Thursday's Child

Titch was a year older than myself. We were together in primary school at Jerry Clay Lane, Junior and Infants, in Wrenthorpe village. 

I remember that I was often a target for bullying, there were others, but there was also Titch and his group. On the lunch break I would be shoved and pushed, threatened, and insulted. What particularly made me burn inside was being called a girl, my hair was maybe a little longer than average, maybe I had feminine features I wasn't conscious of. I had my stepfather's surname at that time and Titch would say, "isn't Penney a girl's name?" and he and his group would sing aloud to the theme-song of the Coco-Pops advert, "Penney pops, Penney pops," and then he would say, "Penney's a girl's name, you look like a girl", and sometimes he would come right up to my face and spit "girl!"and I hated the look of him and I would be seething inside, but rendered immobile, too afraid to act.

It was the worst, most degrading insult. To call me a girl in front of my classmates, was complete embarrassment, and humiliation. 

I had once being mistaken for a girl whilst shopping for jeans in the Levi's store in the Riding's, I was with my mother, and the sales girl said, "are you buying them for your little girl?", she was looking at me, and I walked out of the store and leaned over the metal railing which overlooked the circular food court, hurt, wounded, embarrassed.  

I stood in line after the dinner bell had sounded waiting to rejoin class 5, he was class 6, and I thought to myself as he jeered and demeaned, when I'm older, when you're not with your gang, I will whack you so hard.

 

When I was 17 years old and sat in the Players bar I saw him kissing my redheaded girlfriend. I was on the sofa and they were over by the bar and I was drinking beers and I was very drunk, and I walked over to him and without warning I gave him a bloody nose, before walking straight up the stairs and out.

Dave Carney who owned the bar banned me and I sat outside in a doorway and the girl I'd been dating who had been kissing with her flirtatious friend pleaded with Dave to allow me back into the club, "I've told you before," he said, "violence is an instant ban, I won't have it in here".

An hour later I was walking up King Street with two other people and Titch rounded on me with a gang of thugs outside where the law offices are. One of those guys looked like he worked out every day, he was tall, and he had muscle. 

I was so drunk I could hardly stand, I was swaying, and I knew that I would be unable to fight I was so lacking in vestibular coordination. I tried to talk myself out of a potential action scene, but I think maybe my linguistic acuity and verbal range had also become reduced and funnelled and I didn't say the right things to quell their anger. Titch said, "we're not still at school, we're not school kids anymore", and they beat me up. It was like being back at school. At one stage I was on all fours and there was a guy kicking me in the ribs, and a guy punching me in the head, and Titch would pitch in with punches and kicks, and I was badly bruised and hurt. 

When I was 22 years of age, Titch was behind the counter in HMV when I bought the single Thursday's Child from him. I'd heard an advert on the BBC the night before, and I handed the money over to him, and he ran it through the cash-till and gave me the change. He had seemed nervous and apprehensive as I'd approached him, but I shook my head as though to dismiss. Five years had passed, it was over, history, and I hadn't heard the song yet.