All Change At 16!

(...a boy to a man)

    

        My life  had nearly reached that first of the landmark years, sixteen, and up to that point my life had been full of the usual 'angst', the almost non-stop round of 'firsts' one associates with growing pains of all kinds, all of those events that are only to be expected in the life of...everyone I suppose, because let's face it, nothing is new, nothing is unique and although it might seem at the time that you are facing these 'firsts' on your own, you are not, I still had to understand that the world didn't revolve around me!

     I suppose the 'single' most significant thing that we all go through has got to be and no I don't mean blowing the candles out on your 16th birthday cake, something far less glamorous but far more important and dare I say it, monumental! Of course it has to be losing my virginity,officially that is, not the bullshit I had spread around to save face among my friends, the real deal! Certainly, like most of my peers, I lost my cherry somewhere between 1974 and 1976, at least that is what I told my mates, of course I did, I was no fool, we 'all' lied about it and I think that we all knew we were lying, that went with the territory! Like any major event in your own history, you always remember where, when, why and who with, that is indelible like a birthmark or like a tattoo, it is something that stays with you forever. Let's get one thing straight, my first time had been coming for a long time (or should that be cumming?), certainly for a boy of the age that I was, this was going to be that moment in my life when I was to tumble (or even fumble!) through that portal, the one that was to lead the way from being an insignificant boy to being a man, a man who from that moment, was on a mission! 
            Looking back now, the first time of fumbling and grunting in the dark to the hushed tones brought on by one of the quieter tracks on E.L.O's album 'A New World Record' (you see, certain albums and pieces of music are forever in your memory, are so evocative and that title, how ironic!) playing on my stereo, my technique if I had any back then, was pretty shit, borderline non-existent and if I remember rightly it was all over in less than a nano second!  I remember thinking so vividly at the time,

   
     "Is that it,  is that what I have waited so long for? better keep practicing then."

    Of course your average kid of fifteen and a bit is stepping into unknown territory, that it certainly was, and it was no different for me, I did not know what to expect, I was given no 'manual' to revise as such, apart from the dirty books that I had read from cover to cover leading up to that point in my life, but somehow, the 'real' thing was so different to what I had expected!  Of course with time, a lot of pleading, practice in my case did not make me perfect, not by any means but things improved, well they did for me , like all good malt whisky's, with age of course!  
        Like all boys, it takes a long time to understand that it is a two way thing, it's not just about YOU, or rather ME in this case and I was certainly no different, I was selfish of course I was, what did I know, that monkey was mine and by Christ I was going to spank it, as long as I had blown the wax out of my ears, I was more than happy! It was just a case of,
     
   "that was fun, what do you want to do now, we could play some of my records, up to you, it's your choice but just remember,  I'm meeting the lads later on!" 
       
        Sensitivity was an emotion that was still eluding me, feelings toward how the girl felt were still some way off but when I finally made it to sixteen, I had already made one of my 'first' major decisions that would shape my future, I had decided to leave school!  I had got a taste already of earning a decent 'part time' wage but I wanted more!  I remember the day I left school, reporting to the Headmistress's office and together discussing if it was the right thing for me to do, how she then tried to talk me into staying, how I was a bright boy and so on, I will always remember her saying that I was a very popular boy and did I know that, my teachers liked me and my peers liked me and was I sure I wanted to leave, I did not have to, I just had to say the word and the release papers would be torn up.  However, my mind was made up, I wanted to go and that was it, I remember her shaking my hand and for the first time ever in all the years I was at that school, where she struck fear in all who happened to be caught running in the corridors and were unfortunate to end up in her 'cross-hair', she called me Martin and not by my surname, Lawrence, to this very day it has got to be one of 'those' moments one that I will always remember, a moment in my life that I suppose was very poignant, although at the time the significance was lost on me, I just knew that the 'shackles' of being a school kid were about to be left behind in her office for good and I was going to be running as fast as I possibly could to get out of the school gates, not understanding the implications that this boy, ME,  was about to enter something entirely different, the real world!

