Saturday 23 January 2010
08:56 | Posted by
Dale Darley |
I didn’t know it at the time, but the weekend I fainted in Linda’s’ Gran’s flat in Shard End, would be my last weekend as a school child. Shard End had an empty second floor council flat, a record player, 2 beds and no grown ups. Each weekend since we had discovered that her grandparents had gone to Scotland to manage a caravan park we hitch hiked there, usually in lorries with greasy fat men, took the key from its hiding place and spent it in wild party mode, lying to our parents about where we were. It was easy; they didn’t care where we were as long as we weren’t bothering them.
That last weekend feeling, adventurous I found some tablets in the bathroom cupboard, which cried ‘take in the morning’, so I did, all of them, but with no food in me, it was no wonder, a short while later whilst having my hundredth wee, I fainted. My little experiment made it hard for us to get home, but we did. What I couldn’t have foreseen was that when we got home, Lynne’s father, tall, rather well fed, his fat tummy poking through his untucked shirt, stinking of fags, a company director with an air of self importance would tell us both that we had been found out, something about the loud music and a neighbour complaining.
He demanded that I ‘fessed’ myself up to my parents. He scared me, especially as Linda and I had recently, inadvertently found pictures in his brief case of a naked woman, legs wide open, in his bedroom who wasn’t his wife. Why we didn’t blackmail him there and then I don’t know. Feeling ill, I did as I was told.
Later that week I got something else I wasn’t expecting, expelled from school. The class registers of both myself and Linda had been compared and it was discovered that we had both missed an entire term. Being the one with the most to lose I was expelled whilst she was allowed to stay, I put this down to her dad being a ‘director’ and mine was just a sergeant in the RAF. This time I couldn’t face my father, so I called him at work, expecting the usual telling off, the sting of his words, ‘are you mental or what?’ wrenched my heart. I held back the tears and swallowed hard, he simply put the phone down on me.
Dad had a philosophy on life; you could do whatever you liked as long as you didn’t get caught. And caught I duly was, twice in one week. I was certainly my fathers’ daughter, a rebel, I think he quite liked it, but equally hated the fuss when he had to deal with my games. Mental, no, naughty, yes, bored, yes, ignored, yes. No one talked or looked at me that week, a nobody, whilst, I slightly unconcerned, relished my new found freedom. During the day I visited the beach, the pub for games of darts and pool, and trips to Cardiff. At night I sat in my room and plotted my escape, freedom from these unhappy people who didn’t acknowledge me, freedom at last to be me.
Cardiff was fun, shops to wander around, clothes to try on and people to gaze at. Who were they, where had they come from, where were they going, were they free? Even the odd looking man who came to talk to me outside C&A seemed fun, despite his boring drab clothes and wiry ruffled yellowy blonde hair that seemed to sit on his head like an unruly thatched roof. He had the remnants of a secretly scoffed chocolate bar around his mouth, shiny blobs caught in the corners, making him look almost clown like. I talked to him; I talked to anyone, did and still do. At the time of course, I didn’t know he was on the streets looking for bored aimless young people, so when he invited me for ‘a nice cup of tea’ with some other friends I went along. My antenna, that thing they call instinct switched off.
The bright blue plain door above the shop opened to some steep stairs and a sitting room. Lulled by the tea and chocolate, I was invited away for the weekend, no cost, just lots of others like them, having fun. I am not sure I really knew what they were, right at that point, all my young ears heard was ‘weekend away’. With no-one to question my decision, that Friday just 3 days after leaving school for the very last time, I was sitting on a mini bus, with the aliens. Bemused and confused, I took furtive looks at them, they all had a distant look in their eyes, their clothes had no colour, they had no colour, no personality. They opened their mouths and catchy little songs about god flowed forth. But apart from that there was nothing.
It was part way along the journey to Stanton or Norton Fitzwarren or wherever we were going that I started to get that funny feeling in my tummy. Perhaps I wasn’t free, perhaps the aliens were going to eat me or kill me or something worse. As wild thoughts spilled wildly and madly around my brain, the songs were beginning to filter through, why were they singing the same songs all of the time, nothing made sense so I gave trying to work it out and added my small voice to theirs.
