Belonging

So, I’ve just been watching the latest episode of Mark Kermode’s The Secrets of Cinema on BBC4. The latest episode concentrated of the genre of the coming of age movie. It breaks down each genre it covers and one of the subtitles it covered was The Gang. This led me to thinking about the gangs I have been part of and how much fun they were. Perhaps I’m looking back with rose-tinted glasses but I thought I might share a little about each of them.

 

So I guess most of us were part of some gang, or club or whatever name you use for a group of children that have shared interests, when we were young. Maybe, like me, you are still part of one even if you don’t necessarily think of those people like that. My need was very much born out of changing schools so much and looks for acceptance. I was an insecure kid really masquerading as the fun, trendy, whatever-you- needed-me-to-be one. Of course when you are putting your needs into second place that has its issues so you have to find a way of getting those met too. Yeah it was complicated back then eh? Attention is often the method we choose in those circumstances, any attention, but how to get that? I found bringing my special toys to school was great very early on. My Mum would buy me all sorts of swanky stuff as I didn’t live with her and there was possibly some guilt attached plus she could afford them. I use to sneak them into my school bag knowing I’d been warned to take special care of them and maybe not to take them to school too. Later on I wore cool clothes from the likes of Miss Selfridge, they were not available in the small Staffordshire town I lived in but again my Mother would often treat me to an entire outfit when I was visiting her in London. Of course I am sure there was a lot of jealousy around these practices especially given that I rarely allowed any of the other children to even touch my toys; I had been brought up to look after them so I was scared other children might break them. Have you worked out that I was an only child yet? Somewhere along the line I found humour got me attention too and was a great tool to diffuse awkward situations aswell. Being born to a Scottish working class father, living with a Yorkshire grandfather and a Lancastrian grandmother I would have been surprised if I didn’t grow up with a good sense of humour; Northern working class people are known for it.

My first gang was probably my twin cousins in a way. I cut my teeth bossing those poor two around as they were younger than I. I loved playing with them although prior to their arrival everything of any worth to me was scrambled into my wardrobe which could be locked. Much fun was had either at their houses or ours including Saturday sweets in little egg cups carefully measured out by the adults to make sure everyone had the same. We also played a game where all the adults were monsters, of course they knew nothing of this and thought us quite mad when they made eye contact and we screamed. Long hot summer days playing in tents made of old curtain materials with dolls, pots and pans from the kitchen, little fold up child size chairs just for us, splashing about in paddling pools and visits to playgrounds for swings, roundabout games where u had to pick something up as it went round, slides and climbing frames. We were all bridesmaids for our auntie’s wedding too and that was such an honour; little balls of flowers were held on long ribbons and empire line dresses were made on the sewing machine. I remember the fabric fell to the floor and I’d never worn a long dress before; I felt so grown up. The fabric was white to under the bust then a beautiful blue fabric covered in tiny flowers was attached from there and made the sleeves too.

In case you don’t think that really counted then I guess my first proper gang was in Cheadle near Stoke-On-Trent where I spent the most significant part of my childhood from 8-13/14 years of age. I can’t really remember when this gang came about or when I joined it as we lived on a fantastic estate where you couldn’t access the front of the houses by car; only by foot. This meant it was a kind of rabbit warren of paths where you were completely safe so small children would play alongside their sisters and brothers too. I guess I remember my secondary school years the best as several of the gang were at the same school and some in the same class as me. To begin with there was one other girl in the gang and funnily enough she had the same name as me however she got caught kissing one of the boys, our leader in a way as he was the eldest, and her Mum never let her out again. I remember thinking that was very harsh as I was suspected every now and again and my Grandfather would tell me and the boy off and bring me inside but I was never stopped from playing outside in the fresh air with my friends. Anyway I became the only girl in the gang which I loved as I got lots of the attention I so craved plus I was, pretty much, treated as an equal. I rose to every challenge too including ‘brook jumping’ which involved jumping over the big dips in the nearby fields. Some of these were huge and I don’t really know why. Of course that area is known for its pottery and I don’t know whether, in the past, the fields had been excavated for clay but these areas we would jump reminded me of mini quarries in some parts. The only difference is that there was grass surrounding them all and they were nowhere near as deep. It was called ‘brook jumping’ because it did begin with the little brook just outside our estate. I walked over the bridge that straddled it every day to and from school but it meandered further and this is where the boys came up with the idea to jump it. The lane at the bottom of our estate was named after the brook too and parallel to that were the fields we played in. So many summer days laughing, chatting, running, jumping and generally just having fun. We use to meet at the lamp post at the top of the path that led from the front of my house which was a blessing and a curse as I would get teased on the way to Sunday school and the stables where I helped out. I remember the day I came home with the imprint of a horse’s hoof on my face, I’d fallen off trekking and the startled horse had jumped over me but not before catching my face, there was genuine concern mixed with stifled chortling. I think I kissed three boys in the gang at some point and my first boyfriend ever was in the gang, he was very sweet but I didn’t really fancy him so that lasted all of a couple of weeks, I think. I seem to remember the other boys kinda persuading me how lovely he was and how much he liked me and I’d never had a boyfriend so that was that.

