To illustrate yesterday's post I put the words Prestatyn High School 1970s, or something similar into google images. Not finding what I wanted, I scrolled down the pages until I spied this old newspaper photo image tucked away in the internet photobook.
It's a publicity shot of the North Wales rock band Resistance which was published in The News Of The World newspaper circa 1974 and yes the band were " playing" their motley set of instruments in the nude. My brother Andrew is sat rather coyly behind his drum kit and little did he know that the fallout from this silly stunt would have drastic ramifications for his ultra " respectable " father who was high up in Prestatyn council life at the time.
The shame was palpable .
Looking back on it all, in these days of celebrity bad behaviour, the whole thing now looks rather lightweight, but it kind of illustrates the fact that my brother was a bit of a wild child in beige covered life of 1970s Wales.
For a few years in his late teens/ early twenties my brother sowed his wild oats. He drank and dabbled with drugs. He toured Germany in a music van and he shared a flat in a rough part of Rhyl. He wore his hair long and " used home as a hotel" as we, his younger siblings by a decade wore our school uniforms straight and went to bed early after Coronation Street.
I never sowed any wild oats in my late teens and twenties, I just wasn't the sort.
You need to be reckless and excited and free and confident to be a wild Child
I was gauche, and shy and awkward and boring
I was Saffie out of Absolutely Fabulous. My brother was more like Patsy .
So ...I am long overdue for a wild period me thinks! . Perhaps one day, I will get a tattoo and dress too young. Perhaps one day I'll trash a hotel room and shag a rent boy in a rubber suit or smoke a joint from start to finish in a stolen car whist being chased by a police helicoptor.
Don't hold your breath eh?
The shame was palpable .
Looking back on it all, in these days of celebrity bad behaviour, the whole thing now looks rather lightweight, but it kind of illustrates the fact that my brother was a bit of a wild child in beige covered life of 1970s Wales.
For a few years in his late teens/ early twenties my brother sowed his wild oats. He drank and dabbled with drugs. He toured Germany in a music van and he shared a flat in a rough part of Rhyl. He wore his hair long and " used home as a hotel" as we, his younger siblings by a decade wore our school uniforms straight and went to bed early after Coronation Street.
I never sowed any wild oats in my late teens and twenties, I just wasn't the sort.
You need to be reckless and excited and free and confident to be a wild Child
I was gauche, and shy and awkward and boring
I was Saffie out of Absolutely Fabulous. My brother was more like Patsy .
So ...I am long overdue for a wild period me thinks! . Perhaps one day, I will get a tattoo and dress too young. Perhaps one day I'll trash a hotel room and shag a rent boy in a rubber suit or smoke a joint from start to finish in a stolen car whist being chased by a police helicoptor.
Don't hold your breath eh?
Lets hear your " wild child " stories Everyone
Are you the older brother? My younger sister was the wild child, I think I was born middle aged with, but with a twist of horror lover thrown in....
ReplyDeleteNo andrew was ten tears older , he died a few years ago of motor neurone disease
ReplyDeleteWhen I was nineteen, a group of friends and I sneaked into the grounds of a large property late one night and went skinny dipping in the swimming pool - we knew there would be nobody there. I really can't believe that I was ever confident enough to get my kit off in front of other people. And that's probably as wild as I ever was because I, too, was gauche, shy, awkward and boring. Not now though, so maybe I'm due a bit of wildness. x
ReplyDeleteGet your kit off then
DeleteI began to write of an instance, and then thought better of it. Sufficient to say, I could tell personal stories to make your hair curl. Now I am old and boring and must have burnt myself, nay we, at a younger age. All good. I like my life now, as boring as some may think it is.
ReplyDeleteI want you to post a blog entry on your wild child years
Deletemy question to you is where do you find all the photos for your blog post. That woman's expression is priceless.
ReplyDeleteThats my mother gill x
DeleteSorry John, I was a proper 'goody two shoes'.....However, I really wish I'd been wild just occasionally, but hey, we can't change who and what we are!!!
ReplyDeleteThe one and only rock concert that I ever attended was KISS live, I was not sure what was being smoked all around me, but I remember laughing endlessly in the back seat of the car on the way home. I had a dream about a rubber suit recently. hmmm!
ReplyDeleteSteady dave
DeleteUnlike you, I DO have my stories. But I'm stuck on your final paragraph: Who will be wearing the rubber suit?
ReplyDeleteDo tell!
DeleteI'll never stop being wild, it's just a question of degree now..................
ReplyDeleteGive me an example!
DeleteAll I can remember is being behind the fifth-form block at school while the others lads puffed away at their ratty-roll ups. I chomped away on a Brunel-esque cigar. It sort of set the trend for years of happy bearhood afterwards, really.
ReplyDeleteHow terribly DOWNTON ABBEY of you
DeleteI lived in Hollywood California and worked for a movie director. He had a man coming to visit about a movie they were making. The man was not allowed to drive in Los Angeles .. so I was sent in the bosses cadillac out to the airport to pick up the man. He was super nice and I ended up being his chauffeur while he was in LA.
ReplyDeleteHe was Sonny Barger, the head of the Hells Angels.
My best friend and I were visiting with a group of people, at a movie star/football players home in Beverly Hills.
He ( the football movie star) bet that I could not get a basket ( basketball) from a certain distance. He bet me a trip to Acapulco.
I got the basket. twice.
He took my friend and I to Acapulco for a week.
There are a few more stories...
Bloody hell girl! You win you WIN
DeleteThenk yew veddy much .... kiss kiss ..
Delete"Prude" was what "my friends" called me as they took off to do their shenanigans . . .
ReplyDeleteI think I am due for a bit of "wild and crazy!"
Yegods! No! Having got partway through "Cucumber," before the "peer nervously between the fingers, can't bear to look but can't look away" horrifying moments got too much for us and we put it away for good, I should think the risks of such a late blow out into wild child would be too high! Stick to the exciting worlds of Welsh Terriers and married holidays to Oz!
ReplyDeleteI wish i was more interesting
DeleteBut you are ... more interesting ... than ... so many other people ... for so many reasons ..
DeleteI sloshed bleach all over a t-shirt once, while flirting gently with the idea of punk, sadly it just burnt holes in the t-shirt. Is that wild enough? Oh and I also never sang hymns at school, just mimed the words. Oh dear hehehe x
ReplyDeleteYou giddy kipper
DeleteLisa I think you are in no danger of burning in hell for miming the words of hymns. .
DeleteBut if you replaced certain words with naughty words, then you might worry.
DeleteI think I might become a wild 50 something instead, Surely it's more naughty if you know the consequences but do it anyway hehehe x
DeleteThe photo of your brother and the band is fabulous. I have lots of wild child stories and it is difficult to choose. I guess the one that I laugh about the most is when my suite of female room mates and I decided to play strip poker with the suite of male room mates next door. This was in college and we ran out of jello shooters and "had" to make more, but instead of making them in small cups we made it in a large bowl. I was carrying the bowl (naked of course) back over to the boys apartment, and when I got to the party, I tripped and the bowl flew into the air and when it hit the ground it bounced and spewed red jello onto everyone. A very sticky situation.
ReplyDeleteFunny gill x
DeleteOh, I had my moments and enjoyed them enormously (mostly) at the time, and I was lucky I survived some of them more or less unscathed. But that was years ago, and every once in a while, when an old friend or I post something especially respectable on Facebook, we'll message the other something along the lines of "Whatever happened to those chandeliers we used to swing from?"
ReplyDeleteI don't have many regrets, but I'm quite content on the whole with today and have no inclination to revisit my onetime exploits!
Sounds like an interesting chaper of a great book
DeleteI am sure you will believe me when I tell you that I was a bit of a wild child and sowed my share of the wild oats. Luckily, I started having children early and was the sort of mother loathe to leave her babies so that probably saved my life. Which is pretty cool when you think about it.
ReplyDeleteYou autobiography too would be a great read me thinks
DeleteYou sound very much like me....... but there is still time for a bit of 'wild childing :-)
DeleteI'm an only child, I was born middle-aged, my mother was a wild child when I was a child/teenager so one of us had to be sensible.
ReplyDeleteI was a quiet rebel though, always followed my own path, never followed the crowd.
Wild child stories? I remember a Divinity lesson in 1967. I had a packet of "Polo" mints in my pocket. Eating sweets in lessons was strictly forbidden but I ignored the rule and popped not one but two mints into my mush! I even crunched them when they were half sucked.
ReplyDeleteOh come on YP YOU CAN DO MUCH BETTER THAN A POLO MINT
DeleteOn a family holiday in Scotland at 11 years old I was left in charge of my younger brother and cousin while the adults went off and climbed a mountain. I persuaded the boys to pee out of the hotel bedroom window onto open topped cars!
ReplyDeleteDirty bitch
DeleteLOL !!!! Way to go Lindsay ! :)
DeleteWhile others were sowing their wild oats my teenage years - and into my 20s - were determined, restrained and stunted by religion, which I took ever so seriously. What a waste! (Boo hoo!)
