At My Mother's Knee (24 page)

Four boys below me in class position who happened to live
in Cheshire had passed the elevenplus. Two of these boys
seemed as dense as a Victorian pea-souper and the others
couldn't pass water without supervision. My mother was furious.
How could these boys pass the exam when her darling son
(who, apart from being a little slow at maths, was smart as a
whip) had failed? All the evidence she needed was there.

I hear that these days St Anselm's, Redcourt, is up there with
the best and is run on entirely different lines from the hellhouse
of my day, the Christian Brothers' reign of terror long over. I
hope so, for the kids' sake.

M
Y DAD WAS AS GOOD AS HIS WORD AND DID INDEED HAVE
a word with the chaps down at the Education
Department. Instead of starting the autumn term at
St Hugh's
,
I was to go to
Blessed Edmund Campion
, in Claughton Village.
I felt as if I'd had a lastminute reprieve from the electric chair.
My mother didn't care if I was starting at St Trinian's. Her
dreams of a college education for me had been dashed and in
her pessimistic state of mind it was all downhill from here.

My dad was also bitterly disappointed that I'd not got into
St Anselm's main college, but he took a more philosophical
view of the matter, accepting that maybe it hadn't been such a
good idea to take me out of a school where I'd been performing
well and put me in one where I failed to thrive. It was my
dad who escorted me on my first day at 'Blessed Eddy's'. My
ma still had the hump, and apart from getting another
Provident cheque out to buy me a school uniform in the regulation
green and black showed little enthusiasm for my new
start. The horror of standing in the middle of a packed playground
with my dad in tow wearing his best Gannex mac,
surrounded by scowling lads who were each and every one of
them in a pair of long trousers and sniggering at my short ones,
makes me squirm with embarrassment to this day.

*

Most of the pupils at Blessed Edmund Campion came from the
North End
of Birkenhead. The North End was a tough, predominantly
working-class area, at its epicentre a huge circular
block of flats known as Ilchester Square, standing at the
junction of Laird Street and Corporation Road like a great
fortress. Ilchester Square was notorious. It was a powder keg
that could explode at a moment's notice; its reputation for
violence was legendary, and it was definitely a no-go area for
non-residents. Even the police were wary about going near
Ilchester on their own and usually turned up in a pack of half
a dozen when a visit was required. They hadn't forgotten
Bonfire Night, when a fire engine had been turned over by an
angry mob baying for blood as the crew attempted to
extinguish the enormous blaze roaring dangerously in the
middle of the square.

The pub round the side of the block was appropriately
named the Blood Tub, and every Saturday night rivers of the
stuff poured from battered noses and broken teeth as yet
another barney kicked off. Ilchester Square and the mean
streets that lay in its shadow was Birkenhead's very own
version of Hell's Kitchen.
Prostitutes
hung around on
Corporation Road hoping for a lucky strike with a sailor or a
docker who would appreciate a 'ten-bob gobble', the proceeds
of which would be spent in the Crown and Cushion on Market
Street. I saw a couple falling out of the door steaming drunk
one Saturday afternoon, assisted by a poker-thin queen with
plucked eyebrows and long fingernails. The women looked like
the pair of noisy, motheaten old parrots that sat hunched on
perches behind the door of Wirral Pets as they staggered,
squawking at each other, down Market Street in killer white
stiletto heels that even I could recognize as unsuitable footwear
for women of their age and inebriated condition.

My mother shook her head and made a tutting noise as she
watched the pair of ageing brasses ricochet from lamp post to wall. 'Keep away from strong drink and women like that,' she
said disapprovingly, grabbing my arm and marching me in the
direction of the number 60 bus stop. To paraphrase
Tallulah Bankhead
, she never said a thing about drugs and men.

Corpo Road working girls were nothing like the whores of
legend, no golden-hearted tarts ready to ruffle a child's hair
with a friendly word before slipping him a couple of pennies
for sweets. On the contrary, these women would tell us to 'eff
off ' if we so much as glanced at them. We used to run past
them on the other side of the road and call out 'PROZZIE!' at
the top of our lungs, whereupon the 'prozzie' on the opposite
pavement would let rip with a stream of invective that
would've had the congregation of St Werburgh's dropping
dead with shock but made us scream with laughter.

