I was looking through a box of old papers the other day, and found my old school-issue termly calendars, which listed the names of everyone in the school, what sports matches were to be played and when, what films we would be shown on Saturday night (detention permitting) etc. This particular 8th March featured a Home hockey match (1st XI against HMS Fishguard), Home Cross-country (against Truro School and BRNC Dartmouth) ... and the Sixth Form Dance!

Oh, the annoyance of the annual dance! There were girls shipped in from some of the local girls' schools to partner the boys, but did they bother to ship in some likely talent for us? Not likely! We had to make do with the usual suspects we saw day in, day out for weeks on end. Of course all the 'lookers' of the boys were immediately snapped up by the alien hussies, and we were left with the spotty oiks. The ones whose Christian names you'd never got around to discovering. And of course attendance was compulsory - and so was dancing with the Herberts. Admittedly, some of them were pleasant enough lads to chat to on your way to and from classes, but that didn't mean you wanted to be clasped close to their easily-excited bodies as they wanted to smooch to "Albatross". The clattering of heels across the wooden floor of Big School as the notes of a slow-dance struck up was like a tropical rainstorm on a corrugated iron roof as we tried to escape to the sanctuary of the girls' lavatory. Where Matron was stationed to herd us out again.

Oh, the humiliation. It was a Catch-22 situation. The choice was between
a) Not dancing at all, being despised (by the boys) as a loser, and getting detention for being a killjoy, or
b) Dancing with people you didn't want to, being seen doing so by gorgeous-X, the boy you really fancied, who'd get the idea that you wanted to dance with Spotty-Y, so all your weeks of chatting him up were wasted, and by Spotty-Y thinking you fancied him and getting cross the next day when you didn't want to be his girlfriend so he'd go around telling lies about you to anyone who'd listen.

One day I'll tell you what fun could be had in detention.