

### An Ordinary Man In An Ordinary World

### Martin McGregor.
Published by Martin McGregor at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Martin McGregor

Discover other titles by Martin McGregor at Smashwords.com

Discover other titles by Martin McGregor at Smashwords.com:

The town the God forgot

The curse of New Hampshire and the Salem witch trials

2012 Doomsday. The Mayan prophecy

The Collected Poems

### No parts of this work may be copied or reproduced without express consent of the author.

### Also by the author

### The Collected Poems

### The town that God forgot

### The Curse of New Hampshire and the Salem witch trials.

### 2012 Doomsday. The Mayan prophecy.

### All available in paperback from www.lulu.com. They are all also available for download from www.smashwords.com.

### This book is dedicated to my brother

### Wayne Michael McGregor

### Nice nest.

### Also my one time best friends in no particular order and some of you still are.

### John Proudfoot

### Michael Stevens R.I.P.

### Andy Turner

### Dean Day

### Peter O'Neil

### Andrew Fielding

### Max Nightingale R.I.P.

### Michael Hall R.I P.

### Thanks as ever go to my long suffering wife Sarah, my mother, brother and my four sons. I love you all. Also to family and friends and fans who continue to buy my books. I hope this one sheds a little light. To all my family and friends, you know who you are, love to you all too.

### Introduction

### I am an ordinary man, but is this really an ordinary world? I guess so. We have become used to all the darkness in this world it is now common place, but eventually from all darkness comes light. So when my second wife decided to ask me,

"why are you writing an autobiography, you're not even famous?"

### I didn't even have to think about giving her an answer as it was already there in my head. Firstly as we get older, we seem to forget a lot of what has happened in our lives. I have seen people with degenerative diseases who can't remember much about what they have lived through at all, and it is very sad.

### I decided, that if I write everything down that I can remember, if anything like that ever happens to me, at least then I can say read my life. The second reason and I think that this is the reason that most people will write autobiographies, is that they think they have a story to tell, and they think other people may well want to read it. Well this is me guilty on both counts. During my life I have seen happiness and sorrow in almost equal measure, but the pain always seems to stay fresh in the memory for longer.

### Some people may see this as me being big headed, and not thinking that this story doesn't in fact tell anything to anyone at all. You just can't please all of the people all of the time can you? I just hope that maybe someone may read this and think, he survived that, and I can survive too.

### I have experienced a lot in my life. Friends that have come and gone, illness, affairs, alcoholism and depression, sickness, health, life, death, rape, football, music, children, marriage, pain, guilt, success, failure, love and laughter. In the end, I have a story that is real. Now I may never ever write a best seller, or indeed ever be famous, but I have things in life I am very proud of.

### I have four children and a wife I love dearly. They are my world, and always will be. I have worked hard all my life, and managed to move up the ladder into management. I am the first person in my family to pass a diploma and I have a roof over my head and a comfortable existence. What more could I wish for?

### Well, good health would be great. Less things floating round in my head from my past would be nice, and a few more pounds in the bank would be fantastic. In the end, I will settle for what I have, and hope that maybe one person will read and hopefully enjoy this book. If not, at least I will have the reminder of my life if I actually make it to old age.

### So please join me on my journey. This is my life, and I will share it openly and honestly with you all, there are moments of darkness and moments of light but they are all mine.

### Martin McGregor 2010.

### Friends

### They say that you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. The trouble is, in life you don't always get to choose your friends either do you? The fact is, in this life your friends don't choose to meet you; fate brings them into your path. Then maybe through interaction and possibly even having the same sense of humour or maybe liking the same things, or even fancying the same girl, that's how you become friends.

### There's one thing about friends, and that is that (and I am sure that most would agree), you have the three types of friends. You have friends you will say hello to just in passing, and then you have friends that you have that maybe you used to work with or hung around with, and then you have the third type, and these are real friends.

### The first type, are simply ten a penny. These are people that you randomly chat to on social websites, those that you smile at in the pub, or maybe give a wave to across a street. The second type, are a little closer. These are friends who you will maybe arrange to have dinner with or a pint every now and again. You may have a laugh about the old days, and then forget about them again until fate brings them back once again into your life.

### The third type, are the most important type. These are what you call your real friends, mates. These mates would lie for you, and will lend you some cash when you're flat broke. You may sometimes fight, but you always make it up. You know the type, these are genuine mates. You look out for each other, no matter what. You can probably count your genuine mates on less than five fingers, unless you're either very lucky or very likeable. Money seems to attract more friends, but never the real ones.

### Now the problem for me was that I really didn't trust any fucker. This was a problem I had that started a very long time ago. You see we came from a very poor family. I don't just mean we had little money, we had absolutely fuck all. We lived in Lancashire, and there was more clouds there than jobs. Some of my earliest memories were hiding behind the sofa, while the debt collectors would relentlessly hammer on the front door. Back in those days, you borrowed and you paid it back you were paying, or you were fucked up. Simple.

### Now the trouble is, when you have fuck all, all you can see is how much everyone else around you has that you don't. It can't have ever been easy for my mum who did her best to feed me and my brother. Sometimes she would go hungry just so that we would have food on our plates. I can remember her crying one day because she only had bread and Oxo to feed us, and those things stick in your head, no matter how young you are. These things you never forget however hard you try.

### My mother was a massively intelligent woman. She taught me to read at a very young age, and I absorbed all I was taught. At the age of four, I was reading passages from Jaws to astonished visitors to the house. I never failed to pronounce any of the words as my mother had taught me to break them down in my head before saying them. I could also spell without problems and had a great understanding of maths too.

### From the age of three I just wanted to go to school, and would hate it when I wasn't allowed to go. I was allowed to go at four years old though, and I loved it. My first year at school was one of the happiest years of my life, my teacher really enjoyed teaching and I have a picture of me with her (it made the back cover), and you can see how happy I was. The second year was to change all that.

### The second year teacher was an old woman and a bully. She liked nothing better than to smack a bare child's bottom. One day I saw the first helicopter I had ever seen out of the window, and I was amazed. Before I knew it she had called out my name while I was in a daydream. I was smacked at five years old for looking at a wonder of flight. Bitch.

### My dad got a job working for crisp company, and at the end of the week, he would bring home a massive bag of crisps in every flavour. For a few weeks we were in heaven. It soon turned to dust though, as the job ended as abruptly as it had begun.

### So it is again that dad has no work. We have bailiffs knocking on the door again every day that I could remember. Anything we have we will either have to sell, and when we have sold them all, what choice do we then have but to run. You see at seven years old, I didn't fully understand the decision at the time. I liked it where we lived, so I wanted to stay. A choice I made which would later lead to my tears.

### I wanted to stay at the school I liked, and I felt like I was starting to make real friends. Soon there were even more tears as I got a whack around the legs, for not understanding why we had to move. My father had hit me for wanting to not leave my friends behind, but what I couldn't face at that time was that we would have to leave our beloved dog called Sheena behind. Sheena was our protector, and we loved that dog with all our hearts.

### Now, one of our uncle's had recently moved to a small town in Hampshire called Andover. The furthest I had ever been was Blackburn when my brother was born, and to move 300 miles down South, was almost like moving to another planet. Still we were moving no matter what. I even had to leave my favourite teddy bear behind. This uncle has made us a promise. Andover was going to provide us with a great future, a job and council house which were already there waiting for us.

### So we left our house, our toys and our dog behind, and we moved via a lengthy vomit filled car journey down South. I never knew I would suffer from travel sickness until that day. South wasn't quite what we expected.

### It was in the early part of 1977 that we landed in the town called Andover. The problem was my uncle had either been really unlucky, or he had been a really fucking bad liar. There was no job, no house, and no money. We were fucked.

### We spent the first few nights in a support centre for the homeless. Then we spent a few weeks in a caravan, and then we almost spent a night holed up in the council offices when my father decided we should pitch up there for the night in reception as a response to our housing plight. I think in the end the police may have been called, and we were moved on.

### The next few months we lived in a relative's elderly parent's house. It was cramped but we had a room to sleep in, and it was warm. I really, really hated it. The place stank of cabbages being cooked constantly, and the old man of the house named Jack used to take us out in his car. After driving for about five minutes he used to nod off, and he nearly killed us all about twenty times.

### It must have gone on like this for about four months before we were finally given some temporary accommodation. The house we were given was listed to be bulldozed imminently, but to us, we couldn't really give a shit, we had a real roof over our heads for the first time in a year. I swear that the place must have been haunted, it creaked and cracked and groaned and it was so cold it felt like we were living in Siberia.

### I was so cold that one day my brother decided that he would warm up his teddy on our small two bar electric fire that we had. My father came in the room and caught us, just as his teddy started burning. Instead of teaching us the dangers of fire, my father decided I should have known better and marched us to the police station where we were threatened with being put in a cell. It scared the shit out of both of us.

### Our next door neighbour was a cobbler, and it didn't take long for our father to start asking him if he could borrow a few quid, I doubt the old feller ever got any of it back, but he was good enough to lend us it. So here we were again. I hadn't been to school for about six months, and it was great. I kept myself entertained playing in the back garden, which was more like an overgrown jungle, but it, was huge and provided adventure.

### I wouldn't say we were poor, people took pity on poor people and no one seemed to take pity on us at all. I really felt for my mum one day, she was crying her eyes out because all that we had left to eat was hot Oxo and a little bread. I didn't really like Oxo, and made the silly mistake of saying so, for which I got a barrage of abuse from my father and a slap for a grand finale. I should have been grateful.

### We still had no money at all, the D.S.S paid out a pittance in benefits in those days, and so what we had didn't go far. I begrudged my father having cigarettes, at that age, I didn't know that he was so addicted to them, and just couldn't give up.

### Then just when we were considering going back 'up north' something strange happened. The old man actually managed to get himself a job! He had got so fed up, that he had offered that he would even clean toilets and his determination worked. My parents were told that both I and my brother had to start going back to school, and then we started to have a little bit of money coming in too. To top it all, the council would soon have to move us, so that they could demolish the old place.

### Just when I had started to get settled at school and make some new friends, our transfer came through. Even though I had missed almost two whole years of school in total, I was still managing to excel in my classes. My mother had continued to teach me at home, and she would constantly read to me. It had stood me in good stead. So it was that we were given the keys to our new house. The address was at number 68 King George Road. The house was huge, and had three bedrooms and although I didn't know it at the time, the place was harbouring lots of secrets that would help to shape the rest my life. It also meant time to move to a new school.

### The Madness of King George

### It would have been nice if someone had just told us. Even just a slight hint about where we were going would have been great. You see every town in England has a King George Road. It may not have quite the same name, but it will have the same reputation of being one of the hardest roads in the town. In this road everyone knew each other, and everyone knew there place, and for some reason we were seen as a threat. It was probably because we spoke differently, and were from 'up north' and that damned saying rears its ugly head to the fore once again.

### It didn't take long to realise what it was that we had gotten ourselves into. I can clearly remember our first day there, as it had snowed really heavily. One downfall with all of these houses (like a lot of the houses built around the same time), was that they had an alleyway which led directly to the back garden, and this was easily accessible to the public. My brother and I were quietly building a snowman in the back garden, when the first of our welcoming party decided to pay us a visit.

### The first one of the visitors threw a snowball at us, so we then threw one back. I don't recall if it was a boy or a girl who threw the first one, but we thought it would be fun to join in the game and returned fire. I was eight and my brother was six. Slowly, more and more kids were appearing in our alleyway. We kept throwing snowballs back, because as far as we knew, it was still just a game. Then the kids started to get bigger and bigger, and so then did the snowballs.

### By the time our parents decided to investigate the noise from the back garden and alleyway, thirty or forty kids were attacking us. This was our Waterloo, and we hid behind the body of our snowman. Snowballs that were bigger than our heads were being thrown at us. They were being thrown by kids about fifteen or sixteen years old, it wasn't much of a fair fight, it seemed as though we were not welcome, Northerners had a reputation of being 'hard' even at 8 and 6 years old and we had to be firmly put in our place.

### The Portway Way
So we eventually went back to school even though we didn't want to. It was called Portway Junior School, and the methods of teaching at the school included fear and humiliation. My first teacher was called Mr Goodliffe, I will always remember him as he had a particularly vicious streak. On my first day in his class, he made me recite the fours time's table aloud in front of the rest of the class. He Then proceeded to tell me how stupid I had made the rest of the class look, as most of them could not even reach half way there. Instantly I was hated, not only was I a Northerner who was well out of his depth, but now I was a swat to boot.

### Mr Goodliffe had a particularly nasty streak. Maybe he had latent homosexual tendencies, but he liked to smack the legs of young boys who wore shorts. Maybe he just liked to see young boys cry. I don't know. He ruled the class with fear, and you didn't ever dare step out of line. The first day wasn't all bad though. I made two new friends. The boys names were Mark Hazel, who had the most piercing blue eyes you had ever seen, and all the girls fancied him (sadly he died early in his twenties from cancer I believe), and the kid who was to become my first new best friend. His name was David Ellison.

### David was a bit unfortunate in that his mother was an army wife, and she would make David wear short trousers to school. Goodliffe would smack his legs constantly, although I can never really actually remember him doing anything wrong. He cried a lot, but he also made me laugh a lot too. He had Star Wars figures and he wore a leather jacket. Well, from that first day, he made me laugh; he took me under his wing, and got me my first proper beating.

### I can remember being happy to have made a new fun friend. Portway School had a weird layout, and in the middle of the playground, was a huge brick wall. At the back of the school was also the hulk of an old aeroplane (it was just for show though, and no kids allowed inside). Well, school had finished for the day and we were laughing and joking in the playground. The next thing I know, David is hiding behind the wall and he is shouting at someone.

'Bastard!' He shouted at someone at the top of his voice. I ducked behind the wall, laughing at what he had shouted, but my laughter would not last for very long.

### I was still laughing as David walked off home in a different direction to me. All of the way down the road, I felt happy to be accepted, even when I reached the playing field close to my home, I was singing away to myself. The singing soon stopped as my coat hood was pulled over my head, and I was then unceremoniously thrown to the floor. The 'Bastard' as it were, turned out to be one of the hardest kids in the school and just my luck he also lived in my road. He was pissed off with me to say the least. So were his friends.

