

A Brief Synopsis

The true stories about me and my mates growing up in London.

Begins in the late sixty's.

From around 6 to 26 years old.

Copyright 2019 by LS, all rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent from the author, except brief quotes for articles and reviews.

The Longer Synopsis

I started writing down funny things my children said and did in a diary, I did this so one day when they are much older I could show them what they said and did when they were kids. When I was writing down these funny and memorable events, I started reminiscing about my own childhood and younger adult self, then started to write down these memories in the back of the diary.

I thought it could be something additional for my kids to read. The reason I was doing this was because I didn't take much notice of what my own parents told me about themselves and their antics. I wished I had asked more and listened to what my parents had to say about themselves, and what they got up to when they were kids and young adults. Thing is, they did tell me some funny stories that I do remember, but It's too late to ask now, but at least what I can do is put pen to paper and write down my own memories and adventures.

My kids do ask me questions sometimes, like, how did we manage without mobile phones or the internet, what came before RFID bank cards. I tell them story's about how hard it was to find a working telephone box that was piss and shit free, and how we collected the X rated business cards advertising various expert sexual engagements and consultations from these phone boxes, and the importance of having to be able to write letters, send cheques though the post, the existence of huge shopping catalogues, the value of having cash, and they laugh at me.

I told a friend what I was doing, and she asked me if she could have a look at the memoirs in the diary. She had told other friends and other people at work about it, and it made them reminisce and laugh. She said I bet other people would enjoy this read as much as she and other people did. And that I should make it into a book. I did, and so here it is...

Just some of the true uncensored and possibly incriminating stories of me and some mates growing up in London S.E.10, That I dare tell,

The following true stories about myself and some of my mates growing up in London starting in the late sixty's from around 6 to 26 years old.

Contents...

CHAPTER 1: I'm a good boy, ask my Mum

CHAPTER 2: If the TV isn't broke, don't fix it

CHAPTER 3: Bombsite tours of London

CHAPTER 4: Toby's a head

CHAPTER 5: All downhill from here

CHAPTER 6: Big fast Horny dog and some pretty flowers

CHAPTER 7: Coin Operated

CHAPTER 8: A Learning experience

CHAPTER 9: Angels and Strawberries

CHAPTER 10: Lead it be ours

CHAPTER 11: Neighbours fictious UFO

CHAPTER 12: Nailed It

CHAPTER 13: Party Balloons

CHAPTER 14: Big boys School

CHAPTER 15: Sometime later

CHAPTER 16: Schools still not out, Yet!

CHAPTER 17: Party Party

CHAPTER 18: Sick Lap dance
CHAPTER 19: A quick Introduction to BDSM
CHAPTER 20: Work and play at the same time

CHAPTER 21: I fall in love

In this book you'll see all that I got,

I don't make out to be something I'm not,

I don't need consent from anyone else,

All I can do is be true to myself,

CHAPTER 1:

I'M a good boy, ask my Mum

When I look back on my life, and the growing up, and all the things I got up to as a kid, with all the trouble I got into, I think that although I thought that I had a normal childhood, and I do realise now that compared with other kids that it had been very adventurous, mischievous and often a very dangerous one.

I realise now that from an early age we were all very street wise kids from south east London. We would often get a Red Rover Travel Pass for a few shillings each, then travel all over London from the age of six or seven on the red buses and underground trains (The Tube), sometimes coming home late, tired, and always very hungry.

We were never looking for trouble, but got into it often, never thinking of the consequences of some of the things my gang of friends got up to either.

I blame my mates, but the truth is that we were all as bad as each other. We all came from poor families, but this never really occurred to any of us, I thought my family was rich because we had carpet in our front room, although it was second hand and it only furnished the middle of the floor, the carpet had a wide margin around it, maybe one or two meters away from any wall.

I thought I was lucky though, I had a small mat on my cold lino covered bedroom floor that I could stand on during wintertime when I got out of bed in the morning, better than standing on ice cold lino like at my mates houses. I also thought I had loads of toys as well compared with my mates, but in _realallity_ there were only a few.

I had an old leather lace up football, two action men (like a GI Joe) one had been a birthday present, and the other was second hand pink plastic naked from a junk market. But my favourite toy was a bent up and straightened out third hand and a bit rusty mechanical construction set called "Meccano".

It was the school summer holidays, and it had been raining for a few days, so I had been to the local library and had got some books about medieval weapons that had been used during the Roman occupation of Britain.

The Trebuchet looked like it was easy to construct, so I decided to make one using my Meccano set. I thought Meccano would be a good choice to play with because it had never got me into trouble before, and I knew that if I got my dad's saw and drill out from the shed in the back garden to make one from wood, that I would get told off, or possibly, and more likely, there would be an eventful trip to the local hospital involving me, an injury of some sort and blood.

Like the time I used a very sharp knife to make a raft called "Kon-Tiki" out of a press out balsa wood kit.

It was a cheap model kit of a raft I had seen made on TV program by a guy call "Thor Heyerdahl", he was going to cross the Pacific Ocean on this raft to test a theory.

So, while putting this kit together I got pissed off breaking the small balsawood joints in the kit and resorted to using Dads Stanley knife to make clean cuts, but the Stanley knife slipped, and I cut my thumb badly. I told Mum, and she said, (without looking around at me)

ME: Mum! I cut my thumb!

MY MUM: Put your hand under the cold water tap in the kitchen for a while, till is stops, and we will put a plaster on it!

ME: Ok Mum!

So, with blood gushing out of my cut thumb I put my hand under the cold tap like I had been told to, but what she didn't know is that I had been using Dad's new very sharp Stanley knife instead of pressing out the parts in the kit with thumb and fingers. She had wondered why I was taking so long and came out to the kitchen to find out what was going on.

I had been using a white hand towel to cover the deep wound, when Mum saw the white hand towel looking very red, soaked in my blood, she pulled the towel back to have a look at my thumb and got a squirt of blood in her face. She tied the towel tight around my wrist, and we rushed out of our house and knocked on a neighbours door.

I was quickly taken to the hospital by our neighbour on his motorbike and sidecar. (That was fun!) I watched the doctor intently do his job on my thumb, and it was six painful stiches I have never forgotten. The big scar is still there to remind me of the event.

MUM: Did the stitches hurt?

ME: Yes, very much!

MUM: Well, this should teach you to be more careful in future!

But it never did.

Anyway, sharp knives and "Kon-Tiki" aside, I read the library book on medieval weapons and studied the pictures then made a copy of a Trebuchet from Meccano. I tested it in my bedroom using a lead fishing weight as a payload, the weight flew about 8 foot outwards and 6 foot into the air. I added an extra elastic band to it without first giving a test, then took the Trebuchet outside to demonstrate it on the pavement to the kids playing in the street. During the demonstration it threw the lead fishing weight though an upstairs window. The window was not ours.

Although I always blamed my mates for getting into trouble, they also blamed me, but as you have read, even my toys got me into trouble. My uncle gave me this well-used leather football when I was seven or eight, he had played semi-pro for Westham and Arsenal Football clubs.

I do wonder sometimes if that ball was ever one that had been kicked around on the hallowed turf of Arsenal or Westham during a proper match, I guess it had, it may had been worth a few pounds today? As kids we played football in the street, as there were few cars back then, around six cars and two motorbikes with sidecars in a street of 59 houses.

We played football in the summer until it got dark, or until a neighbour's windows got broke. Annoyingly it was never me that kicked the ball that broke those windows back then, but it was me who had to go and knock on the door and get my football back from an angry neighbour. Eventually we got stopped from playing footy in the street, and we were made to go to the park to play football.

If we were playing football in the park and it rained the old leather football used to soak up the rain like a sponge, and mud got in the seams and the leather tie lace which held the blow-up rubber bladder inside the outer leather skin in place.

If you had ever headed this football previously in the rain and mud then you would know that you would have to duck or get out of its way if kicked in your direction, why? The first time this happened to me I had gone to head the ball into goal. My memory of this is in slow motion for some reason.

I saw the ball spinning end over end with water spraying off the lace, it had mud packed into the seams, and as I headed the ball I felt its heavy mud and waterlogged weight bury itself into my face, pushing my bottom lip and mouth downwards. I ended up with a black eye and bloody lip. It even had that much weight behind it that I ended up spinning head over heels then flat on my back. That day finished with a trip to hospital and two stitches inside my bottom lip. I did seem to go to hospital casualty a lot as a kid.

My two untroublesome harmless Action men got me into some innocent trouble at school one day. As a project my English teacher asked us (the class) to take home the schools English departments instamatic camera, and to take just one picture of our favourite toy and write an essay about it.

I decided to take a picture of my Action men doing exercises and getting fit before they engage the enemy like I had seen on a TV documentary.

I arranged them in a fitness pose and took a picture and as instructed I wrote my name with a black pen on the back. The picture was handed in to my English lesson teacher and I started writing an essay about it in class.

Later that day I was called to the principal's office where my parents were sitting down in the area outside, they seemed to be waiting for me. They told me not to worry, it will get sorted out, but they did not divulge what the issue was. They went into the principal's office shortly followed by my English teacher.

While I was outside I could hear some laughter, my parents walked outside with the principle and my English teacher apologising profusely, Mum and Dad looked at me and grinned. You see, I had decided to pose my action men as leap frogging over each other, since there was only one set of cloths between them I put the khaki trousers on the action man that was bending over, and the jacket top on the one leaping over the other.

I could not get the leaper to look like he was leaping, so I just stood him behind the other action man with his hands on the bent over action man's hips. As I took the picture, 'click' the bent over action man's trousers slipped down, I thought that will do, as I could only take one picture.

I guess you can get the idea of how the picture turned out. You see, the principle and my English teacher had not read my essay, but fortunately, my Dad had while he was waiting outside the principal's office, and he brought it to the principle's attention that in the essay the two army men were keeping fit by doing leapfrog exercises. I think Dad enjoyed telling the principle and my English teacher where they could stick the polaroid camera and take a picture.

Anyway, I was born at Saint Alfege's _Hospital in Greenwich on a Tuesday night at 9:31 PM. Mum is Italian on her side of the family, she worked part time in various unskilled jobs. She had been a cleaner, worked in a bakery, the local cinema kiosk where she sold cigarettes, sweets, ice cream and tickets for the films, and had various other jobs. Dad is British, he was a process worker for tunnel refineries, they made glucose from corn._

_If you had ever lived in Greenwich and wondered what that bland smell of cooking oats was, well it was corn being cooked by the ton to convert it into glucose that my dad mixed, it was mostly sold to Mars for Mars bars and other sweets I was told, and sometimes he brought some home to put on my cornflakes_.

Sometimes he exchanged a kilo bag or so of this sweet white powder with the guys from the factory next door, they made push up "freezer pops", the sort that were in a clear plastic tubes that you froze at home. Our small fridge/freezer would be full of these during the summer, I was very popular handing these out on hot summer days after playing street football.

Can't imagine what people would think these days if my dad was seen peddling these one kilo clear zip locked polythene bags full of white glucose powder in a pub!

He had been a lorry driver in World war two, driving the troops around and delivering tanks and supplies to the front line. When the war was over he became a lorry driver for a big timber merchant, but strangely we never owned a car? He had been a bit of a lad when he was younger, he told me about his first job when he got to be an apprentice cooper.

Coopers fixed and made wooden barrels for various trades that needed a container for holding fluids mostly, like beer, whisky, olive oil, etc.

He had only been there a day when he was introduced to a perk of the job. When a sprit's barrel came in for repair like a whisky barrel, the coopers would then boil a kettle of water and pour this into the wooden barrel. It would be hidden away and left overnight; this would then draw out the whisky from the wood.

In the afternoon there would be enough for the workers to have a few shots each. The following day Dad was given his share, except at the age of 14 he wasn't used to drinking whiskey, and he fell asleep in the hay used to pack the barrels. Dad was found sleeping the whiskey off by one of the managers who was on his way home that night. Dad was sacked, LOL.

My Dad and uncles had all been in the war, some had stories that they would share, some were quiet about what they did and what they had seen on the front line. There were 7 brothers and 7 sisters on both sides of my dad's and mum's family's, so get togethers were fun.

Mum used to tell me stories about when she was a kid and growing up in Deptford. Mums dad, who was my Italian grandad came to the UK with two brothers and a sister. They had established a few barbers' shops, and some fruit and veg shops as well in Deptford, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.

One summers day my uncle Franko, who was my mums' older brother had bought himself a bottle of coca cola to drink. There was never any pocket money or spending money to buy luxuries back then, and coke-cola was a luxury, so mum was envious. He was standing around with my mum who was playing hopscotch on the pavement outside their dad's barber shop in Deptford. My mum was about seven or eight at the time.

