Middle-Aged Spread

Middle Aged Spread

 

I am feeling much better about myself today. Recently I have been a little perturbed about the onset of “middle aged spread”. Love handles. My wife tells me that I am doing very well for my age. But, we are soon to embark on a holiday to Thailand, which will require me to expose my pink and less-than-perfectly toned body to the scrutiny of fellow globe trotters. To be honest, I could do with losing a pound or two. Or three. Or four. But, thankfully, on the way into work yesterday morning, while I was sat frustrated in a queue of traffic for fifty minutes due to the failure of traffic lights at roadworks, I was listening to an illuminating report on the Radio 5 Today Programme. It was discussing the link between obesity and exercise. Or more accurately, the link between obesity and the lack of exercise. And, do you know what? There isn’t one!

That’s great news. It makes me feel far less guilty about my current lack of exercise. According to some recent scientific study the amount of exercise that children undertake is genetically set. It has nothing to do with access to sports facilities. The implication is that your body knows how much exercise you need. It is self-regulating. Yeah right….

All I know is that kids today get less exercise than kids twenty years ago. Is that evolution? I suspect not.

I used to walk to Infant and Junior School. A four-mile round trip. I used to walk to the bus stop en route to Grammar School. A mile or so. I played football, or cricket, or murder ball, or had a fight, every school break. We had two hour-long PE sessions each week. We had an afternoon of Games (football, cricket, athletics, or cross-country depending upon the season and the weather). And these were competitive games! It was never just good enough “to take part” for my generation. I played football and cricket for the school, and competed in athletics, gymnastics, basketball and table tennis in House Competitions. I played in the national schoolboy’s cricket final (and lost) at the age of 16. I played badminton and lifted weights in lunchtimes.

Away from school, I roamed my ‘hood on my bike. I would cycle for miles. My cousin, Vince and I would cycle from Birmingham to Warrington to visit a great aunt, at least once a year. We went to the park. We played ball. We walked everywhere. And, when it rained we ran.

It doesn’t seem to be the same today. Kids are delivered to and collected from the school gate by parents in Chelsea Tractors. F*ck the environment! Convenience rules. Me, me, me. Kids are not allowed to play out due to concerns about their personal security, or, to stop them getting access to drink, drugs or sex. School games are largely no longer competitive. Schools are paranoid about getting sued if a child is injured or as a result of the psychological trauma of being labelled a failure. Whatever happened to fun? Whatever happened to winning?

To be honest, I have let my fitness regime slip since school. I did play football at University. I rowed, and I played the occasional game of squash. But, to be honest, my recreation time at Oxford did become more sedentary – croquet, darts, and drinking! After Uni, I played an occasional game of squash and for a couple of years, I played five-a-side football and participated in an indoor cricket league. But, I also discovered, whisky, red wine, and my sofa.

There have been only sporadic attempts at a fitness regime in recent years. I frequently hide behind the fact that most of my sporting prowess of yester-years was in the field of team sports. Occasionally, however, I have been cajoled into the odd game of squash, the odd mile or two of running (I don’t jog! I used to do cross-country at school after all), and even Tai Chi. The Tai Chi lasted only the one week actually. It was something that C and I were trying out as a common interest but the timing was inconvenient, the venue less than salubrious and the rest of the group looked as if they had just come straight from A&E or the geriatrics ward. So now, my athletic life consists of one regular weekend of torture/hiking with the lads from Oxford and, more typically, a regular weekly forced march across Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam!

My best mates and C pooled together last year to buy me a bike for my 40th birthday. My mates all have young families which keep them fit. I think they were worried about me. I will dig it out of the garage after I get back from my hols. The annual Lads Walk is planned at the end of April, so I’ll have to get some miles in.

In the meantime, it’s lunchtime! 

 

 

 

 

The History Boys

The History Boys

I watched the film “the History Boys” one weekend recently. It was a birthday present from J, a colleague who is a fellow Oxbridge history graduate, although 20 years my junior and a graduate of the “other place”. Cambridge. She got a first. But we all know that degrees are not what they used to be, and I reckon my twenty year old 2:1 is worth at least a First at the “other place”. The rivalry is alive and kicking.The film is set in a northern all-boys Grammar School in 1983. It follows a bunch of bright lads who are attempting to get into Oxbridge to study history. Sound familiar? This was the year that I won my place at Oxford. 1983! Twenty years ago. Most students today would consider that to count as history in itself.

Maslow, our furball baby cat, did his level best to disrupt proceedings. He must have found a nest of field mice. He brought two in, on separate occasions, until we decided to close his cat flap and lock him indoors. He was playing with them under the dining room table. Fortunately he hadn’t killed or punctured them. He brings them to us as gifts, apparently. So you have to praise them. After all, they are only doing what comes naturally. And, to be frank, he needs the exercise even more than I do. Luckily I was able to grab both of the poor squeaking, terrified baby mices and to liberate them through the dining room window. Maslow hadn’t spotted me do this so proceeded to sniff round every corner and piece of furniture looking for his erstwhile prey while C and I finished watching the DVD.

I enjoyed the film. It reminded me a little of the Dead Poets Society. You could tell that it was based upon a theatre play but it translated to film pretty well. And it dragged me right back to 1983, when I was aged 17 and in the first year of Sixth Form at Grammar School in Birmingham.

There were a number of similarities between the film and my own experience.  To start with, the school architecture and style was very reminiscent of my own Victorian educational edifice. My Grammar School in Handsworth, Birmingham. The boys wore similar uniforms. But their hairstyles were certainly much trendier than I remember in my own day. Mind you, I was in Birmingham.

 

 

I could see bits of some of my teachers in the actors, especially Mr Robins who taught me French, and Frau Walker who beat German into me. And, they got the look of the entrance exam papers right. A5 pamphlets, most unlike the A4 booklets of “O” and “A” Levels. Attention to detail.But, it was the differences between real life and the film that struck me most. All these boys were doing a crammer or seventh term. This means that they had already had their “A” Level results and had returned to their school for an extra term, aged 18, to prepare for their entrance exam. I didn’t do it that way. We didn’t have the option at my school. I took the entrance exam and had my interview the year before taking my “A” levels. I knew I had a place at Oxford before I took my “A” Levels. Well, as long as I achieved two grade “Es” that is. I did. Four “A stars” in fact. Swot!

People like me (the cocky, obnoxious, immature ones) used to “take the Michael” out of those who had resorted to a crammer. The extra term. Sorry Nye. But, it was not unusual. Some of my mates even deferred entry for a whole year. This was, however, most untypical in working class backgrounds.

My preparation was nowhere near as flamboyant, detailed, disciplined, extensive or all-encompassing as in the History Boys. True, the Headmaster coached us a little in Classical Studies and we brushed up a little on our Latin – for the entrance exam you were required to do one translation from a dead language such as Latin or Greek. This was a bit of a stretch for yours truly as I had only had one year’s study for both Latin and Classics, both of which I had dropped at the age of 12. Amo, amas, amat, amamas, amatis, amant. Hey, I still got it!

Also, we learnt a few more complicated verb conjugations for the French paper. You had to do a translation in a modern language such as French, German, Spanish or Russian (for the wannabe spies / double agents). But, this was all done during the lunchtime break. We did go into our “A” level history course in significantly more detail though. And I learnt all of the history questions in Trivial Pursuit off by heart on my own time.

