Four years ago, December 7 1984 and that time of the year, the school Christmas disco. The night that teenagers, with raging hormones looked forward to all year. Nothing at all to do with Christmas, this was the one night of the year where you could ask for Christmas snogs, otherwise known as kisses. Forget about the music and colored lights flashing from the school assembly stage, it was all about the snogging! Boy’s you had fancied for ages didn't stand a chance!
My friend, Bonnie and I had searched around Glasgow for the perfect outfits to wear for the last couple of weekends, and had found the ideal dresses in House of Fraser. Having saved my wages from my Saturday job in a shoe shop, five pounds for five hours, I was ready to spend. Bonnie, an only child, was spoiled rotten by her parents and had been given the money to buy an outfit.
Bonnie and I had been friends’ since primary school, having clicked straight away when we sat together in Mrs. Brownlee’s class. As we became teens we would sit in her bedroom listening to Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran for hours, talking about everything and nothing, experimenting with make-up and whispering about boys’. Bonnie always fantasized about kissing Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet, but it was John Taylor for me, and I just knew w would get married one day. I still needed to write and let him know.
By the time we were thirteen, we were “women” and had moved on from staring at guys in magazines and focused our attention on the older boy, a couple of houses down from Bonnie’s. We would sit on her garden wall for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of him. Waiting for Adonis to grace us with his presence. The definition of tall, dark and handsome, he was easily six feet tall, not joking, and had the best mullet this side of Edinburgh.
Whenever he came out of the house, Bonnie and I would let out a huge wolf whistle, jump down off the wall, and hide in her Mothers’ rhododendron bushes, giggling. Bonnie’s cocker spaniel, Brandy, was always in the bushes waiting for me, and I’ll tell you why!
Brandy loved to “hump” my leg every time I went to Bonnie’s house. Despite Bonnie’s Mother shouting, with a cigarette always hanging from her mouth,
“For fucks’ sake, Brandy, ye dirty wee fucker, stop it”, and swatting him with the rolled up newspaper, Brandy paid no attention. Bonnie, her parents and I always ended up watching “Coronation Street” with Brandy, attached to my leg, humping away!
On the night of the disco, Bonnie and I got ready at her house. There had been an air of excitement around the school for days, and we could hardly wait. The dresses we had bought were matching dresses, just in different colors. Trendy sweater dresses, mine was blue and black large horizontal stripes and Bonnie had gone for the red. I topped mine off with a grey trilby hat, just to take it up a notch, and as it was a little chilly outside Bonnie opted to accessorize with leg warmers.
“We’re looking awfy nice, tonight”, I said, Looking in the mirror, turning this way and that, just to check the outfit looked good from all angles.
Bonnie, smiled in agreement, “Oh Marnie, those boys are not gonna stand a chance with us looking like this”.
We put a little make-up on. Pinks and blues were our favorite colors, suiting both of our complexions well! Bonnie, unfortunately, wanted to try something different, something she could call her “evening look”, and applied blue, powder eye shadow on the inside rims of her eyes, thinking it would be like eyeliner. This caused her eyes to water for the rest of the evening, making them look like “piss holes in the snow”! With Bonnie, holding her eyes, crying “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck”, we threw on our tasseled loafers and were ready to go. Our Mums’ wouldn’t let us wear heels; saying they would ruin our “arches”.
We snuck out of the house, with her Mum shouting, “Put yer coats on, it’s freezing”, but we managed to make it out “coat free”, me holding Bonnie’s hand as she couldn’t really see properly. Her Mum was right it was bloody freezing, but that’s the price you pay for fashion!
