The school council had a president who the pupils elected from the fifth year class (15 and 16-year olds). I stood for president, and so did Ian, who won. Ian was better looking than me, more gregarious, and more fun. I was smarter, but you can imagine how relevant that was. I was a bit jealous of Ian's success, which is perverse because I voted for him, and, I think, he made a better president than I would have done. All this was the inspiration for a sonnet I wrote some time later that isn't about the event, but works better if you think it is, for the first thirteen lines.
 
 
 

So Barry got elected president.

The whole school voted. I was left in dust.

My speeches may have been more pertinent,

But who can counter fourthform female lust?

He looked like Robert Redford at sixteen.

Oozed sexy charm like pimples squeezed ooze pus,

For spotty me the whole thing was obscene,

Of course, I didn't say, they'd missed the bus.

And here is something else that no-one knows:

I even put my cross beside his name!

A kind of sporting gesture I suppose,

And after all, what's life if not a game?

Now Barry's a car dealer, second hand, knows how to sell.

I'm Britain's youngest female judge, and I model for Chanel.

So far as I know, Ian's now leading a happy and successful life somewhere in England.

I wrote many poems and songs during the 1970s. Some were more sophisticated than the above, but most weren't. My speciality was sentimental picturesque stuff, pastiches of the Lake District poets,  which I rarely had the good taste to puncture with realism.