Of course we were growing up together and although we weren’t naughty children we didn’t think about respecting people’s hedges when we played ‘Murder In The Night’. This was pretty much ‘Knock Down Ginger’ or ‘Postman’s Knock’ but involved, from what I recall, just a lot of pushing each other over tiny walls into other people’s hedges. Not terribly funny on your own but hilarious together, especially when some irate neighbour would come rocketing out of their doorway shouting at us. We would all run for our very lives leaving the poor culprit to their own devices. The boys kinda graduated from being into their Dad’s metal/rock music into punks which I wasn’t that keen on, mainly, I think, because I liked to sing a long to my music but also because my grandparents, of course, didn’t understand it nd thought it was violent, rude etc. I was quite a good girl and although I definitely had my own mind from a very early age, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it either. But I wanted to be like the boys and for a certain boy, in particular to like me. There was a disco at the nearby village’s hall every once in a while and I decided this would be my debut as a punk sympathizer if nothing else. I had been looking at the fashions in my weekly Jackie magazine and didn’t have enough pocket-money to buy bondage trousers so I took this dilemma to my Gran. She was an amazing woman and immediately understood my need to fit in and suggested a compromise. She gave me one of her old blouses with a granddad collar and some safety pins and I wore that proudly and pogo’d the next evening away happily. I do believe I didn’t get the boy I was after although there may have been a kiss or two with another I liked so all was right with the world.

There are so many memories it’s hard to select just a few for the purposes of this post. I remember learning to skip in our back garden and then skipping down our path and into that lane I mentioned earlier. I wore white ankle socks and Clarks shoes until I got a bit older and pleaded for some heels from the Freeman’s catalogue. For those of you reading who have no idea what that is; it was a way of buying things on credit when you didn’t have a lot of money. My auntie was an agent for a bit of extra cash as you would get a little bit of commission depending how many orders you got. We got so many things from that catalogue and I would pour over it making lists of what I would like. Many a summer’s day would be spent watching an improvised fashion show of my auntie coming out in various outfits; the same skirt in different colours etc. I remember she had the most glorious wedged heel sandals that were so high they’d have made your head spin, it was the 70’s after all. I would sneak into the living room and try them on or just look at them sometimes. They were black or dark brown with tiny coloured flowers all over and I loved them. Meanwhile I was eventually allowed a pale pink plastic pair of cork heeled wedges and I adored them. They were sandals and the plastic was soft like a faux leather and had soft gathered strapped that crossed over the top of my foot and a little elasticated matching strap at the back to keep them on. I think I was only allowed to wear them around the garden and estate or on very special occasions with my bright fuchsia trouser suit (yes I loved pink then) I’m giggling to myself now at what I must have looked like but cotton trouser suits were the fashion back then too and that was from the catalogue aswell. I do believe it was a mix and match ensemble and I had a skirt which you could wear with the jacket too; very smart for the young girl about town.

