You actually went out hunting? Wow - that's a new level of dedication. Half the buzz is stumbling upon a bag. You shouldn't be looking though bins until your 20s and that's for food not porn. (NOTE: You left the comment twice so I deleted one)
Oh how closely I relate to this! It seems apparent that I'm probably about 3 years your elder and I recognise so easily the time and the environment in which you've painted your picture, very lividly and colourfully too, it must be said. I remember that for the most part we used to stumble upon not a bag nor even an entire magazine, rather, we stumbled upon individual pages. Sometimes two or three in a cluster, sometimes only a partial single page. Just occasionally, though, we hit paydirt and found "The bag"!! Once, we found it in an abandoned outbuilding at our then somewhat tired looking and dilapidated railway station. But the woods, oh God the woods, could be and often were a veritable treasure trove for boys of 12-14. Not exclusively for porn by any means, finding a dumping of someone's unneeded materials from a house renovation, for example, would mean that we would build ourselves a cosy and well hidden little HQ from which to plan all our exploration activities. Until, of course, the inevitable happened and it was found and razed to the ground, we never knew who by, The Forestry commission? Another group similar to ours for whom a "It's not ours so we'll destroy it" attitude prevailed? We never knew. It didn't matter for long though, we soon got over it and moved on. Funny, I'm sitting here writing this and I'm not thinking about "The bag" anymore, I'm remembering the days when the entire world was before us, when our minds were razor sharp and our ingenuity keen with seemingly bottomless creative solutions to almost anything, physical or intellectual. It's nice to take a look in the rearview and smile at the happy days gone by. It's just sad to realise that the rearview is the only place in which happy days now exist, but that's another story and not one that's universal to all. Thanks for the memory jogging, Chris!
Hello Michael, thanks for reading and for your detailed and thoughtful comment. I'm not sure if the good times are only in the rearview mirror, perhaps it's just because they've passed, there's no surprise so they're all wrapped up and their consequences somewhat understood. The future may hold great times, but the level of mystery and lack of control clings to them like the sweat of fear. Maybe. Thanks again.
It's a beautiful image for the start of a story, perhaps with a boy, not necessarily a BF, just a friend, negotiating another of life's bizarre milestones together in almost complete silence. Than you for reading.
Amazingly funny story which I can identify with..it had me laughing out loud. Thanks for the joy man..looking forward to reading other stories on your substack!
Hello Mr Rok - that's made my day, I'm pretty sick right now, but reading your review is a real bonus. Thanks for reading, and especially for leaving a comment. Best wishes.
When I was a kid (70s and 80s) it was always a single mag by the roadside, which you would find while you were biking with your mates, just out of town. Usually in half-decent condition!
That's a new one on me. I've done plenty of hitch-hiking in my time and never found porn. Plenty of shoes (just the one though, never a pair) but no roadside porn. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment, it's much appreciated.
Will do Mr Dangerfield I was late to the party on YT but found you during Lockdown miss ur streams got me through working from home. Can't wait for your next piece. Take care
Well it's just hit midnight here and I've finished working and made a curry. So I'm going to eat that and get on with it, hopefully finishing it. But I don't pay for an editor for these stories so I doubt I'll publish it tonight as I can't give it a proof read when I'm half asleep. But it will be tempting....
Absolutely spot on, there were 5 mags in the carrier we found, and that was in the '70's so it got added to as it made it's way round the country, great writing mate, thoroughly enjoyed that, certainly brought some fond memories back, thank you
Nice one Dave, thanks for reading. There's the one about rehabs (if you haven't seen it - in two parts due to length) that you might enjoy. I really like the idea of just the one bag moving around the country. Might be a short story there somewhere, certainly along that theme.
Great memories! Chancing upon such a stash, my school friend Marc Turnham was shocked and dismayed to discover that ladies had what he called “red bits”.
I think (age dependent) there was a level of shock (and perhaps dismay?) from all of us, but it was somewhat drowned out by a much higher level of something far more enjoyable. Thank you for reading.
Oh yes - who could forget those strange and pleasant feelings? An urge; a desire; an unfulfilled yearning not yet understood.
Aged 12 I chanced upon a most impressive stash in some undergrowth in a playing field whilst searching for my “Aerobie”. Given the quantity (and quality) of the material, I hatched a plan to get the mags back home to peruse at my leisure. Taking advantage of the fact that my parents walked the dogs in said playing field every Saturday afternoon, I elected to join them the following week, bringing with me my Adidas sports bag. Making some flimsy excuse to stay in the car while they walked the dogs, I nipped out when the coast was clear, stuffed the mags into my sports bag, and dashed back to the car with my “hoard”.
