My two years at a posh international school 1988-90 -Part 1

[DJ Pat]

Friends' School On April 18th 1988 I started at Friends' School, Saffron Walden, just inside Essex about 14 miles south from Cambridge.

I'm sure my dad felt bad about leaving me up there on the day I started but I'd put him through shit getting arrested seven times in 6 months around London when I decided to stop going to school back in October, and fucking around painting graffiti on trains and stealing from shops.

It was time to grow up I suppose. I'd sat an entrance exam and had an interview in January and passed both. Dad had got charities to pay for me and also the governments 'assisted places' scheme helped (which Tony Blair has subsequently scrapped by the way)

The written exam was fairly easy. Whilst I was at the school taking the exam I remember thinking this may not be that bad after all. I'd been to one other interview at Wolverstone Hall, near Ipswich, a boys only school which had great surroundings but the boys only bit put me off. Friends' was a quaker school, and from what I read, the quakers are a peaceful religion who accept anybody, so here I was.

On the way in, I spotted a three black kids being driven in, the Mbarani's, so assumed there would be quite a few there. Turns out there was only one already and those three were starting the same day as me.

The school has a 300 year history and was a huge place, not unlike Harry Potter's school. Everything was pretty old fashioned and the interiors of the original block retained most of the old features.

I was put in a dorm of six in the junior block called Gibson House which had a bearded housemaster, Mr. Collins and a matron, Mrs Parry. Collins was pleasant enough and also taught woodwork.

My dormitory mates were the type me and my friends would refer to as 'country bumpkins' or 'posh ****s', so I assumed. There was a kid from Braintree, James, two brothers, Duncan and Rupert, one boy who I heard was the 'loser' of the year, Dyer, and a skinny kid from Ipswich named Simon Blow. Blow had a huge bottom lip, which he got teased about.

Not many kids took that much notice of me, and I was glad of it. I had no idea what to say to many of them and where I'd just come from wouldn't bring up any similarities to any of their circumstances so I stayed quiet.

I kept myself to myself and at night would listen to Radio Caroline on my transistor radio, often falling asleep with my headphones on. Then about a week into the term some of the kids were showing eachother stuff by torchlight after lights-out and were really excited about it. I looked across the dorm and asked what they had, as I was also curious, but James told me in not so many words to piss off as it was not my business, I was just the new boy. I thought no posh ****'s gonna tell me what to do and went over to him.

"Say that again" I said. He pushed me away and said "piss off thief". I gave him five right hand punches to the head. The torch was now off so I was just aiming towards a shadow in the darkness.

When he was down I stamped on his face about four times to hammer home my point and he was yelling in pain. I jumped back into bed and left them to themselves. No matron came. I didn't hear about it the next day because Hawkes didn't report me. I thought all "posh" kids ran straight to teacher.

Mr. Collins had noticed his bruised up face and I suppose James had to tell him. I didn't get done for it and was given a quiet warning. We shook hands. After that Hawkes went out of his way to be accomadating to me. The whole dorm did.

They showed me all their hobbies - James was into lighting programming, tractors and electronics, and he showed me the schools DJ gear in the assembly hall. A couple of so-called 'hard' boys in the year above (Ben Martin and James Watson) would make snide comments about the company I kept and one or two of them I told to fuck off or I'd kick the shit out of them. I scared them. My 'loser' dorm mates now had protection. It was hilarious.

Simon Blow wasn't so sure though. He told me to my face that he could beat me up no problem and wouldn't hesitate to do so. I thought he was joking. One day I joked about his lip and he jumped on me whilst I was lying in bed. I threw him off so far he landed on a bed on the other side of the dorm.

The day after that in PE he attacked me and I had to pushed, rather than punched him in the face. Silly boy, I thought. You don't get any plus points punching someone like Blow. I was nice to him after that deliberately.

Threre were girls at FSSW and I soon noticed, as a 14 year old lad does. I liked one, a half caste girl, Toni, whom I met in the pet shed. I kept a hamster called 'Gascoigne', after my hero footballer, Paul, and I met her in there one sunday afternoon playing with the rabbits.

It was her mate Serena who liked me and one evening when I was watching tv in Gibson house there was a knock at the door for me. It was her.

"Hi, I'm Serena, what you doing?"

"I'm really busy right now"

"Wanna walk down the avenue with me?"

"I can't, I'm watching Eastenders"

Then I just closed the door on her. A bit cold I'll admit, but I was watching Eastenders. And it was thursday, so after that at 8 was The Bill on ITV. Serena was alright but it was Toni I liked.

