Back to School

Over the land night is falling. It is falling over the dark central plain of Birmingham, the treeless hills of Wales, falling softly on the Manchester Ship Canal and, farther Northward, softly falling on the dark mutinous estates of Newcastle. And as it falls, the late summer evenings hang heavy with the threat of imminent endings. Children across the country are preparing themselves for a future pregnant with potential and possibility*. It’s Back to School time.

Although customers of certain supermarkets could be forgiven for thinking that the schools holidays finished about five weeks ago, because that’s when Asda started banging out their cheap school uniforms and unreliable stationery. And advertising these in massive signs greeting everyone at the entrance. Just to let any kid unfortunate enough to see them know that their freedom isn’t going to last forever, so don’t get carried away. You may feel footloose and fancy free now, children, but in five weeks, you’ll be back in the hard grind of dry academic routine. A bit like being given a picture of a tombstone when you’re twenty, just to let you know that it’s all going to come to massive grinding halt one day.

At least, that’s how I see it.

I must admit, I was decidedly ambivalent about the end of the summer of the holidays when I was younger. In July, that start of the six weeks holidays spread before me, a picnic blanket of opportunity, and I would have fizzy notions of a summer of fun, and love, and saxophone solos, a bit like an old Coke advert.

 In reality, what I’d mostly get was grey drizzle, a family argument in Blackpool and unfulfilled romances with girls I’d briefly met at Moss Side Swimming Pool, girls with names like Melody or Tracy.  Heady days.

The start of the fresh school year meant, for me, the chance to lose myself in learning, to re-invent myself anew to my classmates. The warm still evenings as summer began to dwindle still carried enough of that Coke advert atmosphere for post-school afternoons and evenings to have the buzz of frivolous youth. Admittedly, about two weeks in I’d be behind with most of my homework, my new pens would have all run out, and my new shiny haircut would be getting its familiar uncontrollable nylon-sheen curliness. But those first two weeks were a brave new world, a chance at a pivotal life-changing progression, a living dream.

It’s a reason I still love this time of the year.  The swan song of summer is starting, but Autumn is some way off yet.  The nostalgia of recent holidays and barbecues and beers is starting to solidify, and I feel like a new phase is about to Kick Out the Jams**. Tomorrow, I will get a haircut, and maybe even buy a new pen.

And this year, I won’t fall behind with my homework. I promise.

*Apart from the one’s who aren’t
**Motherfuckers