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Authors: Rob Brydon
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imaginations of my new classmates and they took great pleasure in roaming the school, uttering this peculiarly cruel enquiry with broad smiles on their faces. Like friendly Nazis.
I was never picked on, although some time later – once I had settled into the school and found my own friends – I had the pleasure of being headbutted, from behind, by a lovely chap called Fat Ed. I was walking through an underpass one day, minding my own business when he popped up from behind and, quite without provocation, headbutted me. It was a shock, and it hurt a bit. But, more than that, I was perplexed as to why he would do it. I suppose it can’t have been easy, being known as Fat Ed. (Although, if truth be told, his name was Ed and he was a little portly.) Perhaps he was just lashing out at an unjust world. Then again, perhaps he just liked hitting people. I’ve never been a big fan of violence, especially when it’s directed at me; unless there’s a reason , something to explain it, I just don’t understand it at all.
It was at Porthcawl Comprehensive that I made my first tentative steps towards girls. For a moment there I considered using the word ‘lunges’ rather than steps, for comic effect, you understand, in the hope that it might raise a wry smile. I’m afraid it would be entirely inaccurate to use so forceful a word. I never once came close to a lunge, more’s the pity. With hindsight I was far too cautious and wary of rejection and subsequent humiliation to ever threaten a lunge. Instead, I contented myself with gazing adoringly from afar. I could list you an impressive roll-call of beauties who all managed to remain tantalizingly out of reach during and, on reflection, beyond my time at the school. It would read like this: Katie Davies Williams, Rhian Grice, Meryl Metcalfe, Liza Milza and Helen Phillips. All these enchanting creatures were at one time or another subject to, at the very least, a wistful gaze from the young me, and all of them, as mentioned earlier, went on to successfully complete their schooling without any input from these quarters.
Katie was the first one I noticed. She was a beautiful, captivating girl – although, as I write these words, I’m sad to discover that I can’t bring up a faithful reproduction of her features in my mind’s eye. I remember the impression she created, though, and the effect she had on me. She was sunny, cheerful and cheeky with just the right amount of hippy to her; that is to say, she displayed a free spirit but her personal hygiene was never in question. She had long hair. Did she use to crimp it into that smoky-bacon Frazzles look? She brought to mind a young Kate Bush and, as Miss Bush herself had done only recently, Katie stirred hitherto unknown sensations deep within. She possessed a wonderfully mysterious gypsy-like quality, giving the impression that when out of my sight she floated wispily from here to there, carried on the breeze like a dandelion seed. She was a delicious mutant hybrid of the health-threateningly exciting Kate Bush and Rumours -era Fleetwood Mac (female members). At that year’s eisteddfod she performed a fantastic, inappropriately erotic piece of interpretive dance to Kate Bush’s ‘Breathing’, with Keith Davies (who was playing Tony in West Side Story ). I sat sulking in the audience as the two of them wrapped their young, leotard-clad bodies around each other, creating a shape-shifting ball of togetherness. Or exclusion, depending on your viewpoint. And I knew where I stood on the matter.
Katie and I got on very well, probably too well. One day, in class, she wrote her name on my arm and I nearly fainted. She was entirely comfortable as the first occupant of my still-pristine pedestal, long before it would become scuffed by the heels of the girls who followed. She worked on a Saturday in Porthcawl’s only health-food shop, where I would spend an inordinate amount of time apparently concerned for my health, browsing the various
I was never picked on, although some time later – once I had settled into the school and found my own friends – I had the pleasure of being headbutted, from behind, by a lovely chap called Fat Ed. I was walking through an underpass one day, minding my own business when he popped up from behind and, quite without provocation, headbutted me. It was a shock, and it hurt a bit. But, more than that, I was perplexed as to why he would do it. I suppose it can’t have been easy, being known as Fat Ed. (Although, if truth be told, his name was Ed and he was a little portly.) Perhaps he was just lashing out at an unjust world. Then again, perhaps he just liked hitting people. I’ve never been a big fan of violence, especially when it’s directed at me; unless there’s a reason , something to explain it, I just don’t understand it at all.
It was at Porthcawl Comprehensive that I made my first tentative steps towards girls. For a moment there I considered using the word ‘lunges’ rather than steps, for comic effect, you understand, in the hope that it might raise a wry smile. I’m afraid it would be entirely inaccurate to use so forceful a word. I never once came close to a lunge, more’s the pity. With hindsight I was far too cautious and wary of rejection and subsequent humiliation to ever threaten a lunge. Instead, I contented myself with gazing adoringly from afar. I could list you an impressive roll-call of beauties who all managed to remain tantalizingly out of reach during and, on reflection, beyond my time at the school. It would read like this: Katie Davies Williams, Rhian Grice, Meryl Metcalfe, Liza Milza and Helen Phillips. All these enchanting creatures were at one time or another subject to, at the very least, a wistful gaze from the young me, and all of them, as mentioned earlier, went on to successfully complete their schooling without any input from these quarters.
Katie was the first one I noticed. She was a beautiful, captivating girl – although, as I write these words, I’m sad to discover that I can’t bring up a faithful reproduction of her features in my mind’s eye. I remember the impression she created, though, and the effect she had on me. She was sunny, cheerful and cheeky with just the right amount of hippy to her; that is to say, she displayed a free spirit but her personal hygiene was never in question. She had long hair. Did she use to crimp it into that smoky-bacon Frazzles look? She brought to mind a young Kate Bush and, as Miss Bush herself had done only recently, Katie stirred hitherto unknown sensations deep within. She possessed a wonderfully mysterious gypsy-like quality, giving the impression that when out of my sight she floated wispily from here to there, carried on the breeze like a dandelion seed. She was a delicious mutant hybrid of the health-threateningly exciting Kate Bush and Rumours -era Fleetwood Mac (female members). At that year’s eisteddfod she performed a fantastic, inappropriately erotic piece of interpretive dance to Kate Bush’s ‘Breathing’, with Keith Davies (who was playing Tony in West Side Story ). I sat sulking in the audience as the two of them wrapped their young, leotard-clad bodies around each other, creating a shape-shifting ball of togetherness. Or exclusion, depending on your viewpoint. And I knew where I stood on the matter.
Katie and I got on very well, probably too well. One day, in class, she wrote her name on my arm and I nearly fainted. She was entirely comfortable as the first occupant of my still-pristine pedestal, long before it would become scuffed by the heels of the girls who followed. She worked on a Saturday in Porthcawl’s only health-food shop, where I would spend an inordinate amount of time apparently concerned for my health, browsing the various
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