First of all apologies for the lateness of this blog which I intended to write a few weeks ago but it turned out that moving house was even more traumatic than even I thought it was going to be. Never again.
I’m not posting this photo of me at the age of 15 because I’m proud of it or something – would you be? No, the reason it’s here is because I noticed something strange about the image – apart from the obvious – that I wanted to share with my faithful followers. As you can see there’s a mole on my left cheek which, rather worryingly, has now totally disappeared and moved across to the exact same position on the right side of my face instead. I noticed it whilst I was looking in the mirror the other day, something I try to avoid as much as possible at my age. Either it’s a roving mole of some kind or the photo is inverted. Or maybe I’m inverted. If such a thing is possible. Anyway, on with the show.
Our art teacher took the class down to Margate Harbour one day and I sketched a small boat lying on the mud as shown above. This was the time he pointed out to us about how the skyline had been forever ruined by the building of Arlington Flats along the seafront. But back to me. I was so impressed by my artistry that I started to take more of an interest in drawing, starting with the image you see below:
What can I say? You draw what you know, right? Emboldened by this hitherto unknown talent of mine I started to push the boundaries a bit, which is what all great artists do I suppose. I think I pushed a bit too much though.
Should you ever want to know what goes on in the mind of an ever-so-slightly disturbed fifteen-year-old school boy then look no further than this.
I’d hate to think what’s lurking behind that door on the right. Maybe these characters as shown below?
Our form teacher for the 4th year, Frank Skinner, known as Mr. Shaw in the book, asked the class to produce an original story as part of an English project. As you can see from the so-called cover art for my effort entitled “The Family Tree” (that’s real wallpaper by the way – no expense spared) I resorted to writing something in my favourite genre when producing my contribution, prompting Skinner to comment in my school report that “Stephen’s imagination tends to be sombre”. No kidding. The only downside to this was that I cut up some of my monster mags in order to use the images you see on the front and back cover of my horror tale which, let’s admit, was pretty bloody stupid. The story wasn’t much better either.
So far we’ve covered my burgeoning interests in drawing and writing but my overwhelming ambition at this point in my life was to finally get myself a proper snog with a girl. As luck would have it my school friend Ray Atkins (not his real name) invited me, Les and another kid called Pete over to where Ray and his family ran their hotel on the outskirts of Birchington. It was there one evening in August / September of 1967 that I finally got my wish, playing spin the bottle with Ron’s younger sister and her two girl friends, all of whom I naturally fell in love with. It was a very special memory that stayed with me for many years, to the point that whenever I went down to visit my relatives in Margate I’d get a spontaneous erection every time I drove past the hotel (is that what they call too much information?).
Anyway, happy days as they say.
I genuinely have no memory as to the presents I may have received for Christmas 1967 but I’m betting the album above figured in there somewhere. And unbelievably the Beach Boys are still going in one form or another. Carl Wilson (second from the left) and Dennis Wilson (second from the right) have sadly gone to that great recording studio in the sky. Al Jardine (extreme right) went solo, Mike Love (middle) now tours as the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson (extreme left) went to Mars on an LSD trip not too long after the album cover photo was taken and missed the last flight back.
I really should stop rabbiting on about the Beach Boys and acknowledge the release in 1967 of a record by our very own British idols, the Beatles, that some people consider to be the best album ever made. This is the actual copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” I bought upon its release. Naturally I cut out the inserts that came with the LP which now drastically reduces the value of the album should I ever want to sell it. Which I don’t.
I’ll be doing a part two on 1967 in a week or two as I know how anxious you all are to read about some of the movies and TV shows I got to see back in the day. Don’t worry though. Only a few more blogs to go on the subject of my book “The Maynard’s of Margate” and it will all be over. Promise.
Steve Mayhew 