Starting young

I had my first drink aged 12. 12! It was before a school social (not sure when we started to call them discos but they were socials in my day) at Intermediate School. I'm not sure why we wanted to drink. My parents certainly never drunk - except one glass of dry white cask wine with dinner - but I had older brothers and I guess I was aware that they drunk. I certainly had this desire to be "cool" - and somehow at the time that meant smoking and drinking - that's what the "cool" teenagers did that I saw hanging about the shops. Or at least that's what I must have thought. The Dad of one of my classmates owned a pub - so he (the classmate, not the Dad) nicked some alcohol. I have no idea what it was but it must have been mixed as I don't remember it being too disgusting. We met up behind the classroom and drank it. We weren't drunk as such, we certainly gave no obvious outward signs but I remember feeling full of confidence and cheeky enough to do things I wouldn't otherwise have had the guts to - like climbing over the gate (taller than me) to get out of the social and then walking back in through the main door right in front of the teachers. Unfortunately this first introduction was positive - it tasted ok, the night was fun and we didn't get into trouble.