I eventually got over my awkwardness and was able to have a few dalliances, before going steady with a girl called Denise. She had hair that was a mixture of red and auburn, a great athletic figure from playing school hockey and netball, and a wicked sense of humour. And I am grateful that during my later teenage years, when I could have been doing other things, she allowed me the opportunity to fumble my way to manhood with her.
We went out with each other in that typically teenage on-off fashion for years; people assumed that we would one day get married. That is what you did on the estate: if you found someone who was good enough, it seemed to make sense to get married. I remember my dad even asking me once if I thought I would marry her. I was 17. As the father of 17-year-old boys of the modern era, I am not sure I could even ask them to commit to taking the dog for a walk without expecting a phone call telling me the dog had ran off and it was my fault because I asked them to do it in the first place.
The reality was that I wanted something more than the estate had to offer; I just wasn’t sure what it was. But I was about to find out.
I left school for the first time when I was 16. I had gained six O-levels and four CSEs. At that time, the education system was split between those who teachers thought were academically capable enough to achieve an O-level, and those they considered ‘less able’, who sat CSEs. I fell into the bracket of pupils who were regarded as a little bit of both. In Physics and Maths everyone sat the same examination, and you were either awarded an O-level or a CSE. This worked out well for me, as I achieved an O-level in both. I doubt that was what my teachers expected of me, particularly as the only thing I can remember about physics was setting my hair on fire trying to see if the central hole in the Bunsen burner continued up through the flame. If you’re interested, it doesn’t. And I think it is fair to say that if you are stupid enough to set yourself on fire, you are lucky to get any qualification, let alone a coveted O-level.
At my school, this batch of O-levels was a fairly impressive figure. Within my household, school was something that we all went to but never really expected much from. My mum attended all the parents’ evenings, but the only time I recall my dad showing more than a passing interest was the summer I left.
‘You mum tells me you’ve done some O-levels.’
‘Yer.’
‘Good, hope you get them.’
That was that, and I guess that was all that needed to be said.
With what appeared to be a healthy clutch of qualifications, I was encouraged by the school to return to the sixth form. It had only just been set up, as whilst the total student population was pushing towards 2,000, they weren’t particularly successful in recruiting candidates for sixth form: there was just 11 people in it. But, after due consideration, I went for it.
This decision was based on the belief that if I were to gain A-levels I could do a degree, and if I did a degree, I could do a job where I would not need to get a wash when I came home from work, like Clive’s dad. In my mind, I could end up doing something interesting, taxing, and where you wore a suit: perhaps be a solicitor. No ordinary, boring solicitor, but more of a Petrocelli-type, caravan-dwelling advocate, the sort of lawyer who stood up for the innocent poor who couldn’t pay for justice. If you never saw the brilliant series starring Barry Newman, it is a great indication of how times have changed. Who would trust a lawyer now who lived in a caravan?
To be a lawyer was an impressive aspiration within my family, so I perpetuated the idea that I wanted to train to be a solicitor for many years. In fact, I’m sure there are still some family members who think it would have been better to have a lawyer in the family than a comedian.
However, my attendance at sixth form lasted all of one day. At that time, anybody staying on at school sixth form only received family allowance. This was the princely sum of £6.50 per week, as opposed to the £24 per week afforded by the government to all those on a Youth Opportunity Scheme. It was 1982, the recession was beginning to bite, and there were very few jobs around. But the government policy guaranteed all 16 to 18 year olds a place on one of these schemes.
Along with this, when I arrived at the sixth form wearing brand-new jeans, I was promptly informed that jeans were not acceptable so I would have to get some trousers.
At the time, Eddie had left home to take up residence in a flat in Southgate, an estate built to look like washing machines and with about as much practical application as a washing machine when it came to somewhere to live; Kathy was training to be a nursery nurse; and Carol was on a Youth Opportunity Scheme. My dad was trying to make a living making and selling wrought-iron furniture, such as telephone tables, which were such a staple of every home at the time. The idea was that when you used the phone you sat sort of side-saddle at the table. No wonder people of a certain age seem to droop as they get older – for a large part of their life they are having conversations on the phone at a ridiculous angle. My mum had a part-time job washing dishes in the kitchen of a factory canteen on the industrial estate. In essence, I didn’t feel I could return home and say to my mum I required new trousers. Instead, I felt I should be bringing money into the household and paying my way.
I had already applied for a job at the main factory in Runcorn: ICI. Along with my mate, Vic, I received a letter saying I had the got the job, to start in the second week of September. ICI was a huge chemical plant and the job in question was as a mail lad. That was the actual job description; it was a job for a ‘lad’ – girlies need not apply. And to my knowledge, none of them did. Most followed other paths, like my then girlfriend Denise, who trained to be a hairdresser. At least the old system made things very simple, as I’m sure if the ‘mail lad’ job were to exist at all in the world of emails it would be called something like ‘communications distribution individual’.
So I left school and went to work delivering mail at ICI. This involved getting a bus at 6.30 a.m. to arrive at work for 7. We would then collect the bicycles that were left at the security gate each evening and ride down the hill to the mail office. Getting up early was worth that ride downhill. Everyone should start the day going downhill on a bicycle. It was great fun – apart from the rain and snow and cold. OK, so it was great about eleven days of the year, but they were still great days.
We’d finish by 3 o’clock and, two nights a week, I would then go to night school in Widnes to study A-levels in English and Law. I may not have been in the sixth form, but I didn’t want my education to stop.
One day, on the way home from ICI, and while still wearing my steel-cap ICI safety boots, my ICI safety jacket and my ICI safety trousers, I called in to the school sixth form. It was there that I bumped into Mr Logan. Mr Logan had been my English teacher during my O-level period and would have been my A-level teacher had I stayed in the sixth form. He asked me how I was getting on, and I explained that I was working and doing A-levels at night school. He asked if I’d consider returning to the sixth form in January, but as I was then earning £42 a week, to leave that to return to a family allowance of just £6.50 a week didn’t seem viable.
In reality, I was beginning to have doubts about ICI and the future. I remember one day I fell into conversation at the plant with one of the men who always seemed to be walking around wearing boiler suits and hard hats, but never actually doing much. He was a friendly man in his late fifties with a warm face and a frame that suggested he enjoyed a roast dinner, and a disposition that suggested he had never seen how that roast dinner was made. He had worked at ICI all of his life.
‘You’ve got a job for life here, son,’ he informed me proudly, as he lit a cigarette, completely ignoring the No Smoking signs and the miles of pipework around his head carrying flammable chemicals. ‘Yes, son, no reason you won’t be taking your pension here.’
I remember looking around at the myriad pipes transporting chemicals all over the plant, and thinking, ‘Is this the view I have to spend the rest of my working life looking