There was certainly no standing at the piano performing Noel Coward or Gilbert and Sullivan though. Nor were there any art history trips. We did go for a visit to Oxford, but this was more of a pub crawl than an educational experience. And, there was certainly no having your balls fondled by the homosexual history teacher!

In my recollection they were kept in the closet back in 1983 Birmingham. Homosexuals. Either that or I was totally naive. I suspect the latter. Or both. In the film two of the male teachers and two of the boys were gay or bi-sexual at least. I wasn’t aware of meeting an openly gay boy or man in person until I went to Oxford. Oh, except for the music teacher. But you never took any notice of him as everyone dropped music after the age of 12, and, your average 11 year old could have taken him in a fight.

I remember going up to Oxford for the entrance interview. This followed the written entrance exam. Incidentally, you (well “one” I suppose) go up to Oxford irrespective of which point of the compass you started from. It is one of those snobbish things – a reference to reaching, supposedly, the height of academic achievement.

I remember it was cold. December. And, it was dark. I was summoned into an ancient dusty, smoky, dark, oak-panelled room at the top of a cold, open stairway. I sat in a squeaky leather chair in front of a roaring log fire as my interviewing panel of three history dons sat snuggled on an antique sofa opposite. They offered me a glass of sweet sherry and interrogated me on my personal background, the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and the empire building of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Not my favourite way of passing the time.

It was a bit like the scene in Shallow Grave when they are interviewing for a new flatmate. Except there was no one beaten up in the gents afterwards. At least not as far as I know. And the fact that the dons were all caricatures: Mr B an effeminate Mr Bean look-alike and an expert in Anglo Saxon English history; Mr P, a specialist in the Second World War, who was the spit of the Cambridge don described in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adam, which is a book I would recommend.

I was offered a scholarship. Clearly, I was offered a scholarship because of my in-depth knowledge of Latin, Classics and complicated French verb conjugations. Actually, I reckon it was because they got grants to attract people from non-public schools, the fact that I could hold my sherry, and, because, amazingly, I knew more about twelfth century Swedish imperialism than a tutor in Anglo Saxon history………What a surprise.

 

Related Posts:

 

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to Oxford

Handsworth Grammar School

 

 

 

 

The Times They Are A Changin Part 1

Communication

 I’ve been having a contemplative morning. The wood-smoke scent of last night’s real fire gently pervades the lounge. The dishwasher quietly murmurs in the kitchen beyond. Maslow (our cat and furball baby) is noisily preening himself in a sunspot on the sofa beside me. Radio 5 is entertaining itself in the background, playing through the Freeview digital-TV.

Yesterday’s newspaper (the Times), multiple magazines, and other supplements are gently gathering dust on the coffee table. I admit I do tend to lose interest a little bit after I have completed the Killer Su Doku and the Times 2 Crossword, but there is something quite satisfying about the weekly visit to the recycling bins at Waitrose. If you ignore the fact that so many trees were felled to make the stuff in the first place, and, so much CO2 was spewed into the atmosphere while transporting the stuff around the globe, it makes me feel as if I am doing my little bit for the planet and the next generation. And, so I do. Ignore the fact that is.

The news is much, much more accessible these days. This might explain why there is also a growing pile of CDs tottering on the coffee table. CDs which, not unlike my free copy of the Harvard Business Review, are likely to remain unopened, never to see a PC disk drive, or CD player, or the light of day. Give-away CDs from papers or received unsolicited through the mail: “Paul McKenna’s Deep Relaxation: Programme Your Mind to Feel Good”, “Charlotte’s Web: Help is Coming from Above” – an audio CD, “Full Circle: Alaska and Russia – The Michael Palin Collection”, “Coast: Exmouth to Bristol”, “Teach Yourself Mandarin Chinese Conversation”, (I joke not !!), and, “Make a Contribution to a Cleaner World” – an educative missive from our supplier of home heating oil, trying to justify why they are five pence per litre more expensive than their nearest rivals……. There’s probably a degree in social studies in the making right there on our coffee table. In fact I am sure there is. Especially if you add in the other reading materials which are to be found there. “The Dangerous Book for Boys”, “Mr Jones’ Rules”, “The Rough Guide to Thailand”, the Laura Ashley catalogue, and the “Radio Times”.

These days you can learn everything you ever wanted or needed to know about the world without even leaving your bedroom, visiting a museum, stepping into a library, trekking across the Sahara, or undertaking a balloon safari in deepest, darkest Africa. We have News 24, broadband and Wikipedia. Amazon.co.uk delivers. Wine Direct delivers. Tesco Direct delivers. The local Indian takeaway delivers. I am seriously considering becoming a recluse. But a recluse who is well-fed, well-informed and worldly-wise.

The recent snowfall that paralysed much of the Midlands, Wales and the London Tube (Southern Jessies!) in March, closing all of the schools, reminded me of an incident from my own childhood. It made me think about how technology has changed. How our experience of the world has been altered, and, how the online, virtual nature of communication tools today have coloured our response to incidents such as a snow storm.

When I was about 11 or 12, at Grammar School, it snowed one day. This was proper snow, mind you. Not like the stuff you get these days – the wrong kind of snow. This was heavy snow. A blizzard. Drifting snow. Dickensian winter snow. It had started in the morning after lessons had already started. We watched it eagerly through Victorian windows, pleased to see that it was settling and anticipating break time and the snowball fights that would inevitably follow. Frozen balls of ice would be sculpted and thrown. Knitted mittens and gloves would soon be sodden. Little hands would freeze, and turn blue, to be thawed in excruciating, delightful agony on the old iron radiators, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh and scolding woollens. By first break there was a good couple of inches. By lunchtime there must have been a foot or so. It was a veritable blizzard. The gritters had failed. Snow-ploughs were nowhere to be seen. The roads were becoming blocked, even in the city centre. And, then all public transport (it sounds very grand doesn’t it – I mean the buses) was brought to a halt or returned to the depot on safety grounds. And so, at lunchtime, school was declared closed. School was closed, and all the little tykes like me were abandoned, thrown out into the streets to fend for ourselves and find our own ways home. Without a shovel, spade, or snow-shoe between us.

Home seemed a long way away that day. It was six and a half miles long. Six and a half miles around the Outer Circle. And, as there were no buses. Six and a half miles, on foot, in about a foot of snow, in the middle of a blizzard. So off I set. I set off with no idea how long a walk such as this would take. I was alone. I was small. I was very cold. I had no way of letting mom and dad know of my plight. Even if I had had the two pence for a call home (which I didn’t) the phone boxes around Handsworth were generally vandalised and rendered inoperative. Even if I had found a phone box which was working, we didn’t have a phone at home… But I did know a neighbours number, just for emergencies. But, even if I had been able to phone, I knew it would have gone unanswered. Everyone I knew would be at work. Out. These were the days before voicemail and answer-machines. I was small, cold, and alone, and without the means to tell my mom. She would be worried. I was frightened. I cried.

I walked all the way home. My feet were frozen. My tears were frozen. Everything I was wearing was soaking. It took me hours. But, I made it. And, I soon found myself slowly thawing in front of the bar heater, with a cup of hot milk simmering in the pan. Heaven.