The plan succeeded, but to this day I wonder if my parents, seeing the bulging sports bag, suspected anything at the time?
Hi Ciarán, you never experienced this? That does surprise me. Unless you grew up in some ultra rural area with six houses spread over 20 square miles of land, ten you're let off. Thank you for reading.
Might be a generational thing. Us of the younger crowd are more in the realm of, “Lee’s got a laptop for his birthday and his parents are out, we’re gonna try and find some porn on the internet!” Cut to later on and there’s six lads huddled around this laptop scrolling through the Home page on some weird porn site, ‘cause Lee was scared to type ‘porn’ in case his parents checked his history. So we ended up following pop up ads on forums and streaming sites until eventually we came to some backwoods porn site and just started clicking on everything and freaking out over some German tart’s laboured cries of pleasure. Course little did Lee know that now there was a list of dodgy shit in his search history all leading to a foreign porn site full of the continental variety. Then we’d get bored and go outside, but the damage was done.
Only once did we find a bag full of magazines. But we went on monthly huntparties in the paperbins.
You actually went out hunting? Wow - that's a new level of dedication. Half the buzz is stumbling upon a bag. You shouldn't be looking though bins until your 20s and that's for food not porn. (NOTE: You left the comment twice so I deleted one)
Hahah you’re right. we were 11 or 12, strictly paperbins, we knew who had subscriptions so it was kind of a hustle. Trading them after school.
Just remembered we had a bloke who would try and sell them. I think he got rumbled and his locker searched "Oh, how did they get there?"
In later years, did anyone ever get a Chinese guy going around pubs, selling pirate DVDs?
I was in a pub with a mate and so was my brother, sat at another table with his mate and a Chinese DVD seller entered.
My brother's mate asked the Chinese bloke if he had any porn. Me and my brother exchanged an amused glance.
There was like a Chinese DVD seller invasion, never thought they sold porn though.
Yeah, this one had the lot, in TWO carrier bags.
Oh how closely I relate to this! It seems apparent that I'm probably about 3 years your elder and I recognise so easily the time and the environment in which you've painted your picture, very lividly and colourfully too, it must be said. I remember that for the most part we used to stumble upon not a bag nor even an entire magazine, rather, we stumbled upon individual pages. Sometimes two or three in a cluster, sometimes only a partial single page. Just occasionally, though, we hit paydirt and found "The bag"!! Once, we found it in an abandoned outbuilding at our then somewhat tired looking and dilapidated railway station. But the woods, oh God the woods, could be and often were a veritable treasure trove for boys of 12-14. Not exclusively for porn by any means, finding a dumping of someone's unneeded materials from a house renovation, for example, would mean that we would build ourselves a cosy and well hidden little HQ from which to plan all our exploration activities. Until, of course, the inevitable happened and it was found and razed to the ground, we never knew who by, The Forestry commission? Another group similar to ours for whom a "It's not ours so we'll destroy it" attitude prevailed? We never knew. It didn't matter for long though, we soon got over it and moved on. Funny, I'm sitting here writing this and I'm not thinking about "The bag" anymore, I'm remembering the days when the entire world was before us, when our minds were razor sharp and our ingenuity keen with seemingly bottomless creative solutions to almost anything, physical or intellectual. It's nice to take a look in the rearview and smile at the happy days gone by. It's just sad to realise that the rearview is the only place in which happy days now exist, but that's another story and not one that's universal to all. Thanks for the memory jogging, Chris!
Hello Michael, thanks for reading and for your detailed and thoughtful comment. I'm not sure if the good times are only in the rearview mirror, perhaps it's just because they've passed, there's no surprise so they're all wrapped up and their consequences somewhat understood. The future may hold great times, but the level of mystery and lack of control clings to them like the sweat of fear. Maybe. Thanks again.
Excellent Chris, Great story, I was there hiding in the bushes with you! Found my dads stash, I was a 12 yr old girl! What a great summer......x
It's a beautiful image for the start of a story, perhaps with a boy, not necessarily a BF, just a friend, negotiating another of life's bizarre milestones together in almost complete silence. Than you for reading.
I remember those days well 🙂
It's one of those secret histories we all know about. Thanks for reading.
Meow for the win..
Well said..
Nice one, Jake - thanks for reading.
