Education is the only lesson on the school syllabus where you don’t get any help if you’re no good at it. Physical it is, Education it ain’t. No arm around your shoulder, no comforting word from a teacher, just a great big dollop of contempt and sarcasm. Can you imagine the headlines if little Susie in English couldn’t spell scissors, and so was forced to do an extra lap of the library in her vest and pants and then have her arse whipped with a wet towel? The Daily Mail would have a field day. You can see why kids today don’t want to do exercise and would rather sit at home playing martial arts games on their Nintendo. I wish I’d done that, too – not because I like martial arts, but because the next time Mrs O’Flaherty tried to humiliate me, in one swift Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style I’d do a body slam, with a nipple twist, and finish it off with a scissor kick – that would show her! I’d be a hero, and all the fat kids would pick me up and carry me around on their morbidly obese shoulders.
My heart goes out to any kids who are, shall we say, athletically challenged. I understand ‘Sport’ now that I’m older; it’s not so much to do with skill and finesse, it’s about Fear. Sliding tackles, scrums, tobogganing, it’s all about being fearless. I definitely wasn’t fearless – no, I had Fear aplenty, Fear and Worry in abundance. One of the reasons for my Fear was the fact that I would read everything, read and read and read – it’s true, ‘Ignorance is bliss’. So when it finally came to starting a game of rugby, all the other boys were imagining running down the field (what’s a rugby pitch called?) and scoring a magnificent try. Meanwhile, I would be remembering that article I read about the bloke who’s a paraplegic due to a hooker falling on his neck. Oh no, not for me, thanks, you go on, boys, you knock yourselves out – how the hell are my glasses going to stay on with a cauliflower ear?
Whether it was me being a chicken-shit or some deeper Darwinian self-preservation thing kicking in, I feared the scrum and all it entailed. I remember Mum pulling my immaculate rugby kit from my bag and accusing me of playing truant. How dare she? I had played rugby. I’d run my little socks off up and down the field. I’d just avoided the muddy bits.
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Overall, though, it takes more than a few isolated moments to dim a wonderful childhood. Yes, we had our ups and downs, but if you’re expecting Alan’s Ashes you’re going to be bitterly disappointed. I haven’t really had much scandal in my life either. Seriously, at one point I was thinking of getting an uncle to interfere with me just so I could add a bit of pathos.
And I grew up in one of the most boring towns in England.
Northampton is famous for shoes and, apart from the Express Lift Tower, a listed building that in certain lights looks like a concrete dildo, its main landmark is the Northampton Boot and Shoe Museum, which we’d get dragged around every other year on a school trip. The museum contains a plaster copy of the shoe of one of the elephants that Hannibal used to climb over the Alps. Need I say more? Just imagine getting a guided tour of a massive Freeman, Hardy & Willis, only shitter.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, taking a replica of one of Marie Antoinette’s shoes off the display and holding it out to the curator, ‘do you have this in a six?’
‘Alan Carr!’ shouted the teacher. ‘Put that back at once!’
With a weary sigh, I replaced the replica. I just wanted to add a bit of sparkle. Was that a crime?
‘YOU COULDN’T SCORE IN A BROTHEL!’
I’m not making excuses for my sporting failures, but a lot of the time my body let me down. Puberty had been unkind. Whereas it had come in the night and left the other boys with chiselled, stubbly chins and deep masculine voices, I’d been left with a huge pair of knockers and the voice of a pensioner – a female pensioner, at that. Breasts that I’d been constantly told were ‘puppy fat’ were becoming embarrassing. They were getting quite pendulous, and I was starting to get amorous looks from some of the older men when I was country dancing. It made me feel very self-conscious and it didn’t help that our sports kit was red shorts, red socks and a white T-shirt that became see-through when sweaty. This, to me, was the worst-case scenario and if I ever had to run I would run with my arms across my chest, which was silly really as it only served to make my cleavage even more impressive.
And as for swimming, I didn’t even have the security of a flimsy cotton white T-shirt to cover my bosom. I had to do it naked, except for a pair of dark green woollen swimming trunks, which ironically when they came in contact with water would weigh like lead and make you drop like a stone to the swimming-pool floor.
When you tell people that you had a swimming pool at your school, they raise an eyebrow and naturally assume you went to an idyllic Etonian establishment where it was pony riding, croquet and water polo before tea and scones on the lawn. Don’t be fooled by the swimming pool; it was basically a concrete bunker attached to the school that was filled with so many chemicals your eyes would weep as you entered the building. The chemicals were so strong I swear that if you did more than two lengths you’d end up changing sex. All the boys including myself would stand there in their trunks, and even though it was a mixed group none of the girls would be in their bathing suits at all because – quelle surprise – they were due on. Every week, they would turn up and hand over a note which their ‘mums’ had written. ‘Sharon, Kelly, Rachel, Caroline, Jenny cannot do swimming as it’s their time of the month.’ What? Every week?
The older boys would smirk, but I was none the wiser. I knew it had something to do with periods, but the woman on the telly went rollerskating, dog-walking and potholing, and she had a ‘period’. All I knew was, I was standing there half naked trying to learn the butterfly and being giggled at by a group of allegedly menstruating young ladies.
People naturally assume I was the class clown – I was and I wasn’t. The typical class clown is the lad that tells the jokes and the tough lads laugh and he doesn’t get punched. That wasn’t me, unless my jokes were really bad, because they used to punch me anyway. I was the one always playing the goat, mucking around. In Science when discussing the planets I was always the one asking the teacher, ‘How big’s Uranus?’ Not particularly witty, I agree, but at twelve it would have the room in stitches, and the other children would look to me as if I were Dorothy Parker.
Even though I used comedy to make friends, I never really felt that I fitted in. I felt like an outsider, looking in, making jokes and comments that turned things on their head, which, writing this, strangely enough sounds like the job description of a stand-up comic. I never seemed to find anyone at school that I felt I had anything in common with, not just hobby-wise (Hey, lads, do you want to come behind the bike sheds and read an Agatha Christie?) but in everything. To me, they could have been another species, let alone another class. Plus, my best friend at the time, Jason, had come into school and took me to one side. ‘My dad says I can’t hang around with you any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re turning me gay!’
‘I’m not gay,’ I protested convincingly, I thought.
But Jason was adamant, our friendship was over. Apparently after hanging about with me all day at school, he had been coming home talking in an affected, camp manner, decorating sentences with over-pronounced ‘ooh’s’ and raising his eyebrow at anything remotely worthy of innuendo. His dad definitely had nothing to worry about. Jason was very laddy,
