Back in 1974, I was a boy of fourteen; even more embarrassingly, I looked like a boy of fourteen. My fourth-former mates ‘Chinner’ Underwood and Bob ‘Andy Roo’ Andrews could possibly have passed for being a year or two older, but let's just say they clearly had not reached the age of majority .
That did not stop us donning our best Brutus shirts, splashing on gallons of Brut 33, and heading into licensed premises and demanding to be served Watney’s Special Bitter, a concoction so foul and chemical-laden that production ceased years ago.
The stuff cost 22p a pint at Wellingborough Co-op Club, which meant I could get rat-arsed for a quid. Cigarettes could be had at 10p for ten from street-based vending machines.
As I was pulling down a massive £3.50 a week from my pre-school butcher’s round, I was thus ensured a full beer and fags-based social life, just like a grown-up. If only I could have found a girlfriend, I would have been well happy.
Looking back, it is remarkable how seldom we were refused alcohol. Eight or nine times out of ten, the booze would be handed over without any problems. Occasionally the bar staff would ask us if we were eighteen. ‘Yes, of course’, we squeaked in adolescent unison, and tried not to give the game away by blushing.
What the point of that exercise was, I cannot say. Maybe having asked the question offered some degree of legal protection, but I suspect our inquisitors were mostly having a laugh.
Inevitably, bad things happened in the years in which I learned to drink. More than once, the streets of a fine Northamptonshire town were washed with regurgitated WSB. And – I only admit this given the existence of the statute of limitations – I was responsible for a certain percentage of the local graffiti problem.
As for that evening in the summer of ’76 featuring Sally Marshall and a half-bottle of voddy in the local park, I’m not even going to go there on a public blog.
Remembering all this, I am struck by the spate of recent news stories centred on young people and alcohol abuse, ranging from the rowdy scenes at Saturday night’s tube booze party to today’s announcement that the government is to produce guidelines for parents as to how much their children should be drinking.
What difference this particular New Labour brainwave will make, I haven’t a clue; no seventies teenager asked their mum’s permission before getting pissed, and neither will any teenager today.
Mobs of rowdy drunken youth are not a pleasant sight, as anybody returning from a civilised evening out on the tube on Saturday doubtless discovered. Such behaviour should rightly be discouraged; on balance, I don't have particular problems with the Boris booze ban - even on libertarian principle - although the RMT union is right to argue that it should have been consulted.
But a new issue this one is not. Let’s keep a sense of proportion on this one; the kids of today will grow out of this kind of stuff, just like the rest of us did.
Posted at 13:58, 2 June 2008
Comments (12)
Double Diamond worked wonders for me.
Mine was Blue WKDs - that stuff really is cheap vodka and chemicals.
Oh, happy days...
Don't forget Hirondelle, sweet cider, and Watney's Party packs: many a happy party sicking up on floors at age, circa 15. Usually Golders Green or Hampstead Garden Suburb (good class of venue we had in North London - our own parents were too sussed to let us party round theirs).
Oh, and plus a few puffs of the ol'wacky backey and sometimes a mandy or a few dexies. Or maybe a tab of acid.
Blimy, when are this lot of god-bothering puritans - Labour and Tory - going to grow up themsleves?
"Let’s keep a sense of proportion on this one; the kids of today will grow out of this kind of stuff, just like the rest of us did."
Some of us still behave badly and show no signs of growing up ;-)
On a serious note Janine has done a good post (plug, plug) on Stroppyblog from the a tube worker perspective.
http://stroppyblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/boris-bans-booze-london-gets-hangover.html
Me too. The police would know what pub was serving under 18s and that would keep us all in one place and out of trouble...or I could nip to the SPAR to get cider unchallenged aged 13.
However, three things have changed. 1. While there are fewer pubs volumes have gone up due to warehousing (the concentration of capital). 2. Strengths have also gone up (concentration of alcohol). 3. The result is that the number of people in their 30s in hospital with liver failure has skyrocketed (concentration of poison). Capital is making vast profits by self-medicating workers that neo-liberalism is driving to despair and then killing them.
You are so so wrong, I'm disabled but not yet dead, I've failed to find work, but still help out with disability football, and no I do not kick a ball, I help out with drug addictions, and kids with drinking problems. I've seen 12 year lads and lasses laying on a floor with a needle in their arms bleeding, I remove the needles turn them over onto recovery position and hold something onto the wound, it's no good phoning the police they refuse to come, it's no good phoning the NHS they refuse to act.
I see ten year old kids drinking, people drinking bottles of whiskey Vodka is the drink of fashion, I have see twelve year olds with liver function problems Kidney problems, when I was young we had a café the juke box, we had youth clubs I myself played football and played it well well enough to think I might make it, sadly a broken leg and infection ruled that out. But now more and more clubs are closed, work for the young is Tesco or Asda a life of endless stupor.
I've seen sixteen year old who have serious health problems sleeping on the streets all through drink, if you think it's just being a kid boy are you wrong. get out into society and have a look.
Have to agree with Robert on this. Like Dave I've enjoyed my share of high-spirited, alcohol fuelled nights out as an underage teenager. I've done things I wouldn't encourage others to do but I'm not going to get all sanctimonious if I see some teenager doing the same. But I think things have changed between when I was a teenager (early 80s) and now. The concepts and experience of youth are not immutable. The social environment surely must have an impact upon how young people behave and experience their lives. In this respect the popular perception that young people are in crisis might not be far wrong. I certainly don’t want to subscribe to the view that kids are an antisocial boil that needs lancing but at the same time I think it’s a mistake to think that kids today are just like we were.
The English have always been piss heads --gin alley anyone-- just like there have always been people in the Better Classes Viewing all this with Alarm. How much of the current moral panic is justified when compared to the historical record?
And if the hysteria is justified, we should ask why it is that so many (young) people chose to drink or drug themselves in a stupor. Might there just be a relationship between this and 11 years of New Labour and 18 year of Tory misrule?
As for the booze ban; it seems to me the problem isn't so much people drinking on the Tube, as _drunk_ people on the Tube: a booze ban won't help.
Robert - Surely the issue is the social conditions under which the kids you are talking about live, and what is driving them to use alcohol in such a self-destructive way? Isn't their alcohol consumption not just a problem in itself, but a symptom of other problems?
The appalling experiences of the minority you describe do not negate Dave's main point - that for *most* teenagers, boozing is not mortally destructive. Those for whom it is need help more profound that an attempted legal crackdown on substances that they will find a way to get their hands on anyway if they are desperate enough.
Janine. it isnt the young people we have to worry about - they for the most part can recover. It is the adults. Look at the data, look at the number of people killing themselves - the social context makes alcohol a killer. We can be all libertarian or we can look after the interests of our class by making the argument. Stop being a piss head and fight the ruling class instead - it is much more exhilirating.
Not sure why you think the RMT should have been consulted. It doesn't affect the running of the transport network in any way that falls within the remit of drivers or any other staff.
Unless I'm mistaken, tube and bus drivers aren't going to be asked to police the drink ban. That'll surely be a matter for the, erm, police. My reading of the RMT's objection was simply that they were pissed off Boris had won!
If the law was being changed the other way to ALLOW drinking on the network, then yes, talk to the union.