How different the events of this week seemed to be by contrast. First of all, the met office seemed to have got its act together. In my childhood, the weather forecast, if you were lucky, would tell you how the weather had been today, rather than what it was going to be like tomorrow. Nowadays, you can get a pretty good idea how it is going to be over the next five days, anywhere in the world, or, just for your post code (or zip code). And so, this week, the schools in Birmingham knew what the weather was going to do. They were able to predict the chaos that would ensue. And, so, they were able to take the decision to close the schools even before the weather broke. What is more, they were able to communicate that decision, so that parents would be able to keep their kids at home, and plan for their care. Bulletins were sent out 24/7 via radio, TV, and the web. No doubt headmasters and headmistresses and their staff across the region were able to contact parents by phone at home, by mobile, leaving voicemails or text messages where necessary. No doubt, news of the decision was also sent out by email and received on many a parental desktop, laptop, palm held, or blackberry.

Even if a rogue child had slipped through the net (how apt) and made their way to school only to find it closed, it would not have been a problem. There are not many 11 or 12 year olds these days who are not fully equipped with mobile phones. No doubt they would have been able to contact their parents, and entertained themselves with IPOD, MP3 or GameBoy, until mom or dad or the nanny arrived in their air-conditioned 4WD to usher them home………to the central heating, a microwaved latte, and, a multi-media heaven of their own.

Oh, and the snow only lasted 24 hours. 

 

 

 

Fighting Part 3

Handsworth To Oxford

 Handsworth was a dangerous place in general in the 80s. There were race riots in 1981 and again in 1985. In the latter, an Asian family lost their lives. They were burnt alive above the Post Office they managed.

During the first race riot, I had to be “evacuated” from school. It was a Sunday and we had been playing cricket and had just returned to school in the mini-bus. Normally I would have made my way home by bus. But, on this hot, Sunday evening the riot was kicking off, prompted by the arrest of a local drug dealer. The school, being predominantly white, became a target. We had to be escorted out of school under police guard. It was quite exciting. It was quite frightening.

When we returned to school on Monday, Handsworth was a mess. The Soho and Lozells roads were littered with burnt out cars. School had most of its windows smashed. It was quite exciting swapping stories with the other kids, especially those who lived in the area. The Weir twins had been arrested and subsequently released. They claimed they had just gone to watch but got caught up in a police baton charge. They got a beating, but not from the police. They got their beating from their mom – five foot nothing of old-fashioned Jamaican maternal discipline. They were good lads and should have known better than to get involved.

Things were always a bit more tense in the area after that. I remember once bunking off with a mate and going to the local snooker club. It smelled of weed. Dope. Ganja. We were in there for just 30 seconds. We were the only white faces. Everything stopped. It was like a movie. It was like the pub scene in American Werewolf (Jenny Agutter. Since the Railway Children, I’ve never seen a film where she kept her clothes on. And, I’m not sure I want to. Sigh….). Nothing was said, but the look in their collective eyes shouted. We were not welcome there. We went back to school.

Suffice to say that at Grammar School I learnt to fight. I learnt to stand my ground. Actually, by building a certain reputation and by developing a certain stern look I managed, mostly, to avoid an actual fight. Normally the other guy would back down. Indeed I can still conjure that “stern look” today. I t is very effective when dealing with noisy teenagers in cinemas, or, when kids try to push into queues.

Fortunately, there has not been much cause for fighting since Handsworth. True my nickname at Oxford, at least within the public school circles of the “Iffley Yahs” was “The Inner City Lad”. It could have been worse though. They referred to one of my best mates from Birmingham as the “Neanderthal” (but if you had met him then you would have understood why)……I did get a bit “feisty” when captaining the so-called “Animals” football team. And, there was a time when I did terrorise one of the “Iffley Yahs” by pinning him against the college wall by the throat. Sorry Simon. I hope this does not explain your absence from the Friendsreunited website.

Otherwise, Oxford was pretty fight free. One of my duties as Social Secretary seemed to be to “intimidate” certain rowdy types to leave the Beer Cellar on “Sweaty Bop” disco nights. It was my experience that your average Oxford student was pretty easily intimidated. Your public school types are not so streetwise and tend to rely on their wits more than their fists. And, they are generally lacking in wits. Certain more direct pressure was brought to bear on one MD when he refused to leave my girlfriend alone.

Indeed, I only have few recollections of real violence while at Oxford. One was when I was back at college a year after leaving. We were there as part of the Old Members Football team playing the annual fixture against the current college team. I had to intervene between my mate (the Neanderthal) and a “Townie” who had insulted his fiancée. My mate knocked the “Townie” clean into the middle of the street (and next week) even though the “Townie” was wearing a motorcycle helmet. I stepped in, with the two other mates we were with, when he came back with a tyre lever. It was the night that Frank Bruno was fighting (and losing) against Mike Tyson in the World Heavyweight Championship. …Frank lost. The “Town v Gown” fight had been much more impressive. 

 

 

 

Early Education Part 5

The Teenage Years

 The Grammar School for Boys which I attended was a very different world from that of Junior School. Apart from one or two of the teachers and staff it was a male dominated environment. A world of boys and of men. Situated between Birmingham’s Asian quarter of Soho and the West Indian quarter of Handsworth, the school was still strangely dominated by a white, middle-class teaching and pupil population. But for sure, black and Asian kids were a lot more prevalent than they had been back in the Erdington.

Grammar School was a world of strict discipline, rules, detentions, being sent to the Headmaster, the cane, and of Prefects. In the ranking of punishments, Prefects were the most feared and second only to being expelled.

Grammar was a world of sports and of academic excellence, good manners, and of tradition. It was a time of selection and streaming (putting the brightest kids in the best classes). It was a time of school uniform and of standing when a teacher entered the room and of placing chairs on top of desks at the end of the day. Grammar was a world which displayed prefect stripes, and coloured sporting badges. A world with a House System, school colours, bullying, fighting, and testosterone. It was a world where boys were men, or, they were failures and victims. Like the public schools of old, it was a place which produced leaders (of industry at least). Many a Middle Manager came from its ranks.

 

Testosterone. Fill a school with 700 boys aged between 11 and 18 and you get a heady mix of flatulence, pimples, acne and hormones. There was just a handful of female teachers, the school secretary, and one lab assistant, the occasional student teacher (usually French!). Some of these were past it or downright ugly. The others were the subject of many a hormonal schoolboy’s infatuation and frantic masturbation at some point. And, do you know, I suspect they knew it…..and, some of them probably enjoyed that knowledge.

 

A number of these “femmes fatales” had a distinct sexual mythology built or constructed around them. Take Miss M, the art mistress. Many would have like to. She was pretty, with a good figure, and a wardrobe full of tight fitting and short outfits. There was a rumour that she never wore any knickers and would lure young boys into her storeroom cupboard. I spent many an art lesson with my eyes locked on Miss M’s crossed legs, hoping for an uncrossing of Kenny Everett proportions. None ever came. On one occasion she did actually call me into the storeroom. I was very excited. I was 11 (or 12, or 13) and I was terrified. I was in Miss M’s infamous storeroom. Gulp.

 

She stood on a chair and leaned up somewhere high to pass something down to me. She did this in a “suggestive” manner. She had really great legs and a good body. It did cross my mind that this might be a come on and that I was supposed to slide my hand up that leg and touch a trembling thigh. But I didn’t, thankfully. I was all too aware of the growing erection in my trousers. Trousers which all too soon would have to return to the classroom and the attentive eyes of boys who knew the goings-on in Miss M’s storeroom.

