16.... I’m on my way!
(a short story from the mind of
'Sleep That Burns')
(a short story from the mind of
'Sleep That Burns')
From the moment that the spark ignites the flame that becomes you and me, from that moment on our lives are all about 'firsts', every second, every minute in every hour, everything is new to us, from the very insignificant to the monumental, this is where our journey begins our first journey, the one that is the making of us all!
Our first chapters, those blurred parts of our early years, very few of us can remember the baby phase, we are told by others, our parents and our siblings, we are given graphic stories of how we were and what we did and all we can do is shrug our shoulders and raise an eyebrow, we were there and yet we were not, in body maybe but our developing minds were miles away, even then, we were starting to focus on the bigger picture!
Eat, sleep, poop and pee, start to crawl then begin to sit up, trying to stand then fall back into a poop and pee filled nappy only to start all over. These are all firsts, these are all new, with so much going on, so much fresh information to process, is it any wonder that a baby yells, never mind about being hungry, never mind about needing to be changed, teething would be a minor distraction, I think we all suffered major headaches with all of the firsts that we were facing on a daily basis, our own learning curves had well and truly, begun.
Eventually we soon became miniature people, and with all of the basics now part of our armoury within a few years, we would experience the first traumatic incident in our lives, the one all kids go through, leaving our mothers at the door of our first classroom and being led into our first day at school by our first teacher!
My first day was as I recall, a fun day, new friends, new everything really, I remember sand, I remember water, biscuits wrapped in greaseproof paper, being read stories, we seemed to live on the floor cross legged, peeing my pants because the concept of putting your hand up to go to the toilet was so new to me, should I, shouldn't I, when is a good time to ask, what about now...oh... too late,
"MISS, I need to go to the toilet please"
"Oh dear Martin, looks like you've already been!"
All part of the deal I suppose
and that feeling of being sat around in wet pants, soon made me shoot that hand
in the air as soon as my bladder sent signals to my brain! It was during those
formative days, structure came into play, lining up in an orderly fashion, girls
were always first, break times meant
milk and biscuits and dinner times were obviously, some sort of meat with
mashed potato and something that was cabbage (I think!) and dessert had custard
on it, yellow, brown or pink or the dreaded semolina, the stuff had the
consistency of wallpaper paste and I hated it so much, I don’t think I have touched the stuff since
but in those ‘black and white days’ you ate it or you went hungry until you got
home. It took me a long time to understand why you had to put your hand up to
get attention or to ask a question, it seemed that I was always sat cross
legged on the floor, perhaps back then it was easier for the teacher to
'corral' the class and appear to be more intimidating standing in the middle of
us, looking down on the kids! Learning to keep quiet, a very hard thing for me
to do then and still is I suppose; I never grew up to be a shy and retiring
adult.
During the first few weeks of school, bonds of friendship began to form and I came into contact with Dave! He was, even then, about a foot taller than me and I soon realised that having a 'big' mate was always going to be to my advantage. We were paired up together and we sat side by side in the classroom, a bit of an odd duo because he was so much bigger than me, we were both gifted with a mischievous sense of humour and we were a perfect match but… I could do something he couldn't, tie my shoe laces! It was perhaps one of the first acts of kindness that I showed, I taught him to do his laces up, and from that moment on a lifelong friendship started, and we still refer to that meeting to this day. The most important lesson that I learnt as every young boy knows, if you have a big friend, you are less likely to be picked on and that is very true I can tell you!
Within a couple of years it was soon on to the juniors, the 'big school', it was just across the field but it was a huge jump, I had heard all about it and now…it was my turn!
This would be the dawn of so many firsts. The first time 'proper' learning started, no more playing in the sand pit, no more measuring out water, no more sitting still with your head resting in your folded arms after dinner and definitely no climbing through the windows of Wendy Houses! New lessons and new teachers, new uniform and new rules, new friends and of course, new enemies!!
Using ink, from an inkwell with a pen with a shiny nib, using blotting paper, copying from a blackboard, using joined up writing!! Seems so normal and natural now but back then, for the first time you had to be neat, for the first time the pen was mightier than the...pencil, this was a big deal in 1966, this was my first traumatic experience for Christ's sake!
