Archive for March, 2011

259 miles, all on my own...

Moral Panic

I’ve always wanted to do a blog post with that title. I have done many of which that is the underlying theme but I’ve never been so bold as to bitch slap you in the face with it. Until now. Oh dear, I sound mad now don’t I? I don’t mean to. I am just a little excited. My new forum is filling with users far faster than I could have ever hoped for and they are even posting stuff and reading other stuff and oh…it’s just so exiting.

As you may have guessed, this is one of those posts where I just start typing and then stop when I’m finished. I didn’t quietly talk into Evernote on my phone and mumble a suggestion to myself, neither did I scribble myself a post-it. In truth, I stole the idea from someone’s post on my forum. So what am I going to share with you this week? Well, the original post came into being following a story of 2011 moral panic. A parent was relating the dangers of allowing her 11 year old child to cross the road and go to a nearby shop and a torrent of phone-in loonies called in to offer their support and nod in that way readers of tabloids do every time the word “immigrant” is mentioned in their favourite rag. They bellowed and shrieked their hideous bile for the benefit of those who didn’t realise there was a hooded pervert hiding behind every tree or post box.

On hearing this outburst, my fellow forum members and I, as one, made the same sound. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to portray this sound precisely in print, but I’ll have a go.

“nuhhh?”

Not even close but it’ll have to do.

Along with a few hundred others, I went to a boarding school. The point of a boarding school is that you eat, sleep and play there as well as theoretically study your pants off. You only go home during school holidays. Now, because it was a military boarding school and one of your parents was most likely in the army, there was a good chance that your familial home was a fair distance away. For my first year at the school (September 1979 – July 1980), my family lived in Cyprus. They then moved back to England and over the next 6 years, lived in 4 different places; the closest of which was Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. The furthest was Plymouth in Devon. The school was in Dover in Kent and at the start of school holidays, you are probably imagining we all joined hands and walked down to the railway station, several teachers at the head of the crocodile and several at the back. Once there, they saw us on to the train and waved us a cheery goodbye from the platform.

Not even close.

School Civilian Dress

Me in School Civilian Dress circa 1980.

The following is absolutely true and it probably still is true of a great many young ladies and gentlemen. The only difference between me in 1979 and the young pupils of today is that everytime I left the school gates, I had to wear “civilian dress”. Don’t let the name fool you.

Look at the photo on the left. That is me in 1980 and that is “civilian dress” I am wearing. It differed from normal, everyday school dress in that you wore a white shirt instead of grey or blue and the blazer had shiny metal buttons instead of black plastic ones. In those days of violent skinheaded thugoids, we might as well have had a target painted on our backs and a big red light on our heads. These days (actually from about half way through my time at school), this requirement to dress like Lord Snooty was sensibly abandoned.

Quite severe restrictions still existed on what we could actually wear though. It was the early 80′s but words like “sandals”, “flannel trousers” and “cravats” still appeared in the dress code. The wise (not to say brave) Dukie either pushed these restrictions to the limit or in many cases, completely ignored them but for many, they had to do. In any case, our rather severe haircuts and generally smart attire was not the greatest of camouflage to the unemployed and agressive youth of Dover and Folkestone. I seem to remember the term “smart” being bandied about but not even my greatest fan could use that term to describe my appearance in the photo on the left. Despite being issued only a year earlier, the blazer is already two sizes too small. A smart mess but a mess nonetheless.

End Of Term

End of term was here. Our suitcases packed and ready. The lucky ones had parents who lived near enough or who had enough time of work to collect them by car. This was more than convenient, it was a godsend. The hapless Dukie’s parent would even carry their cumbersome suitcase from bedside locker to the waiting family car and all was well. With a cough of lead-filled exhaust, they were off. Their holiday had already started.

Not for me though and not for a great many others. For us, the day had scarcely begun.

The trips back to Cyprus (and back to England after) are stories in themselves. I was “escorted” for both of them but only by boys a few years older than myself. Maybe I’ll bang on about those some other time. In the meantime, here is generally what happened at other times, when my travels were combined to the shores of England.

Most, if not all “ends of term” were on a Friday. In your first 3 years at the school, this meant finishing lessons at 4pm and making your own way to Dover. Sometimes, a minibus would be provided but usually we got the bus. Sometimes we even walked. Train tickets were handed out the night before (paid for by the taxpayer I am almost ashamed to admit) and parents usually sent a tenner (for expenses). Don’t feel pity though, a tenner in 1979 is equivalent to about £40 now.

