Smoking out the bad lads? Not me...

DOING my regular Saturday morning shopping in Stalybridge the other week, I was passed by two boys — neither could have been more than 12, but both were smoking quite openly.

It made me think of when I was the same age, in 1969. Lads still smoked, tobacco that is, but it was done in secret.

If a passing 52-year-old man had seen you he would probably have knocked the fags from your hand and given you a good telling off.

And you, in response, would not have sworn at him or even stabbed him.

The incident then made me think about my days as a school prefect.

At Hyde Grammar, you had the right to put boys in detention and the reason was usually for smoking. It may have been a grammar school, but that doesn’t mean that all the lads were intelligent. You’d be amazed how many never twigged that the toilets and cloakrooms were regularly patrolled.

However, they weren’t patrolled by me. I was happy to wear the special prefect’s tie — in fact I’ve still got it — and a yellow lapel badge. But I really couldn’t have cared less whether anyone smoked or not.

I much preferred to spend my time in the sixth-form centre listening to Deep Purple LPs.

On the other hand, promotion to prefect had the most startling effect on some of my contemporaries.

I had a friend called John who was very quiet; never, ever swore; and was a regular at St Paul’s Catholic Church.

Perhaps being a prefect awakened some sort of moralistic streak in him but he combed the school looking for smokers.

One day, as I went to relieve myself, there was Smith of the fourth or whatever, merrily smoking Consulate. John tried to leap into action and it took me 10 minutes to convince him not to issue a detention.

Of course, it all ended in tears, or should I say, blood. One dinner time John tried to detain one of the biggest thugs in the school. The thug took umbrage and smacked John square in the eye. Oh dear.

And then of course there were the lads who confiscated cigarettes not from any sense of right and wrong but because it was a means of getting free smokes.

Funnily enough, the record for detentions went to just about the smallest lad in the school, none other than Tim Mallett — yes the Tim Mallett - he got very upset if you called him Timmy.

Tiny he may have been but he spent every day yelling at younger boys much bigger than he was. And, incredibly, they did as they were told.