Drowning in the Shallow End

by Charlie Mellor

  This electrifying debate stuck with me for years. We didn’t win the argument, in fact our numerically-biased counterparts made mincemeat of us, but I did feel exceedingly satisfied by the end of the lesson. Whatever the official outcome I firmly believed we were the moral victors: the handful of people who had the more realistic take in terms of what to expect from the future.

  Confidence growing, I found myself at the front of the audition queue for a big budget movie called Black Jack after reading that (non-speaking) film extras were required. The film, directed by Ken Loach in 1978 was being shot in North Yorkshire and the production team were looking for local teenagers to appear in an important fairground scene. Perhaps without the presence of a live audience to put me off, I could excel? I was ecstatic to be recruited for a couple of days and once on set, gravitated towards a group of diminutive actors who were practising dance steps for a pivotal scene. Just as with Clitheroe, I was fascinated by their condition and tried to ingratiate myself with their principal actor - the up and coming David Rappaport.

  “Hi, my name’s Charlie – is it all right to sit up here with you all and watch you rehearse?” I said in my deepest fifteen year old voice.

  “Of course - no problem, I’m David and this is Carl, Sol, Pete, Merrick and Elliot – pleased to meet you. Who are you playing in the film?” he asked.

  “Oh I’m just an extra, only here for this one scene,” I replied.

  “Ahh, well I hope you enjoy the day. You’re very welcome to hang around for as long as you like, although we still need to get this routine in shape – so you’ll have to excuse me.”

  Oblivious to his request to disengage, I continued “I once met a few dwarves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. There were loads of them working there in the early seventies.”

  “What did you say?”

  “1971, 1972 - round about then. Dwarves – lots of them, operating the rides, collecting the money. The whole Fun House was run by ….” before I could dig myself a deeper hole, David interjected.

  “Many of my good friends worked there ...”

  “I bet they had a right laugh,” I said, speaking over him

  “No they didn’t. None of them. Because they couldn’t get any work, they were forced into doing it and paid a pittance for their efforts. They had to dress up in the most ridiculous outfits and were treated like freaks. Ridiculed on a daily basis … by ignorant people like you”

  “Oh … do they still use … dwarves …now?” I said, instantly regretting my decision to continue the conversation.

  David was particularly incensed by the use of the word dwarf, which I’d always thought was the preferred and politically correct terminology. Lacking the social skills to win him round I then threw in a few Jimmy Clitheroe references for good measure, and in doing so guaranteed he went absolutely ballistic with me. His expletives probably caused more of an impact that afternoon than the actual film on its release. It was so embarrassing. All the cast and crew looked over as he jumped up and down on the makeshift fairground stage ranting and raging at me for using what he regarded as derogatory language. Mr Rappaport would later become one of the most famous ‘diminutive’ actors in television. He went on to be revered by many for his work on Time Bandits, but on this day he presented a terrifying spectacle as he tore strips off one naive teenage fan who was attempting to befriend him. I later discovered my three foot eleven inch colleague may have been a very troubled soul. Sadly, a few years after our small talk (no pun intended) he committed suicide - although not I hope as a result of our fractious encounter. Just like my celebrated introduction to Jimmy Clitheroe in the late 1960s (which ironically ignited my interest in acting in the first place); this was the second time I’d been excited to meet someone famous because of their limited stature, and the second time this person had died soon afterwards.

  The encounter, coupled with comments in my school report which referred to my ‘tentative vocal projection’ during school plays, meant my thespian ambitions would probably never be realised. I convinced myself that at this juncture, the only things getting in the way of a dazzling showbiz career were my aptitude, ability, confidence, disposition, impact and lack of interpersonal sensitivity.

