Now then, When I wur a lad….

When I was wee and I had curly hair and looked cute life outside school was fun. Me and Paul Midgely would either play on his swing and climbing frame to annoy his sister Andrea, play ball games with the other kids or go down to the field (where we were forbidden to go as that is were the bad men lived) and light controlled fires in an old bucket and observing from a safe distance what happened when certain things caught fire. It was a happy time and often we would break up the monotony by telling each other stories, play acting and going on adventures to other streets within the vicinity. Alas this happy time, as all happy times must, came to an end when Paul went to big school and we grew apart. I would only see Paul in passing and he would say hello and what not. So this continued right up until his family moved out of the area and I saw even less of Paul (I often wonder what he’s doing now, last I heard of him he was married and drove trucks or something).

The other kids in the road I grew up in were quite insular. Linda Peacock lived in number 44, nice girl but a bit weird. She kept wanting to play house and also seemed to spend lots of time smiling at me, blushing and running away.¹ Ian and Darren Vickery lived across the road; My mum said they were naughty boys and told me not to have anything to do with them. I told them this and they laughed. Sue and Peter Kayle lived in number 46, sister and elder brother, they had a sandpit and a giant scalectrics set (complete with dodgy transformer and Dukla Prague away kit); Neil Chase lived in number 32 – he was strange, he liked pink and Boy George last I heard he became a hairdresser on a cruise ship; at 25 lived John and Nichola; Kara lived at 55 opposite Christian and Darren Gore (who were also naughty boys and I was told not have anything to do with them either).

Of course as time passes in a suburban street kids come and go, Nichola and John mysteriously stopped coming out to play (their mother thought they were too posh to play with the other children); Kara’s dad lost his job and did an Arthur Fowler by going looney, throwing Kara and her mum out onto the street and frequently walking up and down our road wearing his trousers on his head; and Neil Chase’s parents moved house because they became tired of the homophobic taunts directed at their son; and Sue and Peter Kayles dad got a better paid job meaning they could move to a bigger house near to David Griffith’s house. But fortunately the next layer of kids my age to move into the area acted as a uniting influence bringing the remaining kids out of their homes. Enter stage left Stephanie and Chris into the house that the Kayles used to live.

The new arrivals brought with them the joys and happiness associated with childhood and past transgressions were soon forgotten. Happily we would gather near Stephanie and Chris’; some for companionship, one particular person to oggle me and others to lust after Stephanie with prepubescent stirrings. Me? I just wanted some friends outside school. So I too became a regular mingler having remained in the neighbourhoods collective memory by delivering the Liverpool Echo to the street after school. We were a harmless bunch of teenagers, gathering by the amber glow of the street light outside number 44 & 42 gossiping and sharing stories about notorious kids in our respective schools. Of course the elderly started to feel threatened by the small group of boys and girls gathering outside a house 4 doors away from theirs. Hell, we might have helped her up when she fell over and we may have offered to do her garden once when she was ill, because really we were good kids, but once the poisonous old bird started accusing us of playing “Knock Down Ginger” and causing her distress by tapping on her bedroom window², relationships soured and parents became vexed at us for loitering on the street “like common hoodlums”. Stephanie and Chris’ folks were quite “right on” so they donated part of their extra long garage to us to use as a hang out for the street kids. All well and good except the rot, divisions and GCSE revision time had already set in. Some stopped coming out because they had to do course work, some came out but formed private little cliques and hid in the privacy of Stephanie & Chris’ garage. Stephanie sought the warmth and comfort of a boyfriend. Me? Well I didn’t want to get involved in politics and actually thought it best that I put all my energies into my school work, so I did.

So why am I telling you all this? Well I just wanted to illustrate my youth to you and show the mechanics behind what and why we did what we did. Put simply we first found entertainment by climbing trees and being imaginative, then, as we got older, we progressed to a quieter less energetic pass-time. Before becoming studious creatures or getting jobs. By the time I was 17 I was occupying my spare time with choir things, experimenting with drink and generally doing things 17 year olds do. I first started going into pubs at about 17 mainly because I hung around with older kids anyway but also because I looked older than I was and I could smoke freely with the excuse that “I’ve been the pub” to explain to my mum and dad why my clothes stank of tobacco.

Now maybe it was because I lived in an affluent area, or maybe it was because I had a “sheltered” youth and lacked readily available “information”, but when I was “yoof” there really wasn’t much in the way of “afterschool” activities unless you happened to live in a socially deprived area in which case you would take up hobbies such as drug dealing, prostitution, shoplifting or the ever popular “hanging around bus shelters smoking”. Most of the local churches ran “Youth clubs” but these were frequented by saddos with parents that wanted their charges to enter the priesthood or, in some cases, the parish priest. Some of the schools had after school things like rugby, football and cricket; but really, as I’ve said, there wasn’t much else.

Wind forward 15 years, and by just flicking through the Merseymart or Liverpool Echo you can discover all sorts of news articles about kids doing well in competitions run by after school clubs, adverts for youth groups and activities and all manner of youth community events. Local transport is more reliable, kids get much more pocket money than I ever did (£1.30 a week which went on 20 Embassy Filter tip cigarettes). There are cinema’s the size of football stadiums, shopping malls that make your feet bleed, loads of stuff to do! And yet every night I see kids hanging round the bus shelters in Brierley looking bored, I see them smoking and drinking (probably emulating their own parents) and I still hear the cry, “Kids only cause trouble/smoke/drink because they have nothing to do”. Bollocks! They have a hell of a lot more to do than I ever did! Granted, a lot of the stuff and places I wanted to do and go to when I was a yoof, I didn’t do because I lacked the confidence to go to places on my own for fear of ridicule (a problem I still have to some extent today). Even in the quiet backwards backwater of Brierley, the local rag contains a wealth of news items about kids doing fun things. Now I reckon, and I could be very wrong here the only reason kids cause or get into trouble is because they want to (or they’re stupid and get caught). Does that seem too simplistic? Am I wrong to think that? Sure I could have gone down to the local shopping parade and begged passers by to nip into the off licence for 10 fags and a bottle of MD 20/20. Sure I would have gotten loads of pleasure swigging from cans of Tenants Super and urinating on old people. But I knew that doing stuff like that would only upset the old person and Tenants Super tasted like turps. So the answer to youth boredom? Easy….more homework and less bus stops….that’ll sort them out 😉

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¹ Turns out she fancied me rotten. Sadly I was very naieve and didn’t notice until she’d lost interest (at the age of 19)
² When it was discovered that her bedroom was on the first floor it soon became clear that the old dragon was a bit mad. She was later diagnosed with dementia and taken into a home where, I understand, she recently celebrated her 90th birthday.