Where Did It All Go Right? (13 page)
Read Where Did It All Go Right? Online
Authors: Andrew Collins
Saturday, 1 February
I had
Cracker
(my second issue but really Number 4 but I missed issues 1 and 2) and the free gift was a funny face maker with 40 brilliant funny faces.
Wednesday, 5 February
Me and Simon went with Dad to the dentist and I’ve got to have two fillings and I’ve got to have them on my birthday. Dad says it is Mr Wright’s present for me!!
Wednesday, 19 February
We practised
Wind In The Willows
yet again.
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Me and Simon played an Action Man game at the barracks going on leave in the tank for two weeks and it was brill.
Tuesday, 4 March
It was my birthday and I had one filling. My party’s on Sunday. I got Mum, Dad, Nan and Pap’s presents. A felt tip with three refills, a dictionary, a French dictionary, two packs of felt tips and the Mummy glow in the dark model.
Saturday, 8 March
This afternoon we went shopping with my birthday money and
Griffin
came in the end. I bought a brill Lego gravelworks and it has a conveyor belt and a brill crane. I’ve already built it up.
Sunday, 9 March
It was my party. Griffin, Ed, Johnny and Dean came and I got two drawing books, a pen wobbler, some paints, a charcoal pencil and a packet of pencils.
Thursday, 20 March
We did our play
Wind In The Willows
and I was Toad. I had ever such a lot to say and so did Eddy who was Rat. I liked it when we had the fight with the weasels.
Wednesday, 26 March
Me and Simon stayed up to see a brill film which we didn’t know the name of.
Saturday, 17 May
Me and Simon watched a film with Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise called
The Intelligence Men
. After that we watched
Look – Mike Yarwood!
He did Denis Healey and our favourite (Steptoe).
Monday, 26 May
I had German measles. Me and Simon stayed up till 10.00 to watch this brilliant war film called
The Longest Day
starring Richard Burton, Robert Mitchell,
2
John Wayne and Red Buttons.
Tuesday, 27 May
It was hot and me and Carl and Maria played a great game. I was in my room and I tied my Action Man to the open window and I got him wedged in the gutter and Carl threw balls to knock him out.
Thursday, 29 May
It was Simon’s birthday and he got lots of presents and as a treat Dad took us to the pictures to see
The Poseidon Adventure
and
Please Sir!
They were both brilliant especially
The Poseidon Adventure
.
3
Saturday, 31 May
Simon had his birthday party. Simon Coles, Paul Givelin, Jonathan Ashby and Dean all came. I started making a book all about
The Poseidon Adventure
. I have already drawn all the stars and written about them.
Monday, 2 June
Simon had to go to Birmingham with Dad to have an allergy test. As a treat Dad bought him (with his birthday money) a new Action Man with gripping hands
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and an assault craft and Dad bought me the book of
The Poseidon Adventure
.
Sunday, 15 June
Me and Simon stayed up tonight and watched a horror film till 10.00. It was
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
starring Charles Laughton.
5
Saturday, 5 July
Holiday
We got to Anglesey to stay for a week but it was all tatty and horrible so we asked Mrs Roberts, the owner of the farmhouse where we were going in the second week and she let us stay in the bungalow and we have settled in. I have bought two comics and two holiday specials.
Thursday, 24 July
In the morning me and Simon went down to help Pappy Collins in the allotments. We picked some beans, onions, potato, beetroot and some carrots for Sooty.
6
In the afternoon I did my 320-piece jigsaw of Piccadilly Circus.
Thursday, 31 July
I came down Nanny’s to sleep till Monday. I made two cars and a garage out of Lego and I played speeding them into the garage and smashing them up and seeing who got broken up completely first.
Saturday, 2 August
I watched telly all morning. After tea (two crisp sandwiches) we
went
to a pub and I had two Cokes and when we came back I watched telly till 9.00 and me and Pap played Rummy till half past.
Thursday, 7 August
Me, Simon and Dean went to the play scheme which is a place near my school and it has a big bus all painted, with a slide, and you do what you like. We went with Griff and we had great fun. We had our faces painted. I looked horrible.
