Seven-a-side
rugby was a new to us all. Our best players, notably Brian Lack, Raymond
Wright, Trevor Hickson and Richard Pascall guaranteed a strong Upbury A, with
the lesser lights forming Upbury B.
With quite
a few schools competing, the games came thick and fast. Upbury B and our
opposition were in full kit and due to play next when I overheard Mister Charlesworth.
‘I
think Lynch will do well in this one.’
What?!
I
spun around, unable to believe my ears. Mister Charlesworth had his back turned
and was in conversation with someone. Me? Do well? Did Mister Charlesworth
really believe that… or was he flirting with psychology, knowing I was in
earshot? Either way, for a minute or so I felt invincible. In my mind I saw
myself coming good and destroying the opposition in the game of my life.
Then two stocky members of the opposition walked by. One of them sniggered and nudged his mate, who took one look at me and
burst out laughing. I wilted inside. A beanpole in a pair of shorts wasn’t
going to destroy anybody.
In a
one-sided game we cruised to a convincing defeat. It didn’t help that my new
shorts were too big and the elastic was slack. While I ran around with one hand
on my shorts, the game passed me by. The final whistle, when it came, was an
act of mercy.
Mister
Charlesworth dropped me from our next fifteen-a-side fixture, an away game at
Woodlands. Fair enough, better players deserved their chance. But Clive, Paul and Stan
were playing and with Woodlands being no more than a good walk from our homes in Twydall,
I tagged along that Saturday morning to give them some support.
Woodlands Road
School had a fearsome reputation. Some
real hard cases went there and a kid with a sneer on his lips was quick to fire
an ominous warning when we entered the grounds. A kid called Delaney would
murder us, he said, with undisguised glee.
The
kid wasn’t wrong. The rugged Delaney was unstoppable and won the game for
them, but Woodlands didn’t get it all their own way. Our lads scrapped to the
end and won fulsome praise from Mister Charlesworth for a gutsy performance
that gave encouragement for the future and closed the door on my return.
As daylight hours grew longer we Twydall boys resumed walking home from school again. On Canadian Avenue Paul made up a silly little
song.
‘I once fell off a skyscraper
Landed on a naked lady
Had a fiddle, went for a piddle
Landed on a naked lady’
As much as we laughed, I thought the song lacked
something. I had a go at singing it with an extended, rising ending. Paul
loved it.
‘I once fell off a skyscraper
Landed on a naked lady
Had a fiddle, went for a piddle
Landed on a naked la-a-dee!’
A stop off at Benham’s off licence – on the corner of
Canadian Avenue and Toronto Road – to blow our bus fare on an assortment of chocolate
bars was quite normal for Paul, Clive, Stan, John and me but with goodies in
easy reach, on a long open counter, it was only a matter of time before someone
gave in to temptation. Once one did it, we were all at it, entering the shop
each day, satchels open and flapping. With four of us wearing angelic faces and
Stan trying his best, we’d spread out along the counter. After some
deliberation we’d all buy an item or two, but in between…
There was only ever one person behind the counter – a
youngish bloke, possibly the son of the owners. Other than five schoolboys
mulling over their purchases, he never saw a thing.
The fun came when we got outside. One by one we showed
off our swag. One or two items, usually, but John had us all gasping on the day
he produced six assorted items from his satchel. Six was a record never to be
beaten, and John was supposed to be the innocent amongst us.
Stolen chocolate isn’t always enjoyable. On Cornwallis Avenue I
discovered a second Mars doesn’t taste half as good as a first one. I felt queasy,
but nowhere near as queasy as the time…
A twinge of discomfort in the trouser region, shortly
after leaving school, got progressively worse on the walk home. Something
wasn’t right, but the nature of the problem meant suffering in silence and
saying nothing to my friends. Whatever the cause, the soreness in my groins was getting worse. A sickening thought came to mind when I linked
the problem to the last lesson of the day – PE. Half crippled by the time I
arrived home, I dropped my pants and had my fears confirmed. The jolly pranksters had been at it again,
switching my string underpants with someone else's. If walking home in someone
else’s underpants wasn’t nauseating enough, a name tag identified them as the
property of... Urgh!
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