First Years: Piranhas in the Bedroom

By Andy Dale

It’s 1986, and 19-year-old Jonathan gets quite a culture shock when he leaves home to start his First year teacher training at Derbyshire College of Higher Education.

Living in a large white (unmissable) student house full of lads, ranging from a posh boy from Kent to a northerner with anger issues, he must negotiate the perils of student life, which include seven-legged pub crawls in the dead of winter, fishnapping raids and cereals in the bedsheets, all at the same time as trying to woo a pretty blonde from Rochdale.

Set in a time when cassette players were cool, contact with home was a red phonebox, but alcohol, lingerie and high jinx were still the order of the day, First Years: Piranhas in the Bedroom is written with a great British dry wit. Its nostalgia for all things 80s as well as its “will-they-won’t-they” romantic comedy gives it a really broad appeal: The Young Ones meets High Fidelity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andy Dale
• Release date: Dec 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301349180

Andy Dale

Finally, 25 years after I started writing it, I am publishing my début novel. It started in a time long before Google, Sky TV, iphones and X-Factor . Now it ends up being an E-book as well. For the last four years I have been writing weekly humorous blogs based on SharePoint, but I really always wanted to be, in the words of the Beatles, a 'Paperback Writer'. So finally I have released my first fictional romantic comedy, 'First Years - Piranhas in the Bedroom'. Hopefully the first of a series of nostalgic books about an unfortunate young man called Jonathan Stadler, a Villa fan like me. The books hope to appeal to the sense of humour of the male reader in his 40's. At some point in our lives we have all found ourselves in the kind of situations that Jon does. My influences have been two terrific authors in Mike Gayle and Nick Hornby. Now to continue with my mid-life crisis by releasing a series of children books ... Is the world ready for 'King Derek and the Wonder Wizards'?

Book preview

First Years - Piranhas in the Bedroom

The fictional debut novel of Andy Dale

A book 25 years in the making.

Released 8th December 2012

Copyright

Copyright 2012 Andy Dale Writes.

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This book is also available in Print.

Front Cover designed by Gary Dillon http://dillonart.wix.com/65

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

Thanks to the continued help and support of

Debbie, Helen and Claire.

Prologue

‘Dad, where are my iPhone head phones?’ came the yell from the bathroom.

Hopes of hitting the M6 early on this September Sunday morning were now starting to fade as Olivia discovered yet another thing she hadn’t packed in her many bags. I had expected a frantic last minute search so had resisted the urge to see if all the varying sized bags would actually fit in a Ford Focus. I suspected they would, albeit with the back windows wound down and no visibility through the rear view mirror. Did Olivia really need to take a full-length mirror and four pairs of knee-high boots with her?

‘Dad, have you seen my iPod speakers?’ Olivia shouted as I watched her come half way down the stairs and then go back up again, wearing a completely different skirt to the one she was wearing ten minutes ago.

One thing for certain was that if we ever did get on the road, the old house was not going to be the same without Olivia in it; tidier yes, but not the same. The house was never quiet when Olivia was in, with music blaring out of her room at every hour. That Justin Bieber has a lot to answer for. At least I might finally be able to paint over those blu-tak marks on her bedroom wall.

‘Dad, where’s the charger for my laptop?’ asked Olivia as she slid down the banister. This time she was wearing black leggings. I pointed at the pile of three laptop cases perched between her HD ready TV and the Wii Fit board.

‘Dad, can you unpack my skeleton t-shirt and skinny white jeans please. I think I’ll wear them instead’ a smiley Olivia gave me a kiss on my left cheek. For that second she looked so like her mum did at that age.

Eventually two hours later at ten to one, we managed to leave. There really was only just enough room for Olivia, me and the multitude of bags. Olivia insisted on having her cosmetics bag on her lap as she hadn’t had time to do her makeup despite being awake since seven o’clock this morning.

So we started the journey from Rochdale to Plymouth. I was still unsure quite why my daughter had chosen Plymouth University, instead of somewhere nearer. But here she was all grown up.

‘Dad, can we stop at Maccies for a Happy Meal, I’m starving’, said Olivia in her most childlike voice.

As I drove towards the motorway with my only child chomping loudly on her chicken McNuggets and blowing bubbles in her chocolate milkshake, I really started to think how much I was going to miss her. She had been a total madam these last four years and probably the reason for my lack of hair but Olivia had also helped me through so much.

Now it was time to finally be on my own; at least I knew she wouldn’t be far away. Well, perhaps in miles, but with emails, texts and Skyping, things certainly weren’t like they were back in my day. Then, the only communication back to the family home was either a letter from the postman or a walk in the rain to the phone box. Today’s kids probably just think an old phone box is a Tardis painted red.

As we were soon going to be apart I decided that I should try to talk to Olivia during the three-hour journey. Perhaps give her some advice on what to expect from Uni. What not to drink? What kind of boys to avoid and not to save your laundry up for your visits home?