He was making a big deal of the cold coca cola drink, saying how nice tasty and cool the drink was, and that he had spent all the money he had got from dad (My grandad) by sweeping the barbers floor of customers hair for the day.

He finished the drink and went inside the shop leaving my mum to continue playing hopscotch on the pavement, he then appeared back outside with a full bottle of coke. He said to my mum that he had bought two bottles of coke cola.

He offered my mum a drink from the bottle. He told her she needed to drink it quick to gain the benefit of the taste and coldness. She took the bottle and tipped it end up and glugged down the contents, she suddenly stops and profusely vomits. My uncle thought it was hilarious. He had re-filled the old coke cola bottle with vinegar.

CHAPTER 2:

If the TV isn't broke, don't fix it

We, like many other households had a monochrome TV, it was a medium sized 21-inch screen with rotary tuning for the two channels we had back then in London which were regional ITV (Thames TV) and the BBC.

There were bigger size TV's, like the 27-inch model, but they were expensive to rent. No one I knew of owned a TV back then, everyone rented them from "Radio Rentals", mainly because before TV's had been invented, everybody had a radio, these were very often rented from a "Radio Rentals" high street shop. Radio Rentals seemed to have cornered the market with radios and people just stayed with them when TV's came out.

Our TV often stopped working, Dad used to bang or thump the top and sides of the television if the picture reception got bad, this usually happened without fail during a live football match, and this just caused the TV's delicate insides to go wrong. But that was never a problem if you rented your TV.

A TV engineer would come out the same day if you asked them to in the morning. One day in the afternoon after I had got home from school, a TV engineer turned up at our house to fix the set (TV set) because the bottom of the picture had shrunk to the middle of the screen, and people on the TV had oversized egg shaped heads, while I found this funny, Dad didn't, since there was an important football match on TV the following evening he wanted to watch.

I watched the engineer unplug the TV and then remove the hardboard back, he then fiddled with these glass tubes inside the TV, he plugged the power lead plug back in and turned it on, the screen flickered into life then he fiddled about with a small electrical screwdriver on the circuit board until the picture was perfect.

I had watched this intently and made mental notes of this process. Next day when I got home from primary school (I was about six) and Mum was in the garden hanging out some washing, I decided to have a look in the back of the TV.

So, I turned the TV around like I had seen the TV engineer do, then he unplugged the set before taking off the TV's back cover, so I did the same. I used the screwdriver from my Meccano set to get the small screws out of the back of the TV.

The first thing I noticed was a piece of paper stuck to the inside of the TV's case with a little plan of the circuits and position and model numbers of the glass valves, so I make a drawing copy of it to keep.

I pulled all the valves out individually to see what was different between them as they all looked very similar. I then swapped two to see what would happen when I turned the TV on. The two valves glowed a weird violet and buzzed, there was a squeaky speaking sound coming from the loudspeaker but no picture on the screen.

I decided that it would be a good idea to stand well back and watch to see what would happen next. Then a small amount of grey swirling smoke appeared, not a lot at first, then a lot of grey smoke, then this largeish round thing started glowing hot, then red hot, then sparkles started flying out. I had better turn it off and put it back the way it was, I am now thinking.

I turned it off and let the TV cool for a while. I then pull out all the cooled down valves and line them up in size on the floor to compare them all.

Then Mum comes in. She is sniffing the smoke and looking at the dismantled TV set and bits on the floor. This is not good.

When Mum comes back down to earth from outer space, I explain to her that I have made a drawing and it was all going to be ok. She stands over me until the TV is all put back together. It was then turned on. I stood back a bit and held my breath just in case I had to make a quick exit from the expected explosion and flames.

It worked fine, and Dad got to see his football match that evening. The following weekend me and Mum went to visit my Auntie and uncle in Orpington. A lot of the area around her house was still open land then, and I used to play in the big fields behind her house usually chasing farm animals and coming back dirty and covered in cow shit I had slipped in.

This time I came back to an open back door (dirty and covered in cow shit as usual) and overheard them talking about my TV exploit, I walked in on the conversation and the chatting stopped amongst smiles, I was expecting crossed looks, so I was confused.

Next day was a normal school day with a quick run home in time to see the kid's afternoon cartoons on TV. I switched on the TV and Mum gave me a glass of milk to drink.

MY MUM: There is a surprise for you in your bedroom,

ME: What is it?

MY MUM: Go see,

I ran to my bedroom and opened the door and looked around. Nothing there?

MY MUM: It's behind the door!

I looked behind the door, and there it was, a small old Marconi TV in a polished wood cabinet.

MY MUM: We don't want you taking the Radio rentals TV apart anymore, It's not ours! This was Uncle and Aunties old television, it does not work, but you can take it apart if you want, don't plug it in! Go to the library and ask for some books about fixing television sets,

ME: Thank you!

PS: I fiddled with it, then plugged it in. (Bang!) and then went to the library to get some books on TV repair.

CHAPTER 3:

Bombsite tours of London

All of the London council boroughs had been bombed during World War two, not one London borough escaped the carnage. A lot of these bombs that ended up in Greenwich were meant for the Royal Arsenal munition's factory in Woolwich or other sites in London of significance.

But the bombs often fell in Greenwich, either they had missed their target on the way in, or the bombers just dumped their bombs on their way back to lighten their aircraft, so that they could pick up speed and get more height and fly away as quickly as they could back to German airfields. Many bombs fell on Greenwich this way, as they followed the route of the river Thames back.

V1's and V2's bombs also fell locally, On Saturday 25th November 1944 my Mums sister went to New Cross to do some shopping in Woolworths. At 12.26 pm she was killed when a V2 flying bomb came down on the shop, along with many other innocent people. 168 people were instantly killed, and hordes of other people were injured, and many died later. The many who were not killed initially by the explosion were killed by the vacuum caused by the explosion that sucked in the air pulling down surrounding buildings.

The front and back walls including the roof of our house were blown up by a bomb that fell just 200 meters away, apparently when the air raid siren wailed Mum rushed down to the corrugated iron shelter in the back garden called an Anderson shelter when the bomb fell, it demolished a row of houses not far away killing all of the occupants. If Mum had not gone to the shelter during the air raid you would not be reading this now.

During the war people were told to make do with what they had, and could help the war effort by being self-sufficient. So, Dad got some chickens and planted vegetables in the back and front gardens while he was on leave from the Army.

He planted tomatoes in the front garden and leeks, onions and potatoes in the back garden. The chickens ate leftovers and returned the favour as eggs, these of course were used to barter for things that you needed, either legally or from the black market.

The tomatoes in the front garden were doing well being fed from chicken shit. Dad had decided to pick them all to eat and barter with on the upcoming weekend. He had been busy telling all his mates about this in the local pub, asking if anyone was interested in swapping or bartering for some of them.

Apparently someone must have overheard his conversations, and the day before he was going to harvest the tomatoes from the front garden the entire crop (whole plants included) were harvested by someone else during the night!

Apparently Dad took it well and blamed himself for planting them in the front garden in plain sight in the first place. Even our Labrador dog had been barking all-night, and dad did not get up to see what the barking dogs' fuss was all about.

CHAPTER 4:

Toby's a head

Greenwich and Deptford and parts of Lewisham were my play areas, I am not talking about play areas as in parks, but lots of old bomb sites, wasteland places, old bombed out factory's, and houses that were half demolished or bombed out. These were boarded up with corrugated iron sheets, signs nailed to posts that said, "no entry, danger, deep excavations", that to a kid like me read "Free amusements, great rides, excitement!".

Well then, here we are in the late sixties, summer sun is blazing down, clear blue almost a cloudless sky, and six weeks of primary school summer holidays ahead of us in Greenwich London. Me and Jack are on an old bombsite, we are sitting on top of a crumbling derelict factory roof, its two stories high, and in Greenwich high road.

We are wearing the latest market stall knock off fashionable rainbow jumpers, elasticated snake belts, tatty holed jeans, and plimsoles. We are sucking on boiled sweet sherbet lolly pops as we lay back on the hot roof watching the only cloud floating by in the sky, which Jack thinks looks like a penis.

The factory was built at the turn of the century and had been a victim of the war with bomb damage, it had never been rebuilt or repaired, and had been stripped of lead and copper pipe or anything else that was useful or could had been sold off.

We were occasionally sitting up and throwing stones and bits of tiles, concrete and anything else you would find on an old derelict building roof into a 40-gallon steel drum 10 yards away down in the courtyard.

The drum had had its top cut off, and flames were pouring out of it because the rubbish inside it had been set on fire by the demolition workers earlier. The workers had gone home and left the contents of the old oil drum to burn away overnight. We heard Toby's voice and looked around,

TOBY: I knew I'd find you all here,

Toby was coming towards us shuffling his feet with one foot straddled either side of the roofs apex with his arms out like he was walking a tight rope, he was looking straight ahead and trying to be careful, then he stopped and looked down at us half way down the side on the angled corrugated tin and broken glass windowed roof.

He turns 90 degrees to face us, and then starts walking towards us sliding his feet on the dusty roof surface. Toby points to the sky.

TOBY: Look at that cloud! It looks like a cock,

JACK: Told you, didn't I, it's a cock,

ME: Mind the roof there its weak,

TOBY: What?

Jack looks around at me and whispers,

JACK: He's fucking deaf, huh!

A noise that sounded like a loud creaking door made us both look up to see Toby falling backwards, he seems to sit on the roof for a second before he vanished bum first into a hole he had created with his own weight.

Then not a second later a "THUMP" and a cry out "OH!".

The factory roof was as high as a regular two storey house, and we had thought he had crashed two floors down, but when we scrambled up the roof to where Toby had been, and we looked down through the hole he had made, we were expecting the worse! But, we saw just a few feet below us Toby flat on his back, moaning.

Inside the old factory it was built like one of those Russian dolls. There was another building built inside. There was a two-storey cabin office with a flat roof, and Toby had landed on it. Me and Jack jump down.

JACK: Fucking hell! you're a lucky fucker,

ME: You all right?

TOBY: Yeah,

Toby was rubbing his elbow and then the back of his head, Jack was pulling on Toby's snake belt and it was stretching, Jack lets the belt go with a "SNAP",

TOBY: FUCK OFF JACK! That hurt! I banged me ed I fink,

JACK: We better go to the hospital then,

ME: Yeah, come on then, let's do that,

The hospital we were going to was called "The Miller", and was on the Greenwich and Deptford boundary's, it was an old Victorian 1800's building. It had been named "The Miller" after the flour mill across the road from it. The flour mill and been built along a small river called "The River Creek" a small subsidiary of the London Thames River.

To be honest, Toby was alright, nothing broken, and going to the hospital was for something to do, and now we had a good excuse to be going there.

The hospital was just a short 10-minute walk. Now I should just tell you that we are scruffy nine and ten-year olds with short back and side haircuts. Jack's hair is short all over, he is black, born in London with Afro Caribbean parents, he is a very tall and thin for this age, I am normal height and skinny, but Toby looks like he is tubby six-year-old.

We walk through the main hospital gates and into the reception area where people were waiting to be seen sitting down in rows of chairs, they all seem to be moaning.

JACK: Tobes, hold your ed like it hurts, and moan like them over there,

A couple of nurses walk past us, they look wide awake happy and chatty like they were just starting the day shift at the Millers. Toby see's the nurses and looks down at the ground,

TOBY: SOOO! my ed hurts lots,

Toby moans rubbing his head,

ME: Save the moaning for when we get to the emergency desk,

We stand in line in front of the emergency desk which has a high wooden countertop, the two nurses we just saw are behind the desk now, both are chatting and laughing to each other, both nurses look around at Toby,

NURSE: I guess you have hurt your head?,

I look at Toby and think that all they can see of him is his nose upwards from behind the emergency desk,

Toby looks around at me and pulls down on my arm so he can whisper in my ear,

TOBY: You can see err nipples though err top,

Jack over-hears Toby, Jack says without thinking and loudly says,

JACK: What's nipples?

The nurse grins, and leans across the desk displaying her cleavage, I stare, Jack stares, Toby hasn't stopped staring,

NURSE: We had better have a look at you then, come over to the emergency room,

We all sit down in the emergency room on chairs that are next to a wheeled emergency bed, apart from the grey chairs everything in the cubicle was an immaculate white.

The nurse has a clip board with a form attached to it, the nurse sits down in front of me, then looks down at the form with pen in hand and says,

NURSE: Full name!

I am thinking that the nurse is asking me questions,

ME: Leo Marino,

Then she looks up at me and sternly says,

NURSE: The Patients name!

Toby sits up from sliding down in his chair and shouts out his name,

TOBY: Toby Carrington, Miss!

The nurse looks over at him and says,

NURSE: What is the problem with you?

TOBY: I fell and hit my head,

NURSE: Are you feeling dizzy, any vomiting or nausea?

TOBY: nosier? my nose is alright, what is a vomiting?

