February 1986: O Level English Essays

Strap yourself in for February’s diary entries from my 1986 diary. Find out about the panic regarding my O Level English essays, along with a snapshot of the life of a sixteen-year-old navigating the ups and downs of adolescence in the mid-1980s.

It’s told through the lens of sports, school, and social interactions; there are personal reflections added too – my god, I couldn’t leave it as just the ramblings of the sixteen-year-old me! That said, I believe that I am offering a candid glimpse into the daily experiences and emotions of a teenager.

There’s a lot about football matches, where I list, with some pithy comment, the performance of favourite teams and rivals. Not to mention the challenges and routines of school life, including coursework, teacher interactions, and exam preparations.

Also important are insights into social dynamics – relationships with peers and the navigation of teenage politics. I hope I’ve captured the essence of growing up during this period.

I’m British, so of course I consider the impact of weather on daily activities. And there are references to popular culture and entertainment, which I hope further enriches the narrative, providing context to this teenager’s interests and leisure activities. Throughout, the diary entries blend humour, frustration, and introspection, offering a relatable and engaging journey through the complexities of teenage life in the 1980s.

Anyway, here we go…

Saturday 1 February 1986

Some confusion in this sixteen-year-old’s diary.

I noted that we had a match this week, but then I had scrubbed it out with a note to the effect that we had played the week before… Therefore, it was a quiet day.

I noted with disgust that Liverpool had lost 2-1 away to Ipswich Town. The weather was very windy, cold etc. So, no change there! “Telly not much good, but there is football on tomorrow afternoon.”

Sunday 2 February 1986

Right. Before you all start, this is not pretty but there’s no other way of putting it. It may or may not flavour your opinion of me in a favourable light, so here goes…

“Ha Ha – Man Utd lost 2-1 to W.Ham on ITV. And that tosser Robson went off injured again – Ha ha ha!!!”

On my paper round I had had a good morning, collecting £108. We had some rain and snow, but the snow “didn’t stick.”

Monday 3 February 1986

Uh oh, look out. There’s a bit of teenage politics going on in this diary entry.

First off, there’s a comment on the weather – “Bloody hell it was cold today.” Short sharp and to the point, just like the frost I’d say.

Anyway, back to the politics of snowy weather and school closures, or not. I went to a village secondary school – not terribly large, but with a wide geographical spread of pupils. I’ve alluded to this already by mention of the early darts that some of my schoolmates got when anything like bad weather was in the offing.

In nearby Shrewsbury, there were at least five other secondary schools – yet quite a few kids travelled out to our school – and they came through the village where I lived.

So, you can imagine my disgust when I got on the bus to go home and discovered three “townies” on the back seat. Pah! I probably didn’t do an awful lot about, save mutter ferociously under my breath and sit somewhere else. Soft shite that I was.

At school, I handed in my Chemistry book – or at least I would have if my friend had remembered to bring it in (don’t know why he had it, perhaps we had a bit of a homework-network going on) – and if the old bag who taught us Chemistry had been there.

I also checked my exam entries and signed to acknowledge that they were correct.

Tuesday 4 February 1986

I got up late this morning. I can’t remember what my usual getting up time was, but 7:15 was late.

To compensate, I probably got dressed into my school uniform to do my papers, instead of changing into them afterwards.

In a shock result, Aston Villa beat Arsenal at Highbury by a score of 2-1. Apart from this little nugget, the day was, typically, cold and boring.

I had almost finished my English Literature essay – which piece of literature, I cannot remember. I know that we did a folder-based course for English Lit. We covered enough pieces of work to enable us to write a minimum of fifteen essays, with minimum quantities of the various genres – prose, poetry, drama etc.

Wednesday 5 February 1986

What is wrong with me? Not content with yesterday’s lie-in until 7:15, this morning I didn’t rise until 7:20.

I must’ve really had to rush today! I just hope that everybody received the correct newspaper. If you didn’t, then I am sorry. Can you imagine getting the Daily Mail when you’re expecting the Daily Mirror? Ooh, the shock of it. Having to read that rag… Eurgh.

There were more bloody townies on the back seat. I have to explain, that the back seat represented a sort of holy grail for us – there was quite a rigid pecking order, 5 years at the back, then 4 years, 3 years and so on. These interlopers, whilst although 5 years and quite entitled to sit there, were just that – interlopers, and as such should have sat elsewhere. But it’s years ago now, so I guess I should just get over it, huh? You bet – in fact, I have, I’m just faithfully reporting the diary of a sixteen-year-old kid I once knew.

