Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [40]
My event was the long jump and I won. I jumped 3.03 metres, but due to a mix-up the distance was recorded as 3.30 metres. I still would have won, but those extra 27 centimetres meant that I smashed the school record. In fact, I still hold the Arnold House School record for the Under-9 long jump due to this error. Twenty-five years that record has stood. The teachers and headmaster fully expected me to become a professional long jumper. But the time has come to reveal the truth. While I’m in such a confessional mood, I would like to add that I was also on anabolic steroids.
I was so pleased with my record-breaking jump that I rushed into the arms of my dad and then I rushed into the arms of my mum and then I rushed into the arms of my other dad and then I rushed into the arms of my other mum. Then came the surreal fathers’ race. It was agreed that both my dads would compete. This was fine by the school, who had encountered this situation before. In fact there were so many additional parents due to broken marriages, they had to run heats.
My dad took his place on the starting line alongside Steve and the other fathers. There was no starting gun, which was a relief because I’m sure at some stage one of my parents would have snatched it and opened fire on the other. Instead Mrs Orton was responsible for starting the race, ‘On your marks, get set, shoot!’ My dad got off to a bad start, an even worse middle and painfully slow end and finished in last place. Steve won the whole race. My dads had finished in first and last place.
As I celebrated Steve’s win, I didn’t think about my real dad’s feelings. I was too young. Maybe he saw the funny side. It can’t have been easy.
But little did I know that in just two more school sports days’ time, I would have FOUR dads in the fathers’ race (this isn’t true).
9
Girls make up half of the population. Girls are what most boys want. There comes a time when a boy’s entire life revolves around the pursuit of girls. There are girls reading this book: ‘Hi.’ I went to an all-boys school. This was a terrible idea. I learned nothing about girls; they were like alien creatures to me. I had such a late start getting to know the fairer sex that it definitely put me at a disadvantage.
I’m not just saying all schools should be mixed; I’d like to go beyond that. I think as soon as you’re born you should be shown a girl to begin your education. Then at school you should have to study each other’s gender as a subject. ‘What’s your timetable today, McIntyre?’
‘Maths, Geography and then double Girls.’
Also, in addition to French and English, you should be taught ‘French Girls’ and ‘English Girls’. In fact you may as well include ‘Latin Girls’; any information about any girl from history can be beneficial in unravelling the extraordinary complexities of females.
Girls, however, probably wouldn’t even need one entire lesson in ‘Boys’, the teacher rounding the lesson off with ‘… so if they’re grumpy, they’re probably hungry. OK, girls, we seem to have finished twenty minutes early. So you’re free to fiddle with your split ends until break-time.’
I began my phenomenally unsuccessful pursuit of the opposite sex when I was about twelve years old. Sitting outside the school gates on a wall, in her crimson uniform, clutching her violin, was twelve-year-old Lucy Protheroe. She was Christie Brinkley, Princess Leia, Wonderwoman and Princess Aura rolled into one. Lucy’s younger brother was at my school and every few days she would collect him and walk to their home just around the corner. From the moment I saw her, it was like a thunderbolt had hit me. The problem was that for her (to continue the analogy), there was no change in the weather conditions; maybe a slight breeze, but nothing more.
I was becoming more independent and had started to take the number 13 or 82 bus from Golders Green to school. These were the old-style London buses, the ones with a conductor and that you just jumped on and off. Nowadays if you miss the bus, the doors close, you curse and you wait for the next one. In those days,