the 5 most embarrassing moments of my life...?
Like the sub-title says...
1. My emergence into the schoolyard at Richard Atkins Junior School, Streatham, South London.
Which occurred at age 8. You may not know it but I have a deformity of the left hand and arm which in effect leaves me with a flipper (Would you like to meet my flipper? Her name is mademoiselle an' she speaks wiz a French accent...). I was the first such creature ever to grace the precincts of the Richard Atkins schoolyard and my advent made quite a stir. To such good effect that my tenure in that abominable place was marked by unending conflict between myself and everyone who was not like me - which meant everyone else. I battled them on my way to school, at school and on my way home. I won some. I lost more. But nothing was ever more painful than the searing embarrassment I felt when it became obvious to me and everyone else that I was not the same - and my difference was not to be tolerated.
2. My interview with the Head Teacher of Richard Atkins.
To this day, nearly forty years later, I have not forgiven this egregious bitch, nor will I, ever. As I've said, conflict between my peers and myself (which ranged from one on one, to one against fifteen or twenty, to being harried through the streets by groups of kids throwing half-bricks at me) was endemic and perpetual. On one occasion I gained one of my rare victories, waylaying one of my tormentors on his own and burying my fist so deep in his gut I can swear I felt his spine against my knuckles. It was a moment of the sweetest satisfaction but very short-lived. I had been observed by one of the non-teaching staff who monitored playground activity and was immediately hauled off (literally, by the ear-lobe) to the head teacher's office (or the office of the principle, as you say here). Where I was told in no uncertain terms that I brought my troubles on myself through my violence and unwillingness to leave others untroubled, and that I had no one to blame for my difficulties but myself. Of course, I had no response to make but an embarressed silence: I was nine years old and completely incapable of expressing to anyone, even myself, what the reality of my life in that place was like. I knew it, but couldn't speak of it and it's from that moment that I date my absolute distrust of all forms of authority. I had hate, and I had rage, but I had nothing but impotent silence with which to communicate them - and it was that impotence that I found caustically embarrassing.
3. The day I almost murdered Quinlan.
This is an embarrassing incident - or it was when it occurred - but I confess that, even to this day, I take a sneaking sort of pride in it. I first met Quinlan when I went to Tulse Hill Comprehensive School, in South London. Tulse Hill stood eight storeys high, had a population of almost two thosand kids on its books, and was one of the most notorious schools in London. Street battles between rival gangs using broken bottles and bike chains were not uncommon, and you could buy ganga (local Jamaican slang for marijuana) in match boxes on almost any corridor of the school. Quinlan was an Irish kid of minimal intelligence but immense spite who made up for his stupidity by making himself the sidekick of whatever coterie of thugs was currently in power. I hated him and he hated me: not because I'm a gimp but because it appealed to him to hate me.
I hated him because he was a nasty little bastard, and I wanted to see him die. And it was embarrassment that stopped me killing him. I shared a 'form room' (the equivalent of a 'home room' I think) with him - on the seventh storey of the building. It was customary, after registration (roll call?), that we be left alone as a group for a few minutes before dispersing to class. Quinlan was a venial, grasping little swine who would do almost anything imaginable for a few pennies. So I bet him (he was addicted to gambling) that he wouldn't climb out of the window (bear in mind the room was seven stories up) - and that if he would I would give him the equivalent of a dime. Being the greedy little fool that he was he immediately opened one of the windows, climbed through and out, and hung suspended by his fingertips well over a hundred feet in the air. At which point I started to close the window.
I don't think I've ever seen anything quite as white as his face as he realised what I was doing. He started to scream, extremely loudly, tears pouring down his face (because he could see that I intended to slam the window on his fingers: I simply wanted to torture him for awhile - vile, detestable runt that he was) as he begged me to let him back in. I don't think I've known moments quite so sweet as those in which that insignificant piece of filth begged for his life - but it was a sweetness tempered by the growing awareness that his screams were drawing unwanted attention - and I found myself mortified by the idea of having to explain why it was that I'd killed the little shit. Killing him would have been wonderful: explaining why seemed tawdry and cheap. So I brought the window as close down on his fingers as I dared - and then relented, and let the bawling little swine back in. It was a long, long time before he troubled me again.
