Chapter 3- Romford Tech- Some Great Guys, Some ‘Muthers’ and Bikes!

    Romford Tech was as much vocational as academic, but no time was wasted. There was woodwork and metalwork, of course, Chemistry and Physics labs etc. and an excellent curriculum. I went into 3R with a weedy little prick of a teacher called Nunn. I had heard that there was to be, for the first time ever, a German language course starting that very week. I asked this skull-like spindle if I could be allowed to start German with the other third year forms. Little bastard’s reply was, “We don’t want any complications in YOUR timetable”. This is why my German is ‘ski’ grade only. Some teachers are rats’ arseholes. An off the cuff put-down, from an uncaring ‘Christian’ prat like Nunn, can have lifelong ramifications. Leaving me with not much more than,“Ski Heil, gnedige fraulein, kunten sie mir bitte helfen? Du bist so shon. Ich nicht verstehen. Ich bin Englander. Wilst du geschlafen mit?” SLAP! Auf weidersehen, - Nunn, I hope your bollocks festered!

     There were some great boys (and gals) in 3R, and a few absolute bastards. I often wonder how they all did. Terry went into the print and prospered, inevitably. Chris became perhaps the finest Police driver in Britain, - Inspector in charge of Essex Police Driving School- believe me, those guys can really handle, - and he, Chris, taught the teachers! (I had a session there- wow- that’s driving boy! -120 on country roads-oh yes! Voom voom). Peezing past the friggin’ road clag at almost incredible speed- half the twonks we peezed past probably were unaware they’d just been burned off! Frank joined the ‘Merch’ and sailed the 7. Pete became a player in British rail and a borough councillor, (he was a lefty labour type and talked abject nonsense, as Christ knows they all do, but successful. - A genuinely nice guy, - however misguided!) Paul Abrams I saw working in a shop in Brentwood. Apart from those few, what happened to all the others is a mystery.

     One lunchtime, Frank and a swarthy, slimy little twat called Weallans were larking around when Weallans pulled out a knife and went for him. He was slashing away at Frank who was able, fortunately, to avoid being stabbed, but had cuts on his hands. I helped restrain the prick until prefects arrived and lifted him bodily to the Head's office. Bastard Weallans, who I had always regarded as little more than a queer’s bum clinker, received 8 well-deserved strokes and was expelled. - “Knife Boy Expelled from School,” roared the headline. Good riddance. He was, and probably still is, a nasty vicious little shit.  His equally greasy slime ball sonabitch ‘buddy’ was called Spencer. I’m glad I’ve never seen either of them since.

     ‘3R’ year, Sept 56 –Sept 57 flew by, so too did 4G (ii) with the dreary round of homework, detentions, bollockings and tussles with overbearing snot-gobbling prefects.  One of the worst was a lanky pig’s arsehole called Vancent -probably a dole office assistant or a clerk in a V.D. clinic now! They had a habit of making everyone scrape the corridor walls by severely restricting the available space in which to pass. If you came into contact with one of them, which was almost unavoidable short of skipping along sideways, it was a ‘Prefect’s detention’. Well, I nudged one, and the crap hit the fan. The arsehole screeched “Copsey-Detention!” In trouble now! Fuck it! I simply walked at my normal width through the next two of these silly buggers, who bounced like skittles out of my bloody way! I got a second ‘prefects’ detto, but the bastards gave us all much more space after that. Over zealous enforcement of nonsensical rules breeds dissent- and revolution!

     The Fifth was my year. I started to really get it together and was almost invariably top in the weekly tests. Each subject teacher gave us an exam every week and the results were collated and read to the assembled school on Monday morning. Mr. Werner very kindly gave me extra handwritten French translations to do during the holidays, and I subsequently doddled the ‘O’ level with a high pass. Another wonderful teacher was ‘Jogafy’ Jim. Amongst the most pleasant people I have ever met, he had a certain military bearing and an extraordinarily friendly demeanour. I later met him, by pure chance, with my two elder sons at ‘King Arthur’s stone’ on the Gower in ‘82. He was living near Winchester then. I have heard he’s passed on now. A true gentleman, well liked by everyone who knew him.

