82 September

Upbury Manor hosted a midweek athletics meeting. Paul Parker was running so I stayed behind after school to give him a cheer and watch Upbury compete against other Medway schools. Seeing Billy Hollands and Nigel Robinson – old friends and classmates from Twydall Juniors – running for Rainham was a nice surprise. The four of us went home together later, walking all the way to prolong our reunion. Outside my home on Crundale Road I said goodbye, but not until I’d nipped into the house for my latest edition of Football Monthly, which I gave to Billy.

‘I’ll give it you back when I’ve read it,’ he said.

(And he did when I saw him again… five years later.)

Kevin Garlick was one of several 2A2 who brought pigs’ eyes into school one morning. ‘For dissection in Science,’ he said.

I was aghast. ‘You haven’t!

‘Oh yes, I have. We were asked to bring them in.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Crosses butcher’s. I just told him I needed it for a school science lesson. Want to see it?’

No I didn’t want to see it. Nor did I want to see a pig’s eye that was seen bobbing about in the swimming pool later. I’d heard of these dissections before, on rats, of all things. I’d heard too, that anyone who didn’t fancy it was allowed to leave the room. So far my class hadn’t done anything like that but come the day, I’d be first out of the door.

It had to happen that, sooner or later, someone was going to get chucked out of the changing rooms, bollock bare. And lo, Stanley Slaughter got bundled out of the door. How we laughed when the perpetrators pushed hard against the door, preventing Stan’s re-entry. The design of the walls outside the door screened the helpless Stan from three sides, but there was nothing he could do about his bare arse being on view to girls coming out of the gym.