by Dave Spikey
The man in it was called Guy, the woman was called Deirdre, and quite early on she was stirred by the sight of his ‘manhood’. ‘Manhood’: I made a note, thinking, ‘Well, I’ve got a duffel coat, so that sounds as though it might do.’
Next paragraph, and he’s found her mound of Venus. Now I’m struggling, because where am I going to get a star chart or telescope from?
Then he’s caressing her love-bud; and we’ve not got a garden, just a back yard, so boy am I in trouble.
Then I noticed that my mum had underlined a sentence, which was, ‘Every fireball from Guy’s rigid cannon exploded like molten lava inside Deirdre’s fluttering love purse.’ My mum popped her head in my room: ‘Everything clearer now, David?’
‘Oh yeah, got it, thanks Mum.’
‘Good boy.’
But of course I hadn’t and was still getting confused reading the Cathy and Clare page in Jackie with the girls at break time. What the hell was ‘heavy petting’?
So, to the first time I had sex. I was terrified; well, being on my own and that. I was in the bath as usual with an old catalogue on the corset and suspender page, and it took ages and when it happened, I thought I was dying and that the back of my head had fallen off! Brilliant!
I told Dewek Wigby immediately that he was right, you can beat an egg but … and he told me that the best way of doing it was to lie on your hand until it goes to sleep and then you ‘do it’ with that hand and it feels like somebody else is doing it to you! Great in theory – but have you ever tried to do anything with a hand that’s ‘gone to sleep’? Anything at all? Turn the alarm off ? Pick up an object? No – useless.
Much later in life, when I worked in the NHS, a man was admitted with a ring-spanner stuck on his penis. He became an instant star in the Accident and Emergency department, with everyone in the hospital turning up to examine him using some ridiculous pretence or other. Double funny.
The patient explained that he’d been out drinking with mates and got very drunk. Afterwards, they all went back to his for a takeaway and a few more cans, and they were watching European Championship highlights and he must have fallen asleep. And for a laugh (brilliant), for a laugh, one of his mates must have got his willy out and put a ring spanner on it. He explained that he must have had a reaction to the cadmium-nickel alloy and his knob had swollen up and he couldn’t get it off!
And we thought, ‘Great story, my friend, but no way!’ He’d been masturbating with a ring spanner, hadn’t he?!
All Change
IN THE LAST year at Oxford Grove County Primary School, I had to take my 11-plus exam. If I remember rightly, there were two parts to this. The first paper was called a ‘Space’ test and had nothing to do with Space – The Final Frontier; it was, I think, more or less an IQ test. The second was a general paper that tested you on the three ‘R’s – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (so only one ‘R’). Thanks to my teachers at Oxford Grove, and my wonderful parents, who had encouraged me to read and write from an early age, I found the paper relatively easy and thankfully passed.
I was rewarded with my first choice of secondary school, which was Smithills Grammar, a relatively new school set in a lovely part of Bolton. Smithills Grammar was one of three schools on the same ‘base’. The other two were Smithills Technical College and Smithills Secondary Modern. I believe that this base system was an experiment and Bolton had been chosen to pilot two of these; the other being the Hayward Schools complex. I don’t understand why the system wasn’t implemented nationwide, as it was fundamentally a great idea. Children who showed real aptitude for academic studies in the 11-plus exam went to the grammar school, those who showed more technical ability went to the technical college and those who did poorly in the exam for any number of reasons went to the secondary modern.
One of the positives of the system was that there were eight ‘houses’ on base, which were named after local areas. Irrespective of which school you went to, you were allocated a ‘house’, which encouraged pupils to integrate at lunchtimes and in sporting activities. The real benefit of the system was that if a child was a late developer and began to show aptitude at a later stage, they could be moved up to the grammar or technical. Similarly, if pupils failed to live up to early promise, they could be relegated – although this very rarely happened because, as each school was also ‘streamed’, they usually just ended up in the bottom stream. I was in ‘Ainsworth’ house and had my lunch on second sitting in the technical college.