 

Another probable urban myth about Miss M involved a homework which she set to “draw your favourite teacher”. The story goes that one boy submitted a headless cut-out torso of a topless page-3 model onto which he had sketched a passing resemblance of Miss M’s head and for which he receive a mark of 10 out of 10……and what else we wondered. Another Miss M myth involved sightings of Miss M in a lesbian clinch with Ms T (note the “Ms”!). This took place during a sports day. They were sat together in Ms T’s mini-cooper. But, I must admit I do have a recollection of seeing this with my own eyes. I am not sure if the memory is real, but it remains a memory nonetheless. Happy days…happy thoughts…..happy nights.

Ms T taught biology. She was one of the younger teachers. She was blonde, buxom, very buxom, with a tendency towards erectile nipples that would protrude through button-stretching tight tops and skirts that would ride up sufficiently to expose a firm, shapely thigh when seated. She was sexy! I used to sit front right whenever I could in biology, being at the best angle to admire a thigh and catch a glimpse of bra, always hopeful that an over-worked button would succumb, pop, and yield even more treasures. It never did, unfortunately. Sigh.

Testosterone. Christ, I even used to think Frau W, veritable witch, teacher of German and my fifth form mistress, had great legs, and she must have been 50 if she was a day. Maybe it was the way she insisted we called her “Frau” with its clearly sado-masochistic undertones. More likely it something to do with the fact that double German last thing on a Friday afternoon usually involved the secret passing around of pocket sized porno books and not much German reading……….although some were in German. Actually, it was as simple as being 16, sex-obsessed, she was female, there……and she did have good legs.

In fact, Frau W was the closest I got to having sex with a teacher. Twice. There was one clear near miss when I must have been taken ill at school and for some reason Frau W took me home. This is probably completely against the rules of today when teachers are advised not to be alone with pupils for fear of accusations and legal cases. She had a sporty little two-seater and a short skirt and I stared at those two legs all the way home and felt much better for it. The closest was when she kissed me. I was 18. She actually kissed me. She took my head in her hands and kissed me on the lips. She did this in the middle of Quadrangle (no playground in a man’s school), in front of everyone. Yeeucchh! But this was not sex. This was a “reward” for gaining my place at Oxford…..and maybe an apology for having accused me of cheating in my German mock “O” level exam. Co-incidentally, I had used the previous year’s O-Level paper to revise for my mock exam the following Christmas. Consequently, I got a very high mark and much higher than my term work would have indicated. She accused me of having cheated. I thought I was just showing initiative. No worries. I got my A in the real thing in any case……. 

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Fighting Part 2

Victims

 Handsworth was a violent school in a violent place at a violent time. This was a time of the Handsworth Revolution (Steel Pulse) and of race riots. Being a predominantly white school in a very black and Asian area meant that bus rides home were often “stressful” and menacing. Actually, they could often be dangerous. Handsworth Park was officially out-of-bounds. I n reality though it was the place where scores were settled between rival schools. Rivalry within the school itself was handled in-house. Fights would break out most breaks. A circle would form and a fight would ensue until broken up by Prefects. Unless it was Prefects who were fighting…..

Prefects were responsible for all discipline in the school outside of the classrooms during lesson time. Prefects gave detentions, meted out litter duties, and could send boys to the Head for the cane. These were the official punishments. They were rarely carried out. More often than not Prefects preferred to administer a clip around the ear. I should know. I was a Prefect. Indeed, I was a Prefect Team Leader. Prefects, like velociraptors, preyed in packs. I had two naval-like stripes on my cuffs to show my rank. As a Prefect Leader I organised a roster of duties for the team on the days when we were “on duty”.

Duties included ensuring that the school was cleared of all boys when lessons were not taking place, unless it was raining. Before classes, after school, and at break times, the school had to be cleared. We would patrol the corridors and search the rooms. “Sneaking in” was a favourite prank. Prefects also had to ensure that boys entered the school in an orderly fashion. Upon the sounding of the school bell, boys were expected to line up in single file against the wall and were filtered through the two main entrances, one-by-one. Prefects would physically eject boys who pushed in or who were being noisy.

Rainy days were the worst because then the boys were allowed inside. But, they were expected to remain within the confines of their own class and the corridors were to be kept free. Prefects were allocated a Form. I was assigned the worst Form in the school. Fifth formers in the lowest stream. I got them because I was “hard”. They got me because I could not be intimidated. When this Form was in the fourth year they had beaten up the Head Boy. Incidentally, I had never aspired to the position of Head Boy. The Head Boy was a ceremonial role that required you to give readings and speeches during assemblies and other high profile occasions. Not for me. Not back then.

My job during assemblies was to stand in the middle of my Form and keep order. To stop the serious crimes of giggling, key rattling, talking and making up rude words to hymns. Why the music teacher insisted on playing Bread of Heaven quite so often was beyond me. With so many Aston Villa fans in the school, it would quickly deteriorate……

The other main responsibility of the Prefects was to keep order in the Quad, and the immediate vicinity of the school and at bus stops. We had to break up all of the fights. We had to stop boys from smoking while in school uniform. To do this we raided the bogs (toilets). There were 3 main bogs – one for the juniors, one for middle school and one for seniors. Many a senior school toilet raid resulted in cubicle doors being kicked open by a Prefect to find a boy sneaking an illicit fag (which meant a cigarette in them days!). Punishment would involve a clip round the ears and confiscation of all cigarettes. It was rare to get a whole pack though as most local newsagents would, illegally, sell fags in singles. Confiscated contraband would be sold off in the Sixth Form Common Room, where smoking was allowed.

The Prefect System worked pretty well in my opinion. As Boys, all Prefects had been through the system on the receiving end. We knew all the tricks. We knew all the hiding places. We were streetwise. While Prefects never had an official sanction for meting out a “clip around the ear”, it was rare that Boys complained about it. Any complaints would most likely have resulted in the cane.

“Clips around the ear” mostly meant that bullying was rare. Young kids who were being bullied were far more likely to seek the assistance of a Prefect than go to a teacher. They got to see their bully receive his “clip around the ear”.

However, in my time as Prefect there were two occasions when the System did not work, with serious consequences.

The first was quite literally because the Prefects withheld their labour. We went on strike. I cannot remember the incident that provoked such unprecedented strike action but it must have been significant for us to cross the Head and the teachers – the Establishment. In any case, we Prefects went on strike to protest against something or other. In hindsight, I hope it really was important.

The Boys responded to the strike predictably. They acted like any hormone-filled mob might. There was a near riot. A real “Lord of the Flies” kind of rebellion and loss of control. Anarchy. Despite notice of the strike the Teachers had not assumed the day-to-day responsibilities normally carried out by the Prefects. They should have seen it coming. They didn’t. On this day when the school bell rang out at the end of break there were no neat lines of boys against the walls, filtering into the two main entrances. Instead there was a scrum, a melee. Everyone rushed to the door. Everyone pushed to get through the doors at the same time. Everyone thought it was a huge game. And then…….the front of the scrum collapsed. Some of the boys fell. Others continued to push. More boys fell. The boys that fell got trampled on. At this point the Prefects ended our industrial action. Order was quickly restored, teachers were summoned, ambulances were called for. I seem to remember that four boys went to hospital that day – a concussion, a couple of broken limbs. I also seem to remember that the incident was reported on local news. I think that this has had a long-lasting impact upon me. Strike action has consequences. People get hurt. But, it could have been a lot worse……….

