BBA & HBWC Administrator
Andrea Reece
30 Winton Avenue, London, N11 2AT
Tel: 0208 889 1292
Mob: 07807 893369
Email: branford.boase@gmail.com
Press Enquiries
Andrea Reece
Tel: 07807 893369 | Email: branford.boase@gmail.com
When I came down to visit Granny and Grandpa last, I was determined to experience a month of
the ‘southern experience’. You’d think visiting a city in Hertfordshire would mean beige-clad mums and their snobby talk of the ‘excellent trip to the south of France’ they took last weekend. However, you’d be mistaken.
I, too, believed chat of ‘cashmere sweaters’ and ‘Boris Johnson’ would pierce my ears at every local Waitrose. Didn’t we all think we’d see advertisements for ‘The Greenest Suburban Lawn Competition’ and an SUV parked in every garden ‘for school runs’?
Unfortunately, my dear friends, an impressionable teenage version of myself witnessed quite a different Hertfordshire. Granny’s house sat in a cul-de-sac lined with neatly clipped hedges and little ceramic frogs on windowsills. From the outside, it was a catalogue of suburban perfection. But I quickly discovered that lurking within this domestic dream was a different kind of wildlife – packs of kids, untamed, hoodie-clad, and permanently armed with energy drinks.
I was ready to trade in my beloved coloured pencils for the magical smoke sticks they all seemed to puff on, rebellious little monsters who’d go home to disapproving conservative parents. Ah, the south.
The burly kids who roamed in loud, giggling packs seemed the epitome of cool. Impetuously, my life’s mission was no longer academic excellence or artistic expression—it was to be accepted into one of these roaming gangs.
I especially admired one boy whose trousers displayed the effects of Newton’s work on gravity, sagging so low I got an unsolicited glimpse of his Spiderman underpants. It was a moment I’ll never forget, mostly because I’m still trying to.
Even though we were in a perfectly manicured, posh little town, these boys were committed to dressing like they’d just escaped a Top Boy film set in the grittier parts of Birmingham. And I respected that. Sort of.
At first, I watched from Granny’s front window, clutching my sketchbook, observing them like a pint-sized anthropologist. They spat with flair, shouted “bruv” in threatening tones that always dissolved into laughter, and performed scooter tricks off speed bumps. One day, I decided: I had to be part of it.
Operation Integration began with the theft of Grandpa’s old hoodie—a navy thing that smelled of cigars and marmalade. I paired it with my baggiest jeans (still sadly snug) and stomped down to the green where the gang gathered most afternoons.
Kyle (yes, Gravity Boy had a name) eyed me with suspicion.
“You lost, fam?” he asked.
I had practiced for this moment. “Nah, I live around here. Just chillin’. Man’s calm.”
It was, in hindsight, a terrible choice of words. Silence. Then laughter exploded around me like fireworks. Somehow, that was my in. It was funny. I was harmless. I was accepted.
The following weeks passed in a blur of awkward slang, stolen Sharpies, and desperate attempts to sag my jeans without them falling off. I never touched a smoke stick – Kyle once offered me one, but I panicked, mumbled something about asthma. He nodded, solemn. That somehow boosted my street reverence.
Eventually, summer ended. I went back to my school, my pencils, my neatly folded clothes. Granny would send photos—her garden, ducks in the canal, and sometimes Kyle and the boys stood awkwardly in a row. Kyle even waved in one. I never really belonged. But for one summer, I got a glimpse into a world both foreign and familiar – a world where Spiderman underwear, poor fashion decisions, and second-hand hoodies ruled.
And to this day, I still flinch when I see Spiderman on a lunchbox.