Sometime later, we arrived at a beautiful farm, more aliens and other waifs looking just like me, all mingling, grey smiles glued to pasty faces, more songs and somewhere a guitar being strummed. Wandering aimlessly around, looking for signs of life, I let them herd me to my dormitory, then to large wooden table for prayers and food. Great food, fresh from the farm, real food, brightly coloured vegetables contrasted against the dull people sitting around me. Then more songs. I welcomed the early bedtime and wondered how I could escape. Cocooned in my bunk bed, an over active fertile mind retraced my steps, out through the door, through the muddy tractor tracks into the lane, but which way? If I ran surely they would know and capture me, then what?
The following day I woke up, felt myself, yes I was all still there. After washing we had another great meal, fresh food from the farm you couldn’t beat it, and yet more prayers and songs. I was still on another planet. Imagine my surprise when after the delicious if somewhat tuneful breakfast, we were herded into a classroom. Cream walls, 2 windows with views of the countryside, lots of wooden chairs, there must have been at least 50 people in that room and at the front a grey teacher with a flipchart.
The next two days were hell on earth, trapped once more in the classroom, with no unescorted time to myself. Richard my yellow haired new best friend by my side. Lectures from early in the morning to late at night, interspersed with food and more of those catchy little ditties. This was worse than school! The drone of the lecturers’ voice kept sending me into a lull, tales of Christ and his reincarnation boring me. As my mind drifted in and out of the room I was shocked to hear that Reverend Sun Myung Moon was indeed the second coming of Christ. So that’s what we were here for, the aliens wanted to turn us into moon children! My heightened senses told me, I must escape, I must escape. These people were nuts and I wanted to go home to face my punishment. My dad was right I was mental.
Surprisingly, they let us go. Back in Cardiff, I was taken to a private room and asked what I thought. My disdain for the whole weekend poured forth, no mercy here. I rabited on whilst the looks on their faces grew ever more concerned. No said yellow top you are not right for us, you can’t come back. With the weekend I left school over, I went home once again to tell my tale. Home sweet home, angry parents, no money, no job, no qualifications. Being made an example off seemed so much better than an arranged marriage and a life of walking the streets looking for others to brainwash. I was free.
Copyright : Jacqui Malpass : 2008
That last weekend feeling, adventurous I found some tablets in the bathroom cupboard, which cried ‘take in the morning’, so I did, all of them, but with no food in me, it was no wonder, a short while later whilst having my hundredth wee, I fainted. My little experiment made it hard for us to get home, but we did. What I couldn’t have foreseen was that when we got home, Lynne’s father, tall, rather well fed, his fat tummy poking through his untucked shirt, stinking of fags, a company director with an air of self importance would tell us both that we had been found out, something about the loud music and a neighbour complaining.
He demanded that I ‘fessed’ myself up to my parents. He scared me, especially as Linda and I had recently, inadvertently found pictures in his brief case of a naked woman, legs wide open, in his bedroom who wasn’t his wife. Why we didn’t blackmail him there and then I don’t know. Feeling ill, I did as I was told.
Later that week I got something else I wasn’t expecting, expelled from school. The class registers of both myself and Linda had been compared and it was discovered that we had both missed an entire term. Being the one with the most to lose I was expelled whilst she was allowed to stay, I put this down to her dad being a ‘director’ and mine was just a sergeant in the RAF. This time I couldn’t face my father, so I called him at work, expecting the usual telling off, the sting of his words, ‘are you mental or what?’ wrenched my heart. I held back the tears and swallowed hard, he simply put the phone down on me.
Dad had a philosophy on life; you could do whatever you liked as long as you didn’t get caught. And caught I duly was, twice in one week. I was certainly my fathers’ daughter, a rebel, I think he quite liked it, but equally hated the fuss when he had to deal with my games. Mental, no, naughty, yes, bored, yes, ignored, yes. No one talked or looked at me that week, a nobody, whilst, I slightly unconcerned, relished my new found freedom. During the day I visited the beach, the pub for games of darts and pool, and trips to Cardiff. At night I sat in my room and plotted my escape, freedom from these unhappy people who didn’t acknowledge me, freedom at last to be me.
