Hugh Reilly: The well-hidden happiness of teens

IF YOU’RE happy and you know it, clap your hands. Until recently, largely by dint of anecdotal evidence garnered from my teaching days, I had believed the applause of teenagers would have been quieter than the sound of one hand clapping in the darkness. Indeed, it was my perception that the clapometer might have struggled to reach the derisorily decibel level achieved when Johnny Cash took to the stage at a Saudi Arabian prison for recidivist thieves.

I was wrong. According to a study carried out by St Andrews University on behalf of the World Health Organisation, Scottish children are among the happiest in Europe. Initially, I had thought that – perhaps due to savage cuts in research grants – social scientists had been restricted to interviewing adolescents within a 500-yard radius of the campus. A postgraduate wandering through the sand dunes and long grass with a clipboard soliciting the views of cavorting, happy teenagers would surely have produced a somewhat flawed academic paper.

To be fair, my sons have happy memories of St Andrews. When more than three people gather in a room, they amuse the salivating mob by dredging up the so-called “St Andrews incident”. As a callow man of 49 years old, I jokingly asked an official at the castle for a pensioner ticket. Not missing a heartbeat, she punched out a codger’s concession, eliciting much laughter from my lads.

They also enjoy reminding me of a visit to the town’s multiplex – that is, the two-screen cinema – to see the first Mission Impossible film. Ever the japester, I said to the woman behind the perspex window: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to give me three tickets.” The pony-tailed staff member stoically said: “Is that fur cinema 1 or cinema 2?” On the words leaving her lips, I self-destructed.

It is heartening to learn that our gladness-filled young people smoke less than their European counterparts. This awful habit became unfashionable in teenage circles when the price of a packet of cigarettes achieved parity with the deposit required to buy a one-bed flat in Leith. In days of affordable cancer sticks, I fondly recall ostentatiously drawing on a single Woodbine, all the while throwing my best James Dean look in the direction of the soon-to-be-swooning lassies. Unfortunately, puffing on a fag did not prove to be a catalyst for romance; with hindsight, the uncontrollable coughing and water-filled eyes were something of a turn-off.

Traditionally, it was thought that body-conscious teenage girls used cigarettes as a food substitute to help maintain a desirable waif-like appearance. However, walking down Glasgow’s Buchanan Street and watching lardy females stroll by with a ciggie in hand tends to support the view that the weight-loss properties associated with inhaling tobacco are exaggerated.

In what could be connected behaviour, 15-year-old Scottish girls drink more alcohol and have more unprotected sex than many of their continental peers. In southern European countries, such as Greece and Spain, it is still a common sight to see unhappy, promenading, teenage girls being chaperoned by a hawk-eyed grandmother or a scowling spinster aunt.

By way of contrast, in Alba, an increasing number of mums and dads think it’s cool to condone under-age drinking, as well as turning a blind eye to illegal bra-and-briefs encounters. I’m certain the level of happiness in Spanish teenage girls would skyrocket if mum and dad caved in by popping their daughters on the Pill and buying in some supermarket bevvy for the weekend.

For anyone bringing up teenage children, it will be no surprise to learn that young Scots ranked themselves highly in the use of electronic media such as Facebook and mobile phone messaging. Hitherto agnostic children would become True Believers if God would just bestow upon them the four thumbs they crave to increase texting output.

To me, the biggest shock was the discovery that youngsters are brushing their teeth more regularly. As someone who, on occasion was invited to peer into a kid’s mouth to confirm that they were not feasting on chewing gum, I often felt like a pot-holer looking into a cave with a spattering of crumbling white stalactites.

It would surely gladden adults immensely if ostensibly surly teenagers let their faces know they were secretly wonderfully happy.