I was clubbing at that time and about the same age as Mandy was then. There were a lot of us who were way be,ow legal age in the clubs then. Boys and girls, although more girls.
As I remember it, we were aware that Bill Wyman was a wrong ‘un mainly because he’d pursued it through to marriage. There were loads of older bloke younger girl couples then. My 13 year old sister dated a man of 27. My Dad knew about it, met him, he came to the house. I went on some of their dates as chaperone. Our even younger sister was clubbing with us when she was 12 and 13 and blokes would come on to her all the time. It only got weird and dangerous when she was invited to different clubs, like Annabelle’s, by blokes who had cars. That’s when I intervened and went in to fetch her out. She was furious and I got it in the neck from some of our mates for being a moany old git. I was still under age myself.
It feels to me like a very different world. But then, a lot of us were living away from home at 16, working and paying bills and that.
I‘m glad it’s changed. I’m not saying any of it was okay. And I struggle to explain why some of it seemed okay at the time while some of it was obviously wrong at the time. The thresholds have moved.
It’s not different times so much as different cultures.
As I remember it, in our circles anyway, so long as the dating was going on where we could see it we could keep each other safe, and intervene and advise/take the piss accordingly. Kids travelled in packs through that scene. Including going back to their place and sleeping in the chair while they got off with each other and so forth. No internet, no mobiles, slack parenting. (some of this led to sexual adventures that were fun, mutually consensual, and probably would take a lot more forethought these days)
And then there was a club in Mayfair, downstairs from a funk and soul club, where all the underage kids ended up together, it wasn’t cool enough for the older people. It was really fucking wild but lots of fun, lots of lifelong friendships came from there. The Face got wind of us and did a story about us and the following week all the top notch VIP clubbers turned up . Funny as fuck cos even though they were presumably in their 20s they all looked dead old and doddery and try-hard against our joyous youthful wild abandon. We‘d been going to ”their” clubs and getting in for free cos it was cool to have youngsters there, and then secretly we had our own club they never came to, just for ourselves.
fuck knows how they got away with all that underage drinking etc. Backhanding the cops maybe?
eta
Awr, this has really taken me back. Remembering the way we’d end up sleeping all in the same bed, several boys and girls all tangled up, top to tail or spooning, wrangling the skimpy blankets off of each other, mattrsss on the floor or on pallets you’d helped bring back from somewhere, piling coats on the bed cos it was so cold as the speed wears off, sometimes the sneaky fumbled sex going on and the polite ignoring of that, or if it got more energetic going into the other room (or, y’know…), getting the giggles when her head got stuck in the corner, flat Coke and B&H for breakfast, no more speed, poncing up the money for going out the next night.