‘Am I keeping you awake, Mr Burton?’

I had just stifled a yawn, ‘No, sorry, sir,’ I said. The rest of the class stifled titters.

‘I know it’s the last day of term but you might at least try to pay attention.’ Mr Jensen hovered on the soles of his Hush Puppies for a second, before resuming his game attempts to stimulate interest in the finer points of Arthur Miller. I’m sure he was aware that none of us were concentrating.

Wearing my standard summer college garb of jeans and a half-unbuttoned striped shirt, I sat in that English Literature lesson and allowed my thoughts to wander to the pleasures of the coming holidays.

The girl in front of me wore a tight T-shirt that didn’t meet the top of her jeans. When she leaned forward on her desk I was treated to three inches of bare flesh that moved in and out a little with each breath. Where the line of her vertebra disappeared into her trousers a gap appeared. I wondered what would happen if I dropped my pencil down there. The day was another hot one; a ridge of high pressure settled over my underpants and I leaned back to enjoy the sensation.

Abbott Hallbrook had once been a grammar school but now served as a sixth form college, fed with pupils from the four comprehensives in the district. A collection of ancient and modern buildings were scattered around the campus. English Lit. lessons were conducted in one of those pre-fabricated timber structures that had bouncy floors and wooden steps up to the door. We were adjacent to the tennis courts and right on the edge of the playing field.

Tearing my attention from the seductive view in front, I glanced out of the window. I could see the groundsman, accompanied by a couple of press-ganged students, setting up the pitch for the afternoon’s cricket match, hammering the stumps into the hard ground. It had become a tradition that on the last day of summer term classes ended at midday and the afternoon was given over to a staff versus students game.

Jensen glanced up at the clock. ‘That’s enough for today,’ he said. Twelve bored sixth formers tensed a little and began plotting the quickest route to the door.

‘Now, I’m going to give you back your assignments  …  together with a little work to ensure that your minds don’t completely atrophy over the summer.’

A collective groan from the class greeted this as shoulders slumped once again.

‘Mr Burton.’ Jensen handed me my marked work together with a flimsy, purple-inked, copier sheet containing the new assignment. The smell of spirit still clung to the paper.

‘Much better this time, Mr Burton. Keep it up.’

Even after a year at Abbott Hallbrook, I wasn’t used to being called ‘Mister’. At school it had been ‘Burton’ or ‘boy’. Here they tried to treat us like adults but at seventeen I didn’t feel like a ‘Mister’. It always came as a shock to hear the word preceding my name.

The bell broke into its electric clamour as Jensen finished handing out the papers.

‘Don’t work too hard.’ He raised his voice above the ringing, as we gathered our belongings and began to troop out. ‘And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

This always made us smile, even though we’d heard it many times before; it was every teacher’s idea of a pre-holiday bon mot. I was an avid collector and recycler of jokes; I’d started at school, I suppose as a defence against bullying, and it had become a regular habit.

Blinking as I stepped out into the sunlight, I walked the few yards across to the oldest of the college buildings. Dark and brooding, it was built of stone, with flagged floors, and felt cool and calm as I entered. It had a long corridor with classrooms created by half-glazed, battleship grey, wooden partitions on either side, sunlight shafting through the dusty glass. At the centre the partitions had been removed to make an open area, which was filled with rows of grey steel lockers and smelled of disinfectant. Each locker had a black plastic handle encasing a numbered card. Some students had turned the card over and written a nickname in felt-tip. Between ‘Deggsy’ and ‘Kaz,’ mine was still ‘102’.

I was thirsty so pausing only to leave my bag in my locker, I continued on to the other end of the building. This brought me out into the quadrangle, a square of tarmac, open on one side, the other three enclosed by buildings but with an archway leading to a path by the old churchyard. Cars belonging to members of staff were parked around the sides of the square. Teacher’s cars: a Triumph Herald, a Fiat 128, an immaculate Hillman Hunter and a disreputable Wartburg.

The heat was searing here, bouncing back from the walls. I removed my shirt as I walked and hung it over my right shoulder. Stepping into the library building, I turned right and pushed open the heavy red door of the student common room.

As I stepped inside, the battered old record player gave voice to the strains of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, as it seemed it had every day for months. The fire exit door at the back stood open for extra ventilation, but even so the room carried a lingering smell of stale sweat.

On hot days most students chose to relax outside and, since the upper sixth had almost finished their exams, the room had only a dozen or so occupants. In one corner a couple were snogging, the boy’s hand probing inexpertly beneath the girl’s T-shirt. At the opposite end a game of strip poker was in its early stages and the odd shoe and belt had been discarded. A short queue had formed for the refreshment counter at the far side of the room. I picked my way between the furniture to join it behind Craig.

Craig was about three inches shorter than me. He too was shirtless and wore his jeans, with a wide studded belt, low on his hips to accentuate the length of his torso. This meant that his trouser crotch hung halfway down his thighs, which, combined with the swaggering walk he had, gave him a somewhat duck-like appearance.

Some people laughed at Craig but we had been friends on and off since junior school and I liked him. Like many childhood friendships, ours had grown out of hate; when someone starts an acquaintance by thumping you, it tends to prejudice your opinion. Within three months though, we were almost inseparable. I suppose the catalyst for our friendship was a mutual love of all things four-wheeled and petrol driven.

