The Way We Were: House of Fun, May 1982

Goran’s house was perfectly located, it was on the edge of the Old Court estate where half of us lived, and just a playing field away from the Fairview estate, where the rest of the gang lived, so whatever we were doing we would congregate there. 

It helped that his mum was teenage-boy-friendly, she would encourage the worst from us, sharing jokes and tales as if on equal terms, and feed us tea and biscuits.   

Goran’s house was near the park, so during summer days we would go there to play football, cricket, or American football, on wet winter days we would gather in Goran’s room and listen to music, Duran Duran, the Human League, Adam and the Ants and of course the best of them all, Madness; a fired-up post-punk, synth and ska-rich swathe of music, a different world soundscape from the 1970s prog-rock-unshock that had preceded it. 

It helped that Goran’s family was the first in our group to get a VHS player, aided by the opening of the town’s first video store, Steve’s Video.  It meant, for the first time in our lives, we had a choice of what to watch, any film we wanted was there to be hired, as long as Steve had it in stock, which did rather reduce the freedom somewhat. 

“Mum’s away this weekend,” Goran said one day in May, “And she’s left her Steve’s video card.” 

“So we having a movie day then?” I said.  

“No,” Goran said, “We’re having a ‘movie’ day,” he pronounced ‘movie’ with a pronounced wink. “Steve’s got an entire back wall of porn movies.” 

“You’ll never pass as 18,” I said. “None of us will.” 

“Well, Andy got a Confessions movie out the other week, that’s pretty good.” 

“It’s not quite the same thing,” I said. “And not particularly good. I don’t fancy a day of Robin Asquith movies.” 

However, Goran was undaunted, and arrangements were made.  Steve and Eric both managed to acquire packs of beer, Goran had found a bottle of Bacardi rum and my dad let me take a couple of bottles of stout from his cellar. Goran had also excelled in family-packs of crisps of all varieties. The only thing remaining to organise was the movies.  I joined Goran on his venture to Steve’s video. 

As predicted, Goran’s venture to the back shelf of the video was met with a negative stare from Steve, who shook his head sadly.  Undaunted, Goran headed to the comedy section. 

“I can’t see the Confessions movies,” he said.  “We scanned the shelves, but there was, indeed, a total absence of Robin Asquith movies.  

We changed our plans again.  It wasn’t going to be a porn day, after all, or even a soft-porn-comedy day. We just got the best movies we could find: The Secret Policeman’s Ball, Arthur and Young Frankenstein.  

We returned to group disappointment. 

“You should have reserved something,” Mark said. 

“I couldn’t reserve anything, the video card’s in my mum’s name,” said Goran,  

Plans amended, we sat down for a comedy movie marathon. We started with the Secret Policeman’s Ball, a collection of comedy sketches, and far too many 

About an hour in we’re reached Tom Robinson singing Glad to be Gay. 

“Can we fast forward this,” Andy said. 

“No,” said Goran, “It’s Tom Robinson, I like tom Robinson.” 

“It’s not comedy though, is it?”  

Andy squirmed in visible discomfort. I was baffled, Andy was the first boy in our year to get earrings, the first boy to get his hair permed, yet here he was visibly squeamish about a same-sex rallying cry. 

The song played on, never has a  three-minute pop song about sexual freedom lasted so long. 

Eventually it was too much for Andy. 

“I’m off,” he said, standing up and walking to the door. “This isn’t the day of movies I was promised. 

This was at least undeniable.   

However, sans Andy we continued our movie marathon.   

We finished the Secret Policeman’s Ball and had watched most of Arthur when we were interrupted by Andy’s brother, Brian, knocking on the door. 

It’s Andy,” he’s said, in a clear panic “He’s ta, he’s ta, he’s ta,” Brian had a stutter which became worse when he was nervous. It wasn’t just his stutter that was funny, when complete words did finally arrive, they did so in a high-pitched squeak completely alien to how Brian looked like he should sound. 

“Take your time,” said Goran. “Is Andy okay?” 

Brian shook his head. 

“Nno. He’s ta, he’s ta, he’s ta,”  

“Just breath deeply and say it slowly,” Goran said. 

The instructions panicked Brian furhter. He gasped a rapid deep breath, then blurted out “He’s ta, he’s ta, he’s ta, he’s ta,” like a thrash metal riff. 

“Write it down,” I said.  

There was a pen near the phone, but no paper in sight. There was only one option, the nearest single sleeve from the record player. 

The words ‘He’s taken pills’ now adorns an otherwise perfect first pressing of Madness’ House of Fun. 

“I’ll phone an ambulance,” Goran said. “Terrence, you go with Brian and see what you can do.” 

See what I can do. Yeah, thanks for that.  What can I do? I can do the Nutty dance at the sixth form disco, um and ah awkwardly around girls, sing along to every word of the Kings of the Wild Frontier LP, not sure any of those are going to help in this circumstance.  

I follow Brian into his house and up the stairs to Andy’s room. He is on the bed, passed out, mouth wide open with a pool of dribble seeping onto the bed.  Brian looks at me for guidance. 

I checked his pulse to see if he was still alive. “He’s still alive,” I said, “I’ve checked his pulse.” 

“Da Da Da,” Brian said.  I assume he wasn’t trying to sing the new release from Trio, but thankfully I didn’t have to go through the marathon of finding out exactly what he was trying to say, as at that moment there was a thump on the front door – the ambulance had arrived.  

Andy was rushed to hospital, where his stomach was pumped and his life was saved. 

Afterwards, the events were barely spoken of.  Life continued as before, with the same sound track. 

The mystery of the suicide attempt wasn’t solved until just over two years later, when Andy finally came out as gay, leaving town the same day to take up with a guy he’d met at catering college.  

I never found out what Brian made of it all.