As we say adieu to 2023 and anxiously await the savage jaw of 2024, a look back to a high-spirited year in more ways than one. 1983 was a time of many firsts for me, in the following order, starting the week after I turned 14.
Nineteen eighty-three was the year I heard David Bowie in the flesh (the sound of his three-night stand wafting from the Milton Keynes Bowl into our back garden, I kid you not); the year I lost my virginity; the year I realised I wasn’t heterosexual; and even more shocking, the year I realised there was more to life than Adam Ant, who now seemed little more than a juvenile pop panto.
Carrying on with the juvenilia firsts, there was one more character-forming moment that Andy Warhol might have screamed at, had he looked at a certain Buckinghamshire “news”paper just days before Christmas that year. (Stranger things, and all that?). As Bowie himself enquired, Andy, where’s my 15 minutes? Coming right up, sir.
I mean, how many people can say that the first time they got drunk it made the front page of the papers? Well, one paper in particular — the Milton Keynes Mirror, issue number 479 dated December 22, 1983. Oh, what fun we had.
Being from the murky depths of the bygone era before I kept a diary I don’t recall whose idea it was, but at some point during the final school week before the Christmas break, a dastardly plan was hatched that involved most of the male members of my class, Sir Frank Markham‘s intriguingly monikered 4MF: the ‘four’ stood for the third year, however incongruously, while the not at all sexy ‘MF’ referred to our poison dwarf of a form tutor Miss Fiona McFarlane.
Basically, one of our number had the idea to have a merry knees up on the last day of term. One thing is for sure, it wouldn’t have been me as I was remarkably not at all fascinated by alcohol, despite frequently witnessing the change in my father’s temperament when he came home from Friday night drinkies with his work colleagues. No, it’s not what you think: he was a happy (semi) drunk — against all the odds, the booze generally made him an agreeable and smiley sort, as you can tell by this charming fotie.
And so, with the No. 1 “sounds” that week being The Flying Pickets’ Crimbo cover of Yazoo‘s Only You and the inaugural Now That‘s What I Call Music! compilation album, during lunch break on Friday the 16th of December we tribe of 4MFers augmented by a couple of invaders from another form made our way along the Redway path to an area of rural greenery just outside the school grounds. Those of you still in the vicinity will probably know it’s near to the bridge perched over the V7 Saxon Street that takes you to Golden Drive, the main road that runs rings around Eaglestone and where my paternal grandparents were living until the previous year, when they realised nascent MK life wasn’t quite Cricklewood or West Hampstead and decamped back to the bustling urbanity of London.
I’m almost certain the off licence we were naughtily and illegally sold the booze by was on Fishermead, another neighbouring estate. Some bright spark also obtained a packet of cigarettes, which I recall being the trendier of the time “B&H” — Benson and Hedges. 40 years on, I can still picture smirking as Matthew Durrant took a couple of furtive drags and desperately tried not to inhale or cough, much to the bemusement of the rest of us.
Me? I had a faint liking for cider in my teens but had zero interest in wines, spirits and even beer until I became a college boy at Bletchley Park a couple of years later. Someone was kind enough — I think it was Graeme Reynolds or possibly Jonathan Etienne — to share his Red Stripe lager with me (talking about keeping it local, the “Jamaican juice” was actually brewed in nearly Bedford), and I struggled to pretend I enjoyed the taste. That was a work in progress in fact, not really seeing was the fuss about ale was until years later. I do remember hating the gin even more but the home-made wine was vaguely interesting.
With the afternoon bell looming we young Bucks boys made our way across the school playing fields and past the science lab that would be featured in Superman 4 the year after went out into the big wide world, and where Mr Avery taught us really really interesting things with bunsen burners and iron filings and all the rest of it. In varying degrees of inebriation, we skirted a little too close for comfort, and the man himself, who always reminded me of a less patrician and more working class Thatcherite David Jacobs, came rushing out and barked that he’d just seen one of us through he window “holding a cigarette!” And to cease this activity immediately.
It was a sign of the shit was about to collide with the fan, though amazingly, he mention nothing about drink, drunks, or funny walks.
The afternoon lesson was conducted by McFarlane in the same form room where we endured the process of attendance registration twice or thrice a day to make sure we were all present and not entirely correct.
Armed with ample comments from those I’ve encountered while under the influence, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years is that I usually manage to hide my drunkenness incredibly well. And the day I was potted for the very first time was no exception either. I got through the class with no obvious signs and no suspicion, though I was probably somewhat quieter than normal. Cue the relief. Until…. Until, one of us “lads”, who was conveniently sitting by the window that looks out on to the very path that led us to our wanton debauchment, promptly opened it and threw up. Oh, how convenient, he didn’t even need to leave his seat!