At first I was ridiculed at Blessed Eddy's for wearing short
trousers, and laughed at and bullied for sounding 'posh'. Hard
to believe now, I know, but back then St Anselm's had weeded
out most of my Scouse twang and left me with near-perfect
vowels. I was also polite, obedient, compliant and passive –
not great selling points in a class full of hyperviolent thugs
– and if I was to survive and be accepted I had to undergo a
few major changes. I began to wonder if getting a transfer from
St Hugh's was a good idea after all. It certainly couldn't have
been any worse than Blessed Eddy's, where most of the boys were
aggressive and confrontational. Fights broke out daily in the
playground; the queue for the bus after school was a bloodbath;
and bullies lurked round every corner to steal your dinner money
or beat you up. Small fry compared to the guns and knives of
today's sink schools, I know, but terrifying at the time.

I hated Blessed Edmund Campion, hated everything about it,
and became quiet and withdrawn, retreating to my bedroom
after school where I would lie on the bed in the dark, picking
at the wallpaper and 'worrying'.

Eventually I ceased to worry and began to make friends.
There was a boy in the class who made my life and a few of the
other kids' lives hell. He had foetal alcohol syndrome written
all over his unlovely face and was a relentless bully. I scored
major Brownie points on the day when I eventually snapped
and retaliated. He'd stuck a compass in the back of my leg, and
I turned on him and punched him so hard in the face that he
lost his balance and fell down the stairs. I was given two
strokes of the cane for that, but it was worth it.

Then there was the time I scored the winning goal, which
gave me, albeit only until my classmates realized that it was a
never to be repeated, once in fifty million stroke of luck, the
status of footballing god, up there with Bobby Charlton. God
knows how it happened. I'd been hanging around the edge of
the frozen pitch as usual, trying to look like an eager and
enthusiastic team player who had a clever tactical reason for
standing so far away from where the action was, when
suddenly the 'action' started to come towards me at terrifying
speed. Before I knew it I'd lashed out haphazardly with my
foot and kicked the ball straight into the goal, thus winning the
game. A big handsome lad in the year above me, with curly hair
and beefy thighs, whom I'd always been shy of rushed towards
me, flung his arms round me and kissed me on the neck. An
emotion which had up till then lain dormant and unexplored
came to life at his touch. 'I fuckin' love ya,' he shouted, and
kissing me hard on the mouth squeezed the cheek of my arse at
the same time. My legs turned to jelly and I went limp in his
arms like a silent movie heroine – which was unfortunate really
as just as I was getting into this malarkey he dropped me and
ran on, cheering and waving his arms above his head, leaving
me flat on my back on the frozen mud wearing a glazed expression
while a flock of Disney bluebirds twittered gaily in a circle
around my head.

The gods looked down upon me kindly that day, for even after he'd cottoned on that my dazzling goal was a pure fluke
we became friends. He was taller than me; puberty had come
early to him and he looked a lot older than twelve. The word
that springs to mind as I try to describe him is 'thrilling', and
indeed he was. He was tough, yet not a bully. He was also confident
and smart and he taught me how to ride a bike. I'd never
met anyone like him before – the boys of St Anselm's were pisselegant
mummy's boys, but he was a different breed altogether,
with a touch of the feral about him, raw and exciting. We'd sit
in the park after school and have long necking sessions on a
secluded bench. 'Pull the hood of your duffel coat up,' he said,
'so if anyone passes they'll think you're a girl.'

There was nothing 'homo' in these lip-locking sessions, we'd
reassure ourselves. Homos were old and hung around the
men's lavs at Woodside Ferry. This was a different kettle of fish
entirely – this was in the name of research. We were plainly
and simply practising our kissing technique in preparation for
the great day when we actually got to do it with a girl. And so
each afternoon we'd sit locked in a passionate embrace, the
youngest lovers in Mersey Park, enthusiastically experimenting
with our chosen after-school activity, perfecting our skills until
reluctantly we went our separate ways home for tea. We never
got beyond kissing – in our innocence neither of us really considered
it – and we carried on necking in the park until we
gradually grew out of it, finding other after-school games to
play, pretending that our liaison had never happened. But
neither of us was ever quite the same again, and we became
awkward and embarrassed in each other's company.

