Perils of Adolescence

Again, whiling away the time until The Chicken arrives for final approval, I wrote this story this very morning.

Please enjoy and feel free to comment, should you be moved to that extreme!

The Perils of One so Young ©


The Sports Club arranged a day out to Nottingham, specifically to see a show at the Ice Rink there. Ice skating was never one of my interests, mainly because I had never encountered it, but I went along for two reasons – one the bus was free and two, I would be with the lads. It was to be an afternoon at the show and an evening on the town, so it looked interesting.
The show turned out to be quite colourful and boisterous. I enjoyed it, but it was damned cold in there! Afterwards, we went somewhere else - I can’t remember where, but it filled an hour or so, then we went to The Trip.
Whether this was an impulse thing or whether it had been pre planned, I do not know, but I went with the lads from the table tennis team. Perhaps I should have known better, but I enjoyed their company, and they were good enough to entertain this gauche young teenager.
“The Trip” or to give the establishment its proper name, The Trip To Jerusalem, was claimed to be the oldest public house in England, dating back to the Crusades, hence the derivation of the name. It is situated virtually next door to the castle in the old part of town, but the building itself does not go that far back, only a couple of hundred years or so.
“The Trip” has, or had, a bit of a reputation, of which I was quite innocent. I had heard the name a few times, as part of ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ conversations, but it meant nothing special to me at the time.
So, there we were, in The Trip, on Saturday night, enjoying the atmosphere, which, I have to say, was quite exciting for me as I had previously only ever been inside the one pub, The Badger, at Shirebrook, needless to say, in the company of these same lads. I should have smelled a rat, but, as I said, I was totally innocent.
There were lots of locals enjoying their night out and there were also lots of females on the same errand. There were also, I was told, several ladies on business, though the term was not explained to me. One certain girl attached herself to me.
To be honest, I was quite flattered, me, a sheltered young lad, meeting up with a nice young lady in a strange town in convivial company. Of course, the lads egged me on and I struck up a conversation with the young lady whose name, I learned, was June.
Not having much money, I was thankful that she accepted a glass of pale ale rather than an expensive spirit drink. I hesitated in going up to the bar, as I was not yet of age, so I was breaking the law by drinking in the place, and to buy one would compound the offence. I must have looked older than my meagre years, or perhaps the landlord wasn’t bothered.
When it came to my turn to be served, the landlord leaned over the bar and said quietly, “I see you’ve got company, lad!”
“Yes” I replied, and I’d like two pale ales please”.
“Fair enough” he said, “but before I serve you, you might like to know that June rattles”.
“Eh, what?” I answered, sharp as a button.
I should have known what he meant, for that was an expression that Our Mam had used on a couple of occasions.
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“She rattles. If you shake him, he rattles!”
I was looking at him gormlessly, so he went on, using simple terms, simple words for a simple youth.
“She stands up to pee, laddie, ‘she’ is a ‘he’ with a full set of tackle!”
Then, the penny dropped with a resounding clang and I dashed out into the street. One of the lads had been watching and followed me outside to make sure that I was all right and that I didn’t go wandering off on my own in the city centre and get lost, cast aside by the misfortunes of teenage first love!
*
Of course, everyone else had seen the episode and knew full well what was going off, but they had left me to experience the pleasure of meeting new people.
The people in the office used to partake in the usual sweepstakes based upon the classic horse races such as The Epsom Derby and the Grand National and I was invited to join in. One of the lads, my immediate boss, as a matter of fact, used to bet on horses quite a lot, making a tidy income out of it.
He told us that an uncle had left him a fair amount of money, and he had used this to finance his apprenticeship as a gambler. He used to maintain that it ceased to be gambling if you worked on those horses that stood the best chance of winning, keeping away from the donkeys. I suppose the problem lay in differentiating between them. He would think nothing of placing a £10 bet on a horse with a chance of winning £2, which meant that he would get his stake back plus the £2 winnings. Ten pounds was more than my weekly wage!
To me, horses were all the same, big animals having a leg at each corner, teeth at the front and with stinking farts and a nasty kick at the back. Some could run and others were destined to haul milk carts around the streets.
Those that were alleged to be runners were entered in the races and people wagered money on the outcome. So, when it came to the Grand National in April, I was asked did I want to partake in the office sweepstake. As the fee was small, six pence, I think, I said yes. The principal of this is that everyone who enters gets to pick the name of one of the runners from a hat, the winning horse deciding the winner of the sweep. One of the girls had the winner and won a nice little packet, equal to a weeks wages, but my ticket represented a far different outlook.
Alan, the betting man also placed bets with his bookie for anyone who wanted to make a bet on the actual race. I was persuaded to put a shilling on my horse. Fatal mistake.
The horse, my horse, fell badly at one of the fences and had to be put down. So began my short lived gambling career. The next sweep was also on a steeplechase. Again, my horse fell at the fence, fortunately unhurt, but the jockey broke his leg or something else equally nasty. So ended my gambling career.
The Social Club organised a trip to the races which would be a nice day out for everyone. As it was to Thirsk in North Yorkshire, I decided to go, not for the racing, but to visit an ancient Abbey which was, according to the map, close by the racecourse. Of course, 1 inch on the map was quite a distance when transferred to the actual countryside. I never made it.
I stayed on the racecourse with my friends and colleagues. I had budgeted for the cost of the trip, a bite to eat, some refreshment and a pint and a meal of some sort on the way home. As I wandered round, I took a fancy to one of the horses, by the magnificent name of Balaclava, for which the bookies were offering odds of 66 to 1.
I decided I would have a bite of that, so I cashed up, but found that I had no spare cash. I had just enough to buy a drink and a bag of fish and chips on the way home, so I let it pass. The bloody thing romped home!
On the way home, we stopped at a pub in Tadcaster, home of a couple of famous breweries. There was a chip shop close by, so I was all set up. As I was waiting for my fish and chips, I routed in my pockets for the money and, to my delight, I discovered a ten shilling note that I didn’t know I had. As the coat I was wearing only came out of the wardrobe for special occasions, I guessed the money must have been sitting there since the last time, some months before.
My euphoria soon fizzled out when I realised that, had I found it on the racecourse, I really would have put it on that damned horse, the one that romped home at 66/1! That would have made me more money than I earned in a month!
Needless to say, I never made a bet on a horse again.