         I left school on the Friday and started work the following Monday, back then it was that easy to walk straight into a job, not a career but certainly a job.  In one way, I was so relieved, the pressure had gone overnight, not that there was any 'real' pressure anyway, the gate to the school had now closed, and the security, the way of life, my friends, the laughs, the trials and tribulations of being a schoolkid, were gone, I was now on my own, scary, sad in some ways but so exciting!
        My first 'full time' job was with a transport company and I was a little lucky that my old man worked for the same company, not in Swindon but near enough for my new workmates  to know that he was my dad!  A hindrance, maybe, a bit of luck, of course but I had to succeed on my own merits, I dare say he kept a watchful eye on me, just in case I was going to bring any kind of embarrassment upon his name, but that is about all, I was aware of this and did my utmost to distance myself from the, 
"you must be Dave's boy" syndrome. For the first few weeks, that was inevitable but it soon passed when I started to establish my own worth, my own identity so to speak! 
           Overnight, I went feet first straight into a new world, a world where I was the kid who was now working with men, men who were my dad's age. If I was going to fuck up, I was now on my own, I did not want to ask my dad for any help, I don't think he would have given me any, not because he couldn't be arsed, he would have wanted me to make it on my own. I had my own office, well, more of my own desk in a shared office, which was in the same Porta-Cabin as the branch manager, who just happened to be a really nice guy...at my interview that is, however things were now different, I was on trial, I was being scrutinized, and he was the one doing the watching!  One of the main things I learned dealing with all of the lorry drivers was basically to grow up and to do it quick, I had to realize their ways, I had to integrate with them, if I hadn't, I would have, sixteen or not, been viewed with suspicion and never become one of them, one of the lads! So I did my best to keep up with these men, these men who were mostly my dad's age, they virtually all knew him, and this did not matter because I was gradually being moulded into their ways! 
        Within a few weeks the most noticeable thing was my language, my swearing had gone on to another level, schoolboy swearing was one thing, I would swear and walk a little faster just in case I caused offence or was about to get thumped, bloody, shit, fuck and bastard were all you needed, but this, this was a dictionary of filth that was now at my disposal!  At school, most of the swearing was confined to the playground and you would pick those words up from the big kids, or on the way home but at work however, it was the norm to swear all day, all the time and at everyone, not anyone, EVERYONE! 
                 One of the best people I have ever worked with was the transport manager, Vic, he smoked like a chimney, when he coughed it was like a fall of soot, he would be one of those men who would insist on finishing his sentence regardless of his coughing, getting redder and redder in the face, and he would make the worst jokes seem so much funnier because he would insist on getting to the punchline whilst gagging for breath, which made all of those in his company laugh along with him and the office or wherever would become one big cough-a-thon, for in those days, everybody smoked, unlike today where the smokers are largely outnumbered by the non-smokers, back then, it was so different!            He had a saying that he always used, if he wanted one of the drivers to do a job for him, he would always call out,
       "George, I've got something for you", wait a few seconds and then he would say,
        " too late, it's gone soft!"
For weeks and weeks, I did not have a clue what he was on about, I just did not get the joke that is  until finally I asked one of the other office clerks,
       "Why does Vic keep saying that", this guy at me in disbelief and needless to say, he started  giggling and shaking his head, and giving me one of those 'you're still a kid' looks,
       "well, what does it mean......oh, oh I get it!"
        In the year that I was there, Vic was the best, he would help me when he could and I was amazed to find out that although he could swear for England at work, when we clocked off,  Victor went home and Vic stayed at work, he never swore at home and never in front of his wife!  Many years later I heard that he had died of lung cancer and by all accounts, he was smoking right up until the end, was he an advert for living life to the full, or was he an advert for 'not' smoking, bit of each I suppose, but I am so glad I knew him. 
      During those years I developed a 'phone' voice and even though I say it myself, became very adept at using the phone. However, there were considerable drawbacks, as I soon found out!  Speaking to various customers on the phone was part of my job and you soon built up a rapport with most of them, however, one proved to be a crushing blow to my developing ego!  I used to speak to a lady from one of our customers quite often, Tina, if parcels had gone astray or parcels needed to be collected, I was the one that had to deal with the calls. I knew she was older but when a 'woman' flirts with you at that age, or rather you think she flirts, you certainly feel like you are living the dream, that is until my own fantasy bubble was about to burst! There was an ongoing problem with parcels from this company being continually returned, it appeared to be a labeling error on the part of the company, the company who this 'voice' worked for, so she was to make a visit to the transport company and try to resolve the problem.  