Mark, Steve, and I are all earmarked for prizes. In my case The Dunwoodie Cup for Service and Character to the school. This is the first time that this prize has been awarded and I can’t shake the feeling that Orme and the others are taking the piss giving it to me. I note with some amusement that Helen Orme takes personal control of how the prize giving will be conducted – and takes its much in the manner of a regimental sergeant-major drilling a colour guard! We are ordered to appear at the appointed time and rehearsed as to how we mount the stage and meet the mayor.
Editors note. We found this snippet from a much later Cook diary which paints a picture of the rehearsals.
[It ] ....was obvious to even the thickest headed Gaynesfordian that the prize giving ceremony and lets focus on the word ceremony here, was the single biggest event in the academic calendar, at least it was as far as Mrs Orme was concerned. I recall the lucky prize winners were rehearsed many times by being lined up and trooped up to the stage to practice receiving their prize and shake hands with the Major. It was vitally important that we appeared in the correct order and to fair to HO this was probably (a) important to get right and (b) something many of the assembled would not find easy.
I recall that matters were complicated initially by having the happy winners march in from the left and right aisles rather than one long queue. This was quickly abandoned as too complicated.Mrs O was extremely concerned about timings, although on the night the over long musical pieces put the whole shebang well over time anyway. Years later I attended a prize giving at Carshalton High School for Boys, during my brief and less than illustrious sojourn as a school governor and asked the head how he had organized the pupils for the coming out to collect their prize. I got a puzzled look and a careful explanation that they were called and simply left their seats... we didn't speak much after that!***
Compared to rehearsals for Todd this is small time stuff but still clearly hard work for some of the participants. Its obvious that a few of the younger ones are nervous and Orme does little to dispel their fears. Its debatable who is the most nervous.
Curtain up! The early part
of the show is a series of musical pieces by the Gaynesford band. I am surprised because aside from Steve’s brother’s band called Registered Trade Mark (at least that was their name the last time I heard, but it does seem to change quite a bit...) and company I wasn’t even aware we had pupils capable playing. I quickly discover that we do have a band, but they are not actually capable of playing music. The audio mugging that takes place could only be called music by the deaf for people who rapidly wish they too could be deaf. Even the staff has the good grace to look embarrassed. For the rest us waiting to be marched to the stage it is actually painful. I am told the school song is in there somewhere but the cacophony bouncing off the walls is impossible to identify.Of course the music is but nothing compared to the utter rubbish Helen Orme spouts. As one of the winners I find her speech about dedication and achievement laughable. While I am perfectly prepared to believe that GHS has its share of dedicated teachers, it also possesses some whose main aim is to wile away their time to the joys of the "Bide a wee home for retired teachers" where they plan to sit, drink tea and tell the world how hard their lives were back in those days!
When the speeches and general back slapping is over, myself and other unfortunates mount the dais, receive our prizes, and return to the relative anonymity of the audience. We each receive a cup (which is taken from us at the fir
st possible opportunity and replaced with a book. We had been allowed to choose the books from a less than wonderful selection a few days earlier.)The highlight of the evening is a long rambling speech from the Mayor, Councillor Jack Izzard all about the advantages of childhood, how quickly we grow up and how we should make the most of the advantages of our youth - late dubbed the "Buy your burial plot now!" speech by Mark Powell.
Later: Prizewinners and staff decamp to The Greyhound in Carshalton for a post award beer. This goes down very badly with Pat Graham who is about to march over to where Steve and I were seated and, I assume order us out, until someone whispered her in her ear that we are significantly over eighteen and therefore entitled to drink. In the spirit of GHS devilment I wander over and offer her a drink. In the spirit of a GHS teacher she accepts!
Editors note. Cook later made this reference in a 1999 diary during which time he was heavily involved in local politics.
I may have been naïve in those days, in fact I may have been bloody dumb in those days but even I worked out that the 'Dunwoodie cup for service to the school' was a prize for people who the school felt should probably get a prize and didn't have any other prizes.
Like Alice's caucus race everyone must have prizes! Gaynesford clearly thought not giving the head boy something would look bad, so they did. It wasn't a prize for English, Science or Maths, but 'Service'. There were tones in that of some ancient caretaker or faithful retainer being honoured by people who in reality could not care less and had better things to do. If I had had any sense I would have declined their kind offer, but like so many other things it was sold to me by Trevor as a 'good laugh' and something worth attending for that and that only. I knew I was being manipulated but didn't know how to deal with it and was far too timid to consider a flat out refusal.
When I met Jack at a school governors meeting, I asked him about that prize giving ceremony, Jack said that he had got used to that sort of thing during his time as mayor, but he did recall the GHS version since it was performed with the solemnity of an investiture and the professionalism of a bar fight.
FRIDAY 25th APRIL 1980.
Back in The Sun this time for Beverley’s birthday, the fact that she is not there or even aware that we are celebrating it in no way dampens the enthusiasm of our efforts. Beverley had perhaps wisely decided to spend the evening with her boyfriend something which blackens the soul of one Stephen Michael Johnson. In school Stuart offered her a single red rose and a box of chocolates. Steve refused to say what he did, but I offer a silent prayer to whatever gods are still prepared to listen to me that it is appropriate and not one his romantic gestures that backfire like a forty year old car. Trouble is that knowing my romantic friend I am fully expecting it to be a picture or possibly even a full blown play!
Steve is a good man and I feel that Beverley could do a lot worse, I also know that I am hardly an expert in these matters but can't shake the feeling that he is out of his depth and has misread the situation rather badly. Beverley likes to flirt, she was doing that with me when she was 14 years old, but I never saw it as more than flirting, some silly fun leading nowhere. Steve seems to see every encounter as either a plus or minus in his personal war to win her love. It ain't gonna happen mon ami!
