Growing Up Hormonal

Wham! 1983

1984 – a year of iconic films such as Footloose, Sixteen Candles, Ghostbusters, Beverley Hills Cop, Gremlins, The Karate Kid and Police Academy, to name but a few and of course the first horrific instalment of A Nightmare on Elm Street. At the tender age of 10 I was forbidden from watching it. However, I had a brief encounter with the film back then when my Mum escorted myself and my friend MH to watch Octopussy at Options in Kingston, yep really showing my age now. This is when Options was a relatively grand cinema, well the staircase was fabulous and thankfully that remained when it turned into a nightclub. However, some would disagree when after a few voddies on student night many took a tumble down them, including myself! Oh, in case reminiscing wasn’t making me feel my age enough, I am reading aloud as I write this and my 28-year-old daughter overhears me and proudly pipes up ‘oh I fell down those stairs drunk when it was Prism’. Like, okay noughties girl it will always be Options to me!

I cannot explain why I chose to go and see a James Bond film as it’s not my thing, but guess I heard or saw something at the time that intrigued me enough to make my Mum part with cash for a ticket. I honestly cannot say whether or not I enjoyed the film, but the fact I have never watched it since is an indication as to how I must have felt about it. I can proudly say I have watched films such as Pretty in Pink, Dirty Dancing, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Grease and Flashdance, probably hundreds of times.

For those who have ever visited Options Cinema you may remember opening a door with a big, round window in it and walking straight into the screening room. MH and I dashed ahead of my Mum when our film finished and we spied the screening room that was showcasing Freddy Kreuger’s film debut. Nudging each other mischievously we went on tiptoes to peer through the window in the hope of catching a glimpse of horror before Mum caught up .. To our excitement we spotted my Great Uncle Arthur watching the film avidly from the back row, so basically right in front of us. To attract his attention we banged our hardest over and over on the glass. Pretty much everyone in there screamed in terror before spinning round exorcist style in their seats to identify the source of their scare. This included Great Uncle Arthur and although we were waving madly, he purposefully turned back around and sunk down low in his seat, ignoring our existence. As far as I am concerned both MH and I provided an immersive cinematic experience before that was even a thing. I bet no one in that screening has ever forgotten the first time they encountered Freddy Kreuger!

Anyway as per normal, I digress from this Blog’s subject matter of those ‘Bad Boys’, the title of Wham’s 1983 song. Apparently this was not one of George Michael’s favourite hits, although I loved it.

What I didn’t love was the injustice around reaching puberty, and starting my period which brought the joyous cramps, headaches, anger, tears and often a bloody mess. Then there was the hair growing in new body places and I have never been one for going au naturale. I remember Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s dancing around proudly in their dungarees showing off their hairy armpits whilst passionately singing ‘Come on Eileen’. I am also sure that Madonna sported underarm fluff in some videos. Then there was the body odour that developed, so different to the sickly, sweet smell of a child who had been running around on a hot day. Finally, the body lumps starting to sprout out, namely titties and ass.

First, a bit more about physical me from 3rd year junior school, I was 5’ 6“ and bar one other girl SJ (a gentle giant unlike me who had/still has a mouth like the Dartford Tunnel), I was taller than everyone, boys included. What didn’t help my bid to escape their daily torments was that my surname then was ‘Bird’.. All of you from around my era will be fully aware there was a certain large, yellow character on a hugely popular kid’s show called Sesame Street, so yep one of my many nicknames was Big Bird (I felt this was a curse at the time).

Maybe if height had been the only physical imperfection I had to contend with and be ribbed about, junior school would have been semi bearable.

However, although it is kind of a given that girls are bitchy, I would like to state for the record that boys, for me at least, were the worst tormentors and there was a particular handful of male classmates that made my life at Christ Church School a daily hell with their constant verbal assaults. Unfortunately, I was also gifted with huge eyes (frog eyes/owl face), big lips (rubber lips, Mick Jagger, drop lip), a big bum (fat arse – clearly not much thought given to this insult, but the occasional kick or football aimed at it kept them entertained), and finally a big nose (Captain Beaky/Gonzo/ski slope).