Cardiff was fun, shops to wander around, clothes to try on and people to gaze at. Who were they, where had they come from, where were they going, were they free? Even the odd looking man who came to talk to me outside C&A seemed fun, despite his boring drab clothes and wiry ruffled yellowy blonde hair that seemed to sit on his head like an unruly thatched roof. He had the remnants of a secretly scoffed chocolate bar around his mouth, shiny blobs caught in the corners, making him look almost clown like. I talked to him; I talked to anyone, did and still do. At the time of course, I didn’t know he was on the streets looking for bored aimless young people, so when he invited me for ‘a nice cup of tea’ with some other friends I went along. My antenna, that thing they call instinct switched off.
The bright blue plain door above the shop opened to some steep stairs and a sitting room. Lulled by the tea and chocolate, I was invited away for the weekend, no cost, just lots of others like them, having fun. I am not sure I really knew what they were, right at that point, all my young ears heard was ‘weekend away’. With no-one to question my decision, that Friday just 3 days after leaving school for the very last time, I was sitting on a mini bus, with the aliens. Bemused and confused, I took furtive looks at them, they all had a distant look in their eyes, their clothes had no colour, they had no colour, no personality. They opened their mouths and catchy little songs about god flowed forth. But apart from that there was nothing.
It was part way along the journey to Stanton or Norton Fitzwarren or wherever we were going that I started to get that funny feeling in my tummy. Perhaps I wasn’t free, perhaps the aliens were going to eat me or kill me or something worse. As wild thoughts spilled wildly and madly around my brain, the songs were beginning to filter through, why were they singing the same songs all of the time, nothing made sense so I gave trying to work it out and added my small voice to theirs.
Sometime later, we arrived at a beautiful farm, more aliens and other waifs looking just like me, all mingling, grey smiles glued to pasty faces, more songs and somewhere a guitar being strummed. Wandering aimlessly around, looking for signs of life, I let them herd me to my dormitory, then to large wooden table for prayers and food. Great food, fresh from the farm, real food, brightly coloured vegetables contrasted against the dull people sitting around me. Then more songs. I welcomed the early bedtime and wondered how I could escape. Cocooned in my bunk bed, an over active fertile mind retraced my steps, out through the door, through the muddy tractor tracks into the lane, but which way? If I ran surely they would know and capture me, then what?
The following day I woke up, felt myself, yes I was all still there. After washing we had another great meal, fresh food from the farm you couldn’t beat it, and yet more prayers and songs. I was still on another planet. Imagine my surprise when after the delicious if somewhat tuneful breakfast, we were herded into a classroom. Cream walls, 2 windows with views of the countryside, lots of wooden chairs, there must have been at least 50 people in that room and at the front a grey teacher with a flipchart.
The next two days were hell on earth, trapped once more in the classroom, with no unescorted time to myself. Richard my yellow haired new best friend by my side. Lectures from early in the morning to late at night, interspersed with food and more of those catchy little ditties. This was worse than school! The drone of the lecturers’ voice kept sending me into a lull, tales of Christ and his reincarnation boring me. As my mind drifted in and out of the room I was shocked to hear that Reverend Sun Myung Moon was indeed the second coming of Christ. So that’s what we were here for, the aliens wanted to turn us into moon children! My heightened senses told me, I must escape, I must escape. These people were nuts and I wanted to go home to face my punishment. My dad was right I was mental.
Surprisingly, they let us go. Back in Cardiff, I was taken to a private room and asked what I thought. My disdain for the whole weekend poured forth, no mercy here. I rabited on whilst the looks on their faces grew ever more concerned. No said yellow top you are not right for us, you can’t come back. With the weekend I left school over, I went home once again to tell my tale. Home sweet home, angry parents, no money, no job, no qualifications. Being made an example off seemed so much better than an arranged marriage and a life of walking the streets looking for others to brainwash. I was free.
Copyright : Jacqui Malpass : 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments: