We Don't Need No Edukayshun

www.paulcoia.com


I know it’s a stretch of the imagination, stretchier than days old bubblegum taken off the bedpost and passed round a team of chewing champions, but I was asked this week what kind of hero I’d make.

You can tell the intellectual level of the company I keep if I tell you a group of us were talking and, out of the blue, someone asked whether I’d rather be James Bond or Doctor Who. Obviously Doctor Who would win every time, if only because I can’t tie a bow tie, although I’d seriously have interior designers look at the Tardis and bin useless bits of furniture – chairs, Catherine Tait, that sort of thing.

The conversation moved in intellectual leaps and bounds as I was asked to think of which superhero I would choose to be. Superman, Batman and the others were definitely out because of the tights, and I think that dressing in a mask like Spiderman might be ok to rob an off licence or go to a Wimbledon wives swap party, but otherwise it’s not a good look. Plus, like ladies at a wedding, you’d get hat hair.

Superheroes have no fashion sense and, as they get older, become like the mullet wearing newspaper seller at our local station, stuck in a time warp and smelling of Hai Karate. They never worry about whether other superheroes are wearing their lapels bigger or smaller this year and are happy to stick with the Green Cross Code look year after year, which is a bit like wearing your school blazer every day of your life. Perhaps it’s no wonder so many of them wear masks to hide their embarrassment.

I flew to Glasgow at the weekend for a school reunion, leaving the blazer at home and choosing British Airways rather than my super powers. It was a chance to renew acquaintances and secretly hope that old friends looked fatter and older, like Fern Britton before she stopped working out to the Gap Band and moved to the Gastric Band.

The life and soul of the night was Charlie, the drummer in a band I was in at school. I well remember playing guitar in his Dad’s pub but worrying as we’d all try to nod furiously when it was his time to join in. He would miss his cue every time with a sense of rhythm akin to sticking drumsticks to the feet of an hallucinating elephant who was stamping on a column of ants. Appropriately, Charlie is now an expert on rehabilitating drug addicts, so at least his new audience goes home on a high.

He always did want to be the centre of attention, so much so that he volunteered to be the patient on our keyboard player Kieran’s fourth year dental exam, which had him screaming louder than our audiences ever did. I’m surprised Kieran didn’t fall in. Drummer Charlie’s rhythm method didn’t improve as he now has six kids, and counting.

Many of the guys had remarried and one, who had just moved wedding cake marzipan to the side of his plate for the third time, said his latest wife had taken his wedding ring and had it engraved with a message on the inside. It now reads “Put It Back On”.

A few of our teachers came along on the night and guys had flown in from The States, Norway, Ireland and several other countries. It was as if the years rolled away as we sat drinking copious amounts of beer, the only difference this time being we didn’t have to hide the bottles and cans when the teachers arrived. Our English master reminded us of what class acts we were with stories of my brother and his mates turning up for his stag night then blocking his toilet by bringing up Pernod and blackcurrants.

Our games master was reminded of the times he made us run round the local loch, freezing in our shorts as we slid on the ice and sleet, and hitting us with his whistle if we lagged behind. Charles Dickens had yet to take over as our headmaster and I can well remember bleeding legs from tackling during rugby games on pitches that were frozen solid. Now the sports teacher has to fill in a risk assessment form before letting the kids tie their laces.

This was also the master who was tasked with belting us for any misdemeanours. A look back at the record book on display alongside the famous belt showed reasons given for punishment as “putting chewing gum in pupil’s hair” and “eating sandwiches in class”. My own record showed I received six strokes for “drawing Nazi symbols on the classroom window”. In case you’re wondering how I managed to become the fine, upstanding, role model I am today, I was actually playing noughts and crosses.

In our day the school was solely for boys but it is now, as the local girls’ school used to believe anyway, completely bisexual, with as many girls as boys. Had females been there in our time I suspect we would have tried to stun them with our knowledge of Star Trek and flatulence.

The night’s collection of doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, newsagents, engineers and so on came together from four corners of the world to celebrate a rite of passage we all experienced together many years ago, and we genuinely had a blast. None of us had become heroes but it was great to feel invincible again.

I came out at two in the morning to find I had been given a parking ticket. Next time I’m putting my blazer on and flying.