Smells Like Cheap Spirits

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Having been a big blonde fish in the small pond that was Foster's Primary, it was quite a shock when I rocked up for my first day at the imposing Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, aka Chis 'n' Sid, or "Chis 'n' Sad" as it was sneeringly labelled by the local rival school pupils.

Standing head and shoulders above every other eleven year old didn't preclude me from being picked on; within days I was blubbing into the foyer payphone to my mum, having had a swarm of older kids buzzing round my solitary seat in the dinner hall, swiping my lunch from under my nose and devouring it in seconds as I protested weakly.

 My family had earlier nicknamed me Olive Oyl (remember Popeye's love interest?), albeit a blonde-haired version, due to my trademark slicked-back low ponytail, long gangly limbs and lanky, awkward gait; despite my best efforts I struggled to blend into the sea of uncertain babyfaced pre-teens whose eyes were level with my washboard chest.

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I didn't know a single soul in this seemingly huge, intimidating school, and consequently was overcome with loneliness. My starchy new uniform felt alien, it's newness making it stiff and itchy: oversized lurid purple blazer ("you'll grow into it!"), unflattering grey A-line skirt, lilac shirt, box-fresh black shoes....all regulation down to the elasticated purse belt and grey granny knickers. I may as well have had "newbie" written on my forehead in black marker.

Despite my fears, I soon formed tentative friendships with a gaggle of kind-faced girls and we slowly settled in, customising the ugly garb as best we could: rolling the waistband of the school-shop skirt up a few inches here, untucking our shirts a bit there, scrunching down white knee-high socks around skinny ankles. Although all the pupils were united in our collective dislike of the uniform, the vastly differing personalities beneath the ensemble started to show and various cliques began to form: The Cool Kids, Boffins, Geeks, Inbetweeners and Goths.

Unlike at primary school, it quickly became apparent that showing any hint of intelligence was not a good thing, at least not in the eyes of the Cool Kids, who gained credibility by being as disruptive as possible, much to the blood vessel-popping frustration of some of the teachers. To be labelled a "Boffin" was the most scathing of insults.

The roll-call of teachers' names read like characters from a Roald Dahl* novel: Mr Clarence Trotz, Mr Forsdick, Mss Rust and Crust the PE teachers, Mr Pitts, Tony Tipping (nicknamed Angel Delight as he was a schoolgirl's dream topping). Miss Naylor (nail-her?), the voluptuous young English teacher who'd make the testosterone-pumped teen boys drool.

Then there was Mr Jenkins, the red-faced French teacher who was partial to a tipple so constantly wore dark sunglasses, even in winter. He'd secure the boys to the desks by their ties and kick our rucksacks out of the gangway as he paced up and down reciting 'topic vocab' from the overhead projector, sometimes opening a first-floor window to casually sling out a bag that crossed his path. One boy in my class took umbrage to this, so cunningly placed a few bricks in his rucksack and left it in the walkway. We all held our breath as he took a swing at that bag...

The teachers with a sense of humour but an iron fist were generally the most successful. It was a battle of wills; they knew that any sign of weakness on their part would quickly result in chaos. Some resorted to aggression to restore order - throwing board rubbers at pupils' heads (Mr Franklin, History) was effective, slamming down books on tables...less so. Mr "Angry" Anderson the English teacher kept a water-filled Jif lemon bottle in his drawer, squirting it in people's ears if they played up, which was quite innovative, I thought.

'Orrible Mr Horrobin the PE/Rugby teacher frequently terrorised us as we passed his turf of the Games block, appearing like a troll from under a bridge, firing off orders machine-gun style "Get off the grass!" "tuck in your shirts!" "bags off shoulders!" - the consequence for repeat offenders being mind-numbing plimsole-whitening detentions.

