The Attack Of The Zombie Breasts

No-one ever came and took pictures of us when we got our "A" Levels. Apparently,only girls with long blonde hair get them now,which is a bit thick. It seems that private schools pimp their prettiest pupils shamelessly to the press, hounding them to come and take photographs of young ladies clutching each other. I knew there was a market for that sort of image, but had not expected to see it catered for in the "Telegraph".

Had any paparazzi arrived at Queen Mary  High School For Girls to immortalise my sixth form,they would have been chased off with a broom by the Science Mistress. MEN were not allowed anywhere near us. And with good reason. As those of you who may have attended an all-girl school will know,girls behave appallingly without the civilising influence of sensitive young chaps. I had (and still have most of),three close friends. We were dreadful. Not in the precociously sexy, blase, cool way that girls are awful now. We were St Trinian's girls, as in the original  Ronald Searle drawings; spindly-legged, inkstained , grubby hooligans. We got stuck climbing out of windows,and brought dogs into maths lessons.  Whenever I hear of someone fancying girls saucily dressed in school uniform, I have a mental picture of us, with our navy terylene pleated skirts rolled up at the waist, ink round our mouths from biro-chewing, and Clarks "Go-Girl" shoes. We would have permanently detumesced the hardiest pervert.  In fact, when a chap once showed us his tackle on the railway path on our walk home, we threw cinders at it and fell about laughing. The Sixth-Form Common Room was a joyless place,consisting  of a tiny kitchen, a kettle, and some sofas with those stretchy Bri-nylon covers in vile 70's lime green and ochre swirly patterns.We also had a record player in  there, upon which we played upsetting music. The nicer girls would gather, eating their Ski yoghurts ,and practicing dance moves on the linoleum. We practised our sarcasm and drew scurrilous cartoons on the walls. One day the Headmistress had a brainstorm,lifted the embargo, and invited a handpicked bunch of Boys from a neighbouring school.We were told that we had to "entertain" them. Was she mad? We were told to prepare a buffet supper and make tea.The Domestic Science room was given over to sandwich production. The maturer girls became giggly and speculative about our male guests. Poor souls, they were herded in from the minibus, on a wave of Blue Stratos and fear. No-one noticed our disappearance in all the kerfuffle, but we had managed to get to the offlicence for cider, and then popped home to the nearest house with parents out, to smoke weak cannabis in the free period designed for fannying about with napkins and scones. And we would have got away with it, too,if we hadn't come back to school, like idiots. Sharp looks greeted our arrival,and the DS teacher sniffed at us suspiciously, but no immediate action was taken.Then Lesley got "the munchies", and muttering "Scones scones scones mmmm ..come here you little buggers", hit the buffet. Her nose was soon covered in jam.The rest of us started cackling, and discovered that we couldn't stop. So we were suspended (again), and the poor lads from Alsop School had been given a vivid  but useful demonstration of the sort of  young ladies who were unsuitable marriage material.

A few years earlier,we had mostly been growing breasts. There was an outbreak of competitive measuring, exercises to firm the budding bust,which involved outflung arms, (and broken noses for anyone who stood in the way),and much rubbing in of dubious creams purchased from the back pages of magazines. I was horrified. I didn't want breasts because David Bowie didn't have breasts,and I wanted to be him. However, Mother Nature, the old cow, had decided that I was to be Jayne Mansfield. They stealthily crept up on me, like a thief in the night, and burst my Liberty Bodice. So I stopped eating, reasoning that they had to die if I didn't feed them. It  had worked with unwanted goldfish. But they seemed to have their own food supply, and carried on regardless, looking more prominent as the rest of me shrank around them.Faint and bad-tempered on a diet of tomato soup and crispbread, I conceded defeat. But I would not wear a bra. In this, I had the support (no pun intended) of my Mother. Sporty and lithe to the point of being frightening, she didn't wear one either."Wear a vest" she advised. So I did. And looked like a pornographic version of Albert Steptoe. The nice girls in my class were scandalised. They had been wearing 30AAA cup floral brassieres for ages. With matching briefs.

I have to mention here that I had mounted a similiar futile resistance campaign when my periods started. I stubbornly sat in the bath for a whole day and refused to get out. My Father made the huge error of asking "What In The Name Of God Is She Playing At ? ". Mum told him.He went several shades of red and slammed out to the British Legion, mumbling about living with madwomen.

I became acclimatised, eventually. It is difficult to acquire a whole new body part, when you think you already have the full kit. And of course, they are sixteen years younger than the rest of my body, which is a comfort, unless you take this to its logical conclusion and assume that when I pop off they will still have a good few years left,and refuse to die. Zombie breasts. All film rights reserved.