Alternative York

I think, if that’s at all possible, that I had a bit of an epiphany today. Well maybe a slight one - something definitely happened because I was that moved by it that I went to Virgin (or whatever it’s called these days) and opened the old wallet and spent some spondulicks.

What is for certain though, is that I now fully understand a period of my life that I went through in 1981. In 1981, apart from picking Aldaniti as the Grand National winner, I was a pupil at the Allertonshire School in Northallerton. I was the centre forward in the school football team, alongside a guy called Richard Wimmer (who was the coolest kid in our year but may be of more interest today if you Google his name alongside Manchester United and Italy) and life was pretty good for a young Bradders.

The Allertonshire had a “youth annex” which was basically a building next to the school where the credible kids went on a dinnertime. I went because Jennifer Matthewman hung around there with Andrea Oxendale (Wimmer’s bird) and I was convinced that Jennifer would spot me through the crowd of other pubeless first years and dump Barry Porter (left school by now - oh and cool!) and realise that, despite her having breasts that I was scared of,  I was the way forward in her life and would bring her immeasurable benefits that cool Barry Porter couldn’t possibly provide - looking back, Barry Porter was 4ft 3in small and very ugly; and had an even uglier little brother called Mark who was a complete tit end and once offered me outside after the school disco - in 1981 Barry Porter was still cool and though I was about the same height I was incredibly uncool because my mother still cut my hair and I liked The Who a lot.

You may now be wondering what this post is all about? Well the aforementioned youth annex had a jukebox which cost 10p to play a song. That 10p was the difference between one or two fish fingers or a mousse with your school dinner (apart from kids like me who got free meals because my dad was unemployed) - well I became a huge fan of a band who epitomised cool; and the 80’s (but you can only realise that now) and if you played the B-side of their hit single you got two tracks for 10p - irresistible!

Has anyone guessed which band I’m talking about yet?

I became mesmerised by the two songs on the B-side. The lyrics were amazing, even though I didn’t understand them, and the band were sooo cool it was compulsory to be a fan - Porter and Wimmer were, so it must have been the right way to think. Guessed yet?

If I may quote some lyrics that, to a thirteen-year-old boy searching for a kickstart in life, are possibly among the greatest pieces of modern British poetry, I hope, and even expect, that a little bell may ring in a few of your heads as you remember this group.

“But two o’clock has come again, it’s time to leave this paradise; hope the chip shop isn’t closed, because their pies are really nice. I’ll eat it in the taxi queue, stand in someone else’s spew; wish I had lipstick on my shirt, instead of piss stains on my shoes”

‘Friday Night and Saturday Morning’, only a little bit away from the title of one of my favourite films but the evocative images it brings are really bizarre. I almost feel thirteen again - I almost feel cool - isn’t nostalgia amazing?

Anyway the whole point of this post - when I started writing it about an hour ago - is that our life paths are set in stone during our teens, we just don’t always realise it until we are proper grown-ups! I was always gonna be one of life’s questioners and complainers!

Everyone of us has the same school memories I have. The key is what you do with them.

I haven’t done a great deal to be honest - though I must confess I loved listening to ‘The Specials’ and ‘More Specials’ that I bought on CD today and remembering how good it was to be a kid in 1981. The bassist, Stephen Panter’s, book, ‘Ska’d for life’ is down to chapter 6 and I haven’t even had a shit yet - my usual time to read!

I wonder what Jennifer Matthewman is up to these days?

See you soon…

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 12:59 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.