Thursday 6 February 1986

It was truly very cold today. The nights may have been getting shorter, but boy was it cold.

This evening, we were warmed by another instalment of BlackAdder II on BBC1. This was an event I enjoyed with Dad. Thursday night was Ladies’ Club for Mum, so it was us lads together.

Anyway, tonight’s episode was Money. This featured the baby eating Ronald Lacey’s Bishop of Bath and Wells with Tim McInnerny’s Lord Percy dressed in an Elizabethan gimp outfit. Very fetching.

We were starting to get in the thick of it with respect to exams. Today, for example, we received the dates for our German exams. And I had an essay to write on the German School system. If I remember, we had at least two essays to write and learn for the exam. The examiner would pick one at random in the exam, we’d recite it and then answer questions on it. In German, obviously. Doh!

Friday 7 February 1986

Another day another dollar. Given that yesterday was truly very cold, today was even more colderer.

But no more school for a couple of days – clouds and silver linings, one supposes.

In linked, but unrelated news, there was bad news regarding another townie infestation of the back seat, and SHOOT! magazine came today. I can’t remember when it should have arrived, but it must’ve been late for me to have commented.

Saturday 8 February 1986

Shrewsbury Town lost 3-0 at home versus Norwich City, and in a recurring theme, yet again, it was bleedin’ cold.

It was so cold that it snowed at the match. Your author bought a Valentine’s card (to send it to himself…??? ho ho, he he). Well, no actually, I did have someone in mind to send it to and I was going to trust to the Royal Mail rather than hand delivering it – well, she may have seen me and that just wouldn’t do

At some stage some homework was done, including finishing an English essay.

Sunday 9 February 1986

Sunday was the annual journey to Anfield for Man Utd.

Screened at 3:00 pm on BBC, the game finished 1-1. John Wark scored Liverpool’s equaliser answering a goal from I-neither-know-nor-care. We went out to Auntie’s for lunch although we made it home in time for the game.

As was common in these games at this time, Liverpool were, so I report “all over ‘em in the second half and should of (sic) won”. Of course, the tide does ebb and flow.

Monday 10 February 1986

“Bloody cold again,” I report.

I handed in my shiny new English essay and actually did some work on my next one, which I noted was on DH Lawrence’s Odour of Chrysanthemums. Talk about gearing up (natch, panicking) for the end of school. As I say, we had fifteen essays to write – this one must have been something daft like number twelve or thirteen.

Anyway, back to Odour of Chrysanthemums… don’t know if you’ve read much Lawrence, but I do have to say this, it’s not all about swearing and sex scenes, far from it, as I think this short story demonstrates.

A miner’s wife is waiting for him to come home from work. As it’s payday, she’s not expecting him anytime soon – he’ll be at the pub spending his hard-earned. Of course, as she hears all the other men coming home, she starts to get agitated about his return. He’ll be drunk, she’s not got enough money to last the week etc… Only, he doesn’t come home, well not walking… or breathing even – there’s been an accident at the mine.

It’s a powerful piece of work, it had quite an effect on me at sixteen – I’ve précised it from memory without cheating and looking on the Wikipedia or similar.

Tuesday 11 February 1986

Uh oh, righto!

This is a day which will live long in the memory. They do say that the smallest things please the smallest minds. Well! We had English today and my friend, by whom I sat in English was a big fan of writing with a proper pen, as was I, truth be told.

You know what I mean, don’t you? That’s right (write?! – I’ll get me coat), an ink pen. As I recall, it was a Shaeffer, one of those big chunky ones. Me and him, we used to sit together in Geography too, we used to have seeing-how-many-words-you-can-legibly-write-on-one-line competitions. If you turned the nib over and wrote on the back, you could make your writing incredibly small. But anyway…

The teacher, let’s call him Mr Neat, was doing his thing walking up and down the aisles, teaching us English – he was very good. He stopped in front of my mate Dave and me, just as Dave had inserted a new cartridge into his pen and was furiously trying to get it to work in order that he could carry on taking notes. Of course, the thing springs to life and, quite literally, SPLAT! There it is, very best Shaeffer blue-black all up the back of Mr Neat’s jacket.