  Dreams of stardom more submerged than dampened, I focused instead on spending time with a few lads who took the same options as me. We were all developing a healthy preoccupation with teenage girls, but remained equally unwilling to share this fact. I particularly enjoyed the company of girls and, rather surprisingly, had little problem in persuading a number of short-lived girlfriends to allow me to practice my developing kissing techniques on them. Unlikely as it was, the female of the species did not appear to be the unfathomable creature that most of my contemporaries seemed to think they were. I liked them and in the main found them easier to talk to than boys. At the start of the fifth form, I started to date a girl who was as easy to talk to, as she was to listen to. She was called Gillian Drake. Within a couple of months together, Gill elevated my social standing. She wasn’t typical of the girls I’d previously been attracted to. More physically developed than many of her peers; blessed with a body ideally suited to the rearing of young children, she was a young woman.

  Unlike many of the androgynous urchins I’d been hanging about with who spent too much time in their bedroom, Gill was regarded as the sporty-prefect type. If we were in the States I’ve no doubt she would’ve been principal cheerleader material. While I was getting into new wave music, Gill listened to American MOR artists. Somehow, for a few months at least, the differences between us complimented each other and in spite of a little stick from both sets of friends, we became the schools most unlikely couple. Stop Press: Unknown Delta set boy with no sporting credibility dates darling of the fifth form shocker. Gillian was lovely, no other word for it. She was a real catch – a star pupil who was attractive, intelligent and well connected.

  Most people thought the relationship was a temporary thing, but as days became weeks, shares in C. Mellor of 5C began to rocket. I became regarded (solely through my association with her) as much more interesting and therefore far cooler to talk to. Gill and I enjoyed each other’s company and soon I was being invited to a series of previously impenetrable parties. We had tea at both parents’ houses and shared many Colgate flavoured kisses. It became clear to me this must be what having a ‘proper’ girlfriend was all about, yet even with the almost irresistible appeal of (nearly) losing our virginities; something at the back of my mind was telling me I wasn’t quite ready to blend into the land of A-grade squeaky clean, uniformly uniform teenage conservatives who were all too eager to dissect last night’s homework in excruciating detail.

  My worries about ‘assimilation’ into this top group, who were all destined for financial and career success, might have been down to a fundamental worry about not measuring up. I may have been scared about not being quite bright enough, quite athletic enough or quite ‘posh’ enough to fit in. However I think holding-back was about more than just these insecurities. I recognised this particular set of students were actually a pretty boring lot, who lacked any sense of adventure. Gillian should indeed have been the ideal first love, but somehow it just wasn’t enough. Despite her converting me to the joys of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and me reciprocating by providing her with Talking Heads Fear of Music; we were essentially different people.

  There were many advantages to dating the darling of the fifth form, who was not just a catch but was also, like me, sexually curious. However I consciously made a lifestyle choice and walked away from what promised to be a 100% guaranteed cherry-popping moment behind the bike sheds in favour of ... something I couldn’t yet describe. I just knew I hadn’t found it yet. Restless and believing I was undeserving of her affection, I split up with Gill, overwhelmed by a feeling I’d experienced for years, that I didn’t quite fit in. It wasn’t just a case of the old joke where I ‘...didn’t want to belong to any club which would have someone like me for a member.’ Quite the opposite,
since I desperately wanted to be part of one – problem was I just hadn’t found the right type of club yet – one that reflected what I was about. What I did know, was that such a clique wouldn’t be represented by the conservatism of the buttoned-down Kids From Fame I’d accidently found myself part of.

  There were times with Gill when I felt we didn’t belong together – that I wasn’t good enough for her. Other times I yearned for a bit more complexity, something a bit more exciting. Ultimately I respected her in the truest sense and felt it unfair towards her to carry on being together simply for the improved social standing our relationship had brought about.

  The night we broke up I sat in my bedroom playing her Fleetwood Mac record, thinking about the inevitability of it all. Every song on the album reassured me I’d made the right decision and as I read the lyrics and listened to the drama of the record unfold; I began to understand precisely why this apparently perfect relationship had so quickly run its course. Rejecting what I considered to be ‘the numbing effects of a life less lived’; I realised my summer with Gill had simply reinforced all my prejudices about a life spent too close to the shores of Lake Wobegon.

