Casting one's mind back to the distant past is fun. It's amazing the things that you can and can't remember. Stories which haven't been told for a while need dusting off and telling.
For some reason I can't remember the name of the girl who was head-girl at LGHS in 1991. This is not important. All I know is that every time I try to think of her name it comes up as Maxine Carr, which is clearly not right.
Anyway, I was the geeky kid. My time at school was divided equally between lessons, the model railway club and the library - behind the desk, I wasn't doing schoolwork, I was being a librarian. God how sad does that sound?
Anyway, I have a bizarre memory which is really simple. Step 1, this girl turns up in the library and I have a brief chat with her and show her to the archives she'd come to research in. Step 2, I'm at some sort of sixth form disco, and I wander over to her to say hi, some rugby lads in the upper sixth, seeing the geeky kid talking to the pretty head girl, grab me by the shoulders and, kindly, but firmly, remove me. The message being something like "Sorry son, but you're simply not allowed to talk to her, you're the geeky kid and she's too hot".
It probably looked hilarious to onlookers. I was bundled in a non-bullying sort of way, away from this pretty girl, and left to contemplate the simple fact that she was not only out of my league, but I wasn't under school rules, even allowed to talk to her. I didn't mind. I was drunk. That was the school disco, held off site, where, if I remember correctly, I drank so much I was sick, and I asked the DJ for a request. The request was that I be allowed to sing the hymn Jerusalem. He let me (idiot!) and I'd brought a tuning fork especially for the occasion so I could get my key a capella. I think there was some subversive element to this cabaret, that it wasn't me just singing my favourite song unaware of how big a dick I looked. I think I put on a faux cabaret persona for the purpose.
I may be retrospectively misremembering it to make me look funnier than I am.
I don't remember the tail end of this story first hand. I'm going on what I was told. So, this next bit may or may not have happened. We were being given lifts home after the drunken night of debauchery that was this ball, held at the Astoria ballroom on the border of Harehills and Chapeltown (basically that's like saying it was no further than a stone's throw from the nearest prostitute/armed robber). Apparently I got into the back of the car, which was being driven by a friend's dad, and which would take me home. I forget exactly what the driver said that provoked the reaction I apparently gave. But let's imagine that it went something like this:
Driver: I hope you're not going to be sick in the back of my car.
Drunken Me: Shut up and drive. Cabbie!
What a dick!
Still, they were more innocent days, when a bottle of Holsten Pils could knock a man out.
For some reason I can't remember the name of the girl who was head-girl at LGHS in 1991. This is not important. All I know is that every time I try to think of her name it comes up as Maxine Carr, which is clearly not right.
Anyway, I was the geeky kid. My time at school was divided equally between lessons, the model railway club and the library - behind the desk, I wasn't doing schoolwork, I was being a librarian. God how sad does that sound?
Anyway, I have a bizarre memory which is really simple. Step 1, this girl turns up in the library and I have a brief chat with her and show her to the archives she'd come to research in. Step 2, I'm at some sort of sixth form disco, and I wander over to her to say hi, some rugby lads in the upper sixth, seeing the geeky kid talking to the pretty head girl, grab me by the shoulders and, kindly, but firmly, remove me. The message being something like "Sorry son, but you're simply not allowed to talk to her, you're the geeky kid and she's too hot".
It probably looked hilarious to onlookers. I was bundled in a non-bullying sort of way, away from this pretty girl, and left to contemplate the simple fact that she was not only out of my league, but I wasn't under school rules, even allowed to talk to her. I didn't mind. I was drunk. That was the school disco, held off site, where, if I remember correctly, I drank so much I was sick, and I asked the DJ for a request. The request was that I be allowed to sing the hymn Jerusalem. He let me (idiot!) and I'd brought a tuning fork especially for the occasion so I could get my key a capella. I think there was some subversive element to this cabaret, that it wasn't me just singing my favourite song unaware of how big a dick I looked. I think I put on a faux cabaret persona for the purpose.
I may be retrospectively misremembering it to make me look funnier than I am.
I don't remember the tail end of this story first hand. I'm going on what I was told. So, this next bit may or may not have happened. We were being given lifts home after the drunken night of debauchery that was this ball, held at the Astoria ballroom on the border of Harehills and Chapeltown (basically that's like saying it was no further than a stone's throw from the nearest prostitute/armed robber). Apparently I got into the back of the car, which was being driven by a friend's dad, and which would take me home. I forget exactly what the driver said that provoked the reaction I apparently gave. But let's imagine that it went something like this:
Driver: I hope you're not going to be sick in the back of my car.
Drunken Me: Shut up and drive. Cabbie!
What a dick!
Still, they were more innocent days, when a bottle of Holsten Pils could knock a man out.
1 Comments:
I was there. You swore more than you suggest, but you did indeed tell Matthew's father to shut up and drive. You are also correct in thinking that you called him cabbie. Well done sir.
Good times.
Post a Comment
<< Home