As he returns to the front of the classroom, one of the girls, let’s call her Angie notices and pipes up, “Mr Neat, you’ve got ink on the back of your jacket.” He takes it off, he looks at it and agrees with her. And then, as my mate and me stifle giggles (of both amusement and trepidation), he says, “Oh those first years, tsk!”. Of course, we weren’t first years, we were young adults potentially starting work in a few months. Responsible? Us? Nah!

In PE, there were three of us who went out to play football. Now unless you play piggy-in-the-middle, three is very definitely not the magic number where football is concerned. So, we kicked it around in a triangle, then the inevitable happened and we did play piggy-in-the-middle. What larks!

Wednesday 12 February 1986

Uh oh! Bad news at Black Rock, or rather Loftus Road.

Live on BBC1 at 7:30 pm Liverpool lost 1-0 to QPR in the first leg of the Milk Cup semi-final. Well, never mind, the second leg was still to come at Anfield…

On the weather front, it was cold again and (at last!) my copy of War Machine Nr. 60 arrived at last. This was an Orbis collection, one of those heavily TV advertised weekly publications which suckered me in. I managed to collect the whole set – twelve volumes of twelve magazines. It sits on the bottom shelf of one of our bookshelves at home. I never read it, but it looks good!

Thursday 13 February 1986

A busy day today. I posted my Valentine’s Day card first class this morning. Would it be reciprocated? Watch this space.

BlackAdder II was on this evening. Another Thursday comedy night with Dad. The episode was Beer, featuring Miriam Margolyes as Edmund’s very puritan and very rich aunt, Lady Whiteadder. Despite Margolyes’ performance, it is perhaps most famous for Miranda Richardson’s Elizabeth stealing the show with her immortal (paraphrased) line, “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman. But I have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant.”

I received some hassle regarding the football result from the night before, but as I pointed out, they all knew where the second leg was to be played. It was very, very cold again, although the sun did shine.

Friday 14 February 1986

And so, the big day dawned…

Did I get many cards? Did I get any cards? Can you guess? I don’t want to talk about it, ok. I managed to complete my German essay, on the German School System. It was another cold day – we had some snow at home, although there was none at school.

In other news, the boiler packed in at school, so it was bloody cold in there. But being the brave little soldiers that we were (still are!) we just got on with it. I think that we may have sat in Chemistry or Physics with the Bunsen burners going.

Sorry to go on just in case you didn’t manage to guess the right answer, but I got no bloody Valentine’s cards. Which was probably in common with a very large number in my cohort, truth be known!

But anyway, things weren’t all that bad, for tomorrow we had another game of football planned… What was it that Norm said about the ladies in Cheers? Something along the lines of ‘Chicks, eh? Can’t live with ’em… pass the beer nuts.’

Saturday 15 February 1986

FA Cup 5 round, Liverpool away at York City.

My mates and I went to see Shrewsbury Town reserves take on Aston Villa reserves at Gay Meadow. Can’t remember the score, but I do remember my mate shouting out to Steve Hodge as he prepared to take a corner close by us. ‘Forest reject!’ No verbal comment from Hodgie, but we did get a good look at one of his middle fingers.

In our localised little spat, we lost 8-7, but we did have a whale of a time. Liverpool escaped with a draw from their tie at York, Jan Molby grabbing the Reds’ goal from the penalty spot. And, as this was the good old days, we didn’t have to wait long for the replay – it was due on the very next Tuesday.

Sunday 16 February 1986

There was no let-up from the cold weather today. So much so that the FA Cup tie between Spurs and Everton was postponed.

I collected £112 from my newspaper customers. I noted that “TV was dead boring”. I also referred to the half-term break and my hope to get up to school to play football during the week.

Monday 17 February 1986

“So, half term starts here,” I mused.

I got straight into holiday mode, with “Man talk about boring.” Again, the weather was cold, and a mate and I went down to the pond, which was frozen and derived great delight from throwing bricks into it and therefore making holes in it. Boys, eh?

I also noted that we played Risk. You must remember Risk, the military strategy game? No, oh well never mind. In the way of these things, we used to have phases when we did nothing else but play Risk. We were starting one of those phases…

Tuesday 18 February 1986

Wow! What a turn up.