The avenue was a tree lined lane that ran down the middle of the school grounds and round the playing fields, quite remote in places. And it didn't take much working out why she wanted to walk down there with me. The first girl I kissed there was a girl in the year below called Hannah. It just happened as we were bored one sunday I think.

I liked Toni. A lot. I wondered if she ever knew. There was strange girl I spoke to called Verity. She was always in the library alone and seemed to have no friends. I never fancied her at all, just that she was always in the library on many occasions that I was.

Then there was Sophie, I really liked her, she was from Highgate and you could tell. Well I could anyway coming from Holloway. She always seemed one step too far from me. Or the likes of me more likely. We had the occasional fun 'liason' but were never an item.

The classes were ok, I learned a bit and paid attention. In one class the teacher mentioned our PE teacher, Chris Smith. I stood up and blurted out "Chris Smith's my local MP" To which the teacher replied, "yeah sure Patrick, now sit down" then, perturbed at his disbelief I said "I'm not fucking pissing about" which got a good laugh. The teacher, Mr. Searle-Barnes didn't punish me. But I don't think he was up on his politics at that time.

During a geography field trip we were asked to sketch a part of the locale that was unique in some way. I sketched some grave stones and wrote on one of them 'Mary Porter RIP'. Miss Porter was our maths teacher, who was in her fifties. It didn't go down very well.

It took a few weeks before I started to mingle with other kids and played football with them on the fields in the evenings after dinner. They were terrible at football and it was no wonder that the school had a crap team and were always losing. But I had arrived, and so had two other kids that would turn the team around, Luke from Hatfield Heath and Benedict from Colchester.

This was the moment I met one of my best mates, Ed, he was one of those who was quite good at football too, and had been at the school since 11. I hooked up with Ed because he was from Streatham, and in my book any London mate there was a plus point. That was my mentality.

A few other kids lived in London but weren't 'street' enough for me. Ed wasn't much street either but he had that trustworthy streak about him. I'd found a friend. He was an Arsenal fanatic, and still is, and when he heard that I lived not far from Highbury and could hear the roar of the crowds, we bonded.

The first big laugh me and Ed had was when we were watching the Euro '88 football match between Ireland and Holland in the Gibson House tv room. Simon Blow was there and made the mistake of cheering on Holland, while we wanted Jack Charlton's underdogs to win.

We gave him what we later coined as 'Blow's ordeal'. It started with me asking Blow to sit nearer to us and Ed pulling his chair from under him. I slapped his head playfully and pulled his bottom lip, and he cried out. As he cried out I picked an ancient, rotten apple core from the bin and shoved it in his mouth, and he wailed like a proper little girl, and then stormed out crying. Some ordeal that was. When matron pulled me up about it I denied Ed had been in Gibson's tv room and told her Blow must have been imagining it. Wonder what she thought of that.

Saffron Walden town was a million miles from anything I'd ever lived in, and was a shoplifters paradise. Security was non-existent, the Woolworths may as well have had a sign up advertising.

But I was supposed to have stopped all that, I told myself. I did nick the odd book or pens from the WHSmiths and some bike parts from the mechanics but that's about as far as it got.

The town had a lot of history, an old market square, a cafe called The Mocha was a hangout and did a good bacon and eggs, there were a few decent old pubs, The Sun was a hangout when I started having the odd pint, there was the common where some of the older kids would be smoking and there was a non-league football team with its own small stadium and lastly - a rival school called County High. "Rough" they said it was at FSSW. What the hell did they know, I'd just been at St. David & St. Katherines, one of Haringey's finest.

I'd heard that County High were always starting trouble in town with our kids. I walked into their regular haunt, The Mocha Cafe, and deliberately called out one of the kids eyeing me up and told him that things were gonna change. That was big of me.I said that any reports of our kids getting a slap from theirs and I'd personally deal with it.

They weren't that impressed and I wanted to offer them out there and then but there was seven of them and one of me. I wasn't scared at all. I was full of steam. I would have probably got the shit kicked out of me.

That summer holidays, 1988 was my last I believe as an immature kid. We spent most of the holidays on our BMX bikes, riding all over London. Me, Martin, Paul, James, Hugo, Francis, Donald and Cicero. We stole from shops all over London, nothing substantial mind, just paint, food from supermarkets and bike parts mostly.

