DJ Dave Ward

When I was 16 I had a brief flirtation with a girl from school at a house party (not my house). This girl was vivacious and popular. When trying to talk to her a few days later (thinking she was probably now smitten with me) she ignored me. I felt humiliated.

My last school year coincided with a very popular local late night radio show presented by a local DJ called Dave Ward. For a while everyone in my year at school seemed to listen to it and it was a regular topic of conversation in class. "Wardy" had a regular feature called "Under The Bed Clothes" where listeners could write in (this was 1983), profess their love for someone and ask Wardy to play a suitable song. Also at this time there was a lad in some of my classes who used to piss me of.. Let's call him Derek. At this point I have to confess I did something which I am not proud of, but I was 16 and very immature. I decided to write a letter to Wardy as if it had been written by Derek professing his love for the girl who had spurned me, including that he would be interested in getting "Under The Bed Clothes" with her. I posted the letter, then didn't think much more about it. Around a week later I tuned in as usual to Wardy's show and listened to it in bed. I always liked the Under The Bed Clothes feature so when it came on this night I was as attentive as ever.  He announced "tonight listeners we have a letter from Derek". I nearly fell out of bed!

My heart was pounding and my head was spinning. I thought "for the love of God what have I done?!"  He went on to read my letter word for word from start to finish. You were always supposed to end the letter with "I would like to cuddle" ,whoever your love interest was, to the song of your choice. However, I changed the word "cuddle" to "fondle" for a laugh and he even read that out! I wasn't even smart enough to change their names. What a complete dimwit.

Anyway, I didn't sleep very well that night and went to school the next day with some trepidation. Sure enough, dozens of people had heard it and were giving Derek all kinds of grief. He hadn't heard it and was bewildered. Overnight I had thought through how I could remedy the situation so I immediately put my emergency plan into place. I leapt to Derek's defence and told everyone it was me who had wrote the letter and I was very apologetic for any distress I had caused(or words to that effect). After the dust settled, Derek even started to see the humour in it but the girl never spoke to me again.

For the record I am really grown up and very mature now....