Track 6: Smells like teen spirit
If by 'teen' you mean young fogey
Welcome to track 6 of my mini memoir ‘Millionaire mixed tape’. Rewind to start at the beginning or skip to track 5 Sisters are doing it for themselves to catch up on last week.
‘Financial ruin’ sounds like something from Dickensian times. A single misstep and you’d be out of your job and out on your ear. The bailiffs would come for your belongings, your creditors would nab your home, and you’d be off to the debtor’s prison for a life of gruel and watching your teeth fall out. A few months later, you and your matted hair would be buried in an unmarked grave on a desolate marsh somewhere and that would be that.
But these days it’s not so quick.
In 2024, there were 7,598 bankruptcies in England and Wales1. That’s a lot of families in the debtor’s prison, but of course it’s not like this now. So what’s it like? I don’t know because I’ve made sure I’ll never be anywhere near a situation like that again. But from the safety of a corporate finance job, I used to have to regularly look up statistics like these and I’d wonder about all the people affected. What did they do once they were ‘declared bankrupt’? In what way were they all out there scrabbling about for help?
In the 90s being a bankrupt meant you couldn’t get credit for three years, which meant no bank accounts, no mortgage, no hiring a TV from Radio Rentals2 - you weren’t even to be trusted with light entertainment. But you still had your teeth and nice shoes, so outwardly, nothing had changed.
There were plus sides - you could get divorced for free, for example, which is what my parents did. Instead of being big news, this was just another piece of boring information, dropped into conversation in the kitchen while I was toasting a Pop Tart. I shrugged but was inwardly thinking “Well they could always get married again."
Divorce is tricky at any age, but at 18, when you’re toying with the idea of creating some sort of drama for yourself, you can’t really because no one's watching. Your parents have already zapped all the limelight. No matter. I wasn’t about to embark on any real shenanigans anyway. I was still at an all girls school, traipsing about in my floor-length skirts and Jane Eyre hair cut, oblivious to the fact that I was approaching the age where I could quite rightly be having the time of my life.
Actually, I felt like I was having the time of my life, because I was now able to eat my own food, manage my own money and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Hashtag bliss.
Star pupil
We moved to a rented house in yet another Hampshire town - there were still a few left where no one knew us - so we could start again, again. I’d get up at the crack of dawn to go to school, running past the bursar’s office hoping she wouldn’t catch me in the corridor asking for the fees (while trying not to trip up over my hippy skirt). I had another year to go until I completed my A-Levels so the finishing line was in sight. But it was unlikely I’d be kicked out. I was one of a small group of us left holding the school’s sixth form together - the rest having successfully fled for somewhere with boys to finish their studies. Without me, they’d have to rope in the handyman to play Malvolio in Twelfth Night, and he was too old for the part.
That didn’t mean I didn’t feel bad going there for free though. Shortly after I left, the school closed down, got demolished and the site turned into old peoples’ flats - I did manage to get them their first ever A in English however, which I hope was some consolation.
UB40
The really hard part was trying to keep faith in my dad, who was trying to get work. He’d managed to get a few shifts washing up in a nearby pub, but without qualifications, his options were limited. He also had an allergy to working for other people, which meant this particular job was very short lived.
What he did have still intact was artistic talent, creativity and determination. He just needed support with the distribution. Cue a long series of incredibly awkward turns around the town, with us both carting bits of wood painted in different ways in order to demonstrate that he could create whatever people seemed to be missing in their shop/restaurant/petrol station at that particular time.
Stencilled doors, patterned shelves and wooden boxes all featured. Wood was just one material. There would be many others. Strangely, no one was interested, but that didn’t stop him trying to punt these items onto people who were quite happy selling their Chinese imports.
Difficult times.
As the most publicly acceptable face of the family, I was the one to score the first proper job. A gift shop in the centre of town had just opened and was being run by two accountants who had a cold, numbers-first approach to operating a small business and were therefore very good at it. (Damn them!) It was a huge shop, and as well as a Saturday girl they needed a manager to help sell their birthday cards, pine tables and napkin rings. My mum was also on the dole at this point, so I got her in to see Captain Sensible and she passed the audition.
Despite this magnanimous gesture on my part, all was not well between my mum and I because I’d not forgiven her for escaping to A New Life. Cue the most strained behind-the-counter relationship since Arkwright and Granville in Open All Hours3. This tension created a dramatic contrast to the dried flower arrangements and Enya’s Shepherd Moons album, which played languidly in the background on repeat.
What I was excited about was university
Finally I’d be able to shake off these losers and start afresh. Sure I’d need money, but in fact I had plenty of that. I’d worked since I was 12, had a full student grant (another perk of bankrupt parents) but I was also slap bang in the middle of a transition period where maintenance grants were being phased out, student loans were being phased in and tuition fees were still to be introduced. Plus I’d been signing my dad’s dole cheques during the summer while he’d been away on a painting and decorating job. All that meant I was positively rolling in it by the time I left home. I was definitely the richest member of the family.
But while my bank balance was bursting at the seams, my life experience was extremely one sided. Yes I knew how to iron shirts perfectly and make my own bed, but this kind of thing wasn’t going to impress down at the student union. I had to pretend to be a lot less self-sufficient and a bit messier around the edges if I was going to fit in. I also needed to tick off a few key life experiences I was sorely lacking.
The play’s the thing
The closest I got to any kind of ‘awakening’ wasn’t at a party or even at a gig, but at the Theatre Royal Winchester for a week-day matinee performance of Hamlet would you believe. In a strangely bold move, the English teacher had taken us all along to see a live version of our set A-Level text. It wasn’t exactly Nirvana at Reading Festival, but to me it was just as vivid. Starring a young Alan Cumming as the Prince of Denmark, and Eleanor Bron as Gertrude, the intensity of the performances, the smell of incense, and the fact that the actors playing Ophelia and Hamlet were married in real life at the time, was all strangely overwhelming.
From my front row seat, I had an exceptionally good view of Alan Cumming dressed in black lycra shorts, his hairy legs on graphic display, his hair dripping in sweat. His performance was electric - I honestly felt as if he was acting to me alone, that there was no one else there, and that he could see inside my head. I imagine it felt similar to going to see Elvis for the first time, or the Beatles.
There’s a psychological theory about why these kinds of performances can affect teenage girls in the way they do. In this fascinating article a psychologist explains that in the case of Elvis: “He’s primitive man. His dress, his actions, the music he sings, all these are primitive. And they arouse primitive instincts.”
This is why they scream.
I didn’t scream at Alan Cumming. I didn’t even go backstage to ask for his autograph. But I definitely staggered out of that theatre more enlightened than when I went in.
Thank you so much for reading! And thank you for all the great comments last week. Please feel free to click the heart if you liked it - it helps others find it. Track 7 will be out next week.
In the meantime, let me know if you saw this production of Hamlet, or what your first significant gig was, which album played on repeat where you worked, or just which flavour Pop Tart is your favourite - I’d love to know!
Radio Rentals was a UK-based chain that rented out radios, televisions, and other entertainment equipment.
Open All Hours was a British TV sitcom shown in the late 70s and early 80s starring Ronnie Barker and David Jason.
I was never allowed Pop Tarts and it still rankles.
I don't want this series to end, Faith. It's so good.
I love that observation Faith, about not being able to create your own dramas as a teenager, because "Your parents have already zapped all the limelight." The sensible daughter, like Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous. You were so resilient.
Beautifully told.