October. First things, first. Just how hard is A Level maths? As I was discovering, it was actually pretty bloody difficult. So too was Physics, and we’d only done a few weeks of the course.
In social and emotional, things took a bit of a dark turn. Bullying by exclusion – initially, I was a part of it and then I became the victim of it myself. Please note that although I have discussed the issue, I have always given aliases to the protagonists.
It’s got me quite aerated over the years and I feel a sense of shame at initially being part of the plot to exclude one individual and then regret that the next target of the group’s contempt was me. If you’re reading this and think I’ve mentioned you, sorry.
We see the stubborn, know-it-all person that I was coming through. “Study skills,” you say? “Tish and pish,” I say, “I’ve got 8 bloody O Levels. You can’t tell me anything.”
As usual, there’s comment on LFC and STFC plus my record purchases. And I bumped into my girl – Hayley… but she was with another bloke. Unrequited love and all that. Still, if I’d spoken to her and asked her out and she’d said, “No,” I’d have gotten over it and moved on. As it was, I was upset for a good few weeks… and she wasn’t the last.
Wednesday 1 October 1986
More ice-skating. Today’s session was a) a total doss yet b) boring all the same. I’m the master of contradiction, me.
We went into the library to lose Theo – although it didn’t work. Like the comment I made after the disco a few days earlier, I remember this now with a real sense of WTF! WTF was I doing?! Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was bullying by exclusion.
Highfalutin words and sentiment, but that’s what it was then and what it is now.
Of course, once we’d gotten rid of Theo, you know, ‘made our inclinations towards him’ perfectly clear – and we did, the next person on the list to go-into-the-library-to-try-and-lose was guess who?
Thursday 2 October 1986
More Study Skills today – that and Physics.
You know, I never really got the hang of studying. I’ve achieved 8 O Levels, 3 A Levels, a degree, and post-graduate stuff, all without really being that good at studying.
More dumb luck I suppose. Study Skills would have shown me that you attend the lesson/lecture, perhaps take your notes home, then review them and re-write them – sort of creating revision notes as you go. At the same time, you would give yourself the opportunity to query anything that you didn’t understand.
I never ever got the hang of this. My way was to attend the lecture, toss the notes into my bag, sod off home, have some tea, go to bed get up and do the same again the following day. Then 6, 12, 18 months down the line, attempt (in an incredibly short space of time just before the exam) try to make out what on earth I had scribbled down all those months ago.
Oh, and in music news, I bought a Five Star (yes, Five Star) 12″ single. It was Rain or Shine and I bought it because it was a gorgeous, gorgeous song, so there. I was tuning in to, ahem, my romantic side.
Friday 3 October 1986
More study skills again today.
And a phone call out of the blue from a school friend who hadn’t chosen the sixth form route. Were we up for a game of football at school on Sunday? You betcha!
I also saw him in town in the bakery where he worked, so the phone call was hardly out of the blue!
Saturday 4 October 1986
Shrewsbury Town beat Grimsby Town 4-1 and Liverpool defeated Wimbledon 3-1 at Plough Lane.
I got my pay rise from the paper shop and everything was “hunky dory!”
It was a “very nice day indeed” to boot. Plus, there was the bonus of football tomorrow!
Sunday 5 October 1986
Football, football, football.
We had a “good laugh,” even if the football was “not so good.”
Ah well. We were all boys together again.
More bloody sixth form tomorrow!
Monday 6 October 1986
More cash splashing with another 12″.
This time a slightly more cool purchase as I went for the Police’s re-hash of Don’t Stand So Close To Me.
As far as studies were concerned, Physics ran late and I very nearly missed the bus home. But I didn’t. Phew! ?
After tea, I settled down to watch a programme that would have benefited me tremendously had I been doing the A Levels that I should have been. It was called The Story of English and it fascinated me; I was completely hooked.
Tuesday 7 October 1986
Ooh, oh, dear. Today, dear diary, was a “boring dot day, i.e. it is insignificant.” Honestly, what sort of a statement is that to be making?
I went out (of college) at lunchtime with Theo. Of course, Theo was a friend from school, rather than a new sixth form friend – remember I didn’t really make any of those – and I was doing my damnedest to dump him. The others went swimming – they had probably arranged to bring their kit but forgot to tell me.
