Episode 12: Names can never hurt you

One way of stabilising King's behaviour was to give him something he could relate to. At the beginning of the Third Year, it seemed we might finally have found common ground. Ever since he'd arrived at my 13th birthday party with a copy of 'The Gay Song' and 'Looking after number one' (Was he hinting at our respective outlooks?) he'd been making noises about forming a band. Rather as he instinctively deferred to me on matters of athletics, he also recognised an equal in his enthusiasm for the New Wave, though he actually bought the records, and I suppose, lived the life, if not as yet embracing the image.

I'd managed to buy some time in Woodwork from having piles of shavings poured down my neck and getting my work chucked in the bin, by getting his enthusiasm going for a band entitled 'S.O.D'. This comprised my friends (plural) and his. Kane had wanted nothing to do with the project, telling us he thought it was childish, though there may have been a tinge of jealousy as he was so unimaginative that King hadn't bothered asking him to join anyway. Eventually, we were whittled down to Shane 'Rat', Seamus Dildo, Pieter Puke and 'Filth Pathetic' (myself). Following my earlier songwriting experiments, we embarked on a punkish series of compositions such as:

Call Sherlock Holmes! (Pieter)
Please love me forever (Shane)
Power to Me! (Filth)
The Devil (Shane)
Let's live together! (Filth)

Seamus began rapidly to tire of the game and Pieter was disgruntled by my slights at his disco ballads. Shane was fully committed to the enterprise however, and before kicking off the lunchtime football tournament he'd foisted upon us, insisted on loud renditions of his favourites in the middle of the lower school playground. Hunched over my rough book, we delivered the Seventies wannabe anthem.

I want a lot of money
And I want it right now
I'd even mug a granny
If I thought I knew how
I wanna be a millionaire
I wanna grab the lot
I wanna rule the world
Because I don't see...
"Why no-ottt"... (after Johnny Rotten)

Power to me
Power to me
Power to me
'Cause I wanna rule the universe'

The earth will be the first to go
And then will be the sun
Nothing's gonna stop me
I don't care for anyone
The Solar System's next in line
And then the universe
They'll all be dragged away
Inside a great galactic hearse

Repeat Chorus

It was during this rendition that Mervyn Peters met his fate. Power to him!
When Pieter and Seamus lost interest, I had the pleasure of Shane's company for several Saturdays where we made our first and only recording, 'The Death March'. Instrumental accompaniment was confined to a spooky-sounding electric organ as Shane took the part of the deceased narrator, imploring his followers to remember him (in a squeaky cockney voice) as "a friend...and a bruvvva!" which was certainly more sentiment than his demise would ever evoke. He asked me to copy out The Pistols' 'Belsen was a gas' for a story he was writing about the Jews, and when my mother found it in a drawer (not fair! At Solomon's house, he uncovered his parents' 'literature' - and you can imagine of what kind...) I put the blame on Shane, got him banned from the house and made my life a little less onerous for a while. We changed the name of the ensemble to 'The Graffiti Group', Shane having rejected my initial suggestion of 'Porno Pigs Band' as too controversial, but deprived of a regular rehearsal space, he gradually forgot about the idea, or at least, I hoped he had.


Wogga Matter?

Where did you filth crawl from? Attempting to grow up in the late 70s or early 80s was to be acquainted to some degree or other, for most of us, a damn sight closer and more frequently than we would have liked, with the NF, BM and the ignorant dirt that made up their membership: SKINHEADS. And I'm not bothered whether they were left-wing, right-wing, fucked up latent homosexuals (not a few as it turned out) or apolitical, 9 times out of 10 they spelt SCUM. A mixture of the psychotic, the sadistic, the cowardly and the ignorant; a damn sight less menacing when they were on their own, showing how far their courage usually stretched. In towns lacking a large ethnic minority, (unless it happened to be Asian), where they walked, ordinary people parted. Nobody seemed able or willing to stop them. Years later, when I faced down a couple in a club, I counted it as courageous an act as fronting a boy sticking an air rifle in my face when I was 12. For they had no level of moral inhibition whatsoever. SKULL FEATURED SHITHEADS!