Well this to me, at sixteen, was a bit of a dream come true, I was going to be the person who, with her help, was going to try and sort this problem out, I was going to at last be able to put a face to the name!  The day arrived and I was summoned over to the transport office because this lady had arrived!  Jesus-Fucking-H-Christ, I ran over there as fast as my testosterone fueled body would allow, burst into the office only to be met by a woman who was the same age as.... my Grandmother!  It would have been traumatic enough if she was the same age as my Mum, you have to remember, at that age, I still had to master the art of diplomacy and my disappointment must have been so obvious, especially when my colleagues were making rude gestures behind her back and trying not to laugh, talk about feeling deflated! She may have been a lovely person...to her grandchildren, and the lesson I learnt that day was always to think the worst about someone's looks, on the phone that is, because it would be a nice surprise when you meet face to face and that person is drop dead gorgeous! Of course I soon realized how that too was a two way thing, I may have thought I was sex on legs at the time but obviously I must have been  have been quite the opposite viewed through someone else's eyes, probably true really, I don't seem to remember beating the ladies off with a stick, maybe only in my dreams of course. 
      During that year I became acquainted with yet more firsts in my life, how people, men, could be nasty bastards to each other, something I thought I had left behind when I left school!  When I was at school, to see two boys square up to each other didn't raise so much as a second glance, it's what happened, it's what we did, never a day went by without some altercation.  However, when you see men going at it, that is a different ball game, as I was soon to discover.  Bob, or 'Boggy' as he was known and Pete who was known as 'Moon Man' (for reasons I shall come to later!), they had a massive set-to over hemorrhoids of all things!  What was meant as a 'playful' kick up the arse from Boggy for Moon Man to hurry up out of his way so he could clock out at the end of one particular shift, had Moon Man screaming in agony!  Like a lot of truck drivers, a lot suffer with piles and Moon Man was no exception, he went berserk and a chase ensued and he finally caught up with Boggy and head butted him leaving him with a bloody nose! When you are witness to men as old as your dad knocking seven bells out of each other, as a sixteen year old, it's sort of exciting in a primeval way, it's also a bit scary!  Needless to say they had to be separated and sadly, never spoke to each other again. That in itself was something that was strange, that grown men would revert back to something akin to being in the playground, you were used to that at school all of the time but when grown men do it and mean it, that is a bit hard to understand!
              My transition period was very brief, the novelty of being the new boy, being a sixteen year old and of course being 'Dave's boy' soon wore off and I soon became just one of the 'men' and was treated accordingly. During the year I was there, one of the most powerful feelings known to man showed up, the effect that money can have on some people, how money can change people overnight!  One of the drivers, who just happened to be one of the most miserable fuckers ever to walk the earth, won the Football Pools!  The sum of £12000 back in 1977 was quite substantial, not enough to give up work but enough to make life a lot nicer for the recipient.  This guy however, all of the money on God's earth would have still not been enough to change him into a nice person, he was born to be a horrible man, he was always first out in the mornings and first back in the afternoon, with barely a grunt to anyone, he would never make a cup of tea for anyone else, would never let anyone read his paper and the thing I hated about him was of all things, belching!  He would for some reason produce the most disgusting burps known to man, did not care who was in earshot or how close they were to him and when it was mentioned to him, the more he did it.  Anyway, he was thought of as that dirty bastard, who seemed to go out of his way not to be liked but the word soon got round that he had won this money and almost overnight, he had, out of nowhere acquired quite a 'fanbase'. That is until he made a 'token' gesture, of one can of beer and a cigar for all of his work 'mates'! I remember thinking at the time, I suppose he has got a heart in there somewhere, however, I can still see people telling him to his face to shove them up his arse! I can still remember him knocking off on that day, walking to his car with almost the same amount of cans and cigars as he had come into work with!  I can still vividly hear the abuse that was hurled at this man, this was something I thought I had seen the back of when I had left school, this behaviour was the norm...at school, this was expected...at school, but this was the workplace and this was ...men, and at first, this was really hard to come to terms with!  So I suppose that was not only me realizing that our bodies change, from going from children to 'adults' but fundamentally we never leave our childhoods 'completely' behind because unknown to me at the time, I was also witnessing my first case of 'mob rule', my  first exposure to any form of adult hypocrisy in the workplace. I can still remember thinking to myself what did they expect, a share of his winnings, they made no secret beforehand of their dislike for this man, he has made a gesture to you, he did not have to for fuck's sake! Back then I was so naive, I always saw things at face value and the 'cynical' side of my nature was still, a long way off into the future. Needless to say, he left soon after that, he just never clocked in one morning and last anyone ever heard of him was that he was working as a caretaker at one of the local schools, bit ironic really because he was certainly the sort of man who did not like being around kids, or adults for that matter!