On my first day at secondary school, my mum waved me off in my new uniform (I know I should have been the one wearing it). Grey short trousers, grey socks, white shirt, black tie with red and thin yellow stripes, black blazer with the school crest (which was essentially a large red rose and a motto in Latin that translated as ‘Pride and Respect’), and a black cap with the badge on the front and a red stripe on the rim.
The cap was the first to go. Some older kids spotted the new boy (I’d foolishly gone upstairs on the double-decker bus) and within minutes my cap was winging its way, Frisbee-like, through one of the small sliding windows. I got off the bus on the way home near the spot, but never found it. My mum and dad were displeased and I got my first stern telling-off by my housemaster for turning up on my first day without cap.
My first class was 1G. We weren’t streamed until the second year and so classes were named after the form teacher and ours was Mr Green. All the teachers wore gown and mortar board around school and were quite scary to an eleven-year-old, but Mr Green was a lovely man and put us new kids at ease with his warmth and good humour. He used to transpose the first letters of Christian name and surname to produce comedy names, so I became Bravid Damwell, Paul Crook became Caul Prook and Sally Hart became Hally Sart, etc. That’s funny to an eleven-year-old. He stopped doing it when we got a new boy in the class called Sam Whitehead and he did Wam Shitehead. That was double funny.
Mr Green taught us Latin and I don’t remember too much, apart from amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatus, amant, and that most of our translation concentrated on Hannibal coming over the Alps on his elephants. I also vaguely recall an embarrassing yet hilarious conjugation of the past tense of a verb which was something like uraco; the translation for ‘they were whatever’ ended up as urac**t. Or that might have been a dream.
Most of our teachers in first year were pretty good and I enjoyed my introduction to grammar school. I joined the chess club, did well at swimming – the school had its own twenty-five-metre pool – and I played football for the house.
After exams at the end of first year, I was put in 2B. I was disappointed because I wanted to be in the top stream 2A, but I was rubbish at maths. I can’t remember much about that year from a school point of view (see elsewhere for the appearance of hormones and changes to my blood chemistry), except that I got beaten up by a hard, wiry-looking lad from the secondary modern, who as it turns out was ‘cock’ of the third year; a title that was amazing considering his shortness of stature.
I was climbing the steps to the bus terminus at Halliwell when he dropped a cigarette end on my head. I was bigger than him and although I’d never had a proper fight before, I thought, ‘I can’t let him get away with that,’ so I said something like, ‘Don’t you ever try anything like that again,’ and he said, ‘Or what’ll you do?’ and I, like an idiot, said, ‘You.’
That’s when he headbutted me and broke my nose. Every credit to me, though, because I fought back and momentarily held the upper hand as I pinned him against the low stone wall at the top of the steps. Then I did, almost instinctively, a very grammar school thing. I thought, ‘This isn’t fair,’ so I stepped back and let him off the wall. That’s when he kicked me in the balls.
I was a mess when I eventually made it home. Bloody nose, black eyes and a huge busted lip. My dad demanded to know what I happened and I did what every schoolboy with an ounce of backbone would do; I lied. I said that I’d tried to jump onto the back platform of the moving bus, missed, slipped and fall
en; that I was, in fact, lucky to be alive.
In the third year, we were streamed by subjects and I was in 3L, which meant that I was to continue to study Latin and other languages; German and French were added. Mr Holden taught Latin and he was really old school but fair, and Mr Jasper taught us German. And what a great name for a teacher, Mr Jasper; that would strike fear into the heart of any thirteen-year-old – Mr Jasper! And he looked the part: big, dark, bushy hair and a beard. Although very strict, I remember he was a good teacher.
Thinking back now, I can’t remember who we had for French, or most of the other subjects. I know all us boys wanted Miss Hanley for Biology because she was fit, but we got Mr Farr. Joe Farr when you got to know him was a laugh and a great teacher, but to be fair he didn’t have the same appeal as Miss Hanley in her miniskirt.
