For many of us, our Leavers week was the first introduction that we had to nightlife, partying and heavy alcohol consumption. Some of us remember it with fondness, others less so. There are also those of us who can’t remember it at all. For the young and young at heart, Leavers is indeed a kind of religious pilgrimage and a right of initiation. It separates the heavy weights from the light weights. Crowds of young people liberated from five years of repetition and conformity at high school, the sense of an open ended future where anything is possible, the beginning of all the pleasures and benefits of adulthood. “Free at last, free at last! Thank God I’m free at last!”
The other great advantage of Leavers week is due to the fact that it is one of the few functions you will ever attend that is wholly devoted to the pursuit of a great night out. In Perth, our Leavers pilgrimages are usually located on Rottnest Island off the coast of Fremantle, or in the south west countryside in Donsborough. Both areas are relatively isolated and subsequently there is little need to consider other people who may be around you. Adults tend to hibernate or migrate during Leavers. A minor police presence is only intended to prevent acts of violence and to bulwark drug peddlers and perverted adults prowling the area. The music is entirely catered to your generation, and the alcohol is light.
However, like so many things in life, the thing that makes Leavers a dream can also quickly turn it into a nightmare. The reason for this is the accumulation of large numbers of teenagers with absolutely no drinking experience hitting the bottle harder than any party animal would dare to. The hangover is the least that can result from this kind of behavior and it isn’t mere prudence that makes parents anxious at the thought of their young losing all self-restraint in this way.
By way of anecdote, I’ll give you two stories of people whom I know that suffered on their Leavers trip. One of them was a young man camping close to the beach with a crowd of friends. He accidentally tripped up onto a large, jagged rock and slashed open his right arm. Instead of bandaging and disinfecting the wound, the young man poured vodka over it to clean off the blood and resumed his night. He spent the rest of his week in hospital with an infection.
Another friend of mine had escaped into the bush with a young lady that he had befriended earlier in the night. Needless to say, they had become quite friendly in the intervening hours and the girl had decided to grace my friend by worshiping at his altar. Unfortunately, due to a large quantity of Smirnoff, the contents of her stomach were projectiled onto my friend’s scrotum, thighs and calves. Fried chicken and hot chips mixed in vodka and bile.
Please don’t read these anecdotes as a suggestion that I am opposed to or contemptuous of Leavers week. I wouldn’t prevent the above incidents from taking place if I had the chance. Firstly, because I think they’re funny. But more importantly, because I feel that a life without such tribulations and embarrassments is only a life half lived. One of the reasons, I suspect, that we’re attracted to the nightlife is not just because of friendships and the good times that it provides. But also because there is always an element of the dangerous and the unpredictable attached to it. Leavers is a better introduction than most to this experience, and all those who are embarking on it this coming November, I wish you the best of luck.
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