple," he growled through clenched teeth. "That bleedin' spiv's gypped me out of two bob. Spit it out, Mike," which I promptly did.

He was very angry and threw the remains of the toffee apple onto the ground in disgust. I'd never seen Grandad so angry. "Buck up boy; we're going to get our money back from that cow's son." (He pronounced it Caahsun), I knew the spiv was in big trouble because Grandad only called people he particularly hated a "cow's son". It was an expression I've never heard used in Australia. He grabbed my hand and we charged off together, back to where we'd bought the toffee apple. But the young spiv had disappeared, never to be seen again.

Grandad looked around long and hard for the spiv but finally gave up. Finally he sighed, "Well let's get this over with anyway. We might as well look at the pictures. At least that won't cost us anything."

All I can remember about the walk through the Gallery is that Grandad was not his usual talkative self. I felt that somehow he blamed me for what had happened. Every now and again he tried to wipe the remains of the toffee apple from my face and his hand. But it was no use.

Grandad had a habit of keeping his hands in his trouser pockets and jingling his coins, which I liked to copy, even though Dad told me not to. He kept starting to put his hands in his pockets, only to discover he couldn't on account of the stickiness, and this only made him even more annoyed.

Finally, when we knocked on our door and Mum answered it, she looked at Grandad in surprise. "You're home early, Dad. I wasn't expecting you for at least a couple more hours."

Grandad grunted, "Yes, well, it didn't take as long as I'd thought."

Mum looked down at me and I saw her look of surprise and concern. "What ever have you been doing Michael. Has someone smacked you in the mouth?" She looked with concern at Grandad. I looked at Grandad too. Well, what could I say! After a pause, Grandad answered for me.

"Yeah, well he had a fight with a toffee apple. And he lost."

After he'd gone, I told Mum a little bit of bleach would get the stains out from the ruined shirt. She pursed her lips and mumbled something under her breath, but didn't give me the clip under the ear that I'd been half expecting. She never mentioned anything about the shirt at all. In fact no one ever spoke again about that day out.