u3a Rewind: A lads night out
Written by Roger, Belper u3a
A lads night out
Story of a fifteen-year-old uncouth dyslexic Teddy Boy.
My youth club friends and newly found younger workmates always went out on the town on Friday nights for a pub crawl, they encouraged me to go along with them although I was three years too young to drink legally. I looked of age, even at thirteen I did have to pay full fare on the buses, when I asked for half fare, the conductor would threaten to throw me off if I declined to pay the full adult fare, so getting into a pub presented no problems for me and the encouragement given was not needed. If there ever was a raid on a pub by the police looking for underage drinking, most landlords would know about it before it happened, and those underage would quickly disappear. I was brazened and daft enough to stick a raid out; the worst that could happen was a ticking off from the Landlord and Police. Today no doubt the landlord may lose his license, and the young person would get an ASBO and yet the government had wondered why at eighteen plus young people go binge drinking and were unable to handle it and it costs the taxpayer to police them. My granddaughter was approached by a Policeman while drinking a bottle of cider with her friends on a summer’s day in the park, they were all threatened but they refused to say where they purchased it, clearly breaking down their relationship with the Police, all they needed was advice from the Policeman. One answer made by our government to curb drinking for the young was to put the price up per unit of alcohol, yeah, clearly that did not do the trick, the government recently has allowed alcohol to be sold at motorway service stations, the only thought is avaraice for the rich not welfare of folk.
Now I was working and had money in my pocket for the weekend, this however would not last long as all would be spent by Sunday night then one would have to wait again for Friday to come around for another pay packet. My parents still supported me in those first few years of my working life. Everyone was now at work in my household except for my very old Aunt who was retired and financially loaded but didn’t know it.
I had been through the rituals of the Saturday afternoon trips to town with the lads from the youth club, where it seemed each week, one or the other of us was buying a suit on tick from the tailors. We would all meet up to catch a bus into town then head to our favorite tailor, we would stand around and watch the lucky guy of the day pick out his material, black with gold fleck, white with silver, or other fashionable colours of the day. We would point out our choice of linings to help the guy out. The assistant then would take over and start to take the measurements while asking the usual questions, “Half drape or full drape, velvet collar or plain, one button or two buttons, fourteen-inch bottoms or sixteen-inch, turn-ups or no turn-ups.”
After a deposit was paid, we then headed off to the shoe shop for another lad who wanted a pair of beetle crushers / brothel creepers with one-inch soles, then off with someone else to buy a cut-back collared shirt in light blue with a lace tie to match, then on to the barber’s shop for a blow wave for some of us, then we would wander down to the Co-Op Record Bar to buy the latest extended play hit record. Here I purchased my very first record ‘The Great Pretender’by Conway Twitty and managed to get my very first date with the salesgirl who had the very latest tulip cut hairstyle, which wasn’t the norm. The relationship did not last long her milkman father chased me from her front doorstep on several occasions and I got fed up with the hassle from him and the long walk home. Finally, however, our group would all finish up at the coffee bar for an American Express coffee. Week after week we trod this addictive path until all of us were fully kitted out. As we walked around the town, I say walked, most of us were trying to swagger as if to get into an unheard rhythm. Sometimes as we tried to walk the walk, we did not quite manage it and fell over our own blue suede shoes. The older public usually made way for us on the pavement I expect we did look a frightful sight. I dare say today some of the same guys who are now drawing their pensions will now be making way as they see a group of shaved-headed youngsters who have tattoos and body piercings coming towards them, but it is now their time to enjoy youth and their fashion.
We all had learnt how to prepare ourselves for our Friday/ Saturday night out, it was an art form, but at least we did not have to screw ironmongery into our nose’s eyebrows, ears or any other part of our anatomy.