  Because of the elevated social standing my former girlfriend had provided, I was invited with a few other lads to super-cool Andrew Hoare’s house on a Friday night. This would become a weekly event where we’d all chill out listening to music and drink alcohol. Here was a club more suited to my needs; an association closely aligned to my errant inclinations. Invitations to these evenings were issued to a select crowd, who on the face of it played the game by studying hard, but were also human enough to enjoy a laugh. Without exception, everyone invited was especially furtive about these secret shindigs.

  The only girl allowed to attend was Andrew’s older sister Debbie. Blessed with a surname straight out of a Carry On film, she invariably attracted a lot of attention from lads for all the wrong reasons. She would sometimes join us after returning from the pub to entertain her brother’s little mates with colourful descriptions of Ripon nightlife. The first time I ever heard Pennie Fenton being mentioned was through listening to one of Debbie Hoare’s conversations.

  During these weekly socials in early ‘79 our little group comprised of: host Andrew, a lad called Paul who was a fanatical about punk band The Stranglers, the eponymous Smithy (there is always someone called this in any gathering of boys), Miserable Joe Morrit and a cheeky Asian lad called Rav who’d never drink any of the cans of cheap lager we took round. On my first night there, I sat next to Joe who I recognised from English lessons. I respected the fact he was one of the few people who’d joined me in arguing against the Lake Wobegon Effect. Joe was the tall, lanky lad who tended to sit at the back of the class on his own. His pale complexion always made him appear slightly malnourished, while his jet black hair may have contributed to him being one of the few boys at the school capable of growing a beard. Clean shaven, he looked a bit like a young Bryan Ferry. I was drawn towards him because he struck me as a bit more reserved than the other more extrovert lads present. I wrongly assumed the two of us were equally undeserving of our invitation to drink with the ‘cool’ lads. Luckily, Joe broke the ice, turning his dipped head towards me as if to speak in confidence.

  “Now then, how’s it going? Tell me, what happened between you and that Drake bird? She was a bit of all right” he said.

  “Oh, It was all getting a bit serious” I replied, in a way which underlined how much I wanted to close this particular subject down.

  “So come on, tell me more, did you get to shag her?” he continued, catching me completely off guard.

  “Err…err, well, what happened was…”

  “Only joking mate, you don’t need to spill the beans, I reckon you did really well just pullin’ a fit lass like her. You know I’m sure I dreamt about her once.”

  “Really? I replied, concerned where this conversation may lead.

  “I’m positive. Did you know dreamt is the only word in the English language which ends in ‘mt’?”

  “Huh? Did you find that out from Miss Carrick?”

  “No chance, I’m usually half asleep during English – it’s so boring, although I did enjoy the stuff about Lake Wobegon. Don’t know about you, but I might actually pay more attention at school if we could take better subjects, like say… philosophy.

  “Yeh, me too. I’ve always been interested in psychology,” I said, confident we were now on safer ground.

  “Ha, be careful what you wish for. Psychology students are known for being a bit flaky. I heard about this one psychology student from New York who rented out her spare room to this carpenter bloke, just so she could nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of picking on him, he snapped, picked up his axe and smashed her fucking head in. She was left a cabbage for the rest of her life,” he said, before adding, “Rumour has it, this is where the term food for thought comes from.”

  "Well, If at some point in the future, I’m ever called upon to design a psychology experiment … I’ll remember to bear that story in mind.” I laughed, not knowing whether to believe a single word he’d said.

  While Joe barely muttered a word at school, he turned out to be in full control of a spiky wit and a vivid intelligence. By combining the two he had a skill for diverting conversations in a way which usually enabled him to introduce his uncompromising take on most things. He had an innate knack of sussing people out, identifying areas of potential discomfort and then finding inventive ways to expose them. A complex character who employed whatever means it took to achieve the result he was after. Suitably impressed by his approach, I made sure the two of us sat together in most lessons from then on and soon we became great friends.