### I remember being thrown to the ground. Then I remember the sound of footsteps on the grass they, running one after the other. They were running towards me, and then they were stamping on my back Phil Urry, Darren Gibson, and Wayne Hall. All three of them, again and again, took turns in running over my back. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. It did hurt enough to make me cry though. I was being taught a severe lesson in manners, when I had said nothing at all, I was guilty of nothing but laughter.

### I remember being told

'That's for calling me a Bastard!'

### Phil had said it, and then the punishment session ended as quickly as it had begun.

### I lay on the floor, and waited for my attackers to go away, I had to be patient. When I could hear that the boy's voices were far enough away in the distance, I got up. I made my way home with a look of sadness and those damned tears back on my face. Tears were rolling down my face, and when my mother opened the front door, but when she looked at me, the floodgates in my eyes just opened.

### Whatever you do in life, you do not grass on anyone. Remember that one simple rule. Live by it, and die by it. I had begged her, and I had pleaded with her. Whatever I said to her had made no difference at all. My mother was like a woman possessed. She was dragging me to school, and she was intent on dealing with it. Mr Holness was the headmaster at the school. He had a quiff and looked just like Elvis, it was clear that he didn't like grasses either. This was a situation he didn't want to deal with at all. All three of the boys were summoned into his office. I almost got the slipper myself, for allegedly calling someone a Bastard, when I hadn't. Holness said these exact words to me, which I will always remember:

'So we never do anything wrong do we? An angel boy are we?'

### Again I burst into tears I just did not want to be in that office, but for God's sake when in my life am I going to learn to toughen up a bit?

### I didn't ask for the beating. I didn't call anyone names. I didn't want to grass on them either. Now I was responsible somehow for everything that had happened, and now I was about to get three boys the slipper smacked across the ass. These three boys all now knew where I lived. Three boys that were just waiting for the day when they have some further revenge.

### Phil was defiant. He thought what had been done was justified, Mr Holness told him to shake my hand. He said that he would do it later. It took him over twenty five years to finally do it. They did deserve the slipper, but if given the choice, I would have honestly said nothing. For once in my life, I can honestly say if you ever read this Phil

'It wasn't me'.

### King George Road seemed to attract trouble from all areas. The word on the street was that a local estate called King Arthurs Way was where all the local hard men lived. I knew the truth; the hardest people in the town lived in this street, as well as King Arthurs. It had a King in the title, but it was King George road not just King Arthurs Way, where fear and violence lived for me each day.

### I made a lot of new friends in King George Road, but mostly I made lots of enemies. I had the first three fights of my life in this road, and I lost all three. The second was a very humiliating experience. Stupidly enough the guy I was fighting with was a sort of friend of mine, and we decided to have a fight just for a laugh. To be honest I didn't even take him that seriously. I thought it was a joke. The next thing I know, there in my old friend the dreaded playing field, there's a guy sat on my back, I'm face down in the mud, and he's trying to punch my face. All I can do is to turn my head from side to side, while the gathered crown cheer and laugh.

### I was now officially a laughing stock. This was compounded by the fact that a girl went to get my house and my mum had to come and end my humiliation. This time she didn't drag me back to the school. She would have done, but my father decided that he would have to deal with me in a different way. If I had the choice of punishments again, I would have grassed, and I never ever grass.

### It was around this time, that my father had begun to develop a serious drink problem. He drank at home, or in the pubs and he consumed a fair amount. Now I want to be clear about this from the very start. I loved and I still love my father, I always will. I don't blame him for anything that has happened to me, and I don't want to bring shame on his memory, but I need to get this off my chest, he messed me up as a child. Alcoholism is an illness, it makes kind people do things they deeply regret, and I know my father's life was full of regrets. I know he loved me, but he never knew his real fathers love, and he never knew how to escape his troubles until the day that they devoured him.

### My father was sick of me being bullied. He felt ashamed of me that I could not defend myself. Once he tried to make me and my brother punch each other in a makeshift boxing ring. This time he wanted to toughen me up properly. He decided if I couldn't fight back, I must be a big baby. As a baby, I should wear a nappy. So, in his wisdom, he got a towel from the airing cupboard, and tried to furnish it into a nappy shape. Then he made me take my trousers off, and he was going to force me to wear a nappy.

### I cried a lot. I didn't know what I had done wrong. I didn't want to fight. I wanted to be a child. I loved reading, not fighting! I wanted my mother to be proud of me. I wanted to do well at school. So why did I have to learn how to fight? He tried his best to make me punch him, he threw my nicely lined star wars toys across the floor, he goaded me, and he pushed me, he was trying his hardest to make me hit him back. I just couldn't do it but I didn't want to. He was my father, and I was his son.

### I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. At school, I was a victim. In the streets I was a victim. Now at home it was clear that I was also going to become a victim. I should have been grey by the time that I was twelve. I guess deep down, I had a much stronger resolve than that.

### It was around this age that I had my first real panic attack. I had drowned in one of my dreams. I was caught in a net in a local swimming pool, and I could not break free. The air escaped from my lungs and my lifeless body floated. I woke up screaming and gasping for air. It would be the first of many panic attacks over the coming years that would be brought on by my irrational fear of dying.

### What scared me about dying, and what still does, is the fear that there is nothing after this life. The thought that you will never see those you love again and all that you have achieved will all just turn to dust. We all have to realise our own mortality one day, but some of us deal with it better than others, for me I was petrified.

### The Oxfam Beggar
Ty Borrow was without a doubt the school star. He would take the lead in all of the school musicals. All of the girls fancied him or so I thought. He was a bit of a joker, but he was the closest thing to a star we had in the school. I wanted to sing in these shows too, but I never found the strength to try. Now I may be wrong, and it is a very long way back to remember, but I am sure that Ty was a Leeds United fan.

### Mum really did struggle to make ends meet on a limited budget. Dad had his three loves in life, his fags, his booze and his betting. He was great at the first two a real expert, but he was really, really bad at the third. So mum always did the best she could for us with what she had. We would wear second hand clothes from charity shops and clothes that we were given, my mum really didn't know much about football or the clothes that kids wore, and I can honestly say that the first football shirt I owned came from Oxfam. Worse than that, I was a Liverpool fan. This shirt bore the badge of Leeds United.

### Ty decided that he liked my clothes so much that he should make up a nice song about me. It was hilarious to him. He who would always wear fashionable clothes even at his young age. It was hilarious to him that we could only afford second hand clothing. From now on to Ty, I was no longer Martin McGregor. I was now, 'Martin McGregor the Oxfam beggar'

### It's surprising how quickly a song like that gets around. When it does, it sticks. Just like kids were teased like pissy pants Tracey was (she was a girl who simply just could not quite make the toilet in time one day), I now had my own theme tune. I would have preferred to have had the Batman one. Bullied kids can sometimes turn to food, and so it was I found a new love in my life. I was comfort eating, asking mum for money for sweets every day that she could not afford but she still gave us, and I was getting fat. What more did I need in life?

### Second hand clothes to wear. An expanding waistline on the continual increase. No money. A hostile father with serious issues. Hardly a perfect picture, it's no wonder I could never get a girlfriend...............

### ...........you see the thing is, thanks to a television programme. I actually did.

### The Professionals
Bodey, Doyle and Cowley. There were three of them on T.V in the new series 'The Professionals.' Mark Lynch and Phil Clark, they were going to be Bodey and Doyle. The older one was Cowley, he was in charge. I was happy to take it just to be part of something. For a few weeks I didn't get bullied at all. Mark Lynch had a bit of a reputation, he could look after himself. He also had two big brothers. You didn't fuck with the Lynches.

### The next few weeks we did all sorts of undercover missions, in our heads, the three of us were the Professionals. We would all sing along to the theme tune. I didn't have the heart to tell them I had only ever watched the first two minutes of the programme, and then it was my bedtime. My father refused to let me watch it. So I acted the part as if I knew what was going on, and I did it really well. Phil and Mark were sharing a girlfriend at the time, and her name was Judith Monk. To me she looked like a dream.

### After those few weeks passed. It was soon to be the end of The Professionals, the programme was still on television but Mark and Phil were bored of it. It ended with Mark telling Phil to punch me in the school cloakroom, just to show how easy it was to punch someone. I could see that Phil didn't want to do it, but he still did it anyway. Judith was now cast aside as well. As they didn't want to know her anymore, she then decided that she would go out with me instead. I didn't say a word. Secretly, I thought it was worth getting hit for.

### For the next three weeks, I would spend my sweet money on postcards of horses and gave them all to Judith. She loved her horses, and her family were gypsies who did actually own some. We walked to school together, we talked all about horses, and for a while I was really happy. She gave me a school picture of herself, and for one day it sat on my school desk, and for one night it then rested at the side of my bed. The next day, I gave it back to her. I felt ashamed that I had nothing I could give her in return. The next thing I know, she had given it to Phil, who was now laughing in my face.

### Within the next few days, her family were gone from King George Road. No one knew where or why but she was gone. I cried again. I could have been sponsored by Kleenex I cried so much. What hurt me the most though, is that she had gone and had not even told me that she was leaving? Maybe she didn't know that they were going, but I blamed her completely. My world was over, and I would never speak to her again.

### So after my temporary escape, the bullying at school carried on. My best friend David moved to Germany as his dad was in the armed forces, and I never saw him again. All I had for company now was my brother. Every now and again someone new would move into the road. I remember the day Steven Griffiths moved in. He was feisty but he seemed like he was a good laugh, he hung around with us and by the end of the day, he showed us his true colours when he tried to throw a punch at me just to impress a girl. It worked and they soon started going out with each other.

### Her name was Mandy Sharp, and I really liked her at the time. My brother had started going out with her younger sister Nichola, and the four of us had spent a lot of time playing together. Now Stephen had her and I was jealous. She later told me that Steven was her first boyfriend. We still talk on Facebook occasionally to this day. Sadly Steven Griffiths has just met an untimely end a few days before I wrote this paragraph. At thirty eight years of age, his life was ended in that very same road. That damned road that was to blight my early years. He was stabbed through the heart. Another flame that had expired far too soon. A few years back I had bought him a drink in a pub we had both somehow ended up in, and that was the only real time I had anything to do with him in years.

### Despite all that I had been through, I was doing well at school. I became a class super-spell, and it felt good. I still wore second hand clothes, and I was beaten up almost daily, I even feared for my life walking to the local shop. I used to spend my time, staring out of my bedroom window, wishing for a better life, hoping that one day things would change. I dreamt of aliens contacting me, and building a spaceship to travel to the moon.

### The change when it came was something I could never have expected. When it came it almost destroyed us all. Dad was working now, which meant he was drinking more. It wasn't long until things took a serious turn for the worse.

### Everyone at school was talking about Blake's Seven. Star Wars had been massive hit at the cinema, and the world it seemed had gone sci-fi mad. In dinner break we acted out scenes where we were on a spacecraft, and it must have been a testament to my acting skills, that I again managed to join in despite never ever having seen an episode. That night, I decided that I had to see it, just to see what the fuss was all about. My brother and I were laid across the front room floor and began to watch in awe. Then my father came in from the pub he was drunk, and told us to turn it off. I think I just said 'ooh'.

### Maybe, he had had a bad day. Maybe it was just the beer that he had drunk. I will never know for sure but I knew he was mad at me. He flew into a rage, screaming and shouting about how it was he paid all the bills in this house, and how maybe I should 'get a job, and pay the bills my fucking self!' My brother and I were both scared, we grabbed our bikes ran out of the house and rode to the end of the road. There we sat, chatting with our neighbour Paul Beadle. We discussed about how we would run away, and hide out in our den. He said he would bring us food every day, and it seemed like the only thing we could do, I actually thought that we were going to do it.

### Then when my father shouted our names aloud, 'Martin, Wayne, get in here!' Like a good soldier, my brother pedalled off home. He urged me to go with him, but I refused. Petrified, I decided that I should stay where I was. I knew whatever awaited me, it would not be nice. I dare not move for I knew the tone of his voice only too well, and I knew that it would mean nothing but pain for me.

### Eventually, I cycled up the road back to the front door of the house I was less than forty foot away. He had been constantly shouting my name and I was scared, but I had to go home. I had cycled up the road, and then prepared to accept whatever he would do to me. Once the front door was closed, I was dragged into the front room, and my father closed the door behind me, I was scared and crying, and if you asked me the words he shouted at me, I would not recollect a single thing. All that I saw was him removing his belt from his trousers, and my mother pleading with him to stop. The rage in his eyes was terrifying, but nothing would stop him. To feel the leather against my leg would have been pain enough, but it wasn't leather that I felt smash against my knee.

### The belt buckle was thick and solid. It smashed against my knee. He made sure that I felt that rage he had inside of him. The second time it hit, I must have screamed so loud, that my mother could take no more, she ran into the room, and pleaded with him to stop, she held his arms, and the belt was lowered. I was sent to my room. I cried and cried from the pain I was in. Holding my knee, I sobbed uncontrollably. I didn't deserve it, I was just a child, I just wanted my father to love me, and the nightmare of this cruel childhood to end.

### When my father calmed down, he apologised to me and told me that he didn't mean it. I didn't believe him but I cuddled him anyway. I had a hatred for him now but he was still my father. If I could have run away and be sure of being safe, I would have gone. I was just a child and I was scared. I then started to get ill quite regularly.

### Time passed, and I took more solace in food, I would eat because I was sad, and I just got fat. Looking back at pictures of me at this time period, I looked horrific. I thought that life couldn't get much worse, but it did. My father had decided that he would start a Christmas hamper savings club for the road. The only thing that was wrong with the idea was that none of the money was going into any savings accounts. It didn't go anywhere else but into the bookies, or the pub. Soon it got out and the whole street was made well aware of what had happened, and then the neighbours started knocking on the door to get their money back. The trouble was we didn't have it, and there was no way in the world that we could get it either.

### My mother found a home job packing emery boards and my brother and I would help her pack them. I was under the impression that the money I earned would go towards a new bike for me. I came home from school, and worked until late in the evening, night after night. The boards would scrape the skin from our small fingers. I never saw any of the money though. It went towards the debts. Soon I refused to do anymore.