Paul was into stealing records and I remember him once brazenly walking out of Woolworths in Enfield with Salt 'n' Pepa's album, "A Salt with a deadly Pepa" and Public Enemy's album under his arm. These were vinyl albums, remember! I got back into my graffiti, though on a smaller scale and in August of that year retired from it. I no longer got that kick out of it.

When the new 4th year term started in September 1988 My younger sister Elaine joined me in Saffron Walden and FSSW now had two of us to handle.

I was excited about playing in the football team and our PE teacher, Mr. Smith had already heard of my skills before in my first term. Ed and a few of the other kids had excitedly told him about my first ever performance and hatrick in six minutes whilst mucking about on the field one evening.

I made the team easily, and captained it with Luke often getting the job when Mr. Smith thought I might lose my rag on the pitch. We were winning games a lot as well, playing great football, me with my surging runs upfield then cutting in from the left, like Gazza used to. I scored a few goals and got into the team in the year above as did Ed and Luke, not many were that good, and I even made the schools first eleven at 14, playing alongside the sixth formers for a couple of games.

A kid joined the school two years above me called Jahmil, he was a graffiti artist from Cambridge, and I didn't know that graffiti had reached there. I knew vaguely about the Bristol and Wolverhampton scenes but nothing about Cambridge.

We got on like a house on fire. He respected me for knowing all the big London names and I respected him cos he was older and got me chatting to some of the sixth formers. He was a bit 'street' but I could see he hadn't been in the thick of it like I had in London, he smoked grass, but I wasn't interested ever in smoking.

On Guy Fawkes night there was a huge bonfire in the town and a group of County High lads were team handed and doing the rounds, intimidating mostly the younger FSSW kids.

When I saw some of them I went over and headbutted him full in the nose, no words, just a huge "crunch" sound as his nose went. Turned out I'd nutted a 'name' kid in the town.

He had a reputation. Rowan, his name was. I wasn't scared, I would take any of 'em on. Then there were some more of their kids starting on this little weedy kid that I'd often seen in our school library.

"Who you fuckin with?" I asked him

"Who's you?"

"Fuckin re-inforcements you silly ****" and I nutted him, breaking his nose in the process.

I met up with Jahmil, who was also milling around looking out for rivals. He'd got himself into a jam and was surrounded by about nine County High kids. I stepped in and stood by him.

"So what then? you wanna try it ?" I asked them

"Why not just you and me one to one?" the biggest lad said to me. He was big but I had an ego to keep up, remember.

"Yeah ok, let's go" I said and stepped forward.

Then Jahmil stepped in front of me and fucked up big time.

He pulled a knife out and threatened them. A few onlookers saw this and the police were on us quickly and quietly. Jahmil had managed to toss the blade into a bush.
So there was no evidence. After being made to shake hands and forget about it, it was ok. The County High kids denied there was any knife involved.

The next day Mr. Smith, who was now my house master summoned me into his office.

"So you think that's what being a man is? Using a knife? Who the hell do you think you are? This isn't the streets of London boy"

"I didn't pull no knife, I never saw no knife" No knife had been found so all I had to do was see this through.

"Ok come back to my office at ten o'clock, we'll find this knife"

I had to be excused from a class to meet Mr. Smith who wanted to search my belongings in my dorm. At this stage I was in a huge dorm that had about fifteen beds, which was in the main old block of the school. It was great being so high up in the building.

After he had found nothing in my things, he starting going through the coats that were hanging up that belonged to the other occupants of the dorm.

"Hidden it here have you Patrick?" he said as he went through pockets. "Oh what have we here?" he said as he found a pack of cigarettes, then he found a lump of hash.

"Not mine, nowt to do with me, you know me Mr. Smith I like my sports" I said to him.

"Ok Patrick, disappear"

I'd got away with it. I think he just wanted an excuse to go through the other boys coats as he had suspected them of smoking.

The dope belonged to a kid who had joined just a couple of months earlier, John who was from Reading. He was expelled straight away.

Jahmil wasn't so lucky mind you either, he'd had his stuff searched and they found a bag of weed so he was also expelled, immediately.

I never saw him ever again.

I did good in english, art and home economics. I was crap at biology and french. I loved the sports.

I kept my head down and behaved myself for a month or so until one morning I found that my hamster and its enclosure had been severely tampered with in the pet shed. I'd seen a couple of kids from the year above messing around in there before when I first joined the school and they used to do silly things like swap pets to different cages or make the lock get stuck so you couldn't get in.

