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I started speaking. It’s amazing what speaking does for you. Soon I had at least two friends. And would invite them to the bedroom where we would record stupid tapes of our farts, or remakes of horror films we had recently viewed on video. Who could forget the grotesque Howlaayyyyyeeeyyyeyyying with friend Paul or the irrelevant Brollyhead Show with friend Colin, they still exist on a reel to reel I have somewhere buried in a box. I played darts pretending I was Eric Bristow and used an F.A. cup style replica that Dad had gotten from work as the winners trophy, I played Manic Miner on my Spectrum and yes, I played with myself, ah yes the joys of self indulgence, having some rather close calls with Mom coming into my room and disturbing me. Some quick thinking and a cover story were always at the ready. The early eighties was a time of hiding for yours truly. At any opportunity I would use any excuse or any plan, no matter how feeble, to get out of going to school. Many times the shed became my sanctuary, well, until Mom got home from work at lunch time and caught me. Then it was, wait till your father gets home. When I did attend school, come 3.20pm I would rush home to watch the truly diabolical ozzy soap opera Sons and Daughters while eating a regular post-school diet of Cornflakes. Then it was upstairs to play on my ZX Spectrum, or try to. Sometimes I would spend many painful hours trying to load a game, resisting the temptation to throw the damn thing out of the window. One night I will never forget at the house, was the night me and school mate Paul got caught red handed in the act of what we liked to call, “Budding the bastard” It was that rebel angst teenager mentality which came out in both of us, mainly brought about by an incident which happened some many months before while we were knocking a ball about outside the school. We accidentally kicked the ball in the garden of a house opposite the school and we had a bit of a run in with the man who lived there, he wasn’t happy we were playing outside his house and told us to “go play up your own end”, a phrase synonymous with many kids I’m sure. Anyhow, we took offence at this and for many nights afterward, when ever we’d walk up to the bus stop where Paul would catch his bus home, we would, on passing his house, pick a load of buds of off the plants in his garden and throw them at his window while making haste with our legs. Many times our pet dog Robo was in attendance, and made with his four legs, at the double. We thought that this was all very hilarious and got an adrenaline rush from it. However, the inevitable happened on that faithful night, and on doing the deed we made light on our tootsies as per normal. About half way up the road we became aware that someone was chasing us. Robo was not a fast runner having been fed a diet of pure fat, and inevitably near the top of the road, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder pulling me back, and I knew I was well and truly in the brown and sticky stuff. Paul escaped, while me and Robo were left to face the Police, and more importantly Mom and Dad. It turned out the guy who lived in the house had some kind of heart condition, which we no doubt contributed to. As a consequence, I was given a warning by the Police and made to pay something like £2 toward the cost of re-polishing the guys window sills. Quite a good deal I thought. The shed became the home of two guinea pigs in 1983, they lived in a two storey cabinet which was "borrowed" from our secondary school by my brother and his mates. I remember waking up every morning to the sound of them whistling tunelessly for food and building assault courses for them to go around on our lawn in the summer. Robo the dog was also one of three family dogs we were to have over the years. He was named after the ambulance driver, but I forget who he was, probably the guy that came to get me every weekend for my treatment down at the Sunny Side Up Institute, where crackling electrodes were attached to parts of my neither regions quite unnecessarily. Robo had been taken from the RSPCA and was prone to having funny turns in which he would inevitably turn on yours truly. He drew my blood many a time, and every time it happened Mom and Dad always said they would have him put to sleep, but they never did. They couldn’t go through with it, and I wouldn’t have let them. Despite his rare attacks, he was for the most part a playful and loyal dog. Another pet at the time was our cockatiel Morty, named after the famed Aston Villa player Denis Mortimer. When we first got him, I spend ours trying to train him and make him friendly. In the end the bird became very much Dads pet, and would only allow Dad to handle him, even to the point of having his head stroked, the rest of us meanwhile only managed to get frenzied pecking and evil hissings from the bird. So much for a career in the RSPCA. |