With this in mind, I kept my head down and when the hometime bell that signalled the end of the school day rang I couldn’t wait to get out of “Woughton” fast enough.
I assumed we’d got away with our misdeeds until the local paper was pushed through the letterbox the following week, just a couple of days to Christmas. As luck would have it, I was in the house and with my unpermed ears, heard the MK Mirror land on the mat. I went to pick it up and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Not only had someone grassed and had our exploits reported to the press, but we were actually front page news!
Well, I suppose it beats discovering that the mayor wears a toupée, or somebody’s got nail varnish on their cat, but what do you say, readers, ummm?
Quicker than a ray of light, I rushed myself and the rolled-up rag upstairs to the sanctuary of my bedroom to survey the full horror story, and most importantly, to see what names had been mentioned.
With unbridled relief, I let out a huge silent cheer when I realised the paper had, probably for very good legal and moral reasons, decided not to name any of the pupils, nor the mystery “angry father” who was undoubtedly the same person that sold the story. So, the question was, do I get rid of the paper or slip it back in the porch and hope my parents don’t connect me with this tawdry teenage rampage.
Despite my parents living across the road from a country pub the three of us aren‘t typically British big drinkers. My sister, however…
I decided to brave it, as I knew from personal experience that if readers of the free local rags didn’t receive their copy they’re encouraged to ring up and complain. I mean, nothing to do with fellow Antfan chum Steve Day and I delivering the very title a few months earlier but unceremoniously “let go” from the one evening a week paper round when a sack of Milton Keynes Mirrors were discovered dumped in wasteland near the Grand Union Canal that separated Steve’s modern redbrick estate (Springfield) from my quaint, slightly dullsville village (Woolstone).
So, rag back on the mat. This is the front page text that bagged me a part in a front page headline, for the first but definitely not the last time. Is the man from the Betty Ford Clinic in tonight?
Mirror, incorporating Milton Keynes Express
Schoolkids Christmas booze-up
Teenagers taken ill after drinks party
By STEVE BRENNAN
A GROUP of 14-year-old schoolkids had to be helped home after a drunken lunchtime binge on Friday. As staff at Sir Frank Markham school prepared for their Christmas party, 11 fourth-formers held their own celebration with cider, beer, gin and home-made wine.
The seasonal session took place after two of the made their way to an off-licence to buy beer and cider. Other members of the group, all from the same class in the Woughton Campus school, had brought in gin and home-made wine.
But after the 15 minute drinking session outside the school, teachers noticed the drunken pupils staggering around and being sick. Several of the pupils had to be bedded down at the school while their parents were called.
One angry father said this week: “I think it is absolutely disgusting that 14-year-olds can acquire drink. I was shocked when I got a phone call telling me what had happened.”
Headmaster Keith Harrison said: “The kids did obtain beer and cider. Two children were sufficiently ill for us to send for their parents and were bedded down until their parents arrived. Some of the parents have apologised on behalf of their children. We are not going to suspend the children.”
Mr Harrison does intend to raise the matter with the manager of the off licence which sold the youngsters the alcohol, however. One of the youngsters involved told the Mirror: “There were 11 of us and two of them went off to the off licence to buy the beer and cider. We also had home made wine and another boy had some gin. We went behind the school, about a five minute walk away, to drink it. We weren’t in the school.
“When we got back, after about 15 minutes, I was falling about a bit and some of the boys were really merry. The teachers saw one lad being sick and some of us walking a bit funny. They took us to the toilets and tried to make me sick and keep me awake. I don’t know what happened after that.”
One father said: “There was no blame involved at the school. The drinking was done outside the school and the teachers looked after the children pretty well and made sure they were all right before they took them home.”
Mr Harrison added: “This is a matter which we are going to have to treat seriously. This situation must not be allowed to be repeated.”
As soon as my father saw the paper he didn’t so much question me as tell me, haughtily, “I hope you’re not involved in this, Steven.” I denied all knowledge, obviously.
I mean, hello, yes, I was 14 but I do attend Sir Frank Markham, the biggest secondary modern comprehensive in the town. There are tons of boys it could be, and as there had been no word from the school, I brazened it out and assumed I’d got away with it.
Then over a week later, something else landed on the proverbial mat. I recognised the envelope and the handwriting immediately as coming from SFM, and realised I’d been rumbled. Someone snitched, the rotter!
This is the text:
29th December, 1983
Dear Mr and Mrs Pafford,
On the final day of last term your son consumed alcohol during school hours. Before he returns to start the term, we would like to discuss the drinking escapade with you. Please wold you accompany him to school on Thursday 5th January at 1.30 pm. It would be helpful if you could contact the school to confirm this arrangement.
