Straight Down The Middle

As I’ve said before, all chaps, young and old should have a hobby. 1

Take Mr. Crampbell for instance, our dreaded Deputy Headmaster, his hobby, which anyone of our number could easily attest to, was being the biggest complete and utter humourless bastard he could possibly be.2

Benny “Scuddy” Smith our would be sex pest of a classmate, had clearly an overdeveloped and unhealthy appetite for gentleman’s magazines, onanism and all things manky. Judging by his lengthy and numerous tales of Olympian feats of self-abuse, his mother must have had the most unenviable job in Scotland as his underpants and bed sheets must have been a complete and utter disgrace.3

For my own part, aside from once dabbling in the dark art that is photography, I stuck mainly to the manly pastimes of football, rugby and golf. 4

You see for any young man there is only one thing worse than not having a hobby, that thing being, or even suspected of being, light or your feet, creative with colours, dropping anchor in poo bay a.k.a. being gay.5

The list of shame who had at one time or another, in a weak moment, taken it upon themselves to think that drama club was a good idea, was long and punctuated with the names of chaps who I actually knew. When I say knew, I mean as in a fellow classmate and not just in the sense of being the nominated and nominal school poof. 6

Tales of the drama clubs teacher. The campest man in the northern hemisphere, Mr. Alisdair Smyth a.k.a. Tefal and his predilection for acts of lunchtime stationery cupboard poofery were the common coin of currency around the second year boys common room. The upshot of which was that if any chap showed even a passing interest in the performing arts. Then it went to prove beyond any reasonable doubt, in the minds of thirteen-year-old boys anyway, that they were infact a gay boy and most definitely up for a spot of, one up the tail pipe in the stationary cupboard of a lunchtime.7

The only chap within my group of associates who had a close brush with being branded a bender was Phil da Block. In Phil’s defence, I have to say that it was not at the behest of himself that the aforementioned Mr. Alisdair Smyth accosted him in front of a packed second year assembly and I quote. “Philip! The drama club are putting on a performance of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and we were wondering if you would like to try out for the main role?”8

Before continuing with Phi da Blocks measured response to this very public request, I must qualify why Mr. Smyth had asked the unaskable. Without labouring the point, Phil did and indeed still does have more than a passing resemblance to the villain of Shelly’s piece. Due to him being about a foot taller than anyone else our age, feet the size of shoeboxes, hands like shovels and the prerequisite flat top haircut.9

Poor Phil was mortified, knowing the remorseless jibing he now faced about his publicly called in to question sexuality. His face turned the colour of beetroot, as he blurted out the ill-conceived and extremely curt reply of “ Drama! I’m not interested in drama! It’s for mincers!”10

I laughed, Nimble laughed, Oss laughed, even the nubile Ms. Marks offered a fought back smile. Mr. Smyth however was dumbstruck, turned on his Cuban heels and flounced off to wherever it is publicly lambasted, embarrassed theatrical homosexual types go.11

I think in that moment we all inwardly vowed never ever to even go anywhere near anyone or anything associated with being artistic, as clearly it provoked a situation of poofery by association.12

It being spring 1983 and for reasons clearly apparent to all, we spent our Easter holidays on the local golf course. We played eighteen holes in the morning, home for lunch, prior to another eighteen holes in the afternoon. Keen as mustard we all were and the competition amongst us was fierce to say the least. 13

Being young we did not have the wherewithal to actually gamble using cash money, however we did bet with the things that all young chaps hold dear. Namely cans of Coke, bags of crisps and Mars bars. Should a shortage of these goodies exist or rather a lack of funds with which to buy them did, then we would play for the next best thing, i.e. dead arms and dead legs.14

It was during one of these eighteen hole four-ball better ball grudge matches that the first sign of trouble had begun to raise its ugly head. 15

