Wanna be in my gang?

When I was at school there was a cool crowd. There was at your school, as well, right? 

In my school it was the football gang: The boys who played football and the girls who followed them round, not doing very much except being mean to other girls. Girls who played football were definitely not allowed to join. They were 'lesbians' who weren't allowed to join anything. 

A peculiar thing happened at the very end of our time at school (before 6th form). The football boys decided that they would like to expand their potential shagging opportunities, so they made their group a bit more open. They advertised its attractiveness and went around singing, "wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang?" to unsuspecting young girls, who had previously adopted the 'freeze and hope they don't notice me' stance within 100 yards of anyone from this group. Obviously Gary Glitter wasn't the social pariah he is today. They also cleaned up their act a bit. They got the girls in the group to be nicer and the girls in turn invited a few of the good looking, intelligent boys to join. 

I hasten to add I was in none of these groups but I am able to report on it from my position in the playground. The cool group occupied the area outside the fast food canteen, where people got slightly soggy chips from a hatch. There were steps up to the canteen and a concrete platform ran in front of the building. In front of the platform was a sheer drop into a flowerbed of roses. The cool kids were protected from falling into the thorns by a green painted iron railing, from which they used to swing, like monkeys in a zoo, perfecting their chin up and bench presses before having the girls admire their muscles. Across from this stage was a pillar holding up the humanities block, behind which was my place in the playground. 

The concrete platform got fuller and fuller until there was no room for a hanging raise, never mind a full somersault. The attractive intelligent boys turned out to be surprisingly good at press ups too. I wasn't that surprised, as these boys were in my classes and were the types who could do anything but the original football lads were floored; they just thought having a brain would weigh your head down too much and make exercise impossible.

The girls found it too taxing be nice to the new members of their fraternity for long and after a while went back to their old ways. Their favourite trick of a surprise skirt lift to laugh at the knickers underneath fell flat though as many of the new girls had very pretty underwear and were confident enough in their bodies not to mind giving a quick accidental flash. Worse, they were also classy enough, never to show their underwear on purpose. 

Soon,the group was looking unhappy. The founding members started to talk about leaving.

"It was our gang in the first place."

"Yeah, who do they think they are? Who invited them? I didn't, did you?"

"Nah, they just came and spoiled it."

"Can't we just get them to leave?"

They discussed who they would ask to leave. One of the main offenders was Suzie's boyfriend, Tim. Suzie was in the original gang, so Tim had to stay, which meant that Tim's mates would stay too. They threw their hands in the air, scratched thei heads and furrowed their brows.

"There's nothing for it. We'll have to go out on our own."

I can't tell you how successful their new adventure was because their new location wasn't one I could see from behind my pillar but now I wished that I'd followed them to find out.

These debates about the EU are reminding me of that time. I keep seeing people who say, "I voted to be part of the Common Market when I was twenty (1975) but now that all these other countries have joined (Poland, Romania) it's not what I thought it would be. Turkey even wants to join now and that would be the end of the world."

This is what France has been thinking since they finally let us in. The U.K. wasn't one of the founding members. We first applied to join in 1961 and were blocked by France who thought we weren't made of the right stuff and they kept blocking it until 1973. 

The breakaway gang may have gone onto bigger and better things or they may have been two sad lonely boys who used to be something special. The new gang carried on swinging like primates on the bars but they gave no indication of whether they wished the two defectors had stayed. 

If only I had changed my playground position in 1983 I might have an answer to the EU question.