It was these junior years that I had my first taste of responsibility of any kind. From giving out books to more important roles, in my case, becoming a milk monitor! This meant I could skip assembly earlier than everyone after morning prayers obviously,( c'mon, back then I still said good morning to the man with the white beard who lived in the clouds!) then I would deliver a crate of milk to each classroom, bottles of milk, bottles made of glass none of that carton rubbish, the 'nanny state' was still decades away. For the first time I had a taste (no pun intended) of helping in the community, at least helping out your school friends, because milk meant break time and that meant, FUN! I just remember break times being so noisy, why talk to each other when you yell at each other.
During the first few weeks of school, bonds of friendship began to form and I came into contact with Dave! He was, even then, about a foot taller than me and I soon realised that having a 'big' mate was always going to be to my advantage. We were paired up together and we sat side by side in the classroom, a bit of an odd duo because he was so much bigger than me, we were both gifted with a mischievous sense of humour and we were a perfect match but… I could do something he couldn't, tie my shoe laces! It was perhaps one of the first acts of kindness that I showed, I taught him to do his laces up, and from that moment on a lifelong friendship started, and we still refer to that meeting to this day. The most important lesson that I learnt as every young boy knows, if you have a big friend, you are less likely to be picked on and that is very true I can tell you!
Within a couple of years it was soon on to the juniors, the 'big school', it was just across the field but it was a huge jump, I had heard all about it and now…it was my turn!
This would be the dawn of so many firsts. The first time 'proper' learning started, no more playing in the sand pit, no more measuring out water, no more sitting still with your head resting in your folded arms after dinner and definitely no climbing through the windows of Wendy Houses! New lessons and new teachers, new uniform and new rules, new friends and of course, new enemies!!
Using ink, from an inkwell with a pen with a shiny nib, using blotting paper, copying from a blackboard, using joined up writing!! Seems so normal and natural now but back then, for the first time you had to be neat, for the first time the pen was mightier than the...pencil, this was a big deal in 1966, this was my first traumatic experience for Christ's sake!
It was these junior years that I had my first taste of responsibility of any kind. From giving out books to more important roles, in my case, becoming a milk monitor! This meant I could skip assembly earlier than everyone after morning prayers obviously,( c'mon, back then I still said good morning to the man with the white beard who lived in the clouds!) then I would deliver a crate of milk to each classroom, bottles of milk, bottles made of glass none of that carton rubbish, the 'nanny state' was still decades away. For the first time I had a taste (no pun intended) of helping in the community, at least helping out your school friends, because milk meant break time and that meant, FUN! I just remember break times being so noisy, why talk to each other when you yell at each other.
Perhaps even when I was between the ages of 7 and 11 although I
was unaware of the development of anything other than playground friendships,
the seeds had already been ‘subliminally’ sown. I suppose the 'gang', my gang,
was getting bigger, but still at this stage, no girls. Girls were always there
but avoided, girls were always clean, girls always smelled nice, girls always
seemed to have white socks, perhaps even then and because I noticed these
things at all, I realised the beauty, the future importance of the female and
how they would eventually become something that made me change from a snotty
nosed kid to deodorised adolescent.
It was late ’69 or early ‘70, Jackie appeared on my radar
and as a 10 year old, to me she was a vision, a high speed vision, and a blur!
Let me explain, she was one of, if not the
fastest runner in the school and on Sports Day I suppose I fell in love with
her and more to the point word was out that she liked me or rather she liked
the colour of my t-shirt! She had seen me on the school playing field in
said shirt and liked it and when word got around, I was quick to tell my
mates,
"She can get her own; she 'ain't having mine"! Of course, I was deeply flattered, for the first time a girl had made a nice comment, did not matter a fig that it was about my t-shirt, I was the boy inside that shirt. She was or should I say, she became my friend, not my girlfriend, not at that age anyway, life was far too big and there was far too much going on but it was good to have a 'friend' other than a mate. It did not matter that we did not really talk much; we may have got by with a 'quick' smile, one that always made me blush and never in front of my mates! So unknown to me at the time, this was my first foray into any kind of 'one on one' relationship with a girl! Alas, when the time came, we left the junior school and went to separate schools that were miles away and so for the first few weeks of the new term, I suffered my first broken heart and even to this day, I still sometimes think of her, she probably can't even remember me but your first 'romance', however young you are and however brief it is, like your first car, you never forget it!
