Simon Marr, Simon Marr,
The boy who stole a Dinky Car,
He broke the mirror on an E-Type Jag,
Spat in a cap and smoked a fag.
Stole a torch, swore in class,
Ripped the trunks off a tourist’s arse,
Pinched the dinner-money off some kid,
These are the things that Simon did.

So went the ‘Simon Marr Song’. The ‘Ripping the Pants’ episode is worthy of some elaboration. During the summer, those bringing their own lunches to school could eat them on the banks of the nearby river in this popular tourist town. We could regularly be found ‘Watching- the-stunts-of-the-cunts-in-the-punts’ and occasionally posing with a tourist in our straw boaters for money (No, it WASN’T a public school this was just part of our uniform OK?).
In this pleasant area was a small paddling pool and one sunny lunchtime the school recidivist, Simon Marr, spotted a boy of about our own age (14-ish) standing on the edge of the pool wearing just his swimming trunks prior to a paddle.
Adopting a comedy ‘creeping’ motion he stole up on the unsuspecting lad.
We all expected him to push the boy in which would have been mildly amusing; instead, in one deft movement, he tore the trunks clean off the boy and ran off with the wreckage of them, leaving the stunned holidaymaker in the centre of a growing crowd of giggling girls and clucking women and yelling in a transatlantic whine, ‘Hey! You can’t do that!’ in direct contradiction to the evidence.
The police came to the school but in those halcyon days before surveillance cameras no one was identified.