### We still had to find the neighbours money; we soon found that there are always some less than reputable people or companies that will lend you money. Especially when you are desperate, these people will become your friends. These companies aren't like banks. They have shall we say slightly different repayment terms, and there are no direct debits once a month, just those nice friendly collectors who knock on your door once a week for cash. Things only get tricky when you can't make the payments back to them. So the neighbours all got their money back, and our family began a spiral into debt that would stay with us for a very, very, long time. Still, when you're down, you can always have a drink to lighten your spirits, can't you!

### Then the debts we owed from up North also somehow managed to find us too. We were broke. We had run away for nothing! The bank for some reason decided to give my father a credit card and a cheque book around this time. It was almost like handing a bank robber the keys to a safe and telling him you will trust him. The debts grew and grew and then the interest landed on top of it as well. I will never understand how anyone thought he was worth the risk of giving that amount of credit to, bloody bankers.

### Only when you leave

### I lost count of the number of times my mother had said that she had wanted to leave. Even when she never said it, I knew that she still thought it. I could still see the sadness in her face and her eyes. Dad was getting more and more extreme in his behaviour, and it got to the point that we all became scared of what he might do. My mother finally told him she had had enough, so using me as a tool in his cruel plan to change her mind, he called me into the front room. He then produced a large knife, and he placed it just above the top of my head. I could feel the blade in my hair He then turned to my mother, he asked her

'Which half do you want?'

### I sobbed, and my mother cried and pleaded with him not to do anything. These were his terms to agreeing to the split. If they were to split up, they would share the kids, not on different weekends, but take half each with them. So they could still have half the family. He never cut me. Instead, he punched through a window pane, and then made me walk with him to the hospital while they patched him up. My mother endured so much during those days, she doesn't talk about them or even remember half of what he did, and my brother was protected from most of it, which I think is a blessing for him.

### It was only a matter of time before it would happen though. My mother was a woman of courage, but she feared for what would happen to us if she stayed or if she left. I know that he hit her sometimes as I heard it from my bed, but I hardly ever witnessed it, if I did, I may have done something back to him, and then I would have just been hurt even more. It must have taken my mother enormous courage to find the strength to leave, and I can imagine the torment she went through, the first we knew of it all, was when my father's best friend asked my father

'What would you do if I was to be with your wife?'

### My father's response was,

' I'll kill you. 'And I knew that he meant it too.

### I can't recall what day it was, but it wasn't until we came home from school that we knew something was very wrong. My mother had gone. She had just simply left the house. As far as we could make out, she had left with my father's best friend. I didn't know what had happened. I just played merrily with my brother outside the front of the house (always within a safe distance of the refuge of the front door). My father came home and perhaps he found a letter. He asked me to look after my brother and he walked toward the playing fields. I just said 'yes dad'.

### It was getting dark, and mum had still had not returned, I didn't know what I should do. I thought my father was looking for her. Thankfully one of our neighbours took us both into her house, and I think my mother had confided in her about what she was going to do. That night, it was very late when my mother came back to collect us both, she looked so different and alive for once. We were driven away in a car late at night, and I can just remember being carried by Tom my father's former best friend, while I was half asleep. I was carried in to a strange house, into a strange bed, but I was so tired, that I slept until daylight.

### I wondered what had happened to my father. The walk across the playing fields takes around six to eight minutes. A line of bushes separates the two fields, and a narrow pathway leads to a main road. I know the thoughts that went through my father's head when he made that walk. I have made it twice since at least, and both times with the same intention as he did. I would reach that bridge do the same thing as he did.

### Upon reaching the main road, he turned left. I don't know how long he stayed there for and contemplated his fate. I don't know if he cried, regretted, hated, or raged. All I know for certain, is that from the highest railway bridge in Andover, my father made his decision. He climbed up and over the stone wall, and jumped from the bridge intending to take away his pain forever.

### We didn't know it, but we were in Acton. It was so very different to Andover. At first it just seemed like one big grand adventure. Again, I found that I wasn't going to school. We didn't understand what was going on, but at least we were away from King George Road. As far as we knew, our father would have returned home, and probably drank himself into oblivion. We simply had no idea what had happened. My mother now wore nice clothes and seemed happy for the first time in a very, very, long time.

### Two of Tom's daughters were also in the house, and from another room we could sometimes hear Tom's wife screaming down the end of the telephone at my mother for breaking up both of the families. She cried whenever she had one of these conversations, Tom's wife was her former friend and she felt guilty. For the next few weeks, we slept on a sofa. It was in the same room that my mother and her new lover slept. It was uncomfortable and cramped. We asked my mother a few times when we would be going home. She could not give us an answer.

### Someone had seen my father jump from the bridge. Whoever it was had stopped dead and had gotten out of his car. He risked his life and limb to scramble down the railway embankment to reach my father. The fall hadn't killed him. The trains somehow hadn't killed him either. He was alive. For some reason, he had been spared. Sometimes, you just don't get away with these things that easily. In those days, if you tried to end your life, you ended up in a hospital, but it was nothing like a normal hospital. This was a hospital for people who were disturbed. We called them mental hospitals, and our local one was called Park Pruitt.

### Tom also liked a drink; he also liked to get drunk too. I think that is why my father and Tom initially got on so well. The trouble was they both had more in common than just liking a drink. They were also both very quick tempered too. They also had no problem with raising a hand to a woman either. As a relationship, it wasn't going to last. My mother had tried her best to run away. Instead she had run into the hands of a man almost identical to my father in every single way.

### My Nan became involved in trying to fix up the broken marriage of my parents. My father was in Essex, he had gone back to stay with his mother and father and after numerous telephone calls, at some point, it was decided that my father might just have learnt his lesson. My mother decided to meet him so that they could talk. As we left Tom's house I knew that we would never see him again.

### He certainly seemed different when dad talked to us on the telephone. He sounded more human and even humane. Perhaps now I would have a real father in my life. Perhaps now things would change for the better. The meeting between my mother and father was promising, and for the first time in my life that I would be able to remember, I saw my Nan and Granddad. Tom knew it was over the minute the meeting was arranged. As far as we know, he went back to his wife with his tail between his legs. We never saw him again, we were glad that we didn't.

### We were soon back in Andover. We were back in King George Road. Back at school, and back once again to being bullied. For a while, I think my father tried really hard. My mother had tried to leave, and it didn't work out. How different it could have been, if only she had met a nicer man when she was younger, and I certainly wouldn't be here now writing these words. Everything was certainly better for quite some time. In fact I was in secondary school now, and apart from that, nothing had changed.

### A row erupted one night. For some inexplicable reason, my brother let it slip that he had seen my mother and Tom, doing things that only adults did. He wasn't to know what he was saying. Maybe my father had even tricked him into saying it. My mother was crying. My father went mad, he had a knife in his hand, and I think the neighbours called the police. He vowed that he would kill him if he ever saw him again. I know that he meant it, as I too have felt that rage when you find out that someone has slept with your wife.

### So my father started drinking yet again, and now I was at a different school, with the same bullies, who now had new friends to join in the bullying. Life was dandy. It wasn't just the boys who liked to bully at this school either. The girls would sometimes join in, and that was extra special in the degradation department. If you're fat, you're going to get bullied. It's a fact. Keep your kids fit.

### Life was quite mundane, and for three years nothing changed. My father ran up huge debts on his cheque book. Then the flexible friend stopped being flexible to the point it became rigid and started saying no. The sherry was drunk at home now, and two glasses turned to four, then to eight, then from one bottle to two. Weekly changed to daily, and alcohol kept appearing to offer my father a way to escape.

### The bullying continued, without any resistance from me, it was far easier to run, or just get hit. I was desperately unhappy, and would often dream of a better life. I would sometimes watch the rain falling down my bedroom window, dreaming that aliens would try and make contact, and maybe come and take me away desperately sad, that I had been dropped off on the wrong planet, and I would be taken somewhere where everyone was the same as me. I felt alone most days.

### One day, things started to change for me. I was stood outside the school gate, just minding my own business, when Wayne Hall ran past me. He tapped me on the arm, and as far as I recall and I put my arm out to tap him back. Little did I realise at the time I actually slapped him on the face. My brother came out of school and we began to walk home together. We got about half way home, when Wayne ran up, and punched me straight in the back of the head.

### I don't recall what happened next, the following five seconds were just a blind haze, but during those seconds I found my inner rage. My school bag was thrown to the floor, and I was crying and shouting with blind fury. All those inner demons were now ready to finally break out and repel from that calm child that had patiently held them all in. My fists flew wildly, and for the first time in my life I was striking out at someone in anger. I wanted to hurt him, and I probably wanted to kill him. I couldn't see through my tears, my eyes were half closed for the fear of more pain, but I carried on striking out. I couldn't tell you how many times I hit him, or if any of my blows hit him at all, my brother claimed they did, but I can and always will recall the look on his face when it had all ended.

### He looked as if he had just opened a coffin, and he had found someone still alive inside, a mummy that had back from the grave. He didn't realise but that moment when he hit me, he had played a pivotal part in my upbringing. Never again would I be afraid to be hit, and if they hit me, then I would damn well hit them back. If I got hurt, I didn't care. No one would get away with it anymore.

### Then we moved away from King George Road, and everything changed beyond even what I could imagine. Lancaster close was to be where my life changed forever, this is the house where I would finally become a man.

### Purple rain

### We knew one person who lived in the close; it was Mark Lynch who lived opposite us. He had a couple of older brothers who were always getting in scraps, one day one of them was glassed in the face and I wanted so much to be like them. Looking on, I could see a glimpse of what the future held. Lancaster close was very different to King George Road, for a start it was a two minute walk from the nearest housing estate. That meant more people for us to get to know, potentially it meant more bullies, but ultimately, it meant meeting some different girls.

### We quickly made friends and it wasn't long before we had our own little gangs. Coming from King George Road, we were seen as something different. Everyone knew where we were from, and because of what we went through, people assumed that we were already up for a scrap or two. There were lots of different types in the area, rich, poor, haves, have not's dumb, clever and the misfits. We found that we could interact with all of them and we were doing so every day.

### We made dens, we pissed people off, we played knock down ginger, we swam, we played football, and we were finally accepted. I was enjoying my life and we messed around. I still had little money and no decent clothes, but I had more space and freedom. We went camping and tried fishing but soon found out it was boring, and we played without fear. My happiness was short lived.

### It was the summer break and myself, my brother Wayne, and my then best friend John Proudfoot were all walking down Junction road heading towards the town centre. Half way down the road, we walked passed a local hostel. It was known to house those who had been in trouble with the law and had experienced difficulties with either drink or drugs. It was a sunny day and the three of us were smiling and laughing and joking. As we passed the hostel, some rock and roll music was playing and we started dancing around as we made our way towards the town. Before we knew it, someone was shouting out of one of the windows of the hostel.

"Take the fucking piss out of my music will ya!"

### Well let me put the record straight, I liked rock and roll music, I definitely wasn't taking the piss the only album I had was a tribute to Showaddywaddy, and Shaking Stevens was sadly one of our house favourites. So no, as it happens we weren't doing anything but enjoying the music as we walked. The guy had jumped from the window, and had begun his pursuit of us. The three of us just ran as fast as we could.

### I was wearing a shirt that was something that my family had been given, and it had an army badge on the arm. I guess the guy maybe could have thought I was a squaddie. We ran for as long as we could but they guy was fit and faster than us. Eventually he caught up with us, and this guy was a full grown man. I was a boy of about 14 years of age and I was scared. I protested our innocence, but it was to no avail.

"We didn't do anything!" I shouted, but the guy still grabbed me by the throat. He then punched me twice squarely in the face. John and Wayne were both petrified; they thought that they were next in line for a beating. After the guy had finished he just simply walked away. I went home and then explained to my father what had happened and he phoned the police. He told them to meet him there at the hostel as he was going to find the guy and he was going to kill him.

### When the police came to our house, the man had already concocted a fictitious story, and the police officer then held up a stone that he said I had been accused of having thrown at the window. I had had enough that day and once again I found myself in tears. The policeman didn't believe the story and the man was then arrested. He eventually got fined for assault. It was then that I decided that I needed to do something more to defend myself, so I started to go to Bushido lessons with John.

### We stayed close to home for a while, made more friends locally. This was to lead me to one of the darkest chapters in my life. I was only young and finding my way in the world, but I was to witness something that would haunt me then and still haunts me to this very day. At the time, I wasn't even sure of what I had witnessed, only now as an adult can I reflect at the event and truly say what happened back then.

### Kissing Debbie in the Alley

### Debbie was so cute, really sweet and cute. She didn't have stunning looks but she was really full of life and always smiling, she had something about her. She was also the first girl I ever French kissed. Not that we ever went out together, it was just a load of us messing around and passing time, while the rain came down. We sheltered under the alleyway, outside of Darren's house. Then we took it in turn to French kiss both Debbie and Nikki. I couldn't get her off of my mind, even though she started dating a friend of mine that very night.

### So that's how Debbie came to hang around with the gang. We liked having her around. There was always a hint of sadness in her eyes though, we heard that her mother had died when she was just a small child and I always saw sadness behind her smile. She quickly joined in with the gang. I don't know why but for some reason Freddy (I have changed his name for reasons that will not become clear but will save the shame on his family), suddenly decided that he wanted to hang around with us. It's strange to think that most of the time, I can put this episode in my life into the back of my mind, but every now and again, it rears its ugly head and I now wish that I had done something. I wish I fully understood what was happening at the time but I didn't.

### You see Freddy was a bit of a strange fish. His family were gypsies, but they didn't live in a caravan, he introduced himself to me by asking me if I wanted to scrap him. I declined, I didn't know him, and didn't have any particular beef with him. My mate later told me, that his big brother was waiting where he could see us, if we fought and Freddy was found to be losing, then his brother would join it. So we kind of became mates over the next few months. He would appear suddenly every now and again when he was bored of his other friends.

### Well one particular day, just as had I said earlier, he decided that he wanted to hang around with us while Debbie was there. He cracked jokes around her and made her smile, and they seemed to get on well. So well in fact that he started to whisper things in her ear. For a while she was smiling and then nodding in agreement. The pair of them went for a short walk together round to the back of a council work van. It was kind of like a portable storage unit that was dragged along to the building sites and then dumped until work was completed on an area.