No matter, Theo and myself sampled a baked potato from a wee shopping arcade in Shrewsbury, which was known as the Victorian Arcade. How very twee!
Wednesday 8 October 1986
No ice-skating today as the bus didn’t arrive.
So, an early dart then. Home on the twenty-to-three bus. Never mind, it was a “boring day anyway,” apart from, that was, an experiment we carried out in Physics.
Even this, the famous resonance tube experiment, was only “so-so.”
Thursday 9 October 1986
But it was wrong see, wasn’t it?
We had done the resonance tube experiment at school and I checked those results against the ones from yesterday. We had done it “totally and utterly wrong.” Doh!
Fair enough, but we perhaps missed the whole point in that experiments don’t always go as expected. Who is to say that we hadn’t done it wrong at school? Actual real-life scientists didn’t always find what they expected from their experiments. In fact, that’s what science is all about, isn’t it? Well, us sixth form bunglers aside.
We had chips for lunch and donated some of them to the local population of Anas platyrhynchos in the Quarry.
Friday 10 October 1986
“Boring day today.”
Again! How very, um… boring. I bought a birthday card today (eh?) and scoffed the chips I had bought for lunch in just 3 minutes whilst waiting for the bus home. Another record.
I saw a friend from school on the bus home, mentioning in my diary that “bloody hell does he look a dick.”
Charming, completely charming, wasn’t I.
Saturday 11 October 1986
Bad football-y shit today.
Liverpool 0-1 Spurs and also Millwall 4-0 Shrewsbury Town. Gah!
From the tone of the rest of my entry (“nothing else really happened today”), this was not a good time for me. I’m filling in gaps here with my overall vibe about being at sixth form, but shish, those heady days of summer had given way to the turgid grind already.
Sunday 12 October 1986
God, what a miserable bastard, “nothing sort of day so far.”
But then, some good news. Cheer up ya miserable twat, it might never happen.
“Collected £128” on my paper round – a good pay day promised for next weekend then – shame that I’d spend most in the paper shop on sweets.
In submitting to the grind, I did do some revision for a Physics test that we had been promised in the following week.
Monday 13 October 1986
So that’s just the two weeks to go then, until half term. That’s not long, I can do that.
I did some Maths and some Physics homework – and made further comment of Thursday’s upcoming Physics test. Gulp!
I also noted that it wasn’t a very nice day, but that it was Autumn. Such erudite meteorological analysis. Move over Michael Fish!
Tuesday 14 October 1986
Some more amateur philosophy today – I was banging on about an experiment that we’d done in Physics that I was trying to write up.
It was “not really hard,” says I, “nor difficult to understand,” but, this is the killer, “it seems such a stupid expt.”
How could anyone find fault with such pithy commentary? I completed my little piece by writing that “less whinging and more work might get [me] 3 A Levels. Good night!”
How prophetic! (I was taking four).
Wednesday 15 October 1986
Ice-skating again today – “a doss.”
The “rest of the day was,” predictably, “boring.”
Also, another glimpse of the amateur meteorologist came out today. Or rather, straight up reporting of the facts – “Winter is here and it’s cold in the mornings.” Wow!
In sporting news, we had been over to the Quarry Pool to play pool at lunchtime.
Thursday 16 October 1986
The long awaited (feared?) Physics test occurred today.
Boy was it hard. I reckoned with “30% if I am extremely lucky.”
To cheer myself up, I went ‘uptown’ and bought Cameo’s current single, Word Up as it slipped slowly out of the top ten having enjoyed its high point of number 3 in the UK singles chart.
I also bought the Bangles’ Walk Like An Egyptian which coincidentally was on its way to number 3 in the self-same chart. To have bought two singles, it must have been one bad mother of a Physics test…
It was a nice day (again?), but “rain is forecast for the weekend.”
Friday 17 October 1986
Another “boring day today.”
We went swimming in the morning and had a substitute Physics teacher (“some other woman”), but the weather was OK.
Thinking back, this was before drinking entered my life, so with all of this swimming and cycling to and from the paper shop every day I must have been as fit as.
Now that I’ve brought up drinking, in some random, unrelated, middle of October diary post, I might as well labour the point a little.