DYRMS CCF

From the 4th form onwards, Friday afternoons meant CCF. CCF, or Combined Cadet Force was when we played soldiers for an afternoon. It could go one of two ways. Either you were really lucky and spent it in a classroom “learning” or watching a film made in 1965, instructing you on the best method to extinguish a burning jet aircraft with a bucket of sand (true, believe it or not) or you could be pushed to the limits of exhaustion running through the mud on Dover cliffs. Whichever side of the fence you fell on, you either finished at 4pm with plenty of time or you finished at 4pm, barely a breath left in you and covered in 3 different sorts of cow shit.

So there we were. If we were under the age of 14, we’d be there in on the platform of Dover Priory station in our smart, thug-baiting,shiny-buttoned blazer and slacks and if were older, we’d be there in very, very smart casual dress trying to stand a little way away from the kids in shiny blazers.

It was by now, gone 5pm and in the Winter term, almost certainly dark and cold. At this point, some of us had several hundred miles to travel and nearly all of us had still to cross London.

Impressed yet?

For reasons that escape me, we had not even safety in numbers. Yes, there were 450 of us at the school but I never remember there being more than a hundred or so on the platform. By the time we boarded the train and spread out, the sparsity of Dukies was even more pronounced. Before the train had even left, the braver, not to say, more stupid Dukies changed out of their shiny blazers and donned their own casual dress in the toilet. This was a little soon as there were a lot of older Dukies on the train who would almost certainly give you a good kicking if they caught you. Still, they obviously wanted to show off their new trainers or “pull a bird” or something. I didn’t try this tactic until well into my 3rd form when I was travelling alone, mid term to meet my parents in London on the occasion of my dad being awarded his Military Cross after the Falklands War in 1982. Despite it being a Sunday and the middle of a term, I still managed to find myself sitting half a carriage away from a teacher. Luckily he wasn’t a bad sort and he never let on.

The journey to London from Dover took about an hour and a half. It seemed like twice that on the way home and half that on the way back to school, seemingly proving the “watched kettle never boils” principle. On arriving at Waterloo East, we stepped down from the train and a hundred Dukies vanished into the crowds. All of a sudden you were a lone 12 year old, dressed like someone with money and carrying a heavy suitcase. It was about 6pm.

Next came the trip across London.

If you were lucky, you lived in area served by Waterloo Main station and you just walked through a subway. If you were unlucky, you had to travel to one of the other Main London stations – Charing Cross, Paddington or Marylebone. Now, here’s one admission that does me no credit 30 years after the event. The tenner posted to you “for expenses” by a worried parent was intended for a taxi across London. This taxi would cost you about £5. The Underground would cost you about 40p and leave you enough to a buy something of which your parents wouldn’t approve at a nearby shop. So, we went on The Underground. It was hot, tiring, scary and stupid but we all did it. I still have two cassettes that I bought at railway stations in London with money that my parents intended for a taxi fare. I still haven’t owned up.

The Long Corridors..

On our own, we dragged our cases down endless tiled corridors and down ancient escalators into the bowels of London. People stared at us and some talked to us. I am sure they weren’t all filled with good intentions but I managed every trip across the metropolis unscathed. It wasn’t that we were brave, it was just that we had to get home and that was the way it was done. I remember being shouted at by buskers because they assumed we were loaded. Once, a member of the underground staff called me “Lord Snotty” just because I asked him a question. The London Underground is not a place for outsiders. It isn’t now and it wasn’t 30 years ago. To those who use it every day, its a smelly annoyance but they glide through it on autopilot. To those who use it two or three times a year, it is the 8th level of Dante’s hell. Everyone knows where they are going and it’s the exact opposite way to you. They know exactly what ticket to get and how much it is or they have an Oyster card and they just wave that at every machine in confident annoyance. This is so common these days, that staff are often completely unused to selling tickets or answering questions.

Despite the odds though, I made my way across London safely on every occasion. Each time, I emerged into the cold, dark London air onto the platform of the mainline station. A quick glance up at the display board would reveal the details of my onward bound train. If I was lucky, I had a little time to spare. If I was unlucky, I had no time to spare and I had to run. If was really, really unlucky, I had over an hour to spare. They don’t like you to sit on railway stations unless you are buying food or eating food you just bought. I have no idea why this is. You can wander round the few shops, buy a newspaper, buy a coffee and then wonder what the hell to do for the remaining 40 minutes. The answer is usually “sit on your case and try not to look muggable”.

