Just About Me 8

The cinema was an exciting place for me, you see my Dad often fancied watching a film and would take me with him. We first went to watch The Silencers, with Dean Martin in it, he played a secret agent and it was Americas answer to James Bond. There have been 23 Bond movies and only 4 Silencers films, so from that I guess for once America got it wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silencers_%28film%29

Another great film we watched was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, this is a classic movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy_and_the_Sundance_Kid

But for me the one that stood out was Papillon, starring Steve McQueen, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070511/  it was about a guy imprisoned by the French and his struggle for survival.

In February 1971, it was decided that I was wasting my time being at Elliott any longer, and my parents, I think, harbored thoughts that I was being held back academically, but maybe the truanting didn't really help, anyway my parents changed my school and I went to Sir Christopher Wren School, W12. This was the local school that originally was deemed not very good in 1967, but now in fairness my brother Colin attended and was doing really well at. It was in walking distance, my reputation had obviously arrived before me, as the first thing my new housemaster said to me was " So your Allen, when are you leaving". When I went into class I could not believe these people were my age, some of them were enormous and grew close on a beard, whilst I, although tall, still spoke with a squeaky voice and attended scouts. I soon fell in with my usual way, meeting a couple of guys Billy Hennessy and Billy Daniels, we all bunked off together, I even made my little brother carry my PE kit around so that I did not have to do it, Sorry Colin! I lasted one term at Sir Christopher Wren School and left my school days behind it was May 1971.

Just About Me 7

I made some really good friends at Elliott, namely Paul Stevens, Eugene King, John Hicks, Barry Stock and Michael Arnott. We used to all hang around together and I found myself experiencing lots of firsts with some of them. My First Cigarette, My First Chippy Loaf, My First go at Shoplifting and Bunking Off School. My First Cigarette was nothing special but in my mind I looked tough, pretty stupid really, My
First Chippy Loaf was fantastic, a loaf of uncut bread cut in half and hollowed out, filled with chips and soaked in vinegar and laced with salt. My First go at Shoplifting was ridiculous, in an off license on the Ashburton Estate, Putney SW15, I decided to nick some chocolate bars and a tin of coke, I stuffed them in various pockets, and the shopkeeper was not too happy about it, he grabbed me round the throat whilst I totally shit myself, he took me to the housemaster John Taylor who caned my arse, I was more worried my dad would find out than anything else, but I don't think he did, Sorry Dad you have now. Bunking Off School became a habit, I visited all the local parks and deserted buildings in Putney, namely a disused brewery in Lacy Rd, SW15, it was great fun in there, we found loads of empties which we returned to the local off license for the deposit back, the first time round the guy paid us out, the next time he shouted to us to F Off, I guess he had been kind the first time and knew what we were up to, but never again.

At home my Paternal Grandmother came to live with us, at first this was quite exciting but after time became a bit fragile, two women into one kitchen does not work, Fact, every night my Nan would jump up to clear the dinner table and wash up, this sort of thing frustrated the life out of my mum who saw it as her kitchen. I don't want you to think that it was all terrible because it really wasn't, we lived in a happy home, only thing was it became overcrowded as we grew bigger.

 One day in1968 I was returning home from school, sitting on the top deck of a 220 bus, gazing aimlessly out of the window, when as we reached Shepherds Bush Green, a convertible Cadillac pulled up sharply outside the old Essoldo cinema, emerging from it at speed were four large Gorillas with machine guns. They ran inside the cinema firing round after round. Well as you can imagine, this came as a bit of a shock to this twelve year old boy, I remember ducking down as the bus pulled away. I told my mum about it, and she probably thought I had gone mad, it was a couple of days later I realised it was all a publicity stunt to promote the latest film Planet Of The Apes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063442/

Just About Me 6

Approx 1968 they only went and picked me for the house rugby team, I hated the game and they picked me.

I reckon the fact that at the time I was about 5 feet 6 inches and most others were about 4ft 10ins probably sealed my fate, the game was on a Saturday morning at Raynes Park playing fields, I moaned about this and was told that if I did not turn up I would get a large amount of detention or worse, it did not help me that my games master was John Taylor the Wales and British Lion international (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_(rugby_player), so I did the best thing I could and turned up. Could not tell you the result as I could not wait to get back home in time to go to watch Chelsea play. I must have made the right impression as I was never picked again, and years afterwards I met John on an underground station, he gave me the impression that he did not even remember me, what a liberty!

In every year I was at Elliott they had an annual cross country run, I remember the first year telling my dad I was taking part, " Just follow the leader closely" he said " then nip past him at the end for victory", I lined up with great anticipation, they shouted go so we did, I finished 298th out of 300 apparently taking a rest 300 yards in is not the way to win!

Another thing they taught us at school was Woodwork and the use of various tools, one of these was called a spokeshave, spokeshave's were really useful for rounding objects off and in the use of carving. One day they set us a task of carving a fish from a handy sized piece of wood, I got stuck in with my usual amount of enthusiasm and towards the end of the project I had somehow managed to carve the fish's head off.
The other thing that always sticks in my mind about woodwork was the day  a teacher decided to punish me and another boy for some minor misdemeanour, the punishment was to saw a large sheet of asbestos in half, no face masks or goggles, can you imagine that today, too soft if you ask me.