The first job after putting a Rock and Roll record on the gramophone was to press your trousers which were known as drainpipes due to the narrow bottoms, this was done with a hot iron and a clean damp tea towel pressing very hard, then finishing the pressing with some brown paper, if you could cut your finger on the crease, you had done a good job. Next, you iron your shirt, leave laid out while you have a scrub, practice isometrics while washing under the arms, screw the corner of the flannel up to poke ears out, clean your teeth, shave off the bum fluff on your chin, straighten sideburns while always wishing they were longer, pinch dads cologne, dab under arms, cut and clean fingernails as you might get lucky with a girl. Find clean kecks and yellow Florissant socks, steam suede shoes over a boiling kettle, and finish off with a small wire brush. Squeeze feet through narrow bottoms of drainpipes, put the shirt on, take out melted or damaged plastic pieces of shirt collar stiffener and replace with two matchsticks or cherry sticks. Find your large, buckled belt and thread it through your trousers. Select Slim Jim or lace tie. Buff up your white metal skull tie piece toddle on the back of the settee, thread lace tie through and place round the neck, find matching cuff links, buff the same to add to the shirt, put on slightly damp shoes, take the drape off the clothes hanger and slide into it, now face the mirror checking all points, sponge the velvet collar lightly with a damp cloth to remove spec of dandruff or your girls’ friends face powder, clothe-brush jacket. Then apply a liberal coating of Brylcreem to your hair, if you have run out of this use liquid paraffin, however, this will come off on your pillow in bed bringing your hair colour with it, if neither of these two is available a light mixture of soap and water will get you by for the night so long as you do not bang your head cracking the hard crust or it is raining hard. Now spend the next quarter of an hour getting every hair in place finishing off with one good straight slice down the back of your head for the perfect DA. Check with another mirror, a slanting duck’s arse will not do. Place the comb in your inside pocket then wash your hands carefully. Dig out the matching skull ring from the soap dish, rinse, and place it on your little finger. Place expanding bracelet watch on the wrist taking care not to trap hairs when flicking it into position, and put a clean handkerchief in your trouser pocket, the less endowered guys can roll them up to elevate their manhood. Undo the new packet of ten fat Senior Service cigarettes and place them in the empty twenty-packet you saved from the week before when you splashed out, or better still borrow your old man's silver cigarette case to make an even better impression. Then when you are in female company you can flip it open with one hand remove a cigarette, tap it twice on the closed case lid before bringing the cigarette slowly up towards your mouth before throwing it the last few inches and catching it with your lips, then you can slide the cigarette case smoothly back into your inside jacket pocket, but to continue, place a clean handkerchief in the top jacket pocket if you haven’t got that piece of cardboard cutout with three points wrapped in handkerchief material that came with your new suit, place one piece of chewing gum in your mouth, pick up your money, put your last thin Park Drive cigarette in the corner of your mouth, don’t light if you're using liquid paraffin until your outside, stand back from the mirror dance up and down on the balls of your feet, point at your refection, click your fingers and you are ready for a night on the town.
As usual, nobody was in on Friday night, so I made my aunt a sandwich, banked the fire up for her with slag and coal dust to make it last the evening, then fastened the fire guard on tight with some twisted wire, then put the radio on for her, kissed her forehead and said, “I’ll see you, babe.” She then would ask me again for the third time with a different name, “Are you a lift boy now George?”
After catching the number 31 trolleybus into town, it was straight off and into the doors of the Royal Exchange pub. Here I was to meet my new workmates, old schoolmates, and youth club members. One such mate was J an exceptional lad who had been brought up in a violent family surrounding, he and his elder brother used to get pasted by their bully of a father, both boys were very handsome and had strong physiques, I had seen their father take a poker to J and whip him on the back with it. Both lads had now grown much bigger and much stronger, and they had both put there farther in his place, for now, he was the old cockerel and was a broken man and was to lurk in the corner of their sitting room, we use to see him twitching on the occasions we called for J. J was loud and confident and now was a womanizer and had to date one child somewhere and was to spread his seeds around many times in the future, when J left school, he took a job on the bread round and was to soon learn how to drive an electric bread van he moved on to a three ton lorry and finally to a heavy goods vehicle by the age of twenty-one. He always earned more money than me. I did expect to catch him up and earn more than him at the age of twenty-one after I had finished my apprenticeship. This was not going to be the case as our society changed, as people could earn more money putting on one car wheel nut on a production line, day in, day out, than a skilled mechanical fitter, who could build the whole damn car himself, so much for consumerization. We were to take J to the seaside a few months later, he had never ever seen the sea before, he ran in fully clothed he was like a five-year-old. J was eventually to finish running his own business, stripping out blue asbestos from factories boiler rooms, nobody asked him where he got rid of it. He was later to become the first millionaire to come out of class M4. One night we asked him how he managed to pick up so many girls, while others and I were struggling,
“You just sniff them out and then go and ask them, you see those two over there, I’ve had my eye on one of them.”