Back in The Secondary School Yard

After the first day of the new term, I was ill with despair. The old firm of King, Kane and Heifer had settled into their usual routine of nicking people's equipment and my Pavlovian temper made me an ideal person to target. After a hectic chase round the class and a few token shouts of defiance, I managed to retrieve whatever had been stolen and just about kept the whole thing under wraps. I knew it couldn't happen twice though. This year just had to be different. A re-arranged class with the intelligentsia creamed off meant an influx of less academic and more available girls. It also meant worry with the addition of Woodwork and Metalwork to the syllabus. After the first lesson, I lived in constant fear of being thrown into the furnace. Everyone poking around with their hot stick and my absence of practicality. I smashed up my lunar module kit in frustration after making slow progress. Bah! I had no time for fiddly things.

However, things were about to change. A couple of lessons into the year, (predictably slow to non-existent progress being made on my part), tired of the perspiration drenched pudding bowl on my head making an eye drip, I decided to slick it back. Shock and amusement showed on the faces of my friends. Damendra (studious, friendly Indian) suggested it looked a little like a 'DA'. 'Grease' was the sensation of the moment, so there had never been a better time to make the move. As an experiment, I kept it up through Music, the last lesson of the afternoon. Up and down it went over the next few days as I decided whether to stick with the old, safe style, or strike out for the raw, unstyled, off-the-face look. The height advantage was a tempter. With the DA, I switched from just under average height to average plus an inch or two. A year or two extra in age I would also think. The new style was here. My image changed from a nondescript basin loser showing occasional aggression when provoked, to 'the boy with the hairstyle'. Perhaps this was the breakthrough at last...

A couple of weeks into the term came the chance to find out. The news of the first mass date eventually filtered down to myself and the lowly failures I hung around with and who were my friends. Normally this would just mean agonised misery as I knew there'd be no chance of a score. But the hair for the first time gave me hope of participating. Most of the good-looking girls had been booked by the time I got wind of events, but I'd noticed a fairly reviled yet I thought rather attractive girl by the name of Sarah Evans sitting at the back of the class. So with the DA still a conversion and not yet fashioned into the off-centre parting, I settled on my target. Unfortunately I let my choice leak to Solomon and Seamus, then realised I only had only that Friday lunchtime to make my move. I couldn't shake them or any of the other nonentities as I scoured the playground for my quarry. As soon as they saw me, they zeroed in and proceeded to shadow my every movement, locking themselves into the only potential piece of excitement that period. Having not spoken to any of the new influx in the few weeks since the beginning of term, let alone having asked them, or anyone else for a date, I was hyped to explosion on nerves, and all around, Solomon and Seamus bobbed up and down shouting, "How can we help Leonard?" and laughing, and generally meaning exactly the opposite, the minor urge to see a friend make progress trounced by the pleasure of sabotaging his plans. "What do you want us to do, Leonard!?" squeaked Seamus, almost as hyped as I was. " Fuck off....!" I screamed. "Fuck off!! Fuck OFF!!!"

When I saw her, the walk to the dinner queue was the longest of all. She'd spotted me 45 yards away, a figure akin to Jesus, leading an ever increasing band of hovering failures. I couldn't bring myself closer than 10 yards with the accompanying flock before shouting "DO YOU WANNA COME TO THE PICTURES?" She said, "No" or shook her head, or something, and I melted away, pursued by Seamus, Solomon and a few persistent hangers-on. Reflecting now, it seems unsurprising she declined my invitation. An acceptance with a third of the class listening would have been unlikely. But at the time I was appalled. Even though naturally I blamed the others for cocking it up, I didn't really comprehend the situation as I do now and took it all extremely personally.