The German teachers had a management style all of their own: Herr Fischer's risqué remarks and lingering glances simply stunned us into silence; Mr Ashby's Spam obsession (the cheap meat variety, not junk emails) and classroom sheepdog trials were just plain random. The only German I remember him teaching me was "Is the sausage married?"  "No, he's Die Wurst" (divorced). Groan. 

Mr Sennett was our headmaster, a wizened old vulture, half-moon glasses perched atop hook nose. We nicknamed him Senex, the Latin word for "old man". (Well, we were grammar school kids; even our jokes were intellectual). The thick-skinned velociraptor would stride around, teeth bared, muttering "Guttersnipes!" under his breath, his chosen descriptor for his most unruly charges. He was offset by the kindly Mr Lightwood, his top-heavy deputy, who I remember as rotund and jolly, like a friendly robin red-breast.

There were daily dramas to be punished: boys fighting in the playground, girls smoking in the toilets, metal spatulas heated in bunsen burners then held on the backs of necks during chemistry experiments, water-filled balloon bombs in summer, half-dissected organs tossed at squeamish, squealing girls in Biology.

Like today's anti-terror police, the teachers had the exhausting task of constantly trying to foil fresh and inventive attacks whilst simultaneously attempting to educate us. If this was how grammar school kids behaved, I can only imagine what was going on down the road at the comprehensives: Hurstmere for boys and Blackfen for girls.

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Two things every secondary school pupil had in common were raging hormones and dubious Eighties fashion sense. By '89 we were teenagers, sporting Savile-worthy shellsuits and poodle-like perms. My wardrobe was a lairy mix of Naf Naf, Ton Sur Ton, Nike Air Max, Kickers, Wallabees, bellbottom flares, leggings and Benetton sweatshirts, accessorized with red Rimmel lipstick, a gold belcher chain, a keeper ring and gold hoop earrings. Even Mr T would have balked at that weighty jewellery combo. When I say gold, I may actually mean gold-coloured. It's a wonder my ears didn't turn green and drop off in protest. The boys didn't fare much better, with long hair tied in a ponytail being the style of choice in neighbouring schools (ours had a strict 'no hair below the collar' rule), and 'curtains' for Chis and Sid boys, or those simply preferring a less effeminate 'do'. It's a miracle anyone got a snog, ever.

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The theme tune to my early teenage years was anything by Bros. I was a bona fide Brosette, right down to the Grolsch bottle tops on my shoes: Matt Goss was my God and I would bow down before his poster on my wall. I also loved Madonna, Kylie, Salt N Pepa, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, En Vogue, Technotronic, Soul To Soul and Nirvana, as well as my parents' Beatles and Motown classics.

I would lie on my bed listening to the Top 40 on the radio or a mixtape I'd made myself, with toothpaste smeared on my pubescent pimples reading More magazine, Smash Hits or Mizz, or poring over a Judy Blume novel such as "Forever," which read like a self-help manual for angst-ridden teens. Then I'd pour my innermost thoughts into my diaries, until my younger sister got her mitts on them and read them aloud Jackanory-style to my horrified mother.

                                                         

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As the teenage years rumbled on, weekends were spent surreptitiously smuggling alcohol from our parents' drinks cabinets in water bottles and heading to the local park with our mates. Every so often there'd be a major event circled on our calendars, be it a Crook Log Disco or a sleepover round at  one of the girl's houses, where we'd paint our nails and eat pizza whilst gossiping animatedly. 

My musical tastes gradually developed into dance music, the rave culture being fully underway by this time. My mate Sheryl Patterson and I fancied ourselves as DJs, the pinnacle of our 'career' being invited to 'play' at the local scout hall disco. We dressed up for the occasion in matching Naf Naf jumpsuits - hers real, mine an Erith market knock-off - and proudly spun some house tracks, as the crowd went mild....save for a loyal contingent of pubescent 'ravers' who jerked about with all the natural rhythm of an epileptic and screeching "aciiiieeeeeedddd", voices breaking as they yelled at the top of their lungs. 