I felt so cheated that I had to make my transition from child to woman (well kind of) with a big arse and huge lips in the 80’s when it was all tiny bums and thin lips, where the hell were JLO and Beyonce back then, and also the invention of Brazilian bum lifts and lip fillers? I would have been so in vogue if I had blossomed over a decade later. For the nose to be appreciated though I would have needed to travel back to Roman times!

I heard regularly that being tall is a gift, but not when you are 10 (side note – I never grew any taller) and nearly all of your peers barely reached your armpits (which probably smelt due to puberty). My Dad used to watch me walk down the road with my friends and later said to me ‘stand tall and proud, you look like Lurch from the Addams’s Family, all hunched over as you try to shrink to their level.’ Well, that was a lovely image embedded in my brain to fester alongside all the other insecurities I had already! All I can say is that he was lucky he hadn’t told me that around my time of the month, as shit would have gone down.

I have to mention one boy SA who was also blessed with a big smacker, and when he heard another boy in particular taunting me, he squared up to him and stated ‘if you are calling her rubber lips, then you are calling me it’. A fight then normally occurred, which was fine as SA was a champion scrapper. Obviously, it was still okay for SA to torment me, but this was in the form of throwing sprouts at my head when I walked past the fruit and veg stall his brother worked on at the end of my road. He would just pop up from out of nowhere and take aim at me and it didn’t even matter that my Mum was always with me. She thought it was really cute that he used my head as target practice, to the extent she even believed he would make an excellent husband for me in the future! She never let go of this, and in fact tried to convince me years later to name my son Steven, but had to settle for it as a middle name instead! That said, I would take a sprout to the face any day knowing that he had my back when the bullying really got to me.

Because let’s call it just that…bullying, some may use the terms teasing, winding up or banter, but when the cruel name calling affects how you feel about yourself to the extent you dread going into school, it is just not on. I can remember trying to squint to make my eyes look smaller, bending my knees when walking to appear shorter whilst trying to tuck my bum in, folding my lips inside my mouth so they appeared thinner. These traumatic memories make me cringe and sadden me.

I was literally juggling all that trauma then my boobs developed, so bye bye matching vests and knickers detailing either the days of the week or a cute character like Strawberry Shortcake, and hello trip to Tudor Williams department store, New Malden’s answer to John Lewis. Here we were awaiting the momentous occasion for my virgin bra fitting. Mum was calm and warning me not to be dramatic. Apparently many had gone before me and I had nothing new to show so I was not to be embarrassed. A darling, older lady store assistant collected me and escorted me to the fitting room, a tape measure draped professionally around her neck. A positive was that I was not embarrassed, but nice as she was, I was actually mortified when I had to remove my top and vest and expose my fledgling breasts.

All I could think was that if the saying was true that cold hands meant a warm heart, then that woman’s heart must have radiated heat on a par with Furnace Ranch, Death Valley in 1913. When she got to work with the tape measure her hands were like ice, and the tape measure must have been kept in the freezer awaiting release for its next victim, as it was positively frosty. So not only a first with the bra but also my first nipple erection and humiliation of global proportions for me. Once safely fitted in my training bra (because hell it was ugly and plain so could not possibly be a normal bra) we left Tudor’s, with me vowing to my Mum that not even the lure of the cake in their coffee shop would get me back in there anytime soon. I did not care if the nice bra fitting lady had seen a million titties, she would certainly not see or touch mine again!

And so, my long list of firsts continued with the first wearing of the bra to school. I tried to persuade my Mum to let me revert to my trusty vest, but she reasoned that being on the netball team I did not want the further embarrassment of them jiggling around when I ran (if my memory serves me right, I believe I was like an A cup). I drew a deep breath as I went into school, removed my coat and sat down at my desk. I heard sniggering and movement behind me, then a horrible sharp pain that made me jump and yell, followed by maniacal laughter. Yep, one of those bad boys had pulled back my bra strap like he was Robin Hood with his bow and hit the bullseye and that damn well hurt. Tears began to form but humiliated as I was, I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of letting them spill, and just resigned myself to knowing that the verbal assaults had then upgraded to physical ones. Fingers crossed my sprout throwing Knight in shining armour would literally be able to watch my back from now on.

In my last Blog I declared that I had experienced the worst day of my life, but am fairly confident I was then navigating through the worst year of my life!