We discovered porn not long after the Millennium. Yes, the anniversary to mark 2000 years since Christ’s birth coincided with my discovery of pornography. At the time Nestlé had brought out a time capsule of chocolate to celebrate. The idea was that after getting a well-deserved sugar high by eating all of the chocolate in one go, you could then put interesting, timely things like photographs, love letters and four-leaf clovers inside the capsule. You were then meant to seal it up and bury it so it could be discovered by people in years to come.
Instead, I used mine as a makeshift sex capsule in which I could keep my porn without it being discovered. I’ve got it to this day, and it’s still got the same magazine in it. It also contains the condom wrapper from the first time I ever had sex. I really should throw it all away at some point.
It seems incredible that nowadays porn is the most looked at thing on the internet, just ahead of Justin Bieber. I’m not sure what that says about today’s society. I guess porn has always been big business, but now it’s much more readily available. Back then we had to take it where we could get it; we’d read the Kama Sutra, but actually my first pornographic experience was my mum’s illustrated copy of The New Joy of Sex.
One day I got an excited call from Rupert to say that he’d somehow managed to stream a porn film through his dad’s computer and onto a VHS. He asked his dad’s secretary to post a copy to me at school, telling her it was a nature documentary. Which it was. Of sorts. I suppose it did include beavers …
When it arrived it had ‘The Blue Planet’ written on the side. The perfect disguise. If ever I went home I took it with me to lessen the risk of any of the teachers discovering its true content, and I kept it in my bedroom along with my other films. Completely safe. Or so I thought.
One day I came home to find that my mum was ill in bed with terrible flu. She was bored so she’d gone into my room to borrow something to watch. She had nearly finished watching one of my movies, and lined up for her viewing pleasure was the ‘Blue Planet’ video. I have never panicked as much in my life. I had to make up some ridiculous excuse and whip it away before she had a chance to insert the tape into the machine and reveal its true contents. I still cringe now when I think about what would have happened had she chosen to watch that first instead of the other film. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
We were allowed to have posters up at school, but nothing in any way rude. I had pictures of Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford that my cousin had given me when he’d left Winchester College. I was over Denise van Outen by then (sorry, Denise!) so supermodels became my crush of choice.
Around this time, I especially liked older women. Not necessarily in a Harry Styles way, but I adored the fact that girls taught me about life in a way that the football-obsessed boys in my year couldn’t.
There was an older woman I fancied around this time, but she was actually someone I knew rather than just a model I had a poster of.
When I used to go and visit my dad in Hayling Island, I would demand he take me to the island’s best fish restaurant, called The Mariner’s. A girl called Nina worked as a waitress, and she was absolutely incredible. She must have been about 18 and was just amazing.
I fancied her so much that she bizarrely became the blueprint for any girl I found attractive thereafter. She was quite short and slim, with long dark hair and a big smile. She reminded me of Rhona Mitra, the actress who once played Lara Croft. I assume she used to serve me my dinner thinking I was a sweet 14-year-old, but I was actually having very improper thoughts about her while surfing the web on jackinworld.com. I once again thought she was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and she obviously had no idea that I fancied her. I would be devastated if she wasn’t working when I’d inevitably drag my dad to the restaurant on one of my visits.
She was probably one of the first girls I ever seriously tried to flirt with, but instead of sweeping her off her feet I just blushed a lot, said the wrong thing, ordered moules marinières and tried to impress her with my weird fish knowledge. It was very awkward. She now works in a shipping yard near Portsmouth, and every now and then when I go and see my father I bump into her mother. The last time I saw her she told me that Nina had recently got engaged to a very wealthy man. Great, so now I’m at an age where I can date older women I’ve missed the boat, if you’ll pardon the awful pun.
I had access to quite a lot of older women around this time, and I developed crushes on quite a few. Bizarrely, I mainly remember Joanna Lumley being the object of my desire. I was still pursuing my dream of becoming an actor by doing some work as an extra on TV shows and films, so through this I met a lot of glamorous older actresses. For some reason, even though I was somewhat shy around girls of my age, I was confident with older women. I genuinely thought I had a chance. If I had met Joanna Lumley I would have tried to win her over.
Back in the real world, I started hanging out with a girl called Hazel, who I met through my school choir. She was 17 and, despite the age difference, I really fancied her. She and her friends used to let me hang around with them – they were very grown up and would talk about how their boyfriends had annoyed them by not calling or acting like dicks. I learned a lot from their more experienced insight into love, listening to everything they said and storing it for my later years, when I was certain it would all come in very useful.
I didn’t have any jobs growing up like most teenagers do, apart from a three-week stint cleaning arcade machines at Hayling Island funfair. I was at boarding school all week and I didn’t finish until 2pm on a Saturday, then from 3pm until 7pm I was at Stagecoach drama school.
My mum had this obsession with community church so we’d go there every Sunday. I liked the idea of religion, but I think it’s something everyone should make up their own mind about. I thought it was great fun and I loved the fact that they sang and played guitars, and although it’s maybe distasteful to say it, some of the church girls were seriously hot.
At one point I got so into church that I used to go and sing and dance around each week like I was in some kind of gospel choir in Texas. I loved it. I’d top it off with a roast dinner at home with my mum and sister, before returning to school to start the week over again.
My Saturday afternoon drama school was also a good way of meeting girls. I was used to quite posh girls, but the girls at drama school were totally different and more fun. They wore make-up and said ‘fuck’. It was a whole new girl world to me and I loved it. I intrigued them because they thought I was very posh. They always asked me about boarding school and I think they thought I lived in a castle.
There weren’t many boys in my classes because guys of that age didn’t really do drama, so I got a lot of female attention. There was a girl called Sarah I really liked, and I also really fancied the principal’s daughter, Gabby (not that Gabby before you get ahead of yourself). She didn’t often do the classes but I used to text her a lot. Usually messages like, ‘I can’t text any more because I’ve got no credit’. My dazzling way with words shone through at a young age; clearly, showing that you can’t afford credit is not an aphrodisiac. Gabby was a bit gothy and I thought that was very cool because she wore Green Day hoodies. God knows what Green Day was, but it looked great.
As I got older, my relationships with girls turned from fascination and masturbation to an appreciation of the actual friendship you can have with them. We were all hanging around together as a big group, guys and girls together.