I was heartbroken when we left that house and estate just as I was about to go into the third year at secondary school. However my auntie had married a local lad by that time and had a baby so she stayed and that meant plenty of visits back there in the holidays etc. My first love lived there too and we would always see each other as soon as I arrived whether he was seeing someone else or not. I would leave my auntie’s house and be out with him and my friends for the duration and it was amazing to be back with them all. Because we were older we were allowed to go to the nearby Alton Towers on our own, to the cinema in Hanley, shopping there too, go to local nightclubs and pretty much do what we liked as long as we were back for tea. The fun we had dancing to Northern Soul, Mod classics, screaming on the first rollercoaster to go upside down in the country, singing along to ‘Grease’, feeling rebellious and relating to ‘Quadrophenia’ and getting turned down when asking a hairdresser to pierce our noses (I was ahead of my time having seen an asian lady with one on the television or in a magazine) Plus I got to spend it with my best boy who made me so happy singing to me, kissing me, chatting and generally just hanging out together although of course there was drama too; we were so young. I’ll never forget riding down the lane together on our bikes either from or to our respective houses and having some massive ‘snogging’ session by one of the big field gates. Afterwards I must have been giddy with all those hormones rushing around as I fell off my bike and he helped me home. I was in a lot of pain and just wanted him to cuddle me and stay and chat but instead of that he broke up with me or ‘finished with me’ as we use to say back then. Can you imagine the indignity? Not only had my pride been bruised by coming off my bike in front of him, I was in pain and then he chose to dump me too. I remember I was inconsolable which happened a lot when it came to him; if he wasn’t returning my calls, if we’d argued, goodness the drama, I would go full Rita Hayworth up and down the stairs howling whilst various relatives would try and placate me. Meanwhile my school exercise books, dictionary, pencil box etc were covered with his name, hearts with arrows through them, broken hearts, ‘Steve 4 Trace’ etc. He will never be forgotten as no first love should be and I still have tapes he made for me, yes cassette tapes before there were cds and mp3s, earrings he gave me and my first and only novel that I wrote about us and my life in Cheadle.

We had moved to Scarborough, North Yorkshire after leaving Cheadle where I found myself in another gang headed up by a lovely young girl who lived opposite me. Looking back I think she was rather mixed up as her parents had split up, like mine, but she was living with her mother who, obviously, had to work so she was left to her own devices quite a bit. Plus her mother didn’t seem to mind all her friends piling round after school because she wasn’t there I guess. When I think how we raided the fridge the poor woman must have gone nuts when she came home, although we did only tend to eat chips and mash with cheese. We all took it in turn to be on tea duty and would listen to all sorts of music and just hang out. An abiding memory was listening to The Dooleys, even then they weren’t particularly trendy but this young girl loved them. All I can say is they were pretty similar to the Nolans re content but not an all girl line up. Oh comon you must have heard of the Nolans, one presents on ‘Loose Women’ at lunchtimes during the week….Anyway you get the picture and of course we listened to vinyl back then on a record player so too much gallivanting around and the needle would jump whereupon a shout went up above the inevitable din of chatter and music; her neighbours must have loved her. I was still a modette then but we were a mixed bag of punks, skinheads who loved ska and rocksteady, the odd punk and occasionally some kids from school that were invited that were into a bit of metal like ACDC etc. My friend was cute coz she was petite and wore a longish split skirt that made he walk like a Geisha as it wasn’t very wide. She often teamed this with those little sparkly plastic closed toe sandals that come back into fashio now and again and never really go out of fashion for kids. Her hair was short but with the signature flick that was still around and would morph into the New Romantic style eventually that I had. Then there was the bomber jacket made famous by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause but made in polycotton in different colours and often with a tartan lining; The Harrington. This was standard issue for skinheads and rockabilly fans in the States and we had all grown up seeing ‘Grease’ where all the Pink Ladies wore them too although, of course, ours were all fakes as the originals were too expensive. This was also an all British garment made in Manchester. Our uniform was this dark teal colour which was pretty unusual as most state schools chose navy for skirts and blazers much to my Gran’s annoyance, I’m sure, as a whole new uniform had to be bought when we arrived during the summer holidays.