One of the kids from the year above, Alex Bell, had an annoying look to his face when he was laughing, and I knew that one day he'd try and fuck about with my hamster, 'Gascoigne' and I'd get my chance to smack him. I did.

I saw him wheel his bike into the shed one morning and followed him in.

"You almost killed my hamster you ****" I told him.

He deliberately kept looking away saying "no way, no way" and started smiling that horrible smile. I swung and caught him bang on the nose with a left hook that almost lifted him into the air.
I heard the crunch -it looked really bad, lots of blood gushing. "Who you fuckin' with?" I said to him as I walked off, a bit worried.

It took until 11.30 that morning to get summoned to the deputy heads office. Mr. Martin Hugall, who was a greying, bespectacled South African who was also my biology teacher.

Kids always joked that he treated Raphael worse than all the others because he was black. It was just a childish joke though.

Alex Bell was also sitting there with a huge bandage pushed against his nose, unable to speak as the lower half of his face had puffed up.

"The medical centre informed me about this, why did you do it Patrick?"

"He tried to kill my hamster, he was messing around with all the stuff in the pet shed, other people were complaining too"

"Is this true Alex?" Mr. Hugall asked him

Alex was unable to speak. As he mumbled blood seeped out of the bandage from his nose. Tears then rolled down his cheeks.

"Shake hands and that's the end of it" Mr. Hugall said.

I don't honestly think he was that bothered, he knew Alex Bell was a twat anyway. I'd got away with it again. Bell was absent from school for three months after that. I didn't know until later that it was because he was terrified of me, but I had no more grudges. I'd already got him back.

Raphael joined FSSW in September '88, hailing from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, also being related to their Royal Family. He seemed a loner at first and was quiet, and one day we got talking about fighting, because many other pupils were trying to get us together, as Raph could handle himself, and that was obvious. He was into ninjitsu and I could tell from his aura that he was quite special, I had done a lot of tae kwon do and judo so we got chatting and hit it off straight away. He got flak for being a bit touchy-feely with the girls, it was just his way, and myself and a Thai girl in our year, Manivone, had a fake relationship going just so he would keep his hands off her. It was funny at the time.

Raph had a Playboy duvet cover on his bed and a map of each pressure point of the body on the wall, as well as a yin-yang poster. No wonder he had his own corner of the dorm. Me and Ed used to piss ourselves laughing about it.

In 1988, nobody had mobile phones at their disposal so obviously there was no text messaging. We swapped notes, literally. So if you liked a girl, you got another girl to pass the note onto her. It was fun. I started sending notes to a girl in the year below called Kathleen. She had long brown hair, was quite tall and I thought she was stunning.

She was from the Madingley area of Cambridge, which is the nice part and I never thought she'd look twice at the likes of me. It started off with me walking her to her bus stop, we had a nice little thing going for a few weeks, but I think she got bored of me, either that or her parents got wind of it when I phoned her house in the half term break. I still liked her for quite a while after that, but I don't think she believed me.

I had noticed a girl in my year, Katie, quite soon after I joined the school and I really was interested in her. As Christmass '88 approached we were both showing good signs that we could be an item. After the last day of term a few of us got invited to a party a few miles down the road and I went because I knew Katie would be there. It was my first ever village disco. I even danced with Katie.

During that Xmas break, Dad's mate Pat Murphy gave me a nights work doing the Nursing agency bookeeping as soon as I got back, and I managed to save a bit of cash from it, I don't think I even spent the first night at home, I was straight to Pat's. Pat was great like that, he always had backlogs of it so anytime I was free he was glad to let me take some of it off his hands.

He got paid well for it as it was. Myself and Niall were up til about 3am that night doctoring those books. Or "cooking" the books I think they call it. The nursing agency could avoid paying a lot of tax due to this, but that's another long story.

Dad took me and Elaine up to Inverness for a couple of days, and then to see family in Leeds. I don't recall much of this trip apart from some excellent fish and chips and icy cold winds. On the way up on the train we passed through Lockerbie two days after the tragic plane disaster, where terrorists put a bomb aboard a 747 so that it would explode over the Atlantic ocean. Typically, it left Heathrow late and spilled it's passengers over Lockerbie.I saw a huge impact crater from the train window. It was chilling.

All I did for most of the train journey was listen to a walkman with my romantic songs.

All of a sudden I was enjoying being at school again. I was itching to get back. The school would lay on a coach from Kings Cross for the London based students to get back on, and it was a relief when that sunday in early January finally came.

