Short stories, tales, memories, call them what you will; some things just stick with you forever. Like the time in 1981 when me and a few mates were getting a ride back from swimming with Graeme Rowe's Dad Alan, in his 70's Cortina. There was a parade of shops and businesses across the street from the New Addington Baths, and Mr Rowe fancied something from the fish and chip shop. As we cruised by it was obvious, even to nine-year-old me, that there was nowhere convenient to park, and that there was a long line at the takeaway. But that didn't deter Mr Rowe; he just issued the stern edict: "Graeme, get in the queue at the chippie, while I drive round the block."
An instruction to enter a busy takeaway solo would have terrified me at the time, but it was no bother to Graeme. I know because he lept out of the Cortina and was busy striding away from the car when Mr Rowe morphed into a monster and yelled at his son to get straight back inside! Apparently, in the hast of his exit, Graeme had neglected to check for traffic before opening the car door. BIG MISTAKE! The visit to the chippie was instantly aborted, and a torrent of verbal abuse rained down on my unfortunate mate. The diatribe continued until I got dropped off on Upper Selsdon Road, and probably a lot longer after that. I wouldn't have been surprised if Graeme got the feel of his Dad's belt later on either. I tried my best to avoid Alan Rowe after that.
As I mentioned, this was in 1981, and in October that year the movie Chariots of Fire came out. Even though I've never seen it, I'm familiar with the scene in the trailer where a group of men are running across a beach to the sound of that iconic piano music.
When I was a lad my brother and I used to get together with our pseudo cousins on a pretty regular basis, and when we did, we'd often head out onto the Yorkshire moors, since they lived nearby and we lived in South London. If you're not familiar, the moors stretch from Ilkley, Keighley and Bingley in the north to Holmfirth, Marsden and Meltham in the south; we would typically knock about on the bits that were closest to Wilsden. On one such occasion the four of us discovered an orange Ford transit van, much like the one below...except that it had been somehow driven onto the moor, up a pretty steep hill, along a trail and had then been driven or pushed into a ravine. It wasn't coming back anytime soon, either.
The abandoned vehicle was like the force field around the Death Star: it sucked us in! We scampered down the steep slope like it was nothing. We climbed inside the van, trying to dodge the bits of broken windshield glass, and messed about for a bit, even managing to lift the bonnet and open the back doors. At this point we noticed another group of kids running along the trail above us. These kids were running in single file against a bleak backdrop and my cousin Jono remarked that it looked like a scene from Chariots of Fire. Well, his actual quote was "Look, Chariots of Fire....and their chariots are wheelchairs!" Not the most politically correct statement, but it was amusing enough for Paul Circus to wet himself. Literally.
Around this time a mate from junior school who lived on my street and myself invented a new game. To repeat, this was around 1981, long before wheelie bins were common. There was an alleyway near our houses where people would leave their dustbins/trash cans outside their gates all week, instead of putting them into the backyard or into the bin store. These were the old-fashioned cylindrical bins, where the lid was not attached. We thought it was #&*%ing hilarious to collect up the lids and frisbee them into other people's backyards. We would always do this after dark, and we never got caught. After a while, people started tying the lids to the bins with cord. We had to head back to my mate's house and borrow his older brother's Swiss army knife to deal with that. Later someone chained and padlocked the lid to their bin. We had to empty that bin, and then we threw the bin and the lid into a yard at the other end of the alleyway. You had to work hard to make entertainment in those days...
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