The second time that the Prefect system failed it was a lot worse. It was as bad as it could ever get. As I have said, these were violent times in Handsworth. Grammar School kids were often targeted by kids form the local comprehensives. There had been a couple of instances when smaller lads had been beaten up on the way to or from school, or on the mile and a half walk from school to the playing fields for Games. Smaller boys, mostly, began to carry weapons for protection. At first these would include metal combs with sharp handles, the odd compass set, penknives and worse. In the year after I had left Grammar I heard that a “raid” on one form discovered a crossbow!

On this particular day I must not have been on Prefect duty. I was in my form room – one of the “temporary” wooden structures on the far side of the Quad away from the main school building where the Sixth formers hung out at break. A “fight” broke out outside and a kid came running in to get me. It would seem that a second-year boy had been being bullied by a third-former. This third-former was a known bully. The second-year boy had apparently brought a flick-knife to school to ward him off. Somehow the bully had run onto the blade – a single puncture wound to the stomach. A single puncture wound through the stomach. A single puncture wound through the stomach and into the heart of a 13 year old boy.

The next few seconds are just a distant, foggy blur in my memory. My mind plays back the events almost as if I were a spectator, watching from a distance. I barked at Sixth-formers to push back the growing circle of boys who had assumed another fight was taking place. I shouted for someone to call an ambulance. I screamed for someone to get a teacher. It all happened in slow motion. Excited faces turned to grimaces of fear and horror as realisation hit home. I cradled the bully in my arms and that is where he died. I had told him he was going to be OK. He was not. The situation was made worse – if such a thing could be worse – by the fact that both boys had brothers in the school in the same fourth-form class. The bully’s brother was holding his hand as he died in my arms.

A teacher arrived, and, to be honest, I do not remember much at all after that. I remember looking out of the teachers’ rest room. I must have been sent there to clean myself up. There was not a lot of blood but there must have been some. I remember peering out of the window alongside a couple of fellow Prefects. We could see the body lying across the Quad next to our form room. The body seemed to lie on the cold tarmac for an absolute age before the police finished their business, before they had drawn their chalk outline and the hearse arrived to remove the body. Small kids would later examine the spot eagerly for signs of blood.

I have a faint memory of being interviewed that afternoon while sat at a single desk set up examination style in the Main Hall. But, I could not tell you if this interview was by the police or by a counsellor. I would imagine it must have been a plain-clothed PC. These were the days before counselling, before we worried about the impact of a traumatic event upon the witness. These were days of stiff upper lips.

I think we must have been sent home early that day. But, I have no memory of it. I have no memory of it being marked as a memorable event at home. “Hi mom, a kid died in my arms today.” I have no memory of the incident being discussed at all. I remember no follow up action with the police or other authorities. The “killer” was expelled and sent to borstal (Young Offenders’ Institute). The two brothers used to look at me a little strangely, as if I served as a constant reminder of what had happened. I don’t remember much discussion about it at school either. Except, on one occasion, when the Senior Football Team was playing in the FA Schoolboys’ Cup at West Brom’s ground. The “killer’s” brother was playing and his brother – the “killer” – was spotted in the crowd, flanked by his parents. It made me feel a little uneasy. There again, with the wisdom of hindsight, I can understand that he had been a victim too. And, so perhaps, was I. 

 

 

 

Fighting Part 1

First Battles

 Another common attribute of the Middle Manager is competitiveness. You have to enjoy a good fight. I certainly did and I did so from a very early age. Well, when your local newspaper says of your birth “Miracle Baby!”, what would you expect. An immaculate conception? I have been dining out on that particular headline for years. It actually probably means that my mom was a fighter too. After all, it was she, not me, who lost all the blood. I just had to hang on in there and survive. I came out the wrong way up, back to front, choking myself with my own umbilical chord. But, I survived to be told the story of it.

I can remember with some clarity one of my early “lessons for life”. This time from my mom. I guess I must have been about 3 years old. Indeed, it may well have been prompted by the “Battle of Batman’s cape” at Playgroup back in Selly Oak. (See Early Education – an earlier posting). “If anyone hits you, “ mom said, “you just hit them back. Stick up for yourself!”

And so I did. And so I do. If anyone has ever hit me I have always hit them back. That is, with the exception of any women (and there have been a couple who have given me a slap or two over the years). Hitting a woman is a big taboo. Real men do not use their fists on women. But men, no matter how big or how many, I always hit back. Never show fear. Never back down. Sometimes I got my hitting in first – what Americans might call “pre-emptive” hitting. On occasions I would take a beating. But, mostly I won. I was pretty hard. I am still quite capable of aggression if called upon but I rarely play the hard man these days. And, I hope I won’t have to.

I learnt mom’s lesson quickly. Not long after this the “incident with the dog” happened. My aunt and uncle (he of the Marvel comic collection) had a boisterous boxer dog, Spicer, that was just about the same height as myself. On one particular visit the boxer dog apparently came whelping into the lounge, its bobble tail firmly between its legs, followed by yours truly with blood around my mouth, declaring: “Doggy bit me so I bit him back!” Sorry doggy. I guess I’ve always been more of a cat person. And, for those of you who are interested……..it DOES taste just like chicken! Sorry Spicer.

There have been other notable scraps through the years. At the Junior School I was once concussed enough to be sent to a doctor after being set upon by “Big Boys” from the local comprehensive. Apparently they had entered the playground, stolen our ball and dared us to go and get it. And so I did. And so I received a bit of a kicking until a teacher came and chased the gang away. I got the ball.

There was the time I hit LH around the head with a cricket bat. LH was one of the rare black kids at Junior School and was by far the hardest kid in school. But, at least he respected me after being knocked for six. He turned out to be a thoroughly nice guy once you got to know him, but, I admit that this was a rather extreme ice breaker. Sorry LH.

Then there was the time I made the boy in the year above me at the Junior School cry, and, apologise to my sister. I forget his name, but he was bullying my sister. He made her cry. I twisted his arm until he apologised. He didn’t learn his lesson though for some years later, when I was about 15 or 16, my sister came home from school in tears. This same boy, who went to another all boys Grammar School and big rival of my own, recognised her on the bus on the way home. He hurled abuse at her all the way. Without a word to anyone, not to mom, not to my sister, I sought him out. I took a different route home. In the full uniform and regalia of my own school, alone, I got onto the number 40 bus which carried Erdingtonians home from Aston. He was sat right at the back, in the middle of the back seat, on the top deck of the bus, surrounded by his mates. When I stepped up it was like a scene from a Western bar-room gunfight. The whole bus went quiet as I walked the length of the bus. It seemed a very long way. As I neared him there was an instant of recognition. Calmly, I simply told him, “Don’t you ever make my sister cry again” and then pummelled him in the face. No-one intervened. And, when the 16 year old bully began to cry in front of all his mates, I simply turned on my heel, walked back down the bus, and got off at the next stop. I said not a word when I got home. He never made my sister cry again. I hope he has never made anyone else’s sister cry either. Bullying and cowardice often go hand-in-hand.

Grammar School itself was one big fight. Even the organised “sports” were violent, with punishments meted out by hard men. The gym teachers. Ex-Royal Marines and utter bullies. Most of the “games” organised by this pair involved cruelty, torture or pain of some kind. Never their own. Their behaviour would not be tolerated today – the kids would sue. But, it did help to make men out of most of the boys.