ME: Have you been sick Tobes?

Toby looks at me.

TOBY: No mate,

ME: Not me, to the nurse,

So Toby says to the Nurse,

TOBY: You been sick?

The nurse looks at me then Toby. The nurse crosses her head,

NURSE: And this is just the start of my shift!

NURSE: We will get you to x-ray to see if there are any fractures, first I want to examine your head for cuts,

The nurse snaps on a pair of plastic gloves and looks at his head then pushes his hair aside,

NURSE: Well it looks alright, I am going to get a porter to take you to x-ray now,

The nurse vanishes though the pulled back cubicle curtains and seconds later appears with a porter and wheelchair.

Toby jumps into the wheelchair and we all go off to the x-ray departments waiting room. There is a slight uphill ramp as we go along an adjoining corridor.

I see Toby curiously looking down at the brake lever on the right side of the wheelchair. Toby looks up then ahead and pulls the brake lever up slowly, the porter is complaining that for a small kid he is heavy, then Toby pushes the lever slowly back.

The wheelchairs brake is now off. He looks back at the porter to see if he noticed what he was doing. Toby looks at me and is grinning. Toby then goes for the brake lever again without looking what he is doing.

There is a clinking sound from one of the spoked wheelchair wheels then a yelp! from Toby, the wheelchair skids sideways as Toby has put his hand into the spokes of the wheel.

PORTER: You, silly sod!

Toby pulls his hand free,

TOBY: Ahh!

Toby rubs his hand, the porter does not ask if he is ok, he just ignores Toby's moans and pushes on to the x-ray department. Me and Jack exchange some sympathy and giggle.

ME: You Ok? You Stupid Sod!

JACK: Your hand hurt? Idiot!

We get to the x-ray department and the porter parks Toby and wheelchair close to the x-ray room. The porter pulls the brake lever back and forth a few times as if to check it. He gives Toby a dirty look, Toby grins back.

The x-ray room doors fly open with a bang; a young over enthusiastic doctor with bi-focal glasses and a circular plaster on his forehead comes out,

DOCTOR: I will be with you very soon, quickly even!

The weird doctor looks at Toby and grins like a clown continuously.

DOCTOR: There's a sweetie treat in that jar if you are a good boy,

Toby whispers to Me and Jack,

TOBY: Good Boy! what does he think I'm a fucking dog,

Jack points to a machine in the x-ray room;

JACK: That's the machine that takes a picture of your insides,

TOBY: How does it do that?

When Toby turns away from Jack, Jack starts winking at me, but strangely blinking at me with both eyes, he sees himself in a mirror and realizes his blinking is not right, he then starts blinking with alternate eyes and is still looking into the mirror. It is obvious to me that Jacks winking is trying to get my attention without Toby noticing.

But the doctor notices what he thinks is Jacks strange winking behaviour. He looks at Toby and then back at Jack. You could see the doctor wondering about something. What was the doctor thinking? Probably, which kid was the one with the head injury maybe?

DOCTOR: Nurse! Which kid hit his head?

NURSE: That one, Doctor!

DOCTOR: Can we check the records first please nurse,

The Doctor and nurse leave the room.

Jack gives up the winking and nudges me, then looks around at Toby,

JACK: It uses a Lightning bolt from the sky,

TOBY: Oh yeah, I knew that, but how does it work?

JACK: They go out and collect the lightning bolts and put them in that box attached to the x-ray machine, when it's your turn they let one out and it goes through your head,

TOBY: Yeah I knew that,

Toby is looking concerned now,

Jack is looking at me nodding and grinning, he hasn't grasped blinking yet, and is still blinking both eyes and occasionally the left or right eye,

ME: Yeah that's right, I saw it on TV, on the Doctor who show,

Toby sits up straight,

TOBY: I feel alright now, let's go,

Toby gets up and starts walking towards the exit doorway,

TOBY: Come on, let's go,

We follow him for a few steps and then he says,

TOBY: Wait here,

Toby goes back into the x-ray room where the bowl of sweets are. He then piles the sweets into his pockets, we all then walk out of the hospital very quickly passing the nurses on reception, both nurses were looking at us, and they both look confused.
CHAPTER 5:

All downhill from here

Toby was sharing the sweets as we were walking home from the hospital, Jack had picked out all the sherbet lemon sweets and was crunching them. He was foaming at the mouth from all the sherbet.

As we turned off the main road and started to walk up a hill not far from where we all lived in the same street, Jack pointed out an old rusty dilapidated car, the tax disc was missing, and the number plates were gone.

Toby's uncle had a car breakers, he told us to lookout for old abandoned cars because he could tow them away and sell the parts. He had told us that if your car had failed its MOT test and it cost too much to fix then cars were often abandoned.

This was because auto wreckers and car breakers yards charged for taking your vehicle away back then, so people just took off the number plates and towed their old car someplace that was not local to them or in their own street. Off course, an old car to us was a racing car or a spaceship and somewhere to play!

JACK: It's been here since when it snowed, I saw the bloke tow it here with a geezer sitting inside and driving it,

We had seen this all before and knew the car had been abandoned.

We stopped and looked though the dirty windows. Jack pulled on the front passenger side door handle and it creaked open, we peered inside. The car was an old Standard Vanguard, it had worn out red leather seats and a big steering wheel, we all looked at each other and scrambled into the car all fighting to get to the driver's seat. I ended up in the passenger's side seat, Jack and Toby were both sitting on the driver's seat together arguing over who was first.

Toby accepted defeat and started to move over to share the passenger's seat with me, as he slides across the handbrake lever gets caught in his back pocket, he pulls himself up to get the lever out of his pocket grabbing the handbrake and then somehow, he releases it.

Jack was making Brum, Brum, noises like a car engine, and wildly turning the steering wheel left and right, I looked over at him and laughed out,

ME: You can't drive,

As I was looking at him I was also looking though the dirty side window on his right side and suddenly realised that we were moving,

ME: We're moving,

TOBY: That thing was sticking in me, what?

I turned and started to pull on the door handle which was made of old leather, the door opened slightly on the lock and the leather handle snapped, I pushed on the door then Toby started pushing as well,

TOBY: Come on get out!

JACK: What did you do;

ME: Jack! Brake! Put your foot of the brake!

JACK: Brake!?

The car picked up speed as we rolled towards the main road. As we reached the junction, Jack, using both hands pulled the steering wheel down clockwise and the car turned right and bumped up the pavement before crossing the main road. We had travelled just 15 yards; the car came to a stop as I pulled on the handbrake.

Just our luck, A copper was talking to a postman on the corner of the road we had just arrived at. Jack had managed to wind down his window in a panic to get out of the car as a policeman watching all this walked over (And he didn't have far to walk)

We were taken to the police station and then all put in separate cells. We were left to stew for an hour to scare us. We had all been there before and it was no big deal, just a boring wait. The coppers had looked us up in their database and found out where we lived.

Our parents turned up all together. We were all told off and got a lecture on the dangers of such exploits, but the danger and such exploits are why these street wise kids looking for adventure had done it in the first place.

CHAPTER 6:

Big fast Horny dog and some pretty flowers

It was another bright school holiday summer's day morning, and I was watching cartoons on the TV. I could hear what sounded like Toby was in my house shouting my name,

TOBY: LEO!, LEO!, LEO!

I got up and walked down the hallway towards the front door, as I was walking towards the door I could see the letter box opening. It was flapping open and then closing with some fingers flicking the letter box flap open and then closing quickly again, then it would suddenly flip open again and you would see a mouth shouting my name, then a pair of eyes looking straight at me though the rectangular hole,

TOBY: Come on, hurry up!

As I opened the door a huge panting dog head pushes itself though the opening at almost chest level,

ME: Toby! what the fuck!

TOBY: Look what I got!, it's a fucking great Dane!

ME: What? did you win it?

TOBY: Naw, I'm walking it, for money, come on, let's go,

ME: Where?

TOBY: To the park!

I went back in to get some plimsoles on my feet then joined Toby and the dog for a walk in the park,

ME: How much you get for walking the dog?

TOBY: Fifty pence an hour, for an hour,

ME: Where's it from?

TOBY: Them new people who just moved in, I just asked if I could walk their dog,

ME: It's as big as you, you could ride it,

TOBY: I know, massive isn't he,

Toby was holding the dog's metal link chain in both hands, it looked very long for some unknown reason. It had a normal flat leather loop at one end and a clip for the dog's collar at the other end.

ME: That chain looks long?

TOBY: Let's see,

Toby holds the dog by its collar, and I pull the chain out straight to see how long it is.

ME: Must be twelve feet long!

Toby loops the chain though its leather loop and around his waist, then curls up the chain, holding the bulk of the chain in one hand and the rest in his other hand to pull the dog back if necessary.

Toby then pats the dog. The dog sets off. All seems well as we are all jogging along on the pavement towards the park.

ME: What's its name?

TOBY: Velocity,

The dog has now picked up pace. Then still more. We are now running beside it. The dog just goes straight across the road, a car horns blasts at us,

TOBY: Fuck!

ME: FUCK!

TOBY: Keep up!

ME: I Wonder why they called him Velocity?

TOBY: Don't know,

Without realising it, we are now both finding it hard to keep up with Velocity. I look at Toby, and his short little legs are whizzing around like the "Road Runner" in the TV cartoon.

We all run though a side gate of Greenwich Park, I grab Velocity's lead and we both pull on it until he stops.

We compose ourselves and go to the children's play area where there are swings roundabouts a paddling pool and a boating pond. We tie up Velocity so we can go on the swings, Toby thinks it is a good idea to tie Velocity's lead to a long bit of string he found to the front of the swing, he somehow thought the dog would pull the swing with him on it, but the dog just sits there.

Suddenly Velocity stands up, ears pricked and nose sniffing, he sees another dog across the play area, he then starts to make grumbling wolf noises, then he just takes off like a 100-yard sprinter, this towed Toby on the swing up in the air backwards until the string snapped and Toby gets thrown off backwards with a thump.

Velocity runs though the children's pool out the other side to where this much smaller dog is. I was worried that they would fight, but they just both wang tails, and smell each other's bums, the smaller dog barks and wants to play, we walk across to where the two dogs are playing, but the playing suddenly stops, and they start shagging.

Basically, to us, it looked like the small dogs engine had broken down and stopped working, so the big dog had come along and thought it could help by pushing the small dog along and was trying to re-start the small dogs engine.

Toby grabbed the lead of Velocity and dragged him towards the exit gate, but the two dogs were stuck together bum to bum with the small dog walking backwards only on its two front legs.

Out of breath Toby sat down on a bench next to an elderly woman with the two dogs just standing there both panting bum to bum, with the small dogs rear elevated. I was standing there just laughing. The elderly woman exclaimed that Toby should not be pulling the big dog along as you could plainly see it was having a baby dog, I thought it was so funny I was on my knees crying now.

The dogs separated, and the small dog ran off. Toby grabs velocity's collar and puts the clip on, he tugs at it and checks it is secure. He then puts the other end of the chain around his waist, and checks it is not too loose and carries some of the long chain in one hand and the rest in his other hand leaving enough loose chain to pull the dog back if needed.

We leave the playground and pass close to the edge of the small boating pond next to the playground. Velocity stops and stands still, he is looking across the pond at same dog he was shagging earlier, his ears are pricked, and he starts to sniff the air. He then starts to make grumbling wolf noises again.

I looked at Toby wondering what he would do this time. As velocity began to sprint Toby drops the chain he is holding onto the floor.

The dog takes off, the dog leaps into the boating pond water, and Toby looks on, the pond is only a foot deep, and velocity is around 4 feet high, the dog's legs are splashing the water, the dog has just one thing on its mind now.

Toby looks down as the long chain gets shorter, he suddenly realises that the chain is still around his waist. Too late.

I could almost read Toby's mind;

"But the chain is still around my waist",

Toby looks at me with this terrified expression, as he already knows his fate.

Toby's body bends outwards in the middle as the slack chain goes tight.

Toby keeps upright for a split second but then seems to be skipping across the dirty boating pond water momentarily before going headfirst into the filthy abyss. It was a hot summers day, so Toby dried out quite quickly.

On our way home and out of the park, we bump into Jack,

JACK: Your Mum said you were here with Toby walking a Dog, wow! he's a big-un, like a small horse,

ME: Yeah, were taking him home now,

JACK: It's Mum's birthday today, I just got to do something at the top of the hill, I won't be long, come on,

We got to the top of the hill where the park layout turns into plots of flowerbeds and big bushes, we stop by a big flowerbed full of plants, Jack looks around,

JACK: If you see anyone give us a shout,

He then gets out a carrier bag from his pocket and starts pulling various flowers out of the flowerbed stopping occasionally to look at the bunch to see if its coordinated like they would in a florist's shop,

TOBY: Look! there's a car driving on the grass over there,

ME: It's a cop car!