FSSW played grass hockey and not football in the spring term, a tradition that went back years. I was a bit annoyed but soon got into the hockey, becoming a decent goalkeeper. I got to wear all the protection and wasn't afraid to dive all over the place. I played all the games for our year and even replaced the schools first eleven 'keeper for a game.

To make up for the lack of football some of the other lads in the year above asked if I would like to play for a local side, Abington Aztecs, with them. We played on sundays and the standard was ok, our team weren't that good though, we all looked the part in our kits but on occasions we got thrashed. Once we even lost 14-0.

Katie said yes when I asked her out, and we hung out, going up to Cambridge to watch the latest Tom Cruise film, 'Cocktail', at other students homes and we used to sit in the coffee shop overlooking the market square, whiling away afternoons drinking cappucinos.

Katie had a best mate, Sophie, who lived locally in a large house with a wine cellar. We often bunked classes to drink wine and beer there. Ed would sometimes be with us, one day to try and impress Katie I attempted to bite the cap of a beer bottle, what a fool I was.

I'd always managed it with other bottles like Supermalt but this one was stubborn. I bit through the glass and took the whole top part of the bottle off and kept it hidden in my mouth, faking a sudden toothache. When blood was visible, I had to admit to being silly. I think Ben Ingle was witness to that as well.

I remember a school history trip we took to London to the National Army museum where a few memorable photos were taken on the HMS Belfast. I had to of course start a shouting match with some other school kids but not much else happened.

Me and Katie got along but I knew I would never be 'meet-the-parents' type of material for her. She was known to a few County High students as she was a local girl who lived in a big farmhouse down the road and whose family took holidays to Lanzarote. They were well rich.

I'd played alongside her elder brother in the football and hockey teams. Local rumour was that Kaite was seeing a County High lad, which I never believed. Maybe she was. Anyway I soon bored the pants off her and it ended at the end of term.

Meanwhile, Edward Snell and another black kid from south London, Daniel, arrived at the school. Snell was dark haired and slightly chubby. He'd been expelled from a school in west London for apparently calling them up and issuing a bomb threat. He was amusing and witty but also had a dark streak about him, which I could never pin down. We shared a maths class together and he wouldn't do his work, he'd just sit there doodling some really disturbing images.

Daniel was in the year below and other pupils would say that he 'looked like Mike Tyson and spoke like Frank Bruno', to which I admired their intelligent deduction. Daniel was the first black kid I ever met that played the violin. My dad got on well with his mum too, I remember.

I took up some DJ-ing not long after that at the schools summer dance with Daniel, using the DJ gear the school had. It wasn't great gear, but did the job. I loved DJing. I always had records and was buying them each week from the towns two record stores, but mostly Top 40 pop. I was into electronic music and I got into rap music later on.

The first time I ever got drunk was in June of that term. Another student, Lara who was over from Japan had a party at her home, a small semi detatched house. I played DJ using tapes and drank beers, punching walls as I got further inebriated. What a fool I must have looked. I ended up in a room with another drunk girl, Jenny who was best mates with Rebecca, who was a major fan of mine. Me and Jenny ended up kissing, she said I looked like River Phoenix. Nice.

I was still really drunk though. Katie was at that party and deliberately avoided me. I didn't blame her. I never did find out if Jenny ever told Rebecca about that. Probably has by now.

That summer was a bit of a turning point for me. I kept in touch with several of the kids at school. At home, I was learning to take apart music centres and build speakers. I had the worlds first ever surround sound in my bedroom, all in balanced stereo. I did need to sit in the dead centre of the room to get the full benefit mind you, and I did.

Funny that, as in 2008 Yazoo have re-issued all their albums on vinyl for the purpose of playing in 5.1 sound.

Pink Petrol Bomb had planned to hire out a hall in Malden, Essex and play a gig. I went up and we all stayed in Ben Hoyle's house. I stayed sober, they were all getting pissed most of the time and we did about two hours of practice in total. It was a complete disaster. Three people turned up and I walked off stage, taking my stuff with it. Not surprisingly, I fell out with the other band members, Leon, Ben and Neil.

Leon and Ben had come to Andover Estate for a few weeks before this so we could write songs and I think they got a slight shock when they saw where I lived. They got on with dad though, deep down I reckon they wanted to see the 'ghetto' so to speak. Rich kids can be like that.

Later that summer I wanted to find work at a disco shop and I looked in Loot, the classifieds paper and saw that a business in Kentish Town wanted somebody to hump speakers and lighting about in the shop and at clubs. The boss was a guy in his mid-thirties called Steve Young, who had a business renting sound systems, record decks and lighting, as well as a DJ agency.