The next stop in my journey of first's was senior school and what a blitzkrieg of emotions I was about to encounter. For the first time in my life, long trousers were worn and this was a big deal for me, Christ this was a monumental part of my life! Things became so intense for an 11 year old, so many things happening all at once, the climb from junior school to seniors was for me, very exciting, lessons became longer my subjects became harder at that stage in my development I was still far more of a prankster than an academic in waiting! Learning Latin, even at that age, to me seemed a pointless exercise, who spoke Latin for fucks sake, was there such a country as Latinia! Having to do three different sciences, Chemistry was a hoot, we were allowed to burn things, and dissolve things in weird solutions, biology was fun because we could cut up eyeballs and dissect rats and frogs and best of all, chase girls around the lab scaring the hell out of them with rats entrails, but physics, I just did not get it, too much theory for my liking, laws for this and that, far too much for me to take in. Then there was English Language and English Literature! I hated the writings of Shakey Bill then and I hate it now, I never quite ‘got’ poetry then, that would take many, many years for me to come to terms with, so I suppose I did learn from it but certainly not the way the School would have liked that's for sure! In the next couple of years this part of my education, obviously the 'academic' stuff I had to do but all was about to change, I soon became educated in a far more interesting subject...girls!
"She can get her own; she 'ain't having mine"! Of course, I was deeply flattered, for the first time a girl had made a nice comment, did not matter a fig that it was about my t-shirt, I was the boy inside that shirt. She was or should I say, she became my friend, not my girlfriend, not at that age anyway, life was far too big and there was far too much going on but it was good to have a 'friend' other than a mate. It did not matter that we did not really talk much; we may have got by with a 'quick' smile, one that always made me blush and never in front of my mates! So unknown to me at the time, this was my first foray into any kind of 'one on one' relationship with a girl! Alas, when the time came, we left the junior school and went to separate schools that were miles away and so for the first few weeks of the new term, I suffered my first broken heart and even to this day, I still sometimes think of her, she probably can't even remember me but your first 'romance', however young you are and however brief it is, like your first car, you never forget it!
The next stop in my journey of first's was senior school and what a blitzkrieg of emotions I was about to encounter. For the first time in my life, long trousers were worn and this was a big deal for me, Christ this was a monumental part of my life! Things became so intense for an 11 year old, so many things happening all at once, the climb from junior school to seniors was for me, very exciting, lessons became longer my subjects became harder at that stage in my development I was still far more of a prankster than an academic in waiting! Learning Latin, even at that age, to me seemed a pointless exercise, who spoke Latin for fucks sake, was there such a country as Latinia! Having to do three different sciences, Chemistry was a hoot, we were allowed to burn things, and dissolve things in weird solutions, biology was fun because we could cut up eyeballs and dissect rats and frogs and best of all, chase girls around the lab scaring the hell out of them with rats entrails, but physics, I just did not get it, too much theory for my liking, laws for this and that, far too much for me to take in. Then there was English Language and English Literature! I hated the writings of Shakey Bill then and I hate it now, I never quite ‘got’ poetry then, that would take many, many years for me to come to terms with, so I suppose I did learn from it but certainly not the way the School would have liked that's for sure! In the next couple of years this part of my education, obviously the 'academic' stuff I had to do but all was about to change, I soon became educated in a far more interesting subject...girls!
During those formative years, I experienced my first form of discipline that was to be administered by people
other than my parents, teachers! I was
dapped for the first time, I was
caned for the first time, I was made
to write lines for the first time,
worst of all, I was given detention! Pain you could get through, it was almost
a badge of honour, even though it may at the time, have hurt like hell, they
were never tears in my eyes oh no, they were always because a gnat or some grit
had found its way in there, my first lie
to my peers! Detention was just so cruel but at the time, the bragging rights
were priceless, as long as my parents never found out the real reasons! I was in so much shit as a kid, nothing
serious, just stupid things and as far as they were concerned, I was in every
single After School Club going, football, cricket, running, I was a sporting genius
for Christ’s sake!!
There is a time in every boy's life when he
becomes a victim or rather his body is the victim of an all-out assault and
then the mind gets confused, welcome to puberty, I have heard all about you, I knew
you were on your way, in fact I've been waiting for you! Was I ready, is
anybody! Of course not, so welcome one of your first feelings of overwhelming,
all consuming misery!
