I'd never been to Scholes before. There were three parts of town that my parents told me to stay away from, and of those three, Scholes was probably the worst. It was late 1984 and I was thirteen years old.
Word of a party had gotten round at school and it seemed everyone was going. Up until then, the only parties I'd attended involved passing parcels and blowing out candles. This party, we were informed, would be more about passing out and blowing off steam.
No one could confirm whose party this was, only that it was a girl in Scholes. No one could confirm where word of this party had come from, but the concensus was that anyone would be able to find the party by simply walking around the streets of Scholes that evening and listening out for the music. I began to get a bad feeling about this party and thoughts of not attending were beginning to form in my mind. 'Are you goin to the party tonight?' my mate Pigeon then asked me. 'Definitely pal..it sounds great' I replied without hesitation and that evening I found myself walking to Scholes with Pigeon and five other nervously excited teenagers.
None of us ever visited Scholes. There was no need to unless you were unfortunate enough to live there or had stolen a car. Police cars could not get through or around the estate very easily so footchases inevitably ended in escape into the maze of houses. The streets became known as rat runs and things are much the same or even worse today.
Our approach to Scholes took us through Wigan town centre where we got something to eat at this new fast food restaurant called McDonalds. Everyone was so excited about these burgers called 'Big Macs.' Up until then, eating food was something done at home with your mum and dad at the table. Kids were now eating out after they'd eaten at home. I only remember two fat kids at my school of over a thousand pupils. How things have changed.
Unsuitably refuelled, we began the ascent up Greenough Street to the strange and unknown world within the Scholes estate. As we turned down a narrow pathway I noticed how small the houses and their gardens were. The front gardens were nothing more than a piece of grass of a few square metres. The homes were two up two down dwellings which looked like they were thrown up in a few days. Dogshit littered a few of the gardens and there seemed to be more rubbish lying around than I was familiar with.
None of us had an address for this party so we would simply wander the streets until we happened upon it. Soon enough we came across a lad who one of my friends knew as 'Marshall.' He was a few years older than us and looked like he hadn't smiled in years. There was a tough, leathery quality about him. I thought maybe he'd been bashed about a bit in his time. My friend Pete asked him about the party and we were given an address just around the corner. Marshall had just left the party and would be returning with 'supplies'...whatever that meant.
As soon as Marshall was out of earshot my mate Pigeon said to me, 'Do you know him?' and before I could tell him I didn't, he continued on; 'He's hard as fuck him, he's a nutter...hardest lad in Wigan him...you don't wanna mess with him...' and so on. I didn't care and didn't understand why Pigeon did. I had no intention of fighting with him and thought I would probably never meet him again after that day. Pigeon was obsessed with stuff like that. He'd just taken up boxing to show everyone how tough he was. We called him Pigeon because he had a habit of puffing out his chest and raising himself onto his toes to appear taller. Standing face to face with him in a discussion one could observe him expand himself. None of us ever told him about it. We kept it to ourselves and mocked his antics when he wasn't around. As far as I know he never heard the name 'Pigeon'. He was just Dave when he was around.
Moments later we could hear drumbeats and then laughter. We turned a corner and it was obvious which house to aim for. Every light was on and the front door was open. A handful of older kids stood outside the door, holding beer cans and smoking cigarettes. I was surprised. If this was going on in my street there would be quite a few people out to stop it. Things were different around here. We approached the older kids who ignored us and I took a gulp as we entered the house.
We entered straight into the living room. There was no point saying anything. 'Two Tribes' was banging out from a ghetto blaster and around a dozen older teengers were jumping around in the living room. The fireplace was filled with beer cans and a smoking ashtray sat on top of the TV set with more beer cans. Squeezing through into the kitchen, we found another dozen or so teenagers standing around. The sound of a girl crying could be heard in the background. I was getting a bad feeling about this.
Just then Pigeon grabbed my shoulder from behind, he was excited again, 'Come and see this' he said as he laughed. I had no idea what to expect but I followed him. The intrigue was further heightened when he turned up the stairs. Pigeon led the way up as he laughed and said things to me at the same time. I couldn't hear him properly because of the music and I followed him into one of the bedrooms. It was a girls bedroom and there was no one in there. Everything looked normal and then Pigeon, still laughing, pulled back the bedsheets to reveal a large turd. My eyes widened and I was too shocked to laugh. 'Who's done that?' I asked. Still laughing he replied, 'Mickey Monroe.' My eyes widened again.
We knew Mickey Monroe from school. He was a couple of years older than us and was known as something of a madman. He enjoyed nothing more than attracting attention with a crazy stunt. 'Where is he?' I asked Pigeon. 'He's in the other bedroom' he replied.
Pigeon followed me down the landing to the other bedroom where we found Mickey Monroe standing looking through the window. 'Look at this' he said to me as we entered the room. I wondered over to him and looked through the window. Below the window was a small shed in the back garden. 'I think I can jump through the window, land on the shed and slide off into the yard' he said excitedly before backing away from the window. 'What's that smell?' I said to him. He turned to the bed as he said 'It'll be that bed...I've pissed in it,' and with that he zipped up his snorkel jacket and slid his hands inside its arms. I had been expecting him to open the window, stand on the ledge and jump down onto the shed roof....but this was Mickey Monroe!
Pigeon and I stood in the doorway as Mickey shouted 'CHOCKS AWAY' and ran at the closed window. He leaped into the air and began to curl himself into a ball as he smashed through the flimsy window frames. I couldn't believe this was happening and the sound of the breaking glass was deafening. That sound was then beaten by the sound of Mickey crashing through the small shed in the back garden. Pigeon and I ran downstairs to see what had become of Mickey and as we reached the kitchen we hit a crowd of noisy people who all wanted to see what had happened in the back garden.
The wave of people carried us into the garden where we found a girl screaming obscenities at Mickey, who was still inside the shed. Two lads were trying to wedge open the door which was padlocked. Moments later Mickey kicked the door open from the inside and emerged from the shed totally unscathed. The girl, who I assumed lived at the house, continued to hurl obscenities at Mickey but he just chuckled and disappeared into the house. At this point we began to hear that the police had been called so we got the hell out of there as fast as we could.
The street was full of kids and a few adults had now appeared on the scene. We managed to re-form our group and headed off down the street, away from this party, away from Scholes...and away from Mad Mickey Monroe.
As we turned a corner we saw a lad from the party running towards and past us. 'Cops are comin this way' he said. With that we followed back and made off into a maze of small streets. I noticed a few of my friends begin to take items from their pockets and drop them down a drain. Small china ornaments and the like. 'What are they doing?' I asked Pigeon. 'They've nicked stuff from the house so they're dumping it before the cops get here,' he informed me. I would later learn that a wave of theivery had broken out at the party and people began pocketing whatever they could get their hands on. We did hear sirens in the distance but we were well away before the police arrived.
That was my first real party and what an introduction. I'd only been there around ten or fifteen minutes and had seen enough to make sure that I never ever threw a party at my house. It turned out that the poor girl who threw the party didn't go to our school. She had invited a few of her friends over while her parents were away for the weekend. Word got around somehow and before she knew it she had lost control of the situation. She'd made a big mistake and probably paid for it when her parents got home.
Have a lovely day.
STEEMONKEY🐒
This is a comedyopenmic entry so I nominate @famar and @madava to smash an entry.