### The rest of us just carried on riding around on our bikes, or just playing around pretending to fight. Curiosity then got the better of me. I knew they were doing something, I didn't know if they were kissing or touching, experimenting, or maybe placing fingers where they shouldn't be. I still don't know why I looked to this day I guess I was just curious as to what he was doing with the lovely Debbie. Freddy was on top of Debbie, he was pumping away at her like she was some kind of fuck toy. I was kind of sickened and devastated. I wanted her to be my girlfriend, and now she was doing this.

### I could see that Debbie was upset, and after a few minutes they came out from behind the work van together.

### Freddy started shouting

'Next time maybe I should make a video so you all can have a look!'

### We chuckled. At the time we thought what he had said was funny.

### Debbie then walked off with Nikki, and they were away for quite some time. Something wasn't right, but none of us knew exactly what was going on. We carried on as normal. Freddy sat on his bike with a big grin on his face. Normality never lasted long here.

### Nikki then came screaming round the corner shouting through her tears.

'You bastard Freddy!' she was in floods of tears, but Freddy just smiled at her.

'She wanted it she got it' was his smug response.

'She said no you bastard!' and Nikki then ran off crying towards where she had left Debbie.

### For some reason, none of us really understood what had happened. The only people who knew the truth of what he had done were Freddy and Debbie. Freddy rode off on his bike with a smug grin, Debbie never came back to hang around again. He had raped her and I had seen him do it. I wish that I had done something. I wish I had understood what Nikki was saying. I saw Debbie have her virginity taken away against her will. If I had at least punched him once, I doubt I would, but I may have felt a little bit better. He carried on with life as if nothing had happened. He got away with it. If it's true that was goes around comes around, one day I hope he gets his. I hope it hurts like hell.

### I didn't want to hang around with Freddy after that. Instead I met another gang who would hang around the estate playing football. I decided to join in. Before I knew it, my enthusiasm had me forcing my way into my first ever football team. They were the local estate team and they were named the Andover Dynamos.

### Back To Reality
I got fit, very fit. I was fitter than I had been for a very long time in fact I was fitter than at any point in my life. I had started playing football for the local team in proper matches every week, and I even swam and started running. I got some new clothes from the money from a paper round I had and mum was working full time and she had started to buy clothes for us as well. Even Dad bought me a pair of trainers that were so comfortable I just ran everywhere in them.

### I managed to get hold of a Raleigh Grifter bike which I rode everywhere, and I met lots of new friends and was even starting to attract some female fans. That may seem like a strange statement but for someone who had never known girlfriends properly, it was a strange experience. I had kissed a girl properly but never had a real girlfriend, and now two in particular were showing me some interest.

### Girls on Film

### The girls were called Anna and Tracey. They both went to a different school to me, but that just seemed to add to the attraction. I would leave my school and walk or run to their school to meet them both. For months they kept asking me which one of them I would like to go out with. I liked them both but I must admit I liked Anna much better than I liked Tracey. I couldn't decide, and I wasn't sure that if I chose Anna, then she may just turn me down. The decision in the end was almost made for me.

### Anna's family took her away on a week's holiday. This just left me and Tracey behind. I asked her out and then took her to see a chick flick which was rubbish. I put my arm around her, and was made to feel very uncomfortable. The date ended with a peck on her cheek. For a first date, it was a very poor one. As an introduction to women it was sad. Worst of all Anna never forgave me. I never got my chance to ask her out.

### The one thing that Anna did for me was to introduce me to one of the loves of my life. She would constantly listen to Duran Duran records, and I would feign an interest just to make out we liked the same things. I borrowed the Duran Duran records from her and taped them. I listened to them a few times and I actually found that I loved the music they made. Before I knew it my life was taking a very strange turn that would be influenced by five stylish men from Birmingham. There was a problem though. Duran Duran was a band that the girls liked, not men.

### I didn't care. This was music that for some reason had spoken volumes to me, the lyrics were so effete that I had no idea what Mr Le Bon was singing about, but I didn't care. I bought all I could that they had ever made, and I still have it all now. I envisaged the lyrics and made my own videos to the songs in my head. I was rapidly approaching 16 years old. I was fit, happy and healthy. I wanted nothing more, except happiness for my family, and with raging hormones; to lose my virginity would have been nice!

### It was interesting at school. I hadn't been bullied for a while, the last time I had been bullied I decided not to grass. It had been over a year previous the event had happened. Strange but I remember the last time I was bullied at school quite clearly. It was always on a Tuesday afternoon and I would regularly get a beating during the tea break. There were four or five of them and to them it was just a game.

### The numbers were against me, and I desperately wanted to at least stand up to one of them, but when you are outnumbered it's quite hard to do anything. So I did all that I could do, and that was to run. Sometimes I would be caught, sometimes not. This time I wasn't lucky. I was caught at the back of the school, with no hope of salvation from any roaming teachers and I was once again taking a beating.

### Dead arms, dead legs, kicks to the stomach, hits around the head. It hurt, but it was sufferable. It continued until the bell sounded to signify the end of the break and I ran off from the pack in the opposite direction. I was late going back to class as I had to run right around the entire school building. The teachers name was Mr Ward, and he was a royal prick. I entered the class, and the boys who had hit me, were all in their seats. I apologised for being late, I had taken the beating, but these days I no longer had tears in my eyes, there would be no evidence of what had happened to me. I lied to the teacher and apologised that I was late as I had been to the toilet.

### The boy's eyes all looked at me, as if begging me not to tell on them. I had no intention of grassing on any of them. Mr Ward screamed at me to get out of his class, and I did. I stood in the hallway with just my anger for company, but I stood there proud. I wasn't a grass. I had taken the best beating they could give me. I suffered the punishment. Standing here, while teachers walked past me and wondered why I was there, it was a long hour. In that short space of time, I realised I had won. I stood proud.

### The boys never ever hit me at break time again. I had gained some sort of respect for not grassing, and they felt shame for beating up an innocent boy. I felt good that they were hurting for what they did. Summer holidays came and I kept getting fit. I was a totally different person when the summer was over.

### Now at almost sixteen we returned to school after an enjoyable summer break, I was bigger, faster and much stronger. A girl who used to taunt me previously called me a wanker; she just wanted to see if I would crumble. I stood looking at her and just laughed in her face. Was that the best she had? Her jaw just dropped.

### During a morning meeting, the teacher left the room, a guy then hit me on the head with a chair, for no other reason than thinking it would be funny. I grabbed the chair, and rammed it back into his stomach, it shoved his back through the window, and the whole class went quiet. I was starting to like this. He had to pay for the window to be fixed, as the headmaster asked me for money I just smiled at him. He never got a penny from me.

### Next was to come one of the most interesting chapters in my life. I was to meet a family called the O'Neil's, for the next six years, my whole life would basically evolve around them. The youngest daughter of the family was called Claire, but she liked to be called Dolly. She was hanging around with us, and she was fun, stupid and interesting, it was a most potent combination to say the least.

### I was quite enjoying being at school now, but in the fifth year I just really didn't feel like going to school lessons anymore. My mum and dad were both out at work, so my brother and I would decide to have a few friends around the house instead. Soon all of those who were bunking off school for the day would be turning up on my doorstep, hoping that I would be home. So the days of fifth year school were no more, but the house parties were only just starting.

### We had music, and we would pretend to be a band, all playing different instruments. I would always be the singer as I loved it. We would get alcohol whenever we could, and the girls would come round to party with us too. It was never much more than occasional kisses or maybe copping a feel, but we were actually living. Dolly would come round constantly, and so would her brother Peter.

### We managed to get a video player on hire, and some days we would rent horror films and try and scare the girls. I remember my brother dressing up as Freddy Kreuger, and then patiently laying at the back of a sofa for hour, just waiting for the right moment in the film to jump out and scare poor Lisa O 'Riordan half to death. A short few years later this beautiful young girl would be found dead in Asia and when I read it in the paper. I broke down I had taken her to see Madonna at Wembley and now she was gone forever.

### The time for end of year exams came. Despite missing half the year, I still left school with eight qualifications. When I walked out of that school gate for the very last time, it was the best feeling of my life. I never ever wanted to return to this place which had caused me so much heartache. I had met some good friends here, that I would remember (and in some cases would actually stay in touch with) for life. I was just so glad that it was finally over.

### Peter and I both had birthdays a week apart, we left school together even though we were at different schools and soon became very best friends, we would hang out, play football, and we would even dress the same. Peter had a job as a coal man, I had planned to go to college, but those plans soon went out of the window when my dad told me that I now had to pay my way in the house. I tried getting up early for a part time job, but I ended up electrocuting and burning myself in the bakery because I was just too tired. It lasted about three weeks and I just quit. That was it I had to go to work. I loved painting, and a YTS scheme seemed a logical choice at the time. It would pay me £27.30 a week, of which £15 would have to go into the house. I would have less than £8 a week to myself.

### So I still signed up for the two year YTS scheme. I was to train to be a painter and decorator and then maybe I would go into business by myself. Peter and I were inseparable little shits. We would go to roller discos and get into scrapes together. We would get drunk and jump into rivers from bridges, we were young dumb and full of....life, this was the age of innocence, but we were not to be innocent for much longer at sixteen Peter introduced me to his cousin, and she gladly took away my virginity.

### Shelley was a little bit overweight, but she wasn't fat. She looked ok and she tasted of cherry Lypsyl. I was impressed with her. Within a few days we were an item. She would come to my house and I would go to hers. She lived eight miles away so a bus journey either way separated us. It took away two weeks for us to arrange a perfect time to be alone together. Perfect time, perfect place, but it was hardly the perfect start.

### A Shot In The Dark

### So here we were on a babysitting mission, the child was in bed and we were naked on the living room floor. I had some respect and didn't want to use her employer's bed. Shelley was more than ready, and I was raring to go. I had waited for this moment for such a long time, of all the people I knew, all of them were no longer virgins and I wanted to lose my virginity so badly, I literally couldn't wait.

### The pressure of the first time, the excitement of knowing it was finally going to happen, the worry that the woman who owned the house may come in the door at any second, in less than a minute all the elements seemed to conspire against me, and it was over as soon as it began. She was disappointed, and I was embarrassed and it took around just thirty seconds to destroy my confidence and empty my tanks.

### She was kind and said it didn't matter. I just looked at myself in the mirror, knowing it was done but not exactly how I had gone over it again and again in my mind in practice, this was not how I had planned it. Thankfully time would give me a second chance but it was not with Shelley. It was just too embarrassing for me. I finished with her, and she cried a lot, and then I felt like a right shit, but life went on. Peter and I went out together and we did what we did best, we got drunk. Then he did another stupid thing, and he introduced me to his twin sister.

### Catherine was Peter's twin; she was a week older than me. She also had a child, but it didn't matter to me at all. She looked great and she was fun to be around. She also seemed to like me. I accepted her child as if she were my own, and loved them both. Peter was ok, as it meant I was around his house all of the time, but he would sometimes go out with other mates and leave us alone. We could only go out with each other one week out of two when her mother was at work on nights, Catherine was worried her mother would not approve, she was right.

### Catherine's mother had always been nice to me in the past, and I often looked at her and thought she was quite pretty for an older woman too. She was ultra protective of Catherine and her child as the child's father had done something which they would never tell me, he had either hit Catherine or had threatened her as far as I could make out, but I never really knew the truth. I will tell you more about Catherine later.

### The YTS scheme turned out to be a thug's paradise. All the different school hard nuts that couldn't seem to find any real work, and had ended up on one of these schemes, and the worst of them all seemed to land up in our van. I was used to being hit, and wasn't really worried about being bullied, but these guys hit a lot harder than the guys at school, they hit a hell of a lot harder.

### We had some laughs there, but it was normally at the expense of someone innocent or disadvantaged. There was a guy called Gary who was a heavy metal freak. He had the long hair and denim jacket that was the heavies uniform at the time. It proudly displayed a large AC/DC picture across the back. He took particular enjoyment in opening the van window on route to work, and then he would shout 'bal-dy!' every day at a young girl who had recent cancer treatment and had lost all her hair. She always flipped him the bird but every day he would cry with laughter at his simple joke.

### Gary was a little bit of a nutcase to say the least. I'm sure had the I.Q of the average hamster, but he may not have actually been that clever. We worked on site at a place called Enham Industries. Enham is a place where disabled people are employed and housed, en masse, and here I met some of the loveliest people I have ever met. Gary didn't see the disabled as real people. To him they were walking jokes to be ridiculed, and ridicule them he did.

### There was one guy who was working at Enham in the book binding factory. The factory was at the top of the hill and we parked our van at the bottom. I remember now that his name was Tony. Tony could not speak, but he made noises. He always wore a grey suit jacket and had big NHS glasses. The only word he could say was Ba. Now to Gary this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. This forty something man, was walking along going ba, ba, ba ba ba. So Gary thought it would be hilarious to taunt this man by shouting

"To-ny, BA BA BA BA BA" in the most ridiculous tone whenever he saw him come out of the book binding factory.

### Tony would then run down the hill to the van and really lose his temper. He was supposed to be very violent, and we always managed to lock the van before he got there. One day Gary taunted him, and Tony just walked off. It was about five minutes later and all the van doors were fully open, and I was the only one left inside. I heard a tap on the window and just as I took a sip of my coffee, I turned my head expecting one of the boys.

### I spat my coffee out as I saw the very angry face of Tony behind me, he was raging at the window, and I genuinely feared for my life. I bolted towards the back doors and just managed to close them before he managed to get in the van. I could just hear, the Ba, Ba sounds he was making really loudly, and really angrily.

### Please don't think that I have something against disabled people, I don't. I have some really good friends who are disabled, and one of them if the funniest, most genuine and nicest person that I know. He can also drink me under the table any day. I hate people who take the piss out of those who are disabled. I also hate people who show pity on disabled people too. The disabled are just people, no tags required. Sometimes I think our attitudes make us the truly disabled people in this society.

### The YTS scheme soon faded and I found myself working a proper job. It was working as a press operator, and it meant boredom and humdrum repetition. It lasted just over eight months. It introduced me to pubs properly, and gave my parents one of the most memorable times of my teenage years.