As I started to offer my advice, Olivia took out her iPod and put on her enormous headphones. Whatever happened to the mini-Walkman? I was left to reminisce about the traumatic time I had when I first arrived at Derbyshire College of Higher Education back in 1986. Just two months after that little Argentinian had cheated England out of the World Cup.

Chapter 1 - Will I Need A Dressing Gown?

Well, I guess this was it: the day that I had been putting off for the past two weeks. All of my possessions sat there by the front door ready for the dreaded two o’clock. This really was the end of an era. My parents had not stopped organising me for the last ten days and packing those really useful things that only mothers ever think about; the kind of things that by the time you do suddenly need them you’ve forgotten you ever had them in the first place. Personally, I had tried not to think about the traumatic experience of leaving the family nest to go to college. Slowly I began the routine of doing things for the last time not knowing when I would see my place of birth again.

Why were the minutes shooting by when I so badly wanted them to crawl? My parents seemed strangely excited and kept making me check that I had items that I had checked a dozen times before. While we were waiting, I was thinking about a Mr A. King. He was someone I had never met, but was going to be sleeping in the same room as me tonight. My main worry was that he might have homosexual leanings. All I had for information was the address of a house and the name Mr A. King. Was it an all male house? Or would I need a dressing gown? This was another question I was considering.

The clock read ten to two and my father decided it was time to go; he seemed very keen to get me out of the house. So this was goodbye to the house where I was born. Gently, I stroked the cat for the last time as a resident at that house and said goodbye to my brother without making eye contact. As the door slowly closed behind me, I realised that my life would never be the same again.

Both my parents came with me, but the fifty-minute drive to Derby was almost silent. During the journey, I spent most of it gloomily observing the numbers on my digital watch change and wishing that time would suddenly stop. Why was I so scared and of what? Some people might have wished it was all a dream, but as I have only ever remembered one dream in my life, that would have been a wasted wish; the dream had been about a plant pot, a whiteboard and a pair of oven gloves and my A-Level Psychology had totally failed to explain it.

All too soon I saw it: the sign saying ‘Next left Mickleover’. This was a place that until two weeks ago I had never heard of, but now for the next four years it was going to be my adopted home. Hopefully I would leave here in four years time a Primary school teacher with a B.Ed. Honours Degree. Four years; that was 1990, another decade!

So this was it, the most traumatic moment of my life to date, although I was quite surprised how well I was taking it. We soon pulled into the Derbyshire College of Higher Education to meet the Warden and get the keys to the house that was to be my place of residence for the next forty-two weeks. Derby is not really a place I had ever thought about before. What was Derby famous for? All I could think of was Charlie George.

As usual, Dad took charge, marching me to the Enquiry Office and telling them who I was. After a short time I was asked to fill in yet another form and then charged twenty-five pounds deposit. The man, who seemed very official and in charge, did not even glance up to see my sad-looking face, but told me that my house was on the main road, number 272. He said it was the big white house and I could not miss it. Whenever anybody says I cannot miss something, I always become very worried and usually do miss it. This time, however, he was right; I absolutely could not miss it. The house really did stand out because it was so white and looked enormous.

My room was number one, right by the door. The place seemed deserted with no welcoming committee. So this was what I spent two years slaving over my A-Levels for; it all seemed so quiet and eerily similar to houses in all the horror films I had ever seen. Not that I am a great horror fan, of course, but I did enjoy the Omen trilogy. I decided that if they ever make Omen Four, they should use this house.

Inside my room I just sat motionless and watched my mother put all my clothes into the drawers. My Dad was in charge of putting everything else away in the last places that I would ever think of looking.

The room was quite large and the walls seemed to go up and up; it would take a very tall person on a ladder to touch the ceiling. The walls were covered with textured cream paint that was guaranteed to draw blood if you brushed against it in your sleep. A large bay window looked out on to the main road; well, it probably would if the rather large hedge in front of it was cut down.

Mr A. King had failed to turn up so I had the choice of the two beds and chose the one nearest the window and the bridge of the A38.

Then came the first knock at the door. The three of us stared at the large wooden door with a drawing pin stuck in, as it slowly opened with my pulse feeling as if it was heading for a double century. The door creaked and in walked two lads who looked on the rough side and as if they had been there for years. One was short with very short spiky black hair and a hole on the left knee of his 501 black jeans. He obviously had not arrived with his parents. The other lad was taller and had lighter hair and was noticeable for his earring and his vest top – probably from up North. This was not a total culture shock because I had previous experience of lads with earrings from my years at Walsall Tech. The dark-haired lad asked me who I was, a very difficult question in my current state, but my Dad helped me out. Apparently they were art students who were trying to find out who was in each of the eight rooms.

