“INDUCTION – Cum-c-us great! Had to do speech – Q.Funny. New birds ain’t bad”
I should start by saying that “political correctness” was nothing but a twinkle in most people’s eyes in 1975.
I should continue by pointing out that I was a hormonal 17-year-old boy.
Furthermore there were some very attractive young birds ladies amongst the prospective new students for the following school year.
John Sweeney - still angry at being far less funny all those years ago
Looks like my unrequited stand-up career took further root, as I doubtless undermined all the good work that John Sweeney – Coffee Club President-elect if you remember – had done on stage before me. That would generally be the tone of things: John would stand up at the lectern and be all serious and grown-up about what Barton Peveril would be offering its students for the next few months, whilst I would follow him, generally being juvenile, taking the piss and mocking my peers, the tutors and (occasionally) the headmaster.
It goes without saying that the apparent coffee club promotional tagline of “cum-c-us” is somewhat embarrassing and indefensible 35 years later.
Induction week consisted of prospective students ‘trying out’ Barton Peveril.
1975 saw UK inflation running at a staggering 24.2%, the cost of petrol had risen an astonishing 70% since the start of the year, and interest rates were at a mind-boggling 11.25%
To send them on the way, the first year 6th – and specifically the Coffee Club committee (of which, as some of you may remember, I was a member) – arranged a massive leaver’s dance complete with music, dancing, buffet food and (illicit) alcoholic beverages.
As a result of not having my regular ‘comfy’ specs on I was doubtless more squirmy than I otherwise would have been at this important interview at WH Smith in Winchester.
Seriously though, what 17 year-old kid in the seventies would have “nothing to do”?
It started life in 1848 as little more than a news vendor on London’s Euston station and was owned and run by William Henry Smith. It quickly took advantage of the railway boom going on at the time, opening other outlets – adding books and magazines to its mix – on the station concourses in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool stations.
In 1966, and as the country’s foremost bookseller, Smiths originated an in-house 9-digit code for uniquely referencing the books it sold. They called it Standard Book Numbering or SBN. It was adopted as a recognised international standard four years later, when it was re-tagged the ISBN scheme.
Excerpts from a 70's Teenage Rock Opera 