The plan for the day was simple, board a coach in Carshalton, and go to Brighton, get drunk, go to a disco and come home. What could possibly go wrong! (ho ho!) The coach arrived at the appointed hour outside of Gaynesford's main entrance and we duly boarded. It was the usual collection of social misfits and nightlife gathered together in one spot, some bleary of eye having been forced by the itinerary to rise at what was for them an uncomfortably early hour. It crosses my mind that we are heading for a nightclub and the journey is starting at nine in the morning, even by coach we would be in Brighton in time for lunch!
My memory is blurred about events during the course of the day, I would guess at significant refreshment stops with the result that some of us became far more refreshed then was good for us.
Editors note: Our researches found a note in a much later edition of Cook's journals which appears to have been inspired by a memory occurring from an early 21st century iteration of the entries.
In retrospect any trip out by the PPA was an excuse to get drunk, I was by this time the 'chair' of the committee, a role I greeted with all the enthusiasm of an racist agnostic at an American evangelical meeting in Mississippi, but need not have worried since any venture out no matter how it was overlayed with culture or entertainment distilled down to 'go and drink!' The Brighton gig was particularly obvious in that sense in as much as a trip to a disco was organized to start some 12 hours before we would be allowed through the doors and we were likely to in Brighton a third of day before we needed to. Its worth noting also, that in those less enlightened times, pubs had opening times and for the hardened imbiber there was a dead zone between 3pm and 5.30pm during which the only option was to mill around the streets like refugees from a bad Romero movie. It was probably just as well that some of our contigent had the chance to find food and sober up a little before the main event of the day.
As I recall we found ourselves in Brighton by mid afternoon and around 30 of us split into small groups in search of whatever entertainment rocked their particularly boat. My group including Mark and Steve found a snug which on reflection was probably somewhere in the Lanes and stayed their until we were kicked out at 3pm returning at 5pm like salmon returning to their spawning ground. I suspect the landlord thought we had simply camped outside the doors. Which may have been true. It was a long time to around 8.30pm when we finally left our snug and ventured out into the now cold and somewhat blurred world..
Why do pubs have to close in the middle of the afternoon?
Sitting at the table with the others, Ashok offers the news that he has been lusting after Kim for some time and believed that he is in with what he calls a good chance. But Kim’s parents are less than enamoured of the prospect of their daughter seeing anyone who was not of a fairer shade of skin. It seems that
Kim had told him this yesterday under direct orders from mummy and daddy. I should add that this was nothing to do with me and my initial reaction was one of outrage that he had been denied his chance. If nothing else the group was loyal to one another and while sometimes the jokes were a little south of polite we were not racists.
There only groups we discriminated against were the 1st to 5th years!
Ashok spent the evening sitting at the table drinking heavily and occasionally bursting into tears. What choice did I have other than offer my support? I felt guilty that I had not told him that I was in love with Kim, only Steve and Mark are aware of that...Hmm… better make that only Steve, Mark, Beverley and Diane and whoever they talk to...thinking about it that probably included Kim as well. I can’t use this opportunity to catch Kim on what would seem to be rebound.
The disco, unsurprisingly, was not a resounding success. Nick Rowe, who we had somehow smuggled past the bouncers kept his coat on all night - perhaps he suspected that he would be thrown out for revealing his Noddy Club membership badge on his sleeveless pullover. Mark spent most of the evening smoking, which is odd because as far I know he doesn’t smoke. He is clearly worried about something and a good guess would be how his relationship with Diane is going. He dropped one or two hints that he was a little worried. But with Mark it is nearly always hard to tell.
Oh yes, and if there is a record for the number of burgers consumed in one evening,then it was successfully challenged by Billy Mulane.
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