1A middle name and the lonely school disco
1
A middle name and The lonely school disco.
1974
Artist:- slade
Song:-Far far away
Artist:-Mud,
Song:-lonely this Christmas
THE NAME GAME
It was in 1974, and I was all of nine years old, and for some godforsaken reason in them there good old days, your form teacher for the class at morning register, sporadically had to, no sorry, made you, stand up in front of all your peers and shout out your middle name, ( if you had one that is)
now our class teacher was one Mr Jolly, who was far from fucking Jolly, in fact he was downright fucking nasty,
he had a totally bald head with not a hint of shaving, and with no eye brows I figured a touch of alopecia may have set in,
and as a nine year old I would have put him at around 60 years of age, but of course he was probably only around thirty or so,
I mean as a kid we see anything over twenty years of age as very very old,
he always seemed to wear the obligatory tweed sports jacket, with elbow patches, and a crumpled plain white shirt with a bow tie which never quite looked symmetrical
every fucking day the same,
oh and let’s not forget the thick round lensed glasses that seemed to slant the opposite way on his face to the way the bow tie would be sitting around his neck
On this particular day Mr Jolly’s dark piercing eyes focused on me and his hand lifted and the long grubby forefinger of his right hand was pointing straight at me!
Jesus H Christ I’m the chosen one!
I’m the one to start this tortured process off I thought,
“Taylor” he bellowed “on your feet boy and let’s have your special middle name, the one that mummy gave you to placate your daddy but would never be used in public,”
now that’s a little harsh I thought, but of course i said absolutely nothing, i just stood there holding my buttocks tightly together so as not to shit myself, and so the Jolly man carries on with his little monologue “and loudly and precise or you will be repeating it boy till I’m satisfied that I can hear you”
“Reginald sir,” I shouted with all my heart, at the top of my voice, and as clear as possible, so that I could just sink back into my chair and forget this name and shame moment ever happened, and the jolly man could then focus on another victim,
but embarrassment shone all over my face, not because of the name, unpopular as it was in them good old days,
but just to be forced to stand in front of your class mates and shout out a name that no one gives a shit about anyway,
and it was never gonna be of any use to the fucking teacher really, except maybe to embarrass all the youngsters and keep them on their toes,
because of course that’s what teaching was all about in the early nineteen seventies, Christ you got a good slap across the head for fucking sneezing in the wrong key!
Anyway as expected and in unison all the class sniggered, but there was one boy,
well he just couldn’t help himself could he, he erupted with a full explosion of laughter, the lava dripping down his nose, his eyes streaming with so much water, you could end all world droughts,
Of course I exaggerate I know, but he was a little over the top
the bastard!
The name Reginald is not that bad anyway, but I give the teacher his due, he silenced the class by just rising to his feet,
like a god rising from the depths from somewhere only gods can rise,
he spoke to Micheal in a soft but stern voice, (that was the boy by the way, Michael brown)
and then spoke to me,
for my hurt pain and embarrassment, I was to stand next to Micheal,
and when he stands and has to shout his middle name out, I was also to laugh as loud as I could into his face, give him a taste of his own medicine he said,
great fucking idea teacher!That’s going to help the situation no end! What if he can fight better than me and what if he can run faster than me? No no, what if i cannot laugh on fucking cue?
Well no worries there, to all of the above,
as it turns out Micheals mother had obviously had a vision into the future at his birth and foresaw this situation and named him for just this occasion,
“my middle name is John sir” he shouted with a cheeky fucking grin all over his smart arse face! So who’s laughing now!
Fucking Micheal, again the bastard,
oh and all the fucking class by the way,
and let’s not forget the baldy fuck, named jolly,
well he laugh the loudest and the longest, hope you die you old fuck,
CHRISTMAS IS UPON US
some months later the festive period begins and my name and shame day is a distant memory to all involved,
it did though take a couple of weeks of torture from my class mates before it subsided, and soon after the focus landed on another child,
she had made the mistake of pissing her self after she was asked to come to the front of the class to do a maths equation on the blackboard,
well it was like Niagara, free flowin down her legs, the pool of wee, was getting so large the teacher thought about evacuation,
but as usual, like many a seventies teacher, he just gave her a solid slap across the ear hole, and I think that may have stopped the flood,
but I think with the smell that came next, there may have been a back passage explosion, Jesus the poor girl, but in them days it was every child for themselves, so fuck her,
Anyway many thanks Tracy you did me the biggest favour. So as we enter December of nineteen seventy four I have good vibes in my heart,
because as always we have the school disco to look forward to, this was always a great time for kids, well usually, you can bring in any records that took your fancy,(that’s a download nowadays by the way)
well I thought I was onto a winner here, I had the record of the top band with a number one song on the hit parade looming,
I bring out the big guns,, it’ll be lonely this Christmas the number one by mud , heart wrenching, gushy for the girls , what’s not to like, Well Micheal He definitely did not like,
so laughter all around again! For fuck sake what was I thinking,
But it’s ok though, the teacher yes Mr fucking jolly himself, Nips the laughter in the bud,
his genius fucking idea was to get me out there and show them how to dance to this mushy fucking tune, No!
Is he really gonna make me fucking dance? The answer is quite clearly yes, and to top it off with a big red fucking cherry on top, he tells me to pick the girl of my choice to assist in the dance, and then take them by the hand on to the dance floor To that classic song of my choosing, lonely this Christmas, as everyone knows boys dislike girls immensely until they reach puberty or go to high school which ever comes first, so for the jolly man to give me that ultimatum cemented my thoughts that he was a sadistic bastard,
Do you realise i died that night, dancing all on my own as expected, and relished by the jolly man, not one fucking girl would come near me, they pretended to chat to each other or turned away, but mostly they all fucked off to the toilet,
I now fucking hate that group mud, and the song It’ll be lonely this Christmas never gets played around me to this day, because at this rate, lonely at Christmas is a fucking given.
My life was hell in the build up to the Christmas holidays, yes all the fingers were well and truly pointed back in my direction, all the sniggers, the piss taking was aimed at yours truly
but I was a tad surprised, that the worse culprit was Tracy,
yes Tracy pissy knickers, well who can blame her! She’d had her day
every girl for themselves I think I heard her say.