After that I gave up on men. Disillusioned and on the scrap
heap at twelve. Never mind, there was always the telly for consolation.
Like every other kid, I lived for television.
John
Steed
had yet another new Avenger Girl at his side in the form of
Tara King. At first I resented her for daring to try to fill the
goddess Emma Peel's leather boots, but slowly and surely she grew on me until I found myself smitten by this auburn-haired
beauty. I stuck pictures of her all over my bedroom wall, wrote
her name in large letters with black felt-tip pen on my haversack,
proclaiming to the world my love for this creature, her of
the cold green feline eyes, voluptuous figure and quirky nature.
This Amazon who could throw men over her shoulder without
compromising her femininity, who drove a scarlet Lotus
Europa Mark II and lived in an enormous flat in Primrose Hill
that was decorated in shades of mustard, pink and green and
filled with fascinating artefacts such as a penny-farthing bike
hanging over her fireplace. There could be no other. There
wasn't anyone to compare with the Canadian actress called
Linda Thorson
who played Tara King. I was hooked, and so
began the start of a long love affair.

I'd fantasize on the bus on my way to school about working
for the secret service and living in London, somewhere smart,
probably around Regent's Park or Piccadilly Circus, I thought,
in a flat not dissimilar on the inside to Tara's. I'd drive a Lotus
down Portland Place, Tara at my side, and after a night at the
theatre we'd drink champagne in a glamorous West End
restaurant before ending up in a very smart nightclub that had
an up-tempo jazz combo playing something on bongos in the
corner and a girl in a French maid's outfit selling cigarettes
from a tray hanging round her neck like an usherette's. This
was one of the many scenarios I'd cook up in my mind as I sat
on the back of the bus from Borough Road to Claughton
Village, staring out of the window, absently sucking on a pear
drop, on my way to school. Be careful what you wish for. My
ma was saying that to me long before it became fashionable
and, witch that she was, proved to be right.

I've since sat with Linda Thorson many times in the Wolseley
Restaurant on Piccadilly, drinking the odd drop or two of
champagne before going on to a club – no bongos in the corner
or chic cigarette girl, unfortunately, just a DJ and a drag queen collecting glasses. I haven't driven in a Lotus with her down
Portland Place, but we've sat in the back of a black cab on the
way to the theatre. I didn't end up living in Regent's Park or
Piccadilly, nor am I a secret agent (give me time), but I've got
a penny-farthing bike hanging on the wall in my London flat.
However, all this comes much, much later.

One of my other passions was
Batman
, me and every other kid
in the world who had access to a TV set. There wasn't
a kid to be seen on the streets of Birkenhead of a Saturday and
Sunday evening. We were all glued to the telly watching
Batman. It was nothing like the dark and moody Batman of
today: this was the campy Adam West sixties serial that had
every kid in the UK addicted.

A boy in school jumped out of his bedroom window, wearing
his duffel coat, fastened with one button round his neck as
a substitute cloak worthy of the caped crusader, a balaclava
and a pair of wellies, and broke both legs when he hit the
kitchen roof. Our gang didn't go quite that far but we'd play
Batman enthusiastically in the playground every break time,
taking it in turns to be the various villains. I was never Batman
or Robin. They held no attraction for me; I thought they were
ridiculous. They were so self-righteous and boring that they
made me want to turn to crime. I much preferred to be either
the Joker, Penguin or Catwoman – far more interesting. The
game usually ended in a glorious punch-up accompanied by a
soundtrack of
Wham
s,
Kapp-ow
s and
Kerrunch
es.

I was fitting in nicely at Blessed Eddy's. I was still paranoid
about my school work, believing that I was stupid and unable
to learn, a legacy from the Christian Brothers. I gave it my all
that first year at school. I revised for the exams every night in
bed; on a Saturday morning I'd be found in the reference
library hoping that I looked learned and intelligent, a student perhaps, as I sat at one of the highly polished tables,
surrounded by books, tapping my teeth with a pencil and
listening to the silence. I came top of the class that term.
Having been used to hovering near the bottom at St Anselm's,
I couldn't believe it. I thought they'd made a mistake. At
lunchtime I ran to the phone box in Claughton Village and
rang home.