As I got older, being the tallest amongst my pals had it's advantages: I could saunter into the off-license dangling a spare set of 'borrowed' car keys from my finger and casually emerge minutes later laden with booty.

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Diamond White, Thunderbirds, 20/20, K, Hooch or Two Dogs were our poisons of choice, along with a few dozen Silk Cut, then it was off to a house party, Zen's, T's or Bridewell's. Sometimes there was a party in a church in Shooter's Hill where we'd headbang to Nirvana and occasionally end the night crying big salty gin-induced tears for no apparent reason.

 Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I kept getting selected for the cross-country team and swimming gala, the mere mention of either causing me to break out in a cold sweat, not least because we had the most unflattering PE kit imaginable. It had clearly been designed by a nun for maximum sex-hormone suppression: a white aertex (so far, so standard), but the Bridget Jones-style purple knickers with circulation-stopping elastic around the thighs were unforgiving to say the least. Add thick knee-high purple hockey socks and voila! The look was complete. The only reason I was so good at running was my theory that the faster I moved the harder it would be for anyone to actually focus on that horrendously unbecoming attire. Sloshing through muddy bog, legs mottled like roadmaps from the cold, I'd grit my teeth and vow to run more slowly in future.

Then there were the overseas school trips, first to Boulogne in France where we stayed in a grotty hostel munching horsemeat burgers, then later to the Black Forest in Germany where the teachers foolishly allowed us kids to buy cheap alcohol at the supermarket and everyone got completely trollied on the last night, resulting in an emergency doctor being called to treat the resulting casualties and the frazzled teachers vowing never to run another trip. It wasn't just the pupils causing scandals though, quite the reverse, with one married music teacher having a torrid affair with a teenage pupil, another allegedly being caught getting frisky al fresco (and rumour had it, al-desko) with another man.

Am I painting a murky picture of my school days? Maybe. But despite all the angst and drama, drinking and detentions, there was plenty of studying too. That part just isn't such fun to recount.

Like ugly ducklings to swans, we finally emerged from incarceration seven years later clutching a plethora of top-grade GCSE and A-level certificates.

Feeling euphoric at our new-found freedom, we stepped across the threshold of the dimly-lit school foyer and out into the big wide world, blinking in the sunlight, ready to begin our adult lives...





*Roald himself was a Bexley boy, who worked with the brilliant illustrator Quentin Blake, a former pupil at our school who remarked that he took inspiration from his teachers ;-)

Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:
www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

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Old Skool Vibes : Children of the Eighties

My earliest memory of life is being held aloft aged three by my father to peer through a round cabin-hole hospital window at my mewling newborn sister, delicate as a baby starling, freshly laid that morning by my mum.

Having been the sole previous tenant of her womb, I was a tad miffed from the outset that I was about to be gazumped by this scrawny purple-hued imposter for her affections.  Already, my beloved mother was otherwise engaged with this new kid on the block, hence the clashing brown pinafore and pea-green jumper ensemble that my dad had hastily slung on me that morning. It was the Seventies, but still...

  

A year later came my first experience of school. In some cases, ignorance is bliss. This is one of them. Can you imagine the horror if, at the tender age of four, we had any concept of time and were able to grasp the fact that we'd be spending fourteen long years at school, being choked alternately by rules, neckties and the sneering school bully?

At that age when everything is huge and new and terrifying, a day can seem like a lifetime. When a friend's child started school last year, she asked her whether she'd enjoyed her first day. "It was okaaaay," came the uncertain reply, "but I don't think I'll be going back, thanks."

The first stand-out memory of primary school for me came when I was five years old. Another child asked me how many exercise books I had in my bag and as I answered "two" I held up 2 fingers completely innocently, having no idea what the V sign I was inadvertently making meant. That snot-nosed kid began shouting loudly to "Miss" that I was swearing, and before I had a chance to protest my innocence Mrs Coles, the teacher, flew across the classroom, grabbed me off the chair by my wrist and held me up as she used the wooden ruler in her other hand to smack the backs of my skinny bare legs.
I cried hot tears of indignation, exasperated and confused at the injustice of the situation. The punishment was meant to teach me not to swear. Since I hadn't been swearing and didn't even know the meaning of the word, it taught me something else instead: Life isn't fair. Which arguably is a much more important lesson anyway. So thanks Mrs Coles. Thanks a f@cking bunch.

