Jonny McCambridge: Stand by Me – the Chokey Blokes and their big summer adventure

He is best known for his work in the horror genre and many of his books have been adapted into movies and have become deeply embedded in the consciousness of popular culture – Carrie, The Shining, IT, Misery, The Stand.

Perhaps less well known is King’s 1982 collection of four novellas, published as Different Seasons.

The stories are straight fiction and do not deal with the supernatural themes common in many of his other books. Three of the novellas have been made into films, two of which were nominated for Oscars and could reasonably be considered classics.

Many people may have seen the movies while being unaware that they originated from stories penned by the great horror master.

One is The Shawshank Redemption, adapted from King’s novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The epic prison-break tale regularly appears near the top of polls of the best movies ever made.

The other is Stand by Me, based on King’s story The Body. Rob Reiner directed the 1986 coming of age feature which tells the yarn of four young boys who go on an adventure to find the body of a missing child in a fictional town in the US.

I first saw Stand by Me when I was a child myself and again several times since and have always been pleased by it. The emotional complexities and confusions of adolescence are well handled and presented.

It also captures something of the excitement of being so young, the magic of childhood friendship and that shared sense of adventure.

The four boys have little in common and inevitably drift apart as they grow to become adults, but at that moment, during that one hot summer, they share a bond which is so strong that it seems to transcend even family.

My wife and I moved to our current house on a quiet street in the year before our son was born in 2013.

I remember even then, before we knew that we would have a son, engaging in conversations over whether there would be other kids on the estate that our child could grow up playing with, as had been our experience when young.

There have been many changes in the street since then. Some families have moved in and others have moved out. Throughout, there have always been young children around and our door has been knocked many times over the years with the accompanying request about whether our son can come out to play.

But there has been something different about this summer. There are four boys around the same age (my son and three others) on the street and they seem to have forged a bond stronger than the casual friendships of before.

The boys go to different schools and often seem to have separate interests but have been thrown together by the accident that their parents have decided this is a nice estate in which to live.

Many of the days in this school summer holiday have featured a mid-morning knock on the door. My son will go out with the three friends and often return home only for meals as whole days are spent in their common company.

I decided I needed to come up with a title for this gang of four who spend so much time together, so I christened them The Chokey Blokes and it seems to have stuck.

Several people have asked me for the meaning behind the name. There is none. It simply speaks to my liking for creating silly names which please my ear.

I’ve found myself thinking about the movie Stand by Me several times this summer as I’ve sat in my office at home and watched out the window as the four boys have engaged in animated conversations on the footpath about some subject known only to them.

There are (I trust) no dead bodies or guns in the world of the Chokey Blokes, but I do see something of that spirit of adventure in them that the film reminds me of.

Much of this is because they are all at the point of being able to stretch their horizons, realising there is an undiscovered world for them beyond our little street.

For a while, their boundary was the small patch of grass at the end of the road where they hung out. Then it was the playpark across the road. Later, they were walking together into the village nearby and buying ice cream. Now, they are going on bus trips to the city with their own money.

I was watching the boys on our front doorstep getting ready for one such trip last week. I could see the shared excitement pulsing through them, how they struggled to contain their sense of mischief.

Absurdly, I thought it would be a good idea for me to go and say hello, to join the fun. But as soon as I did, they became more subdued and awkward, more like young children again, so I quickly left them alone to their planning.

I was a little stung by my misstep as I returned to my familiar place in front of the laptop. Perhaps I felt a little bit slighted that my son felt, at that moment, more comfortable with his friends than he did with me. Perhaps there was a tinge of regret that I am not 12, that I will never again be at that point where I am experiencing it all for the first time on my own. I will never again be as excited about anything as the Chokey Blokes were at that moment.

I watched them out the window as they walked together to the bus stop.

The final line in Stand by Me, typed onto a computer screen by the now grown-up narrator states: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Does anyone?”

I don’t think so.