TOBY: Can they see us?

ME: Yeah! Course! and there coming this way!

TOBY: We've done nothing wrong!

ME: No, me and you haven't, but look, the dog is digging up the flowers, and Jack is filling his bag up with them,

TOBY: Jack! fuzz is coming.

We all run to a big Topiary bush and climb into its hollow inside, Jack tucks the bag of flowers up into the branches, the dog starts sniffing and then starts barking at the policeman outside the bush,

POLICEMAN: Come on out, I can see you all in the bush, I have a police dog with me,

We all looked at each other and crawl out of the big bush where there were two policemen standing pertinently, one with a police dog,

JACK: It's your fault Toby, that fucking dog,

It was only a short 10-minute march to the Park Wardens House, the policeman took Velocity around the back to some kennels and we were taken inside and made to stand in a line in front of the chief warden,

POLICEMAN: I found these lads in the flower beds, and then hiding in a bush,

The warden looks us up and down,

WARDEN: Tut, tut, tut, what have you been up to ruining my flowerbeds eh!

To our surprise Jack speaks out,

JACK: Please, Please sir, I am really really sorry, but my dog got off his lead and I tried to get him off the garden, I mean flower bed and then the ground was soft and I fell over, and my Mums going to be really angry with me and...

Jack starts pretending to sob,

WARDEN: Heh, heh their lad, we are only trying to establish what you were doing, some people vandalise the plants here, and we work hard to make it nice for everyone to see, I understand. Sid, there is some ice cream in the fridge, get it out, I am sure these kids would like some,

POLICEMAN: Sure thing Arthur,

A bowlful of vanilla ice cream later and we are taken around to the police dog kennels to get Velocity,

Policeman: What the..., good grief, how did he get in there,

Jack nudges me and quietly says,

JACK: Go on son give eh one,

Velocity has managed to get over and into the police dogs kennel next door, and is humping the police dog bitch like mad,

TOBY: No, not again!

Policeman: What did you say?

TOBY: Oh, dear me, Oh dear me, you, naughty doggie!

Jack collected the carrier bag full of flowers on the way out for his Mum's birthday.

CHAPTER 7:

Coin Operated

Usually, Saturday mornings were reserved for the kid's cinema and matinees at Lewisham Odeon, stuff like cartoons and old Flash Gordon films are shown, but today the cinema was closed because there was a power cut in the area. We all stood there with other kids looking at the chalkboard sign on the cinema's steps. "CLOSED TODAY, NO Electricity"

JACK: This is fucked, I was looking forward to the flicks today!

TOBY: Me too!

ME: How much you both got?

TOBY: A few bob!

JACK: Two or three bob!

ME: I got 2 bob and some pennies,

TOBY: What you thinking?

ME: Let's get Red Rovers and go for a bus ride around town,

JACK: That's a good idea, but we only got enough for two!

ME: Oh, Yeah!

JACK: I know! let's get two Red Rovers and get a piece of old red card, me and you show the bus clippie our Rovers, and when its Toby's turn he drops his bit of old red cardboard on the floor, when he's on the floor, you hand him your Red Rover under the seat, then he shows it to the clippie!

TOBY: Let's do it!

We go to the newsagent and get two red rover passes. A short walk to the bus stop and a number 36-B London transport double decker bus turns up straight away. We all bundle and squeeze up the stairs three abreast as usual to get to the top deck. The bus is half full, but we find a suitable group of seats in the middle of the bus to execute our plan. Jack is sitting near the window, I am sitting next to Jack, and Toby is seated in front of us.

ME: That bit of card is too big, give it here an I'll make it the right size.

I hold the Red Rover Ticket and the scrap piece of red coloured card back to back like a template and tear around the Red Rover ticket to make the pretend ticket the right size.

JACK: Toby! Listen, just flash the card and drop it quick, don't give the clippie a chance to see it!

TOBY: Ok, OK!

The clippie arrives on the top deck and starts taking peoples fares.

CLIPPIE: Fares please, fares please!

JACK: Red Rover!

The clippie looks at the red card and checks the date. I show him my card and the clippie nods, as the clippie turns to Toby, Jack bends down below the seat. Toby drops the card as the clippie goes to have a look, then Toby dives down and retrieves the real ticket from Jack, then Toby appears showing the Red Rover to the clippie. Beautifully executed. The clippie nods at Toby. And Jack re-appears with a half smoked, unlit cigarette in his mouth.

JACK: Look, found this on the floor, only been half smoked,

Jack lights the cigarette,

TOBY: Give us a puff,

We all relax, chat and joke around, until a ticket inspector gets on the bus.

ME: It's that bus inspector, you know the one that chucked us off for having the wrong tickets last time,

JACK: So? So what?

ME: Toby don't have a Red Rover,

JACK: We can do what we did before,

TOBY: Ok, let's do that,

We all agree on the same plan. Then a large women boards the bus and sits next to Toby; she hardly notices Toby sitting on the seat.

The inspector moves down the bus checking tickets, when the inspector reaches us we show our tickets like before, Toby shows and drops his red card and then ducks under the seat again, the fat lady then shuffles herself across the seat a bit. Jack hands Toby the Red Rover and a second later the fat lady is yelling.

FAT LADY: ARhh! What's that!, what are you doing? Arhh! What!

Me and Jack stand up to see what is going on, only to see Toby had lost his way and was trying to get back into his seat by going between the fat lady's legs, his head was facing the woman, and she had him in a leg lock (Poor sod) he managed to push himself away and get out of the leg lock, we all ran off the bus as it had started to pull away from a bus stop. Anyway, it was only a short walk to Trafalgar square and then onto Soho from there.

On the way to Soho we would go to each red telephone box and collect the X rated business cards advertising various expert sexual engagements and consultations, we would swap these between us and sell them at school as they had pictures of partially clothed busty women on them, and there was always a market for the good ones that tended to be in colour with mostly pictures and not much wording on them.

We had been to Soho many times before, we were streetwise kids, we knew there were weirdos, nonce, pick pockets, druggies, prostitutes, hawkers there, and all the other sort of people that hung out and around those areas. We just avoided them, but sometimes took the piss with name calling and then running away.

We headed for the bright lights and shit music of the arcades for some amusement. Usually there was a guy who stood around on the edge of the amusement arcade, if you were a kid you could be trouble, and he would follow you around at a distance to check what you were up to. We approached the silver fountain arcade.

ME: There's a lookout there, with the cigar,

JACK: Ok, lets split up, I'll go in with Toby, you check out around the side.

As we are about to go into the coin arcade a man delivering an upright amusement machine called "Sharpshooter" on a wheeled trolley yells at us.

Man Yelling: Out of the way, mind your backs please, I need to get to the corner over there! KIDS! Out of the bloody way!

Jack and Toby go into the arcade and Cigar man follows them in as expected, he doesn't see me go in further down. I check the push coin fountains to see which trays are close to having coins fall if the machines are nudged. I see four trays that are close to falling. I give the big machine a hard shove and the coins fall, but the tilt alarm goes off sounding like a fire engine siren, I duck down and crawl along the floor, then I sneak out where I entered the arcade.

Cigar man looks over but does not seem to be concerned and stays where he is. The alarm goes off after a minute. But, the coin fountain machine I nudged has lots of coins waiting to be collected from the winning tray. I see Cigar man turn back towards Jack and Toby, so I jump up and down gesturing and pointing to the machine I had nudged.

Toby sees me and gets the hint. He then goes over to the machine and pretends to put some coins in, he waits a second, then exclaims loudly that he had won, and he fills his pockets with the coins I had knocked down when I shoved the machine. We meet across the road opposite the arcade behind a parked car.

ME: Where's Jack gone?

TOBY: Dunno?

We scan the area but stay close to the arcade.

ME: Where was he when you saw him last?

TOBY: Over there at the back of the arcade, where that new machine is in the corner in front of those curtains, see, the "Sharpshooter" machine.

Cigar man goes over to the new sharpshooter machine and plugs it in, then he goes over to the coin change kiosk and starts talking to the women inside.

We are standing two or three meters away from this newly delivered amusement machine, it chimes and clunks as it starts up. Simple stencilled outlined pictures of ducks and bullseyes being shot at with a rifle decorate the machines exterior.

There is a small platform at the front on the floor just in case you are too small to operate the controls. Toby's eyes are fixed, he is looking up at the glass window where the shooting game is played. His mouth is partially open, he is very still, he's also looking a bit pale. I turn around and look at the machine to see what has caused Toby's aghast expression.

The bottom of the "Sharpshooter" arcade machines glass window is illuminated in a mid-blue, while yellow and red lights light up the interior sides and top. There are ducks spinning around and bullseyes popping up, the sounds are appropriate quacks and gunshots, there is a crud half sized rifle that you use to take aim with to hit these targets to gain points with, and there is a large illuminated roller type numbered counter at the top right corner behind the glass spinning randomly.

But, also, behind the glass is the head and shoulders of Jack.

Jacks chin and face are floodlit in blue like he is holding a torch on his chest pointing it upwards. He has a surprised look and remains very still; Ducks and targets are popping up behind him. Jack looks like he is a spectacle on show in a circus carnival for dead clowns and put into an upright backlit amusement machine coffin to exhibit.

It wasn't that funny at the time, but now, while I am writing and remembering this, I am crying and laughing.

Anyway, Jack had seen us. He ducked down and started banging on the door at the back, Cigar man was still chatting to kiosk women. Car traffic passing close by in this narrow Soho street muffled the banging. I walked over as quickly as I could looking over at Cigar man to see if he had noticed the banging.

I went to the back of the machine and saw there was a lock at the top and bottom of the back door.

There was a key in the top lock. I unlocked the top lock and then tried the bottom lock, success! the door got flung open and a frantic Jack came rushing out knocking me to the floor, we all ran and finally stopped at Trafalgar square, all of us were out of breath.

ME: What the fuck was you doing in that machine you fucking weirdo!

TOBY: You scared the shit out of me, I thought you was dead, and they put you in the machine as punishment. For being dead!

JACK: The back door was open, so I had a look in the back, there was some coins in the front on the floor, so when no one was looking I crawled in to get them, then the door closed behind me, and the fucking motors and lights came on. Fucking hell!

ME: Then what?

JACK: I stood up, and saw Toby outside looking at me, then you got me out.

ME: SHIT!

TOBY: I thought you were dead!

JACK: I don't want to do that again!

TOBY: I'm hungry!

JACK: Chips!

ME: Yeah, chips!

We go to a café in Leicester Square and get a large plate of chips and a cola each paid for with pennies from the arcade. We chatted for a while before deciding to go to the science museum in Kensington. The Museum was not that far away, and in any case, it was free.

CHAPTER 8:

A Learning experience

We rushed around the museum pushing buttons to start the mechanical exhibits whist playing tag at the same time. Someone was shouting at us to keep the noise down,

VOICE: You Kids!, behave yourselves! This is your final warning!

So we hid. We all stepped over a rope barrier at the top of a stairwell behind a "NO ENTRY TO THE PUBLIC" sign and waited for the yelling voice person to walk past us. It seemed like a long time, so we decided to investigate further down the stairwell.

JACK: I don't think he's coming; it's been like ten minutes now,

ME: Yeah, I don't think he's coming now, where you going Toby?

TOBY: (Echoing/fading) Come down here, have a look!

Me and Jack pursue Toby down some spiral stone stairs right to the bottom, where in the shadow of a fading sun though an upstairs window a tall wooden door is.

JACK: What a waste of time, now we got to go back up!

Toby tries the door handle, the handle turns and squeaks, he pushes the door with his shoulder, the creaky door opens, We all peer inside, It's still, quiet and poorly lit.

ME: It's like a fucking horror film,

Toby bends over and wags his bum at Jack.

TOBY: See, not a waste of time, told you so, kiss my ass,

JACK: Ok, so you were right, come on, let's go in,

We cautiously go through the doorway; it's appears to be a cavernous and dimly lit underground storage space full of shelves. There are objects on the floor with covers over them. We look under the covers and pull open drawers and investigate. We all stop what we are doing when bright lights come on and a deep echoing voice is herd. An official looking man is standing by the door we came though.

OFFICIAL: What do you think you are all doing in here?

ME: The door was open!

TOBY: We thought it was the men's toilet!

Jack points to me.

JACK: I followed him!

OFFICIAL: You are not supposed to be down here, that door should had been locked.

ME: We didn't break in; the door was open!

OFFICIAL: I know, I watched you all, I saw you go down the stairs, I will have to have a word with the porters about leaving doors unlocked again.

ME: What's wrong with all this stuff? Why isn't it upstairs?

OFFICIAL: Well, we don't have the room in the halls, so we store exhibits and displays down here, some of it is waiting to get repaired, some of it will get swapped around from time to time.