People were out and about before 11 o’clock this morning. What did we do? Of course, we played Risk. I recorded that we did nothing else for much of the morning. I did manage to write some of my English essay, then more Risk and even some football. Not so boring, eh?

In their FA Cup fifth round replay Liverpool saw off the challenge of York City by 3 goals to one, albeit after extra time.

Wednesday 19 February 1986

I took myself up to school to play football.

I went on my bike, on my racing Peugeot with wheels like razor blades! The school had extensive pitches all open to the public so we took full advantage to use them whenever we could. I got there by 11 o’clock but was initially disappointed at the turn out – there were only the four of us.

By half twelve though, the number had swelled to thousands! We therefore had a great game of (at least) twenty-a-side. In a recurring theme, my side lost 9-8, although I did manage to bag four goals.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy Days!

Thursday 20 February 1986

It snowed again this morning. You may notice that the (cold) weather is a constant theme even in the first fifty or so days of this diary. But it was a really cold winter, the likes of which we just don’t seem to have anymore. Now I don’t know much about global warming, but anecdotally at least, something really is amiss out there. Anyway, it were reet cold, that winter of 1985/86.

In other news… an absolutely shocking revelation… I recorded that my poster of a scantily clad young lady fell off the wall at three o’clock. Bloody blu-tac ain’t always exactly what it’s cracked up to be eh?

This Athena poster once took the full blast of a spot that I had on the side of my nose. She was on the wall next to the desk in my bedroom where I did my homework/played on the C64.

Anyway, I was sat there, absent-mindedly fiddling with this great big zit, when I must have got it just right and SPLAT! There it was. NOTHING is more satisfying than squeezing a good spot, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I managed to do some of my homework – another English essay out of the way. However, there’s no peace for the wicked, so I was straight onto another one!

BlackAdder II was on again, one word, “brill.” The episode was the final one – Chains, featuring Hugh Lawrie as a homicidal German criminal mastermind, Prince Ludwig. ‘Will you have another piece of pie, my Lord?’

Friday 21 February 1986

It was “boring” this morning.

There was a heavy frost and again we played Risk. Apparently, I won “most handsomely.” In the evening we had a family party, which I rated as 2 out of 5 – boring.

My, wasn’t I an ungrateful wanker?!

Saturday 22 February 1986

In what was a potentially decisive moment in the chase for the First Division Championship, Everton scored a 2-0 victory over Liverpool at Anfield.

Again, I went up to school to play football. It was I reported, “a great laugh.” I came home “knackered.”

In our latest money-making scheme, one of my mates had placed an order for some football programmes. My share was 21 programmes, for which I had paid a pound. At the time, I believed that I had already sold three for 20p each. Quite how it actually panned out, you can probably guess.

In unrelated news, I report my purchase of the seven-inch single version of The Power of Love. Now of course we all remember that there were three eighties’ songs with the same title, but the version that I bought was the one by Huey Lewis and The News, as featured in the movie Back to The Future, which, as I may have mentioned earlier, is one of the best films ever made.

Sunday 23 February 1986

“Boring. Cold. Bloody wind is the worst. Collected £96 – spent all my money – got about 70p left. Blasted school tomorrow. Played footy in the garages.”

So, we can tell that:

a) The weather was still cold, today with added wind chill

b) I had a reasonable return on my paper bill collection round

c) I must’ve had quite a binge on sweets in the paper shop. At this point, I did decide to stop doing this for a while. I was earning the money and then giving it straight back to the shop owner. Bit stupid really…?

d) Half term was over, I probably hadn’t done as much as I wanted to in terms of catching up with course work etc, and the fact that school was back on the agenda meant that I probably had a few home truths to face. Like ‘bloody hell, I’m not gonna finish all this…’

e) We used to play football on the large concrete area in the communal garages on the council estate where I grew up (author seeks kudos from growing up on council estate). We received a couple of police ‘raids’ too – one of the neighbours of the garages had obviously called them. Sometimes, we felt that we had ample vindication for playing in the garages, e.g., due to the length of the grass in the playing field. However, this was February, so we had probably just decided on a change of scenery.

Monday 24 February 1986

“Ace, Brill, Fab, Magic” – I scored thirty-four (out of thirty-six) for my essay on The Crucible.