Girls as we all know, are far more advanced and us boys stay as junior Neanderthals, in the pecking order of what we all know as evolution, we remain paddling around in the gene pool while the girls, well, they start to blossom! A boy's exposure to puberty is nature’s way of having a good laugh at our expenses, the joys of your voice breaking, one day up next day down, maybe half and half at the same time for what seems like ages. Then all of a sudden from nowhere comes this almost demonic speaking voice bursting from a cherub's mouth, most disconcerting for all those that know you! When the 'transformation' happens for the first time you change from this sweet young thing to a hormone charged 'being'! For the first time in your life everything but everything has a sexual connotation added to it. You think you know it all, you have read the book on sex, well, a dirty magazine in the playground to be exact and as all boys think at the time, all women look like the beauties within those stuck together pages! You have done it all, you are well versed, we all think we are studs, truth be told, we are not even little rivet's and your sex education at that point is, to say the least, limited. God bless those massed playground huddles that were a weekly ritual when somebody had pinched his old man's copy of Playboy and it was a scramble to climb upon your mates shoulders to get a glimpse of those ladies. As we all know, in reality you only are an expert with yourself, the left hand tonight and the right tomorrow, what's that saying....
"Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight"! Fuck me, I had never been so clean, I willingly took bath's, much to my mother’s amazement and much to my father’s amusement, he knew of course, he may have been my dad but once upon a time, he was a boy too , let's be honest, nothing is new now is it, especially when the sap begins to rise.
So many firsts happen to you with the arrival of puberty, there is your first shave with the old man's best razor, your first tentative dabs of his aftershave that stings like hell but most of all with all of this facial grooming, how the hell do I navigate my way through the maze of spots that for the first time have exploded all over my face!! This is the Bain of any teenager’s life but I was in good company, we ALL had spots, they went with the territory. With this new found 'thing', the being I had become, a teenager, along came the youth club and with that came the school disco and with these two significant parts of growing up came...posing and girls! Last month you could not stand them, what they did, what they looked like, they were in their corner and you were in yours but all was about to change, for the very first time, they were about to become the focus of every boy's attention. A quick kiss and a grope in the cloakroom and in my mind I was a bona fide sex God! A kiss became a snog, a snog soon included tongues for the first time, and this was something that alarmed me when it first happened. She was if I remember correctly, a lovely girl, normally a quiet girl but she must have been some sort of alien, I remember gagging as she proceeded to suck my face off, what is this all about, she really scared me, Christ she scared me but you couldn't tell your mates, that was a definite no no, I was the boy and she was the girl and they were waiting for a blow by blow account of my liaison, so what could I do, fucking obvious, I lied to them! With my change in attitude towards girls came a lot of other changes, I soon had my first can of beer, a pack of four shared between probably twenty five boy's, it tasted pretty horrible but you all claimed to love it and of course it wasn't the first time you had all done it, yeah right! I remember us all hanging around outside the off license, just waiting for the moment and then pushing the tallest of the group through the shop doorway, leaving him stranded in the shop and doing the most natural thing....run like fuck!! Later when he emerged from the shop with the beer, we would all brazenly walk down the street to the local park and then we would all sit down in a circle (something's you never stop doing!) on the grass and stare at the four cans in the middle. Tall boy would get first swig, well that was only fair after all, then the cans would be passed around, we would all take a glug, pretend that we loved it, pretend you had taken a big mouthful and then share out the Polo Mints to disguise any trace of it on your breath, and you would always get some joker who would make out that he was drunk, what a prat, what was his name... probably me. Of course with your first can of beer soon came your first cigarette, again it would be shared with your mates, all for one and one for all I suppose, if one was going to be in the shit, best that we all were, by the time it had been passed around a couple of times it was usually dripping with spit, thinking back, you would readily drag on a soggy cigarette but if a bottle or a can of anything was passed around, you would use anything to hand usually a jumper, to wipe away any trace of the previous drinkers spit!
