My teen years

Ohh. Three things spring to mind.

When I was about 8 we were out whenever we could being boys. Obviously the most fun was when we got hold of things we should not. We went to the local park and were playing in a large section of bamboo. We were playing “light the bamboo with matches and blow it out” Well strangely enough this game did not go as planned. After a few goes each we got brave and let it burn a bit more each time before extinguishing it. Mark got very cocky on match 3 and you can guess what happened. Whoosh. We scampered and 6 fire engines and 3 acres of the park was destroyed. It was the main news on our local news programmes. I did not sleep well for weeks and jumped every time the door went.

Secondly. I got a paper Round when I was 12 in 1977. All the paper boys were my mates. The proprietor of the newsagents asked if I wanted to be payed in money or cigarrettes. All my mates had cigarettes so I opted for that. Not the best decision of my life. I managed to give up 39 years later, so it could have been worse.

Thirdly when I was 17, a few mates and I drank some special brew and concocted an experiment. We thought it would be interesting to empty 3 bottles of lighter gas into a public toilet sink plughole, and ignite it. Strangely enough this was not a good choice of experiment. Boris had a zippo lighter ready to go. As the last bottle was emptied, in went the lit zippo. Well lets say, ouch went my ears, bye bye went my eyebrows fringe, i got down and personal with the floor, and oops a daisy to the slight damage to the sink and ceiling. Luckily it was late at night and we just got away before the police turned up to investigate an explosion.

Anybody else ever wonder how they managed to get through childhood alive.