PE (Physical Education) consisted mainly of two games – “Pirates” and “British Bulldog”. Pirates was rarer because it involved getting every piece of gym equipment out, and we only had an hour. The “trial” consisted of being chased around the room by the two best athletes in class. If (i.e. when) you were caught, or, if you put a foot on the floor, you were sent to the Sacrificial Altar. You would be made to take off your PE vest (not as rare an occurrence as you may think in days when you played games in either “colours”, i.e. with vest on, or in “skins”). You would be made to lie face-down over a buck with arms by your side. And, then, the gym teacher would slap you hard in the middle of the back with the palm of his hand! The game would not end until an inspection proved that every boy wore “the mark”……

British Bulldog was much simpler. It involved all of the class except the two biggest boys standing at one end of the gym hall. The Bulldogs stood in the middle. The boys then had to run from one wall to the other without being “captured”. To be “captured” you had to be lifted physically off the floor. This was the job of the Bulldogs. These two twin brothers were very good at it. They were big, black, and proud. They were both giants from a family of giants. Just look up any history of British athletics and you will find a member of their family, famous for throwing something very heavy a lot further than anyone else. In these days that included me and my classmates. There was just one rule. Boys had to resist. If you were not considered to be resisting enough then the Sacrificial Altar would come into play. Once “captured” you joined the twins as a catcher until there were no more boys to catch.

I do not remember a single boy complaining about such treatment. They did not dare. To show such weakness was an unwritten taboo. I am sure that no parent was ever told, otherwise there would have been complaints, parents to see the Headmaster. I t never happened. The only complaint that I can remember being made against these two complete b*stards involved a boy in another class but in the same year as myself. He was the boy who smelled. Every school has one and he was ours. He was scruffy, he had no school blazer, his hair was long and unkempt, and, he smelled. Apparently after one particular PE lesson he refused to join his classmates in that other ritual humiliation which came with PE – the communal showers. This humiliation involved stripping naked in front of your classmates. You have to remember that this was a time before central heating and power showers, before boys discovered underarm deodorant. We were the talcum powder generation. The generation who bathed once on a Sunday or after football. We were also at an age when involuntary erections were common. Adolescence, what fun! Once naked you had to run the gauntlet of cold water jets.

This boy refused to strip. I don’t know what kind of home life the poor wretch may have had. I cannot imagine what lack of parental care produced such a feral child. And I did not care. None of us cared. We were young boys and all we knew was that he smelled. The gym teacher lost it. He stripped the boy himself. He produced a wire brush – often used to cajole slow gauntlet runners. He yanked the boy into the shower and he scrubbed him clean. This boy complained……

Such institutionalised violence was not without side effects of course. Violence often erupted in the Quadrangle and elsewhere. From time to time boys would organise mass contests of British Bulldog involving the whole school, and all ages. The other Quad favourite was Murder Ball. This involved two teams whose purpose was to score by throwing a tennis ball through the opponents goals (hitting the wall between two wall-mounted dustbins). That was rule one. Rule two (and there were only two) was that whoever held the tennis ball could be murdered – punched, kicked, wrestled, anything went….. 

 

Early Education Part 4

Infants And Juniors Continued

My Infant & Junior School was my world, my life, my everything in the formative years up to the age of 11. It was a world of easy learning. Learning through fun. It was a world where teachers put on Christmas shows for the kids. Where the kids put on shows for their parents. (These were the days before the throw away camera, video recorders, and mobile phones were invented. So us pre-pubescent kids could frolic around in our underwear until the cows came home without fear of ending up as a download on a paedophile’s PC). A time when Santa would arrive on the roof in a helicopter (albeit it a special, silent one) and bring presents for us all.

It was a world where films were shown at the end of each term. Can you imagine the scene at infants school when they showed “Bambi” on the big screen to a couple of hundred 5 to 7 year olds? Well do imagine: the hunter enters the clearing where Bambi, still young, is nuzzling his mother. “Run Bambi, run!” shouts mother. “Bang!” goes the hunters gun. Bambi’s mother falls to the ground, eyes closed. “Mama? Mama?” squeaks Bambi, a tear rolling down the side of his muzzle……..and 200 small children begin to wail and weep in absolute horror! The film Bambi must have been responsible for many childhood disorders over the years. I suspect that Walt Disney was in league with the psychotherapy industry. Or maybe he was just downright evil.

As an adult I made the mistake of leaving small children to watch Bambi on DVD while us adults finished Sunday lunch around the dining table. These were the sprogs of my best mates from Oxford, including our God-daughter, V. I went to check on them at this very same point in the story. They were staring, open-mouthed at the screen clutching various cushions, toy dolls and other comforters. On seeing me they shouted, “Uncle D, Father Christmas has just killed Bambi’s mom!”. You see what I mean? Well, there is an interesting plot twist that old Walt should have used….

My Infant & Junior School was a world of summer camps on the playing field and of Morris dancing. You were given a stick (every boy would want one). You dressed in cricket whites and the school cap (yes, this was still the days of school caps and wearing shorts. Only “big boys” at “big schools” got to wear long trousers;), and the teacher tied a scarf around your waist, put a pair of braces on you, and, tied bells around your ankles, and you were off. For some reason which escapes me I was foreman (an official Morris-dancing term for the lead dancer) of this particular dance troupe. We performed just the two times – once at the May Day Festival (traditional you see) and then again as an interlude during the school performance of “Alice In Wonderland”. I have read the book since, and seen the film, and I challenge you to find any interlude involving Morris dancers in the middle of the croquet game! And, I can still remember that bloody tune: “da, da, da, da, da, da, diddy……”

Infant & Junior School was a time of ghosts on the stairs – the school was built on the site of an orphanage. Stories abounded of orphans who had hanged themselves from the orphanage stairs. More frightening still was Miss D, form mistress (and that was the correct word for her) in my second year junior – class 2D (see photo on Friendsreunited). Miss D hated children. Miss D hated boys in particular. Miss D never really took a shine to me. Miss D made me cry!

Infant & Junior School was a time of marbles, of school lunches, school trips with packed lunches, of no-contact rugby matches during which one boy got sent to hospital after getting his head stood on by a pair of studded football boots. Happy days indeed.

And so I left Infant & Junior School with two school prizes (maths and English), and an IQ of over 135 (there was a test at some point or other). Subsequent infrequent IQ test have confirmed that I have maintained this reasonably high intelligence measure. And, I left with a place (via entrance exam) at a Grammar School for Boys.

This was a huge source of pride and relief for my mom and dad. My sister had gone to a Grammar School for Girls a year earlier. I remember that my mom came to school and marched straight up to me in the middle of the playground to tell me that I had got in. She was overjoyed. Gaining a place at Grammar School represented the saving of a boy like me. A boy who otherwise was clearly destined for a life of crime. Instead of which a whole new world of Middle Management could be mine. My mom and dad had actually decided to vote Conservative in the local elections to ensure my future – Labour had been standing on a platform of abolishing the City’s 7 Grammar Schools. The 1970s and 80s were a period of the Loony Left, socialism, punk rock and the comprehensive educational system after all…..