ME: I saw this model lift here; does it work?

OFFICIAL: (Chuckles) Yes it does, let me show you,

Just as the official man is going to demonstrate the model elevator, a security guard arrives and looks at us like the official looking man had just successfully arrested Jessie James and his gang.

SECURITY: Hello sir, you managed to get them Ok then, any trouble at all?

OFFICIAL: It's alright, nothing to see here, all in control John, you can go back to your beat,

SECURITY: Ok sir, thank you sir, if you need anything sir,

The official looking man then uncovers this scale model elevator I had been admiring. It was a ten percent scale size fully working model elevator with six floors, you could see the motors, pulleys and some scaled down models of people. He plugs it in with a long power lead.

Tiny bulbs light up on each floor, he pushes the second-floor level button and the elevator car moves to that floor. We all play with it for a while. He shows us other stuff and explains how things work like he is proud of it all.

We had a great time being shown around. We hear a bell clanging, and the official man explains that the tour must end, and that he will escort us to the exit because the museum was closing. An end to an enjoyable day, and without getting into too much trouble. Never knew who he was, but I guess judging by the security guard's reaction to him, and because he was very smartly dressed and well spoken, that he was a very important person.

CHAPTER 9:

Angels and Strawberries

It was Friday afternoon and I was just on my way to an English lesson at school, and I see Mike. I run and catch him up.

ME: What you up to this weekend?

MIKE: Picking strawberries for me Mum, hey! you want to come?

ME: Where,

MIKE: Just outside Orpington, there's a field full of em,

ME: How we going to get there?

MIKE: I can arrange that, if you see Toby or Jack ask if they are interested,

ME: Ok, what time,

MIKE: At my house, nine thirty Saturday, bring a plastic container with you as well,

Later after school Waiting at the bus stop I get a tap on the right shoulder, I look around and there is no one there, I get a tap on the left shoulder and look around on my left and quickly turn right and see Toby crouching down and trying to move out of my line of sight,

ME: Toby, that's and old trick,

TOBY: Yeah, but I got you didn't I,

ME: Hey, you what some free strawberries?

TOBY: Where?

ME: Tomorrow at Orpington,

TOBY: How are we getting there,

ME: Mike is getting us there,

TOBY: Oh Yeah? How?

ME: Just come to my house at nine in the morning, and bring a plastic tub or bag to put the strawberries in,

The red London transport bus number 21 pulls up at the bus stop and around 40 kids all try and get onto the buses open platform at the back at the same time as people are trying to get off, the bus conductor is yelling,

BUS CONDUCTOR: Slow down, slow down, one at a time up the stairs please! Let the passenger's get off first!

The stationary bus rocks on its suspension as 40 plus kids manage to cram onto the bus in around 15 seconds before any passengers can get off.

Saturday morning Toby turns up at my house with two large plastic buckets,

ME: What the fuck are you doing with those,

TOBY: Mum said take these just in case,

ME: In case of what? In case it rains strawberry's? don't ask me to help you carry one,

TOBY: I won't, and if I have more than you, you can't have any of mine!

ME: OK, so let's go then,

We walk to the council estate where Mike and his family live in a high-rise tower block where you would think that there were single floor flats, but they are like blocks of houses called Maisonettes, the tenants call them houses.

As we approach Mikes ground floor house his two elder brothers, Joe and Andy are outside doing stuff to their motorbikes. One brother has a BSA Goldstar motorbike and sidecar, and the second eldest brother has a triumph 650 twin. Both the brothers are Hells Angles. Although I had been to Mikes house since I knew him, which had been quite a few years now, I had known his big brothers were in the Hells Angels motorcycle club, but knew little about their club at the time, but since I had been around them for a few years now I knew them well, and joked around with them when I went over to Mikes house.

Mikes brothers bedrooms were full of world war one and two memorabilia, like clothing, medals, knives, swords and guns that had been made safe and legal to own. I knew they got into fights and scuffles, and one of them had been shot. Me and Mike visited his brother when he was in hospital with a broken leg once as the result of a scuffle.

As I got to his house I saw Mike at an upstairs window, he briefly pulls a curtain open and pulls it back to look outside, he appeared at the open front door seconds later,

MIKE: Ready to go?

ME: & TOBY: Yeah, Yes,

MIKE: I am going on the back with Joe, so the side car is free, and someone can go on Andy's bike with him,

Toby was climbing into the sidecar before Mike had finished his sentence, Toby looked back at me as if to say, "got to the prize seating before you, ha, ha, ha!",

Andy passed me a crash helmet and wrap around glass goggles, as I was putting them on Andy was kick starting the Triumph, its roared into life and was loud because the silencer and the baffles had been removed.

He pointed at the pillion seat for to me to get on, the bike had extended front wheel forks and a seat like a mildly customised chopper, I cocked my right leg over the seat and made myself comfortable while Toby was putting on goggles and a seatbelt on in Joe's sidecar. Mike was riding pillion with Joe on his bike.

Four more Hells Angel friends of the brothers had turned up on their motorbikes as well for the ride. We all roared off down the road, the two brothers looking over at each other winking and nodding.

Wow, this was cool, my first proper ride on a motor bike! I hoped everyone was looking at me! How cool did I look!. I looked over at Toby and I knew that he was thinking the same. Well everyone was looking at us as we roared down the high street.

Joe and Andy were mechanics at a local Ford franchise, they both had advanced city and guilds qualifications equivalent to a degree, so they were both smart, and I heard they were both really good mechanics.

Andy's bike was coughing and backfiring, he was looking down at the engine and fiddled with something just as we were stopping at traffic lights. Andy turned around and was saying something, although he was yelling I could not make out what he was saying, I just nodded.

He wound the throttle round and revved the engine up then "clunked" the motorbike into gear and the bike lurched forward, he then raised both his feet at the same time also balancing the bike with his body twitching left and right, and then to my surprise instead of letting the clutch lever out slowly and smooth, he just let go of the lever and pulled himself forward off the seat so his chest was laying on top of the petrol tank, the high revving bike squatted down on its rear suspension and the back tyre spun and screeched then smoked in agony as it tried in vain to get traction.

I get thrown backward into the tall black deep buttoned seat padding, hanging on to the two chrome grab rails either side of the seat for dear life as the tail of the bike swung left and right. Andy corrected this wild ride by leaning left and right until the bike was straight and true, he then braked as hard as he could as the traffic lights we were approaching changed from green to red. The rest of the gang pulled up alongside.

JOE: Any better?

ANDY: Nothing an Italian tune up won't fix!

The two brothers were laughing.

We then all pulled away from the traffic lights normally, even so it was loud and very noisy in a cloud of black and blue smoke, taking up the entire left side of the road.

As we left London it became greener with less cars and houses as fields with wheat, barley and various crops became more the norm.

Along the country road we pulled up in a layby where a caravan was parked that had been converted into a greasy spoon "Breakfast all day" roadside café. Everyone dismounted and queued to get a tea or coffee or went behind some bushes to relive themselves, the smell of fresh cut wheat, barley and cannabis filed the air as tobacco tins were opened and premade hand rolled roaches were lit and shared by the gang.

ANDY: We are just going to have a short break, and then we will drop you all off,

JOE: Yeah, we will pick you all up at 2 o clock,

MIKE: Ok, 2 o clock,

A few of the gang were play fighting, a couple more had played a trick where one knelt down behind someone standing while the third perpetrator pushed the culprit backwards so they fell over, the two perpetrators then picked up the culprit by the feet and arms swinging the culprit left and right then let them go so they vanished over a low hedge into field, we were all laughing, and the stoned culprit thought it was funny as well. Andy summoned the gang to pay attention to him, he then pointed to then all...

ANDY: I want you all sober when we get back,

Joe gives the women server who is in the caravan café a £10 note,

JOE: Hello luv, give em tea, coffee, grub, whatever they want. Ta,

ROADSIDE CAFÉ WOMEN: Thank you,

We got on the brothers motorbikes again and left for the strawberry fields. We turned off the main road onto a side road, then turned onto a narrow country lane and passed a farm and farm shop on the corner that sold milk, eggs, cheese, soft fruits and advertised "Pick your Own Strawberries"

We then pulled over where a wooden farm gate was set back against the narrow road and all dismounted the motorbike's.

JOE: See you all two o'clock then,

MIKE: Right then, see yah,

The brothers thundered off down the country lane and we headed off around the perimeter of this field full of wheat which looked like it was ready to be harvested. It was a very hot summers day, no clouds, no wind.

We seemed to be heading towards what looked like a farm house, as we reached the corner of the field we saw an old granite horse trough with a water tap on a fence post under a big old oak tree, we all looked at each other and then raced off towards the horse trough and water tap to get the first drink.

We were pushing and shoving each other out of the way as we ran along this dry dusty dirt path. Mike got there first and turned the tap on drinking and washing his face with the cool water, I took off my T shirt and soaked it in the trough and put it back on,

MIKE: Ha, Ha, that's a good idea,

Mike soaks his T shirt, Toby is sitting on the side of the trough pulling his plimsole off,

TOBY: Got a fucking stone in me shoe,

Giggling, Mike nudges me,

MIKE: Watch,

Mike pushes Toby backwards and grabs his arm at the same time to pull him back from falling into the water trough, but it all goes wrong, because Mikes hands are wet, and he loses his grip. Toby with legs in the air and arms and hands flapping is trying to grab at something but there is nothing to grab. He cannot stop himself falling backwards so he goes completely under the water, he leaps out of the trough and stands there with arms out like a scarecrow and dripping wet from head to toe,

TOBY: Oh' you fuck, fucking,

Toby starts laughing, we all look at each other and all start laughing,

ME: You'll dry out,

TOBY: Yeah, I guess, it is nice and cool, come on, I'm hungry,

We walk a bit more along the path until we reach a high thick hedge which seems to go off into the distance,

MIKE: Yeah, here we are,

ME: How do know?

MIKE: It's this tree in the hedge, I know it's the one,

Mike kneels and crawls into the hedge then vanishes,

MIKE: Come on,

I walk over bend down and have a look, I push some branches out of the way and see there is a little narrow path that looks like small animals have used to make a way though the hedge, I push though and get to the other side,

ME: Come on Toby, it's Ok,

We are all standing in the corner of a field full of strawberries, Mike pulls a couple of ripe looking berries and puts them in his mouth, he dribbles strawberry juice and then smiles, he then looks at his watch,

MIKE: We got an hour and a half, and hour to pick and half an hour to get back to the wood gate in the lane for pickup,

We all started picking and eating at the same time, we chatted, laughed, threw strawberries at each other and the time flew by. Toby stood up and put his hands on his hips and stretched his back and looked out across the field, he walked over to an adjacent hedge where a low tree was and climbed up it a short way where he stayed for a minute or two,

TOBY: Hey!, there's people over in the next field picking strawberries as well. Is that the farmhouse over there Mike?

MIKE: Yeah, I think it is,

TOBY: Are we allowed to be here?

I stand up and look around while Toby jumps down out of the tree,

ME: Why? Oh, who's that at that upstairs window in that farmhouse looking at us, oh, eh, though binoculars, and shaking his fist at, US!

MIKE: OH! shit, I bet that's the farmer, let's go, come on, move, GO!

We grab our containers and some handfuls of fruit to eat (we stuff our mouths as we are running!), Toby decides to fill his pockets on the way out of the field, we all run like fuck and get to the field with the unharvested wheat and run right through the middle.

Mike was in front and I could just keep up with him, I kept stopping for Toby as he was shorter than the wheat, and all you could see was a cloud of dust where he could be, but at least I knew he was on the move. We reached the wooden gate way earlier than arranged and sat down out of breath.

MIKE: Ha, Ha, fuck that was close,

ME: They got guns you know,

Toby is covered in dust and bits of wheat stalk and still eating the fruit from his now red stained pockets,

TOBY: You mean he could have shot at us!

We all hear a motorbike and stop talking, we try to work out which way it is coming. Mike walks to the other side of the road and up a small mound to get a better look,

MIKE: That doesn't sound like one of my brothers' bikes,

Then Mike looks startled from his vantage point,

MIKE: Fucking cop on a motorbike,

We all start running down the narrow lane, Mike throws his containtors over the hedge, Toby and I do the same, as we turn a corner a police car is slowly coming the other way, we stop, and all look around for an exit, but the hedge is too high, Toby is stuffing the remaining fruit he has in his pockets into his mouth.

The policeman on the motorbike dismounts as the policeman in the car gets out and walks over to us, he bends down close to Toby's face and investigates him,

Policeman from car: Strawberries young man?

Toby has red juice running down his face and is still crewing,

TOBY: Mow, mott me?

Policeman from car: Pardon young man,

Toby swallows,

TOBY: No!

