FLETCHER, WILLIAM (1940 – 2003) Teacher, Mischief Maker, Pervert. The slanders I endured as a youth were obviously damaging on a personal level. No adolescent enjoys being alluded to as possessing “a face like a malevolent planet”. My brother and his friends rejoiced in imitating the freakish version of myself featured in The People Who Saw Tomorrow and there was a brief craze amongst the district's ‘alternative' set of Hamilton Coe themed parties, one of which Spencer tricked me into attending. I received anonymous letters threatening to have me killed, exorcised or forcibly baptised and the Children of Courage and Achievement Award at which I was honoured (after a long campaign to have my talent recognised) was sabotaged by demonstrators and orchestrated egg throwers. I left the stage triumphant but covered in yolk. The Hamilton Coe Society formed by my aunt to keep well-wishers updated on my activities was deluged by enquiries from unsavoury characters demanding Hamilton Coe information packs and lapel badges. Rival societies were established by unauthorised persons disseminating completely false information and my aunt was eventually so destabilised by the pressure that the official society ceased operation, leaving six bogus versions competing to invent increasingly sordid and ridiculous Hamilton Coe adventures. These, incidentally, were the original source of many of the rumours propagated about my activities, several of which have been recounted as actual occurrences in Nina Kelly's ridiculous book. While all of the authors united in predictably crude innuendo (that Hamilton Coe is a chronic masturbator, that he is a peeping Tom, etc) some indulged in extravagant flights of fancy that suggested I was a superman. One in particular sent out weekly cliff-hangers, each of which was produced with intricate attention to detail. I remember one in which a villainous confectioner baked me into a cheesecake, another in which I was lured into a so-called Chamber of Feculence in which I was slowly asphyxiated by foul emissions. Each of these episodes would conclude with the query, “Is this the end for Hamilton Coe, boy of mystery?” and, in truth, for most people it would have been. To construct a false identity for someone is a form of black magic. You force your victim into a limbo between his real self and the image you have constructed for him. It's a dangerous experiment, particularly when conducted by those too stupid to appreciate the consequences. I was determined, however, not to be overwhelmed by malice. When my aunt recovered from her stress induced breakdown we set about the grim task of identifying the various authors, compiling a dossier on each and distributing the information in a special thirty page newsletter, incorporating particularly foul samples of their handiwork. These newsletters were sent not only to our regular subscribers, but also friends, colleagues and employers of the perpetrators, not one of whom was under the age of twenty- five. The most obsessive, the author of the weekly cliff-hangers, was William Fletcher, an art teacher from Callander. Stripped of his cloak of anonymity he first protested that he was, in fact, an ardent admirer of Hamilton Coe and intended his work as a tribute. When this tactic failed, he resigned, attempted suicide and eventually left the area entirely to live with his sister. I often say that this is the Age of the Man-child: I might add that William Fletcher was one of its first prophets. A rogue Hamilton Coe website, incidentally, is sporadically run by his niece, Madeline Curran, a young woman who is, apparently, not ashamed of the fact that she has dedicated her entire life to the construction of mischievously perverse images of myself.
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