Life Lessons

At home…

Dad summoned his oldest boys to the living room.

‘Gerard, David, Michael… come here!’

I almost bumped into Mam in the doorway as she hurried from the room with the little ones. Strange, I thought. At eight o’clock on a midweek evening Dad was usually getting ready to go to the pub. Something was up, but what?

‘Sit down and watch this,’ said Dad, pointing at the telly. ‘You’re better off seeing it here than seeing it when Toby pokes his head out from under your shirt one morning.’

Dad didn’t hang around once he’d got his message across. Leaving me and my brothers to watch a documentary on syphilis, he got changed and went for his pint.

Toby? We’d never heard it called that before, either.

 At school…

English lessons became Merchant of Venice lessons with members of the class, nominated by Mister Porter, reading parts in Shakespeare’s play. Richard Pascall read the part of Shylock the Jew.

‘I am a Jew.’

That raised a few smiles.

‘Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections…’

Richard wasn’t short of dimensions. He was the biggest, fattest kid in our year.

‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you…’

I gave up trying to follow it in the book. Listening to it was hard enough; though it amused me to hear big Richard speak of a pound of flesh.

The arrival of sunny days allowed us to escape the shade of the upper school playground and roam the field. A group of us finished up down by the perimeter fence, where youthful exuberance swept Clive Perry into thinking it’d be a good idea to nick Davinder’s turban. A big mistake. I closed my eyes when an enraged Davinder flew at him.

One dinner time… over by the cricket practice nets; a good game of football was spoiled by a bunch of older kids muscling in and using the game as an excuse to throw their weight around. Undaunted, I nipped in to take the ball off ringleader Tony Lawler’s toe and I agitated him further with some nifty footwork that foiled his clumsy attempts to get the ball back. Tony, a boisterous fifth year, wasn’t unknown to me. We’d both been on Bob Blood’s dinner table the year before but if I thought that gave us an affinity, I thought wrong. Even as I broke clear with the ball, he hooked my legs from under me and dumped me on my elbows.

Prefects: At a time when the school leaving age was fifteen, it seemed only the studious types stayed on for a fifth year and most, if not all, became prefects. Linda Parkhouse’s big brother was one prefect I knew of. His name was Steve, though I’d heard kids call him Polly, possibly because of his conk. He seemed an affable chap, but I was largely suspicious of prefects as they were largely suspicious of us. Sometimes they lay in wait, as John Weir and Pete ‘Slim’ Sharman did on the staircase coming off the main corridor… 

‘No talking!’

...to the upper school playground. Those two were a well known double act. Laurel and Hardy we called them.

A very special French lesson...

Much as I liked Mrs. Sharp, I really didn’t care for French. I thought it a waste of time. Since I felt no affinity to France and had no interest in ever going there, learning French seemed pointless. Je ne comprends pas was our get-out-of-jail-free card and I played it more than most, rather than attempt something clever and make un berk of myself.

After abandoning the daft seating arrangement she’d tried at the beginning of the year, Mrs Sharp had returned to a conventional classroom layout. In a row halfway down the classroom, I found myself sitting between Raymond Wright and Toni Walters. Raymond’s interest in French was on a par with mine and with Toni a far bigger attraction, he soon engaged her in a whispered tête-à-tête that had my eyes popping. Though I was shocked at the speed in which Raymond steered the conversation towards pubic hair, I had to admire his audacity.

‘What colour are hers?’ he whispered, pointing at one of the girls.

‘Brown,’ Toni sniggered.

I sat wide eyed as they talked across me.

‘What about hers?’

‘Black’

‘Hers?’

‘Ginger!’

Raymond and I struggled to contain our laughter as Toni let out a snort. Once we’d recovered, Raymond took the lead again. A glimpse of Toni’s stocking tops was enough for him to ask for a proper look. Toni, being an obliging girl, didn’t hesitate. She inched up her mini skirt to reveal a stocking top and suspender clip.

‘Let Gerard have a go at undoing it,’ said Raymond.

Bloody hell

Toni didn’t bat an eye as I gazed down at the softness of her white thigh.

‘Go on!’ Raymond hissed, giving me a nudge.

Raymond would have loved to have done it himself, I'm sure, but as he wasn’t the one sitting next to Toni, he had to be content with living his life through my fingertips as I fumbled with Toni’s suspenders.

I unhooked the stocking.

Wow!

Having gone as far as I dared, I then hooked the stocking back on the clip. In what was the best French lesson ever I also learned, from sighting a single wisp of curly hair, that le pubes de Toni were black. Ooh la la.