Girls as we all know, are far more advanced and us boys stay as junior Neanderthals, in the pecking order of what we all know as evolution, we remain paddling around in the gene pool while the girls, well, they start to blossom! A boy's exposure to puberty is nature’s way of having a good laugh at our expenses, the joys of your voice breaking, one day up next day down, maybe half and half at the same time for what seems like ages. Then all of a sudden from nowhere comes this almost demonic speaking voice bursting from a cherub's mouth, most disconcerting for all those that know you! When the 'transformation' happens for the first time you change from this sweet young thing to a hormone charged 'being'! For the first time in your life everything but everything has a sexual connotation added to it. You think you know it all, you have read the book on sex, well, a dirty magazine in the playground to be exact and as all boys think at the time, all women look like the beauties within those stuck together pages! You have done it all, you are well versed, we all think we are studs, truth be told, we are not even little rivet's and your sex education at that point is, to say the least, limited. God bless those massed playground huddles that were a weekly ritual when somebody had pinched his old man's copy of Playboy and it was a scramble to climb upon your mates shoulders to get a glimpse of those ladies. As we all know, in reality you only are an expert with yourself, the left hand tonight and the right tomorrow, what's that saying....
"Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight"! Fuck me, I had never been so clean, I willingly took bath's, much to my mother’s amazement and much to my father’s amusement, he knew of course, he may have been my dad but once upon a time, he was a boy too , let's be honest, nothing is new now is it, especially when the sap begins to rise.
So many firsts happen to you with the arrival of puberty, there is your first shave with the old man's best razor, your first tentative dabs of his aftershave that stings like hell but most of all with all of this facial grooming, how the hell do I navigate my way through the maze of spots that for the first time have exploded all over my face!! This is the Bain of any teenager’s life but I was in good company, we ALL had spots, they went with the territory. With this new found 'thing', the being I had become, a teenager, along came the youth club and with that came the school disco and with these two significant parts of growing up came...posing and girls! Last month you could not stand them, what they did, what they looked like, they were in their corner and you were in yours but all was about to change, for the very first time, they were about to become the focus of every boy's attention. A quick kiss and a grope in the cloakroom and in my mind I was a bona fide sex God! A kiss became a snog, a snog soon included tongues for the first time, and this was something that alarmed me when it first happened. She was if I remember correctly, a lovely girl, normally a quiet girl but she must have been some sort of alien, I remember gagging as she proceeded to suck my face off, what is this all about, she really scared me, Christ she scared me but you couldn't tell your mates, that was a definite no no, I was the boy and she was the girl and they were waiting for a blow by blow account of my liaison, so what could I do, fucking obvious, I lied to them! With my change in attitude towards girls came a lot of other changes, I soon had my first can of beer, a pack of four shared between probably twenty five boy's, it tasted pretty horrible but you all claimed to love it and of course it wasn't the first time you had all done it, yeah right! I remember us all hanging around outside the off license, just waiting for the moment and then pushing the tallest of the group through the shop doorway, leaving him stranded in the shop and doing the most natural thing....run like fuck!! Later when he emerged from the shop with the beer, we would all brazenly walk down the street to the local park and then we would all sit down in a circle (something's you never stop doing!) on the grass and stare at the four cans in the middle. Tall boy would get first swig, well that was only fair after all, then the cans would be passed around, we would all take a glug, pretend that we loved it, pretend you had taken a big mouthful and then share out the Polo Mints to disguise any trace of it on your breath, and you would always get some joker who would make out that he was drunk, what a prat, what was his name... probably me. Of course with your first can of beer soon came your first cigarette, again it would be shared with your mates, all for one and one for all I suppose, if one was going to be in the shit, best that we all were, by the time it had been passed around a couple of times it was usually dripping with spit, thinking back, you would readily drag on a soggy cigarette but if a bottle or a can of anything was passed around, you would use anything to hand usually a jumper, to wipe away any trace of the previous drinkers spit!
These ‘shared’ experiences were the first
time of showing any kind of loyalty towards others, mates at that time were
more like brothers, brothers in arms, that must sound so corny, cheesy beyond
belief but back in the day, we were, experiences that to me at that time, were
so important, so real and so true and I for one make no apologies!
Up until the age of 14 or so, music was something I was aware of, it was mostly confined to the background(no pun intended) but I was yet to start my love of music in general but all that was about to change! Like all kids of my generation, we all watched Top Of The Pops on a Thursday night but most of my musical education was on the radio, the early 70's was the best for 'Pop', music at that stage of my development, I had yet to discover the album, my focus was purely aimed at the 45 rpm single, serious music that lasted more than three minutes was still to make an appearance in my record collection, all was about to change because for the first time, my horizons were to be broadened!