### I don't know the reason why, or how it had actually happened, but somehow I had upset one of the local hard boys. He was supposed to be after me. I really didn't give a shit. If it was going to be a fight I did want some Dutch courage before it kicked off, so I decided on half a bottle of southern comfort, and three cans of harp lager. The mixture didn't go down well. I remember being taken home in a car with the air from an open window in my face.

### The guy was coming to find me at eight, and I would have been waiting for him. The only thing was I was unconscious while laid in my bed. I woke up around nine. The smell from the room made me even sicker. I woke up to find my bed covered in vomit. Peter was here to get me. I cleaned myself up the best that I could, and then I wobbled all over the place. If the guy was there for the fight, he could have flicked me and I would have fallen over. He had already been and gone after some of my mates had scared him away. Problem solved, but I wasn't feeling too clever at all. I went home to a lot of cleaning, and even more puking. Catherine wasn't impressed with me either.

### Drinking was now becoming a regular occurrence. Every Friday we finished work at one, and we would all go into town to get drunk. We would start at the Borough arms, then maybe have one in the Bishops Blaize, then move the Angel then the George and finally the Globe. The Globe was where all the punks drank and we would often be laughing as one of them got so bladdered that they would fall backwards off his or her stool. We didn't know it, but drugs were becoming rife in the pub too.

### It wasn't long before the Globe changed hands. The brewery gutted the pub and made it trendy. It lost all its character, but in later years it would regain some of its original charm. It was never ever as busy as it was on those Friday afternoon ever again. I guess that's what you call progress. It was the mid eighties now, and the gap between rich and poor had never been wider. We were in Thatcher's Britain and we hated it, so we just got drunk.

### I grew bored of working presses, so I started looking for employment elsewhere. Then I somehow found myself working with my mum and dad. For the first time in my life, I got to see a different side to my father. As a workmate he was ok, sometimes he was even funny.

### Catherine and I were getting along famously. We would make love in her bedroom, always being quiet just in case anyone heard. It was scary and it was exciting. She would always wear a skirt and she would sit on my lap, and I lost count of the number of times her brothers or sisters would come in the room without even knocking. We always managed to hide what we were doing.

### One time we were making love on her front doorstep. It was the middle of winter and we were freezing. We just didn't care. Until her neighbour named old Jack came along. Jack was drunk and wanted a chat. We were freezing and I was close to the point of no return. He just wouldn't bugger off! How I never got Catherine pregnant I will never know.

### That year I went to my first ever music concert I caught a coach to Wembley Arena and saw my heroes Duran Duran for the first time. I lost my hairbrush earlier in the day, and my hair decided to go afro on me. I couldn't find the clothes I wanted to wear and I looked a disaster. I sat next to a gorgeous girl on the coach but did not utter a single word all the way there. The concert cemented Duran Duran as my favourite band of all time, and they remain there still.

### It all came to a head with Catherine after I gave her an engagement ring at Christmas. She looked shocked, but she said yes. I was the happiest man alive. I was desperately in love with her, and knew I could give her and her daughter a good life. I would work all the hours of the day I could to make us a home. I would be the best husband and best step father ever. We had an engagement party but there was one snag, we still hadn't told her mother yet. In hindsight we were right not to.

### When Catherine's mother found out, all hell was let loose. The next thing I know there is a letter in my hands my father passed to me that had been posted through the door. Catherine was telling me by a letter that it was all over. We could not see each other anymore, and I could have back all the stuff I had ever bought for her and her daughter. Of all the pain I had suffered in my life, this one hurt me the most. It felt as if someone had ripped my heart from my chest and was squeezing the blood from it in front of my very eyes.

### Surprisingly, my father was the one to comfort me. He told me to hang in there, and it might just be alright. My world had ended and I could only see one solution. I had to have something alcoholic to drink, and lots of it. I was in a stupor for quite some time. We got back together a few weeks later, but it had almost finished for good by then. I had met a few other girls and I was thinking it wasn't worth getting hurt that badly ever again. Catherine argued with her mum, and then she moved in with me for one night. She left her daughter behind.

### The next day her step father came round he forced his way into the door and told her to come home. She wanted me to face her mother with her, but for some reason I just couldn't. I don't know what stopped me back then, but I knew it was all already all over. She went into her mum's house, and that was virtually the end of us. We did go out a few times afterwards, but it was never to be the same again.

### Peter and I had found new best friends, alcohol, and nightclubs. I would earn money from working two jobs, and then I would spend it all on clothes and clubs and pubs. In the late eighties we probably kept the country afloat with the amount we spent on beer alone. Then for a laugh we tried our hand as D.J's, and found out that we were actually quite good at it! We were always trying to outdo each other, and it led to some very funny and very memorable moments for us both.

### Then a funny thing happened. Dolly came back into my life. I don't know how it happened, but that family seemed to draw towards me like magnets. A cousin and two sisters, I had now slept with all three. It wasn't right, and Mrs O'Neil was furious, but I was now a taboo for Dolly, and that made me seem to be Mr Right. For a few months we dated and split up regularly. Peter was always around to help me drown my sorrows whenever things went wrong. So was a little club in Basingstoke that was called Martines nightclub.

### Martines had dark red walls. It was seedy, dark, dingy, full of dirty women, and they never asked us for I.D on the door, and I fucking loved it. My one lasting memory of the place is Joyce Sims come into my life always seemed to come on the minute I walked in the door. The first time we went there, Peter got very, very drunk. I think it was his first time out of Andover by the way he drank. I had bought a car but couldn't drive, so a friend of ours called Carl took us there and the arranged to pick us up after closing time.

### To say Peter was drunk would be an understatement. He fell out of the car door and landed on the floor with a thud. He had a downstairs bedroom in the house and we could look through his bedroom window at him. As he fell through the front door, we then saw the light come on in his bedroom. It soon became clear what his intentions were and three of us looked on through his window in utter awe of what he was about to do, never fully imagining what hilarity it would actually be.

### Peter, having decided that he loved being a D.J. had invested in some double turntables and a hug amp. Peter always liked to go for bigger and better. This system was around 600 watts of pure music power. He placed on his headphones and selected a record. It was the theme from s'express the twelve inch version. If you have ever heard this song, you will know how it starts.

'Enjoy this trip, enjoy this trip, and it is a trip, then a really loud, dad a da dad a da, S'express.' At four in the morning a full blast of 600 watts pure music power, Gainsborough court in Artists Way was awoken by the towns newest budding enthusiastic D.J. Mrs O'Neil flew through Peter's bedroom door at the speed of a jet fighter. She landed a punch to Peter's head that Mike Tyson would have been proud of. The headphones flew, and Peter just stood in shock at what had just happened. He didn't even know where he was; to him he was still in the club.

### Peter stood shell-shocked. The power was ripped from his decks, and his head was in pain. Outside of his bedroom window, three of us were falling on the floor holding our ribs with laughter. There were many lights switched on in that court that morning, while Peter almost had his lights punched out by his middle aged mother.

### The next time it was my turn to get drunk. I had split up with Dolly again, and I wanted an excuse to drown my sorrows. I drank thirteen pints of Stella Artois and then moved on to Pernod and black. I should have stopped when I walked into the ladies toilets by mistake. I didn't. I felt like every woman wanted me that night, but I can't remember actually talking to any of them.

### With my drunken smile, I remember it was time to leave the club. My friends left me on a wall outside the club while they went to get food. When they returned I had gone. While they returned to the train station, I slept peacefully at the back of the wall I had fallen off. I awoke to feel Peter shaking me. We had four minutes to get to the train station. I was wobbling, but we made it to the station just as the train was about to pull away. The guard stopped the train, and I made my way to the toilet to be sick.

### I thought that I could be sick no more. I must have emptied half my legs with the amount I had thrown up. Peter was knocking on the door, telling me to hurry up as there were girls in the carriage. I steadied myself, put on a big smile and walked from the toilet. I sat down opposite a beautiful girl; I managed a simple drunken "hello."

### The next thing I remember I had covered the girls legs in sick. She was furious and hitting me, while my friends were all rolling around on the chairs with laughter. I can't remember leaving the train, or getting home. I wasn't well and the drinking was getting out of hand. We didn't know what we were doing to our bodies, and to be honest we didn't really care.

### During the next few trips to Martines, I got so drunk I had antifreeze sprayed in my mouth, and I could have died. We also found it fun to upturn the train on the way home. One night when we got back to Andover, we had lifted every cushion off every chair on the whole train. We would piss from the windows, and someone even let off a fire extinguisher. We were thugs; it now pains me to say.

### When we got back to Andover we had a nice welcoming party. The police were waiting for us to arrive. We got off the train and we ran in all different directions. I sprinted and managed to dive over a hedge into someone's garden. The police drove past me and I paid the price as I had landed in a bunch of Rose bushes and was now cut to pieces.

### We never went back to Martines after that. It was the last of our sessions going out of Andover for a while. It taught us a valuable lesson. From now on, leave the trains alone. It wasn't the last time alcohol caused me to have a run in with the police though. One night after drinking twelve pints of Stella my bladder was close to bursting and on the way home I emptied my bladder with a policeman stood over my shoulder, he tapped my shoulder, and I turned around. The rest is history, but it was an expensive piss.

### If You Leave Me Now

### The relationship with Dolly was back on again. We would have sex everywhere, in parks, in other people's houses, the local lakes, anywhere, we once did it in a sleeping bag with two other people in the room, but there was a darker side to Dolly. It fully came to light one Christmas Eve at a local pub. I had simply danced with another girl to a slow song. It meant nothing and her boyfriend was even there that night. Dolly flew into a jealous rage. She punched me in the face, and then ran head first into a plate glass exit door.

### On Christmas day I had to tell her that it was over. My timing was slightly off I admit. She then proceeded to pick up a pint glass and tried to smash it round my head. I managed to duck and somehow she caught herself on the head with it. It opened up the cut she had made on her head the previous night. I had had enough of her jealousy. We did try once more, but again her jealous streak took over and the neighbours called the police when she refused to leave the doorstep and continued screaming. It took four policemen to get her into the car.

### Then I met a friend's sister called Sarah. We went out with each other for a few weeks, and when Dolly found out we were sleeping together she flew for her. I really did like Sarah, but I genuinely feared that Dolly would kill her, so I ended it. For some stupid, and what was probably a very drunk reason, I ended up sleeping with Dolly again. A few weeks later she told me she was pregnant.

### At first I was elated at the news, but then it emerged that I wasn't the only one who had been sleeping with Dolly. Peter told me that Dolly had even told his mother it wasn't my child. I didn't know. If she had the child, I would have taken care of it as if it was no matter what. Instead I ran away unable to face the fact that it might not be mine. After what Peter had told me, I was devastated. I just went out for a drink with another girl, and the next thing I knew Dolly was in hospital.

### The nurse was talking on the phone to me as if I was a piece of shit. Dolly had taken a massive overdose and she wanted to see me. Her family said that if I turned up at the hospital, I would be in the bed next to her. I had no choice I could not go. Dolly had an abortion, and I hadn't wanted any of it. I felt terrible that she may have killed a child that could have been mine. I had to try and start a new life. I started seeing someone else, and didn't see Dolly for a few weeks. When I did, I wished I hadn't.

### The girl that I was now seeing was one of Dolly's old school friends called Tonya, and I quickly fell deeply in love with her. Dolly saw us together and flew straight for me, she ran at me with such force, that we broke through a fence and landed in someone's garden. She was punching me, scratching and kicking out at me, and I just couldn't get her off me. When she had finished her rage, she eventually got off me, but she was still screaming abuse at me. Part of me felt I deserved it; part of me still wasn't sure.

### I was seventeen when I left home. I had always fought with my father, but I loved my mother and I loved my father, I also loved my brother. I would defend my family, and found myself fighting with an old friend who called my old man an alky. We fought a few times, but never to the point where either of us got hurt badly. It hurt to leave my mother but I had to get away. I had to be away from Dolly.

### I rented a room very cheaply, and again entered a new phase of my life. This life was one of independence, getting drunk, clubbing girls and fast food. The one thing it did for me was to introduce me to a strange new competition, and that competition was a walking race every morning against a girl I didn't even know. Unknown to me, she would turn out to be one of the major characters later in my life.

### About six months after moving out of home, I started seeing a girl, and it didn't last long. She was seeing other people at the same time. I was getting drunk every night and often woke up early in the morning with a bottle of tequila almost empty in my hand. I was losing weight but was wasting away from the damage that I was doing to myself. I had no energy, and wasn't living in any sense of the word. Then I did the stupidest thing I could ever. I got back with Dolly.

### Suddenly out of the blue, we heard that our Nan was in hospital. It didn't look good. I had only met her twice in my life, and one of those times I was a baby. She passed away quickly, and it seemed to destroy my father inside. We went to her funeral and he could barely stand, but I struggled to comfort him. I knew it was a pain that he had to face in some ways alone. So we buried my Nan, and we returned home where my father slowly started to deteriorate himself.

### My father suffered from thrombosis in his leg. It turned purple. He also suffered from gout, but he couldn't change the way he lived. He still drank, and smoked, even though he knew that if he carried on, it would eventually kill him. I pleaded with him to stop; I told him we wanted to see him grow old. He just couldn't seem to face the changes.

### So I was back at home and this time with Dolly, it seemed different. She seemed to have calmed down, and no matter what people told me, I accepted her back into my life. It lasted a few months until I changed my job. I started working for Britax making child car seats, and the place was full of women. I moved back home after things turned sour at my lodgings, I'm sure that Dolly being around didn't help, but neither did my drinking.

### At Britax, I found a new sense of purpose. I actually liked my job, and I also liked all the attention I got from the women. We would often go to pubs and I would end up snogging three four or five different girls or women. It never went any further though until the last working day before Christmas. Things with Dolly were back to normal and I wanted out, the way I got out, I could never have imagined.

### Bat Out Of Hell

### I went into town and into the George pub with Debbie, I never fancied Debbie, but she was great fun to be around. I always fancied Lisa, but she always had a boyfriend. In the pub, Debbie introduced me to one of her friends, her name was Karen. When I was in lodgings I used to walk to work. When I reached a dual carriageway, I would always see a girl walking on the other side of the road. This was the girl I mentioned earlier. We would race each other to the end of the road.

