A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  That was far from my last visit to casualty. Later that year I went fishing out at Nunnington, on the River Rye. Using a hand-line to try and catch a trout I’d spotted, I let it slip, allowing the hook to embed itself in my middle finger. It dug deep, right to the bone. I had all on not to burst into tears, but brightened at the prospect of another visit with my favourite nurses.

  Just when the staff at YDH thought they’d seen the last of the Pannetts, it was Christine’s turn to show up. That too was my doing. I challenged her to a bike race down Church Hill, got in her way – and over she went, knocking out one of her front teeth. As Phil said, girls were nothing but trouble … so the fact that I consented to spend a week with a whole gang of them the following summer probably needs a little explaining.

  Girl Guide For a Week

  ‘Now Michael, have you packed enough underwear?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Quite sure?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Socks?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Clean shirt for Sunday?’

  ‘Look, Mum, I packed everything you set out for me.’

  ‘Good. Because I don’t want you running around looking like a tramp. And I’m certainly not doing any washing while we’re away. I’ve enough on my plate as it is without worrying about the state of your underwear.’

  There was always tension in the air when Mum went on one of her camping trips with the Girl Guides. First she’d fuss around making sure there was plenty of food in the freezer – and a roster of daily menus on the wall above the kitchen table. Then she’d write lists of things that had to be done while she was away. There would be notes about putting the dustbin out on Tuesday, paying the milkman on Friday, the newsagent on Saturday – and the money would all be counted out in separate, labelled brown envelopes. There would be reminders about the washing, about feeding the animals, about changing the sheets at the end of the week. And, in the days running up to her departure she’d go over it all several times, just to make quite sure we’d got it.

  It was the same every year, and it soon came to the point where we were hardly listening, just nodding agreement to everything she said: anything to get her out of the door. The difference this time was that I was going with her – very much against my will.

  I complained. I whined. I argued. But she wasn’t having it.

  ‘I’m not leaving you here unsupervised,’ she said. ‘I know you. You’ll either end up setting fire to the place or breaking something. Most likely one of your bones. I don’t want to come home and find you in York District Hospital with your arm in plaster.’

  ‘But what about Phil?’ I pleaded. ‘You’re letting him stay at home. Why can’t I?’

  ‘He’s older than you. And far more responsible.’

  ‘But I’m older too. I’m going to be in year six in September. Senior school next.’

  ‘Yes, and when you get there you’ll find out that you’ve an awful lot of growing up to do.’

  ‘Well, if Phil’s responsible doesn’t that mean he can be in charge of me? I mean, he’s almost fifteen. You know I’ll do what he says.’

  I was going to add that he’d give me a thick ear if I didn’t, but thought better of it. In any case, Phil was there in the room while this particular conversation took place. He didn’t say a word. He was keeping his head down. He was desperate to have me out of the way so that he could spend more time with his girlfriend. The girlfriend that nobody knew about. Except me, that is – but he’d threatened me with destruction if I dared breathe a word about her.

  ‘But Mum, I’ll be good. I promise I will. I’ll be really, really good. Honestly.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you will,’ she said. ‘Because you’ll be under my supervision – where I can keep an eye on you. We’ve been over this till I’m sick of it. You’re coming with me and the girls, and that’s final.’

  And so I went. And hated it. Being surrounded by a bunch of girls all week, and being expected to take part in their activities, was not my idea of a good time at all. I can admit it now: I did more than my fair share of sulking. And I vowed it would be different next time.

  It certainly was. The following year I prepared myself. I had a plan. I told Mum I would agree to come, and would promise not to be a whingeing pest. All she had to do was allow me to bring my mate Mark. Mum liked that. It made sense. Not only was Mark’s mother a fellow Guide leader – and a good friend – but Mum had always thought of Mark as a nice lad. She thought he was a good influence on me. I got into less trouble with him than with my other mates. Well, of course I did. Mark was a very slippery customer, a master of cunning excuses.

  Her view might have been different if she’d connected him with the mysterious youth in a balaclava helmet who tied a bunch of bangers to a piece of wood that time and set it off, torpedo-fashion, across the pond in Rowntree Park. But everybody knew that was some fifteen year old, a local youth. They knew it because Mark spread the rumour – once he’d emerged, weak with laughter, from his hiding-place around the corner by the tennis courts.

  And it was a good job she never made a connection between Mark and that young tearaway disguised in a Batman mask who strapped a pair of sky-rockets under his saddle one November evening and pedalled down our road trailing a shower of multi-coloured flames behind his bike. But why should she? As far as she was aware it was as we told her: some young hooligan from the next village; and when she reflected that such behaviour would lead a boy to approved school we nodded in agreement with her, and even tried to tut-tut the way she did.

  Sometimes when I look back to those days I go hot and cold all over, thinking of what we got away with. And the outrageous lies we told. But the fact is we were very good at deception. Mum totally fell for the idea that Mark was a nice, well-behaved lad, and a good example to others. She once went so far as to say, in Mark’s presence, that he was a sensible fellow and would do well in life.