I worked at the shop a few days for fifteen quid a day, starting at 11am til 6.30. They sent me to a gig in Hampstead, at some really rich Indian guys party in a huge house. All I did was carry the stuff in and hang around the party til the end, when I humped it all back out again into the van.

I got twenty five pounds and went to bed at 4am. And as for the music being played by the DJ and later Steve himself, most of it I had or could get easily.

I wanna be a DJ, I remember telling the careers officer back at school, John Wadham. The money's easy and I get to be at lots of parties. Steve Young was a very reasonable bloke to work for, all he asked was for the job done right. Not much to ask for I suppose.

Also in those holidays I stayed with Ed Snell at his mums place in Putney. Bloody big house it was, we didn't do that much, sat in a bar drinking cider on Putney High street and watched horror videos. Ed was a bit wierd and we had a massive row and I went home. I was hated for walking out of the band and now that Snell was a smoking buddy of Ben and Leon's, rumours were being created, fresh for the start of the new term.

I had never got along with the rebellious streak of my year who were into smoking over the field and heavy rock music, which I hated, people like Ben, Leon, and Ed Snell were telling the other kids I was poor and Snell was saying that I stole food from his kitchen.

Then I had a bit of rivalry with Leon over a girl, Kim White, and that made me look even more stupid, real fucking stupid. People laughed at me behind my back and giggled when they saw me, it was at least half the year, even some of the loud girls in my year jumped on the bandwagon.

They had a fucking nerve. Then again I hadn't exactly endeared myself to them in the first place. They even got Elaine to turn against me, and she got brainwashed into not talking to me. It was odd. Elaine was mates with Kim, which was probably why, and she had taken up smoking over the field.

I had only a few allies in my year, Ed, Claire, Raphael, and a few others. We were all quite close because of these arseholes. Claire had been put back a year from above to catch up and she was a great laugh. We talked about stuff like close friends did, I'd say she was my first soulmate. We'd sit together in French classes groping eachother and piss around, learning any lingo was furthest from my mind.

When I confronted Leon over the rumours he was brushing his teeth and ignorantly took no notice of me at all. So I knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the face, then booted him down again when he tried to get up. I was bare-foot. He ran out and faked an asthma attack in front of Mr. Smith, who was forced to act.
I remember immedietely afterwards asking Raphael who was in a cubicle taking a shower if he had heard the blows I'd rained down on him, and he replied "in stereo". I'll never forget that.

The next day I was summoned to the heads office and suspended for a week. Mr. Smith told me before I left that he knew Leons asthma attack was fake and would do what he could to get me back in 3 days time.

I went home and the first letter I got was from Claire, saying that deep down many of the girls in our year liked the fact that I had kicked the crap out of Leon. He was a bit of a shit to the girls, thought he was god and all that. They all got a bollocking from Mr. Smith for being underhand and had to apologise to me on my return. I don't remember any of them apologising.

I didn't get back early but the day I returned Mr. Smith said he could entertain me if I wanted to play football for the first eleven that afternoon. Of course I did.

I then kept a low profile and had to show that I was being a good role model. They arranged for me to help out a kid from the first year who was very small and got picked on. I would make sure he got to his classes ok and if he had any trouble he'd come to me. He was a good kid with lots of energy. Paul Bonner, his name was. Wonder what he's up to now.

I saw my football hero, Paul Gascoigne get his third cap for England against Albania on a school trip to Wembley. He came on as a substitute in the last 20 minutes and made a huge impact, weaving a fantastic run and scoring a great goal. The whole place went up and the energy was incredible. Gazza was doing his best to earn himself a place in the World Cup squad to be held in Italy the following summer.

To get rid of some of my pent up aggression I joined the school production of 'Grease', you know the story. I got the part of Sonny and had to grow my hair so I could have it slicked back. James and Chris were on the production team doing the lighting and had it all computerised, which was brilliant, and members of the proper school band, Void, were playing in the house band and evereything was sung live, it was great. I learned to sing and dance a bit, and in the end it was so successful that we did extra shows. A lot of money was made in collections after the shows from the parents, I remember.

The careers officer was encouraging pupils to be more creative in money making ideas and I came up with an idea to sell pancakes in the tuck shop kitchen for 'charity'. I scoped out the kitchen, cleaned it up with James' help and drafted in Duncan, another kid in our year who was matey with Ed, in to help as he was the only other lad in my home economics class. Sorry, I was wrong there. Oliver was also in our home economics class.