Amazingly funny story which I can identify with..it had me laughing out loud. Thanks for the joy man..looking forward to reading other stories on your substack!
Hello Mr Rok - that's made my day, I'm pretty sick right now, but reading your review is a real bonus. Thanks for reading, and especially for leaving a comment. Best wishes.
When I was a kid (70s and 80s) it was always a single mag by the roadside, which you would find while you were biking with your mates, just out of town. Usually in half-decent condition!
That's a new one on me. I've done plenty of hitch-hiking in my time and never found porn. Plenty of shoes (just the one though, never a pair) but no roadside porn. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment, it's much appreciated.
I remember seeing my first ones in the bushes and looking at the lady bushes therein. Even then I thought to myself: "eew, what is that thing?"
We had blatant gays spend hours perusing, I just assumed they were looking at penoir. I hope so anyway, a damn unpleasant day otherwise.
Christ that was long winded. Bukowski could have conveyed the same story with more mean in 3 sentences. This is pound shop Russell Brand stuff.
Thanks for reading it.
Hilarious
Thank you, Sarah, and thanks for reading it. Share it with your friends, dance a can-can, whatever you want after that.
Will do Mr Dangerfield I was late to the party on YT but found you during Lockdown miss ur streams got me through working from home. Can't wait for your next piece. Take care
Well it's just hit midnight here and I've finished working and made a curry. So I'm going to eat that and get on with it, hopefully finishing it. But I don't pay for an editor for these stories so I doubt I'll publish it tonight as I can't give it a proof read when I'm half asleep. But it will be tempting....
We called them the porn fairies back in the day not understanding the other connotation within such a reference. Good work Sir,...
How sweet. Be nice to wake up as an 11 year old with a clean, fresh one under your pillow. Thanks for reading.
Absolutely spot on, there were 5 mags in the carrier we found, and that was in the '70's so it got added to as it made it's way round the country, great writing mate, thoroughly enjoyed that, certainly brought some fond memories back, thank you
Nice one Dave, thanks for reading. There's the one about rehabs (if you haven't seen it - in two parts due to length) that you might enjoy. I really like the idea of just the one bag moving around the country. Might be a short story there somewhere, certainly along that theme.
Great writing Chris, I was laughing all the way through.
Nice one, Lizzy - that's what I like to hear. Thanks for reading.
Great memories! Chancing upon such a stash, my school friend Marc Turnham was shocked and dismayed to discover that ladies had what he called “red bits”.
I think (age dependent) there was a level of shock (and perhaps dismay?) from all of us, but it was somewhat drowned out by a much higher level of something far more enjoyable. Thank you for reading.
Oh yes - who could forget those strange and pleasant feelings? An urge; a desire; an unfulfilled yearning not yet understood.
Aged 12 I chanced upon a most impressive stash in some undergrowth in a playing field whilst searching for my “Aerobie”. Given the quantity (and quality) of the material, I hatched a plan to get the mags back home to peruse at my leisure. Taking advantage of the fact that my parents walked the dogs in said playing field every Saturday afternoon, I elected to join them the following week, bringing with me my Adidas sports bag. Making some flimsy excuse to stay in the car while they walked the dogs, I nipped out when the coast was clear, stuffed the mags into my sports bag, and dashed back to the car with my “hoard”.
The plan succeeded, but to this day I wonder if my parents, seeing the bulging sports bag, suspected anything at the time?
OH - MY - GOSH - you went back and claimed them. I hope you put them back when you were 'finished? Thanks for reading it.
All we ever found was a bag of dismembered fish. I’ve had a thing for mermaids ever since.
Hi Ciarán, you never experienced this? That does surprise me. Unless you grew up in some ultra rural area with six houses spread over 20 square miles of land, ten you're let off. Thank you for reading.
Might be a generational thing. Us of the younger crowd are more in the realm of, “Lee’s got a laptop for his birthday and his parents are out, we’re gonna try and find some porn on the internet!” Cut to later on and there’s six lads huddled around this laptop scrolling through the Home page on some weird porn site, ‘cause Lee was scared to type ‘porn’ in case his parents checked his history. So we ended up following pop up ads on forums and streaming sites until eventually we came to some backwoods porn site and just started clicking on everything and freaking out over some German tart’s laboured cries of pleasure. Course little did Lee know that now there was a list of dodgy shit in his search history all leading to a foreign porn site full of the continental variety. Then we’d get bored and go outside, but the damage was done.
Hahahaha, technology is a grass.
Thanks for reading.