My parents suggested that I needed a walk to get my bearings and I agreed. We soon found where the nearest telephone box was, but failed to find any shops. The road seemed very cold and deserted; well, I suppose it was a Sunday afternoon.

When we arrived back there was still no sign of Mr A. King, but the lad from the room opposite had arrived, so my Dad encouraged me to go and say hello to him. My first impression of him was that he was rather tall (about 6’3" in his socks which he was), and had a very large collection of tapes. When he spoke I had problems understanding him because he had a strong Northern accent. He remarked straight away that I came from Birmingham, as soon as I opened my mouth. However, this was not true because I came from Walsall, well Willenhall actually, which is twenty miles away from Birmingham. In my nineteen years of life I had never considered myself to have an accent, but obviously I have always sounded like a ‘Brummie’. The very tall lad’s name was Gareth and he came from Bolton. It soon became apparent that he was not in the mood for talking; perhaps he had also been affected by this traumatic transitional period in his life.

At four o’clock my parents decided to leave me and return to the comfortable and simple life of Walsall. So this was it. I was totally alone in the big outside world of Derby. Now I know how Robinson Crusoe felt before he met Man Friday. It was me against the world and I was nearly ready for it.

It was no good just walking around, it was time for action so I decided to try to talk to Gareth again. This time I had more success and managed to get him talking by mentioning the magic word ‘football’. He was crazy about Bolton Wanderers, which meant that I could talk about my favourite subject: the Villa. Unfortunately we could not understand each other, but we had a long conversation anyway.

Afterwards, we both went into the very small kitchen which was just how I had expected a student kitchen to be, with a very old table in the middle and four tatty chairs. Could ten of us really share a kitchen that size? The original two lads were sitting there and smoking roll-ups. Gareth joined them and soon produced his own cigarettes. So my lungs were now being attacked from every angle and I began to think about death, which failed to cheer me up.

The two art students were named Pete and Dave, who apparently had known each other from Art College in Bradford and had asked to share a room. They also accused me of being a ‘Brummie’ so again I said that I came from Walsall. The two of them both seemed very confident and appeared to me to be the typical stereotype of a student. They also seemed to have brought a lot more food than me and had already packed the two fridges; perhaps there were not many shops around here? The room quickly filled with smoke and I began to have problems breathing and talking, but I did discover that this was an all-male house. This came as a disappointment as I had been girlfriend-less since April.

Soon, a fourth lad walked in who appeared to be surprisingly quite normal compared to the others and I could actually understand what he said. At last, someone who was not from up North! He was from Ipswich and his name was Wayne. The pressure of the day was showing and he appeared very nervous. He was offered a cigarette, but to my delight declined the offer and said he was a non-smoker. The look of surprise from the other lads suggested that this was very un-student like.

The next lad to arrive was obviously a bit middle class and ‘jolly hockey sticks’. His name was George and he came from Sevenoaks; which I presumed was near London, but I gave Geography up in the third year because I was better at History. Oh, and had quite a crush on the History teacher Miss Bailey. George was sharing with Wayne in one of the upstairs rooms and he also soon began to smoke. This did not exactly please Wayne and George claimed that he had put down on his application form that he was a non-smoker, but had started to smoke again since. Could this happen to me? Could Mr A. King now be a chain smoker because of severe exam pressures?

Pete said that they had seen another lad upstairs wearing cords and slippers. This made seven so far and we had worked out that there were four double rooms and two singles, so three people were still left to arrive. One of these would be my roommate; I just hoped that he did not wear an earring.

An older man then entered the crowded smoke-filled kitchen and asked the strangest question of the day: did we all have beds in our rooms?

Slightly puzzled, we all replied ‘yes’. He then explained that the reason for this question was that his son’s room was about six-foot square without a bed in. Before we could question this, he hurried off to see the Warden. After investigating, we found that the room Pete had thought was a store cupboard was in fact a third single bedroom; that is if a room without a bed could be a bedroom.

Gradually, the group dispersed from the kitchen leaving me alone, apart from some ham sandwiches my mother had packed. Solemnly, I ate the sandwiches, but they did not taste the same so many miles from home. After about half an hour, the son of the man who had been in before appeared, although it was not until moments later that I found out that this was who he was. His name was James and he also appeared reasonably normal, but first impressions can sometimes be totally wrong. We soon got talking and I found him really friendly. Apparently, he was also from Bradford; obviously Derby College was very popular with the Bradford youth. We had a very interesting conversation and decided to go and find out what Derby had to offer – well, the town nightlife.

By this time, James had now got a bed in his room, but unfortunately this could only be achieved by moving his cupboard out and onto the landing. Amazingly he did not seem in the least bit concerned about this, but he did appear to be that kind of lad. To him, the day had not been traumatic but the start of an exciting new adventure.