Up until the age of 14 or so, music was something I was aware of, it was mostly confined to the background(no pun intended) but I was yet to start my love of music in general but all that was about to change! Like all kids of my generation, we all watched Top Of The Pops on a Thursday night but most of my musical education was on the radio, the early 70's was the best for 'Pop', music at that stage of my development, I had yet to discover the album, my focus was purely aimed at the 45 rpm single, serious music that lasted more than three minutes was still to make an appearance in my record collection, all was about to change because for the first time, my horizons were to be broadened!
One Saturday I was sat in Dave's front room
waiting for him to emerge from his pit and for us to head off into town for a
day of staring at girls, his older brother, home for the summer from
University, came into the room,
"How you doing Lars" (my nickname given to me by Dave and his family, a cartoon character back in the day, 'Filmation's Journey To The Centre Of The Earth', could have been worse, could have been 'Shaggy from Scooby Doo', now he WAS a dumb arse! Anyway Dave’s brother walked across the lounge, all crushed velvet loon pants and a Che Guevara T-shirt, this was a student and this was SO cool to me back then, he walked to the stereo with a carrier bag under his arm,
"Lars, I think you will like this, forget about all of that poppy, glittery crap you young lads listen to, listen up this is some musical education for you"! With a sigh and a 'tut' of displeasure, I reluctantly prepared to be educated. Almost as soon as the needle hit the groove, I immediately sat up and took notice, for this was my first introduction to 'serious ' music, this was the first time that my ears were attacked by the dulcet tones of Led Zeppelin this was my first 'epiphany', this was my first day of a lifelong love of ROCK! I listened to that album, both sides without uttering a single word, this alone was one of the first times in my life, I was speechless, lost for words, this was made all the more important to me because I knew that this was the sort of music that would piss off my parents, the pop was bad enough to them, this 'new' type of music, I just knew they would hate it, and to me, as a teenager, this was positively priceless and especially because none of my mates had moved up to this level of sonic attack!!
Looking back on how life was then and I am often asked by my own kids,
"How did you get through the day then, you must have been bored out of your mind!" Well, I don't remember much of my life back then that bored me, quite the opposite, life was good for me and I think I can speak for most of my peers, life was not so intense, not so full on, not in your face, unlike it is for teenagers today. They have more of 'everything' compared to my generation, they know more than we did at their age, they are certainly more sexually aware and indeed 'active' than we ever were, until recently, I thought Chlamydia was a Soviet Naval Base in the Black Sea somewhere!
It was during those halcyon days that I became aware of clothes; they say clothes maketh the man, well clothes 'sort of' made me! My first pair of Levi's followed by my 'old faithful', my beloved Levi jacket atop my first cheese cloth shirt and on my feet were suede 'desert boots', I loved those babies and wore them forever, even when they got wet! Soon I would be wearing my first pair of 'Chuck Taylor's', in cream naturally!! Christ I looked good then, well, according to the reflection staring back at me from the mirror on my bedroom wall, what was not to like!
Like most kids, your first job of any kind was a paper round. I can still remember my first wage packet, standing in line with all of the other paper boys and eventually being presented with a brown envelope full of loose change and your first ever wage slip. I remember beaming from ear to ear, Christ, I was getting money for what was basically old rope. I remember blowing the lot on sweets and music magazines and what was one of my last ever DC or Marvel Comics, I was the 'super hero' now, I was now a 'wage earner', no longer a kid! No sooner had I left the shop and it was all gone, a weekly wage was something I still had to come to terms with, spend it all on payday, that was it for a week, this took me a couple of weeks to come to terms with this concept.! With the paper round I fast learnt who were good tippers and who were the tight Bastards! The third letterbox on my round was a flat and it belonged to a man with an artificial leg, he lived on his own and was apparently the victim of some industrial accident and on Saturday's he would dress in a shirt and tie and would then proceed to get pissed all day and in the summer months he would sit in his garden and sing from his deck chair. He was probably the first drunk I saw on a regular basis, he was probably one of the first people that I ever met who obviously drowned his sorrows with beer and more to the point; he was the first person outside of my family who gave me money! He would stop his singing and call me over to him, I handed him his paper which he would always throw across his doorway,
"Come here boy, something for you"
With one hand he would grasp mine and with the other he would thrust a £1 note into it.
