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| Scene of the 'crime': The foot of the grassy slope, several feet along from the stairs. The puddle was at the edge of the grass in the foreground. The school is just out of view on the right side of the photo |
Me and Ewan Shepherd weren't exactly what you'd call pals. However, between classmates, there existed a kind of unwritten rule that it was acceptable, in the absence of one's usual friends, to pass the time in the company of whichever fellow pupil was available when required. A sort of 'surrogate' pal in effect.
Such was the case on this particular day. School had finished and Ewan and I found ourselves in each other's company as we exited from the school gates. We made our way to his house, a mere two minutes (if) away from my own, to dump his schoolbag, but he met with an objection from his mother at going back out again. He pleaded, begged, cried, and implored until his poor mother relented. "15 minutes - no more!"
So we made our way to the swingpark beside a playing-field between our two houses. On the way, we ran into his older sister (Laura Isobel by name), who enquired where he was going and why he wasn't already home. She then took his hand and started to lead him back towards their house. Unsurprisingly, Ewan burst into tears and protested that he had permission to be out, but she was having none of it. I timidly piped up at the back "His mum said he could stay out for 15 minutes", whereupon she turned and looked at me as if I were a bad smell.
Then she simply shoved me hard in the chest. I fell backwards and landed in a large muddy puddle. As I lay there, spreadeagled and stunned into silence in my surprise, Ewan looked at me, ceased his crying, and burst into the irritating girlish giggle for which he was so renowned and ridiculed in equal measure. Then he simply turned his back and accompanied his nasty bitch of a sister home. Treacherous b*st*rd! This was my reward for my intercession on his behalf?
I would've thought, at the very least, in shame at his sister's behaviour, he'd have assisted me to my feet and apologised for her shocking act, but no, Ewan found it highly amusing. I was left on my own to extricate myself (with much squelching) from the sodden, muddy puddle and make my way home, there to explain my dufflecoat's soiled condition.
Needless to say, I took nothing to do with the wee pr*ck after that. Even amongst 'fill-in' friends, a certain degree of loyalty was expected, and Ewan had been found sadly lacking and fallen at the first hurdle. Perhaps to this day he looks back and wonders why he wasn't particularly popular at primary. (Certainly not with me anyway.)
If so, guess what? I could tell him!
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| Me and Ewan in a class photo. He's standing on a kerb behind me, hence the seemingly immense difference in our height |
16 comments:
The injustices served upon your good self sir are indeed long and reprehensible!
Come the day when these blaggarts should pay the price for their terrible misdeeds!!
Never mind,perhaps Some aspiring Hollywood scriptwriter will seize upon these foul tales of barbarism and skullduggery and make a blockbuster.....Hmm
Question being,..who would play the lead?
Answers on a postcard to the usual address....
I had a schoolfriend called Mark (more of an associate than a friend) who lived about half a mile away in a house owned by the Water Board (his father worked for the Water Board). I'd never been to his house and one day when I was around 8 years old he invited me to come over after school. As I was approaching his house his sister, Karen, appeared - Karen was a bit...er, backward...or mentally challenged or whatever the modern phrase is...and she started calling to me "Go home, Colin, go home". I felt rather scared and turned right round and went home !
Ya wee buggah, Moony - you're rippin' the p*ss out of my traumatic schooltime experiences, which have marked me for the rest of my life. H'mm what dark secrets are in your cupboard that I can expose? Tremble in fear. As for who'd play me, why, with a close shave, a schoolboy fringe, and a pair of shorts on, I'm young-looking enough to play myself. (Kindly note that the word 'with' does not appear between 'play' and 'myself'.)
******
Hell's bells, CJ, that scared me so much, I don't think I'll leave the house today. In fact, I'm off to hide under the blankets in case your acquaintance's family moved to my neck of the woods.
Kid, are you being sarcastic ? In truth, I didn't really want to go to his house anyway and his creepy sister shouting at me was the final straw.
No, I was being humourous. Trust me, you'd know if I were being sarcastic.
Close shave,schoolboy fringe and a pair of shorts? Bingo!,I've think I've got the very 'chappie',to play you.
None other than Jimmie Crankie him/herself!
Cue,Irrepressible laughter from the stalls...
But Jimmy Crankie isn't tall or slim enough to convey the essence of my auguste personage, Moony. He/she is short, fat, and clearly confused about his/her sexuality. It's only your lack of a schoolboy fringe which prevents him/her from being the perfect person to play your good self. (Unless you were to start using your hairy @rse strands [so your missus tells me] as a combover.)
Here's a little tale about the pranks that your fellow school pupils can play on you!
In 1965, in the Midlands, there was a partial eclipse of the sun and our Physics master said we could all go out into the quadrangle to look at it through soot-coated microscope slides which he was busy smoking up over a (yellow) bunsen burner flame. We were all little first year lads and another, older year form was also making its way out to view the phenomenon. After a while, a schoolfriend needed to visit the lav, so he asked me if I would watch his satchel while he went. So that I still had my hands free, I slipped it over the opposite shoulder to my own, so I was now wearing two, crossed diagonally. Two older lads came over and said, "Hey, look at this little swot! He's got TWO satchels!"
"Well, if he likes satchels so much, let's give him some more!" and they proceeded relieving all of the satchels from off all the little kids and draped them over my head and shoulders and started spinning me around and around! It got SO heavy that I couldn't even stand under the weight and I collapsed on the ground underneath a mountain of satchels!
A master then came out into the yard, but the satchels were SO tangled up, that he couldn't remove them and he had to cut through many of the leather straps with a penknife!
To find me, underneath the mountain, with soot all over my face, from off the microscope slide!
Schoolboy japes, eh?
What a laugh!
Great story, but if I were a parent, I don't think I would've liked any of my kids coming home with the straps of their satchels cut, JP. And by a teacher too! So I take it you were eclipsed by satchels, eh, and missed the one happening to the sun?
Har, har, Kid! The best part about it was though, afterwards, the master was mad at ME, for "being stupid and messing about"!?!?
In later years, after I had left school, I met up and became mates with one of the culprits!
"You'll never guess what this B@$-,@®d did to ME at school!", I would tell others....
You still mates with him today, JP?
What a badly organized class photo - most of Euan's face is hidden !
Actually, that's not entirely unusual for a class photo. However, you'd know (if you'd been paying attention in a previous post) that the photo was taken by a departing teacher (Mrs. Tighe) out in the playground in September 1967. Going by the composition of the full photograph, she wasn't much of a photographer. Besides, Euan didn't deserve to have his full (or should that be fool) face on show. Not when handsome me was there.
No, lost contact when we moved up North. Did see him again once though, when I went down the Midlands to stay with my Grandparents for a Summer Holiday. And he was still just as crazy as he ever was!
I wonder if age has mellowed him? I often wonder what happened to people I haven't seen in years.
I've now corrected the spelling of "Euan's" name, which was in fact "Ewan".
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