Lyrically Speaking
PERHAPS UNDERSTANDABLY, Miss Hanley in her miniskirt raised (sometimes quite literally) the sex issue again. By now, I’m a dab hand at the masturbation thing, so I need to know more about this whole sex lark. After all, I’m fourteen and I want a girlfriend (well, I want Miss Hanley, but that’s not likely to happen). I need a steady girlfriend to experiment with, you know? My hormones were rampant; you could smell the testosterone through the Clearasil.
So learning how to flirt and chat up girls was now top of my list. The trouble is that when you’re fourteen, you really think it’s cool (and girls will like you) if you act stupid and do amusing things like pull their hair, or tap them on the wrong shoulder, or trip them up by kicking their back foot … Is it any wonder they fancied lads in the sixth form?
One day, I was in the dinner queue behind Christine Hargreaves with our trays piled up with cottage pie and veg and bakewell tart and custard and drinks etc., and I did that thing where you knee the person in front of you in the back of their knee and their leg folds and crumples. I thought it would be cool if I did both Christine’s knees and it worked well; too well, actually, and she went down like a ton of bricks, throwing the tray up in the air. Milliseconds later, she was anointed by gravy and custard while I stood there like a goon and said, ‘I like you.’
We have a saying in Lancashire, which applied to me at the time. It is: ‘If I sewed castanets in my underpants, I still wouldn’t click.’
Like a fool, I asked Dewek Wigby’s advice. Yes, I asked advice from a lad who still thought at fourteen that steam train drivers actually steered trains – and that’s why they were leaning out of the window all the time; so they could keep the train on the tracks! God knows how he thought they coped in tunnels.
He told me that you could use song lyrics as chat-up lines. He explained that that was what they were written for anyway. He said he’d had some success with ‘If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?’ and was contemplating, ‘When your body’s had enough of me and you’re lying right down on the floor; when you think I’ve loved you all I can, I’m gonna love you a little bit more.’ Which is a bollocks lyric and a bollocks promise. It is a well-known fact that the only time a bloke feels like doing it twice is just before he’s done it once. In his head, he’s thinking, ‘Right, we’ll just crack a quick one off, then we’ll have a session’ … snore …
I resolved to try this lyrics approach. At the next school disco, I bumped into Christine Hargreaves. My seduction didn’t go according to plan, even though I’d memorized all the words to my favourite song …
Me: Hiya.
Christine: Hiya.
Me: I’ve been across the desert on a horse with no name.
Christine: What? When?
Me: It felt good to be out of the rain, I can tell you.
Christine: Did it?
Me: Yeah. There were rocks and birds and plants and things.
Christine: Things?
Me: Things, stuff, yeah.
Christine: What sort of things?
Me: Oh, you know, sand, cacti and that.
Christine: Have you been drinking?
Me: No, I was just saying that … In the desert, you can remember your name. ’Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.
Christine: I liked it better when you tripped me up.
I reported back to Dewek and he reluctantly agreed to sell me his best, solid gold, proven, infallible chat-up line. It cost me: one frozen Jubbly, half-a-crown (2s. 6d. … oh alright, about twelve and a half pence), and I had to do his maths homework. His chat-up line went like this: you say to a girl, ‘Can you tell me what Brazil is famous for?’ and she says, ‘Coffee,’ and you say, ‘Your place or mine?’ And you appear mature and sophisticated and witty and they love that.
I tried it with Christine Hargreaves.
Me: Hiya.
Christine: Oh, it’s you again.
Me: Yeah. I was wondering if I could ask you a question?
Christine: If it’s a quick question.
Me: It is. What’s Brazil famous for?
Christine: Nuts.
Me: (A beat.) Thanks.
(Wanders off.)
I didn’t try any more of Dewek’s chat-up specials, which included:
• ‘Are those real?’
• ‘Do you sleep on your stomach? Can I?’
• ‘Do you know that there are 206 bones in your body? Do you want another?’
I did point out to him that there actually wasn’t a bone in his penis and he just smiled as though I was joking and said, ‘Yeah, right.’