"You're a good lad, wind and rain, your always here, this is for you", fucking hell, this was more than a week’s money and at first I tried to refuse and and hand it back but he would have nothing of it, in fact he became a little angry in the way that only a drunk does,
"What do you mean, you take it, and don't you dare question me, you do me a favor so take it now, I am not going to argue with you so you take it, then you can Fuck off you little Bastard, go and just you remember”
"How you doing Lars" (my nickname given to me by Dave and his family, a cartoon character back in the day, 'Filmation's Journey To The Centre Of The Earth', could have been worse, could have been 'Shaggy from Scooby Doo', now he WAS a dumb arse! Anyway Dave’s brother walked across the lounge, all crushed velvet loon pants and a Che Guevara T-shirt, this was a student and this was SO cool to me back then, he walked to the stereo with a carrier bag under his arm,
"Lars, I think you will like this, forget about all of that poppy, glittery crap you young lads listen to, listen up this is some musical education for you"! With a sigh and a 'tut' of displeasure, I reluctantly prepared to be educated. Almost as soon as the needle hit the groove, I immediately sat up and took notice, for this was my first introduction to 'serious ' music, this was the first time that my ears were attacked by the dulcet tones of Led Zeppelin this was my first 'epiphany', this was my first day of a lifelong love of ROCK! I listened to that album, both sides without uttering a single word, this alone was one of the first times in my life, I was speechless, lost for words, this was made all the more important to me because I knew that this was the sort of music that would piss off my parents, the pop was bad enough to them, this 'new' type of music, I just knew they would hate it, and to me, as a teenager, this was positively priceless and especially because none of my mates had moved up to this level of sonic attack!!
Looking back on how life was then and I am often asked by my own kids,
"How did you get through the day then, you must have been bored out of your mind!" Well, I don't remember much of my life back then that bored me, quite the opposite, life was good for me and I think I can speak for most of my peers, life was not so intense, not so full on, not in your face, unlike it is for teenagers today. They have more of 'everything' compared to my generation, they know more than we did at their age, they are certainly more sexually aware and indeed 'active' than we ever were, until recently, I thought Chlamydia was a Soviet Naval Base in the Black Sea somewhere!
It was during those halcyon days that I became aware of clothes; they say clothes maketh the man, well clothes 'sort of' made me! My first pair of Levi's followed by my 'old faithful', my beloved Levi jacket atop my first cheese cloth shirt and on my feet were suede 'desert boots', I loved those babies and wore them forever, even when they got wet! Soon I would be wearing my first pair of 'Chuck Taylor's', in cream naturally!! Christ I looked good then, well, according to the reflection staring back at me from the mirror on my bedroom wall, what was not to like!
Like most kids, your first job of any kind was a paper round. I can still remember my first wage packet, standing in line with all of the other paper boys and eventually being presented with a brown envelope full of loose change and your first ever wage slip. I remember beaming from ear to ear, Christ, I was getting money for what was basically old rope. I remember blowing the lot on sweets and music magazines and what was one of my last ever DC or Marvel Comics, I was the 'super hero' now, I was now a 'wage earner', no longer a kid! No sooner had I left the shop and it was all gone, a weekly wage was something I still had to come to terms with, spend it all on payday, that was it for a week, this took me a couple of weeks to come to terms with this concept.! With the paper round I fast learnt who were good tippers and who were the tight Bastards! The third letterbox on my round was a flat and it belonged to a man with an artificial leg, he lived on his own and was apparently the victim of some industrial accident and on Saturday's he would dress in a shirt and tie and would then proceed to get pissed all day and in the summer months he would sit in his garden and sing from his deck chair. He was probably the first drunk I saw on a regular basis, he was probably one of the first people that I ever met who obviously drowned his sorrows with beer and more to the point; he was the first person outside of my family who gave me money! He would stop his singing and call me over to him, I handed him his paper which he would always throw across his doorway,
"Come here boy, something for you"
With one hand he would grasp mine and with the other he would thrust a £1 note into it.
