On holiday with Stanley

So here's a strange associative chain, and it actually did happen as I describe it.

Catching up on a few of my favourite, and not so favourite blogs (yes, I do read some such, driven by a kind of perverse fascination) I reached this conclusion: some very good blogs, by my definition, have no awards, or just a few. Some of those in the other category bristle with awards. Odd.

On this basis I clearly rate my own two blogs since they have, between them, the grand sum of zero awards. On the whole I'm content since I have no great desire to be told that I cheered someone up or made them smile or have become their best mate. (Please don't ruin my day by giving me one now).

Well this reciprocal festooning with awards leads to the first, rather uncharitable, association - mutual masturbation.

Now I have led a chaste life and have never indulged in same-sex mutual masturbation (you will notice that some qualification is needed). On the other hand I did go to a boarding school and was able to observe the impact of pubescence on certain individuals. And, yes, a certain amount of masturbation did take place. If any was of the mutual variety, then I am happy to say that I did not witness it. The solitary was handled quite well however, and before you say it, the pun was unintentional. (A psychologist writes: "puns are never unintentional". To which I respond "just who the eff asked you?").

Back to the point (yes, yes, still unintentional). Rather than masturbation being furtive and embarrassing, a system seems to have evolved such that after 'lights out' those who were thus inclined would engage in masturbatory races, the winner announcing the fact to the assembly. I must stress that this was still rather chaste - no sharing of beds or anything like that, and all under cover of darkness.

Now where was I during all of this? Fortunately I was a year younger than my contemporaries, the consequence of asynchronous educational systems in India and South Africa, and I was not early off the pubescent blocks. Thus I was able to lie in the darkness wondering quite what all the fuss was about.

Which association brings me to my friend Stanley Maloney. Stanley was not intellectually gifted, so he was a year older than most of us, and thus two years older than me. However what God had taken with one hand he had given with the other; Stanley was exceptionally well endowed, the lot topped with enviable quantities of pubic hair. It will not surprise you to learn that he was a frequent winner in those nocturnal races.

Stanley was a good chap to be friends with. He was very strong, and had a quick temper, and for some reason chose to be my protector. He wore a ring which took the form of a skull with two prominent ruby eyes. He told us that it was useful in fist fights. No one rushed to find out if this was true.



So to holiday. Stanley asked if I would like to spend the summer holiday with him. Well, yes, delighted. He lived on the South Coast, a wonderful stretch of South African coastline south of Durban, in a village called Amanzimtoti. My grandmother, who was in charge of me when I was not at school, agreed, and I was sent packing with a fiver.

If someone asked me to describe the holiday in one word, the word would be "formative". The list goes something like this:

- learnt to smoke (unlearnt it as soon as I left, mind)
- had my first french kiss. Boy was that a surprise. My first thought was to say "excuse me, but somehow your tongue has slipped and become lodged in my mouth", but her enthusiasm robbed me of the power of speech. Up to then my model for kissing was provided by Hollywood movies, where the hero and heroine would press their faces together and lips were definitely tightly sealed
- went to my first revivalist meeting, in a big tent. After a Church of England upbringing, this was, if you will pardon the expression, a revelation
- discovered that you could lick the sides of railway trucks transporting molasses and get a sweet taste for free
- was offered a shag in a small tent. It would have been my first - well, for God's sake, I was only 12. She was even younger than I was, poor soul. I fled
- bobbed about in the ocean on a tractor inner tube, in an area notorious for rip tides and shark attacks
- set out folding wooden chairs in the local movie house so we could watch the film for free. I can remember it still, called "Dive, dive, dive", about submarine warfare
- made lots of money, or it felt like it, by collecting discarded bottles and returning them for the deposit money
- taken by Stanley to the ring shop so I too could buy a skull with red eyes

One of my uncles arrived mid-way through the holiday to check up on me (he lived in Durban, so not a long drive). Years later he described his alarm and consternation at the circumstances in which he found me, and the total lack of supervision of our activities. Turns out I was staying with dysfunctional and impoverished white trash.

Ah, the innocence of youth. If the circumstances of the Maloney family were unfortunate, then I was unaware of it. On the contrary, I remember the holiday as blissful, at a time when a little bliss went a long way.

So Stanley, wherever you are, you did cheer me up and you did make me smile, and this is for you.