(49) 'The New Jacket'

[Ken]

The year was 1966 and it was part of the age of the sartorial Kenneth.  I can remember today how smart I looked in my impressive brand new jacket which I was wearing that night for the first time.  We had spent the evening at our favourite pub, The Merry Harriers, which was situated in the Surrey village of Hambledon.  As the hour approached closing time some of our crowd decided it may be a good idea to try to find some pretty girls and, at my suggestion, five of us drove to Guildford's Civic Hall where the usual Saturday night dance would be in full swing.  My dear friend, Colin 'Bojey' Bowbrick, was driving his car and I sat with him in the front seat, in the back seat were Chris Previtt, Martin Elliot and Robert 'Flabby' Gauley.  We arrived at the Civic Hall minutes before the dance was due to finish but that was no problem, for dancing had never been part of our objective.  Our cunning plan, as Black Adder's Baldrick would say, was to stand watching as the crowd left when the dance finished.  We would then see the unattached female talent and select at leisure the prettier girls who may enjoy our company.  We had done this many times before and, as I had pointed out to my friends, there was every chance it would one day work, surely?  On this evening I was particularly hopeful for not only were we full of Dutch courage, I was also wearing my impressive new jacket!

Our timing was good and just a few minutes after our arrival the dance ended.  We duly spotted some young ladies who were pleasing to the eye and we were soon chatting to them.  To my delight the girls responded well to our approaches and two in particular seemed very keen.  We persuaded these two to miss the coach that was due to take them home with the promise that we would do so later in Colin's car. In recent days, when reminiscing about what occurred later that evening, I have pondered why I was not in the front seat of the car, for I always sat in the front passenger seat ?  In recalling the whole of that evening it became obvious why I chose to sit in the back seat for that was where the two girls sat.  They lived in the nearby village of Farncombe and so that is where Colin drove us all in the early hours of Sunday morning. There were seven of us crammed into the car, three in the front seat, with Flabby and I in the back seat with the girls.  I recall with pleasure thinking that I'd be wearing my new Jacket often if this was the result.  All to soon, after driving through some narrow and twisting lanes, we were at the girls home and we agreed we'd look forward to seeing them at the next Civic Hall dance.  I was thrilled that I alone got a few goodnight kisses from the girl I'd sat next to.

Someone then suggested it was too early to go home and we should all do something else.  I would not normally have agreed to such a thing but this was supposed to be a night of celebration. I'm not talking about the first wearing of my brand new jacket, but about celebrating Flabby Gauley's return home to England.  For the past four years he had been living in Canada, where he had stayed at his Father's home.  Like many of us, Flabby was part of the post war baby boom, the difference being his dad was a Canadian soldier whose relationship with his English girlfriend had not lasted. Neither had the relationship in Canada with his son, because Flabby was now back in good old Blighty, once again living with his mother.  So, on his first night out since his return home, we all collectively agreed to go tenpin bowling.  So the five of us set off for London town!

We didn't get far for as we sped through the unknown narrow and twisting lanes towards the busy A3 road, something went badly wrong.  To me, still in the back seat, we seemed to hit the bank of the roadside and suddenly we  were upside down but still moving.  Another collision with another bank and we were the right way up again and still, the car had not stopped moving.  Nobody was screaming but the combined noise of metal scraping on tarmac and people shouting was horrendous.  It seemed to go on for ever and I was experiencing the crash like a slow motion movie.  I know not how, but suddenly I was thrown out of my side of the back seat as the door was either flung open or ripped off and I found myself on my feet, running behind the moving car as the shouts, yells and metallic screeching sounds continued.

What followed was complete silence and an eerie stillness as I stood looking at the wrecked car which still contained my four friends.  My immediate thought at that moment astounds me to this day for it was, "God, I hope I haven't torn my new Jacket".  It was not, as one would imagine an immediate concern for the others, but a wholly selfish thought that goes completely against my self image as a person.  Of course concern quickly took over, as the silence turned to moans, groans and a few choice swear words.  A single headlight was hanging loose by it's wires and it was surprisingly still working for I could see my friends as they came climbing and stumbling from the wrecked car.  I was still coming to terms with the swiftness of the accident, for one minute we had all been singing, laughing, and London bound.  Then, just seconds later, this unexpected and frightening experience meant our new destination was the nearest Hospital.

To my surprise I have no recollection as to whether the police came or how we got to the hospital.  I recall that Bojey and Chris Previtt had just a few scratches and grazes and Martin complained that his wrist was hurting.  Poor Flabby, however, had a nasty cut on his head that required several stitches which was not a very nice welcome home present. I know not how we all got home that evening, but I do know it was getting light.  I also know that my Mother was up and trying to hide the fact that she'd been worried sick. After kissing her goodnight I went straight to my bedroom, thankful that I alone had not been hurt at all, but I recall the first thing I did was carefully examine that Jacket.  Once I established that it was unmarked I climbed into bed and slept like a log, I even missed my much loved Sunday morning breakfast!

A matter of a few weeks ago that same old friend, Colin 'Bojey' Bowbrick, visited me at my Welsh home and we discussed that evening.  I spoke of my surprise that my new Jacket was my first priority and how cross I was that I, Kenneth Ullyses Napoleon Tuffs, could have had such selfish thoughts.  He reminded me of the next accident we had, just one week later, when a man stepped from the safety of the pavement straight in front of his car. This time I was in the front seat and again my memory was, once again, like a slow motion section of a movie.  The man, who we later found out was very drunk, seemed to just appear prostrate on the hood of Colin's car.  Colin had obviously applied his brakes and to both of us the poor man seemed to slowly rise in the air, hover, and then come crashing down to lay on the road.  This happened in the Guildford area known as Millmead and luckily there were many witnesses who all said that Colin's driving was faultless. Luckier still was the fact that the victim awoke very quickly and seemed unhurt.  We later learned that he had only suffered a few bruises and the general opinion was he was so drunk, he had just flown through the air like a limp rag, and this was the state that, probably, saved him from serious harm.  

Life moved on, and by the next year, 1967, Colin had met his Lynn and was soon a married man.  Shortly afterwards I too had settled down with my Jenny and slowly our crowd of friends changed, as did our ways.  I, the man who proudly called himself, 'Sartorial Kenneth', never valued clothes in the same way and, if the truth be told, there were seven reasons for this change of heart.  According to my darling wife, each of those seven reasons weighed a stone for that's how much overweight I became as I adjusted to a happily and contented married life. My doctors constantly reminded me of this as the sixties drew to a close and they still do so today, fifty years later.  I thought back then it was true to say that twenty stone men could never claim to be of 'Sartorial Elegance and I still can't!'            

[Ken]

This tells of events that occurred in 1966 and they show me in a rather ignoble light.  Time, I hope, has enabled me to re-evaluate what is truly important, for this wasn't my proudest moment.