I suspect, however, that these right wing leanings were not such a huge wrench for my parents. Over the years they have consistently demonstrated traditional working-class conservative tendencies and ideologies. They were big fans of “Mrs T” and never quite forgave me when, in my first term at university, I gave donations to the striking miners’ fund…..”You’ve changed! You think you’re better than us now”…..well, actually, yes….but I kind of thought that had been the whole point of getting to university in the first place.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Education Part 3

Infants And Juniors

In Erdington. I attended the local Infants and Primary School from the age of 5 until 11, as did my sister, albeit from the luxury of the year above me.

Apart from the first day, these were happy times. On the first day at Infants I had that feeling of being abandoned that many kids must share. The feeling of being discarded by your mom, never to be collected again. Dumped into a world of complete strangers, all of whom were bigger than me. Indeed, this was a common occurrence in my early years – people being taller than myself.

My mom is only 5 feet and 4 inches. My sister is about the same now, and my dad is just 5 feet 9 and an important half inch. Hardly “Land of the Giants”. And so, I was often at the smaller end of the school height line until I suddenly began to sprout up around the age of 16 or so. It must have been something in the illicit bags of chips or chunks of coconut ice from Granny’s Sweetshop just up from Grammar School I attended. I used to spend my dinner money on such treats instead of the proper school lunches that it was intended for. Sorry mom. Sorry Jamie – Oliver that is. I’m with you. I always want to slap the parents of fat children when I see them. It is child abuse abuse! Drag them off their computers, tie them to a stake in the garden and let the neighbour’s rottweiler chase them for an hour or two – they’ll thank you for it in the end……. 

Anyhow, I can clearly remember my first day at Infant School. I bawled and I bawled and when some boys laughed at me for bawling I ran to hide in the wendy house, and balled. Don’t ask me why the wendy house was there but I was glad of it. A place of refuge. Here I met the beautiful Carol T. My first love. Blonde, blue-eyed and stunning. Or, as stunning as any 5 year old girl can be. She was stunning when we left Junior School at the age of 11 too. By all accounts and, according to a couple of old schoolmates with whom I have since exchanged emails via Friendsreuinted, she remained pretty damn stunning thereafter too. Quite aptly, Carol T now runs a number of small beauty salons. In the wendy house, Carol T took pity on me. Being bigger than me, of course, she sat me on her gorgeous lap, put her arm around my shoulders, and, told me that it would all be alright. And, at that very moment it was. 

Incidentally, Carol T, who I also contacted via Friendsreuinted, has seemingly no recollection of this momentous occasion in my life. Indeed, I’m not actually convinced that she remembers me at all. I suspect that she may have me confused with my best mate from those days, Christopher J.

 Such memory loss in your First Love is pretty hard to swallow. Unrequited. How could she? I mean we must have been “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” off and on for nearly 3 weeks in total during our 7 years of school together. Surely, such a relationship must have had an unforgettable impact on her, as it has on myself. And, she even wrote to me once after I had gone to Grammar, asking if I wanted to go out with her. I declined. I declined because by that time she had become a Goth. Fashion has eluded me for most of my life, until quite recently, so I am not sure if I even knew what a Goth was back then. But I knew that I did not like the smell of pituli oil. In any case, this happened at an age when I wasn’t really interested in girls and certainly did not want to be tied down to any one girlfriend – no, that time probably hit me about a fortnight later.

And so, I chose not to reply to Carol T’s letter. It is probably this rejection that caused Carol T to erase the wendy house incident from her own memory. It was clearly too painful for her. However, I was dead jealous when “Granty” declared via another Friendsreuinted exchange that he had got to “go out with” (I’m being very polite with my phraseology here) Carol T at the much more interesting age of 18. Apparently she had grown out of the Goth thing by then but was still stunning. Lucky bast*rd! 

Junior School was a happy place and time. I don’t really remember very much at all about the academic side of things. This was a time of free school milk with stripy paper straws, of softball and rounders on the playground, of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat played on an old gramophone after Peter and the Wolf, of football and cricket, of mittens connected by string through your sleeves so you wouldn’t lose them. Every piece of clothing had your name sowed into it. This was a time of grandma’s knitted balaclava in winter (for me to wear, not her), of school trips to Burton-on-the-Water miniature village and butterfly park, or, to Alton Towers. This was before the theme park of today had been built. There was still the ruined castle, the odd slot machine, and, the best “big” ride was a giant slide, which you went down in a sack.

Junior School was sports days and inter-school “Its-a-Knockout” competitions (Jeux Sans Frontiers as foreigners called it) complete with greasy poles and swimming pools – we won! Junior School was cruises on the SS Uganda, a school cruise ship in the 1970s which turned up again as the hospital ship in the Falklands War of 1982. The SS Uganda took me to Santander, Oporto and Lisbon via a hurricane in the Bay of Biscay – which caused me to fall out of the top bunk – and an alarming incident with a tug in Liverpool docks. 

This was a time of innocence and innocent girlfriends. Holding hands, “Kiss Chase”, “Postman’s Knock”, giving presents, and, being forced to hold the end of a skipping rope while the girls jumped up and down to stupid rhyming songs. Girlfriends. There was Carol T (blonde), of course, and Madeleine D (brunette, who only finished with me when her parents moved – or so I have chosen to remember it), Samantha (blonde), Julie (brunette, a teacher’s daughter), Heidi (blonde) and Gail T (brunette). Boy was I promiscuous in hindsight. Gail T’s mom was a receptionist at the local doctor’s surgery – a position of considerable power and influence in the local community. Gail T, like all my girlfriends of course, was gorgeous. She was tall (of course!), slender, with long dark hair. She also gained particular notoriety by being the first girl in our class to develop breasts. Boobs. Tits. Melons. Baps. Bazookas. (Now that must be worth a few interesting hits on Google!)

Up until this particular day (it happened so fast!) boys and girls had happily stripped off in the classroom in front of each other to change into PE vests, shorts and plimsolls (Christ, plimsolls – how old am I?). Not an eyelid was batted at the sign of bottle green undies or white y-fronts. But, all of a sudden, at the very first sign of mammary development, GT had to go and get changed in the store cupboard, where we kept the paints, jam jars and sweet wrapper collection (for making collages), away from the preying eyes of “the boys”. She was soon followed by a growing collection of other maturing young ladies. We boys had no clue what was going on. After all, this was in the days before even an involuntary erection in your PE shorts was a source of embarrassment! Happy days…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Education Part 2

Extra-Curricular Activities

 

Initially at least (!) my mom and dad had a great desire that my sister and I should do better for ourselves, better than themselves. School and homework came first and foremost in our childhood. Homework had to be completed before any of those childish luxuries such as TV, food, or playing could be enjoyed. Parents’ Night was an annual highlight in the family calendar. School reports were scrutinised. How horrified my poor parents would have been to have discovered the number of times that I copied my maths homework on arrival at school on Monday mornings. Sorry guys. But, I am very grateful that my mom and dad pushed me to be academic.The copying didn’t really matter in the long-run. It was mostly laziness. I was bright enough, and polite enough. I had the capacity to succeed academically. And, I was helped by a healthy dose of competitiveness towards my sister. My sister, J, is 18 actual months and only one academic year older than myself. She was the first of our family to go to university. She went to Grammar School before that. And, yes, I competed with her for academic honours. Boy, did I compete!