It is amazing that at school we received little or no information about STDs and contraception and that the playground was the only place this information (misinformation) was available. According to playground gospel, methods of effective contraception included using a crisp packet as a condom, strapping a watch with a luminous dial around your testicles (because the luminous material had a radioactively lethal effect on sperm; it would be mobile phones today, probably) and of course wrapping your cock in clingfilm.
Proper sex finally happened and I’m guessing in a similar way to many of us – at a house party after too much Woodpecker, in the spare bedroom on the coats. I tried to look macho and ripped open the condom packet with my teeth, but the foil hit a filling and I jumped and shouted out in shock. The whole act was very unsatisfactory, really – and really difficult. I remembered reading that the hymen is very elastic and hard to break the first time, but I thought that at this rate, if I continued to push this hard and it didn’t give, I could get catapulted through the window and into the off-licence across the street. Anyway, I broke through and it was over very quickly. As I lay there, I thought that I’d better say something caring and sensitive and tried to remember something from Cruel Desire, so I said, ‘If I’d known you were a virgin, I would have taken more time.’
She responded, ‘If I’d have known that we had more time, I’d have taken my tights off.’
Memories of the next couple of years at school are sketchy. I know I got back into the ‘A’ stream in the fourth or fifth year after we got a new maths teacher who was quite fit with big breasts and whose name I sadly forget, but I think began with a ‘W’. As well as being nice to look at, she was a brilliant teacher who made me understand the subject better.
I also remember getting into the school football team second eleven, which was quite an achievement for somebody from the fifth year. I have an embarrassing recollection of getting injured on a muddy pitch on a bitter winter’s day: the teacher in charge, who might have been Mr Oxenby, rubbed my thigh and I got a hard-on. Look! I was fifteen, alright! Chemistry raging through my veins.
I started going out with Helen, who lived in a big bungalow on Longridge Crescent (a ‘crescent’, how posh is that?). I say we were going out, but I only remember going to Heaton Cricket Club Disco, Bolton Fair and seeing Cat Stevens at Bolton Odeon – performing, I mean; he wasn’t watching From Russia with Love. Helen and I never even kissed as far as I recall, but I was devastated when somebody told me during a cricket match at school that she was going out with one
of the Keltie brothers.
The only proper ‘serious’ girlfriend I had at school was Joan, and she was lovely. As it turned out, my dad knew her dad and older brother through the painting trade. She came away on holiday with us once and we must have gone out for around two years, but it finished when I started work and she stayed on at school.
Joy to the World
MY SISTER JOY was three years younger than me, but we were always very close and I protected her when necessary … usually ending up in the Infirmary down the road.
The first time it happened we were playing in the old churchyard on Park Street when a lad called Carl, who was a couple of years older than me, started teasing and bullying her. Of course I intervened. He was a lot bigger than me and so when I confronted him and told him to stop, he simply pushed me hard and I fell backwards onto the church railings – and one speared my thigh! (Arghhh! It makes me cringe just thinking about it.) I limped home from the Infirmary with Joy following behind me, telling me that ‘all your flesh is sticking out’. Thanks for that, Joy. Chris Buckley ran ahead to warn my mum by saying, ‘Your David’s got his intestines hanging out!’ Mum went to get the butter.
Though I acted as self-appointed bouncer, Joy actually had a secret weapon, which was her unexpected skill at boxing. Boxing was a passion of my dad’s; we three kids all had a pair of boxing gloves at some stage in our childhoods. I remember Joy getting some when she was about five or six, and while Dad was adjusting her guard and telling her to keep her head down, she hit him with a sweet left hook that nearly put him hospital – because she ruptured his uvula and there was blood everywhere.
When she was older, Joy started going out with a lad called Andy, who was a couple of years behind me at Smithills Grammar. I wasn’t impressed with her choice because he was always in trouble at school and at the end of assembly when they read out the names of the pupils in detention, his name was invariably there. Anyway, paying absolutely no attention to my advice, she married him! And they are still together all these years later.