Like most kids, my favourite part of the school day was playtime, when we'd charge out onto the tarmac to let off some steam, tearing about the schoolyard playing games such as runouts or British bulldog. The boys would be panting like overheated pitbulls, tongues lolling, hair plastered to sweaty foreheads, whilst the girls sat sedately on the concrete steps plaiting each other's hair, playing hopscotch or elastic, turning the occasional spontaneous cartwheel or handstand. To the untrained eye, we'd often appear to be engrossed in a serious game of poker, huddling round in tight circles each clutching a spread of cards and studying them closely, eyebrows knotted in concentration...although on closer inspection by the dinner lady we were just exchanging our Garbage Pail Kids collectables.

On the many rainy days, we'd have to stay inside for 'wet play' which sounds sexier than it was: steamed up classroom windows and the aroma of soggy dog, as bemused teachers attempted to keep the hyperactive children under control whilst visibly annoyed that they'd been kept away from chugging black coffee and chain-smoking in the safe haven of the staffroom.

Occasionally a few of us kids would be plucked from class of an afternoon to clean the staffroom, granting us the dubious privilege of seeing this inner sanctum close-up: overflowing ashtrays, lipstick-stained coffee mugs stuck to a stack of magazines, washing-up piled high. At the time we were honoured to be selected; now I realise it was free labour, we were exploited skivvies. Hardly a sweatshop in Bangladesh, but a liberty nonetheless.

When the school bell rang we'd line up and slink reluctantly back to lessons: attempting to solve mind-boggling maths problems copied from the blackboard, reciting our times tables parrot-fashion, reading aloud from English classics, clumsily crafting Viking longboats from balsa wood for our history project. We knew we were in for a treat if the big brown TV on stilts got wheeled out.

I also looked forward to the periodic visits from the nit-lady, finding the experience a pampering moment of relaxation as she raked through my scalp. It really appealed to my inner baboon. It was like a complimentary spa treatment. You pay top dollar these days for a half-decent Indian head massage.

There would be regular classroom disruptions from the rowdy crowd who would be flicking ink from their fountain pens, stabbing each other with compasses or covering their hands in Copydex glue for the simple pleasure  of peeling it off again. They would be sent individually to repent their sins 'under the clock' outside the headmistresses office, or made to stand on their chairs as punishment.

I only remember being sent there once, having done my Oscar-worthy Baron Greenback impression (the toady villian from Dangermouse) a little louder than intended. I never have been able to whisper. I had to write one hundred lines:  "I must be quiet in class." I wrote each line in the voice of Baron Greenback in my head, just to have the last (croaky) word.

At lunchtime we'd flip open Smurf or Transformers lunchboxes and tuck into squishy warm sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil or clingfilm; starchy white bread with a generous stroke of jam or marmite oozing out, hastily slapped together by frantic frazzled mums.

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My favourite was cheese and pickle, a packet of Space Invaders or pickled onion Monster Munch and a Kit Kat or Club biscuit if I was lucky. Occasionally we'd have spam slices with a pig's face on it in varying shades of pink from Safeway, as a treat. It was like 50 shades of pig. The face went all the way through the meat roll, like a stick of rock - presumably there to inform parents which unidentifiable animal this processed rubbish came from.

Fruit was greeted with disdain and tossed in the bin without a second thought, despite endless lessons about the pitiful plight of starving children in Africa. These moral issues were wasted on us; at our age we had no concept of another county, let alone continent.