ReplyDeleteDid you make up for things later?
DeleteThe 1980s, when I was mid-30s to mid-40s, was when I played ketchup - and boy, did I take vengeance out on time lost! At least that's one part of my life I've no regrets about.
DeleteNot until I check out the statute of limitations in each applicable state.
ReplyDeleteI bet YOU have a bloody file of stories michael
DeleteI drank Southern Comfort at a Janis Joplin concert once. (It was supposed to be her favorite.) Pretty much put me off drinking anything for the rest of my life.
ReplyDeleteLol i thought you wrote I drank WITH janis Joplin!
DeleteThat would have been pretty cool, wouldn't it? I was just impressed to be standing fairly close to her. That was around 1967-68.
DeleteLed a tamed life. Too scared of getting my behind whupped!. The closest I ever came to rebellion was the nightly raids on my neighbor's apple tree and ringing doorbells and running. Pretty tamed stuff huh? Even as a teen I wasn't a rebel.
ReplyDeleteTurning 60 and having a kick at cancer has turned my very staid matronly sister into a wild child. I say, you giver sis!
ReplyDeleteSo i ask again what is the most crazy thing ypuve done?
DeleteI had my wild child days in my 30s, when I was going through an identity crises of sorts. I'll save those stories for the autobiographical novel I'll probably never get a chance to write. Or my psychologist if I can ever afford one. Or a friend with an extremely open mind.
ReplyDeleteAs for my high school years, I was boring, and scared of not being accepted, neither of which allowed me to sow any wild oats.
Email me..i love a smutty story
DeleteI'm tempted.
DeleteI've looked up and down your sidebar, but don't see an email link anywhere
Sorry, no wild child here. My nickname in the 70's was "Paranoid Paula."
ReplyDeleteI had a good year in 1976, a REALLY good year, the year of the hot, hot Summer and the year I left school. Lets just say being unemployed from June until November was no hardship ;-)
ReplyDeleteThen I settled down at 18 and was married for 26 years, a couple of days after the divorce came through I got the tattoo, went out LOTS and had a whale of a time, cut slightly short only my meeting my Lovely Hubby a few months later and 'sort of' settling down, but this is the sort of settling down that meant we both got tattoos .... and the really wild me is only just beneath the surface!!
I always thought you were a rebel
DeleteThat's a great photo of your brother Andrew! I've had a few wild moments in my time. I was approached by an American tourist in a London street when I was in my late teens. He wanted to take a picture of me in my ra ra dress. We ended up going to a pub and exchanged phone numbers. As he flagged down a cab to go back to Pimlico I flung my arms around him and gave him a big snog!!! Dirty girl!!!
ReplyDeleteYou slag simone !
DeleteI was a bit of a bad girl in my twenties working on a Kibbutz several times... happy days x
ReplyDeleteThe less said about 'wild child' the better John (I never was one, coming from a strictly Methodist family in a fenland village) but I will tell you this - you get a tattoo and I might follow - now that Judi Dench has one (Carpe Diem on her left wrist) I am sorely tempted.
ReplyDeleteYou will be "sore" after the tattooist has completed the butterfly or leaping dolphins on your shoulder. How about a fox going to earth?
DeleteWeaver! Lets DO IT, !
Deletelets all have GOING GENTLY. Tattoed on our wrist :-)
DeleteI think my "wild" days started when I moved to Geneva in 1980 at age 21. Up until then I had lived at home with my parents as I was studying all hours and when I wasn't studying I was working weekends and holidays. No fun at all. Then suddenly I end up in such a beautiful city, with money to burn (relatively speaking), my own place and no mom and dad looking over my shoulder. The first 3 months I went out dancing every night (till about 3 am) then rocked up to work at 8.30. I couldn't keep that up for long of course, but to say "I enjoyed myself" would be an understatement. All I can say is thank God for the pill and that they hadn't "invented" aids yet - or they probably had but I just wasn't aware of it. I was wild and loved it, but after a few months I met a lovely young man who became a long-term boyfriend, so I was glad I got it out of my system. P.S. don't tell my mom. Anna
ReplyDeleteYou fast cat!
DeleteClimbing over the hospital wall to get back in nurses home in various states of inebriation. Dancing till dawn and having different coloured hair. Going to concerts in blue hippie and blue hair. Now the mind is willing but 54 year old body is a killjoy.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my world x
DeleteIs that you in the last photo? The fellow without the hat? Do your chaps still fit as well?
