Stalking With Hot Chocolate

1982 (17 YEARS OLD)1 month ago

My sister Dee, who lived in America, always used to send great presents. I got things that were never available in the UK or I got them a few years before they were available.

One of my favourites was the Sony Walkman.

It developed my love for walking for endless miles. I could listen to my mix tapes and think. Usually, of course, about girls.

When I was sad, the walks would take me into the countryside; when I was horny, the walks would take me around the town centre, introducing myself to the ladies (at least in my head). And when I was stalking, they would take me past the house of my latest flame, Mystery Girl, several hundred times. And for each mileau, there were specific cassettes. Sometimes, specific songs.

Wait, what’s that?

Stalking?

It wasn’t really stalking. There wasn’t even a plan of what to say when I would finally bump into her (which I never even did during the walks). She was just a girl whose house was on the walk home from school. I saw her regularly during the walk home but never got the courage to talk to her. Did I just say “just a girl”?

No, she was a goddess.

A goddess who looked like the sax player from The Bodysnatchers.

And for the goddess, there was Hot Chocolate.

(Un)Fortunately, fate would come to my aid.

Banbury Town Hall would host a disco every fortnight. And, ever since I turned 15, I had my freedom to go to such things. My close circle of friends would never go, saying it was crap. Which it was. But there was the chance of meeting girls. So I’d go alone.

And one Friday night, she was there.

I walked towards her, gripped with panic, oblivious to everything and everyone around me. I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, even lovelier up close, and I asked her to dance.

She laughed, shook her head, and said no.

Suddenly, everything came back into focus again, and I realised the fucking Wurzels were playing:

In those days, outside of clubs in London, most DJs weren’t professional and became DJs because they owned a record player and a handful of current hits, supplemented by a large box of random, shit 45s they had bought at a jumble sale for a pound.

At least, it seemed that way.

There was no track mixing, pyrotechnics or anything but a basic light show, but there was one constant: they’d play either 2 or 3 slow songs (you’d never know which, so you had to get a move on), and then they’d throw a bucket of water on you with whatever they had that was the opposite of romantic.

Several years later, Morrisey would best sum up everybody’s attitude:

But I wasn’t thinking about that as I ran home in shame, to the words of horny yokels running through my head.

I know that memories are unreliable – the old copy of a copy of a copy thing. So I imagine that somewhere, the mystery girl is sipping prosecco with one her friends, laughing about the time the lead singer of Wurzels came up and asked for a dance.

The love of my life had spurned me, and I was heartbroken. Devastated. Inconsolable.

For about a day…