Teenage Mutant Heroes…….

Boffins have just isolated and identified the detested acne gene. A bit late really. A bit late for all those self-conscious 16 year olds of the past with their pizza flan faces.

I always felt dead, dead sorry for the one kid in every class that suffered with the dreaded acne virus.

We were especially blessed with 2 such individuals. ‘Gobbo’ Jones was one – he had a face like a flock of angry volcanoes. (What is the collective noun for volcanoes?)

A relief map of the world’s vulcanicity was there for all to see on his boat. Stromboli, Etna, Vesuvius – and always, always an especially big growler on the end of his nose. We called that one ‘Krakatoa’ Every few weeks, great tectonic plates started to grind away below the surface of Gobbo’s ample, fleshy snozzer.

‘Krakatoa’ was brewing up again.
And then the great day came.
Eruption.
Spewing forth great gobs of Gobbo, swathes of bloody turmoil down the slopes of his angry, swollen proboscis.
Not a pretty sight.

The other guy in our class to suffer was a very quiet, studious middle class kid. His surname was ‘Hunt’ – so he was unfortunate twice over really. His acne was almost exclusively confined to his back. – A veritable oilfield.

McQueen, the school bully, invented a whole new sport. He would wait for Hunt to wear a newly laundered white shirt (which was every day - I told you, he was a posh kid!)

McQueen would creep up and slap Hunt as hard as he could on his white cotton shirted back.

Hunt went down, as if poleaxed. We watched with morbid fascination. As he’s struggling to his feet, a blood red & creamy hand print stigmata gradually seeps through his shirt.

It really did put me off strawberry and cream - forever….

Maybe it had a bit of an effect on this quiet lad – I met him years later, with plastic bag in hand. "Hi Dave, what you doing now then?" He reached into his plazzy bag and pulled out a load of revolutionary stuff …. "Trotskyist agitator" he replied.

A bit of a conversation killer, really.