Danny
30-04-2009, 09:15
HOW IT BEGAN…
Summer hols – week 2 – 1970 - Boredom had kicked in big style; we were hanging round the local playing fields eating crisps and drinking Fanta (pre-ring pull so you had to either use a fancy opener that punched a triangular hole or bang in a nail with a brick as we did)
We’d already watched the mobile Army recruitment show but the soldiers only had predatory eyes for the latest bunch of jobless school leavers so kept chasing us away.
Suddenly a murmur went round our gang; some older kids from the next estate were on our turf!
I recognised one of them, their leader - the fat Ginger kid, he had his cousin from London who turned up most summers and they were swaggering about on our home ground like they had a right.
As they passed us the lanky Cockney sneered contemptuously at the locals and tossed his hair back and we gaped in astonishment – he had an earring in! This was the first time we’d saw a male wearing one. How cool it looked!!
Later at home I badgered my sister into giving me one of her sleepers and she pierced mine with a safety pin with half a potato held behind it – couldn’t hardly sleep for the ache.
Next day I went back to meet up with my friend’s and no less than five out of the nine of us had got the same thing done! We sat and exchanged the stories to see who’d been the bravest, one lad claimed he’d done his own with a dart against the door frame of his bedroom and got stuck for two hours.
As soon as we got back to school we were forced to remove them but every weekend or holiday after that it went back in until I left school, kept it until my early twenties when they dipped out of style
Summer hols – week 2 – 1970 - Boredom had kicked in big style; we were hanging round the local playing fields eating crisps and drinking Fanta (pre-ring pull so you had to either use a fancy opener that punched a triangular hole or bang in a nail with a brick as we did)
We’d already watched the mobile Army recruitment show but the soldiers only had predatory eyes for the latest bunch of jobless school leavers so kept chasing us away.
Suddenly a murmur went round our gang; some older kids from the next estate were on our turf!
I recognised one of them, their leader - the fat Ginger kid, he had his cousin from London who turned up most summers and they were swaggering about on our home ground like they had a right.
As they passed us the lanky Cockney sneered contemptuously at the locals and tossed his hair back and we gaped in astonishment – he had an earring in! This was the first time we’d saw a male wearing one. How cool it looked!!
Later at home I badgered my sister into giving me one of her sleepers and she pierced mine with a safety pin with half a potato held behind it – couldn’t hardly sleep for the ache.
Next day I went back to meet up with my friend’s and no less than five out of the nine of us had got the same thing done! We sat and exchanged the stories to see who’d been the bravest, one lad claimed he’d done his own with a dart against the door frame of his bedroom and got stuck for two hours.
As soon as we got back to school we were forced to remove them but every weekend or holiday after that it went back in until I left school, kept it until my early twenties when they dipped out of style