An Essex Road Trip
A month or so after we returned home from our first holiday abroad, Jim and I were planning our next adventure. Somehow we’d kept in touch with the two girls we’d met at the Hotel Tahiti Playa.
This is late summer of 1995, well before mobile phones and email existed for the masses. It’s a time when you called people on their landlines or just arranged a time and place to meet up. I don’t remember sharing my number, so Jim must have given his number to them. Smooth.
We’d soon arranged for us to spend the weekend with them in Essex. There’d been a small snag beforehand when I told my parents of my plans for the trip and my dad said a flat ‘No’. It took Jim’s dad, John, to phone him (on the landline, of course) and talk him into it. Cheers John.
And so a little after 9am on a Saturday morning in September we set off on the 186 mile journey to South Woodham Ferrers. Jim was designated driver and borrowed his mum and dad’s tomato red L-Reg Vauxhall Astra. I’d yet to pass my driving test and took on the role of navigator, handling the printed TomTom directions from the RAC website. Exit M1 at Junction 31, continue on A57 for 17 miles and all that.
I don’t remember much about the journey to Essex other than listening to Green Day’s Dookie on repeat and being ridiculously nervous. We were quite nervous teenagers. And by ‘nervous’ I mean ‘pathetic’.
On the outskirts of South Woodham Ferrers we stopped for an emergency pint at The Railway pub to calm the increasingly jangly nerves. It went down well. We had another cheeky half and set off. We were so nervous that we both had to change our sweat-drenched t-shirts. Things were not looking good.
In our haste of leaving the pub we forget to have a final toilet stop and we’re both desperate. Jim pulls over into a lay-by and we climb over a wooden fence to have a piss behind some trees. As we jump back in the car a couple of girls are walking towards us a short distance ahead.
“That’s them!” says Jim, his voice squeaking with nerves.
“It can’t be, don’t be daft! We’re meeting them at their house.” I reply.
“It is! It’s them!” his voice going off the charts.
“Yep, shit, it is them!” This is it.
We unwind the windows and turn up Green Day.
“Hi. What were you doing in the bushes?” asks one of them.
“Well, it was either one of two things…” replies Jim.
It’s not a good start. I need to change my t-shirt again.
We drive the short distance to one of their houses in utter silence. Writing this 29 years on has made me shudder of the incredible awkwardness we were able to create at a young age.
We have to park a short walk away from one of their houses; there are a lot of cars on the drive and parked outside. We think nothing of it until we’re welcomed into the house. It’s full. Of people. Waiting to meet us. Aunties, uncles, grandmas, brothers, mums, dads all waiting patiently to meet The Two Lads From Sheffield. I imagine this is what it feels like when a footballer is unveiled at their new club. Maybe with less sweat.
I remember being introduced to an uncle and I think we handled the opening few minutes relatively well. We are seated and I am crammed into the right-hand end of the sofa. An uncle sits to my left and there’s a grandma sitting on a dining chair to my immediate right. She smiles at me kindly. I’m wearing cream coloured jeans and a cream t-shirt. The sofa is cream coloured, so is the carpet.
We’re offered drinks and I ask for a coffee. A steaming cup is soon handed to me. I’m feeling more calm and more comfortable with each passing minute. Jim has everyone in stitches as he shares stories from the holiday in Spain. He’s very good at sharing stories that make people laugh. Things are finally going well.
I’m sitting with my right leg crossed over my left knee and balancing the cup of hot coffee on my thigh. I take a sip of coffee but it’s hotter than the sun. My eyes water with pain and my hands are shaking so much that I spill steaming coffee all over my groin. A dark patch covers my cream jeans.
A deep sense of panic rises; the stain is beyond obvious. I make eye contact with Jim and point to my crotch and mouth ‘spillage’. Jim’s as supportive as ever, tears streaming down his cheeks as he mouths ‘dickhead’ back. I slow my breathing down and think through my options. Staying put isn’t an option; the wet patch over my penis is too obvious, people will spot it in a flash. Then I remember seeing a downstairs toilet when we came in. That must have a towel that I can dab myself dry with. I have a plan.
I steady my nerves and get ready to make a move for it. Uncrossing my legs, I stand up and put my right foot down on the floor. Where’s my foot gone? I can’t feel it touch the floor; my foot’s gone dead from it being crossed for so long. Things go in slow motion. I slump into a strange standing foetal position and people are starting to look at me concerned. I still can’t feel my foot. I lose my balance. I do a 180 degree spin and land heavily in the lap of the grandma sitting next to me, my arm draping round her neck. I can’t stand up.
“What are you doing?!” asks one of the dads’. I don’t think he’s too happy that I’m sitting on his mum.
“Spilt coffee. Bit wet. Dead foot.” I reply with a dry mouth.
The passing minutes feel like a year. All eyes are on me. I hobble across the room to the downstairs toilet and lock the door and stare at myself in the mirror. Silent eyes are burning into my back.
“Smooth.” whispers Jim as I pass him.
Those few minutes in that toilet are some of the longest in my life. The coffee stains never came out. I liked those jeans.
It’s the Sunday morning and we’re driving to Chessington World of Adventures for a day of fun and laughter and redemption. The four of us are all laughing about the previous day at my expense, but it’s all good. Spirits are high. We’re looking forward to a day at the theme park. This is pretty safe; rides to show our bravado, shoot-em-up games to win prizes and a chance to show our northern grit.
They choose the first ride. Twisting rollercoaster? Rapids? No. They pick a toddler’s carousel. We think they’re joking. They’re not. We’re still desperate to impress so squeeze into a pale blue tea cup, knees up to our chins. Confused parents look on, keeping close eyes on their kids.
Somehow, it’s gotten worse. My memory ends here. I think I’d given up. A few hours later and we’re on the drive back home howling with laughter at the state of the weekend. It’s all so typically us.
Jim dropped me off home and drove on up the hill, Basket Case blaring out of the open window of the Astra.
This wasn’t our first — or last — trip; Camping in the Lake District, Youth Hostelling in Castleton, a trip to Cleethorpes on a Friday night for something to do, a heavily hungover weekend in Great Yarmouth, a pub social to Scarborough, and summer holidays to Kos, Faliraki, and Lanzarote and more. Each worthy of their own story.
