Some Fried Chicken, Cynthia?

1980 (15 YEARS OLD)1 week ago

1980 - 15 Years Old

Spud, our French teacher, gave us a cultural-differences chat before our upcoming school exchange trip to France. It took the wind out of our sails.

One of the things that horrified us the most was his description of the toilets. The public ones, anyway. Apparently, they looked something like this:

The upside, however, were the French birds, who, if we could keep the image of them using one of these toilets out of our mind, were très magnifique.

But if you’ve read this post, you’ll know that we found out that they probably only danced like this on learning that we had left France and went home.

Perhaps even more horrific than the toilets and the way we spurned, though, was what the French did to music. When I thought about French music, Charles Aznavour or some git in a blue and white striped shirt playing an accordion was the only things that came to mind.

At that time, I was still in my Elvis phase and didn’t know that much about music outside of the 1955-1960 period, to be fair.

But I still knew what was shit.

A belief that was confirmed by a French “punk” named Plastic Bertrand and his bloody trampoline. Yes, he was Belgian; but in our minds, it was the same difference. And yes, his song made it to #8 in the UK charts.

But keep in mind, the #1 in the UK at that time was Boney M:

The UK charts were like British DJs at the time. Anything could happen. And it usually wasn’t good.

And so we learned about French “music”.

Remember that time Johnny Rotten was performing while juggling on a unicycle? Yeah, I don’t quite remember that bit, either. (You can learn more about The Sex Pistols by reading my free flip book).

So our attitude to this sort of travesty was similar to how the French would react if Heinz introduced tins of hot-dog bourguignon.

Apparently, Plastic Bertrand toured the UK. I’m not sure where, but it definitely wasn’t the 100 Club in London, the mecca of punk. He would have gotten two pastings – one for being French and another for the song.

But medieval toilets, revolted girls, and shit music aside, we were making the trip from Dover to Calais on the Hovercraft.

Oh, yeah.

A Hovercraft basically floats above the water on a cushion of air, giving it a quick, frictionless ride. We sailed on The Princess Anne, a huge hovercraft that seated 427 passengers and could carry about 50 cars. It had a duty free shop and a cafe. But we all brought our own packed lunches.

Packed lunches for school children didn’t vary much in the late-70s UK. Usually, it was ham and cheese sarnies, or spam if you lived on the council estate, with crisps, a dessert, and a can of something.

But not me. My mum always made me 3 Shake ‘n Bake drumsticks as my mains. That was the benefit of being able to shop at the commissary on the American military base. The British didn’t know what fried chicken was at the time, even the Shake ‘n Bake version.

This made me even more popular, as my mates tried to swap something for the third leg. They all had pretty much the same thing, so I usually would just give it to Singhy or Smell.

But the Hovercraft’s smooth, frictionless ride only occurred on calm seas.

Ours left Dover on choppy seas.

Really bloody choppy.

It ended up essentially being a 30-minute roller-coaster ride.

And not a crap one, like they would have at Banbury fair.

A toe-curling, screaming-like-a-bastard one.

If my mum had been there, she would have been gripping something so hard her knuckles would have turned even whiter, screaming we’re all going to die.

After about 15 minutes, we knew who could handle it and who couldn’t. The person in the worse situation was Cynthia Fallowfield. She was sat there with her head between her legs turning various shades of green. Cynthia was a nice, inoffensive background figure in our class. Nobody fancied her, but nobody would pick on her. The teachers probably wrote things like decent or role model on her end-of-year reports.

And she was.

Until this particular day, after people started to take the piss.

Commenting on the shades of green Cynthia was going through, someone yelled out, Careful, lads; she’s turning into the Hulk; that got a big laugh from those of us comfortable enough to know that opening our mouth wouldn’t end in spewing.

Don’t worry, Cyn; it’s just another few hours was another.

I got the biggest laugh, however, by pulling out a Shake n’ Bake drumstick, waving it around, and asking, Some Fried Chicken, Cynthia?

At that point, I hadn’t seen The Exorcist, but a year or so later Regan would remind me of Cynthia – her head turned unnaturally from her lap towards me, her eyes pierced my soul, and her crusty lips growled out in anguish.

Fuck you, Morales.

Nobody called me that. I had put in a lot of effort into making sure I didn’t get a nickname. I was Tim – just Tim – it was the other Tim’s who were qualified by their surnames.

The laughter stopped.

And we quietly stared out of the window at the waves tossing us about.

Afraid.