Tracy Piner tried to plait a ribbon in my hair. Under the complicated rules of engagement for sixth formers this means that she fancies me. Or could it be that Tracy feels that as her opposite number I am the only one she can flirt with, without some kind of oriental style, loss of face.
SATURDAY 15th MARCH 1980.
Out for a drink with the lads of the sixth form. The majority of the details have already faded into that alcohol inspired Orwellian memory hole but some events stand out. Ashok’s attempt to climb an advertising hoarding at the bottom of Sutton High Street. Kicking cones over as we walked home, “Singing Stairway to Heaven.”1
THURSDAY 20th MARCH 1980.
On a whim, I wandered off to the dining hall to talk to Piner and her cronies. I think I was curious about her. In addition to which I actually needed to learn something and being in the green rooms was about as conducive to study as living in a chocolate factory is to crash dieting. It took only minutes to discover that years spent in the academic primal scream that is Gaynesford meant that I could not focus on what I was doing when it was quiet. I needed something to work against.
Why do I have the feeling that studying for a degree will not be easy.
***
Editors note: Meanwhile, with their usual sense of appropriateness, the sixth form had managed to annoy Janet Lines, head of the English department and former head of the sixth form. In the complicated hierarchy of the school Lines represented a powerful enemy and one that Cook and company could not simply ignore in the confident hope they would give up and go away. Lines has long cherished the hope that she could evict the sixth formers from their seemingly permanent residence in her library and it seems that some perceived misdemeanors offered her the excuse to give them notice to quit. Cook’s diary takes up the story the following day.
Footnotes.
1. There seems to have been a set of songs which were commonly drunken sung on the way home from pubs. These included the aforementioned “Stairway to Heaven”, “Sunrise, “Sunset” from the Musical “Fiddler on the roof” and if Cook is to be believed “Me and the elephant” Later various songs from the musical “The Rocky Horror Show” were included in the canon.
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