The Cow's Gate Gang The troubles of being raised in the 70s

Let me introduce my mate Daz, founder member of The Cow's Gate Gang. When we were 12 he was stocky and snub-nosed with a blonde kinked fleece on his bonce. He flourished on speed and persistency and lived on Vimto and van Wheels during the day and fish and chips at night. He bragged in victory and shrugged defeat off thoughtlessly. He could afford to couldn't he ? His dad ran the hamlet chip shop and drove a new N-reg Austin Allegro, all brown like Daz's flared nylon trousers which he revealed he got from Carnaby Street but what truly came out of his mum's Gratton catalog. My old lady recounted Daz's mummy got 10 per cent off, she was an agent, which is how Daz got the Space Hopper for his birthday while I got the blue anorak to go with my white roll-neck with the stripe down the side and an inside pocket barely big enough for a pair of Klackers.

We were in the first year at Secondary Modern. The two of us failed the eleven plus. I didn't even really know what it was. Initially I believed it was a medicated shampoo like my pop used, Vosene or Loxene it was, had a green medical + on the glass bottle. Or was it those pills Mum sucked in the mornings to get her vacuuming off to a good start, Pro-plus. So we probably did this quiz thing for the future in class 9 and next thing we knew we were at Swattenden with hards in crombies and armory scarves tucked in their belts, playing football with a tennis ball. And there's me and Daz still whistling Nights in White Satin and thinking our hipster belts were brill.

Well, Daz was more robust than me and had this capability to raise your spirits : Nah, he'd say, dont worry abard it. He was rough but never wicked, always put his fish back alive and never threw stones at cats, only piles of mud. He had a cat of his own see, a ginger podge called Curley Wurly because it chased its tail Daz lived 4 doors up from me down Barratt's Road, 100 orange brick council homes built just after the war. There were twenty boys our age to pick gangs and groups from and we pooled our Wembley Winners and Action Men to get the game running, otherwise we'd drift in a cloud of boredom where the only thing that occurred was the council came and painted the front doors green or blue every five years or the Lyons maid van came jangling its tune : I really like to go A-Wandering and Kojak the driver gave us the damaged bits of Zooms out the bottom of his refrigerator.

There were plenty of us down Barratt's Road. Enough squirts to shoot with spud guns and heaps of sisters to bomb with their own Play-doh who thought they were Emma Peel. We might meet up the The Cow's Gate where allegiances shifted like the wind, but somehow me and Daz stayed faithful. He played centre half to my inside left. Billy Bremner to my Eddie grey We knew our village backwards too, but me and Daz had this ritual we would carry out when our mums and fathers had gone off to get more Green Shield Stamps. We showed one another over our homes, number 43 and number 51.

From one room to another, each drawer and cupboardful, every box on the wardrobe, every bit and bob in the jars and envelopes. Daz showed me his folks strategies like each time was an Egyptian crypt. They were the first down our road to have a colour telly, a huge great clod-hopper taking up a whole corner by the fish tank. Daz'd turn it on and we would glance at the test card, all those coloured squares. They'd Rediffusion too, and naturally, one day we found the envelope in the milk book drawer. The telly was hired. They had a stereo too and they kept their records in plastic bags, every one put away in the sideboard. They used to play the theme tune to van de Valk and Daz's mummy still listened to The Partridge Family.

The centre piece was his old man's chair, a bright orange swiveller on a chrome pedestal, bucket shaped, solid polysterene with a nylon stretch cover. We might play tail end Charlie in a Lancaster, spinning with our Lewis guns at German Fokkers, or Thunderbird five tracking Concorde sunk to the sea bed till Daz stated that it was time to go look in the rest room at the smokers toothpower and eye-baths. His sister worked for Colgate Palmolive and there were stacks of free toothpaste she brought home in her Yuletide bonus. His mum's girdles were in the airing cupboard, her fake nails in a plastic box in the medicine cupboard. The hideous stuff was on the window sill, a row of white polystyrene heads with brown wigs. We might run screaming down the stairs at this, a game we called Ena Sharples's boudoir.

Well, things were on the point of changing. A new kid from Hastings was moving into no seventeen. I may tell you what occurred next time.

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