A DAY IN THE LIFE OF...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

In a previous post (here) I told you all about my trip into Hamilton back in October of 1972, and also of my abandoned attempt to walk there on my lonesome some weeks or months later.  Sometime in 1973 (maybe around July) I made another attempt, this time accompanied by a (now former) pal by the name of Adam Cowie.  (That isn't his real name exactly, but it's close enough for those who knew him to recognise who I'm referring to.  Regular Crivs know him better by the name of Billy Liar.)

Once I could confidently have told you every detail of that trip; what day it was, the exact month, etc., but time has unfortunately eroded my memory of events to a bare minimum.  The full details probably yet lie dormant in my cranium, but lack of regular exercise of that particular reminiscence has resulted in it atrophying to some degree.  Perhaps one day a sudden prompt will resuscitate it to full bloom, but for the moment the bare necessities will have to suffice.

I think it must have been a Saturday, mainly because our journey to our destination was a leisurely one, and had it been after school, we most likely wouldn't have bothered.  We didn't stick to the main road, but took a detour through a wooded area, where we saw a 'courting couple' doing a bit of winching.  My pal asked me if I saw what he had seen (I'll spare you his precise phraseology), suggesting that he'd noticed their activities were more advanced than they were, but he was just exaggerating to the point of fantasy, as was his wont.

Eventually we made our way back on to the main route, and while passing a newsagent's (in Blantyre if I recall accurately), I spotted the MARVEL Annual for 1974 in the window.  Entering the shop, I asked the lady behind the counter if I could have a look at it and she duly obliged.  I didn't have enough money to buy it, but I got it a few weeks later from a shop back home, located in the far regions of the Old Village quarter of my town.  I was surprised to see it in that shop window because it was earlier than when Annuals were usually on sale.

We eventually arrived in Hamilton and took a look around the shopping centre.  My companion entertained the notion of purloining an AIRFIX model kit from WOOLWORTH'S, but (thankfully) eventually decided against it.  Funnily enough, I don't remember anything of our trip back home, so I'm wondering if we spent our meagre finances on paying a bus fare, so that we weren't late in getting back for teatime.  In fact, that's the most likely scenario, as I suddenly recall 'Billy' expressing concern about his parents' reaction should he be late.

That night, I remember watching an episode of SAM (with MARK McMANUS) on the telly, after which I affixed a coat-hook to my bedroom door.  I'd found it, complete with screws, on the floor of one of the cloakroom areas of my school a day or two before, having been ripped from its moorings by some vandal.  I'd put it in my schoolbag with the intention of handing it to the teacher of my next class, but then forgot.  Once home and discovering my oversight, I decided I might as well use it myself, so that's what I did.  Besides, I'd probably have been suspected of being the culprit had I handed it in, so perhaps it was wiser not to.

Around ten years later, when my family flitted to another house, I carefully removed the screws, labelling them in sequence (left-to-right, one to four), and affixed the coat-hook to my new bedroom door, with each screw placed back in the same hole it had come from.  I repeated the process when we returned to our former home just over four years afterwards.  What's more, although the holes in my old bedroom door had been filled in, their location was still visible so the coat-hook was returned to the exact same spot on the door, where it remains to this day.

So what's the point of this post you may be wondering?  From your perspective, none I suppose.  I simply wanted to indulge in a personal bit of reminiscing and thereby relive a time from my past, which seems like only yesterday and a hundred years ago at the same time.  Funny that, eh?  At least it gives me the excuse to again show you the cover of the 1974 Marvel Annual, drawn by GEOFF CAMPION, so hopefully it's not been a complete waste of your time.      

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