ReplyDeleteLike a glove will , like a glove
DeleteThere were things I was a bit prudish about... I'd drink a wee bit but would seldom let myself get tipsy, let alone drunk.
ReplyDeleteThen again, it just means that my hair-curling tales happened when I was perfectly sober; isn't that scary!
I'm kind of a Saffie type too, as much as I would sometimes like to unleash my inner Patsy. I get it.
ReplyDeleteYou find the damndest photos.
You take them
DeleteI dated Tom Stephenson. Wild enough for you?
ReplyDeleteNo! Tell me it is not true!!!
DeleteSo wild i'm vomiting!
DeleteI was so looking forward for HIS essay on this subject
DeleteI was pretty wild in my late teens. After leaving a very authoritarian boarding school, I embraced every libertarian idea going and drove my parents to despair with my unorthodox behaviour. Drugs, sex, rock n roll, leftie politics etc. They were relieved when I settled down into a more restrained lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteNow nick, i would never have guessed.....i want a full blog on this subject
DeleteGraduated high school in 1973, barely. Wild child, school band geek, and Drama nerd, still run wild
ReplyDeleteOh those were the days!!
ReplyDeleteI lived them and survived them!
The 'rebellion' of the 60's and 70's by youth turned our culture on its heels.....a much needed breath of fresh air.
A 'wild child' story......late 60's, I was a student at a local university, there was a lot of unrest as to the rights of students, and one day I found myself along with others occupying the president's office. No arrests! I like to feel that things got better as far as students rights go.
Jimbo.. You may look like a young hershel from The Walking Dead but i bet you were a right wild buck
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI won't elaborate but: me, Hells angel fella, women's loo, backstreet pub in Brum, drunken Saturday afternoon, 1987 should cover it. My tattoo and nose piercing didn't happen until my forties. rebel without a clue, me.
ReplyDeleteWay to go sister!
DeleteLordy, do I enjoy your blog!!!
ReplyDeleteLordy, do I enjoy your blog!!!
ReplyDeleteHaving wild child days isn't always a happy experience sadly John..hitchhiking as a young girl was a mistake and I am very lucky.
ReplyDeleteSo many tales come to mind! pretending (to boyfriend) to be ill so I could go to Dr. Antonetti's surgery once a week (S.France)and 'have fun' while the waiting room filled up ... Ooo err!
ReplyDeleteBloody hell!
DeleteI started young.
ReplyDelete1. When I was 10 my brother and I put some sea glass in the Cornflake box and my mother found it and complained to Kelloggs. They did an immediate investigation and concluded that there was no way the glass could have come from the factory. Never fessed up to that one.
2. I went on a school trip in year 12 to do lab tests on Lake Huron. We were staying in a seedy hotel with the teachers. My friends and I met some local guys in this teeny town and stuffed our beds and snuck out the window to join them. We arrived back quite drunk at the hotel hours later to find the whole class outside as well as police cars. Our parents had been informed we were missing. I was suspended for that one.
3. Smoked a little weed with friends on a hike. We decided to cut through a field of Bison. (it was a National park) Halfway through the bison started moving towards us. Everyone ran to jump the fence. I was wearing my brand new overalls (stylish teen that i was) and the strap got caught and I got stuck on the fence and was hanging from it. My friends was in stitches laughing as the bison got up close to my face. My overalls ripped and I fell down into bison dung and managed to finally get over the fence. I arrived home to a once in ten year event in my house. My parents had company. I walked in to our little house, matted, covered in dung and red eyed.
4. My good friend and I stayed overnight at a party so we didn't have to drive home. I woke up in the morning, went outside and she was laying asleep on a blanket on the grass with a duck standing on her.
So many stories......
Like i said i was boring...even more boring after reading your entry chania x
ReplyDeleteI'm not putting anything in writing! Bit of a hippie in college in the 70's, the pill was readily available, The worse STD was easily cured with antibiotics. Drugs and alcohol were readily available. Can't think of anything I did that was exceptionally wild or dangerous, but I had fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm not putting anything in writing! Bit of a hippie in college in the 70's, the pill was readily available, The worse STD was easily cured with antibiotics. Drugs and alcohol were readily available. Can't think of anything I did that was exceptionally wild or dangerous, but I had fun!
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing I'm admitting to was when I was 15. I went on holiday to Austria with my parents and my friend. After my parents went to bed we sneaked out of our hotel and went to a club with some local boys in the next town. When we got back the hotel was locked up and we had to climb through a kitchen window. They never, ever found out. When I look back now I think we were bonkers !!
ReplyDelete