From there it was a short step to sharing confidences and dares and all the other things that boys do. On starting secondary school our friendship wavered a little, as we were in different forms. We had too much in common to stay apart for long though. Craig was Watson to my Holmes. I was Charlie Brown to his Snoopy. I also rather envied Craig his thick black hair and his ability to turn a deep even brown on the first day of summer, whilst I progressed through various shades of pink on my way to a tan. In some ways too I was sorry for him, as he lived with his mum and an older sister, his dad having run off with a dental nurse when Craig was eight.

‘Hiya, John. How you doing, mate?’ Craig greeted me.

‘All right,’ I replied. ‘You going to watch the cricket?’

‘Later maybe. It’ll be boring at the start.’ The queue edged forward.

‘Fancy a walk into town?’

‘Yeah, okay.’

We had reached the counter and each ordered a Coke. The drinks were dispensed from a big old-fashioned fridge and, this being closer to civilisation than the village, came in cans. They were cold and wet with condensation. Craig rolled his can across his bare chest as I handed over my money.

As we turned to leave the room a shout of mock horror went up from the poker players as Sweaty Johnstone removed one of his socks. The boy in the opposite corner looked up from his snogging to see what the excitement was about.

Out in the quadrangle the heat struck us once more. ‘I’ll just drop this shirt in my locker,’ I said, ‘catch you up.’

‘Living dangerously are we?’ Craig grinned.

We weren’t strictly allowed into town in what the headmaster called “a state of undress” but in this extraordinary year we’d often flouted the rule. I grinned back. ‘It’s the last day of term, nobody’s going to give a shit.’

‘Okay, I’ll sign us out. See you by the gate,’ Craig answered.

When I emerged from the old grammar school building again Craig was just coming out of the admin block. This was a modern two-storey building tagged on to the back of the assembly hall cum gym. There was a dog-eared daybook in the lobby in which students had to write their names before going off site.

He waited for me to catch up and we walked out through the gates together, turning left towards the market cross. As we started down the street, a group of fourth form girls from the local comprehensive were headed the other way; all short skirts and full blouses, they giggled as they passed.

I liked to think that they were lusting after our bronzed bodies but realised they were most likely laughing at Craig’s walk.

‘I’ll take the blonde one,’ he said after we’d passed.

‘Jail bait, my friend,’ I replied.

‘Are you saying you wouldn’t?’

I took a long gulp of Coke before replying. ‘It’d depend on how big her dad was.’

We both laughed at the joke.

The college was situated in a North Yorkshire market town, balanced between industrial Teesside and the open expanse of the National Park. I suppose we were in ‘Herriot Country’ but no one had told us so then. A short stroll took us to the crossroads, the old market cross at its centre reduced to the status of a roundabout. By then we had finished our drinks and thrown the cans in a bin; we were well-brought up lads at heart and never dropped litter.

It being market day, the stalls were set out on the cobbled sections either side of Churchgate, the traffic inching and fuming down the middle. We bought pasties from a fat bloke in a greasy caravan and ate them as we walked, wandering through the crowd and feeling the hot sun on our skin.

On reaching the end of the market, we crossed the road and started back down the other side.

‘I could do with another drink,’ said Craig.

‘Me too, but we can’t go in the Fox,’ I replied, sounding glum.

The Fox and Hounds, on the corner by the market cross, was where we did our underage drinking as the college staff frequented the Red Lion. The landlord of the Fox had a strict policy of not serving anyone not wearing a shirt.

‘We can with this man,’ Craig exclaimed, clapping a hand on the shoulder of Alan McLeish as he stepped out of Boots. Alan being a ginger-haired, pale-skinned Scot was wearing a black T-shirt. His flared jeans were artfully frayed over his heels to simulate wear.

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Alan, exaggerating his Scottish accent for our benefit. ‘Ye want tae take advantage of the fact that I dinae flaunt ma body in the street―’

‘Tae get ye tae fetch a wee roond at the Fox, aye, laddie!’ Craig finished the sentence in appalling mock Scots.

‘Well, as long as you’re buying,’ Alan replied.

I took a pound note from my pocket and held it under Alan’s nose. He sniffed it, like a dog sniffing a bone, then said, ‘Can I keep the change, mister?’

We laughed and quickened our pace towards the pub. The beer garden had a separate entrance from the street. It had those tables with cantilevered benches, the walls had trellis and hanging baskets, and the umbrellas advertised ‘Newcastle Exhibition’. If you sat near the back you couldn’t be seen by any staff who might be passing on Churchgate. The place was busy when we got there, but we managed to get a table as it was vacated by a group of office girls.

Craig and I sat down and I handed some cash to Alan.

‘What are you having?’ he asked.

‘Lager and slime,’ we replied, almost in unison.

‘I’ll no be long,’ he said, disappearing into the pub.

We drank lager and lime in those days not because we enjoyed it that much; rather because we thought it was ‘cool’ and, in my case at least, because I felt guilty drinking the beer on its own but didn’t want to look like a weed by ordering a shandy.

After a few minutes Alan returned with the drinks and set them down on the table. ‘Jeez, it’s like an oven in there,’ he said, sitting down on the bench and pulling off his T-shirt. Craig and I threw up our hands to shield our eyes.

‘My God, the glare!’

‘It’s dazzling! So white!’

‘Ye soft sods,’ muttered Alan. ‘If I get burnt it’ll be the fault of youse two for leading me astray.’

He unwrapped the industrial strength sunblock he’d been buying in Boots and applied it in liberal quantities to his shoulders. We sipped our drinks and talked about the things dearest to our seventeen-year-old hearts: cars, girls, music and sex.

I knew that one of these things wasn’t close to one of our hearts at all. But Craig didn’t, so I played along, as Alan lied and thought of Scotland.