"You're a good lad, wind and rain, your always here, this is for you", fucking hell, this was more than a week’s money and at first I tried to refuse and and hand it back but he would have nothing of it, in fact he became a little angry in the way that only a drunk does,
"What do you mean, you take it, and don't you dare question me, you do me a favor so take it now, I am not going to argue with you so you take it, then you can Fuck off you little Bastard, go and just you remember”
He glared at me through blood shot eyes
and beer breath and he told me to remember, it was his money and he could do
whatever he wanted with it. Now looking back on this incident and indeed this
man, I can relate to him more than I like to admit! like him, there are times
when I do get bitter and twisted, I do get angry, that's well documented, no
doubt about that, perhaps mine is caused by something a little less tangible
than losing a leg, nonetheless something was cruelly taken as far as I am
concerned, never to be seen again, perhaps my first experience of how any kind of loss, although at the time I
was blissfully unaware of what was waiting around the corner for me! If that
man was still alive now, I'd like to have a drink with him, we would now be on
a level playing field, he would not scare me, I don't recall him scaring me
then and I think even he would agree, we have definitely become some kind of
kindred spirits both with axes to grind! He just found some sort of solace
poured from a bottle and perhaps I have still to find some inner peace
whatever, whenever, it is out there somewhere and that is most definitely still
very much a work in progress!
After the paper round, I was very lucky to get a job at a Motel as a washer upper! Now from a paperboy to a washer upper in a Motel, this presented so many firsts to me, a wage packet with notes in it for a start! For the first time in my life, at age sixteen I was rich, I was loaded,
almost overnight I was able to buy two 45's and an album!! During my time at the Motel I soon witnessed my first experience of the 'worker/manager' relationship! Up to that point in my life I had always been taught that if an older person, usually your parents obviously or your teachers told you what when and how, you did as you were told, no question you just did it. However now for the first time I saw people arguing with boss's, people doing the opposite to what they had been asked, people going out of their way to be awkward, so if they could do it, so could I, or so I thought! I did not take into account that these were seasoned workers, with years of practice, not stroppy part timers like me and especially a kid. The first time I answered back, I was given such a bollocking, threatened with the sack and to shape up or ship out, duly noted I can tell you! After about six months or so I soon realised that although I was doing the work for spending money, I was still at school waiting to sit my final exams and this was weekend work, it was a means to an end, and as I was the first of the ‘gang’ to get a job other than the obligatory paper round, I did miss being with them and I soon started to hate being away from them!
My last term at school was, on reflection some of the best times of my life! Being a mouthy fucker, I loved getting involved in debates, learning how to discuss things with others, for the first time in my life talking sensibly and with meaning and purpose, something I hope I am still able to do as an adult. With those last few months of education came exams, for the first time in my life I knew that either I knuckled down and did my best or I bombed out! Well, for the first time in my life I was soon to become aware that there are things in life that you have to do on your own and if you fail, it is nobody's fault but your own. I failed, I bombed, I could have and I should have passed my exams but I suppose ultimately I was a dreamer and soon realized for the first time failure is not a nice friend to have hanging around you!
To be continued.......
After the paper round, I was very lucky to get a job at a Motel as a washer upper! Now from a paperboy to a washer upper in a Motel, this presented so many firsts to me, a wage packet with notes in it for a start! For the first time in my life, at age sixteen I was rich, I was loaded,
almost overnight I was able to buy two 45's and an album!! During my time at the Motel I soon witnessed my first experience of the 'worker/manager' relationship! Up to that point in my life I had always been taught that if an older person, usually your parents obviously or your teachers told you what when and how, you did as you were told, no question you just did it. However now for the first time I saw people arguing with boss's, people doing the opposite to what they had been asked, people going out of their way to be awkward, so if they could do it, so could I, or so I thought! I did not take into account that these were seasoned workers, with years of practice, not stroppy part timers like me and especially a kid. The first time I answered back, I was given such a bollocking, threatened with the sack and to shape up or ship out, duly noted I can tell you! After about six months or so I soon realised that although I was doing the work for spending money, I was still at school waiting to sit my final exams and this was weekend work, it was a means to an end, and as I was the first of the ‘gang’ to get a job other than the obligatory paper round, I did miss being with them and I soon started to hate being away from them!
My last term at school was, on reflection some of the best times of my life! Being a mouthy fucker, I loved getting involved in debates, learning how to discuss things with others, for the first time in my life talking sensibly and with meaning and purpose, something I hope I am still able to do as an adult. With those last few months of education came exams, for the first time in my life I knew that either I knuckled down and did my best or I bombed out! Well, for the first time in my life I was soon to become aware that there are things in life that you have to do on your own and if you fail, it is nobody's fault but your own. I failed, I bombed, I could have and I should have passed my exams but I suppose ultimately I was a dreamer and soon realized for the first time failure is not a nice friend to have hanging around you!
To be continued.......
