January 18th (Part 2) / 19th / 20th

• “Go to Alresford”
• “Good laugh at Al. Usual missing of clothes etc”
• “Got home about 5:30″
Old Alresford Place was built in the 17th Century as a country parish rectory.
In the 1800’s it became the home of the Rt Hon Reverend Sumner, whose wife Mary  founded the Mothers Union, now a worldwide christian organisation boasting a membership of [...]

News in 1973 (III)

[... "News in 1973" continued from part II]
The IRA Bombing Campaign
Flashback to January 1972: In Derry, Northern Ireland, a civil rights march turned into bloodshed after members of the British Army opened fire and killed 14 protesters, severely injuring 29 others.
Seven of the 14 were teenagers. Many witnesses later testified that all of those shot were unarmed and [...]

June 29th 1973

“R.E. <- Har Har”
I swear I am not making this up….
The comment I made in response to my Religious Education exam was….
“Har Har“
This despite going to church and despite everybody’s efforts to make me believe in all that bible palaver.
At least now my religious friends know that even back then I was already looooooooooooong beyond [...]

May 31st 1973

“H.Term – confirmed at All Saints 7:30. Got 100 kroner from Mormor & Holger, Pen from Uncle Bill & Auntie Dot, Alarm clock from Simmonds”
“Confirmation” – according to online research – is a rite of initiation in many christian churches, including the Church of England.
It takes the form of the ‘laying on of hands’ by a [...]

May 30th 1973

“H-Term – Nothing dun in morning, but in afternoon went up Gra’s and he taped Imagine and borrowed Foc 3. Went up dick’s, Trev’s and from there to TIB meal and booze up”
So, lets sum up what TIB – a religious group remember - gave this teenager in the 70’s shall we?
Naughty fumblings in shared sleeping [...]

March 11th 1973

“Went to church in morn – then to rehearsal for passion play – didn’t go to TIBS cos’ I was thoroughly shag tired out”
Honesty time… I had to look up what a “passion play” was
Wikipedia describes it thusly….
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Christ: the trial, suffering and death of [...]

The 1973 Diary (II)

This shows how hard I worked as a 15-year-old schoolkid!
Here’s my school timetable, at least (presumably) for January – July 1973. (The diary makes no reference to a timetable from Sept 1973 onwards… maybe it was the same schedule?)
I had Economics (as in ‘world financials’, not ‘home economics’ and all that cookery nonsense) to kick [...]

November 19th 1972

“told in TIBS that would be confirmed at easter + that TIB group would go out on my birfda”
In the whole Church of England malarkey, confirmation is a ‘grown-up’ ritual where individuals who were baptised as babies renew the ‘promises’ made for them at that baptism by their parents and godparents.
Only after confirmation is the individual admitted [...]

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 [...]

May 19th 1972

“TIBS weekend” / “Abbots Road by 6, rave up in A’s room” / “Arrived at 7. Had supper. Unpacked. Played Norty Tricks. Brilliant Fun”
OK, it’s time to play something of the “voyeur” with my teenage self.
This was an away-from-home weekend, linked to my T.I.B church group. Not just the individuals in my own little ’sect’, but [...]

January 23rd 1972

“T.I.B. – Didn’t go”
To the untrained eye, “T.I.B.” could be some kind of bizarre acronym.
“Tried Intestinal Bleeding”, “Tie is Blue” or perhaps “Tinkerbell is Beautiful”?
It actually stood for – and I am not making this up – “Training in Being”, a 1970’s church group.
Now let me state, right out of the blocks, that I am [...]

January 11th 1972

“Hot seat at church”
As if to (completely) qualify the comments in my previous post, this is a sentence made up of words which mean NOTHING to me.
Does it suggest I sat on the vicar’s lap during the sermons or something?
“And Lo, the lord has risen”
“Yes, I think can feel him reverend”
I will talk at some [...]

The 1972 Diary (III)

I wrote my school year exam results on one of the “notes” pages. I presume these were for the year ending in the summer of 1972.
The first thing is the subject, the second my ranking in the class, the third my score on (presumably) whatever test we were given (I can’t remember how the scores [...]