Our activities didn’t include ‘Murder in the Dark’ but we did get up to all the silly stuff teenagers do like parties where you danced and hung out with your friends listening to music and wearing all sorts of different stuff to get you noticed by the opposite sex. I have no idea if there were any gay people amongst us but knowing Yorkshire at the time that would have been a ruddy nightmare. I didn’t have any black and white clothing and wasn’t really into dresses which a lot of modettes and ‘rude girls’ wore. So I just stuck with drain pipe jeans most of the time and often wore a skinny tie with my blouse/shirt and a huge parka with loads of mod badges pinned to it that I bought second-hand with my pocket-money. There was a union jack on the back but it had been sewn on sideways, I didn’t care but my grandparents were a little worried it would be seen as racist as apparently the NF were wearing them upside down. I also had a bright yellow linen jacket that Steve’s sister had given me so, of course, that was a very treasured possession. Think Steve might have even given her some money for it for me making it extra special; we didn’t have money for gifts for each other really. I remember buying him ‘Denim’ aftershave for Christmas or his birthday once but that was about it. However there was a guy in our gang I was intrigued by, he was a punk and really thin and tall and went by the nickname of ‘Rac’ which, I think, was a shortened version of his surname. He was always doing wild things like sitting on his garage roof which caused a hell of a stir when it happened as we all thought he was going to jump; he was a troubled soul. I think he could be mean to me or just ignore me, can’t remember rightly but I know I wanted to get under his skin as he was a bit of a rebel and was always getting into trouble at school but he was funny too. He kissed me once at a party upstairs in someone’s bedroom and I expect there was some fumbling around and he told me how he’d liked me for years but didn’t think I liked him. I was very popular with boys back then because I’d been in an all boy gang so wasn’t afraid to talk to them, had learnt all these ways to get attention from moving around so much and craving approval plus the genes on my Mother’s side of thee family were very good when it came to looks. Of course I never really felt that and grew up with all the insecurities most girls do living in a patriarchy including believing I was overweight. When I look back at the photos now I realize how bonkers that was and would love to have a figure like that now.

Again there are so many memories but one springs to mind that wasn’t as positive as the ones I have recounted thus far. I girl came onto the scene who was deeply troubled and we hung out quite a bit. I think she was slightly older than me and wasn’t at my school. She always seemed at a loose end so she could have been excluded for all I knew then, I just knew she liked me and was cool. Her mother was a single parent too and they lived behind the hair salon where her mother was manager. Scarborough was a fun place to live at that age because it’s a seaside town so we could go over to the south side of the bay and play on slot machines, eat chips, go to the cinema, dance all night in a variety of clubs and get to go on most of the fairground rides for free because we knew the people that worked on them. We lived on the North Side of the bay which was geared more towards younger families with a little fairground attached to a small sea life/zoo. I once took some baby lion cubs for a walk which was such a thrill and not nearly for long enough. The thought of the enclosures that the penguins and seals were in now breaks my heart as they were fall too small and just concrete. But all I knew then was that I loved being around the animals. We spent a lot of time on the bumper cars but there was also a cable car that ran from the North Bay to the top of the cliffs there and we would chat to the guys that ran that too. Fiona had another friend who I didn’t know very well and there might have been some jealousy there, I don’t know but the next thing I knew was that this other girl wanted to kill me because I’d ‘got off’ with her boyfriend. I didn’t even know who her boyfriend was and my friend did nothing to allay my fears when she gave me the news and then, I think, later, a note. I was terrified and for some reason I didn’t tell my Gran about it which I usually did as we were very close. Maybe I thought I could sort it out myself or she’d threatened me not to tell anyone. My supposed friend was quite nasty to me too which upset me even more and I was told to meet her at the cable cars. I think by this time Fiona was being a bit nicer or another friend came with me but I just remember my teeth chattering constantly because I was so scared which had never happened to me before or since. When I arrived her boyfriend was there too and he protected me, we had a brief chat and it was all over before it had begun. I hadn’t even kissed this boy to my recollection and if I had he certainly hadn’t mentioned he was seeing this other girl. He decided he wanted to go out with me shortly after that and I think we did, very briefly, after he reassured me he would never let anything happen to me.

So there we have it; a snapshot of my gang life. Hardly guns and tattoos but it was a different time and place and those things didn’t touch me thank goodness. We were a working class family but we weren’t poor by any means as my grandfather had a solid job as a civil servant after the war and my gran knew how to make her house-keeping money go round. The last gang I joined and am still a member of is my vegan and creative tribe I guess. I joined that 11 years ago now and have never regretted a single minute of it. Some of the details are in a previous post about my journey because a lot of people would ask me why and how I became vegan. Although I’m no longer so active in the Animal Rights movement because of 4 prolapsed discs and illness I still wave the flag by just living a vegan lifestyle and I still have activist friends that I met all those years ago. I’m much more happy in my own skin these days so I don’t need anyone’s approval but I think we all like belonging to groups whether it be our family, a choir, a rambling club or/and a group of friends that all know each other. Being with people that share a common interest immediately gives you something to talk about and as much as I like my one to one time with people gangs are great for fun holidays, for birthdays or other celebrations, at college and university; there are just some situations where a gang naturally occurs or/and where they make good times even better. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little walk down memory lane and that you have your own fabulous gang that you’re part of and isn’t the same without you.