Clare Teal: Safety first as the children go partying with a vengeance

As I unscrewed the TV from the wall, any thoughts of a quiet night with friends went out of the window – but now at least the television wouldn't.

Before my eyes, a steady stream of stuff migrated from the kitchen to the safety of the lounge – knife block, coffee machine, food mixer, kettle, cut-glass decanter, cuddly toy. No big prizes for guessing what we were up to.

Not content with inflicting McDonald's and dodgy mortgages upon us, the Americans have now unleashed their secret weapon – The High School Prom.

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As far as I remember, before the late '90s nobody here had ever heard of a school prom let alone the dreaded "after" prom party.

Muddy and I were asked to help out at a friend's daughter's "do". We arrived at about 8.30pm and were immediately put to work "teenager-proofing" and decorating half the

house.

The other half was strictly out of bounds and would need to be guarded at all times by grown-ups.

We five assembled adults had a bet on how many children we thought would turn up. I naively suggested 15, but thought Muddy was pushing it at 47 – she wasn't.

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It was a Monday night. Muddy and I had been working most of the week and hadn't got to bed much before 2am since the previous Tuesday, so our body clocks were sort of prepared; being an "after" prom affair, the party didn't even start until midnight.

But nothing could have prepared me for some of the things that happened, none of which I could possibly share with you, dear reader. Let's just say I hadn't heard of most of them when I was 16. It was almost 5am by the time we got to bed.

I don't remember having any sort of party to commemorate finishing our GCSEs, but then I was a bit of a geek – maybe I just wasn't invited.

I do recall celebrating the results with my friend, Liz. We went to a pub in Skipton with my parents to hear my clarinet teacher John's jazz band, and sipped half a mild – as you can see, I've clearly always been "down with the kids".