The Cow's Gate Gang The troubles of being raised in the 70s

Let me introduce my mate Daz, founder member of The Cow's Gate Gang. When we were twelve he was stocky and snub-nosed with a blonde kinked fleece on his bonce. He prospered on speed and persistency and lived on Vimto and Wagon Wheels during the day and fish and chips at night. He bragged in victory and shrugged defeat off carelessly. He could afford to could not he ? His father ran the town chip shop and drove a brand new N-reg Austin Allegro, all brown like Daz's flared nylon trousers which he announced he got from Carnaby Street but what really came out of his mum's Gratton catalog. My old lady said Daz's mum got ten % 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 inside pocket barely big enough for a pair of Klackers.

We were in the 1st year at Secondary Modern. The two of us failed the 11 and. I did not even know what it was. Initially I thought that it was a medicated shampoo like my pop used, Vosene or Loxene it was, had a green medical + on the glass bottle. Or was it those pills Mum 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 football 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 more robust than me and had this ability to raise your spirits : Nah, he'd say, do not worry abard it. He was rough but never wicked, always put his fish back alive and never threw stones at cats, only piles of dirt. He had a cat of his very own see, a ginger podge called Curley Wurly as it chased its tail Daz lived 4 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 select gangs and teams from and we pooled our Wembley Winners and Action Men to get the game running, otherwise we would drift in a cloud of boredom where the only thing that happened was the council came and painted the front doors green or blue every five years or the Lyons house maid wagon came jangling its tune : I love to go A-Wandering and Kojak the driver gave us the broken bits of Zooms out the base of his freezer.

There were plenty of us down Barratt's Road. Enough squirts to shoot with spud guns and tons 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 town 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 each other over our houses, number 43 and number 51.

From one room to another, each drawer and cupboardful, each box on the wardrobe, each bit and bob in the jars and envelopes. Daz showed me his family strategies like every time was an Egyptian crypt. They were the 1st down our road to have a color telly, a massive 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'd Rediffusion too, and of course, one day we found the envelope in the milk book drawer. The telly was hired. They'd a stereo too and they kept their records in plastic bags, every one put away in the sideboard. They used to play the theme tune to van de Valk and Daz's mum still listened to The Partridge Family.

The centre piece was his old man's chair, a bright orange swiveller on a chrome pedestal, bucket shaped, solid polysterene with a nylon stretch cover. We might 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 until Daz asserted it was time to go look in the rest room 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 Yuletide bonus. His mum's girdles were in the displaying cupboard, her fake nails in a plastic box in the medication cupboard. The gruesome stuff was on the window ledge, a row of white polystyrene heads with brown wigs. We would run screaming down the stairs at this, a game we called Ena Sharples's boudoir.

Well, things were about to change. A new kid from Hastings was moving into no 17. I will tell you what happened next time.

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