You see the problem was this. As I have already mentioned we were all accustomed to playing two rounds a day prior to heading home. However on this occasion we found our usual routine had had a spanner thrown in its works by the local U.S. military base. The base had reserved the golf course for their annual golf tournament against some other U.S. base and we could not get a tee time until 2.00pm in the afternoon when they would have all cleared off of the course.16

Following a very dreary morning of being forced to stay at home and watch the piss poor television that made up 1983’s children’s entertainment, the clock finally wound round to 2.00 o’clock and we could go and tee off.17

The first hole passed off without incident, however on boarding the second tee Oss noticed a large, light blue cool box sitting at the back of the tee. On opening the box.18

Jackpot! There before our adolescent eyes were at least half a dozen cans of exotic American beers.19

I grabbed a can of Breakers, which came in a gold tin with a drawing of a huge, dark blue, white topped wave on the side i.e. the kind only ever seen on the opening titles of Hawaii 50. Swoopster, being a connoisseur of such things was a great deal more selective and finally plumped for a large green bottle of Rolling Rock. Knumbnutts made an uninspired choice and took a can of Budweiser. Finally Oss, after much humming and haying selected a bottle of Michelob.20

We teed off and marched off down the fairway tipping down the amber nectar. Safe to say that by the time we reached the second green we were all feeling a bit fuzzy as the beer did its business. At the back of the third tee was another cool box, this time though it was bright red and was crammed full of the good stuff. Off down the third we trudged cans in hand. Standing on the fifth tee, four holes in, three cans down and feeling decidedly pissed we caught up with the tale end on the field from the U.S. base golf outing.21

This final group of ignorant, shouty, brash half wits, were firmly ensconced in the trees, about 200 yards out, down the left hand side of the hole hunting for their golf balls. After around ten minutes of keeping us standing around waiting, one of the oversized quartet looked round and noticed us. Give him his due, without hesitation he waved to us, motioning for us to play through.22

More fool him.23

Oss is even now not a chap not blessed with the virtue of having patience, imagine his annoyance then at being kept waiting by and I quote from the man himself “Big fat Yanks!”24

Having made par down the fourth Oss was up first on the fifth tee. “I’ll teach these guy’s to hold me up!” Slurred Oss as he shaped up to hit one straight at them with his driver.25

Thwack! “Fore!” we all shouted as the ball headed toward them like an Exocet missile prior to them diving for cover and the ball rattling about in the braches of the trees above their heads. As they all emerged from there hiding places Oss gave them a cursory wave as if to acknowledge that the whole thing had been an accident. Unbelievably our hamburger-munching friends from across the pond fell for it and waved back.26

Next up was Knumbnutts the beer coursing through his veins and working its usual magic. Thwack! “Fore!” once again we all bellowed as his tee shot also headed in their vicinity. This time our portly quartet was more hesitant in acknowledgment of Knumbnutt’s cursory apologetic wave. 27

Swoopster boarded the tee and also fired one right at them, yet another cry of “Fore!” followed by more comedy filled scenes of extremely large men attempting to hide behind skinny tree trunks.28

I know we shouldn’t have but I just couldn’t help myself, as I openly laughed out loud as one of the chaps waved both his arms at us in remonstration and clearly growing annoyance.29

I was up and following my three colleagues performance I thought it best to keep my tee shot as far away from these chaps as possible. So I took aim down the right hand edge of the fairway, alas it was not to be as I hit a text book diving snap hook right into there midst. 30

Oh spoons!31

This time there was no wave of any kind back from our by now traumatised gang of North American pie eating champions.32

On catching up to them in the fairway, one extremely irate chap came stomping over to us and went a bit potty. “Jesus Christ! You guys aren’t playing golf out here! It’s more like kill ball!” he drawled, as he pulled off a more than passable impression of Humptydumpty’s stunt double.33

In our half cut states we all found the combination of his turn of phrase and over the top John Wayne esk type accent very funny. Openly pissing our pants with laughter as we wandered past them. 34

Still no real harm done and after a couple of more cans we were all well past caring if they reported us or not and fortunately, more down to good luck than fine judgment, we heard no more about it.35