  The son of a rep for a slot machine company, he and his family lived only a short cycle ride away in a four story terraced property near to Ripon College. Their eccentric house always felt rather dimly lit, its many rooms cluttered with partially repaired fruit machines and broken juke boxes. Joe’s family appeared to be as unstructured as my own and this meant I could sleep over at their unkempt house for days without anyone bothering.

  Like most teenagers we were distracted by music and girls in equal measure. Big fans of early Bowie albums; the two of us saw ourselves as outsiders at Ripon Grammar School, smart enough to conform but not quite dumb enough to fully align ourselves to the school values and expectations. While Joe was ‘selectively social’, he also remained somewhat detached. He was the only person I ever met who genuinely didn’t give a damn what others thought about him and, as a result, he developed a reputation for being a bit obstinate. If Joe didn’t want to do something, there was no budging him. He had no sense of natural limits to his actions and I admired him for this. He indulged his most basic impulses without any concern for the consequences. As we were both competitive and reluctant to concede, we convinced each other into undertaking various tests of stamina, trying out daft things, like seeing how many nights we could go without sleep or how long we could leave a lit cigarette on our arm without yielding to the pain. We once goaded each another to see who could inhale the most pipe tobacco rolled up inside a cigarette paper. This particular caper resulted in us both throwing up all over his bedroom floor.

  Other endurance tests followed – the more daring the better. One evening at Joe’s house we discovered that if we clasped our hands behind our necks and then pulled our elbows together under our chins, we’d become very dizzy and nearly lose consciousness due to oxygen deprivation. After a couple of seconds we’d both experience the strangest sensation: effectively it felt like we literally didn’t know anything. In this state of nothingness, we’d forget who we were, why we were standing there and what day it was. Then, just as we were milliseconds away from fainting, our muscles would slacken and involuntarily loosen our arms from around our necks, thereby releasing the pressure on our bulging arteries. This was the moment when blood flow finally returned to our developing brains - providing us with a marvellous euphoria. Even
though we knew it was dangerous, something appealed to us about this condition. Because we were so competitive, we didn’t have the common sense to take turns and therefore ensure the other person was okay – not when we needed to know who could last the longest before they collapsed. Occasionally one of us would fall heavily to the floor during our state of semi-consciousness and while neither of us seriously injured ourselves, a succession of bruises and bloodshot eyes did eventually put an end to this particular contest.

  Although we agreed to stop, I remained intrigued and surreptitiously continued with the practice in my own bedroom for weeks. I originally thought it was an exciting pastime which we’d stumbled upon by accident, one which provided a shortcut to a fascinating altered state of consciousness. Little did I realise the potentially deadly game I was now playing in isolation had a history dating back thousands of years. My attempts at achieving an ‘altered state’ had already caused a number of teenage fatalities across the UK and abroad and had resulted in brain injuries, seizures and even strokes.

  Joe and I felt invincible. We were at that exciting age where we were attempting to break away from the limitations set by our parents and establish our own understanding of the world. Each of us assisted the other with this process, redefining our views by challenging the other to consider alternative ideas. We forcefully discussed everything and everyone we encountered in the small Yorkshire town. None of it was particularly earnest. We talked about freedom of the press, the merits of perseverance, the demise of the eight track cartridge, even attitudes towards body art. Back in the seventies it was rare to see a heavily tattooed woman and while Joe and I both agreed this was a good thing; we came to the conclusion that the appearance of a small discreet design wasn’t too bad - since they helped us identify girls who were capable of making hasty decisions which they might later regret. Always more motivated by teenage hormones than by any vocational calling, we were the only two boys in the entire school who opted to take home economics as an O-level subject – not to learn to cook, but simply to identify some of the girls who might have the potential to make some of those hasty decisions we were so keen to take advantage of.