Policeman from car: Can you please all get in the back of the car,

We all get into the back of the police car and the policeman says something to the motorbike cop, the motorbike cop walks off down the lane and 5 mins later comes back with our Tupperware and buckets.

He puts it all in the boot of the car and we drive off. The policeman says nothing to us. We are taken to the local police station and all put in separate cells.

I could hear Toby shouting,

TOBY: It weren't my fault, it was theirs, don't tell me Mum,

And I could hear Mike from an adjoining cell yelling at Toby,

MIKE: Shut up Toby,

I could hear a cell door being opened and then closed,

TOBY: I tell ya, it wasn't my fault, it was theirs, don't tell me Mum will ya,

15 minutes or so later (My watch had been taken from me) Me and Mike were let out and taken to a white tiled room with a barred and frosted window in it, a table and chairs were in the middle. The policeman from the car and a senior policeman came into the room, then we were told to sit in the chairs,

Senior policeman: Well, well, well then, what do we have here then, fruit thieves?

MIKE: We didn't steal them, we were just walking past and saw them there, we thought they were wild,

Senior policeman: And you just happened to have Tupper-ware containers and buckets with you,

The Senior policeman and the car policeman looked at each other and were grinning,

Senior policeman Well then, anyway, the farmer wants to press charges against you all, so if you follow me, we need details from you all, and oh, we know your names and where you live, so don't try and be clever,

We did as we were told. Once all the paperwork was done, we were released and met outside by Joe and Andy sitting on their bikes outside the police station chatting up a couple of girls,

JOE: Ho, ha, ha, here they are the scrumpers then,

Joe and Andy are pointing us out to the girls and laughing at us,

TOBY: I didn't tell em your names, honest, they were just trying it on that I had told on you, honest I didn't,

MIKE: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

ME: They wouldn't give us back the Tupperware,

ANDY: No, they keep it for evidence, you're probably get a small fine and have to pay for the strawberries I expect, your get a letter in the post in a few days,

TOBY: I didn't tell em your names,

MIKE: Shut the fuck up Toby,

ANDY: That's a trick the coppers use on you, they tell you your mates squealed,

TOBY: See I told ya, see Mike, See Leo,

CHAPTER 10:

Lead it be ours

We walked past our favourite bombsite abandoned factory every day on the way and back to school, we saw that an array of bulldozers, backhoes, and demolition cranes and been dropped off in the old factory yard.

As the days passed the old factory buildings became smaller and smaller as demolition took place with big trucks taking any useful steel beams and pipe work away for recycling. By the end of the week all that was left was a pile of broken up concrete and bricks in the middle of the site.

On Saturday we all decided to go down to the river (Thames) to have a look on the shoreline when the tide was out. Sometimes we found old coins that that we took to a pawn brokers or jewellers' shop to sell.

We sometimes got enough cash from the sale to go to the swimming pool or cinema. As we were on our way to the river we were walking past the old factory site, a tipper truck came to a screeching stop where the old factory's driveway met the main road, it stopped short of running down Toby,

Driver: Get the fuck out of the way kid!

TOBY: Fuck off cunt! You nearly ran me over!

The driver sounds his lorry's horn, and the passenger in the truck leans out of the window showing and waving his fist at Toby,

Passenger: want some of this, then get out the way,

Toby stands back as the truck spins it's tyres and shudders. The lorry moves off turning right quickly. Toby is angered by the passengers remark, as the truck passes Toby he kicks the big cylindric fuel tank on the passenger side by the cab, and he then slaps a lever on the trucks rear side panel, the truck leans over as it turns and the side panel falls open slapping the back tyre, and then two rolled up things fall off the trucks bed, the truck speeds off down the road.

TOBY: Ha, ha, ha, serves ya right fucking wankers,

Toby is jumping up and down and gesturing the reversed "V" sign with both hands at the truck,

ME: What is that stuff that fell off?

JACK: It's two big bits of rolled up lead! Quick get it off the road, put it over there!

We all knew its value. The lead had to be taken to a scrap dealer.

We rolled the lead inside the old factory gate and put some opened out cardboard boxes over them, so they were hidden in case the truck came back.

ME: We need something to carry them with, look over there at the back of the site, is that an old tin bath?

TOBY: Yeah, let get it?

We all go over to examine the old tin bath, since there is nothing else around to use we carry it back and put the lead rolls into it. Me and Jack grab the handles at either end of the old tin bath and lift it up,

JACK: Wow, it's really fucking really heavy!

ME: Tell me if you're going to drop it so I can drop my end, we going to the scrap metal guy in the high street?

JACK: Yeah Ok,

We walk maybe 4 steps along the pavement, and then Jack's handle snaps off the tin bath,

Jack: Oh, just missed my foot, sorry Leo,

I drop my end of the tin bath onto the pavement,

ME: Its Ok, its heavy, we will have to take turns at this end, you two grab the bath underneath at your end, I will carry it at my end for a bit, then we all swap around,

TOBY: Yeah, ok,

JACK: It's only a 5-minute walk,

We walk about 10 paces, stop and swap around, we walk another 10 paces and swap again and again until we reach the scrap metal shop around 40 minutes later.

Sweating and dirty we get to the front door of the shop which has a yard and barking dog on a chain at the back. We drop the tin bath onto the floor as a man in filthy overalls with a dirty face and wearing worn out boots with shiny metal toecaps seems to appear from nowhere,

SCRAP MAN: Take it round the back, the dog is on a chain, put it on the scales,

We all grab the tin bath and take it round the back where a big red cast iron weighing scales sit in an oily earth yard. The dog runs at us snapping and barking but is stopped short by the chain.

SCRAP MAN: 26 kilos,

He goes into the front of the shop and we all follow. He sits in a chair and writes something down in a cash book,

SCRAP MAN: Here you go, who's taking the money?

ME: I am,

SCRAP MAN: Six pounds and thirty-three pence,

He counts it out into my hand, Jack and Toby stand there staring with their mouths open, we quickly go outside where I count it out into their hands, each of us get £2.11 pence each which is a fortune to us.

TOBY: Swimming,

JACK: Flicks, (Cinema)

ME: Chips and a bread roll, and the flicks, and swimming tomorrow,

We all agree on my plan and go to a local fish and chip shop to get Chips and a buttered bread roll each. We then made our way to Deptford Cinema. When we got there, we saw that the prices had gone up and decided to do our "pay for one" and your mates get in free option.

Toby paid for a single ticket and went into the cinema while Me and Jack went around the back alley to gain entry via a toilet window about six meters off the ground.

The window was via a short climb along a narrow four-inch-wide concrete ledge, the ledge was accessible by taking a big step off a fire escape platform where there was a pulldown ladder. In the alleyway I leaned against the wall standing on a wooden drinks bottle crate under the fire escape platform and ladder, Jack stood on my shoulders.

Now, this could be painful for both of us as Jack had to jump outwards to catch the bottom rung of the ladder which was about eight foot of the ground, he could miss it and fall to the ground, and if I didn't push his legs as he jumped outwards I could be pushed backwards and bang my head on the wall behind me. We knew what the risks were since some disastrous attempts we had on previous occasions.

He jumped and caught the bottom rung, but slipped with his left hand, but held on tight with his right, he then swung and reached up and grabbed the rail with his left hand.

Jack was too light to pull down the ladder on his own, so I would move the empty wooden drinks bottle crate under Jack, then stand on the box and jump up and pull him down by his feet.

The ladder often came down suddenly, and we both ended up sprawled on the ground. Sometimes the ladder bounced on the concrete and started to go up, so we would both quickly grab the ladder and pull it down again.

We got up onto the fire escape platform then we shimmied along the narrow ledge to a frosted-out toilet window. Jack banged on the window, a distorted and fuzzy face appeared behind the frosted glass,

TOBY: Is that you!

JACK: Open the window,

The window creaked open and the three of us found ourselves all standing on top of a porcelain lavatory basin, we all stood there pushing each other for room when Toby slipped on the shitty toilet bowl and put his foot down the cavity,

ME: Good one Toby!,

TOBY: That was your fault!,

ME: No, it wasn't, you slipped on the turd!,

Toby is now looking at the toilet seat and his foot,

TOBY: There's no shit,

ME: Made you look though,

We all laugh as we make our way into the cinema and find some seats right in the middle of the auditorium and watch Squadron 633, three times that day.

CHAPTER 11:

I saw real UFO,s, the neighbours were fiction

A new family moved in next door, they had a small baby and a cat. They were sort of hippish and of unconventional appearance. They rejected conventional values, and were flower power vegans that had a VW bus. They were generally nice long-haired people though, but always wanted to befriend you then teach you spiritualism.

One summers evening after school Mum asked me to help her move the dustbins outside to the front of our house so she could sweep around them with a broom. A couple of neighbours stopped and started chatting with Mum, suddenly one of them was interrupting the conversation about the nice weather we were having and was pointing up into the sky,

MRS DOCK: Look! what's that up there, in the sky, that's odd looking?

MUM: Don't know?

ME: I'll get the telescope!

Dad had a small eight times magnification telescopic telescope he let me use to view the stars at night, I went and got it to take a closer look at this strange sight in the sky.

ME: It looks the same with or without the telescope, three silver balls, they look about twelve feet wide, not moving, just still. They are about ten feet apart,

MRS ROGERS: Are they weather balloons?

ME: No, I 've seen those up close, wrong colour, wrong size, the weather balloons wobble, these look just like big solid silver pin balls, or huge ball bearings.

MUM: How strange?

These balls were completely stationary, no sound, nothing, hanging there in the sky, just like the three balls you see hanging outside of a Pawn shop.

ME: I'm going to get a closer look, I'm going on my bike,

MUM: Ok, but be careful,

I knew roughly where they were, because as a reference there was a fire station tower you could see above the house roofs, and with simple brain geometry meant these UFO's were just above the top of Blackheath hill where a flat piece of grassland is named "The Point". I ran inside my house and grabbed my pushbike.

I cycled like mad to get to the "Point", I stopped to get my breath and when I looked up they had gone, I carried on to the "Point" but there was nothing to see, just a great view across London. I cycled back and Mum and the neighbours were still outside with the next-door hippies as well all chatting about these UFO's.

MUM: Well then, what did you see!

ME: They were gone when I got there,

HIPPIE DAD: I missed it! tell me! Tell me! Please what you saw!

I told my hippie neighbour what I had seen, and he was absolutely fascinated, his wife had now joined the group holding her baby,

HIPPIE DAD: Hey, Jan, you hear this! I told you, I told you! Yeah man! Wow!

The crowd broke up and I decide to go to the library and look for UFO books before they closed.

Next day after school I got home and went to my bedroom to drop off my school bag when I noticed a light blue NSU quickly moped parked in the middle of my bedroom with a newspaper under the engine to soak up some leaking engine oil.

Was it mine? I went and found Mum to enlighten me. Mum's watching "Fanny Cradock" on TV making a cake,

ME: What's that motorbike in my room for? Is it mine?

Mum laughs,

MUM: No, your dads cousin gave it to Dad, it does not work, but Dad wants to get it going so he can use it to get to work,

ME: Oh!

Dad gets home and I help him get the moped down the back stairs and into the garden so he can fix it. Our back garden is long and narrow, it is four times as long as it is wide, this is because we live in a terraced house.

There is a crumbling brick wall at the end of the garden, and on the hippie side is a six-foot-high old wooden fence that almost goes to the end of the garden, except the last two meters have rotted down to the ground leaving a gap with a hedge filling the hole.

The hippie garden is a well looked after lawn with shrubs, hedges and flowers around it. The grass has turned to straw because of the hot weather we have been getting recently.

I sat on an upturned wood beer bottle crate and watch Dad fiddle with the bike's engine, he oils the chain and adjusts the brakes. The engine was a two-stoke type that requires a special fuel mixture. so, he stirs up a petrol and oil mix in a petrol can then pours this mixture into the peanut shaped gas tank.

DAD: Ok then, let's see if it run's!

Dad peddled this moped up and down the garden until he had beads of sweat running down his nose. He then started pulling bits off, cleaning them, putting them back on, and then trying over and over again to start it.

He gave up when it started to get dark. Just as he was putting his tools away we could hear next doors hippie VW bus alarm going off. HONK, HONK, HONK, went the VW buses horn.

The Hippie had just driven home and had set the alarm on the VW bus, it honked three times to say it was set and the alarm was armed.

DAD: The hippies just got home then. Bloody alarm on their VW bus, it went off last night, kept me awake!

The moped had come with a service manual, and I asked Dad if I could read it. He gave it to me saying that if I could fix the moped engine he would take me for a ride on it.

When I went to bed that night, I sat up and I read the manual though to the end and had decided that I could fix it easily.

Next day when I got home from school Mum told me she had to go and get some butter as we had run out. I knew she would be gone for at least forty-five minutes.