### I got talking to Karen, and she recognised me. I said about walking along the road, and she told me, that she always raced me along that same stretch of road. We had both done it for months, and had both raced each other without ever knowing. We both had a, good laugh about it. I was supposed to meet Dolly at 6pm. Instead, I spent the night drinking with Karen. That night, I took her home, locked the door, and refused to speak to Dolly. The next morning we made love and it felt so right.

### Within a month Karen was pregnant. Within three months we were engaged, within five months we were to be married. Dolly was long in the past, I wished her a good and happy life, but we were just one of those couples who would fight no matter what. It would never have worked, we were just two opposite people.

### My brother thought he was going to be my best man at the wedding. Peter and I had a massive falling out at some point, and I asked Dean Day to be my best man. We had been great friends for about a year, and he was my closest friend at the time. My brother was upset, but he and Peter both came to and enjoyed the wedding a great deal. It almost never happened though after what happened on my stag night, and it isn't what you're thinking either.

### I didn't want a big stag night, just a few friends and a quiet beer or three. It turned out to be four or five of us. At the end of the night, I stayed at Dean's girlfriend's house on New Street, and I fell into a nice relaxing sleep. I was glad that I wasn't naked on a train to Swansea. At four in the morning, my dreams were quickly smashed away by a woman's hands frantically shaking my shoulder.

### At first I thought she was coming on to me, this was Dean's girlfriend for God's sake, but we had almost gone on a date a few years ago, but the thoughts quickly left my head. She was shaking like a leaf and petrified. She said:

"There's someone downstairs!"

### I looked at her in a drunken haze and said:

"What?" and she repeated herself. I grabbed the first thing I saw which happened to be a broken drawer front. As I went onto the landing I met Dean coming out of the bedroom, he looked equally worried. I asked him if he was ready and he nodded, and then bravely let me run down the stairs first. Thanks for that one Dean!

### Deans girlfriend had it seemed something of a jealous ex in tow. He had broken into the house and had assembled a pile of papers on the kitchen floor; he had poured some petrol on the papers but luckily had been disturbed before he could set them alight. He was gone. I ran into the street frantically trying to find him, after a few minutes I realised I was in my underpants, running around the roads at 4 a.m. We called the police but the guy was never found. The next day, we prepared for the wedding.

### For Richer For Poorer

### My preparation for the wedding was to get up, throw on my suit, and tuck into a bottle of Drambuie. The wedding was around midday, so I had plenty of time to get myself light headed. My wife had to borrow a wedding dress as she was heavily pregnant and the one we bought would no longer fit her. I can hardly remember the ceremony, but I was a truly happy man.

### After the service, we went to a local hotel, where we proceeded to get drunk. We spent a few hours there, and then returned to mum and dad's house to read a few cards. At the house we had plenty of alcohol flowing. Karen's mum and dad did not attend as they had booked a week's holiday, but she didn't seem overly concerned.

### After the house, we went to a local working men's club hall. It was small but cost effective; this was when the serious drinking started. I counted twenty-seven Bacardi and cokes, and then I lost count. The evening was a great success. In attendance were some of the hardest people in Andover, and there was little chance of any trouble. Anyone starting would have been killed. There were a lot of drunken people by eleven o'clock. The worst of all was seventeen year old Michael Lima. Michael was from Gibraltar and he worked with me. He looked about twenty one and he was funny as hell. He liked to get stuck into a ruck and was afraid of nothing. He also liked a beer.

### The beer of choice that night was Tennants extra. It was served on tap. Michael liked the taste of it, but didn't realise quite how strong it was. He started the evening by stating "its piss mate, I could drink British beer until it comes out of my ears mate." He didn't know that many English words; ninety percent of them were swear words. Most of them I had taught him. The rest he used to the best effect he could. By eleven thirty he would become the highlight of our wedding video.

### There were people gathered in the toilets. Everyone had gone just a little bit over the top, me included, but now Michael was sat on the toilet, fully understanding just how strong the beer was that he had drunk. His eyes were closed and his head was propped against the wall. The door was wide open and as we peered inside, his head dropped.

### Someone on the video could be heard shouting

"Urgh, he's puked in his turn ups! " But he had actually puked everywhere. Next it was my turn to be the comedian. He lifted his head without opening his eyes, and I shouted in my best Gibraltarian accent

"I can drink British beer 'til it comes out of my ears mate!" The toilet was full of laughing men all viewing a man appearing to actually have sick that was coming out of his ears instead of beer, even the ladies decided that they would come in to have a look. Michael ended the night having his stomach pumped after being unceremoniously taken away by an ambulance. I ended up being carried up the stairs by my new wife, too drunk to even walk properly.

### The next day, I was in absolute agony. It felt as if someone had punched me in the kidneys all night. I stood up and swayed and thought that I was dying. Great, here was I married less than a day and already at deaths door. I made the hospital with help from a friend and was given some sort of white chalky fluid. It did the trick. I was experiencing my first bout of alcohol poisoning, but it wasn't to be my last.

### The next few months were tough, we had moved in with Karen's sister, and we both worked hard. I would work all the hours I could for a pure pittance, then I would come home and start working at home too, we packed birthday cards until all hours of the morning for a lousy £27 a fortnight. We had no choice. The money we earned was all being spent on bills, there was little left for fun.

### Karen's sister was married to a guy named Andy, and we got on really well. We would often sink a few beers together. I remember one night he took me across the road to The Entertainer pub. It was formerly called The Merlin, but a few years earlier a taxi driver named Vince had been almost kicked to death outside the pub and later had died in hospital, so the name was changed. Hardly fitting was it?

### Well the pub turned out to be o.k. It was alright in the sense that if you kept your nose out of trouble you were fine. If you wanted a fight, you would get one. The beer was good, and they had a disco on a Friday night. So we would work hard all week, and then use a little of the money that was left to drown our sorrows. Sometimes Karen would come, sometimes she wouldn't. Tonight she didn't.

### Andy liked to smoke a bit of weed from time to time. I had never touched drugs in my life, I have always been anti drugs but if people choose to do them then live and let live is my philosophy. My drug of choice was alcohol, and my favourite mix was Stella and Pernod and black mixed, it tasted foul, but it got you drunk. During the night, Andy kept on blowing smoke into my face, and I had never smoked, but I knew this was far from a normal fag.

### At the end of the night, we were both singing as we made our way home. I don't recall getting into bed, but Karen was talking to me, and I just wore an inane grin. I leaned over the bed and saw a purple bubble appear from my mouth. This magical bubble was turning into a purple piece of toast. It magically expanded and floated to the floor. It was amazing, three or four more followed and it was amazing to watch them float downwards.

### When I awoke the next morning, Karen wasn't happy. I had puked all over the bedroom floor, and it was purple. Shortly after I became very depressed, I was so worried that we had no money and our child was soon to be born. I sat in the toilet and cried and Karen heard me, she thought she had upset me and she cried too. Soon the time came for our first son to be born and I thought I was ready, but nothing ever prepares you to see your own child being born.

### Named After Duran Duran

### I got the phone call at around dinner time, it was time to go to the hospital, the contractions were regular, and were getting stronger. Our friend Robert took us by car, as he was one of the only people we knew with a car who would do it for us. Robert was a bit of a strange fellow to say the least, but he had a heart of gold. There are a few things I will always remember about Robert that are more than worth telling.

### Robert was openly gay. He worked at the same place as my mum and dad, and he was friends with them. He also appeared to have the mind of a young child. He used to own a transit van in which he had fitted a microphone and a small speaker. As he would drive along, he would make cat noises as he drove along past people walking dogs, which was hilarious. He also liked to offer people the chance to wrestle him.

### Robert fancied Peter, it was as clear as day. Peter would always egg him on. Peter knew that he could bend Robert around his little finger and if Peter wanted a lift or to borrow some money, Robert would jump at the chance. Peter would wrestle with Robert and it was hilarious. Robert was wrestling for Peter's affection, but Peter was beating the crap out of him (always in a nice way though not punching him like in a real fight). Well Robert got very drunk one night, and decided that he would properly show his love to Peter, he pulled down his trousers and showed Peter his knob.

### It sounds sick as hell, but Peter was drunk too. On turning round to see the sight of Robert's massively large half inch penis, Peter wet himself laughing. Worst of all was, he had decided I had to see it too and he showed me! I kid you not, this was smaller than my thumb nail, and he had to use a small elastic band doubled over just to keep a condom on.

### Robert didn't care, he just shouted

"It used to be much bigger when I was younger!" But that just made us laugh even harder. Robert never did get his way with Peter, but he did stay a close friend. if anyone else had done the same thing and they would have had the shit kicked out of them. As you can guess, Robert was a bit of a character, he used to let us ride on the top of his Austin allegro hanging on to the roof rack as he drove, the mad things that we did as teens.

### Robert picked me up from outside of Britax, and we went and picked up Karen. Robert decided that as this was an emergency, that he should put on a flashing orange light he had in his car. Half way to Winchester, the inevitable then happened, we met a man with a flashing blue light instead. He wasn't happy with Robert. After seeing my pregnant wife, he let us continue, but only on two conditions, The orange light went off, and the speed went down to the speed limit. We agreed and left hurriedly.

### After four hours nothing was happening. I was so bored at the hospital and genuinely thought I should go home. After a few hours nothing else had happened so I went out with Peter and had a few drinks. The next thing I knew, I was being woken up at four in the morning, Karen was about to give birth.

### We made the hospital with time to spare. For the rest of my life, I will regret not staying with my wife that afternoon and leaving her to face her labour alone. I was young and stupid, and didn't even know what it was that I should be doing. I know I should have stayed, but I can't turn back the clock. So around 6.50 Nicholas John Simon McGregor made his first appearance into the world. He was named after Duran Duran.

### When Nicholas was born, it was the most emotional feeling that had ever come across me. I cried, I laughed I was happy and I couldn't express how it ever feels in mere words. We had made a life together and this baby would bond us together forever. We had created a beautiful little boy who would be everything we ever dreamed he would be, and now I would show him how a real father is to his son. I would love him as a father should.

### Within two months we had been given a council house, and this is when our troubles really began. We had no money, and we wouldn't claim benefits. I was too stupid and proud. I wanted to have the pride of having paid for my family. I worked all the hours I could but we still had nothing. We had a second hand sofa that cost me thirty pound. A bar which was been given to us and a black and white television and a bed. It took us years to make it into a real home.

### Friends and family helped us out and we got a cot for Nick and my mum and dad gave us so much to help us get started. Nick and my father bonded, and my father doted on him. Things were better in our family now. The trouble was I still had debts and now people had started to knock at our door as well. I can remember one instance really well.

### I didn't realise I owed money to one company. It may have been a debt that had been sold on, I just didn't know. Anyway, I open the door, and some gobby little shit starts threatening me, telling me I was going to go to court and maybe prison If I didn't give him money. I had been laying a carpet that had been given to us and I had a hammer in my hand.

### This guy would not take no for an answer. The problem was that I simply had no money to give him. I told him so, but he still wouldn't listen. It got to the point where I had had enough, I opened the front door wide and for the first time, he could see the hammer in my hand. I started spinning it around in my hand. I could see his face change colour. I smiled at him and just said.

"Fuck off." He got the message and left in a hurry.

### Karen decided she needed to get a job to help, the trouble was that I was just so tired from working all the hours I could, that I did not have the strength left to look after Nick all evening too. We started to argue, and it started to drive a real wedge between us. A few times I packed my bags, but I never left or really wanted to, but she seemed not to care anymore.

### Peter and I had become great drinking buddies again, and I had found a cheap drinking club. I took him to the club for his birthday, and we made our own drinks up from every optic behind the bar. We didn't just get drunk, we were paralytic. Peter went home and his girlfriend phoned me in early in the morning asking me what the hell had happened. Apparently Peter had made it home at around 3am. He had got undressed and stood at the window naked. He was waving for a long time but there was no one outside the window, he then proceeded to piss all over the contents of wardrobe and then he passed out.

### Going out soon became a regular occurrence again. I remember coming home one night to hear that my neighbour who was a grumpy old bastard had poured weed killer in the garden while Nick was playing in it. He was too old to punch, but he had a prized possession and that was his garden. After hearing what he had done, I grabbed a box in our bedroom and opened the window wide. I then drunkenly pissed all over his prize flowers and sang him a merry song as I did. He moved of the house out soon afterwards.

### During mine and Peter's great nights out, we encountered lots of interested girls, and we would dance and flirt with them but it would never go any further. I loved my wife and just thought we were going through a bad patch. I didn't see it at the time that she wanted out. I was too busy either working or drinking or fighting.

### One night I went out for a drink with my brother and his girlfriend. He got so drunk, that he thought I wanted to get off with his girl, so we came to blows. What happened next became stuff of legend. Town T.V had just started on local cable in our town, and we were to become locally celebrities, but never received a penny in royalties.

### The fight was severe, and I must say that my brother fought me as hard as anyone I have ever fought. We reined blows on each other constantly for around half an hour. Someone tried to get in the way and he got punched by me too. I had the upper hand and I had my brother's head up against the window of a building society, the next thing I knew I was being handcuffed.

### The copper was telling me to calm down and I just screamed at him to get the fuck off of me. Two of them shoved me towards the van but I wouldn't get in it. I shoved back as hard as I could, but they still managed to get me in the back. I decided to run at the mesh. It was a bad idea. The driver saw me coming and quickly accelerated. I was on my ass and had learnt a valuable lesson. It was also all captured on that damned camera too.

### At the station, they asked us both if we wanted to press charges against the other, we both said the exact same words.

"Fuck off, he's my brother. "

### They let us go from the cells but a few hours apart. My wife was worried sick, but it turned out to be quite funny in the end. Little did I know that all this was turning my wife away more and more away from me.

### Hindsight

### Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I should have seen the signs. When I made love to my wife, she had a look of hatred in her eyes. The rot was setting in, and I was about to have another setback. A friend that I had known since I was twelve years of age was about to be dealt a cruel blow, which would hurt me more than I would ever know.

