June 9th 1972

“Rained down hard. Tidied up room in readiness for Exams (ugh)”
I ask you, do famous people EVER include such insightful heartbreaking comments such as this in their autobiographies?
No, and I’ll tell you why not.
Because they’re scared of giving too much of themselves away.
If this is the first entry you’ve read in this online blog of mine, I’ll [...]

June 7th 1972

“Done studies for art exam” / “went out in evening. played hide + seek over park. ooh, so bludy exciting”
Please note that “bludy” – despite the terrible spelling – represents the very first swear word in my diaries!! In later years I think it goes without saying that I did learn to swear properly!
I like [...]

June 6th 1972

“Gave in Career booklets” / “Sent away for LP – ‘Old Songs, New Songs’ Family £1.05″ / “bought singles 20p”
No idea what career booklets were, but I’ll hazard they were booklets intended to help us schoolkids pick a career. I’ll warrant none of them featured the careers many of my closest friends, or I, eventually [...]

June 5th 1972

“Went swimming during games (BRRR)”
Again, I am struck by another astonishing entry.
Mainly due to the fact that I do not swim.
Our school was one of the few in the region that had its own swimming pool.
Outdoors and uncovered though. Heated? Unlikely.
Hence the “brrrrrr” remark, no doubt. It is, after all, only June in England. Hardly [...]

June 3rd 1972

“Went up Trev’s + took back records. Got some more Makers”
If it was 36 years later, the second part of that entry would mean that I had stopped off on the way home for a bottle – or two – of one of Kentucky’s finest bourbons, Maker’s Mark!
In 1972 however I was most definitely referring to [...]

June 2nd 1972

“Worse Day. Argument. Bomb Scare. Hand”
I’m sure I’ve suffered since ‘worse days’ than this one 36 years ago, but in 1972 this one obviously ‘got to me’?
If the entry has a ‘timeline’ aspect to it, then I suspect “argument” relates to some kind of parental dispute over the breakfast table, before I had even left [...]

June 1st 1972

“Back to School (spew) Hooray (for holidays)”
So, that was half-term then?
I can’t be certain that I wasn’t writing anything because nothing happened. But it does seem as if I fell in and out of favour with my diary, sometimes feverishly scribbling something, other days giving it as wide a berth as possible.
I do know that [...]

May 31st 1972

“Went to pictures and saw Up the Chastity Belt”
Fact: Frankie Howerd was a comedy god.
Fact II: I certainly knew how to pick dodgy movies to watch back in the seventies. My wife may say, that in 36 years, not much has changed.
“Up the Chastity Belt” was one of those archetypal British comedies, full of double entendres [...]

May 30th 1972

“Went up Trevs. back wheel on Tracker cocked up”
Trev lived ‘across the other side of town’, in (what was then considered) ‘upmarket’ Chandlers Ford. We lived on the poorer, doubtless considered more ‘common’ side of town in Fair Oak.
Going to Trev’s consisted of either cycling there – some 5, maybe 6, miles – or catching [...]

May 29th 1972

“Half-Term”
I’ve since discovered that American students don’t get what we Brits call “half-term”, a short one week break in the middle of the term, or ’semester’ as I believe it is known.
It was most certainly five days very much welcomed back in ‘my day’ as a teenager, but then what time away from school isn’t?
The [...]

May 28th 1972

“19 days. New Set Batts”
19 days? Is that all?
Nice to know my fascination in documenting ‘battery use’ continues apparently unabated.
No mention though of the cost of replacements this time, which either means I was flush with money…. or, more likely, I somehow talked Dad into buying them for me.
Just imagine if rechargeables had been available back [...]

May 27th 1972

“Recorded Yes Fragile. P.A.E – ELP ”
Ah, after all the weeks of apparently abandoning music for other teenage things, I’m back at the tape deck, sat silently in front of my record player.
Yes’ Fragile is perhaps their most complete work.  With its memorable Roger Dean sleeve artwork, it’s certainly the one which catapulted them into the [...]

May 25th 1972

“Sports Day. We win inter-forms after winning boys relay and 2nd in girls” / “books back”
Whatever they did with those books, it didn’t take them long.
Maybe they were all secretly implanted with tiny tracking chips to monitor where we went and who we talked to?
Maybe there was some other kind of ‘educational conspiracy’ going on in [...]

May 24th 1972

“all books taken in for inspection”
You know, when you read a line like this all these years later, you really can write all kinds of things into it… especially when your brain has completely switched off its original meaning. (As mine has)
But the thing that immediately sprung to mind was author Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel “Fahrenheit [...]

May 23rd 1972 (2)

“M.tif.D”
 MtifD refers to a tiff – or argument – between my Mum & Dad at home.
In, quite possibly, the first genuine downside of honestly documenting my old diaries in this blog, I find it quite cringe-worthy, sad and awkward to be openly speaking about this subject some 36 years later. Especially given the knowledge of what happened later [...]

May 23rd 1972 (1)

“went to see Miss Murray about careers”
Miss Murray was no more than a common-or-garden regular school teacher, far removed in advice (I would imagine?) from the professional “career counsellors” that exist nowadays.
Far be it for me to recall whatever advice she might have had. I certainly hope it wasn’t ‘professional memory man’?!
Tales of my ‘further [...]

May 22nd 1972

“no more norty things. bit tired all day but not to worry”
Blimey, I’m not surprised I was tired.
That was, apparently, one (if the word can be excused under the circumstances) hell of a sleepless church weekend!!
“but not worry” makes me appear ridiculously nonchalant about it all though, especially when the “no more norty things” is taken [...]

May 21st 1972

“locked val and sue out of their room in afternoon” / “service in afternoon” / “more norty tricks” / “got home at 5:15, found out that have lost pen”
Lest we forget the true purpose of the weekend, “service in the afternoon” probably relates to something ‘church-esque’. I am pretty sure it doesn’t suggest anything untoward, *ahem*, if [...]

an aside (II)

I need to clarify something.
I received a handful of e-mails today, more or less asking “Good god man, you first had sex at 14?!”
No, I did not.
Sure, I indulged in some harmless fumbling, but the *ahem* complete ’sausage in a basket’ thing did not happen to me until much later in life. (I’ll admit I was something [...]

May 20th 1972

“more norty tricks” / “played football, won 20-5, scored twice” / “Shared with S.B. in s.bag”
My diary makes this weekend sound like an utter bacchanalian event, interspersed only with food and the beautiful game?
Given the final subject matter however, the Benny Hill in me is trying hard not to say “surely I scored more than just the [...]