    Ernie was one of those men you could never imagine being a young man, the sort of man who went straight from childhood to being a geriatric, come to think of it, back then, anyone over forty was to me, an old fart! Ernie was the cleaner, he swept up, emptied the bins, chucked some bleach down the toilets now and again and most important of all, he made the tea!  He was a man who could make you laugh without realizing and with very little effort. On one occasion, a very attractive lady came into the depot asking for directions, a woman in her forties immaculately dressed and spoken!  She wanted to get to the very newly built College which was miles from where we were, she asked one of the clerks in the office, he had an idea but he also knew that Ernie lived over that side of town, so he asked this lady to follow him because he felt sure that Ernie would be able to give her directions. Off they duly went in search of Ernie, sure enough there he was walking up the loading platform with the morning tray of tea for the clerks in the office. 
   "Ernie, got a minute, need your help", acknowledging the call from the clerk, he walked up to the pair,
   " Any idea how to get to the new College" he was asked,  he paused to mull the question over in his head, turned and smiled at the lady, looked away and squinted his eyes further to give the question more thought until finally, looking up at the pair of them,
    " the College you say, the new one not the old one", thinking they were going to get the directions they needed, the pair of them almost 'willing ' the names of the streets to come out of Ernie's mouth were suddenly mortified by his eventual answer,
     " do you know what...I'm fucked if I know", and with that he carried on walking with the tray to the office without a second thought, leaving a highly embarrassed clerk, me in the corner crumpling up with laughter and a very shocked woman who turned and stormed out!  Even if the matter of his choice of language had been brought to Ernie's attention, he was the sort of man who would not understand what all the fuss was about, oh the power created by that of a well chosen swear word, still brings tears to my eyes even now!
        Every angry dog gets one chance at being a nasty bastard but then a full moon changes everything. As I said earlier, the guy who was renamed 'Moon Man', earned his stripes and indeed his new  name which was very apt choice!  One minute a perfectly normal guy the next grade 'A' psycho, no in between, no middle ground, just one or the other, I was pretty fortunate, he was always a funny and obliging man to me, full of anecdotes that would have me in stitches.  I may have been a man child and in his world, no threat at all but then again his problem on this occasion was with the 'canine' community not mankind, to such an extent, that it nearly cost him his job!  One of his regular deliveries was to a house where the owner used to run a small business that made book-matches, this was well before the invention of the internet, and so all things 'printed' were done in the old fashioned way, very labour intensive, very hands-on, little works of art, you had to have a certain degree of skill, you honed your skill, your craft from your workshop or your garage, with your dog! This man, although he himself was a very likeable man, his dog was the opposite, one of life's meanest son's of bitches but the problem was, this dog could do no wrong in his eyes but all was about to kick off.  There was a delivery to this address almost every other day, an afternoon delivery was never a problem but in the mornings was a different story, the dog was always out in the garden and it would appear it was lying in wait, ready to charge up the path and chase the hapless lorry driver out of the garden. At first there would be phone calls of complaint that parcels had been left out in the rain, not signed for and on occasion damaged by rain!  Moon Man was summoned to see the branch manager and his explanation would always be the same, that 'fucking mad dog' as he would put it, would never let him past the gate without a chase and the damage was caused by Moon Man throwing the parcel and running as fast as he could out of the gate, slamming it shut just in time before the hound could sink it's teeth into his arse!  He was warned that he must always wait for an answer at the door and never was he to throw a package over the gate, but old Moon Man had other ideas, no way was a mutt going to call the shots!  The next few deliveries went off without any incident, obviously the timing was right, the dog was otherwise occupied, however, the tide was about to turn!  On this particular day he walked through the gate and made the delivery without any hitch, that is until he turned around to head towards the gate where the dog, was sat waiting for him, then it made it's move, it began to run full pelt towards Moon Man who as quickly as he could, going backwards towards an out building and apparently once through, slammed the door shut just in time. It turns out that it had trapped him in the building and for the next half an hour, he was at the mercy of a demon dog, you have to remember that this was decades before the mobile phone was as much of a fixture to the human being as underwear, he was unable to phone to raise the alarm, he was just stuck there. In the end, after waiting long enough, Moon Man decided to make a run for it and take on the dog, with a cricket bat!!  