I drew up advertising and with the help of the teachers photocopier made up some snazzy posters that I'd stick around the school telling them when we were next open.

The first day we opened we minted it. Sold everything. We kept putting it back into the next lot and made a fortune by our standards. A small trickle went to Duncan as I did most of the PR and cooking part of it. None of the cash was going to get to charity because I told the headteacher we were going to invest it in outdoor gear and cook in town on a stall at the town's winter fete.

In truth, we borrowed two camping stoves from the scout hut then found that we couldn't get the flame hot enough for cooking pancakes. The freezing cold weather didn't help either, the whole thing was a failure. The pancake mix we made up ended up in the river at the bottom of Duncan's garden and I told the teachers the money had been tied up in the camping stuff.

They believed me and I took home over a hundred quid that Xmas holidays from Pat & Dunks. I did fold up a wad of six tenners and squeezed them into a collection box at WHSmith's in Liverpool Street railway station on the way, I felt that I had to at least give something to charity as I believed in fate.

Pat 'n' Dunks pancakes did ok for about three months until that fateful December night. Can't win 'em all.

Just before the end of term in December '89 I was granted leave to attend an Erasure gig at the London Arena, they were massive and had sold the place out about ten times over that month and another six times the following January they were so big. It was in the London Docklands arena, which was still being developed, and Pat's flat was only a stones throw away in Bow.

I got to his place after the gig with an upset gut and, him being qualified as a nurse (as well as an accountant), I asked him what he thought would help.
First, he said try some milk. That failed so next was milk of magnesia, that was useless, then he gave me gaviscon, which didn't work, then antacid which was also no use.

Finally he said, "try a beer" and it worked. I passed out dizzy with a headache not long after, the combination had got to me. When I woke up it was 7am and Pat had gone off to work at a hospital. I had to get back to school by train, and luckily Pat didn't have any accounting work for me. I didn't need the money at the time anyway.

Even though I was supposed to be a reformed character, I still couldn't resist a bit of blue collar skullduggery.

There was my ticket scam, I took cash from five pupils and promised them tickets to a gig in London at the end of January '90, which I knew was sold out.

I told them I would get tickets off a tout and it would cost them a little more. I didn't care, all these kids had to do was ring mum or dad and they'd have cash by post in two days.

When we returned after Xmas I simply told them the tout had fucked me over. I remember counting my cash on the train home for the Xmas break, I had 240 quid on me. I was going to go straight out to the record shop and stock up.

This Xmas holidays, '89, was the one where I first tried smoking hash. My elder sister Jo and her mate Jackie took me to the her banks' Xmas party at a Corney & Barrow venue in the city district where I downed several malibu and cokes, getting pissed in the process. The journey home on the tube was hilarious. I had stolen a few ash trays and started smashing them on the tube platforms and was all over the place.

When we finally got back Jo gave me a spliff and I loved it. Half an hour later I devoured a whole box of chocolates and an hour after that, was throwing up malibu and coke mixed with chocolate. I was the last in the family to start smoking. Elaine was even ahead of me. A memorable introduction to drugs.

I had also borrowed a stack of Jo's dance records she was into and got well into the sound of soul and acid house, Adamski, LFO, Tricky disco, Guru Josh, Bomb the Bass, Soul II Soul, Joyce Sims, also some rap music. De La Soul and were the first I liked, being laid back and happy, then Young MC, N.W.A., Public Enemy and Run DMC.

I celebrated my birthday that night in my room with Martin, Ben, Dean, Hugo, Lee, Wayne and Val. Everyone brought records round to play. This was the first day all of us had smoked in my room together. It was fantastic.

The one bit of news that made me shudder that December was the news that our mate Paul had got sentenced to three years imprisonment for attempted murder. He'd knocked a guy into a coma with a baseball bat in a tube station while his two accomplices got away scot free. Paul didn't grass them up, he kept quiet.

We had already stopped hanging about with him when he started carrying the bat around and hanging out with a different group of friends. Yes, we often robbed other kids from 'posh' schools, but the rule was no girls, no knives or any weapons. It was kind of an unsaid thing that all kids knew. I suppose Paul always felt he had something to prove, his graffiti 'tags' were always spray painted or written in places many others would never dare to go, like the outside of a railway bridge 20 feet above Holloway Road.

