New to Tidelands? Start at the Beginning
At 5pm my mother was waiting at reception with a look of contrition, a can of coke and a Walnut Whip. I accepted all but the contrition, and we left together in silence, which for my part I maintained the whole length of the driveway, through the gates, along the seafront and back to the car. She, on the other hand, once we were out of the door and earshot, attempted to thaw my well-earned frostiness with an endless stream of inane questions and overly cheerful babble.
“They’ll be taking you on, then? That’s good! What was it like? Did you meet any interesting people?”
And so on.
But so righteous was my indignation that I would have sustained the silent treatment the whole journey back too, and possibly beyond, had she not refused to start the car until we’d at least exchanged some civil words.
“I’m not going back,” I said.
“What? Why not?”
“I just won’t.”
She sighed.
“Listen, Freddy, it’s either this or find something else. And I don’t think you’re going to get something else – not in this economic climate. And definitely nowhere that’ll take you on at your age, let alone pay you.”
“Pay me?”
“Well, yes.” My mother smiled. “You didn’t think I’d have you slaving away for nothing, did you? Though it isn’t exactly legit.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got to be sixteen for this sort of work, darling. So it’ll be off the books, cash in hand. If anyone asks, it’s just work experience.”
“So how much do I get paid?” My pecuniary instincts had now fully woken up.
“Oh, something token. But it’s going to be more than your pocket money, love, isn’t it? Think of all those games and comics you can buy! Maybe even save up for some fancier trainers. And you’ll still have Saturdays and most of the week all to yourself, so you can still see your friends and play your games.”
“What do you mean ‘token’?”
“A gesture. £5 a shift, I think they mentioned?”
“Per day?”
Arriving home, I settled down to play Mugsy (Melbourne House, 1984), while my mother made me sausage and chips before her evening shift, and I thought all this through. At the end of the day, it was, as Mugsy the hoodlum would agree, all about “how much dough you got in da safe” – which, in my own case, was not a lot. But assuming they would pay something along the lines my mother estimated – and, as she’d gone on to promise, that I could keep my current pocket money of £2 a week – then I was looking at £17 a week! To put this in perspective, the game I was then playing cost £6.95, comics were 20p or so (40p for bumper monthly editions), a can of coke was 20p, and a Walnut Whip was 15p. Or, as my mother had suggested, I could save up for new trainers – and not the cheap cringe-brand knock-offs that was all she could afford. Which would also, maybe – my cynicism couldn’t help but observe – help out with her own money troubles too.
But whatever the case, £5 a day was not to be sniffed at.
I’d be rich!
“A day!” Morely was as excited as I was, albeit with a predictable tinge of envy. “Jesus, Fred, you’ll be minted.”
“Well, it’s just three days a week. But yeah! Minted!”
Which was a word we had both picked up from Minder (ITV, Tuesdays, 9pm), in which ex-boxer-turned-bodyguard Terry McCann was rent-a-muscle for ageing wide boy Arthur Daley, and for which titular actor Dennis Waterman had famously sang the theme tune (one of the less embarrassing additions to my early singles collection, and one I still stand by).
“So what will they have you doing?”
I explained the general duties, as I understood them – which still wasn’t a great deal.
“So you’re just pushing old folk around?”
“Basically, yeah.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“I guess someone has to.”
There was a knock.
“What!”
“Does your friend want something to eat or drink?” his mother called through the door she wasn’t allowed to open.
“If we have pizza, coke, crisps, Milky Ways or Mars bars, then yes. If we don’t, then no.”
“I … I can go to the shop?”
I was about to protest that I would be happy with anything, really, Mrs Morely, or nothing at all, and didn’t want to put anyone to any trouble, when he held up his hand to silence me.
“Then pizza. And get some candy skulls when you’re there as well.”
“Okay, my love.”
“And some dry roasted peanuts.”
“Okay.”
I had been to Morely’s house before, but never been formally introduced to his parents, as he would always spirit me hurriedly upstairs to his bedroom the moment I’d arrive. I still don’t really know whom he was ashamed of, them or me. But he did rule them with an iron fist. It was both awesome and embarrassing to witness.
His room was a similar boy-cave to my own, but slightly more orderly. There were more books than comics – the aforementioned interest in science made up not a few of them, but there were also novels and actual Works of Literature – and of course he had the whole D&D thing going. Aside from that it was, like mine, dotted with piles and piles of computer game cassettes, which rose up from the floor like plastic stalagmites. We were playing Ghostbusters (Activision, 1984) – or rather Morely was, while I watched. It was repetitive and graphically basic; the Stay-Puft Marshallow Man was comically underwhelming. Crash had given it an overly generous 60%, I thought, and Wikipedia now informs me that the whole game was written in only six weeks. Despite that, it would go on to top the charts for months, largely I think due to the popularity of the film and its insanely catchy theme tune (yes, you’ve guessed it…).
“What’s the first thing that would come into your mind?”
“What?” Morely was distracted by trying to get his two little ghostbusters to shepherd a Slimer into a ghost trap.
“If you had to choose the form of the Destroyer.”
“Destructor,” Morely corrected. He’d already been to see the film twice.
“Yeah. So what would be like your first thought?”
He shrugged. “Probably Winston.” We both glanced across at the ageing, fat and asthmatic bulldog stretched out snoring noisily at the foot of his bed. “I mean, he’d never hurt anyone, right?” Morely fondled his ear. “Except maybe with his farts.” We laughed and turned back toward the game. “What about you?”
But it wasn’t as simple as that, was it? Because that’s the mistake that Ghostbuster Ray Stantz had made – to think that you could frustrate the malevolent intentions of a transdimensional entity by forcing it to manifest in a pleasing or harmless physical form. And besides, what choice do we really have? If I say, “Don’t think of a blue frog,” what’s the first thing you think of? So if someone asks you what form you wish the malevolent transdimensional entity to take, it would still probably embody your worst fear. And for that, my unconscious had a growing list of candidates.
…Ah, but no. Memory is tricksy, isn’t she? The Ghostbusters game would not come out until October of ’84, two months before the UK release of the film itself. So we can’t have been playing it that July, and can’t have been having that conversation. So when was that then, and why has my memory brought it forward? Because of what was about to happen? A little thematic foreshadowing? Then why lie about it to myself? Some sort of Freudian screen memory? A diversion or misdirection? But from what?
Tricksy she is, my precious.
Algernon taught me that.
I’m still not sure about the pocket money and wages here. The temptation is to increase them, but I also think they’re not that far off what a kid of a single-parent family in 1984 might get. Any thoughts?
My God, I loved Minder so much – and yes, I did buy the theme tune. Of course, George Cole was the real star of the show.
And Ghostbusters. It seems that 1984 was a golden year for theme tunes! The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man incident actually hides an interesting philosophical/psychological issue. If someone were to experience something so alien that it was outside of their conceptual frame of reference, then would they necessarily translate it into something that was? This is behind the phenomenon of cargo cults, but also I think “alien abductions”, which bear a remarkable resemblance to reported “fairy” abductions and other supernatural folklore – make of that what you will.
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