I am sorry that it is necessary to start the new term in this way, but trust that you realise the seriousness of your sons’ (sic) action.
Yours sincerely,
J S Hancock
Notice that the deputy head teacher of said shower school doesn’t even know where to put an apostrophe, making it look like my mother and father had more than one son found in contemptuous “action“.
Also, it makes Harrison’s assurance to the Mirror that “We are not going to suspend the children” somewhat disingenuous. The first school term of New Year 1984 commenced on Monday 2 January, yet we were instructed not to return until there afternoon of the fifth. It was indeed a soft suspension, though was I bovvered? The way I saw it I had an extra three and a half days off the education treadmill, and even if that time saw me banished to my room at least I had my record collection for company. Oh, and my Boots No. 7.
I don’t recall my father being terribly angry at the letter (it certainly wouldn’t have been the first one the school had sent, complaining about some misdemeanour or suchlike), but it would be fair to say he had other concerns about his only son that were a little less “laddish” than getting pickled on a paddock with a bunch of delinquents.
The Boots own brand was the trigger, because at some point that same “holiday” season I’d come home from our favourite Saturday haunt, Virgin Records, CMK plastered in make-up, having decided that I no longer was transfixed by Adam Ant but edgier, more androgynous “weird” pop stars like Robert Smith and Pete Burns, of the Cure and Dead Or Alive respectively.
I walked in to the living room and my disgusted ole dad promptly slapped me round the face. Not punched, I hasten to add. He never did that, I’m glad to say. Then, when my Aunt Julia made a visit to drop off some Christmas presents, my slightly less reactionary mother thought it best I dash upstairs to the bathroom and wash the cosmetics off: “Just till she’s gone, OK?”
Of course, my sister being my sister, when Julia asked where I was, dearest sweetest Stella blurted out, “Steven’s upstairs washing his make-up off.”
Cue all kinds of terribly British awkwardness when I re-entered the land of the lounge.
“Oh, make-up? It’s a good idea…” offered Julia in that achingly polite middle class way. I didn’t say it, but, being only 14 and taking her at her word, I thought to myself, with a dash of incredulity, “Haven’t you heard of Boy George?”
Although I wasn’t a fan, the painted ragdoll George O’Dowd was the biggest new pop star in Britain, if not the world. And, ironically, it was actually sister Stella who bought the 12” of Culture Club‘s cruddy Karma Chameleon, helping it become the biggest selling single in the UK at the same time another singing celebperson with an uncertain sexuality, Michael Jackson, announced via the Thriller video that he was not like other guys. It‘s enough to make eat someone’s hat.
I digress, because when the three of us — that’s me, ma and pa, not the singing pair — ventured upstairs in the newly completed Seckloe building to sit for what seemed like an eternity outside the head teacher’s office, I was wearing a second-hand fine check grey and black blazer, topped off with a mass of backcombed hair, earring and (gasp) very subtle traces of eyeliner. Father was sitting to my left, head down out of sheer embarrassment, and suddenly covertly reached for my left hand. Not so show any signs of tactile support or solidarity, but to wrestle a large black plastic bangle from my left wrist.
Indeed, the “drinking escapade” was the event that signalled my estrangement from most of the males in, well, not only my class but my year, really. Using outlandish fashion as my means of expression, as I became ever more belligerent and defiant in the right to discover who and what I was, there were my so-called peer group who would doggedly remain “lads” forever, of whom I became an affront to their developing masculinity. I was forever barred from their events — be it the sports changing rooms, or just hanging out in corridors and alleyways getting up to mischief.
Naturally, it was an emotional rollercoaster that even the usually indifferent McFarlane couldn’t help but notice, and subtly alluded to in my subsequent school report dated February 1984:
“Steven hasn‘t made a promising start to his fourth year, and this group of subject reports does not do justice to his undoubted talent and intelligence… He seems unsettled and unhappy in himself. I hope that an attempt to resolve his personal difficulties will bring better results in other areas.”
I guess that‘s a story for another time, but if we can rewind back to the half a pint of shandy booze shenanigans, well, as far as non-sexual vices go, I was only ever an on-off social smoker, didn‘t care for weed (despite that first evening with George Michael), gave up the ciggies for good in 2007 and drink only sporadically, if at all.
But the moral of this tale? I’m buggered if I know but I’ve said more than enough already. Shut up!
Steve Pafford
PS In 2019, I paid a visit to Milton Keynes Library to track down the original newspaper. I am nothing if not resourceful (hic)
