A bit of Danish

Round about the time we discovered that there was television after the Nine o'Clock News some bloody fool invented sex. 

Up till then making babies involved cough drops, strong ale and a couple of acres of winceyette nightwear. Then suddenly they invented sex. One minute nothing was allowed, the next minute some things were allowed but nobody knew which ones. Everyone was confused. And we were just entering adolescence, which is too confusing for words anyway, so we were baffled. 

Findlay Anderson’s brother worked in a sex shop and once a week he’d sneak something out of his brother’s stash to bring to school. There’d be thirty of so lads clustered round behind the cricket pavilion to have a look. (“Cricket pavilion!” — it was an old garden shed with a slate blackboard nailed on the side. Not that that was any bloody good because nobody could see it. They’d tell Darren Cladthorpe that he was the scorer and he’d spend the entire match drawing pictures of willies and naked ladies sitting in the bath eating the soap.) 

Anyway… round the back of the pavilion… The teacher on playground duty would say: “Are you boys smoking?” And we’d say: “No sir, we’re looking at mucky books.” “That’s all right then. I won’t have you smoking behind the cricket pavilion, you’ll be setting fire to the heavy roller.” 

‘Course, it was all wasted on us because we had no idea of the mechanics of the female form. It was an all-boys school so we hadn’t really progressed beyond the scabs on Audrey Mottershead’s knee back in Junior Class Four. Then we had a compulsory government sex education film. We had to go to it one Tuesday night with our dads. We hadn’t progressed beyond the scabs on Audrey Mottershead’s knee by the end of that, either. We were told that the male member was called the penis and it was part of the essential machinery of human reproduction; it was also useful because you could use it to relieve yourself against a tree; now let’s have a look at some of the more common venereal diseases. Half our class was convinced that if you had a slash against a tree with a film crew present your goolies would go blue and fall off. “I’m dying for a pee!” “There’s a tree over there.” “Can you see any cameramen?” “No.” “Keep a watch out for us will you? I’m busting.” 

That’s how ignorant we were. Thirty-odd of us clustered round a mucky book. Three of them could actually see the pictures, the rest frantically trying to find out what they can see. “What is it? What is it?” “It’s a nuddy lady.” “What’s she doing?” “She’s got a baby hamster in her lap…" "Ahh… that's nice!" "…and she’s feeding it a carrot.”