WordSmith: The friends we have when we’re twelve
I was 12 when I read Stephen King’s 'The Shinning'; to this day he remains my favourite author. He’s known as a ‘Horror’ writer, yet I’ve always found warmth and heart in his stories. Like in his coming-of-age novella 'The Body', which became the film 'Stand by Me', widely considered one of the greatest films of all time. The film is narrated by an adult writer who reflects back on his boyhood friendships.
A chance meeting I had this Summer gave me cause to reflect on one such friendship.
My parent’s returned to Cavan from Manchester with myself, in the 70s. In school, I became conscious of my sound. All kids want to fit in; but my English accent wasn’t compatible with the Cavan brogue – I stood-out, audibly.
Sometimes, my sound engendered hostility, “British B*****D!” hissed the bully-boy, as he passed me in the corridor. His words didn’t hurt me; the hatred in his delivery, did. I stopped talking.
In English class, when asked to read a poem aloud, I refused with a silent-head-swivel. To my relief, the teacher asked another lad, who recited the poem with the requisite sing-songy-sound that sounded so right.
One day, a lad approached me, “Why don’t you talk?” he asked. I shrugged, “Cos I don’t want to.”
“You sound like the fellas on Coronation Street,” he said, with a smile that suggested this was a good thing.
“Is Manchester like it is on the telly?” he asked. His question unleashed something within me – I began to talk, and talk, and talk some more. We bonded over our difference. In time, we became firm friends; and more: He supported me when the hisser, hissed.
On a school trip to Dublin, we bought matching bucket hats. We thought we looked groovy, and partook of the obligatory Photo-Booth-Shoot, for posterity. I still have that tiny image, now digitised and future-proofed.
My friend left school in our third year. I missed him so much. But, he’d helped a wee English sounding lad assimilate into school in Ireland; I soon moved on and made new friends.
My friend got a job in a supermarket. By the time I’d completed my final exams; Art College in Dublin beckoned. As I approached my late teens, my old school friend became just another face in town.
Art College was filled with creative characters who intoxicated me – I revelled in them.
On a return weekend to Cavan, I noticed my friend wasn’t there. Nor was he there on my next visit. Nor the next.
All too soon, I was no longer there. With college completed, London beckoned.
And, in what feels like a blink, but was thirty-years – I was back in Cavan.
With age comes reflection. I wanted to meet my old friend again, to tell the man how much he’d helped my twelve-year-old self. But, all my social media searches drew a blank. Old school friends couldn’t remember him. When I asked around of his whereabouts, the usual response was, “I haven’t heard tell of him in years.”
Then the day came when I was told what I suspected but didn’t want to hear. Sadly, he’d passed away quite young. I mourned his passing with a silent, solitary walk around our old school.
Now, recently I attended a gig in County Meath. Pre-concert, I was introduced to a friend of a friend and we got chatting. We talked of my transition from London back to Cavan, and she said, “London’s mad, but me and the husband go over once a year, to see a show or two.”
I asked her where in Cavan she hailed from, and when she said the townland, my interest piqued – it was where my old friend was from. Wanting to know more of my dear deceased friend, I asked if she knew of him, or his family?
When I mentioned his name, her jaw dropped. But she was quick to pick it up, “It’s far from dead he is! He’s my uncle; he’s lived in London 40 years or more, it’s him we stay with when we go over to see the shows!”
I’m still reeling from the revelation my boyhood friend is risen.
In the final scene of the film ‘Stand by me,’ the writer writes, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”
I don’t know what my friend’s memory of our twelve-year-old selves will be? We’ll see.
But, thank goodness I can get to tell him how much he helped me.
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