Books (not surprisingly), board games and quiz shows (perhaps more surprisingly) played a big part in my education. There were always books to read – history books (ancient picture books in their own right, handed down through the generations), story books, albums as stocking fillers (Beano and Dandy eventually gave way to Battle and the Fantastic Four), comics (I had a favourite uncle who had travelled the world as a Royal Marine Commando, via the Korean War, who gifted me his collection of American Marvel Comics – Daredevil, The Mighty Thor, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Hercules, Spiderman – they were all there), and, of course, my sister and I had our own library cards if we ever ran out of things to read. We never did. Admittedly, J’s choice of reading matter was always a little more high brow or grown up than mine. She was reading James Harriet (and always laughing out loud, which I found very, very irritating) while I would be helping Spiderman in his battles with the Green Goblin.

Incidentally, my classic collection of comics – which included a first edition of the original Batman series and must have numbered several hundred in total – failed to survive one of my mom’s tidying sprees in my early teens. They were thrown away. I imagine that they would have been worth a small fortune to a collector today. Thanks mom! Pay heed all teenage boys – tidy your own room!

Comics always did seem to get me into trouble. At the age of 11 I was caught shoplifting comics from our local paper shop by the owner. It was one of the most humiliating and devastating experiences of my early years. My mom cried. My dad cried. My grandma looked at me disapprovingly. This was further evidence, if my parents needed any, of how carefully balanced I was on that tightrope walk between a career in Middle Management and a life of crime. Nowadays, my comic is FHM (For Him Magazine). Ah, Kylie……………

Sunday Quiz shows. Sunday lunchtime meant roast meat, roast potatoes and parsnips, two veg, gravy, mint sauce for lamb, horseradish or mustard for beef, apple sauce for pork, stuffing or cranberry for poultry, all washed down with a glass of lager and lime, often home-brewed by my dad in a big yellow plastic bucket, or, in latter years, a bottle of Blue Nun or Black Tower. Sophisticated, eh? Anyhow Sunday lunchtime was interrupted by the 1.30 showing of ‘University Challenge’. The original and best ‘University Challenge’ that is, with Bamber “bouffant” Gascoigne. Sunday teatimes turned into ‘Sale of the Century’ with Nicholas Parsons. My sister and I often did better than the contestants. How different our lives could have been if kids like us had been able to take part in the actual quiz . We would now be surrounded by caravans, fondue sets, fridge freezers, drinks cabinets, juicers, stereos, and, brand new cars……………

Later, in the evening, came ‘Mastermind’. The original and best with Magnus Magnusson. Boy, were his parents imaginative when it came to choosing names or what! I enjoyed the general knowledge sections much more than the specialist topics in things such as “Outer Mongolian Floral Exhibitions of the Late Eighteenth Century.”

‘Ask The Family’, ‘Blockbusters’, ‘Blankety Blank’ (I know, I know). The 1970s and 80s were a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of quiz-show opportunity to test a developing mind such as mine. And, when they brought out ‘Trivial Pursuit’ I thought I had found absolute heaven. It has got to the point that family and friends refuse to play ‘Triv’ with me now unless it is a new edition and they are able to witness its removal from the cellophane. This is because I would spend many a happy hour in my youth, card by card, question by question, learning and memorising the answers. I am still pretty damn useful in a Pub Quiz!

Intelligence is often born of imagination. Well, I think so at least. Or, I imagine so. We had lots of opportunity to exercise our imagination as children. Unlike today, batteries were rarely a requirement on Christmas mornings in our house. We got toys that you played with and which required imagination. And, they were proper toys too, unlike today’s namby-pamby, left-wing-politically correct, toys. Girls got dolls, dressing-up things and making-up things. Boys got guns and plastic soldiers by the bucket-full, cars, and Action Man. Admittedly, Action Man often got called upon for a date or game of “Happy Families” with my sister’s Barbie or Cindy until such time as Ken arrived on the scene. But, he didn’t seem to mind quite so much as I did at the time.

And then there was the computer printer paper – the old green, striped stuff with perforations at the edges. Dad used to bring tonnes of it back with him from work as a treat. Whole evenings would be spent drawing on the stuff. Matchstick soldiers would be lined up against each other (Brits and Yanks versus Germans and Japs – very xenophobic), alongside planes, cannons and tanks. Guns would have dotted lines protruding from barrels to indicate being fired and to identify a hit on their target. A veritable Lowry’s Apocalypse. My side always won.

“Connect 4”, “Mastermind”, “Battleships”, “Scrabble”, draughts, chess. Ours was a home full of toys of a sensible and educational nature. They helped to stretch a developing mind and to nurture an intelligence in its infancy. They were helped, no doubt, by oily fish in regular doses and sheep’s brains – one of the less pleasant side effects of the arrival of our first chest freezer in the 1980s and the “economic good sense” of buying a whole lamb from the butcher! As a child you just have to trust your mom about such things. Either that or grandma’s threat of serving leftovers up cold for breakfast. I was never very sympathetic towards the one about feeding the starving children of Africa for a week on my scraps from just one meal though. I would have sent my scraps to them, gladly.

And sleep. Lot’s of sleep. We were children with a regimented bed-time triggered by the end of various TV programmes – a particularly sly ploy from our parents to avoid the usual pleas of “just another 5 minutes!”. We were allowed an extra 30 minutes or an hour at weekends and during school holidays but, otherwise, it was off to bed early and “don’t you come down stairs again or there’ll be trouble!” Sleep, apparently, is an essential ingredient to nurturing intelligence. Of course there were times when I would sneak to the top of the stairs and catch glimpses of illegal TV shows through an ajar door and the bars of the stair banisters. Yes, there were summer evenings spent with my head peeking through bedroom curtains watching the world go by. But, generally, as a young child at least (when it is most important I am told), I got plenty of sleep.

Many a summer day was spent re-enacting the “Battle of Britain”. This game involved chasing my cousins around the streets of Erdington (home) or Pype Hayes Park on our bikes, or, doing a whirling figure of eight in front of the paper shop and the greengrocers. Or, many a pistol made out of two fingers was used in a game of “war” fought in a series of back gardens. As boys we were fairly proficient at mimicking the different sounds of rifles, pistols, exploding grenades and machine-gun fire: “Ra ta tat ta”, or “Brrrbrrb”, or “Ch ch ch ch”. We were the kings of onomatopoeia. My cousins lived just up the road from us and their back garden was separated from grandma and granddad’s garden by the garden of a friendly neighbour who either didn’t care or couldn’t stop us from climbing over her fence as we invaded one or the other of the families’ gardens. It was a very safe outdoor environment in which to play. That is not to say that paedophiles and child-snatchers did not exist on the streets of Birmingham back in the 1970s and 80s. We just never knew about them. There was not the same media hype or attention as today. Of course there was poor old Mad Ernie. Rumour was that Mad Ernie had suffered shell shock (whatever that was!) back in the war. Small children would chase poor Ernie down the street shouting: “The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!”. Ernie would turn on the kids and throw stones at them. Hence the nickname. Sorry Ernie.

Even time on the toilet was spent stretching the imagination. No not as you may think (not until later at least) but as commander of a starship sat on his bridge single-handedly protecting the Federation of Planets and Mother Earth from hoards of Imperial Stormtroopers. “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”, “Battlestar Galactica”, “Buck Rogers”, “Space 2010”, “UFO”, “Captain Scarlet” – this was a sci-fi age and my imagination was filled with it. And, it gave me something to do while sat on the loo……