Dob Dob Dob-Dab Dab Dab

Dob Dob Dob-Dab Dab Dab

This little ditty has been reworked so often, I’m sick of it! Still this version isn’t bad. It’s no masterpiece, but will have to do for the moment. It will change after it has been edited, but in the mean time…






Last of the Rhodesians:

Going Down in a Blaze of Glory.


Returning to the Boy Scouts association of Rhodesia, mainly the 8th Mount Pleasant Troop, after an absence of two years was a serious mistake. Father had made me leave when I was thirteen just as I was on the way to becoming the youngest recipient of the Advanced Scout award in the land and had already passed a few of the Chief Scouts award tests. (This had replaced the Queens Scout Award after good ‘ol Smithy threw the Queen out whilst creating his Rhodesian dream.)

I had just been promoted to assistant patrol leader when, under the pretence that my poor school results were the result of my obsession with scouting, I was forbidden to stay a member, thus delivering another damaging psychological blow and added to reasons of why I was rapidly despising my father.

Returning after a slight improvement in school results, (Due to the fact I had been dropped a stream at Allan Wilson and I would now be moved to Mount Pleasant co-ed as ‘punishment’ for wasting Fathers money at the Tech-High, had cheered me up no end!) was definitely a bad move. I had channelled my creative abilities into my passion for gymnastics at M.P. School and found the whole scouting thing a tad boring now. I would not stay long, but as you will see, whilst I hadn’t planned such an exit, therefore I would not ‘Be Prepared’; still did not deter me from leaving in a grandiose style. I was a true and worthy example of Lord Baden-Powell’s vision of the British Empires version of the Hitler Jugend.


***



The Annual General meeting of the (Whites only) 8th Mount Pleasant (Salisbury) Scout Troop. 1974.

It was under a perfect cloudless sky that Friday evening, the stars twinkling so bright, as the parents and visiting dignitaries parked their cars. We had the Cub Scouts there too! Splendidly attired in their freshly ironed (by the maid) uniforms, they guided the cars into the field above the Scout Hall on Morning Side drive, Mercedes to the front, old bangers at the back. Gosh; this was so exciting for us! Almost all the parents (except mine, Father was now dead and there was no way I would invite my step-mother) and the Chief Scout of Mashonaland province would attend. There would be marches and then the Rhodesian Flag would be unrolled. Prayers and then speeches and awards to top Scouts were to be presented. At the end, the Senior Scouts would serve ‘Cheese and Wine’ to all the adults. It was so cool, so simplistic in the joys of manly companionship, so; so
a load of shite!

My good ‘china’, James Deams, and I fucked off as soon as the parents started to arrive. I had set up my portable tape deck in the Quarter Master store behind the back of the hall, Mike Oldfield, ‘Tubular Bells’ blasting out to cover the din of the main hall echoing to the sounds of repetitions of the ‘Scouts Honour’ and boring speeches interspersed with squeaky voices of Cub Scouts rhythmically chanting their cult logo; ‘Dob Dob Dob and Dab Dab Dab, we too daft, to be bad !’

Sipping coke and casting a concernedly eye at the dodgy mains wiring to the cassette player, I had been telling James about my latest and greatest ‘puppies’ adventure.
Lounging across some folded green canvas tents, he prompted me on.

I told him about ‘vraaying’ Gill Grady off, behind Penny Clarke’s parent’s garage at a party two weekends past. I told him we got hitched after that night of passion. James was dead impressed. Asked what sporting activities had been involved, I informed him it had been like a chicken takeaway, I had some breast (rather a lot of it actually), some leg, but no box to put my bone in; besides I didn’t try it, it was the first night and I had been madly in puppy love, making me forty five minutes later than my step-moms imposed returning home time. I had also suffered terribly from lover’s nuts whose frenzied cure had made me half blind.


‘Yeah, but she dumped me after only three days and I heard she was snogging some other wanker at next Saturdays party. I suppose being banned from the next two weekends parties didn’t help.’ ( I had lied to protect my ego. I had actually received via one of her pals a ‘’Dear John’ note during break on Wednesday. That cured my eyesight, but left me deeply scarred emotionally - till I got off with the note giver at the next party!)

James agreed that my ban had been a bit harsh, but there were plenty more parties to come.

By this time I had noticed that the exposed cable ends of one of my twenty odd bits of well stretched extension cable were drawing dangerously close to each other. We suffered under British sponsored sanctions and had no insulation tape. Well; there was some local stuff available, but I wasn’t about to lash out money on unnecessary expenses. If the copper ends touched they would short circuit, maybe plunging the well packed scout hall into darkness, so mindful not to try and make myself unpopular, I grabbed the ones closest to touching and cleverly pulled them apart with my bare fingers.

‘Fuck me!’ I screamed, ‘that hurt,’ the 240 volts making my eyeballs almost jump out my head. Don’t think I try that stunt again. James laughed his head off.

