Philippa Fleming Activist

My first brush with Cannabis was when I was 19 & working at The Pheasant Pub, Brickhill, Bedford. We went to a friends house after myself and my friend (let’s call them Exhibit A) finished working for the evening. There were about 10 of us at this house party. Exhibit A was stood at the breakfast bar in the kitchen rolling spliffs (all evening) as no one else knew how to. We were passing them round, drinking & chatting and getting very high.

Now things back then (thirty ish years ago) there was no such thing as a strain as such just the type of solid you could get which was usually Black, Rocky, Red Seal or SoapBar. The usual way to build a spliff was to get some rolling papers, stick them together to make a bigger sized paper, make a roach from the card from the papers pack, burn the solid cannabis to break into smaller pieces (in the hopes there wouldn’t be many hot rocks) and place all along the Paper, add tobacco to the mix and then roll up like a cigarette.

The evening progressed, there were 2 lads on the motorbike in the back garden looking like they were having a great time and looking like they were trying to fly. Everyone else (except exhibit A and myself) were sitting watching television. I found this all very fascinating but I was finding the boys playing with the bike increasingly funny and thought I was going to lose it.

I thought I needed to settle myself a little so I went to sit in the kitchen/dining room to try to stop myself from descending into the giggles as I was coming very close and didn’t realise at the time that, that was the goal with cannabis.

Suffice to say it didn’t work Exhibit A was still in the kitchen rolling spliffs when we were already very high. I just took one look at them and burst out laughing which went on for what seemed like forever but probably lasted about 20-30 minutes. I remember thinking to myself as I was watching them “what the hell are they doing making more spliffs everyone is completely out of it”. This is what made me burst into laughter in the first place but it just got funnier and funnier because I couldn’t actually tell them why I was laughing in the first place. But eventually I did manage to get it out but it was very painful.

Finally we both managed to stop laughing enough to speak and said shall we go and join the others in the lounge. Which we both agreed to. Well that was a big mistake. Everyone was watching a Harry Enfield and Chums episode and the performer in me just couldn’t resist. I had seen the same episode a few days before, so I was saying what all the characters were about to say, before they said it and using the same mannerisms.

Finally Exhibit A asked me a question.

They said, “Have you seen this before”?

My response (which I barely managed to get out of my mouth because I was already descending into laughable chaos) was

“Yes, but it wasn’t as funny as this the last time”.

Well that was it, exhibit A and myself dissolved into fits of laughter, I thought was never going to end. I have no memory of how the evening finished or if any of the people that attended the party would have the same perspective as me or indeed even remember the event. But it is one of my favourite memories. If you remember being at any of the parties that we had at the pheasant then use the form on the homepage or send me a Facebook message and we can reminisce over zoom.

Tune in again soon for more information about my experiences with cannabis which will lead to my experience of Medical Cannabis.