Matches

All was quiet when Miss Lake left the classroom. Then the whispering started. In no time at all the room was full of raucous laughter.

Our form teacher was shaking with rage when she returned; giving us the full hands on hips, foot stamping treatment. ‘I could hear you all the way down the corridor. Can’t I leave you alone for five minutes? You’re 2A1, you should know better!’

Everyone looked sheepish. We knew we’d let her down.

‘This is the worst class I’ve ever taught!

Our disgrace was complete, and so was my 100% record. Just about every class I’d ever been in had been someone’s worst class. I must have been a jinx.

A dislike for Mister Potts led to a dislike for Geography. I wasn’t keen on cars or Germans either, yet somehow I got roped into a three man project about Mercedes Benz. Thank goodness for Raymond Wright. At least he had some interest in the idea. He took the initiative, taking care of the organising and collating. What the other stooge did I don’t know, I just kept my head down and copied every word from every magazine article Raymond shoved in front of me.

Come the day of the big cross country run I huffed and puffed around The Great Lines, bettering my first year performance by a couple of places. Breaking into the top thirty was no great sporting achievement but with a hundred or so second year boys competing, I was quietly pleased. At least mine was an honest effort. A handful of older boys were caught taking a short cut on their course and were subsequently named and shamed in assembly. Far from looking upon them with scorn, I admired their nerve.

Football was my game and I loved it when football got the vote over rugby in a double PE lesson. Thirty of more being too many for one match, half of us went with Mister Charlesworth to one pitch while the rest of us went to another with Mister McDouall.

After scoring in one of these matches I made a beeline for Peter Burtenshaw at the final whistle. He’d been playing on the adjacent pitch and I couldn’t wait to tell him about my goal. Neither of us were prolific scorers but we’d had a tanner bet on who’d get the most goals in PE matches that season.

‘I scored!’

‘So did I!”

Bastard. That made it two each, so far.

On a cold but bright Saturday I went to see Burty. From his home at The Anglo Saxon pub we went out and bought some fireworks. Or rather, he bought some fireworks. After setting off some bangers, we ended up in a back alley near Saxton Street, where Burty invited me to light a Green Goddess. Not particularly daring, but I enjoyed seeing the alley fill with green smoke before we hopped it.

Lighting a firework for the first time gave me a buzz. We always had fireworks in our back garden on bonfire night but that was different, Mam bought those and Dad did the setting off. I wanted to do my own setting off, but without any money…

I lowered my sights to a box of coloured matches. I’d seen bigger kids playing with them and I knew how to flick them. Holding the matchbox in one hand, with a thumb keeping the match on the striking pad, they flicked the match and sent it spinning through the air, alight.

I lowered my sights again when Mam sent me on an errand to Twydall shops, as an ordinary box of matches was easily attainable and made little impact on Mam’s change.

With Mam’s shopping bag hung on my arm I happily dawdled home, flicking matches all the way.

Goudhurst Road: Flick, fizz! Flick, fizz!

Minster Road... Flick, fizz! Flick, fizz!

Crundale Road… Flick, fizz!

Just a hundred yards from home, near the entrance to the alley that led down to Wingham Close, I flicked another match but instead of spinning away, like the rest, this one came straight up at my face. Instinctively, I slapped my hand to it. A big mistake, I knew, when I felt the hot sulphur on my eyelid. Play with matches and you get burned. Lesson learned. Ouch!

In the news…

The Battle of Montevideo. Celtic played Racing Club in the dirtiest football match I've ever seen.