  And she was right. He did do well – but not in the way she expected. His surname was Addy and he went on to become an actor, making his name as one of the male strippers in The Full Monty. But back then he was no more than an ordinary Yorkshire lad, co-opted with me into the Guides and ready to brave a week under canvas down by the River Derwent.

  We had quite a time of it. Whereas the previous year I’d moped around, trying to wriggle out of all the fun that had been organised for the girls, this year it finally dawned on me that there was much to be gained by getting stuck in and showing the lasses what I was capable of.

  So there I was, climbing trees, jumping from the highest branches and splashing into the river; or turning over the kayaks and re-surfacing with a grin on my face; wrestling with Mark before a shrieking audience of twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls; daring each other to race barefoot across the dying embers of the camp-fire.

  This was a pivotal time in my life; it was the moment when I realised there was nothing I wouldn’t do if it won me an admiring smile from a good-looking girl. As for the injuries, the cuts and bruises and blisters, they were badges of honour, a minor inconvenience to be suffered in the cause of attracting the admiration of the fair sex. The bloodier the injuries, the more solicitous they were. The greater the pain the more likely that we’d get to experience the sweet delight of being given first aid at the hands of a bonny little troop leader. We may have been on our school holidays but we were getting an education. Not only that, but at night there was homework.

  ‘Mark! Mike!’ We’d had supper round the camp fire; we’d had our cocoa; we’d sung the National Anthem, had roll-call and been sent to our tents.

  ‘Mark! Mike!’ It was a loud stage whisper and it seemed to echo round our corner of the campsite.

  ‘Mike! Mark!’

  Mark was already sitting up. I switched on my torch. We looked at each other.

  ‘Is that you they’re calling?’ I said.

  ‘I thought it was you.’

  ‘Mike! Mark!’

  Mar
k nudged me. ‘Nah, it’s both of us.’

  We were out of our sleeping bags and at the opening of the little tent, poking our heads out into the cool night air. From the tent Mum shared with Mark’s mother, over in the corner of the field, came the murmur of their portable television, wired up to the car battery.

  ‘What is it?’ I whispered, as loud as I dare.

  ‘We’re having a party.’

  We didn’t answer. We didn’t know what to say. After a long silence, followed by a lot of girlish tittering, came the magic words:

  ‘Well, are you lads coming or what? We want to play Midnight Beast.’

  The boldness of the invitation threw us at first. We’d been brought up to think of girls as shy, retiring creatures; we believed that it was our role to pursue them, and that their role was to run away from us, shrieking. The idea that they would wantonly invite us into their tent after dark – well, it left us somewhere between shock and wonder.

  We threw our clothes on, crept outside and made our way to the tent from which the invitation seemed to have come. As we approached it we could see flickers of torchlight illuminating the bulging canvas. When the opening was unzipped we crawled inside. It was a tight squeeze. There must have been a dozen Guides in a tent designed to accommodate six – but we weren’t complaining.

  It was all very innocent, but it wasn’t half fun. We played cards, scoffed crisps and sweets, and drank pop. We told jokes and boasted about all sorts of wicked things we’d never done, and we shivered with the excitement of knowing that we were supposed to be in bed in our own tents – even as we reminded each other to keep our voices down in case the grown-ups heard us.

  In that delicious hour or two I fell in love – as I was prone to do many times over the next few years. Her name was Helen, she was a year or two older than me, and she was beautiful.

  Some time after midnight Mark and I sneaked back to where we were supposed to be, and stayed awake for another hour, evaluating the charms of the various girls and each laying claim to a particular favourite and challenging each other to see who could kiss the most girls over the rest of the week.

  Mark won, but I only had his count to go on. I knew he was exaggerating, so I did a bit of my own ‘massaging the figures’ to try and impress him. I was to learn later on in life that, where girls are concerned, all blokes exaggerate. Anyway, I never worked out what Mark had that I didn’t, but the girls seemed to find him irresistible. As the week went on I slowly realised that I was in the presence of a master.

  That was our first and, sadly, our last holiday with the girls. By the time the next year’s trip came around, both my Mum and Mark’s had overheard enough little bits of gossip from their charges to work out what was going on. Happy days – but they were soon over.

  And no sooner had we returned home than it was time to go shopping for our new school uniforms. Senior school beckoned, and another phase of my childhood was about to begin …

  Acknowledgements

  Special thank you to Alan Wilkinson,

  and all at Country Publications and the Dalesman team.

  A little bit extra

  Readers from all over the world – and people I meet when I do my talks and other events – often ask me about Yorkshire and its people so here are some helpful websites:

  Welcome to Yorkshire yorkshire.com

  Visit York visityork.org

  Yorkshire Tea (brilliant brew & support) yorkshiretea.co.uk

  Grand Central Railways (great transport & support) grandcentralrail.com

  Black Sheep Brewery (great beer & support) blacksheepbrewery.com

  And Finally …

  If you want to help a deserving cause – and people you might need one day – the local mountain and cave rescue teams all do a great job. They’re volunteers who go out in all weathers and the service depends on donations:

  Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team srmrt.org.uk

  Swaledale Mountain Rescue Team swaledalemrt.org.uk

  Cleveland Search and Rescue Team csrt.co.uk

  Cave Rescue Organisation cro.org.uk

  Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association uwfra.org.uk