Keeping the lads out of girls only space
1984
“Women only space was
absolutely unheard of, the lads would do everything to get in to the
Girls' night at the youth club, they set fire to the doors, they used to
break in, my self defence came in very handy, I was very good at
kicking behind me and stopping very close to their prick, so I would
back-kick but not actually get them in the groin, but as close as I
could, it’s hard to believe, we had to physically defend ourselves and
the girls, all the time. It was just standard, there were kids running
along the roof, they were chucking stuff in the windows, they would
wait for you when you left, Chris’s mini, they used to push round the
back, disconnect the battery, let the tyres down, we thought it was
normal in that it was a very radical new idea. One time this young man
came, he’d not only dressed up in drag but he’d shaved his legs! I
thought that just went beyond anything so I played along and let him in
and pretended that I thought he was a girl, took him into the office,
and we had a chat and just laughed about it. The Vice-Principal of
Adult Education had come along that night, saw this young man in drag
and decided there was a real problem with him psychologically, and he
would have to submit a report on him – he just wanted to get into the
girls' night! The lads used to run along the pitched roof, and this lad
used to run along the very top of it, so he was called ‘Squirrel’ and
this Vice-Principal guy wrote a letter to ‘Mr and Mrs Squirrel’!
Eventually we got to know these lads, and they said, ‘Will you run a
boys' night for us?’ Eventually a couple of the young black guys used to
ask us to walk them to the bus stop, because they were frightened of
being picked up by the police, I’d not experienced that kind of thing
round race before”.
Contributed by: Trisha McCabe, 51