Then we were both called inside to help serve the parents and dignitaries the Cheese snacks and home grown wine, being as we were the highly responsible Senior Scouts. The Cubs were sent outside to play and the other Boy Scouts would mingle around with their Mummies and Daddies and show them their patrol dens, some manky animal skins and dirty Plaster of Paris castings of a horse hoof.
I had always been curious about the effects of alcohol on the human brain and I had presumed that only weak-minded individuals got drunk. Standing behind the long table, I decided to test my theory on myself, since the booze was all free…

I served one for one!

One glass red wine for the adults, one glass red wine for me!
Yes Siree, I drank that stuff like there was no tomorrow.
Tasted like piss and vinegar! Who cared? The more I threw the shit down my throat, the better it tasted and the happier and cleverer I felt. So what’s the big deal, booze is cool if you can handle it? I could handle it. Nothing was happening, I was unique! I would grow up to be the man who never got drunk!

I was drinking as fast I could get the red battery acid out the demy-john bottles and poured gushingly into the small glasses, even though I now started to hear loud voices of whinging disgust from boringly dressed old hags, through the strange noises in my head. (A bit like that roaring sound you hear when you stick your ears in a large sea shell.)

‘A total disgrace, what kind of an example is this Boy Scout setting?’
‘Who is this disgraceful Youngman? This must whole heartedly be condemned!’ Etc etc,
‘Fuck em,’ I drunkenly thought, this was the dog’s bollocks, I could see everyone double now. This was definitely the life for me. I feared nothing, felt super human, beyond reproach…I was God, and my fifteen minutes of fame was here and now.

I drank till the glasses and plates of cheese sandwiches fell out my numb hands and I staggered, completely shit faced drunk, against some appreciative half pissed laughing adults, thoroughly enjoying this Boy Scouts self propelled booze cruise spiralling like a giant rag doll around the hall. Thank God, I had some allies among the growing, braying mob of disgusted protesters.

A couple of responsible Patrol Leaders managed to corner me as I crawled dizzyingly around looking for a place to have a slash, my bladder was bursting from the high speed processing of a couple of galleons of pure gut and brain rot. They inconsiderately threw me outside, just when I wanted to burst into the Boy Scout anthem using as many filthy words possible and left me to the tender mercy of the thoroughly bored Cubs.

THESE little BASTARDS, noticing that I was too incapacitated to defend myself, decided to use me as their latest adventure game and taking full advantage of my complete inability to comprehend what was happening to me, they dragged me (dozens of them, like swarming locusts) to the garden tap. Their twisted infantile minds made them hose me down and roll me with all my proficiency awards; hobbies, swimming, skipping, first aid, wanking, the rare diving badge, in the mud, and then they pushed me back, gyrating a serious wobbly, into the fully packed hall!

As I staggered, soaking wet (I might have pissed myself by now, not that I could notice), covered in sticky mud, playing ‘flipper’ and bouncing off the guests, there were more words of insults and some laughter that penetrated my now strangely loudly ringing ears. However, I was suffering serious problems with my eye sight but attempted to smile at all and sundry as I did a great impression of a drunken Charlie Chaplin walk back to the cheese and wine table. I needed a drink.

Sadly, before I could grab a bottle of the plonk by the neck, I was rudely escorted out again, beaten hard across the face, forced to walk around the hall and between rapidly leaving cars, in what appeared to be some strange ritual to sober me up. Unfortunately, because I was too pissed to ride my bicycle, I was driven home and the back stabbing swines woke my step-mom up. What a wonderful apparition I must have made, strung between two seriously annoyed Boy Scouts, my arms being held around their necks like we were true buddies, mumbling incoherently on buckling legs.

Even in the state I was in, I vaguely understood what she said and I will never forget her words of support, as I slouched, blind drunk, dripping water mixed with recycled red wine and dribbling uncontrollably from my mouth.

‘THANK GOD HIS FATHER ISN’T ALIVE TO SEE THIS!’

I silently thanked God too! The bastard would have flayed me! I was thrown violently on my bed, where I proceeded, still fully dressed, to be very, very sick, and nearly drowned in my own vomit, but I turned my body around till I lay in my own putrid stinking red cesspit, but still able to breathe! I WOULD LIVE…


The next day my step-mom made me clean it up, even from the walls, where somehow I had managed to spray carrots and red wine almost two feet higher than my bed on to two walls; without the maids help. (Cleaning up, not throwing up.)
I had a really bad bad headache.
The stench was appalling, I couldn’t think of anything that smelt quite as bad as I did.
My guts were killing me.
I felt like dying.
And,
to add insult to injury… I had to walk all the way from my house back to the Scout hall to pick up my bicycle, sick as a fucking dog, ALL 3 miles!
And,
I was told by the Scoutmaster, that I was an absolute disgrace
And,
I would not be allowed to take any more of my Chief Scout award tests, till I showed more responsibility or some bollocks like that!


And, I thought, Fuck this for a lark, I was now a real Rhodie man at last, so I resigned from Scouts to pursue a career of drinking and chasing women, this being my true destiny.