Now, I really, really wish that I had kept copies of my marked English essays. We weren’t allowed to have them back from the examining board, and some of my essays, like this one, were really quite good – both in my opinion and that of my teacher, Mr Neat. We covered a number of the classics works in English Literature. Two I remember were Great Expectations and Romeo and Juliet.

A big regret of mine that remains to this day, is the fact that I didn’t do ‘A’ Level English Literature. In a typically ad hoc attempt to plug the gap, since my time at sixth form, I’ve done a couple of elements in an OU course where some of the leg work that I did all those years ago would have been useful. There’s also the element of reflection on what I thought of things and how I expressed them as a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old. Would I agree now with the opinions that I expressed then? Would they sound sensible or patronising, pretentious or erudite and well-considered?

I also handed in my Odour of Chrysanthemums essay and noted that I should be getting on with my poetry one. One of the poetry essays I wrote covered the UB40 song, One in Ten.

‘I am a number ten, a number on a list.’

It must’ve been an attempt by someone at the examining board to make them appear hip and trendy… sorry, to bring the course material into the twentieth century… no, no, sorry, to reflect that the body of work in English Literature should be open to the addition of new fresh material, whatever its genre or the date that it was written. Sound convincing?

And finally… “Day was as usually (sic) boring + cold.”

Tuesday 25 February 1986

Good grief I was a strange creature. (No shit, Sherlock?!)

I start today’s entry with the classic, “Man talk about boring…” Then there are some disparaging remarks about our Chemistry teacher – remember I really had an issue with her anyway, so what the heck.

PE was recorded as “boring” – four of us played footy. Though, of course, we had managed with three before now, so at least four would have given equal sides. English was the only bright spot of the day. So, in a recurring sense of self-flagellation, I ask (myself) again, why-oh-why didn’t I do it at ‘A’ Level? Doh!

In the late afternoon, we did ‘the run’. Out of our back door, up the field to the railway bridge (disused), across that and then back down the farmer’s lane to the main road then back up to home. About a mile all told and great fun. Eh? Great fun? What a set of mad bastards!

Wednesday 26 February 1986

Reading today’s entry back to myself, I get the distinct feeling that the pressure was definitely on, with regard to exams. I reported that Mr Crawley, our Physics teacher, had returned to school after hurting his leg. This was the only real news of the day.

General Studies was “boring”, and England could only manage to scrape a 2-1 victory against Israel. As I noted, “jammy – they were shit.”

Now I don’t know about you, but looking back now, Bobby Robson was the best England manager the national side had had in many a long year. In this year’s World Cup, he would take England to the quarter-finals – only beaten by Argentina the eventual winners.

Four years later, in Italia 90 he piloted the team to the semi-finals, only West Germany, again the eventual winners, would prevail against them. But on a cold night in February in North London, he was shite!

Thursday 27 February 1986

Oh, thank you NUT. We had a half day today due our English teacher being one of their members.

Accordingly, we came home at 12:45. What did we do with our bonus time off? Why, we went to play football! Oh yes! What else would a group of boys with the afternoon off school do eh?

Guess what? Shock, horror, I hadn’t managed to sell any of my bargain football programmes. 21 for a quid, sell them at 20p each. Mmm. Isn’t it? Well, no actually. It’s not. Oops.

And finally, I commented that “I need[ed] 101 million quid.” Was this just because I had lost a quid on some old football programmes? No, I don’t think so. But just what it was that was upsetting me and making me write such things, I have forgotten.

Friday 28 February 1986

Lots of words written in my diary, but not a very great amount of actual stuff going on.

Suffice to say, we had tons of homework for Chemistry; there were seven of us on the back seat of the bus home (actually only designed for 5!); us lads played football when we got home from school and a mate was “in the shit” because he was caught skiving off school the day previously. I guess that he thought ‘if it’s alright for them bloody teachers…’

In Conclusion

So, there we are. February. Football played a significant role in my life, so I mentioned a good deal of the games which took place during the month. Dis-honourable mentions go to a Liverpool defeat away at Ipswich Town on 1 February; Manchester United’s defeat by West Ham (tee-hee), and various other matches that brought me both joy and disappointment.

The narrative captures the tribal nature of football fandom during this era in my corner of Shropshire – my reactions ranging from elation at rivals’ defeats to the personal anguish of my own teams’ losses.

Beware the ides of March…