Come hometime, we'd rush out of the schoolgates, eager to get home for kids' TV: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, Grange Hill, Thundercats,  The Moomins, Top Cat, Rentaghost, Scooby Doo. Any warnings that we'd "end up with square eyes" fell on deaf ears.

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When we got bored of staring goggle-eyed at the box, my sister Karen and I would batter each other for a while to pass the time, until one of us invariably got hurt (or pretended to) and we were sent to our rooms, where we'd amuse ourselves amongst a mountain of careworn My Little Ponies, Cabbage Patch Kids, Care Bears and Sindy dolls, some with missing limbs, all in various states of undress. Then Dad brought home a BBC computer one day complete with a huge boxy monitor. It was a game-changer, quite literally, and henceforth the toys were discarded and we instead spent countless silent hours playing Chuckie Egg, Space Invaders, Blagger, et al.

The temporary silence would be broken by one of the kids from down the street ringing the doorbell to see if we could "come out to play" and we'd scamper out until dusk with our Rayleigh Grifters,  cycling unsteadily round to the corner shop to stuff our cheeks hamster-style with penny sweets: palma violets, hubba bubbas and flying saucers crammed into a little white paper bag, cola bottles so sugary they made us wince, our milk teeth melting as we shovelled sherbet dip-dabs into our mouths on swizzle sticks.

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Biting the pastel-coloured candies strung on elastic necklaces, blowing Chupa Chups whistles and making Kinder egg toys, we loved the dual-function sweets the best. You could play with it and then eat it. Genius. We'd spend a good portion of our pound note pocket money on this sugary goodness, the remainder being saved for the odd splurge at Nuxley's, the toy shop on Welling High Street, and then a few years later on records at Woolies, my first vinyl purchases being Whitney's "I wanna dance with somebody", and "A different corner" by George Michael, when he was still straight.

Last thing at night, just as she was switching off the light, we'd casually remind mum that we had something of great importance happening at school tomorrow which required a Blue Peter-standard home-made costume, and she'd let out a pained wail and half-heartedly set about cobbling together a suitable outfit fashioned from various household objects, some loo rolls and an old pair of tights.

I got ushered to a fancy dress party inside an old cardboard box once, string holding it up like a pair of braces, skinny legs dangling out the bottom, brightly coloured squares hastily coloured in felt-tips on the sides. I was a Rubik's Cube, apparently.

I wasn't a particularly sporty child, but being built like a beanpole had it's advantages; scissor-kicking the high-jump was a breeze, I practically stepped over the pole that came up to the other kids' chests, whilst long jump sent me sailing to the far end of the sand pit with ease. My lanky stride was double that of the other girls in my year, so when it came to the track events on sport's day I was like a rat up a drainpipe.

Birthday parties, to which we'd be formally summoned by way of hand-written invitation with a tear-off RSVP slip, were a seemingly weekly occurance and were often held at various neon-lit fast-food joints. Wimpy was a cut above in terms of class, they even gave you cutlery to eat your burger and chips, and a plate. A china plate! This was impressive stuff, practically Michelin standard to a bunch of nine-year-olds, so we dressed up for the occasion in our finest C&A ski pants or tiered ra-ra skirts with batwing sweaters from Tammy Girl, accessorizing with brightly-coloured plastic jewellery, ankle socks and a slick of rollerball cherry lipgloss.

Everything was going swimmingly. Or so we thought. Then something terrible started to happen. Puberty. Suddenly we weren't swimming, but drowning. In a sea of our own hormonal soup. Like the famous transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London: hairs started sprouting at an alarming rate, inconveniently and publicly, our faces contorting in angst as these shocking changes took place before our eyes.

Soon, we were behaving increasingly erratically, howling at the moon...and then the transformation was complete.

It was 1989.

We were teenagers.

Things were about to get VERY complicated....




Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:
www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

Follow me:

Twitter: @SamanthaWalsh76
Facebook: Samantha Jane Walsh
Instagram: wanderingblonde76