Once she had closed the front door I was down in the garden fixing the moped with a screwdriver and adjustable spanner in hand. The trouble shooting part of the manual suggested that the spark plug might need a clean as they could get "fouled up".

As I moved the moped away from the wall to get better access I realised my hands had got really oily and dirty.

So, I thought it would be a good time to give the bike a wash. I got some Washing liquid and an old sponge and bucket then lathered the bike down. I dried the engine but left the rest of the bike because I was impatient and just wanted to get it going. I took the spark plug out and gave it a good clean with a wire brush as suggested in the manual, then put it all back together.

I mounted the bike but could not sit on the seat as I was not big enough. Then I started to peddle it down the garden and turned the choke control around.

The engine suddenly burst into life.

Oh Fuck! The throttle was stuck wide open!

I had become a passenger on a runaway moped! The brick wall end of the garden was approaching quickly, and I could see a trip to the hospital happening unless I did something very soon, So, I steered left across our garden and headed towards the gap in the hippie's old wooden fence.

I went though some low bushes and slid across the hippies parched grass garden to come to a stop with the moped on top of me, the engine was still running and revving really high, suddenly there was a loud bang as the old rusty exhaust backfired, orange sparks shoot out and the engine stops.

I was trapped by a pedal that hand pinned my foot down. I pulled my foot away and limped back to my garden then sat on the old beer bottle crate to examine my foot. I took off my plimsole to examine my torn skin beneath my bloody sock. It hurt like mad. I could hear a voice behind me.

OLD MAN: Dear, dear, dear, Oh dear!

It was the old man next door, the brick dividing wall on the other side of the garden was low, only about four foot high. The old man must had seen me doing my "Evil Knievel" stunt and was commenting on my failure.

He often burnt rubbish in his dustbin rather then put it out for the rubbish collection. And I thought that he was out in his back garden burning rubbish, and that was why it had become so smoky across the gardens.

I knew the hippies were not in, as their beloved VW bus van was not outside their house. I picked myself up to go and retrieve the moped from their garden. I pushed though the low bush and into their garden and suddenly realised why it had been so smoky.

The mopeds exhaust must had set the tinder dry grass on fire, their lawn was charcoal black from one end to the other except for just a couple of yards at the house end where the grass was still alight. I ran down to the end of their house where a garden hose was and turned on the tap attached to the wall.

Fucking hell! this garden watering hose is long and is taking forever to fill up and squirt out of the nozzle. I see a metal mop bucket that looked like it has water in it with an old mop head floating on top.

I grab the bucket and pour the stagnant water across the flames, as I go across to the middle of the garden a waterlogged dead rat and then a dead pigeon fall out of the bucket with the water. I carry on and put the flames out. I stand there looking at the blackened garden.

Oh! Fuck! I better get the moped out of the garden then I can deal with the rat and pigeon. I lift the moped up and move it into my garden. I go back to get the dead wildlife and see an outline of the moped wheels on the background of a blackened landscape.

When I had washed the moped the wet wheels must had made the grass wet and stopped the fire, leaving two circles on their lawn.

Then I hear a HONK, HONK, HONK, Shit! the hippies are home! better get out of their garden and leave the dead animals on the burnt lawn.

Later that evening, Me, Mum and Dad are all sitting down in the front room watching Morecombe and wise on the TV when the front doorbell rings. I get up to answer it as it is usually a mate who wants me. I open the door and two men stand there, both tall and well dressed.

MAN ONE: Is your Mum or Dad there? Could I speak to them?

ME: There gonna ask me what you want?

MAN TWO: We are investigating an unusual report which happened in this area, we were contacted by your neighbours,

I went and got dad, and we both went back to the front door. One of the men read some details out from a notebook he had,

MAN ONE: Hello Sir, we are investigating an incident seen by your neighbours. Apparently some UFO's were seen in this area. They landed in your neighbours rear garden. They saw two small aliens coming out of these two-small round space craft. These aliens tried to take a rat and pigeon hostage apparently, but when this failed they shot the rat and pigeon dead with their ray guns. Then the aliens got back into their UFO's. The UFO's started up their engines and this made the grass catch fire, they then took off and went straight up into the sky. The UFO's left two unburnt circle marks on the ground, proof! that aliens UFO's had indeed landed in their garden.

Have you seen anything like this sir?

DAD: NO!

The front door was closed,

DAD: It's those bloody hippies next door, probably smoking cannabis, or taking those pill things you read about in the newspapers! Bloody hippies,

I kept quiet.

CHAPTER 12:

Nailed It

We often met after school in an adventure playground in king street Deptford (I think it's still there, but nothing like as big or daring as it used to be) it was a colourful playground with timber climbing frames and rope swings.

Often when I got there in the afternoon the main rope swing was not setup. The rope was kept in the workshop shed where smaller kids done painting etc. It was supposed to be put up by an adult using a two stage six meter ladder, but I used to sneak in and get the rope, put it over my shoulder and climb up one of the two full height telegraph poles that had a cross beam between them right at the top.

Usually an adult would get to the top of the beam with a ladder and throw the rope across the beam and then loop the rope to itself and pull it down tight, but you couldn't do it like that unless you have a ladder.

The ladder was always locked away, but I would monkey climb up one of the high telegraph poles to get to the top, then walk across the four-inch-wide beam like a tight rope walker, and then kneel down and loop the rope six meters up in the air.

You had to grab the rope underneath the beam and loop it though itself. When finished you would just drop yourself off the 6-meter-high structure holding the rope tightly and swing out hoping you had looped the rope properly. Hanging there 6 meters in the air you would then monkey climb down the rope.

Yes, I am still here, a trip in an ambulance for sure if I ever fell. I am still amazed I did something so very dangerous, but then again, never considered the risk as a kid.

There were platforms in the adventure play ground that you could jump off going up to about two and a half meters, but we worked out that the rope could reach a walkway much higher up at around six meters if you ran and held the rope and dived off in a right direction.

This was at the end of a very highest walkway, and what a rush that was, for a few seconds you were just free falling towards the ground until the rope took up the slack with a jerk.

Today, that was my intension. I climbed up to the top of the walkway with the rope and ran hard and jumped into the air, the rope jerked but partially broke and I had to slide down the rope quick and landed running.

I stopped and looked up at the rope wondering what had happened and saw that where it had rubbed up against the beam at the top. The rope had frayed. I pulled on the rope and it came away falling into an untidy coil on the ground, I went to walk over to pick it up, but my right foot seemed to be stuck to the floor somehow.

I looked down at my right foot and could see something shiny and pointy poking out of the top of my doctor Martins boot, I went to pick up this pointy thing and it suddenly dawned on me when I touched it that it was the sharp end of a six-inch nail.

I took a careful assessment of the situation and wondered why there was no pain? The nail seemed to be attached to a plank of wood. I put my left foot on the plank and slowly tried to lift my right foot up, Oh! It does hurt after all! But I did see the nail go down a bit as I pulled my foot up slowly.

I tried again, and biting my bottom lip managed to pull free, I hopped over to a telegraph pole that was lying down on the ground so I could sit and have a closer look at this situation.

There was a hole in the top and bottom of my Doctor Martins boot, and, oh shit! that meant the air sole was punctured! I then got sad about my damaged Dr Martins boot and forgot about my injured foot for a moment.

Anyway, I got up and found a suitable stick to help take the weight off my foot, and then hobbled out of the playground, as I was hobbling out I met Toby and Jack coming through the gate.

JACK: What's up,

ME: I stood on a nail, it went through my boot and foot,

TOBY: Cool, let's have a look,

The usual thing happens when your mates inquire about your latest injury injustice, you show them with admiration.

I sit down on the roadside curb and start to unlace my boot and notice that my white gym socks were blooded, Toby looked at Jack,

TOBY: That doesn't look too good Leo,

JACK & TOBY: Hospital!

The Millers hospital wasn't too far, but my slow walking progress made it seem miles away. When we did arrive at the hospital the same two nurses we saw when Toby banged his head were at the reception. The nurses saw us arrive and looked at each other and chatted and looked at us again like "Here comes trouble",

NURSE: Hello boys, how can we help,

TOBY: He broke his foot,

ME: Not broke or breaking. I stood on a nail!

NURSE: Oh, let's have a quick look,

The nurse came around the desk and her attention was directed at something behind me,

NURSE: Oh, we had better get you to a cubicle straight away,

We all looked behind us to see what the nurse had been looking at, and there was a trail of a single Doctor Martins bloody boot tread across the shiny hospital floor, then from nowhere a wheelchair was pushed under my legs by the nurse and I was wheeled to a cubicle quick smart,

NURSE: Doctor, Doctor, over here please, quickly, this young boy has injured his foot and it seems to be bleeding badly,

DOCTOR: Ok, let's have a look, does it hurt?

(It's the mad looking by-focal glasses doctor that Toby had seen before)

ME: Yes,

DOCTOR: Ok, you two out to reception to wait,

TOBY: Why?

ME: Can they stay?

The doctor stares at them, he has a serious look on his face,

DOCTOR: Ok, but stand over there and out of the way,

The doctor unlaces my boot and slowly starts pulling my boot off, I am sitting down in a chair, and as the doctor tugs at my boot the chair moves with me along with the tugging,

Toby and Jack are giggling at this as the chair screeches on the shiny hospital cubicle floor,

The doctor looks at them giggling, and smirks,

DOCTOR: Try and help me by straightening and pointing your foot, I know it hurts, just try,

My boot comes off making a slurping noise because my sock had become soaked with blood, my sock is pulled off and my foot is blooded all over, Toby has got up and his head is now in front of mine staring and looking around my foot. Jack gets up holding his stomach,

JACK: I don't feel well; I don't think I like looking at your foot. That's too much blood!

Jack goes over to an immaculate white porcelain sink and throws up.

Doctor: Nurse! Nurse!

A nurse runs in and the Doctor points to Jack, the nurse tends to him. Meanwhile, Toby is looking at my foot and then looking at Jack being sick. Toby is starting to look very pale; he gets up and joins Jack being sick in the sink.

Doctor to Me: You don't want to be sick as well?

I look at them both throwing up, I think for a moment...

ME: No! I'm ok!

Doctor: Nurse! Can we get this foot x-rayed!

My foot is cleaned up and I am taken to x-ray, when I get back Jack and Toby are gone. I am bandaged up and get a Tetanus injection. The nurse fits an oversized slipper on my foot, and I limp out of the hospital with an oversized crutch. Jack and Toby are sitting on the wall outside the hospital. I sit next to them.

ME: Where you been?

TOBY: Here waiting for you!

Jack had a couple of rolls of bandages that he had obviously taken from the emergency room, he was juggling them in the air.

JACK: Does it still hurt?

ME: Yeah! A lot!

TOBY: That crutch is too high for you. Why don't me and Jack hold you up and you can hop!

I'm not so sure this is a good idea, but I say yes. Toby takes the crutch back into the hospital. I get up, Toby is on my left and Jack on my right, and I am trying to hold up my bad foot while hopping, but it is hopeless, since Laurel and hardy have no idea how to proceed,

ME: This is no fucking good, can't you two walk at the same fucking speed! One of you go faster or the other slower!

Jack slows, Toby goes faster, they look at each other and then Toby slows, and Jack goes faster. We zig-zag along the wide pavement.

ME: Fucking hell, what we doing? Is this a game of don't step on the cracked pavement gameshow you fucking idiots!

JACK: I know! Let's tie up your bad leg to your bum!

Toby: That's a good idea! Then your bad leg isn't sticking out!

ME: Alright!

I lift My bad leg up and hold it back while "Laurel and Hardy" using the bandages tie my leg up like "Long John Silver".

We progress with some symmetry until we reach a pedestrian crossing.

We had been taught at school by a visiting policeman that the safest place to cross a road was at a crossing, and that if we had one foot on the crossing the traffic had to stop.

We used this useful information to our amusement sometimes, when walking along a pavement and getting close to a pedestrian crossing we would make a bee-line to the crossing and then not cross, the cars would often stop suddenly because they thought we were about to cross the road, but we never did.

The drivers would get mad at us and sound their horns, they would often wind down their car windows and yell infantity's at us. Today, Toby and Jack didn't stop at the crossing, instead, they just went for it. I had no choice, I had to go with them with my leg strapped to my bum.

We got halfway across the pedestrian crossing when a car approaching sounded its horn as a warning, I didn't look around, but Toby and Jack left me by myself, I had to hop the remainder of the crossing on my own. The car pulled up and stopped close to where we were all on the pavement, the driver got out and yelled at us.

Driver: I know you all! You're the ones who think it's funny to pretend to cross the road and then not cross! Ha! Ha! Ha! I got you!

A policeman has been watching this from a doorway and walks over to where we are. He looks at me and puts his hand on my shoulder. I think Fuck! I can't run!, the coppers heard the driver, and we are going to jail now!