Saturday, 16 August
Mum and Dad went shopping and Griff and Eddy came round and Dad bought Simon two packs of little soldiers
7
so he let me have his English and German big soldiers and Dad bought me some Australians and I have painted them.
Saturday, 23 August
In the morning we went shopping and Nan bought me a packet of Russian soldiers and we got Simon a pack of Japs.
Saturday, 1 September
I went back to school only it is a new middle school. I am in the same class as Angus and our teacher is Mr Walman and he is very nice. I sit next to Angus as well. The headmistress is Miss Malins.
Sunday, 7 September
In the morning I swapped three rubber things that go on the ends of a pencil for the Russians, Afrika Korps and the Field Marshalls in little soldiers and two rubbers with Wilson. I covered my two French books and my hymn book.
Saturday 13 September
Blackpool with Nan and Pap
In the morning I bought Melissa a book, Mum a flower holder,
Simon
an Action Man bed and me a Dr Who book and a halftrack. We went to the Tower and we saw the animals being fed and we went to see Freddie Starr and it finished at quarter past eleven.
Friday, 19 September
We did art. I was with Miss Scott for sewing. I started sewing Mum some oven gloves and so far they’re good. I watched
Dad’s Army
and
The Liver Birds
and I had an ice cold Coke.
8
Sunday, 21 September
In the afternoon Nan and Pap came round and I had a lovely tea: cheese sandwiches, pork pie and crisps and fruit cake for afters. We watched
Celebrity Squares
and
Black Beauty
. We both had an ice cold Coke.
Tuesday, 7 October
I went to the dentist. It was St Francis Day (skills) and St Francis went home 10 minutes early. We all got special badges. We had science and we are making little crystals. Our little group is me, Angus, Kim and Milner. Me and Simon saw
Oil Strike North
.
Friday, 17 October
I stayed for dinners and I actually won some marbles:
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one off
Griff
and two off Angus and two off Watson and even one off Lewis. We had cooking and we did stuffed egg salad and we cut the tomatoes up all criss-cross. I saw
Invisible Man, Liver Birds
and
PC Penrose
.
Saturday, 1 November
This evening I started making a new army comic called
Army
and I’m making loads of army stories like ‘D-Day’ and ‘Target: Adolf Hitler’.
Tuesday, 4 November
Maths was good because we did geometry. I went to Wilson’s house and we played Car Capers. I made two Arab kits for my two gripping Action Men out of two hankies
10
and I did some sums for Dad on his calculator.
Wednesday, 12 November
I gave Dad £2 and he bought me the Goodies LP and it’s got ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Funky Gibbon’ and loads more. This afternoon for art we had Mrs Peck about fabrics and it was brill. Tonight after playing the Goodies LP we saw
Carry On Spying
and it was brilliant.
Thursday, 13 November
We had basketball in the afternoon and we had millions of sweating hard races in teams – of course our team won every game. Our team was me, Roobarb, Deeksy, Jez and Marias. We saw Ken Dodd and
Get Some In!
I still like Lilley and Smith but now I like Richardson as well.
Tuesday, 2 December
Science was brilliant because we had a film about planets. Tonight me, Simon and Dad saw
Invisible Man, Are You Being Served
and
The Doll
and if I tried to figure out who murdered who my brains would go potty.
Wednesday, 10 December
This afternoon instead of art all the second year had a load of education films. One about trains, aeroplanes, silversmiths and, the best one, bread. Tonight we saw a fab war film
Ice Cold in Alex
.
Friday, 19 December
Last day of term. St Francis came first in the credits (skills) and this afternoon was the talent competition. Me, Griff, Angus, Lewis, Johnny and Roman did
Puppy of the Baskervilles
. We came third and got two credits each. Some teachers did a brilliant play starring Mrs Dennison, Mr Hanna, Miss Sabin and Mr Walman and Mrs Bream, it was fab.
