So Granny Burns Down A Field

1977 (12 YEARS OLD)4 days ago

1977 (12 Years Old)

When I was 12, we lived on a street called Goodrington Close. There were quite a few boys around my age on the street, so we had our own little gang.

There was Chalky, Pisser Parish, Tinkham, Alan something-or-other, Granny, and me.

Chalky was black. His real name was Anthony White, so his nickname was inevitable. It didn’t come from racism; it came from irony. Much in the same way that a very skinny, pale (white) student in another year had the nickname Shaft. And, anyway, it was a lot better than Chris Bates’ nickname, Granny, that came from the fact that he looked like he didn’t have any teeth when his mouth was closed. Or Pisser, who got his nickname from always wetting himself if he laughed too hard.

And it was Pisser who helped our gang develop our sense of humour.

We’d play war, Action Men (GI Joes, for Americans), kick the can, and football. We’d ride our bikes and skateboard. Sometimes we’d jump off the garages at the end of the street or fight. In the autumn, we’d scrump (steal fruit from trees). Often, we’d just sit on a wall, throwing stones at nothing, lying to each other about the things we’d done.

And we’d not come in until our parents made us.

It was brilliant.

But perhaps our favourite thing was to take long walks into the countryside. We’d all secretly raid our pantries, so we could have a picnic of odd things that we thought wouldn’t be missed. A can of beans, a block of marzipan, a jar of homemade ginger marmalade, a stale pork pie, a margarine tub full of Jollof rice that Chalky’s mum had made. That sort of thing.

And as we walked with our plastic bags, we would sing.

Sometimes we’d sing about Britain’s best football player, George Best,

Georgie Best, Superstar
Wears Frilly Knickers and A Playtex Bra

And if you don’t remember the tune (or where it came from):

This was common for kids in the UK at the time, to walk around singing songs as a group. It was our apprenticeship for the big leagues:

This time, we even tried out a new song by a group called Queen:

Nobody knew all of the words, of course. But after arguing for several miles, we sort of came up with the chorus:

We are the champions, my friendAnd we’ll keep on fighting till the endWe are the championsWe are the championsNo time for losersCause we are the championsOf the world

And we felt like we were.

After eating, we wandered through a group of trees looking for Roman treasure. But all we could find was an old motorcycle helmet, empty rubber johnny packets, and a lot of cigarette butts and beer bottles.

Our disappointment was pierced, from over the brow of the hill, by Granny screaming, “LADS!”

There was also quite a bit of smoke.

We ran to where he was and saw him trying to beat out a rather large fire with his jacket.

Most of us were in the scouts, so we should have known what to do. But we ran. Ran like the wind.

Granny wasn’t in great shape, so we stopped at the library near our street and went into the bathroom. Tinkham ran home for scissors and eye pencil. Chalky said his mum had some cream for burns, so he went, too.

Granny was crying about his jacket that he had left in the field.

When the lads got back, I cut the burned pieces out of his curly red hair, and filled in his eyebrows, that were about 80% gone. Tinkham only could find dark brown eye pencil, so it had to do. Chalky put some of his mum’s cream on a few blotches.

And when we finished, it looked something like this:

Granny looked in the mirror and started crying again.

Pisser wet himself laughing. In the bloody toilet!

The rest of us muffled nervous laughter.

It took about an hour before Granny was OK to leave. And the librarian was kicking us out, anyway.

We all ran into our houses and looked through the lace curtains, as Granny entered his.

The next day, everyone, even those of us who lived up the street, swore we could hear his mum screaming.

GLOSSARY

Some terms, words, things that might not be familiar to our non-British audience.

Action Man – a 12-in military action figure, similar to G.I. Joe.

kick the can – a game that involves kicking an empty can and running and hiding, while the “it” person retrieves the can and then tries to find everyone who has run and hid.

rubber johnny – condom

to scrump – steal fruit from somebody’s tree. Usually a lot of wall climbing.

POST SCRIPT

During my time as a professor, my university’s drama department put on a performance of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9.

One of the chapters of my dissertation includes a section on the play, so the actors invited me to a rehearsal, and asked me to give feedback. Which, I happily did.

But, naturally, the actors only wanted performance tips, not post-structuralist analysis.

So, for the countless hours I spent in the Purdue Library stacks, the best piece of advice I gave them was how to sing Georgie Best, Superstar (as it appears in the play)…