I see many things at this time of year that take me back to the uncertainties of going off to university. This week it was an advert for condoms, which made a big deal of the range of sizes available. I was transported back to the autumn of 1986. I was 19 and, to my shame and embarrassment, somewhat sexually inexperienced. A second-year student had taken a shine to me and sexual intercourse, to my alarm, appeared imminent.
There was nothing for it: I was going to have to buy some condoms. I got the bus to Swiss Cottage, north London, where I walked into, and straight out of, Boots the chemist, too embarrassed for words. Pathetic, I know. I wandered back up the Finchley Road towards my college, almost working up the courage to go into each chemist. As the road is a main route out of London, I’ve relived this walk of shame many times.
Finally, I marched into the last chemist before college, and stammered to the lady what I was there for. They turned out to be behind the counter. With a look that I took to be one of disapproval, she knelt and opened a drawer.
“Large or small?” she asked, looking up. This threw me completely. “Large,” I said. To be clear, I’m not making any claims for myself here, but I wasn’t going to say “small”, was I? Even in an empty shop. But then she asked: “Large or extra-large?”
“All right then, extra-large,” I spluttered, starting to think it might be some kind of wind-up.
It was only as I walked out that it dawned on me the poor woman was referring to the size of the box, not to any part of my anatomy. I’d only gone and depleted my student grant buying a bumper box of 48 condoms. I wandered back to my room dazed, confused and even more apprehensive about everything than I was before I’d boarded the bus an hour earlier.