Eventually, they let you on the train. It being a Friday evening, the train is not empty and on nearly every trip onwards from London, I sat on my case by the doors. Sometimes I stayed sitting there for up to 3 hours, not getting a seat until I was almost home. As Jimmy Saville was fond of telling us at the time, it was truly “the age of the train”.

Once the train arrived at my home station, I jumped in a taxi and desperately tried to stay awake for the short trip home. A knock on the door, a kiss from a parent and my school holidays had begun. I had been up since 6.30am, it was now after 9pm and I had travelled over 200 miles. Mostly on my own.

The details of such trips changed each time. The names of the stations changed, the length of the journey changed and sometimes, my mode of transport even changed. For a few trips, I travelled on National Express Busses. However, the crossing London portion of the trip was pretty constant. I was actually pretty lucky on my trips home as I know many of my contemporaries had a far rougher time of it, sometimes by their own hand. The trip home was always coloured by the fact that you were going home and it would have taken a lot to dampen the mood. The reverse trip back after the holidays was a different matter. For me, the key to a perfect trip back to school was to save as much money as possible. At the time I was given £10 for a trip back, I was making a house account of £70 last me 13 weeks. The more I saved by avoiding taxis, the more money I had left to spend on those first few weeks of term.

Some Things That Happened To Me Travelling Home From School

I was 14 or 15 and waiting on Marylebone station for a train. I was stood next to Burger King, minding my own business and trying really hard to look confident and at ease with the world. A tall (I am 5 feet 4 inches in height, so most people look tall) girl came up to me and asked if I had 10p. It was an odd amount to ask for, especially as this was 1984 and not the mid 40′s but as with most people, embarrassment overrides good sense and I plunged my hand into a pocket full of change and gave it to her. Unfortunately, I realised that the young lady was in fact a bit of what we used to call “a tramp”. Her blackened teeth and wild hair was only now apparent. She smelled like you wouldn’t believe and now that my foolish hand had noisily revealed the heavy contents of my pocket, she moved in for the kill.

“You got some more for me?”

“No”

“I’ll make you happy for some.”

Oh god. Suddenly, I had no idea what to do. The sudden realisation that I was about as street-wise as Catweazle was no help at all. As she slid towards me (I now realised she was also a bit pissed), the back door of the Burger King opened and an old Jamaican guy came out with a bag of rubbish. This freaked out the cackling hag and she walked away and I fled in the opposite direction, 10p poorer and a bit wiser.

On another occasion, I got lost looking for Victoria bus station. My money-saving self was walking in circles. I wandered around for over an hour and got to the bus station with 4 minutes to spare. I had been chased by a mad old women who was shouting “Nazi! Nazi! at me” and two dogs who actually crossed the road to attack me. On a separate trip (back to school), I was determined to go to the Virgin Megastore. I am not even sure where it was. I certainly didn’t know then and wandered around the populace for almost two hours. When I got there, I spent £2.99 on a Paul Young cassette that I saw in Woolworths, in Dover a week later for £2.49. Idiot.

Once, when I was still very young, a bloke stole my suitcase and I only got it back because he dropped it after a Policeman saw him. The copper then told me off for not taking better care of my things. He took my name and promised to telephone my parents and give them hell for allowing me to travel on my own. If he ever rang them, they never said anything.

The Up Side

Sometimes, if you had company, it was wonderful. To be honest, I had company a lot of the time and you got to talk to people you saw every day at school but never got around to knowing. In those, pre-iPod days (actually pre Walkman for the first few trips), talking was important on a long train ride.  Reading was out for me as looking down during any form of motion (fnarr fnarr) still gives me an immediate migraine. A few times, I even spoke with other passengers.

On the occasions I travelled home with friends, the journey flew by. My favourite trip was with Sean Veasey, Simon Mansfield & Steve Blood. They were heading for Bicester in Oxfordshire but I was getting off about an hour early at Beaconsfield. Steve had his big radio cassette player on the seat next to him and the trip took almost the same time as it took for Heaven 17′s “The Luxury Gap” to play. A powercut meant that the carriage was dark the whole way. It wasn’t particularly loud and no-one seemed to mind. A few commented on “the new piped music” but I don’t think we were too much of a pain.

I could end with “how times have changed” but I don’t think similar trips would be any more dangerous today. That’s not to say they were totally safe when we did them, more that you just have to get on with life and not worry about everyone and everything.

Those who know me could say “well, you don’t have kids” but I am not listening. La la la la la…

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