I've been reading about a writing challenge which Mary has been taking part in on her blog Brown, Party of Chaos for the last few weeks and thought I'd like to join in. You get five prompts each week and you choose one to write about.
I've been thinking about writing again for a while. I don't think it matters what I write about, the important thing is to write when I get the urge. Constantly writing and editing has got to help the end result. Up until a few years ago I used to write regularly - poems, fiction, erotica - you name it. When I was at school, I constantly wrote, both for pleasure and for my English homework. From a very young age I wanted to be an author, and I was never without a pad and pen. I even had a typewriter for many years. I was so happy when I got it. Everybody knew I was always writing stories when I was younger and I got asked to tell them a lot.
When I was in my last year at junior school I got to leave lessons on a Friday afternoon occasionally to read my stories to the first years. The headmaster Mr Brock was lovely and he saw something in me. When I was getting ready to leave the school he told me many times I would always be welcome back for a visit, but I never went back. I don't do revisiting the past unless I'm writing about it.
I guess this is me dipping my toe back in the water.
I chose this: Open your picture folders, close your eyes and pick a random photo to share and write about.
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I opened my photo albums with my eyes closed and when I opened them, this was what I'd picked.
As soon as I saw it, I knew what I'd write about.
I was lucky enough to go to a grammar school, but we didn't have our own tennis courts. In the 4th and 5th years of school in the summer time we'd be led by our PE teacher on a 5 minute walk along to some private grass courts near our school. They were tucked away down an alley way between houses and had I not been taken there, I would never have known they existed. We were often left alone to play tennis for an hour. I don't know why we were left alone or where the teacher went - I don't even think we questioned it. The main thing was we were left alone, and it was divine.
Sometimes we actually played tennis, but most often we took the opportunity to sunbathe and gossip about boys until someone watching out near the gate yelled that the teacher was coming back. My friends and I used to lay on our backs and watch the clouds scud by, waiting to see if a cloud formation resembled anything like a dog, a house or a penis. That's teenagers for you, not that we'd have recognised one from anything other than an illustration in a biology book!
There's something about laying outside during an English summer - the distant drone of a plane overhead off to even sunnier climes, a lawnmower a street away, the chirp of crickets nearby. Combined with the summer heat shimmering over our bodies in waves (oh for the days when we got proper summers!), the smell of the grass we were laying on and the blue sky above it was magical.
Every time I look up and see blue sky and fluffy white clouds I'm transported back to the days when everything seemed simpler, when we bunked off tennis and gossiped about the boys we fancied. Of course rose-tinted specs come into play as I was going through a really tough time at home then but even so, I'm still fond of my school days as there was a certain freedom and innocence about those days.
This song really reminds me of this period of time. I was mad about Bon Jovi at school and New Jersey was on pretty much permanently. My teenage self fancied the arse off Jon Bon Jovi, and watching this video again makes me realise I still have a penchant for men with poodle hair.
What reminds you of your teens? Which sights, smells, music and films take you back?
Thanks for reading.
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