Somehow after this weekend I feel about talking about one of the more important years in all of this life after playing games and that and really it was around the time I started getting back to being me.
The year had began as Rat Trap started it's climb down the charts, the pounding Y.M.C.A. was right at the top and I had on paper at least advanced two years on from formally being a teenager and music was a massive interest of mine to the point that record was a Birthday Present earlier in 1979.The thing around that teenage period was that peoples idea of what you "really" were started to change, they tended to see you as less of that boy, being more serious, engaged with your O level studies at school, the many nudges around girls and careers to the point you felt you were pushed down one route.
As it was I was still being spanked (not that I minded, wordy lectures just confused the hell out of me so a sore bottom worked better at getting the point over) very much a child so it was a bit confusing really.
"It'll never happen" - I just love that Toots playing with her dolls or Teacher selling off his canes (as some of us ahem "know" ours didn't sell them off....) but there's a frame missing from that and it should feature Dennis with a caption saying "He'll never get over ten" which would of been very apt for me.
Beyond the world of dressing you like a mini Dad and pushing you into men's spots really I just hated that whole thing because simply nine times out of ten I didn't feel teenaged at all - hardly having a teenaged life as such - just pushed into tight clammy denim jeans when not at school and as punk was in its ascendency 1979 was the year this battle came to its head so by the Summer hols I demanded (gosh!) shorts in public going around outdoor markets as the previous year I did still have a couple of pairs from two year before that fitted and I had had a growth spurt since then.
While I didn't gain what really wanted - tailored short trousers aka "School Shorts" - I did win having bought for me short sports shorts and an understanding that unless we were going anywhere that needed formal attire, I was to be dressed in shorts.
I looked like that one and half or two inch seems even!
That to me when the slow start towards extended boyhood just respecting the existance of legal age and any conseqences and I started then to look into getting new formal short trousers as the formal school days edged out.