How disappointing Saturday night can be when nothing different happens; when you have looked forward to it all week, watching the school days drag by: so boring.
I don't know why we look forward to this night; we know so well that each time it will be exactly the same as last week; nothing new ever happens in this town.
There is not really much choice of things to do on a Saturday night, so we usually do the same thing every week.
Our usual Saturday night starts at about seven. We begin by meeting in that historic building, the Market Cross. This has stood at the top end of the High Street for centuries and has, I should imagine, always been the most popular meeting place. I think it probably is the favourite place for meeting because it is central and easy to find.
Usually Pip [Phillipa Slade] and I get to the Market Cross first, and if there is nobody there, we walk around town and come back again. Walking around town is very complicated; there are so many ways to get from the Cross back to the Cross. Generally we will walk down the High Street, around the Cross Hayes and down Oxford Street. But we can also walk down the High Street, around the Cross Hayes, and through a small alleyway by the chip shop and back up the High Street. There are many other equally delightful ways to walk around town.
When we get back to the Cross, we sit and wait for the rest of our crowd to arrive. The first is Brian [Law]; now there are three of us waiting. Now we hear the sound of a scooter – it's Hitch [Robert Hitchings]. We wait about ten minutes; we hear more scooters, round the corner come Dave [Kane?], Mike and Les. There are four scooters in the Cross, but there are more to come. They come. Another Mike and sometimes another Dave; but we won't see him this week – he's in hospital, a scooter accident. He says he never wants to see a scooter again. John comes. They are all here, six scooters; we discuss what to do tonight. Dave and John are going to Tetbury; they have got girlfriends there; that means four scooters left. What shall we do?
We can't think of anything new, so we all go to the Coffee Bar; we go down to the 'Dungeon'. Willie [Saunders] arrives; he is a folk singer; he sings us sad songs, makes us feel even more depressed than we did before. I sit and cry. He is singing the 'Ballad of Hollis Brown', a song about a man who shoots himself, his wife and his five children, because he cannot get a job and has no money to buy food. We leave the Coffee Bar at about ten and walk around town, we go down the 'Rec', swing on the swings. We ring doorbells, the boys climb up walls and walk along the top. Sometimes the stones are loose and they slip but don't fall. We feel happier now – it hasn't been such a bad night. Mike gives me a lift home.
Goodnight.