     Mr. Werner asked me, out of the blue, if I would care to leave 5R and go into 5A, the ‘Racing to A levels’ form, as I was doing so well. He’d obviously cleared it with Goofy (the Head), but due to my utter crass stupidity, I thanked him and said I would rather stay with my friends in 5R. What a fucking IDIOT! What a prick! I kicked myself for years over that, and still do.  Stupid imbecilic twat! Utter fucking cretin!

     I did a year in the sixth and left in summer 1960. During that last term we had a king-size bollocking re our Motorbikes. My Excelsior Manxman grand prix bike of about 1936 vintage was barely, indeed hardly, road legal. Chris had a BSA 350; Ginger had a DOT trials bike. There were one or two others. The hierarchy just had to stop us riding to school, so motorbikes were suddenly verboten. Not long before that, I had taken Muffin Hughes back to Upminster on the Manxman. She had never ridden pillion before and tried to keep her luscious, bouncy body vertical on the bends. This is definitely not good! The Manxman, a living, breathing, beautiful, engineering masterpiece was pretty pissed off too, I guess, and bathed our legs in oil spatter – fair retribution. That, of course, was the end of Muffin. Frankly, at 16, motorbikes are far more rewarding than girls, so, bollocks to you, Muffin!

      My Uncle Jack, dad’s brother, died and left me his as new, Bantam 125. A piece of toffee compared to a Manxman grand prix bike of course. We went to Leamington Spa to collect it and brought it home on the Austin’s luggage carrier. This overloaded the suspension and rendered the car’s (cable) brakes virtually useless. Dad reached Romford before the inevitable shunt. He nudged into the back of a car in traffic and the guy’s bumper fell off. “Why don’t you pick it up old boy, and be on your way?” He did too. That was how my Bantam arrived chez nous.

       I lived on that bike; it did a clock 55 flat out, downhill, and popped its light bulbs for fun. A year or so later a chap in an Anglia 105E pulled out in front of me in Hornchurch and the Bantam was destroyed. A ‘handy’ copper said, “The cause of this accident was the motorcyclist going too fast” a strong voice in the crowd said not on your bloody life officer, the kid (me) was certainly not speeding and the cause obviously was this guy pulling across the bloody road. Open your bloody eyes. Fortunately, the brain dead, bigoted, snot gobbling copper (a bastard Leach clone) did indeed change his not particularly incisive mind! We got just £35 from the other guy’s insurance. There was a rivet from the guy’s car hammered into my knee. It dropped out a few weeks later. Today you’d get thousands for something as trivial as that, for ‘trauma’ or similar.

     I was a keen ‘shot’ but not much good, and used to go for pigeons and the occasional rabbit for the pot. I had little idea about cooking stuff, then or now, and suffered the runs accordingly. My gun was a beautiful Boswell hammerless double12bore, with damascened barrels. I put foam rubber at strategic points on the Bantam so that neither became scratched. Imagine riding around today with a shotgun on your Motorbike-you wouldn’t get far!  They’ll shoot you dead for carrying a table leg, or for looking rather like someone else, or even being a little brown!

      I was kicking around with a girl called Jane. Her Pa was a metropolitan police officer and I became a wannabee policeman. The interview was to have been in London one Thursday morning and I didn’t go! - Reason? - On the previous Tuesday, on my way home from one of the many dire jobs I had, I was buzzing along Suttons Avenue, Hornchurch, when a car came up from behind and sat literally inches from my back wheel. Deadly dangerous, so I speeded up slightly, to all of 35 mph, trying to get an inch or two away from the mob handed loonies in the car. You’re right; it was a car full of bastard sonabitches masquerading as policemen. I later found that same element in the force. They deliberately set out to harass youngsters, presumably to educate them as to just who, they think, rules the streets. I was nicked for doing35mph. I won the ‘Court’s sympathy’ and was fined £2, -plus license endorsement. My feeling then was: ‘If I might have to do things like that to young lads innocently riding home after a days work, they could shove their bastard police force where the soddin’ sun don’t shine’. Many years later I served as a ‘Special’ in Northampton, can’t explain quite why. Perhaps I really should have been a career copper! Fuck knows, at least I would have a fabulous pension now.