### Michael had very few friends of his own age, he was a few years older than us, and he was black. He was religious but he liked things like Ouija boards and the paranormal. Michael worked at Britax too and we had become very good friends. A few years earlier, Michael had tried to summon a demon from what he had read in a book. I think he may have succeeded.

### It was in Enham Alamein a few years earlier, when Michael had drawn a pentagram on the road in chalk lines. He stood in the middle and repeated some words that he had read somewhere. I think he wanted to prove the power of God by proving the power of the devil. It was a bit cloudy afterwards, but we saw no demons. Over the next few months, Michael played with Ouija boards and told us that he was talking to the dead. It scared the shit out of us, and together we burnt the board. As he stared into the flames, he looked like a man possessed.

### It was a few years later, that Michael went into hospital for a routine operation. During the operation, something went very wrong. By the end of the operation, Michael would be doomed to an early death. His liver had been scratched, and he would soon need a transplant operation. Before he even needed his operation, I had asked him to be Nick's Godfather. He happily obliged.

### Michael was lucky, he managed to get a transplant, but if was rejected. Then when another became available, he got an infection and the operation was cancelled. In the end, he got so sick of being on his medication; he just didn't want it anymore. His eyes turned yellow, and he looked so sick. I visited him at home, but he was a shadow of the man I once knew.

### Michael fell asleep one night, and woke up asking for all his medicine to be stopped. He said he had met his late grandfather the night before in a dream, and they had fought judo competitions together. Michael knew what he wanted, he wanted to die, and he wanted to be with his grandfather.

### Michael experienced racism, hatred, ignorance and pain in his very short life. He never lowered himself to any of it; he always walked away and refused to fight. He had morals and was one of the bravest people I knew. He planned his funeral before he died so that his mother and father would know what to do. It was the first funeral of a friend that I would go to, and his was the first dead body I ever saw.

### Michael had asked specifically for an open coffin. His lifeless body was displayed in his parent's front room on King Arthurs Way. I was dressed in my best suit ready to say goodbye to a good friend who had done more for me than I ever could have for him. He taught me it was the man that counts inside, not the colour of his skin. He also taught me to face death head on. If I can die with half the dignity he did, then I will die a happy man.

### As I walked into the dimly lit room, I approached my friend's coffin. I promised myself that I would not cry. I promised that would be brave for Michael and his family. I got closer to the body and it all suddenly hit me like a hammer blow. My friend was dead. Some things I had said to him, I wish I hadn't, some things I wish I had said to him, I never did, now this was final, and there were no more second chances.

### His eyes were tightly closed, and he looked peaceful. I broke down as I looked over the face of my friend who we had once shared so many memories together. Now he was gone forever. I hoped that there was a heaven waiting for him. I felt so bad for his parents. To watch your son die before you must be the worst thing in the world. They found comfort in religion. I could find no comfort anywhere.

### John and I helped to carry the coffin of our good friend. For a brief second we linked thumbs under the coffin as we carried it to the open grave. The vicar was a female which was unusual at the time. I would see her again in my distant future, but now all I saw was my own pain. The service was beautiful, but as the coffin was lowered, I broke down again. I threw a flower on his coffin and said a final good bye to my friend. If there is a heaven no man more deserved a place than Michael.

### He was the first of the three Michaels to leave. All will soon become clear.

### Special

### The relationship my son had with my father was an incredible one. My father treated my son the way I wish he had treated me. They played together, and Nick would scream with laughter. This was one of the purest forms of love I had ever seen. Life was not going quite so great for me in many other areas though.

### I had taken redundancy from Britax, and Karen decided that she would go to work full time. I spent eight months in bed or laid on the sofa, I played with Nick, or I played video games. The resentment grew in Karen's face. I felt worthless and useless. I was failing as a husband, had no career prospects and wasn't much good as a father either. I got drunk whenever I could.

### Despite us hardly getting on, Karen fell pregnant again. It was clear she had not intended to do this, and she already wanted to get out from the marriage. To her credit, she tried for the sake of our unborn child. I was useless, but would find temporary work from time to time, and would try my hand at anything. I somehow found myself working the doors at nightclubs.

### Now some doormen like to be chatted up by women, some like to chat up women. Some like to do a job and are always observant. Some like to hurt people. No matter what type you are, when it kicks off, you always stand your ground. You always watch your mate's backs too. The club I found myself working at was getting a little bit of a reputation. It was violent, and it was cheap.

### The job was cash in the hand, and it lasted for a few months. In that few months I saw fight after fight, trips, spills, anger hatred, and bloodshed and that was just the women! It paid me thirty pounds a night cash in the hand, but I wasn't signing on the dole so it wasn't really enough to do anything. I saw people punch through glass in doors to try to get to me, and people fly down the stairs of the club after severe beatings from the door staff.

### I was good at what I did. I was big and strong, but always liked to have a drink before work. It didn't last long though as knife culture was becoming normal. One night we pulled a twelve inch knife from someone's trousers, and that was the beginning of the end at that club for me. Thirty quid wasn't worth dying for. I loved my time on the door, and would do bits more on other doors occasionally, but I had a wife and a child at home and one on the way. I had to find a real job.

### I started a college course on computer aided design but failed to complete it after landing a full time job working nights at a local supermarket. It was the same supermarket my wife worked at, and we hardly saw each other at all. When our second child was born Christian Ian Michael was a whopper. He was over 10lbs, and if you look at him at 17, he is over 6ft tall and over 20 stone in weight.

### During Christian's birth, Karen ripped the skin from my hands. She said that she wanted me to feel the pain she was feeling. I think I got the raw end of the deal. I didn't know it at the time, but she was ready to end the marriage. Life became impossible in the next few months. I had constant panic attacks and was afraid I was dying and I couldn't sleep in bed for fear I would not wake up. I worked nights and then looked after the children all day. If I was lucky I would get four hours sleep.

### Christian suffered as a child, and was a little neglected. I loved him dearly, but I was so exhausted, he didn't get the same playtime that Nick did. Sometimes he would be wet through while I slept. I feel ashamed looking back now, that I started to fail him as a father, but it didn't last long. My working nights soon came to an end, but I could never have imagined how it would happen.

### Karen wanted me out, and I could feel it. I spent one night talking at an old girlfriend's house. Strangely it was Dolly, and she now had a child of her own, and a boyfriend upstairs. It was innocent, and an honest conversation. I left her house just as Karen was leaving for work, and we crossed on the way home. Karen walked straight past me and would not stop to talk. She told me it was over without saying a word.

### What damage had been done was now done. I was being asked to leave my wife and kids. I had done nothing really wrong. I asked my mum and dad if I could stay with them for a while, and they agreed, the thing was I couldn't face leaving my sons behind. I had Nick with me at the house and he suddenly took ill. Karen had gone to work without a care in the world.

### I remember sitting on my front room floor crying and sobbing aloud. I phoned my mum and told her it was over and I couldn't stop crying. I was a broken man who was still barely a boy. I heard a woman's voice in the midst of my crying, and it said

"Everything will be alright." To this day, I don't know where the voice came from.

### Late in the evening I went into where my wife was working, and considering we were just about to start a divorce, she was smiling, and dancing around the shop with her supervisor. I thought it was so surreal, my life was seemingly ending and she was dancing. I walked up to her, and told her our son was ill, she looked really mad that I had gone in the shop and just said

"So what." I turned and left the shop.

### On the way home, I was walking with one of my friend's, and I started telling him about what was happening. After a few minutes, he just blurted out to me:

"Mate, she's playing away from home, she has to be. "

### Now after all we had been through, we were still married and the thought had never entered my head that she would do anything like that. At first I thought he was mad, but the more I thought about it, the more it played on my mind. Could she really be seeing someone else? It would soon be time to find out.

### She arrived at my parent's house after she had finished work. She became very upset when Nick said he wanted to stay with his Daddy. It soon became clear, that she may not be getting all that she wanted from the end of our marriage. I decided I had to ask her straight out:

"Have you been seeing someone else?" She looked surprised to have been asked, but cooly and calmly she answered

"Yes."

### I then asked her:

"Have you slept with him?"

### A tear rolled down her cheek and she nodded. I said is it Dave (the name has been changed as I can't bear to write it down). Again she nodded. I had just guessed that it was the guy she had been dancing round the bakery with. He had been married less than three months, and he was her supervisor.

### I wanted to kill him. Instead, I let her go. This was the first of my two trips to that suicide bridge. I seriously contemplated the jump, but I had two young sons who needed me, sons I loved so dearly.

### It was the hardest thing I had ever done, but I told her if she wanted him, then she should be with him. If he didn't want her, I would still have her back. The next day I phoned him at work. I told him the next time I saw him, I was going to rip his face off. Karen had already tried to meet him earlier in the day. She went to meet him again.

### As she waited outside the back door of where they worked, he emerged from the shop. He walked straight past her and got into his car. Karen was devastated, and then she walked back towards our home as she walked I met her. He had used her, and then when he had gotten what he wanted from her, he had just walked away. I said that I still loved her and wanted to try again. The next day she left her job and I cooked a candlelit meal and waited for her. She never came home that night. She spent the night with her sister leaving me at home with the children. I didn't eat for two days.

### She came home the day after two days, and we talked a lot. We decided that we should try and make a go of things, but she decided that she needed to tell me everything that had happened. Dave had come to our house while I was at worked. He had asked my wife if it was safe and she told him yes, then he slept with my wife, while my children were in the next room. He had promised he would leave his wife for her, but then he chickened out.

### A few weeks earlier he had been talking to me, like he was my best friend, now he was the man I hated more than any in the world. I would have my revenge. The next few months were as hard as hell. Her mum and dad knew all about the affair, and had promised to support her if she left me, and they wonder why I didn't really get on with them very well afterwards.

### My drinking calmed down, but I would still go out occasionally. It was a Friday afternoon, when I decided that it was finally time to sort it out. I asked if any of my friends in the pub would go with me to watch my back, and only one called Stephen Bishop would. We walked to the supermarket where Dave worked and I walked through the door. I had about three pints of lager that afternoon, but now I was ready.

### I walked up to where he was working, and I asked him if I could have a word. He came out with a smug look on his face, and for the first time I realised he was bigger than me. I didn't care. The smug look had to go. I said to him,

"You know when Karen told you it was safe?"

### He replied

"Yeah", and smiled, I replied,

"It wasn't, and she's pregnant."

### How his face dropped. The fact is she was pregnant, but only just, he didn't need to know it wasn't his child. Then I started to rain punches down on his head.

### He looked a bit shocked that it was actually happening to him. It was early evening and the shop was packed with customers. They all watched the spectacle as the baker got a beating. Eventually one of the women jumped in front of me and shouted

"That's fucking enough!" I turned and walked.

### That was for Nick, and Christian and for Karen and for all I had been through, but mostly for my sons. Payback bitch. As I left the store, the security guard walked toward me, I heard my name being called on his radio, telling him to stop me leaving the store. As I walked towards him, he nodded his head at me and said

"Alright Martin?" Then let me walk straight past him and out of the door. As I left the front door, I saw one of Dave's friends enter the store. I turned to him smiling and snarled

"You tell that cunt it isn't over. I'm coming back again for him. "

### I heard he was off from work for two weeks. I don't know if he was I just hope it was longer. You hurt any one of my sons, and then you should expect the same.

### Around nine months later, Jordan Andrew Lee was born. The third son He was a little monkey. I was now working for a company called Le Creuset, and it was something I was really enjoying. I seemed to pick up on the products and procedures quite quickly, and I settled down there easily. It was here I would meet lots of people who would shape the next 20 years and in particular my new best mate Andy.

### Sometimes in life, you meet people and you just seem to click. Andy was one of those. We had the same sense of humour and would laugh at the stupidest things. We had no fear of anyone and could make humour out of the strangest situation. Occasionally we would be asked to move furniture upstairs, and being the strongest two, we would always have to do it, half way up the stairs we would be falling down laughing at each other.

### One Saturday we went for a few beers after finishing work at twelve. We got so drunk we left the pub at three and it took us two hours to walk two miles into town, we were laughing and falling about so much. I knocked on a friend's door I hadn't seen for ages. Used his toilet and then just said cheers and left, Andy found this hilarious.

### One day we managed to spend the whole day outside in the sun working a job that should have taken an hour, but because we laughed so much, it took all day. At home my Dad was no longer working, but he was drinking more and more. He had serious problems, but he could not see the damage that he was doing to himself or the family. He borrowed money constantly and he couldn't pay it back.

### One time I arrived at the house, and found a policeman at the door. My father had hit my mother. The policeman said that my dad had told him he was worried that one of either me or my brother would hit him. I told him not to be so stupid. When the policeman went, my father came back into the room and he started shouting. I lost it. I belted him in the face so hard he flew across the room.

### It was the first time in my life that I had ever hit my father. It was the first time he got to see the thing he always wanted from me, he wanted me to fight back. What he got he never expected, and as much as what I did ashamed me, he never ever hit my mother again while he lived. Our relationship was never quite the same again. I loved my father, but he knew I was a man now; he had lost that little boy he could bully forever.

### The Second of the Three

### Around a year after I hit my father, my brother had gotten married, and then with no notice my grandfather died. It was devastating to my father, and it was the final straw. He really started to go downhill fast now. I have a picture of the last Christmas that my father was alive, and he is sat on the sofa with my mother and my three children.

### Nick is sat on my father's lap, and he is smiling a cheeky grin. It is a perfect picture, and a light shines in the middle of the group. I often say that I hope it is God shining a light down on my father, but I know deep down that it is a reflection from the light bulb. My mother is smiling not knowing the pain she will endure in the next year. Christian looks shy, and Jordan wears his normal cheeky grin. It haunts me just to remember it.

### My father just started hallucinating one day. There was no reason for it, but in every picture around that time he looks pale and gaunt. He looks ill and lost. I wish that I had hugged him more then. One night he said that he saw the man in a tunnel of light, and he said he thought it was his dad. The next morning he hallucinated that I was there as a nurse took blood and it sprayed all around the room. We decided to take him to the hospital. My brother was always very close to my father and it saddens me that if he reads this it may darken his memories of the father he loved, and probably thinks I didn't love him hopefully all will be clear by the end. Hang on in their bruv.

