The Cow's Gate Gang The issues of growing up in the 70s

Let me introduce my buddy Daz, founder member of The Cow's Gate Gang. When we were 12 he was stocky and snub-nosed with a blonde curled fleece on his bonce. He thrived on speed and tenacity and lived on Vimto and Wagon Wheels in the daytime and fish and chips at night. He gloated in victory and shrugged defeat off clumsily. He could afford to could not he ? His father ran the town chip shop and drove a new N-reg Austin Allegro, all brown like Daz's flared nylon trousers which he said he got from Carnaby Street but what truly came out of his mum's Gratton catalog. My old woman recounted Daz's mother got ten per cent off, she was an agent, which is how Daz got the Space Hopper for his birthday while I got the blue anorak to go with my white roll-neck with the stripe down the side and an insider pocket hardly large enough for a couple of Klackers.

We were in the first year at Secondary Modern. Both of us failed the 11 and. I didn't understand what it was. Initially I thought that it was a medicated shampoo like my dad used, Vosene or Loxene it was, had a green medical + on the glass bottle. Or was it those tablets ma sucked in the mornings to get her vacuuming off to an excellent start, Pro-plus. So we probably did this quiz thing for the future in class 9 and next thing we knew we were at Swattenden with hards in crombies and armoury scarves tucked in their belts, playing soccer with a tennis ball. And there's me and Daz still whistling Nights in White Satin and thinking our hipster belts were brill.

Well, Daz was harder than me and had this capability to raise your spirits : Nah, he'd say, do not worry abard it. He was coarse but never wicked, always put his fish back alive and never threw stones at cats, only piles of mud. He had a pussy of his very own see, a ginger podge called Curley Wurly as it chased its tail Daz lived four doors up from me down Barratt's Road, a hundred orange brick council houses built just after the war. There were twenty boys our age to pick gangs and groups from and we pooled our Wembley Winners and Action Men to get the game running, otherwise we might drift in a cloud of boredom where the one thing that occurred was the council came and painted the front doors green or blue each five years or the Lyons house maid van came jangling its tune : I like to go A-Wandering and Kojak the driver gave us the damaged bits of Zooms out the bottom of his fridge.

There were masses of us down Barratt's Road. Enough squirts to shoot with spud guns and loads of sisters to bomb with their own Play-doh who thought they were Emma Peel. We would meet up the The Cow's Gate where allegiances shifted like the wind, but somehow me and Daz stayed faithful. He played centre half to my within left. Billy Bremner to my Eddie gray We knew our village backwards too, but me and Daz had this ritual we would carry out when our mums and pops had gone off to get more Green Shield Stamps. We showed one another over our homes, number 43 and number 51.

From one room to another, every drawer and cupboardful, every box on the wardrobe, each bit and bob in the jars and envelopes. Daz showed me his family methods like each time was an Egyptian crypt. They were the first down our road to have a colour telly, a huge great clod-hopper taking up a complete corner by the fish tank. Daz'd turn it on and we'd glance at the test card, all those colored squares. They had Rediffusion too, and of course, one day we found the envelope in the milk book drawer. The telly was rented. They had a stereo too and they kept their records in plastic bags, each one put away in the sideboard. They used to play the theme tune to wagon de Valk and Daz's ma still listened to The Partridge Family.

The centre piece was his old man's chair, a bright orange swiveller on a chrome pedestal, bucket formed, solid polysterene with a nylon stretch cover. We'd play tail end Charlie in a Lancaster, spinning with our Lewis guns at German Fokkers, or Thunderbird 5 tracking Concorde sunk to the sea bed till Daz stated that it was time to go look in the loo at the smokers toothpower and eye-baths. His sister worked for Colgate Palmolive and there were stacks of free toothpaste she brought home in her Xmas bonus. His mum's girdles were in the airing cupboard, her fake nails in a plastic box in the drugs cabinet. The hideous stuff was on the window ledge, a row of white polystyrene heads with brown wigs. We would run howling down the steps at this, a game we called Ena Sharples's boudoir.

Well, things were on the point of changing. A new kid from Hastings was moving into no seventeen. I may tell you what occurred next time.

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