SATURDAY 26th APRIL 1980.
Er, it’s my birthday on Tuesday, so we decide to celebrate early. We go to…well you know where we go. The Sun. The Sun is a grotty little place but the relatively small number of patrons means that we can practically take over the place. Given there are often more than 20 of us there, this is probably just as well. Were the police to raid it however, something like 80% of our group are underage. But we do spend money; the barman has given up trying to stop us and it’s the one place we know that we can bring Nick Rowe!
Editors note. Unsurprisingly, Cook’s diary records very little detail about the night, but a much later entry offers an insight into the sixth form at play
Piecing together the strands, it was fair to say that there was a core element to our boozing. Steve, Mark and I along with Ashok and Stuart and later Lee would invariable be involved.
Diane and Beverley were very much our key girl members along with Karen who turned up more than we might have expected but was generally wise enough to stay away from the events which did not seem well planned.
Lee would be involved if Steve had his way. Although, post Diane, Mark preferred to keep him at arms length when Lee was known to be included. Steve’s friendship with Lee during that turbulent period put some strain on he and Mark’s relationship, although with the elasticity of youth it was later healed.
Kim had turned up for that evening reviving in me the hope that there still might be something between us. She had turned down all suggestions that we might go out alone and I had feared that it was over - although in truth there was never much to finish. I was probably just as guilty of misreading the signs as Steve, but unlike Steve didn't continue to do so when it was obvious there was no point.
That night there were thirty people at the pub; a run down place in North Street, Carshalton, one of the few places in the borough that didn’t seem to have a problem with a horde of loud underage drinkers taking over the establishment. It wasn’t as if we hid the fact that we were under age. I have a vivid memory of Diane wearing her school socks and elements of her sixth form uniform to the evening. I am fairly sure that on a previous occasion Beverley and Diane had turned up to a midweek session without bothering to change out of uniform. Its possible the barman figured we were on the way to a fancy dress party or that somehow we had someone managed to steal a march on the 'School Disco' phenomenon, but I doubt it somehow. School issue hosiery seemed to appear from time to time as the evening progressed and I remember seeing one sock in a glass, this in no way seemed to bother the owner of the drink.
Steve must have noticed it too, because it featured in one of his later Dylan Clune plays as the sock of "Susie Simmonds." 1
Other memorable features of the evening were Ashok’s conclusion that I was in need of a pint of lager thrown over my head. With Ash, the thought and the deed were always one and the same, and the next sensation was one of coldness as the pint was tipped over me. I wouldn’t have minded quite so much, but with typical Gaynesford canniness, the pint he had chosen to pour over me was my own!
There was my foolish decision, on the way home, to vault a small stone wall close to the pub. History records that I tripped on the way over and ended up inverted and according to Steve and Mark doing a passable impression of a small dying insect… I think that night was one that will stay with me for a very long time indeed - along with the bruises and deep tissue damage of course…
I remember feeling exceptionally proud of the turn out which was the largest number of sixth formers and general hangers on we had managed during the month. Whether this was tribute to my popularity or simply the fact that the word had got out about these incredible boozing sessions we will never know. I recall by that time, the term 'my perfects' was used to describe the real sense of attachment and fondness I had for this bunch of iconoclasts and misfits. In many respects this would be one of the happiest periods of my life, when every day was fun-filled flirtation and interesting.
My fondness for this period was shared by many of the other participants and nowadays when Mark and I meet to drink perhaps just a little too much beer, the good old days would invariably be on the agenda. The music would become Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath and often as not we would offer an alcoholic benediction to those wonderful people of my youth.
Footnotes.
1. In a play called "Going to California." No copy was included in Cook's papers, but there is an extended reference in a 1988 diary which appears to have been an attempt to catalogue the Clune Collection. Cook wrote: "The play starts as a disturbingly accurate account of day to day life in the sixth form of 1980. There is some very clever and at times scathing descriptions of various sixth formers. The identities of the sixth formers are thinly hidden behind pseudonyms, thus we have "Malcolm Howell" (Mark) and "Les Blowhole" (Lee) "Diane Deephead" (Diane) and "Susie Simmonds" (Beverley) and the less than clandestine "Ron." Ron kidnaps Susie and is hunted by "Stephane De'Ath" (Steve) and the others. Various members of the posse are dispatched during the course of the chase until Ron and Stephane face off in Doctor Who's TARDIS where Ron is eventually cast out into the time void. In a typical Clune ending, no one lives happily ever after.
There were a number of Dylan Clune plays all of which have been lost to the mist of time, however we do have some information about them gleaned from information from Cook, Powell and the other members of the sixth form.
- The Merchant of Afghanistan circa 1977, a faux Merchant of Venice script.
- Cesspit Crawls circa 1978, a renaissance sex romp in the style of de Sade.
- The Odyssey - circa 1978 a retelling of the Homeric Odyssey.
- The Magnum Opus - little remains of this epic which seems to have featured character from a number of genres including several members of the cast of "The Good, the bad and the Ugly. Members of the band "Steppenwolf" and characters from 1980s television. The piece was perhaps unsurprisingly never completed.
- Going to California - see detailed notes above.
- "Surely there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair?" 1980, a factional account of the events of 1979-80.
SUNDAY 27th APRIL 1980.
Did you know that the average toilet flushes two gallons of water when the chained is pulled? Today this is not enough. Ugh!
Editors note. Our research showed up a surprising bond between the sixth formers with friendships that were, in some cases, to last for decades. The bonds seem to have been forged in adversity and it is perhaps typical of Gaynesford that their premier educational clique should be the one which in many cases was the one most discriminated against.
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