Just as we were leaving the kitchen, we caught sight of the mystery slipper man from upstairs. The small blond-haired boy with a pointed nose had obviously not wanted to be spotted, but James moved quickly and cornered him. The lad seemed very shy and spoke in a quiet voice. Despite his keenness to leave and return to the safety of his bedroom, James managed to find out that he was a second year student on the Computer Studies Course. His name was Malcolm and he was from Newcastle – although his accent was not detectable when James did let him speak. He said that the other three lads, including my Mr A. King, would probably be on the Computers HND Course and therefore would not have to start for another two weeks. Incredible! I spend two weeks thinking about sharing a room with this person and now he’s not arriving for another two weeks!

Malcolm was now actually becoming more talkative and was starting to offer information even before James had bullied him into it. He seemed to be an expert on the times of the local buses and the fact that only the red buses gave change; this despite the fact that he had a car parked outside. The conversation quickly ceased when Wayne and George walked in and Malcolm scurried off back to his room. James quickly introduced himself and invited the other two to go into town with us to see why we had all decided to come to Derby.

At half-past eight, the four of us walked towards the bus stop, heading into the unknown. The bus stop was by the phone box, but I resisted the temptation to ring my parents. It was not long before a bus came towards the stop. Unfortunately, it was a blue bus so I was deprived of the luxury of a bus that gave change for first time in my life.

As I had expected, James took charge of the evening and the aim seemed simply to try as many pubs as possible. Not surprisingly, it soon became a very expensive night, but you have to make friends to survive this college life. Slowly I picked up the accents, but listening to somebody’s life story with Tina Turner blasting out of the jukebox can be difficult. George and James were locked in a verbal war over who should dominate the conversation, discussing every topic: from girls to beer and back to girls. This was obviously how students behaved so I tried to play my part, when the two broke for breath. As the words of the group became more slurred so I suspected did the exaggerations.

With a dash, we just managed to catch the last bus back to the house and this time it was red. This was my chance to pay a twenty-five pence fare with a one pound coin and get change; it was just a shame the bus driver only had five pence coins left.

Back at 272, we continued the discussions with George showing signs of tiring, but James still going at full speed. We sat in the kitchen while cooking any snacks we had, which for me was a sausage sandwich. It had earlier taken me ten minutes to find room in the rather full fridges for my sausages, so it was vital I replaced them to save surrendering this small gap to Pete or Dave.

Surprisingly I slept quite well on my first night, with that large room all to myself. The next day I was ready to face Teacher Training. From our house only James had to report to the same college as me and he knocked on my door in a very jubilant mood. This left me to reflect on whether he could really spend the whole year as jolly as this.

Our college was only a short walk down the road from the house and it was a lovely sunny day. We were directed to a large hall where we joined two hundred others all sitting in silence and looking petrified. The day was spent listening to some of the most boring talks I had ever had to suffer. They came from Nurses, Librarians, Course Leaders and Student Union Reps; surely there was more to Fresher’s week than this? Everybody wanted to give me a handout and I stored each of these neatly in my bag. James could be silent no longer and started talking to another lad on his course called Alan. He was quite tall sitting down and reminded me of Jack Douglas from the Carry On films, but he was quite friendly.

At three o’clock we were allowed to leave and James had arranged that we would go into town with Alan to look at the shops and get some passport photos which everybody seemed to require before we could join anything. James of course wanted to join everything from the mountaineering club to the drama group.

Most of the passport photo booths had long queues of students by them with the smallest being in Woolworths. Two girls were waiting for their pictures to be developed; one had blondish hair with a really warm and friendly smile, however her pictures failed to capture this. It is one of life’s mysteries how these machines always managed to take such awful pictures. I expect it is a very complicated procedure involving programming the machine to take a photo only when the person is looking away. This is probably in the hope that the person will be so disgusted that they will try another pound’s worth to get a decent one. Of course this does not work because people are so embarrassed that they walk quickly out of the shop before they examine the evidence. All of our pictures were very bad indeed, with Alan losing his head in a couple of them.

That evening there was a buffet and disco at the College with a chance to meet the lecturers. We were advised to go and were charged two pounds fifty for the buffet and disco. James and George both decided to wear jeans, so I did the same, not to look out of place. However, when we arrived we did look out of place with nobody else in jeans and were ignored by everybody else. Still, we made use of the free wine and after a while of nobody speaking to us we decided to sit on the stage by a group of girls. The girl by me was really attractive with permed brown hair and incredible cheek-bones, the kind that could have been created by a master sculptor. She was quite short and wore a skirt that on most girls would be of micro proportions. My shyness got the better of me and I just could not think of anything to say to her. Suddenly my chance came when she asked the girl next to her for some change for the phone and she could not oblige. Luckily I could, thanks to that bus driver and quickly offered to help.

While she was away at the phone, James apparently decided it was time for action and engaged the girls in conversation. Gradually, we each began to interact with the girls and I