By 
Year: 1996 Place: St Pat’s High School, Omagh
It was always a race at dinner time to be the first to the chip shop to avail of the burger special before the rest of the students arrived and you got stuck in a violent and hungry huddle.
The first obstacle was getting away from school without being spotted by any of the teachers. Leaving the school grounds was prohibited, so each day was like its own episode of ‘Escape From Alcatraz’ in itself.
Sometimes you made it. Sometimes you didn’t.
And for the lucky ones to have made it to freedom, the first port of call was the chip shop, where it was another battle royale in order to get fed.
The trick was to get there first, before the maddening crowd, to avoid the mayhem and pandemonium.
I’ve witnessed people lose teeth and get bloody noses in the daily scuffles that ensued.
I don’t think it was on anybody’s radar that we could behave in an orderly fashion and all get fed. Instead we lowered ourselves to animalistic tactics. This must be what it was like in the days of cavemen. Millions of years of evolution went out the window and we became barbarians.
I guess there was a certain logic to this Neanderthal behaviour: We only had a small window of time to order our food, scoff it down like brutes, and break back into school unnoticed before the bell rang. Timing was of the essence. The threat of getting your nose broken and going hungry was the risk you took each and every day. It was wrestlemania. But it was worth the risk. And when you were first there, it was like winning gold at the olympics.
Each day, myself, John Mullin, Paul Bann, and Micky Chesters made a dash to get there first – we even found a shortcut that got us there earlier than the mob. But there was always another similar group who we were competing with. Our nemesis. Each day it was either us or them.
They hated seeing us and we hated seeing them.
But never a word was spoken between us.
Just smug grins from the winners and disgruntled glances from the losers.
So one day, we devised a cunning plan. We waited until nobody else was around one day and approached the lady who worked there. Theresa, I believe, was her name. We told her of our daily battles in the ongoing dinner wars. She took pity on us, having witnessed Micky get a slap from one hungry thug the week prior. We proposed to her that she prepare four burger specials in advance the next day, so they would be ready for our arrival. Theresa agreed.
So the next day, as all the escapees sprinted passed us toward the chip shop, we meandered. We even took the long route. When we got there we witnessed our rivals, smugly grinning at us as they awaited their meals. They thought they’d won. But little did they know, Theresa was one of us.
The look of shock on their faces turned to disgust as she handed us our four specials ahead of the crowd, freshly prepared for our arrival.
It was worth all the turmoil that years of school flung at us for that one moment of victory. We felt like champions of the world. We took our burgers to Gallows Hill and dined like kings that day, and celebrated like vikings.
