She was a girlfriend of mine when I was at Durham University.  Her real name was Birgitz and she was a Danish au pair for the constituency MP.    Hence the nick-name Lurpak.  And how I treated her is best described by that old fashioned word “cad”.

This is a short piece about my immaturity – a character trait I have retained into old age.

I can’t remember how I met her but she must have been desperate for a boyfriend to have entertained me.  She was tiny, blond and behind her glasses very pretty – almost elfin in appearance.  We were together for a short matter of weeks before I sold her for five pints of beer.  I don’t remember what we did do in those few weeks but fuck wasn’t one of them.  An opportunity lost and a further tributary of my regret.

It’s hard for me now to conceive why I would do it – sell her, that is.  I can only put it down to a teenage bravado to impress my mates.  Strictly speaking, I didn’t sell her, of course, but dumped her for a bet.

My last memory of her was at a disco where I did it.  I remember blanking her all evening as she sat a little bewildered between more gentlemanly team mates from my rugby team while I stood grinning at her with my pals, proving to them what a “lad” I was.

I still wonder about her occasionally, what path my life might have taken had I not been cursed with this lifelong streak of immaturity.  I won those five pints but assuredly lost the bet as I don’t recall any of them but still remember Lurpak.

If there is a God it was an act which would have caused him shame that day and he has sentenced me to regret it from time to time ever since.