Attaining the age of majority has long been an important rite of passage. Finally, you’re allowed to legally do things, such as buying alcohol (and other things) is as old as time itself. Or at least if felt like it at sixteen-going-on-seventeen.
Of course, alcohol has the potential to play a great part in releasing inhibitions. I was the very embodiment of inhibition. I was the type that ‘wouldn’t say boo to a goose’ unless I was pretty certain of the likely result of so doing and happy with being able to deal with that result.
So, the lack of alcohol contributed to being physically fit whilst at the same time (perhaps unbeknownst to me then) contributing to an uptightness and unwillingness to let go and try new things, to strike out on my own. But then, the idea that alcohol could facilitate any of these positive results is an ultimately ridiculous notion.
Saturday 18 October 1986
At last, the weekend. I went to town, ostensibly to go to the match, Shrewsbury Town versus Derby County – a game that Derby won 1-0.
Phil Gee scored the only goal and County fielded two ex-Town players, Ross MacLaren and Steve Cross who came on as a second half substitute for Gee.
If that wasn’t bad enough, earlier, I had seen the love of my life… walking hand in hand with another man. OMG! What was she doing? Did she not know? How could she do this to me?
It was strange, but I was walking up Pride Hill through the throng of Saturday morning shoppers and she was walking down the hill. As we passed, I mumbled my usual greeting, “Hi.” She grinned at me – her usual greeting. But then I saw him and I was crushed!
Oh, woe was me. My one and only with another. In my diary, I went back and added a very unsavoury note to 29 May.
Ah well, there was nothing for it but to buy some music to cheer me up. Thank you, Cyndi Lauper. I bought True Colours on cassette. I saw Theo on the bus home – he’d got me into U2, so his tastes were pretty cool, I suppose. I was a little nervous about discussing Cyndi Lauper.
I needn’t have been – he’d already got it and told me that it was pretty good – and it was – I even added a note in my diary to that effect. And relax…
“If this world makes you crazy and you’ve taken all you can bear…”
Sunday 19 October 1986
Sarcasm, incoming…
“Nice rainy day today.” And of course, I duly was soaked, out on those mean streets doin’ me papers. He he.
We (presumably, Dad and I) started to make a homebrew kit we had bought last year (mmm, what were the chances?)
In sporting news, England lost 2-1 in the Hockey World Cup Final versus dem Aussies.
Monday 20 October 1986
“Watch Open To Question, BBC2, 7:35″
The subject was Ian Terence Botham, one of the great British Sporting Stars of the eighties. I’d even go as far as to say that he was an icon of the decade. However, if you Google this interview or look for it on YouTube, then be prepared to rinse your eyes and ears with bleach afterwards. It’s an excruciating watch thirty-odd years hence.
I also watched Fawlty Towers. Obviously of its time, it stands up to the scrutiny of the years much better than ITB. Mind you, John Cleese can come over as a bit of an arse too at times.
“It was a bastard day again, rained and was cold. Boring day too.”
Tuesday 21 October 1986
I had one of those moments this morning.
As I swayed up the road on my bike, newspapers slung over my right shoulder, I was very nearly hit by some bloke in his car. As it was, he went “careering into the Woodcutter” public house car park on the inside of what was, for him, a left-hand bend and came to a screeching stop. He then “got out and scarpered.”
In getting back to the mundanities of life in the evening I wrote up a Physics experiment to hand in tomorrow.
Wednesday 22 October 1986
Today I complained bitterly about Theo.
For some reason, he was “getting on my nerves,” and I feared that one of these days, I was going to “snap and lamp him one, right on the nose.”
It was a good job that half-term was approaching for me to “cool off.”
God, I was an obstreperous oik. Poor Theo was getting it right left and centre. Our extended group of friends from secondary school were doing their best to ditch him – and of course, I was joining in with that. In addition, there I am, threatening to smack him one, though not to his face. So that’s alright then.
And another thought. It was only Saturday that I was worried that he might think ill of me for having bought Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors. I give up.
Thursday 23 October 1986
Aha! The results of the dreaded Physics test.
Fortunately, my extreme pessimism of last week in the immediate aftermath of the test was unfounded. I did better than the 30% that I had predicted. Only just mind, as I scored a staggering 35%.