### My father was admitted to hospital, and no one knew what was wrong with him. It was suspected that as he drank so much it was something to do with Liver or Kidneys. It turned out that actually he had septicaemia. As he was admitted, we didn't realise how serious it was at the time. The doctors asked him a series of questions to try and establish how far gone he was. When he was asked his name he replied

"Big John Wayne." As the doctor turned to walk away my father flicked him the V sign. My brother and I laughed aloud, but we would pay for our laughter very soon. He answered a few questions correctly, but he seemed to not know lots of things he should have known so easily. He hated it in the hospital, and he kept saying repeatedly to me:

"Take me home son, I just want to go home. "

### It took two weeks of visiting nearly every day, holding on to the slight glimpses of hope, but the odds always kept stacking up against him. He spent the last week of his life in the intensive care unit. He had wires and tubes shoved into his body, and finally we were called back to the hospital for one final time at three in the morning.

### At 3.50am our father, and my mother's husband, our children's grandfather finally slipped away. As he left this mortal coil, three tears rolled down his cheek. I never expected to see his tears. I said to my mother that the tears were one for each of us. I told my father that I loved him, and kissed him goodbye. I comforted my mother and brother the best I could. It wasn't enough. This man who had caused me so much pain had suddenly left a void in all our lives. It was something I never anticipated.

### Ordinary World

### People die, and that is part of living. We take the memories of those people and carry them with us. We pass stories of them on through the years, until eventually we all fade literally into dust, and those memories are then gone forever. I doubt my eldest son remembers much about his Grandfather now. They were the best of friends back then.

### My son was very young, and so innocent, and I knew this would be one of the hardest things I would ever have to do. I picked my son up and sat him down on my lap. I told him that his Granddad loved him very, very much. It was true, he did, and would never harm a hair on his head, and he would kill or die for Nick in an instant. I told him that Granddad was sorry but he had to go, he was in pain, and didn't want to leave him, but he had to go to heaven.

### Nick's face contorted in pain and he cried the tears of angels in a never ending stream. It ripped me apart and still does as I cry my eyes out while I write this now. The love they had for each other was pure, and not tainted by anything. Deep down my father was a good man, who had been dealt a rubbish hand in life.

### My mother seemed lost, and there were no words I could say to comfort her. Christian said that he had seen Granddad the night before, but he was a very small child then, we thought he would have been dreaming, but he was sure that he had seen him. He was adamant, that Granddad was in his bedroom the night he died, and that he was young and had just floated up through the roof.

### It was a small comfort. My mother and I had both seen my father in a dream, and to both of us, he had said that he was going to be alright. The day before he died, a vicar had prayed around my father's bed, we held his hands and then linked hands together. Not one of us told the other, but during the prayer, we both felt something pass through our bodies, and it took a while before we both told each other.

### Shortly after my father died, we arranged the funeral and the wake. My father after having no money all of his life had been left the best part of £12,000 in his father's will. It paid off his debts. It paid for his funeral, and it left a little money for my mother.

### I wrote a poem for my father's funeral, and it was read at the service. To say goodbye for one last time, I took Nick with me to the service. Before my father's body was sent down the conveyor in the crematorium, I lifted Nick high and he placed a rose on my father's coffin. He said a final goodbye to his best friend, and you could hear so many people sobbing as he did so.

### We gave our father a fitting send off. We all drank for him, and we enjoyed the wake. The children all stayed for a few hours and then we all swapped silly stories and cheered each other up. My mother went home alone, and probably cried herself to sleep that night. I slept a restless sleep.

### Photographs

### A picture can be worth a thousand words. Sometimes it can tell you a whole lot more. Shortly after my father's death, I found a small Polaroid black and white picture of my father, he was sat by a wall alone and he can't have been more than fifteen. He was sat by a wall and he looked desperately lonely and unhappy. That picture told me more about my father than he ever said to me in words.

### He was seven years old when his parents split up. His father stayed in India, but he never saw him again. He spent his life lonely and pretty much alone. He trusted a friend just once and paid the price. He was sad, and through all of his life he only ever wanted his father to come and find him, and tell him that he loved him. He never did. I never understood my father truly until I saw this picture. He never knew how to be a father to me as he had never known his own.

### His stepfather was a great man, and did the best he could for him. He was always there, but he was never his proper dad. He was the best alternative he could have ever had, but still not quite the same. He was a wonderful man, and my father was a wonderful father and grandfather. I had issues, but I wrote poems about them, and unleashed all my demons. Eventually I found it in my heart to forgive him. He was the second of the three Michaels to die.

### My father was now gone. My head was in a mess. I changed jobs soon after, and ended up earning more money than I had ever seen in my life. Banks and credit card companies were offering me money galore, and my children and wife were spoilt, but I had something missing from my life. My father was my enemy, but he was also my friend. I missed him. I never thought I would.

### I started drinking again. I would get drunk, cry and then walk home. I would fight, then get even drunk and then go home. I came home covered in blood some nights. Some nights I stayed out all night drinking. Karen and I had been married twelve years, but lots of things were swimming around in my head.

### I wanted something more from life, but I didn't know what it was. I was having fun for the first time in a very long time. I had enough of all the sadness in my life. I hurt from my wife's affair. I hurt that my father had gone, I hurt that I had no direction, and alcohol had reared its ugly head. I had plenty of money and was once again attracting lots of women, but these were women I should have run a mile from.

### Karen must have had a massive resolve to stay with me as long as she did. Eventually the inevitable happened, and while I was drunk I met someone and started having an affair. We would drink every week in a pub called T.J's. We would drink from midday on Saturday until we could drink no more on Sunday morning.

### Nick was doing great at football, and I would watch him every Sunday. Karen wouldn't come, but the girl named K (again I will not speak her name), would happily come along. She seemed to be the thing that was missing from my life. She was young lively, and she was just as drunk as I was. I saw her as a way out of the darkness I had found myself blanketed in.

### The first time I met her, she told me she had just split up with her boyfriend, and that he used to beat her up. We went out drinking the next week, and she ended the night by head butting me in the face. I didn't care. This was my punishment for what I was doing to my children.

### I was selfish, and a borderline alcoholic. I never knew how depressed I was I thought I deserved all the crap I got. K kept feeding me lies, saying that her boyfriend had punched her in the stomach and made her lose a baby. I wanted to protect her. All the time I was buying her drinks, and I wasted thousands of pounds on her. It was a few months before we slept together, and by then I was sure my marriage was already over for good.

### Karen told me to get out. If she hadn't of done, we may have still been married. I took this as the excuse I needed to leave her. My lasting memory of what I did to my poor wife is the image of her sat on the bed rocking backwards and forwards clutching my pillow and asking what she had done wrong. She had done nothing. I had no excuse for what I was doing to my family but I could not stop.

### K convinced me that she would make me happy. She told me my wife was lazy and that I deserved to be looked after properly. When her best friend tried to warn me about her, she head butted her in the face. I was hooked. I thought I had found a woman who could fill in all the gaps in my life. I was so, so wrong. By the time I found out what I had done it was too late to stop it.

### You'll Never Walk Alone.

### That year I sat in the Kop end at Anfield for the first time in my life. K was with me, and it seemed as if all my dreams may be coming true. I couldn't see the wood from the trees. I had hurt my wife, and it didn't take long before I realised what I had done. By this time, I had moved into a flat with K. She promised to pay the rent if I paid the bills, and at the same time I was paying all my wife's bills too.

### I saw my children regularly, but I missed home. I started sleeping with my wife again. I found out that K was still ringing her old flame and I told her I wanted out. I took my stuff and moved most of it back home. I slept with my wife that night, and it felt good to be home. The children came in to our bedroom and all was great, until I got a text from K. She told me she was pregnant.

### I had to go back to find out the truth, if she was then it would be disastrous for our marriage. I needed to know the truth, but I should have stayed at home and never looked back. She wasn't pregnant, but by that point Karen didn't want me in her life anymore. She had also met someone else. K wasn't pregnant. Karen said she wanted a divorce, and I had lost everything. Then I lost another friend.

### Michael my friend from Britax had been kicked in the head during a fight. The day before he was due to be operated on, he died. He had a son less than a year old. His ashes are buried just behind my fathers. He was the third of the Michaels that I knew to die. All three are buried within a few miles of each other.

### I thought it may have got better with K. She told me she was taking the pill now, but she wasn't. The next thing I knew, she really was pregnant. Now I really had blown it all. I found myself working seven days a week to try and keep a roof over our heads. K had walked out of her job, and Karen had left me with all the credit card debts.

### I tried to sort things out and make it up to Karen, but to this day, she hates the very sight of me, and I can't blame her for that. I worked myself into the ground, and I got to the point where I could no longer live the way I was. I ended up having panic attacks regularly. I ended up desperately seeking help. I went to my doctors and they referred me for counselling.

My highly paid day job ended, and I was made redundant. Owen Martin Brendan, my fourth son was born, on the 15th of July 2003, and from that moment on I could see no way back. K just wouldn't pick him up.

### I looked at Owen in his plastic crib, and I had to ask the nurse if I could pick him up. They said yes, and I held him and talked gently to him. K just wanted to go to sleep. I couldn't believe that she didn't want to hold our son. Instead she passed him off to anyone else who wanted to hold him. It was a pattern she continued to take always passing him on to someone else to look after him.

### My three sons, were never treated as badly by anyone as they were by K. She called Jordan a little bastard and threw things around the flat in front of the children. One time she almost knocked Owen over when she threw a plastic bike so hard into the floor, it bounced up and narrowly missed him.

### She got so drunk one night that she phoned and ambulance and it was driving me insane. I would drive vans and she would phone me constantly 20 to 30 times a day to find out what I was doing. In the end it just got too much. She would even phone me to tell me that she was walking up a hill one day.

### We went to Turkey on holiday, by the end of the week I wanted to kill her. I saw firsthand exactly how she was treating our son, and I hated it. I even managed to film her secretly one night and still have the tape now. Owen was crying in his pushchair, and K was rocking him, he cried and wanted to be cuddled, and she stood up and screamed at Owen in his little face to

"Shut the fuck up!" This just made him cry even more. One night she threatened the hotel owner which was hardly sensible. Luckily they were nice people in the hotel. The week with her shed new light on her anger and I knew that if I did not get out soon, she would mean my death. It almost came after another day of heavy drinking.

### There was an England game on television, it kicked off early in the morning so we went to the pub. I started drinking at around nine in the morning and drunk until the early hours of the next day. When I woke up, the pain in my head was intense and I knew it wasn't right. I made my way to hospital, where I was rushed by ambulance to Winchester. During the visit, the ambulance staff had to tell K to shut up, as would not stop going on at me.

### My heart was found to be racing at 222 beats per minute. I was told that it would not be able to sustain it for much longer. I was close to being put unconscious and having an electric shock to my chest. Here has I sat surrounded by old men close to death. I knew if I didn't change soon, I would not see my sons grow up. My heart rate slowed, just in time.

### It raced again a few times, but never as bad as before, but I never ever drank that much again. We split up a few times but it meant that I didn't get to see Owen. He was her ultimate threat. If I left her for good, she would never let me see my son. It was a promise she soon made good on. I spent the next two years of my life on anti depressants. She would walk out for no reason and claim that I had beaten her around. I never knew anything about it, until one day her dad telephoned me and asked me why I did it. K was there at the time and she could not answer.

### She constantly kicked at me, head-butted me and squared up to me, and in the end I got fed up with it. I held her against the wall, and told her never to hit me again. Then I walked into the front room and she went for me again, I turned her round and landed on top of her on the sofa.

### She screamed so loud, the neighbours thought that I was killing her. It was all she needed, as she had two finger marks on her chest where I had held her off of me. She told everyone that I had beaten the crap out of her, and then proceeded to show everyone all the massive bruises she had. If I had of hit her, I would have hurt her. But I never lifted a finger to her. I would take a lie detector test tomorrow and would pass it. She could never say the same.

### She lied her way back into my life, and even used me to help her get a council house. At one point she got me so depressed, that I took a knife to my wrist and tried to slash it, she ran from my flat. Then when she was in her new house she promised me I could move in, but that was the end of that. In the end, I am so glad I didn't. The only downside is that I have not seen my son Owen for almost two years.

### I have started court proceedings to see my son. But it is a long and drawn out process where the law favours the mother first. My story though does not end there. It has a new beginning.

### The Beauty of the Butterfly

### I was just out drinking with a bunch of lads. I walked into the pub, and there she was behind the bar. She had lovely eyes and was full of life. At the time I was still on and off with K. When I saw her, I just knew that she was perfect for me. It took me over a year before I found the courage to ask her out. Gladly she accepted.

### Three years later, I am now married to a wonderful girl named Sarah. We married thirteen days after my forty-first birthday. The vicar that married us was Rev Jill Bentall, the same lady who buried my friend Michael. Present at my wedding was the policeman who arrested the guy at junction road. He is a friend of my new in-laws. Two of my four children live with me, and I hope to be seeing Owen soon. My eldest son Nick still plays football, and now drinks far too much for my liking, so if you read this Nick, please calm down!

### As for me, I ended back at Le Creuset. The company has been good to me, and supported me through all I went through early on. I am now a different man. I now have a diploma in management, have time to write books and go on foreign holidays twice a year. If it all ended tomorrow, at least I have had a story to tell.

### I now have great people around me, my mother is alone but happy. My brother has eight children, and I have lots of nieces and nephews from my previous marriage and from this one too. I have great in laws who support us both and I can honestly say my home life is now a happy one. I could have written a whole book about the time with K and what I went through, but with a court case pending I have to be careful what I say. It may all come out in time but that will be another story, at the moment I would rather forget it. It might turn me back to drink if I did.

### This book made me cry far more than I expected. Hopefully now I have it all out of my system and it is on the page rather than in my head. I can look back at these pages and be reminded how lucky I am to have come out of this story alive and much stronger. Strength and compassion are traits I inherited from my mother. My defiant spirit I can only thank my father for. I never knew how much alike we were.

### Rest in peace Dad,

### Michael Walter McGregor

### Take care of the other two Michael's

### Michael Hall and

### Michael Stevens

### One day we will meet again, and I will hug you all my long lost friends.

### Martin Dennis McGregor October 2010.

