Roughley 1955

His name was Roughley and anything  could not have been further from the truth, to cliche round a phrase. His Christian name is a vague memory. Boys in boy's schools did not have the  luxury of Christian names except amongst close friends and then they were sometimes nicknames which were uncommonly adhesive and resonated  forty years on.

Roughley was roughly a year or two above me but no  more than a couple of inches taller. He was a fashionista if the fifties had fashionistas and had the sharpest school uniform in the upper school. He was the ultimate Teddy Boy or so it was reported by those who had seen him in mufti :full drape jacket and velvet collar.  In school he wore his uniform with dashing aplomb. His blue and red striped blazer of Venetian cloth had sharp creases down the sleeves,  worn a little short and showing a white cuff.  He must have had a white shirt every day with a cutaway collar sporting a Windsor knotted school tie, mid-blue with thin red and yellow stripes. His immaculate sixteen inch mid-grey worsted trousers had neat turnups and sported razor edged creases.

His coiffure, for that is what it was, far surpassed your regular haircut, an inward rolling wave that peaked at the front and a tighter than tight D.A. at the back. His cap occupied a dangerously jaunty angle towards the rear, only to be worn on the school premises. It usually had a place in the outside pocket of his satchel, where lesser creatures kept their pencil case.

His satchel was of the ancient heavy hide variety polished to a fine patina by more years than he had been able to bestow. A pre-war, handed down,  adolescent family heirloom, twin strap, worn-on-the-back model. The right hand strap he casually inched on his right shoulder. The longer single strap kind of satchel was reserved for members of the convent down the road.

He was a walking stereotype of fifties callow youth but for the pièce de résistance. He really did walk the walk. We never saw his legendary flourescent socks; a weekend reserve, but the shoes. Those shoes filled our expectancy for massive retribution from the powers above.  All along the polished parquet  floors the whishing shriek of those inch crepe soles announced his entrance. We waited breathless for the condemnation and ridicule and the stern instuction to leave immediately. It never came. The master disdainfully refused to acknowledge their existence.

Such was Roughley's  presence  he made his exit from the school with the appropriate panache. It was rumoured he had been slashing cinema seats and had been whisked away by his family, who were also rumoured to be part of the South Manchester mafia. Or he might just have left at fourteen to work in the family business. The scions of the ice cream families did and they were part of the South Manchester, North Cheshire mafia and liked you to know it.

Finally, contrary to expectation I never saw him chew gum.

JL Jan 15  14:46