Being 18

I remember when the number one song in the charts was that all time classic 'We are the world'. I think it was April 1985 and it followed a few months after, 'Do they know its Christmas'. and a few months before the Shakin Stevens classic 'Merry Christmas everyone'. Yes the mid eighties were a hot bed of classic musical masterpieces. However I must point out that January of this year saw Foreigner at number one with 'I want to know what love is'. Now I do love this song, enough to have it immortalised on my wedding video.

I was 18. I was legal. I could get drunk and then some. It was Saturday night. That meant going to Leicester town centre with my buddy looking like a couple of kajagoogoo goons, he in yellow peg style trousers, baggy at the top quickly shrinking to a drainpipe around the ankle, black Winkle picker shoes, the obligatory white socks. White button down shirt and red imitation leather look tie. I dressed in exactly the same clothing design but red trousers and yellow tie. We were so cool and I'm so glad there are no apparent photos in circulation.

After wandering around many pubs, drinking slops and leftovers (this was Thatchers Britain after all) we were not of this world. For everything people say, drinking in a town centre has not changed much. I believe everything is just publicised more and apparently does you more harm. Lets be clear, people were binge drinking in the eighties. My father tells me they were doing the same thing in the fifties. There are two differences, one it was called something else and two we don't admit it to the young people, hazard they might ask why we are telling them to behave as we say and not as we do.

Back to the story...... last bus, the number 88, Double Decker, powder yellow and you could smoke upstairs, aah the sure bliss. We were having a whale of a time, for some reason everyone upstairs was singing 'We are the world'. Now I have to be honest and admit something. It was only recently that I realised what bad taste this was. Our defence being we were drunk and this was Thatchers Britain. (I'll be blaming her for many things by the way).

I decided to strip, not sure why this particular piece of music is good for stripping as it went something like this

There are people dying = yellow tie sexually removed and pulled between groin.

love is all we need = shirt slowly removed with the grace of a gay poodle.

So lets start giving = trousers off ( shoes came off at start in case of lace problems) and I still fell over.

This leaves me with underpants and the larger induced belief that i was some sort of paid act making the bus journey enjoyable for all the young ladies.

We are the world they sang and I did it, i just had to push that little further and whip of the pants, with a flourish I sent them whizzing to my mate who was holding on to everything else.

With the speed of a sloth (that was fast as I was now about the speed of a dead sloth) he threw the lot out the window. I sobered. It was that fast. two minutes later I am walking along the bottom deck of the bus, past all the wrinklies who had just played three houses of bingo and sat in some concert room. They were pointing, laughing and shouting. Ejected from the bus I meandered down the Saffron lane picking up attire.

Ok so now you know a little bit about me, I think I might shoot back to the present day.

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