Thursday, 25 December
My presents were: a watch, an Action Man Special Missions Pod,
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a Humbrol paint set,
Beano
annual, microscope set, desk set, a Parker pen, Idi Amin book,
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stapler, crayons, jigsaw, magic book, geometry set, diary,
Shiver and Shake
annual, Sketch-master, horror book, drawing book, Escape From Colditz game. Tonight we played Cluedo and I had some Cockburns port again.
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Friday, 26 December
This morning I played with my microscope set and we looked at some of Dad’s blood and spit. This afternoon Dean came and he brought his fab Action Man HQ
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and his machine gun and French Resistance kit. And we all watched
Disney Time
and part of
Dad’s Army
. Tonight all of us played Chase The Ace and Newmarket. I won 17p in all. We went to bed at 10.00.
1.
I don’t know what went right here: I played Toad, top billing and a delicious comic turn to boot (Eddy played Rat, David Boulter was perfectly cast as Badger and Catherine Howard was Mole). Though welcome, this was anything but characteristic of my school drama career:
Willows
was the only time I had my name above the title, as it were, despite my predisposal towards minor showing off. I didn’t even get a part in the all-year primary school production of
Joseph
in 1973. I made a bid for glory at middle school by joining the drama club 1976–77 – guaranteeing at least a spear-carrying part in school plays. I had to be content with
- ‘small boy’ in
The First Patient
, a one-act comedy set in a dentist’s waiting room; - another small boy, that bathetic cripple Tiny Tim in
A Christmas Carol
(‘God bless us every one!’); and - with crushing inevitability a spear-carrier in
The Happy Man
(Angus and I played a pair of ‘sentinels’ who motionlessly flank the depressed king’s throne throughout the play – even when Anita Barker tickles us with her feather duster – and then utter one line at the very end: ‘Blimey!’).
I had tried the actor-manager route, casting myself in consecutive, self-written skits, notably for the annual middle school talent contest, playing Watson in
The Puppy of the Baskervilles
in 1975 and the hapless patient in
The Dentist
, 1976, a violent, Python-influenced two-hander in which Angus donned the white coat and the laying out of my dad’s tool kit before we started generated the most laughs. We came third with
Baskervilles
;
The Dentist
came nowhere. My dramatic profile improved at upper school, where I helped write and stage a sixth-form revue in 1982, and was then head-hunted to play the porter in
Macbeth
, February 1983 (‘I pray you’ll remember the porter’).
2.
Mitchum.
4.
Gripping hands was the second landmark Action Man improvement in our short lifetime (the first had been the unveiling of ‘realistic hair’, a pleasing fuzz crop that mocked the previous shiny brown noggin). These new hands were made of moulded rubber – perishable in the long term but a significant upgrade from the frozen plastic hands of yore, fixed in a rifle-bearing position, trigger finger permanently cocked. The next depressing evolution from those Palitoy boffins was ‘eagle eyes’ (depressing only in that no pestered parent could possibly keep up, and the fact that it just created a master race effect, with fixed-hand, fixed-eye, no-fuzz Action Man finding himself relegated to menial jobs and eventually exiled to ghettos).
5.
RKO’s 1939 classic, directed by William Dieterle and costing an astronomical $2 million. A treat for any boy. Except that this diary entry was written
before
we stayed up to watch what would have been my inaugural black and white horror film. The next day (in different pen), I have added the crestfallen truth: ‘Well we were going to but we were scared and we saw
The Wooden Horse
(a brill escape from prison camp film).’ I blew it. Chickened out of seeing Laughton in full Quasimodo make-up. Such would be my uneasy relationship with the films I was obsessed by.
6.
Guinea pig. Melissa’s. You start on hamsters and work your way up.
7.
A distinction worth making clear: ‘little soldiers’ were HO/OO scale, and ‘big soldiers’ were 1/32 scale. All Airfix, and a long-term Simon-and-Andrew staple. To avoid confusion, Simon collected little soldiers and I collected big (both had their advantages: he got more in a packet, mine were easier to paint).