It turns out that he looked around the building found an old cricket bat, of which he maintained it was purely to be used as a 'defensive' weapon if necessary and then with this maniacal scream, he burst out of the building, the dog was padding around the garden and saw Moon Man making a break for freedom, gave chase barking and snarling and just as Moon Man got out of the gate, slamming  it shut but only to catch his pocket on the catch, ripping it apart and spilling all his loose change in the process! All of this commotion had been witnessed by the man who owned the house and he was about to see how a normally mild mannered man went into a complete 'melt-down'!  Moon Man went crazy, barging back through the gate he pushed the owner to the floor and proceeded to chase the dog around the garden, with the cricket bat swinging wildly above his head! To say the dog was petrified would be putting it mildly and after dodging the bat for a few minutes, it ran and hid in the shed, the same one that it had been holding Moon Man captive, Moon Man saw his chance, slammed the door shut, turned and as calm as you like, turned and walked towards the gate but not before he picked up a plant pot and hurled it through window of the shed, leaving glass and wood splinters flying everywhere, not to mention a terrified dog howling with fright. Allegedly he muttered a few expletives to the cowering man on the floor, he even raised the bat to him, then he calmly picked up all of the spilt change from his pocket, got in his lorry and drove off.      When he returned to the depot the phone call had been received and he was summoned to the manager's office to explain himself, a blazing row ensued and he stormed out of the office with the manager telling him that he was to be put on two weeks suspension and never do anything like this again. What was said to him next made a lasting impression on yours truly,  the Branch Manager yelled after him saying  that he should not have to deal with lunatics like him and next time there is a full moon, he better stay in bed because he was, and I quote,
          'a fucking Moon Man'! 
     Others heard the commotion, realized who the Manager was talking to and the name stuck, from that day on he was forever known as Moon Man by everyone and not many people would be brave enough to wind him up ever again. He has very recently I have heard passed away and it may be nearly forty years later but I still will always think of him whenever there is a full moon, God bless you Moon Man.
               During that first year of working for a living, I had my first experience of 'industrial' action in the workplace that I inhabited!  Within a few weeks of me starting, I was introduced to the shop steward, I found him to be a bit of a hippy type but apparently he was not what you would call a 'thorn' in managements side, more like a pain in their arse, he was never quite viewed upon as someone to be taken seriously! He would always present himself as the saviour of the workers, always be looking out for their interests, you have to remember, this was the Seventies and industrial action was almost a day to day occurrence, a lot of which was very 'relevant' but a lot was, looking back almost forty years on, laughable! This guy almost called the whole workforce out on strike, in a vain hope that they would back him because he claimed to have got a 'splinter' in his arse from a toilet seat!  Apart from making himself a bit of an unwilling celebrity, indeed a bit of a laughing stock amongst his workmates, he was deadly serious and he insisted that management changed the wooden seats over to plastic seats or he would be ''balloting" the rank and file for possible industrial action. After weeks of serious discussion, he won and the seats were changed, at least he had something to tell his grandchildren I suppose, he managed to force about a major change in the workplace, that is undeniable. I think it is so ironic really, the toilet block in question had no lights, so in the wintertime, early morning was dark and early evening was the same, just think what a health and safety issue that would be today!  I suppose back then in the grey seventies, you didn't mind pissing on your boots, as long as you never got a splinter in the arse!
               That year spent at the transport company will always mean so much to me and for so many reasons and on so many levels!  It was my first full-time job, obviously the first thing, so much seemed to happen in those twelve months, I was out in the big wide world on my own, I had to make decisions for myself, people were dependant on me to give them answers, friendships began in one direction and friendships drifted apart in the other.  From being a kid at school one day to being a young man going to work the next, those first few weeks for me, went so fast, so much to take in, so much to learn, from the cosiness of school to the total exposure of the workplace, it was at first, very scary.   I definitely hit the ground running, there were many occasions that I cocked up, being told off by my teachers was entirely different from getting a bollocking from my manager, watery eyes and a quivering bottom lip did not work here, this was the big wide world and there were fewer places to hide. Not only did the time go fast on a day to day level but this 'new' Martin rapidly pulled away from the 'old' model, his cosy and safe way of life upto that point and above all else, this was the end of him as the person he was and the beginning of the person he would become.


Coming soon.....'78 onwards (I've got a Triumph you know!)