Not So Sweet 16

This coming springtime my step daughter turns 16 and recently we had the inevitable request put to us:

“Can I have a party please!?”

Oh how the memories came flooding back about my own 16^th birthday party…

There will likely be a few people reading this who were present and will also remember that Saturday night back in October 1991.

I was on a swing in Easthill Park, Portslade late one summer’s evening, when I first thought that having a party would be the greatest idea ever. This of course was back in the days when mid teens actually went to the park to speak to their friends and hang out rather than have a relationship with them via their phone. In fact I don’t think I knew anyone who owned a mobile phone in 1991 apart from Derek Trotter.

So I sat there swinging away (in my shellsuit), mulling it over with a few mates at dusk and mentally working out a guest list. I recall one of the girls present stating that the main ‘rules’ ought to be a ‘ban on jelly and ice-cream’ and ‘no parents allowed’, because after all, we didn’t want it to be a kids party. So I slept on it before asking my parents the next day about what my chances were.

Amazingly they agreed to it! The only proviso being that the maximum amount of guests didn’t exceed 40 people.

I genuinely couldn’t believe my luck and knocked up my invite list, which was actually quite hard to do as I ended up having to omit some decent people, but I didn’t want to push my luck with the numbers, so out of fairness I stuck with the 40 allowed.

Ahead of the event, my Dad made the calligraphic invites, and as I was working on the day of the party, my Mum decorated the house with photos of the younger me and banners etc as well as laying out a brilliant spread of party food (no jelly and ice cream)

And true to their word, my parents and younger brother left me to it at about 630pm and toodled round to my grandparents on the other side of the Valley in Portslade and said they’d be back at approximately 1am.

I waited in great anticipation, in my new one-size-too-small red panel Chipie jeans… 

 …naively thinking that if 30 people showed up it would be pretty good going.

When I did a head count at 10pm, there were well over one hundred people!

In my genuine ignorance, I clearly hadn’t considered at all that there would be ANY gate crashers, let alone literally dozens of extra people turning up. Thankfully I knew most of them, but there were plenty of new faces too – including a Brighton & Hove Albion youth team footballer briefly.

Basically I got scared. I couldn’t control any of it and spent the night praying that the house didn’t get destroyed or set fire to! As it happened I suppose it wasn’t TOO bad really, but it felt terrifying right in the middle of it, and I guess in the era now of ‘Armageddon Facebook parties’ it could have been a lot, lot worse. Some events of note that caused me angst on the night stick in the memory though:

• The downstairs toilet getting blocked – so a neighbours pathway was used as an alternative
• The garden got flattened
• The vacuum cleaner being hurled down the stairs (and skilfully caught)
• The settee being completely caved in
• Various spots of blood
• Cigarette butts embedded in the carpets
• Dozens of beer bottles hurled into the neighbouring school field, and neighbours gardens
• Various videos and cassettes stolen 
• ...and of course, the next door neighbour’s derelict untaxed Volkswagen Beetle having its roof caved in:

I’m well aware of various other shenanigans that took place but it’s fair to say that there’s intentionally no names mentioned at all in this ‘before the watershed’ blog for many good reasons!

Back to the party (yes there was still a party going on), and there were, on occasion, quite a few minutes when I wasn’t actually hiding. Bless her, the same girl who had suggested a ban on jelly and ice cream offered to dance with me at one point as she could see I was suffering and not really having a good time! Just beforehand, one of the less bright attendees had suggested we put his cassette on to change the music. He said “you won’t need to turn the volume up Bez, as it’s automatically loud”. Okay then.

To my sadness, the majority of my best friends left relatively early for one reason or another. I really couldn’t blame them though, and I suspect I would have done the same as it felt the whole event was increasingly getting out of hand at times, especially when someone asked if there was a rear exit to the house because he thought he was about to be beaten up. Unluckily for him, the only exit was the entrance as we lived at the far end of a cul-de-sac. The poor lad legged it for his life as three other guys tore through the house, trying to attack him. Thankfully he got away safely.

And to put a cherry on top of my night, my parents came home an hour early at around midnight and surveyed the mess. The majority of people had gone by then, but a few wisely started to leave as my Dad was being told about the redesigned VW car roof by the understandably disgruntled neighbour.

The police were called, but so far as I recall they didn’t pursue any complaints made by the neighbours. My Dad promptly issued a warning/threat to all the remaining people that he would never allow any of them across his ‘threshold’ again. It took all the strength in me to stifle a chuckle when a soft lone voice replied on behalf of the group shuffling off: “Sorry mister!”

The next day though, Dad kindly offered invites to come back to half a dozen of my mates who had copped that rollocking at the end of the night. He graciously said sorry to them as I explained to him that they hadn’t deserved it.

Oddly enough I never got told off for it. I suppose my parents felt I’d learned my lesson by the shock and enormity of what had gone on. I spent most of the next morning tidying up, and a couple of friends very kindly came by to check on my welfare.

My brother returned home from my grandparents and claimed he had heard the party from the other side of the hill. And “what was that lingering smell everywhere in the house?”

He was also annoyed that people had been in his bedroom, which had rightfully been out of bounds.

*refer to earlier mention of shenanigans…

Pretty soon my parents were quite relaxed about it all – though Mum was peeved that most of the food she’d made had barely been eaten as someone had poured booze over it all... chicken vodka-vents are not nice!

It was probably no coincidence that the entire downstairs was redecorated within three months.

In truth barely a handful of people had really caused any aggro – it just so happened that too many people came, and I couldn’t be omnipresent in protecting the house. Even the majority of people I hadn’t invited were actually good as gold and gave me no problems. In fact the hardest thing I personally had to keep on doing was to persuade the smokers to smoke outside.

Overall it was a peculiar event. As a result of the mess and damage, my poor brother wasn’t allowed a 16^th party himself, but for me personally the most annoying thing was that I simply wasn’t able to enjoy the night at all.

Additionally, my confidence took its own little dance too. I guess amongst my school friends, I was always thought of as being quiet and unlikely to indulge in such an event that had just taken place, so my confidence rose slightly as it became quite a talked about event at school, and as a strange consequence my credibility also improved a touch. However I felt in other ways my confidence was absolutely shot as I knew I had ultimately lost all control of what was going on. Bizarrely I think it affected me for years as some aspects of my shyness came back with a vengeance.

I think I am able to laugh about it now though thankfully!

“Ha ha! *cough*”

So dare we answer in the affirmative to “Can I have a party please!?”…

Would you?