At that he was off across the pub like a terrier as if one of them were on heat, we watched him chat, we watched him get a slap, and he returned, “No good there,” he said, “She is waiting for her husband.”
We laughed at him. Two other girls came into the pub he was off again chasing and chatting to them before they reached the bar. To my utter surprise, they even bought him a drink. He was doing something I could never do. In a short time, he was back at our table for his half-finished drink.
“Do you know them,” I asked?
“No, never seen them in my life before, but I am in with one of them.”
“Which one,” I was interested to know.
“The one on the left.”
I said the other one was prettier,
“Don’t care about that,” he said, “all I want is my tail away, I’ll see you, lads, later.”
He scampered off again and joined the girls.
He was soon to make his way back to our group.
“The other girl fancies you Roger,” he announced, the group cheered me and pushed me forward. I walked over with J; he had told them I was the strong silent type.
At last, I thought I had found a way to find girls without saying much and I was determined to build up such a reputation so from then on throughout my teenage years it worked a treat. I did not have to small chat or embarrass myself with what I had said. I let the lads do the running for me. On Saturday evenings at the cinema no sooner we were in the lads were off around the stalls before the film started chatting up various parties of girls, inevitably one lad would return to where I was sitting saving their seats, he would say that a girl over there fancies me, I would tell him to send her across. When they came over with the girl, I would stand up shake her hand and say, “Hi I’m Roger.” push the seat swab down next to me and keep hold of one of her hands for a little while if I was attracted to her.
The two girls in the pub were older than Jack and I and they were well into Rock and Roll, they suggested we should take them to see Rock Around the Clock at the Cavendish Cinema on the following Saturday, it was the first Rock Film to hit Derby. We all agreed, and J was off with his new conquest.
I had been left with this pretty girl after a couple more drinks with her she asked me to walk her to the bus station, as we waited for the bus she put her arms around my neck, I leaned down and kissed her teeth, shock and horror went through me, she kisses with her mouth open, fortunately her bus arrived, I promised to meet her outside the Cavendish Cinema the following Saturday night. I rushed back to the pub; the group howled with laughter at me when I told them she kisses with her mouth open.
I spent the whole week practicing kissing the back of my wrist,
“What are you doing?” my Mum would ask.
“Sucking a spot.” I replied.
We had come into a true Rock and Roll era in the latter years; most Teddy Boys were older than me and my group of friends, and we were all trying to catch up with them. We all had a bad reputation, and the public was weary of us no matter what our age was. A few lads had flick knives and would casually take them out of their pockets hold them at the tips of their fingers and thumb press the catch to flick the blade open and enjoying the click as the blade locked in place then they would clean their fingernails with them, it was mostly just a silly show off.
The following Saturday I met up with J and a few other friends with their girlfriends, our little gang thought safety in numbers was the best policy as we too were still weary of the much bigger much older lads. The big Teddy Boys did not seem to mind or notice our Teeny Bobber presents. The crowd outside the cinema was huge I wondered if we would all get in, the scene was very colourful as everyone was dressed up for the part, the boys and girls were having a competition on whose hairstyles could stick up the highest. All the girls, each in a hundred and one petty coats of multi-coloured fabrics. The girls we had met turned up we joined the long queue; we managed to get good seats in the stalls. The film started, eventually, the music of Bill Haley and the Comets started to play, everyone was up and started bopping in the isles, my girl grabbed my hand and started pulling me out of my seat, horror-struck I had not learnt how to dance yet, I was dying on my feet what was I to do? I just got into the isle when the film was shut down and the lights came up, I thought there was going to be a riot, the doors were flung open by a mob of policemen with truncheons drawn who started pushing people back into their seats. We watched the film with a row of policemen at the back of the cinema; I was saved from the embarrassment. When coming out of the cinema, my girl met up with an older ex-boyfriend that she was pleased to see; he was much older and much bigger. Clearly, I did not argue with him when he asked her to leave with him and asked me if I had any objections as he held my lace tie up under my chin in his fist.
I had however figured Friday nights were not just necessarily a drinking night out with the boys, it was a girl hunt as well, so I continued being laid back and enjoyed practicing being a strong and silent type and waited patiently for someone else’s lead.