School Disco

I am currently reading Michael McIntyre’s autobiography Life and Laughing. One chapter reminisces about his school discos. It got me thinking about my first school discos in the 1970s. 

School Disco

The school disco

A nervous affair

The night to be cool

To try not to be a fool

Dressed in the latest fashion

Oxford bags with massive waistbands

The more buttons the better

Acrophobia inducing

Platform soled shoes 

Carefully concentrating on not cockling over

Jumbo collared shirts 

In technicolour prints

Checking the breath

Chewing a couple of mints

The popular kids arrived

Busting a confident stride

Straight up to the bar

To buy a bottle of pop

The rest nervously shuffled in

Gathering like cattle and sheep

In the unwelcoming gym. 

All echoey and vast

Music loud a deafening blast

From the hired DJ kit

Hypnotic headache inducing

Flashing lights lit up the room

Wafts of Brut and cheap perfume 

Girls in one corner

Boys in the other

Peering tentatively 

In each other’s direction

Still huddled together

For their own protection

Song after song 

Played to an empty floor

Not even Dancing Queen

Or Devilgate Drive

Could get anyone 

To rock or jive

Mates would dare you

To have a smooch 

To the slow one

With Mary or Maria

We couldn’t move

There was an innate fear

Of being rejected

Of not being selected

For that first awkward dance

A cool kid called Lance

Showed how it was done

With sway and swagger

He moved in on the 

Beautiful girl with the bun

They danced in the centre

Like no one was watching

But kid me not

We were all watching

Watching jealously 

All wishing it was me!