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1984
It all started, one night around late September, 1984.
On a mattress in a squat, apparently.
Punks and skinheads, only young.
Mum was sixteen, my dad eighteen, and on that night of late
September, she fell pregnant, with me.
I grew in her throughout the New Year into 1985, right up
into the summer month of July, where I’d been slightly resistant to come out -
but eventually did.
From some point during those nine months inside her, well, I
guess I’d always been destined to have an uncertain future.
Luckily in the end I never was put up for adoption, and my
mum decided to give up her own youth instead, to raise me.
My earliest memory (I think) was of being upside down in a
Ford Capri with my mum alongside me, asking if I was alright. Then being helped
out of the car by the man I presumed was driving it.
Second to that, for my first seven or so years, had been a
memory of a man in a black bomber jacket taking me out to buy sweets. He’d
often pop into my head he would.
The black-and-white TV on, and mum crying. The Tories had
got in again. I didn’t understand it, but it seemed to upset her a lot.
Both of us hiding behind the sofa.
The taxman outside knocking at the door.
And my Roland Rat.
Going to nursery and getting bitten on the arm.
Sitting on tractor tyres on the playground.
And the phone box outside of our house.
When I’d been around four, we moved away, not that far, with
my mum’s new boyfriend a few miles down the road, to nearby Rugeley.
A once bustling mining town before the pits had closed down,
but had become somewhat declining by the time we’d moved there.
Frank Gee Close. Sitting on cheap skateboards and rolling
down the hill.
Hitting the wall at the bottom.
Making dens with old bits of thrown out house interior.
At six, being jumped by a group of twelve year olds that had
stamped on my arm and broken it.
And Olly Owl, whom they also had stitched and bandaged up
for me when I came out of theatre and onto the children’s ward.
Wearing the flaky cheap cast I’d worn for six weeks.
Getting it cut off and finding old bits of pizza.
The guy I called Dad organising fights with older boys in
the street, in an attempt to toughen me up.
Not really having any interest in wanting to hit them back,
though after a punch in the face and a short delay, I sometimes would.
Mum sending me off to the old ladies house at the top of the
hill, to help her with her chores.
Lovely old gal, ever so sweet.
Being out in the sea in a rubber dingy with Mum and ‘Dad’,
Mum screaming to get more inland because it was scaring her being out that far,
and just about seeing the beach on the horizon.
‘Dad’ driving us at high-speed towards a tree saying that we
were all going to die, only to brake suddenly at the very last moment only
inches away from it.
Having a crush on Gemma across the street.
Giving her my Walkman.
Writing some crazy story about her dad fighting off a big
dragon.
Wishing I’d had a proper plastic sled for the hill when it
snowed in the winter.
Sliding down on a bin
bag, and hurting my arse.
A drunken neighbour throwing a brick through my bedroom
window whilst standing outside swaying.
My MDF ‘cabin’ bed.
My sister being born.
The bangs, and violent sounding arguments.
Being in cars with mum late at night, unsure of where we
were going before heading back home a few days later.
More loud noises coming from upstairs.
It’s fighting again.
Me hovering at the top of the stairs, trying to make out
exactly what was happening.
Holding my sister whilst sitting downstairs, she’d only been
a few months old. Talking to her, to try and drown out the noise from above.
Running into mum’s room with a cricket bat yelling at ‘Dad’
to leave her alone.
Him chasing me out. Really, what could I do?
My brother being born.
By now I was around seven or eight.
As far as I’d been told, mum’s fella was my dad.
But I was confused.
Nothing could stop the memory of the man in the black bomber
jacket with the orange inside lining.
Why did I always have the same vision of him walking towards
me, like a spirit living in my head?
I can’t quite make out the face.
But there’s something about him.
More fighting, and then Mum’s friend Elaine came round.
And that’s when I said it, without really thinking,
“He’s not my real dad is he?”
She seemed shocked, looking at Elaine unsure of how to
reply. Parenthood ay.
Fair play to her though, she said I was right, and when I
was a little older that she’d tell me everything I wanted to know, about who my
real father was.
Not too long after, we’d moved down the road to a council
estate called the Springfields, locally known as
‘The Springies.’
All the streets went around in squares, and all named after
famous folk.
William Morris Court was where we lived.
Kwik-Save right
across the road, pretty handy, and there became home.