Dan scored just 27½%! The best score in the class was 74%. We also had a Maths test which was “not bad.”
On the sporting front, we played pool at the swimming baths.
Friday 24 October 1986
At last, the final day of the half term.
My optimism re the Maths test was founded in reality as I scored 86% ? That’s better, just the sort of high with which to end the half term. It was a good job too as I was knackered.
The weather was not playing the game though. I complained bitterly, that “it is a pain in the neck,” and, “gets worse every day.”
Saturday 25 October 1986
“Bad day.”
Liverpool were hammered into the middle of next week by Luton Town in a 4-1 thrashing. There was “redemption for [Shrewsbury] Town” who won an exciting game 3-2 against Crystal Palace as I stayed at home all day.
From the sofa, I watched Australia beat GB 38-16 in the first of a three-match Rugby League series in front of 50,583 fans at Old Trafford.
Sunday 26 October 1986
British Summer Time ends (provisional)
It was a nice day as the end of BST was confirmed. But, as I noted, “the first day of winter always is [a nice day].”
I did nothing after my papers and, guess what, it was a “boring day.”
In the Manchester derby, the pair fought out a 1-1 draw at Maine Road. Big wow!
Monday 27 October 1986
Once again, reference to that word.
“You can tell we’re on holiday it is boring.” Oh, do shut up!
Anyway, it couldn’t have been all that bad as I must have hauled my sorry ass into town as a I bought the single of The Pretenders’, Don’t Get Me Wrong.
I also made an application (via letter) for a job in McDonalds – adding “hope they reply”. I have to admit they did (eventually), in the negative. Gah! I couldn’t even get a flipping job flipping hamburgers.
I also watched some telly – The Story of English and that Fawlty Towers programme which was being repeated – they only made twelve you know.
Tuesday 28 October 1986
Dad was off work today.
The big project was to apply polystyrene insulation sheets to the wall in the downstairs toilet in an attempt to improve the thermal efficiency of the coldest room in the house – see I really wanted to be good at Physics, I had all the jargon.
It was bloody cold in there though. We tried various measures to make it more comfortable. From a wooden seat on the loo – much warmer than those plastic ones – to a heat lamp bulb, the type more usually found in chicken sheds to keep chicks warm.
In a bid to escape as quickly as possible, I would always race the flush of this toilet in the style of Peter Kay.
Wednesday 29 October 1986
Wow, the old chap was off work again today! That was two days running.
I noted that “they all went to Oswestry to a market” – since I can’t imagine my brother wanting to go with them, it was probably just my sister and the Mater and Pater who went.
Meanwhile I stayed at home and attempted to light the fire. Four goes, I reckoned, and still, it wouldn’t burn; “bastard fire.” When I complained similarly in April, I’d managed it in three goes. Regression, eh?
I didn’t mention in April that it was one of those Parkray affairs – it burned smokeless fuel, and it had a door. You had to get the setting just right depending upon which way the wind was blowing or else it just would not go. Or something.
Thursday 30 October 1968
Today, sports news.
The draw for the fourth round of the Littlewoods Cup was held today. Contain yourself.
Shrewsbury Town were lumbered with Cardiff City at home (what an evening that was to be), whilst Liverpool’s game was to be Coventry City away.
In non-sporting news, I had my hair cut this evening. See, life wasn’t that boring.
Friday 31 October 1968
Halloween.
But not the all-out let’s-copy-the-Americans nonsense that it is nowadays.
No. This was just good old-fashioned knock-door-bunk. You would knock on the door and run away. There was something so deliciously funny about the silhouette stood in the rectangle of yellow light that is their front doorway calling out into the inky blackness as you crouch, tittering behind a car.
God, what if we’d picked the wrong target and they came out looking for us… it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Anyway, there was that, and the hedge bashing. One night – it may have been tonight – I suggested it and, in my naïveté, when my mate started jumping on the hedge, I had to ask him what he was doing! Doh!
Before darkness had fallen fully, I was attempting (yet again) to write a Risk simulator on the C64. And (yet again) I failed, miserably – though in my optimism I reported that it was progressing OK. Ha ha ha!