Christmas, 1989. I was now 16, and a dope smoker. Deep down I knew I was an idiot for this.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Jarvis]

I knew it would happen Pat..my writers block has gone too..off to get some Leo's from garage..back in a bit

[Texpat]

I only read the last line.

Deep down I knew I was an idiot.

Couldn't agree more.
Writing a 5,000 word essay on yourself will endear you to very few. Especially when it's titled as such.

[kingwilly]

yeah - but, interesting, but can you write somewhat more succinctly?

[DJ Pat]

Had to do something with it. Took me ages to write that.

[DJ Pat]

yeah - but, interesting, but can you write somewhat more succinctly?

What the hell does that mean?

[kingwilly]

^ less fuckn words mate.

and does your stories ever have a goddamn point or punchline?

[November Rain]

Did you actually read it, KW?

It was interesting , but lengthy - maybe should have been spread over 3 or 4 posts

[Jarvis]

Simon Blow wasn't so sure though. He told me to my face that he could beat me up no problem and wouldn't hesitate to do so. I thought he was joking. One day I joked about his lip and he jumped on me whilst I was lying in bed. I threw him off so far he landed on a bed on the other side of the dorm.

Fook, never told me you went to boarding school you poove...got me Leos BTW now

[DrAndy]

never mind Pat; they do say it is cathartic to write about the problems you faced when younger

pity you needed to share it though, you seem to have a selective memory

[Jarvis]

and Public Enemy's album under his arm.

Yo Bum Rush Da Show, I presume?

[kingwilly]

Did you actually read it, KW?

Sorry i should've explained, I only ever read the magazines for the articles....

of course i did you cheeky git, I only pretend i'm stupid online...

It was interesting , but lengthy - maybe should have been spread over 3 or 4 posts

unfortunately DJpat is also good at doing that, but the 3 or 4 posts are also as long as this OP, and again do not seem to have a point, rather are just a ramble of ideas without a joining central idea or apparent point...

[Jarvis]

Though, Pat + Int. Public School =

[Looper]

maybe should have been spread over 3 or 4 posts

I think you are in luck NR. The title is post-fixed 'Part 1' so sounds like Pat is just warming up.

[sabang]

I've enjoying reading it.

[bkkmadness]

He's no Charles Dickens but that was a nice bit of writing in my mind, I just sat here and read the whole lot with my dinner.

That summer holidays, 1988 was my last I believe as an immature kid. We spent most of the holidays on our BMX bikes, riding all over London.

In 1988 I was 11 and the Beastie Boys were big news so we went round on the bmx's nicking car signs. I had some great VW signs, but still feel a bit guilty now about the Mustang II sign I had away off the side of a car once. Not many people had enough style to own a Mustang in Dagenham and I bet he couldn't replace that part easily. But boys will be boys.

Cheers Pat, looking forward to the next part.

[kingwilly]

He's no Charles Dickens but that was a nice bit of writing in my mind,

ok then, fair enuff

[zipcode]

Did you get laid during this period? And if so, why doesn't it figure more prominently in the story?

Sorry, I am somewhat preoccupied with sex these days
due to being unoccupied with sex these days

[jizzybloke]

Enjoyed it Pat cheers.

In 1988 I was 11 and the Beastie Boys were big news so we went round on the bmx's nicking car signs. I had some great VW signs, but still feel a bit guilty now about the Mustang II sign I had away off the side of a car once. Not many people had enough style to own a Mustang in Dagenham and I bet he couldn't replace that part easily. But boys will be boys.

I feel a bit guilty about this now too!

Not many people had enough style to own a Mustang

I hope this is a joke?

[Fabian]

It was interesting , but lengthy - maybe should have been spread over 3 or 4 posts

Second that.

[PlanK]

^ Third that.

Pink Petrol Bomb

Was that the name of your band? How did you come by that name?

[Redneck]

In a time earlier than Pat's education, it was all buggery and mutual masturbation and beatings that drew blood from the buttocks. After pat's schooldays came drugs, raves, teenage heavy petting in a way that most middle class parents (hypocritically sozzled on gin and tonics) would find shocking

Unfortunately pat seems to have been at school at a time when nothing remarkable was happening or worth chronicling

[good2bhappy]

Anyone else go to a posh public school in the UK?

[mad_dog]

I went to a minor public school for five years. Should have stayed longer really but there are more pressing demands on a 14 year olds brain than studying. What happened to Pat being the token Asian? Did he like it?

[good2bhappy]

I went to Shrewsbury, Salop