4. My very first kiss.
As a child and an adolescent and a young man I was never exactly precocious when it came to girls. When it came to women I was still a virgin when I married for the first time at age 26. And prior to that I hadn't been kissed by a girl since I was eleven, and received my first ever kiss from a female who was not a blood relation. This occurred in my first year at Tulse Hill, long before the incident with Quinlan (while I'm thinking back to these times I'm reminded of my first ever sexual obsession, and the first time I had sex, with a blonde blue-eyed psychotic demi-god called Paul, a year older than myself (I was 13 at the time) and by far the toughest kid I ever met , who kicked the living shit out of anyone I suggested he ought to - because he thought I was the best thing since sliced bread).
I used to take the number 37 (or was it 137?) bus along Streatham High Street, and then a ten or fifteen minute walk from the stop, to get home. Along the way I passed the gates of Ravensdale School, which had a mixed population of boys and girls (whereas Tulse Hill was a boys-only single sex institution). All the girls who attended Ravensdale were widely known as 'slappers' (whores, in effect) and were notorious for being the easiest lays in South London - whether this was true or not I have my doubts - but certainly the girls of Ravensdale were legendary. And I found the mere sight of them peculiarly disturbing, so did my best to avoid them - which naturally attracted their attention. They finished up their day 30 minutes later than we did (since Ravensdale came under a different Education Authority) which meant they were all streaming out of the gates to go home just as I was passing them.
One of these crazed nymphettes decided she liked me (at the time I had blue-black curly hair that reached past my shoulders, I was slim as a reed and had a complexion whiter than milk and the blackest eyes imaginable: I was, in fact, an Elfin Prince - and I knew it. Many were the nasty old men who sat next to me on the bus on my way home and tried to strike up a conversation lol). This little.... tartlette... made the last few hundred yards of my journey home a nightmare over succeeding weeks, constantly walking beside me, no matter how fast I walked, and wheedling for a kiss. It wasn't that I didn't think she was pretty, she was. I just didn't want to kiss her. But eventually, and as an act of desperation carried out in the hope of getting rid of her, I finally agreed. I would kiss her.
What she was expecting I'm not entirely sure.... but what she got was the swiftest, lightest, most fleeting peck on the cheek that I could manage - much to her disgust. She was outraged. "Call that a kiss" she shrieked. "I'm gonna tell my boyfriend about you AND HE"S GONNA KICK YOUR HEAD IN." To this day I don't know which was more embarrassing - the fact that she had a boyfriend, or the fact that he was going to give me a serious kicking (which never transpired) because I didn't know how to kiss.
5. The night I peed the bed at Udge's
I've no doubt that, nowadays, dear old Udge would be locked away for being a danger to kids. I've no doubt that his fondness for young boys was just a little too... intense to go unsuspected in these less innocent times. But back in the day (1969/1970) Udge was a harmless old curmudgeon who did the socially useful task of running a 'youth club'. This involved twelve or fifteen boys meeting once a week in a decrepit building belonging to the local Council, to play five-a-side football, table tennis, and snooker (the grown up version of pool).
Every so often, Udge would take us on educational trips. One never to be forgotten occasion saw us visiting the Public Gallery of the House of Commons, listening (while shifting about uncomfortably and whispering to each other) to some tedious and unintelligible debate, and then descending en masse on some misbegotten flyspeck of a greasy-spoon cafe for a feast of bangers n mash - you would say 'sausage and mashed potato' - except that the english banger is nothing remotely like the effette and soul-less concotion referred to as 'sausage' here - followed by a walk through Hyde Park in the deep and misty dusk and an encounter with a group of Roe Deer.
Udge had a house at Hastings (where the Battle was fought and King Harold got an arrer in 'is eye) which featured a very large bed in which both Udge and five or six boys could all sleep quite comfortably. Unless of course one of the said boys became hopelessly over-excited (God knows, Hastings is an exciting place...) and .... ummmm... forgot himself during the night. Which I of course did. I'm not sure that there is anything more mortifying to a pre-adolescent boy than to have four or five other pre-adolescent boys all howling in the middle of the night that he's urinated on them.
Ah well. C'est la vie. And Udge (though I now see that he was something of a pervert) was an absolute trooper and did his best to make me feel better about myself. A pervert he might have been - but Udge was definitely a gentleman.
I believe I'm supposed to tag someone else now. Lucas, BakerStreet, Cactoblasta - you're it."