VT Coughtrey - fire bug

NOTES	But banjo-plunking and jazz-clubbing were not my only leisure-time activities. I rarely saw Walter these days, but still quite often saw Nigel. We certainly no longer attended Crusaders every Sunday, but I still sometimes went over to his house on Sunday afternoons. He was still at school and about to take his A-levels. One night, we embarked on the great adventure of going out to a pub, the first time for both of us without parents. It also turned out to be the first time for getting drunk, apart from mildly so at home every Christmas. The pub was the Two Brewers in Hadley Green and we were drinking there quite illegally, being still under 18. I remember that afterwards, on the long stagger home, we were wrestling and laughing hysterically on the green outside the Old Red Lion at Underhill. This first serious meeting with Bacchus was such a pleasurable experience that it set the scene for a lifelong close if stormy relationship with alcohol.
	I eventually began to sense, probably quite falsely, that Nigel was beginning to look down on me as a bit of an oaf and a failure. We were certainly in very different worlds for most of the week. I began to go overboard with trying to impress him in all sorts of absurd ways. The problem was that although I needed to prove I was a success, I also needed to shock. In other words I had to be a successful villain. I told him I had joined a militant anarchist group plotting the overthrow of the state and that I was the group's leading thinker and inspiration. I said there were plenty of georgeous girls at work and that I had had sex with most of them. They had, of course, found the experience earth-moving, as I was such an expert. I said that I was the latest in the great English tradition of cat-burglars, dedicated to stealing only from the rich and redistributing the spoils to the poor. Possibly Nigel was prepared to believe there was a small element of truth in each of these claims. Perhaps I really was mixed up with a few sad anarchists, possibly I had had sex with one girl, no doubt I had broken into a couple of modest houses and stolen a few bob.
	Eventually he challenged me on one of these boasts. He bet me that I couldn't break into his house in the night. His parents, he said, were very keen on security and the house was a fortress at night. I replied that there were no fortresses where I was concerned. It was agreed that I would make the attempt at an unannounced date within a few weeks. Part of the challenge was not to wake anybody, including Nigel himself. Of course, if I managed to get in but was then caught by his parents, we would both be in big trouble. To prove I had been there, I was to leave a note on the snooker table in the games cellar. He would check for it every morning. I crept out of my house one night when my parents and grandmother were asleep and walked the couple of miles to Nigel's place. I arrived at about 2 am. There were no lights on anywhere in the house. With no real expectation of success, I forced my way through a thin part of the overgrown hedge surrounding the grounds and advanced across the garden to a wall of the house. I found myself by a small window and couldn't believe my luck - it was not properly fastened! It turned out to be the window of a broom cupboard and had probably been overlooked for years. I crawled in, made my way to the cellar, left the note and departed by the same window. I was terrified the whole time. Nigel was very impressed. I refused to tell him how I got in, but said it had been slightly tricky even for a burglar of my talents, as the house was so securely locked up.
	The burglary boast did in fact have its roots in an earlier breaking and entering episode of a much more sinister nature. It's probably safe enough to admit to it now, over half a century later. A few months after I had left school in disgrace it became quite important to me to burn the place down. I crept out of the house in the small hours with paraffin, rags and matches and approached the school from the fields at the back. I was delighted to find that someone had obligingly left a ladder against an open upper window, and climbed in. Fortunately, I suddenly thought of the rabbits and mice waiting to be experimented on in the biology lab. I didn't know if fire would indeed be a worse death than the one intended for them, but I didn't want to be the murderer, so I left the materials behind unignited. I had to content myself with spending a couple of hours roaming the building, writing wonderfully obscene things about various masters on the blackboards of each master's own formroom. I would love to know how they reacted next morning. They probably didn't know what half the words meant. I also went into the bursar's office hoping to find money, but there was none in any of the drawers. For a long time afterwards I was disappointed that it had not been possible to fulfil my original plan for my old school.
In 2003 I was somewhat alarmed to learn that Diana's attention had been drawn to this website, but she graciously consented to allow this paragraph to remain intact.	Regardless of the success of the 'burglary' of Nigel's house, he still seemed to me to be reluctant to believe another of my boasts, the one about my prowess with girls, so I claimed that I could seduce his 15 year-old sister Diana. He laughed heartily at this, knowing it to be utterly impossible and, to my surprise, refused to help get me a date with her. However, I boldly asked her myself to spend an evening with me at the Two Brewers, scene of the earlier drinking bout with Nigel. It was Nigel's turn to be surprised this time, because she agreed! She was a highly intelligent girl with a bright friendly personality and a quick sense of humour, but obviously totally virginal and innocent. I had thought of the Two Brewers because of its proximity to Hadley Common and the woods. It seems that I had it in mind to try to turn fantastical boasts into reality. After some earnest conversation and a couple of drinks in the pub (where she was 3 years too young legally to be at all) I nervously suggested a stroll across the common, in the dark. She offered no resistance to this idea, nor even to sitting under a tree in a very secluded spot. Eventually, summoning up every ounce of courage, I put my arm round her and made a clumsy but prolonged attempt to kiss her. I wasn't quite sure how kissing worked, as this was the first time I'd tried it. I thought that either she would get very angry and demand to be taken home, or (less likely) would become madly passionate, giving me the big problem of having to guess how to proceed. However, she did neither of these things, just remained totally impassive, like a doll. This seemed almost surreal and it threw me completely. I lamely conducted her back to her house and said a resentful goodnight. In fact I was so puzzled by the outcome of my first attempt at seduction that I actually confessed to Nigel exactly what had happened, hoping for an explanation, but it was clear that he had already been told exactly what happened and wasn't inclined to discuss it further. It was to be a good few years yet before I could truthfully claim to have lost my virginity.