Policeman to Driver: Sir! Can you not see this boy is a cripple and sounding your horn for him to hurry across a pedestrian crossing would look quite bad in a court of law! Does your car have insurance and a valid MOT? Road tax up to date is it? Can you pull up over there please?

The driver gets back into his car and goes to park, as the policeman gets close the driver pulls away. The policeman screams at him and gets out his whistle and blows it, he then starts running down the road after the car.

TOBY: Do you think he will catch him?

JACK: Don't know, must have got his licence plate number though!

TOBY: Alright, Cripple!

ME: Fuck off, you both left me in the road to get run over,

JACK: He ran first!

TOBY: Well! I could have got run over!

ME: What about me?

TOBY: I thought Jack had you!

JACK: You ran first!

ME: OH! Fuck off both of you, now help me get home!

At least the weather was good to be able to walk in zig zag fashion all the home that day.

CHAPTER 13:

Party Balloons

Getting a deposit return fee on used fizzy drink soda bottles was a good way of raising a small amount of cash if you could find them. Another way to raise some cash was by collecting cigarette coupons. Embassy, Players number six and a few others put paper coupons inside the cigarette packets, they put 10-point coupons in packs of twenty, and 5-point coupons in a 10 pack of cigarettes.

You could save these coupons up and request a catalogue from the manufacturer that had "Gifts" that you could exchange the coupons for. It was stuff like, kettles, electric blankets, sets of cutlery, you get the idea don't you.

Some people could not be bothered collecting these little coupons, so when the packet of cigarettes was empty the box and coupon were thrown away. If we ever saw a used cigarette carton on the floor (Littering was worse when I was a kid!) we would check to see if the coupon was still in it. Generally, there was about a 30% chance of finding a coupon card in a discarded packet.

So what use were they to us? Since you had to be 16 plus anyway to get a catalogue, we just saved them up. There were quite a few newsagents, tobacconists and shops that bought these coupons from you. The newsagent would purchase these coupons from you in bundles of 100 points, or a mix of 10 and 5-point coupons adding up to 100 points.

Then newsagents would use all these coupons to get a "Gift" from a catalogue and sell it in their shop. Shops that did this exchange often had a glass shop counter dedicated with these gifts on display with a sign "Guaranteed for 12 months".

The three of us were walking down the high street on our way to Greenwich Park to get some fallen chestnuts to roast on a bonfire later that day. I saw an Embassy 20 pack discarded on the pavement; in fact, we all saw it at the same time. We all started to run towards it, but Jack and Toby knew that I was ahead of them and stopped running.

JACK: Huh! Bet its empty!

TOBY: Yeah! Bet there's no coupon in it!

ME: Just because you didn't see it first!

I picked the box up and looked inside, no coupon, but what was this other funny shaped box inside? the writing said "DUREX". I pulled this box out and looked at the writing. "Durex, gossamer for family planning" I opened the box and got out the three packets and the paper instructions.

I remember seeing these in the barber's shop on a countertop display. Often, when I was sitting down getting my hair cut, the barber would offer these to the men waiting their turn. He would ask each of them if they "would need something for the weekend, sir?"

JACK: What is it?

ME: Jonnies!

TOBY: Gis one, come on! I can see three!

ME: What you gonna do with it? Put it on your cock!

JACK: His cock isn't big enough!

TOBY: Fuck off! I'm going sell it!

We all stood there squishing the outer wrapping and pushing the condom around in its little packet. I got mine out and unrolled it down my fingers, I pushed it into Jack and Toby's faces.

ME: Look! Greasy isn't it,

I was playing with my condom while Jack was blowing his up. Jack succeeded in blowing up his condom to a huge size, but it was slipping between his fingers as he was trying to tie a knot in it without succeeding, the condom kept going down and Jack would blow it up again, I found this amusing, but I was distracted by this rhythmic hissing sound coming from Toby who was standing behind me.

I turned around to see that Toby had pulled the condom down over his head and over his nostrils, but above his top lip. The condom was full of air and twice the size of his head, I could see two fuzzy eyes though the condoms skin of absolute concentration as his mouth inhaled and he exhaled his breath though his nose and into the condom, his chest was going in and out like a mechanical bellows in time to a fast beating Metronome.

Jack had managed to tie a knot in the end of his now huge blown up condom and was parading it around to onlookers by holding it close to his groin like he had a massive penis, while Toby had finished blowing up his condom that was over his head, and was nodding back and forth intensely so that his massive oversized condom head was wobbling about like a pigeon pecking for food. I couldn't compete with this, I walked onwards with big balloon penis man and condom head following behind me. I was trying to look like I didn't know them.

CHAPTER 14:

Big boys School

It was to be my first day at secondary school, I was dressed smartly in my new school uniform. I went to the bus stop at the top of my road where Toby and Jack were already. We all had the same Green oversized Jackets on, except that Toby's was a hand me down one from his older brother that was noticeably worn out, it had brown leather elbow patches made from an old leather bag.

I knew this because I had seen his mum sew them in. She had let me in their house to sit and watch TV while he was still eating his dinner, and I watched his Mum skilfully cut and stitch a patch of leather from an old handbag onto the jackets elbows like she had done it many times before for his other older brothers. But this was not to protect the elbows, but because there were holes there already.

Me and Jack had been bought oversized jackets because we would "Grow into them" as we were told by our mothers, I guess that was partly true, but it was to save money buying another jacket later. I was strangely jealous of Toby's worn out jacket, because it made him look like he fitted in, while Me and Jack looked like new virgin material for the second years kids to bully.

So there we were, standing at the bus stop, waiting for the red London transport double decker bus, a 180 or 185 bus would take us to Lewisham where we would get another bus, which would be either a 21 or 122 to Eltham Green.

As we stood there discussing what our first day at our new school would be like a few girls turned up in the same uniform as ours. They were older, maybe second or third-year girls, makeup on, short skirts, cheap jewellery. They stood there chatting and looking over at us, they seemed to be laughing at Toby and Jack.

I looked down at Jacks shoes as that seemed to be where the girl's attention was. Oh dear! Jacks trousers seemed to have had an argument with his shoes, his black trouser legs must had been around four inches above his ankles. Toby seemed to be getting agitated by the girls looking at him.

TOBY: Just because I got an old jacket, it's not funny!

Jack is looking down at his shoes.

JACK: What's wrong with my shoes?

I Know what the girls are laughing at, but don't want to tell Jack.

ME: It's because we are new, they know what's going to happen to us today.

JACK: I'm not scared,

Of the three girls chatting, one has her back to me, the two I see are beautiful. The tallest is looking at me and smiling, she nudges the girl with her back to me to look around, she turns and is laughing. I get embarrassed as our eyes meet, for a second there is silence and the world stops, I think, WOW! she's drop dead gorgeous.

Long Black hair, little pearl earrings, pearl choke, perfect makeup, long black stockings, short skirt, two perfect legs. The laughing stops and a smile starts. Who is she?

TOBY: Come on!

The bus arrives, as usual all three of us try and get up the stairs to the top deck at the same time. The seats at the back of the bus are free, we bundle into them for the short trip to Lewisham. The girls follow us up to the top deck of the bus.

Girl one: There our seats!

JACK: WHAT! Does it have your name on it then?

Toby laughs and cockily replies back to the girls,

TOBY: Yeah! Show us where the name is on the seat then!

The girl pushes Jack across the seat and points at a place just below the back window on the cream coloured painted shelve amongst all the other graffiti.

Girl one: There! See! This seat is for Tania! Bridgette! Anna!

We all looked at each other, and there it was, scrawled in permanent black marker ink, "This seat is reserved for Tania! Bridgette! Anna!".

So, we all moved. But I had a question that I dare not ask, who was Tania, who was Bridgette, and which one was Anna? As they sat in our seats, "Pearly" as I called her in my mind, smiled at me, the other two girls smirked at us.

We had moved to seats further down now, Toby and Jack were arguing about something, while I strained and cupped my right ear to try and overhear the girl's conversations, so I could get a name, any name, any information at all, who was who? anything. But no luck.

We got off at Lewisham where many buses from other routes intersected. 36, 36-B, 1, number 177, buses from all-over south and south-east London, kids poured off these buses all in the same uniform as ours. Some kids had new uniforms, everyone milling about, chatting, lots of shouting. I felt a little easier about my first day at big school now. A number 21 and two 122-buses pull up, 100 or 120 kids bundle and overfill these buses.

You could see the school a couple of miles away on a hill from the front seats of the bus. It was a big school, not an amalgamation of schools or buildings, but a sort of experiment of mixed sex comprehensive secondary education, it was a first for the UK. Over 2000 children, yes you read it right, look it up on the interweb!! Over 2000 kids! Several floors, 4 big lifts that could hold 40 kids at a time (usually 70 when unattended) 5 gymnasiums, tennis courts, metal work and woodwork buildings, a huge playing field, a drama hall and stage and a huge 2 level main hall.

It was a sort of back to front building made in a "H" or "X" shape. There was a Ground floor and lower Ground floor entrance because it was built on a slight hill, the main entrance concourse had 3 inset ponds that were full of pondlife. Apart from the pondlife there were pens, floating pencils, metal chairs, table lamps, board rubbers, various colours of board chalk in them as well.

Ok then, we had arrived at our new comprehensive education school and were standing in a huddle looking up at the big building. Hundreds and hundreds of kids milling about, some chatting, laughing, some had the latest fad toys (Clackers) some were smoking (yes smoking) some kids were laying down by the ponds overhanging edge with rolled up sleeves and their arms in the water trying to catch the few fish in them.

One kid who was squatting down and leaning too far over the edge of a pond gets pushed in by another. We watched as a teacher came from nowhere and seemed to have captured the culprit who pushed the kid into the pond and led the pair off to an open side door.

ME: What's the time?

JACK: 8:51

A rough looking older kid, maybe a third year, was hanging around us, he was listening and looking over ours shoulders. He grabs my tie and pulls it around my neck, he then ripped of a small label attached to the tie. He holds the label high.

Rough kid: I got one! I got a tag!

ME: What was that all about?

TOBY: Me brother told me about that,

ME: What?

TOBY: Getting Tagged!

ME: What's Tagged?

TOBY: The school ties have these tags on the back, if you get 30 you can take them to a school cloths shop and get a pair of Levi's!

ME: Really,

TOBY: Yeah!

Jack starts tucking his tie into his shirt when he sees the rough kid mugging someone else. Jack then decides to take his tie off. We all see another kid get mugged for his tag, Jack eventually tucks his tie away into his pocket.

JACK: Tagging? That's bollocks never heard that before!

The school doors open, and the kids flood into the building. We walk into the crowd and get pulled along like fallen tree leaves being washed along a road gutter. We just go where everyone else is going and find ourselves in front of the entrance to the main hall. Stairs go up and down.

JACK: Up or down?

ME: Up!

We find some seats in the upper main hall and sit, its very noisy with kids talking loudly and shouting, two well-dressed men walk up onto the stage with a dozen or so teachers. The teachers sit down and one of the well-dressed men goes to a microphone stand on the stage, he taps on the microphone and starts speaking.

Headmaster: TAP! TAP! TAP! Quiet! QUITE PLEASE!, Welcome back to Eltham Green School, some of you are new and it is your first day, the rest of you will had moved up a year, and some of you have left, Ha! Ha! Ha! Yes, err, umm. The school has been re-decorated and painted, and I am happy to tell you all, that the Arson, I mean fire damaged gym has been repaired and is now ready for use. I am going to hand you over to my deputy now who will introduce you all to the new teachers starting this year sitting here behind me.

Some Kid shouts: FUCK OFF!

Kids laughing...

Headmaster: If I find out who that is!

Deputy Headmaster: Ok, first can I introduce Miss Janet Payne,

The schools fire alarm then goes off.

Deputy headmaster: Ok, all out, slowly, John! George! can you open the side fire doors please!

The Headmaster is trying to take the microphone from the deputy and is overheard.

Headmaster: I should be doing that, the fire evacuation, not you, not the deputy, ME, it's my job, it's my turn, anyway, next time John!

We are giggling at the headmaster and deputy arguing.

CHAPTER 15:

Sometime later

It's now over a year later and we are all settled in. It's the mid-morning break and we are in the playground.

JACK: LEO! LEO! LEO!

ME: What you been doing this morning?

JACK: The new timetable's,

ME: Me too, Seen Toby?

JACK: No,

We walk around a bit and can see what looks like a grey cloud of smoke hanging around in the air over one of the gymnasiums. Curiously, we go and investigate. When we get to the gym and go around the back there is Toby, smoking a cigarette with lots of other kids, all of them smoking and passing around the various brands.

ME: Tobes, you smoking?

TOBY: Yeah! What of it?

JACK: Giss us a fag Toby!

Toby hands Jack a cigarette. Then Toby starts to cough and spits out some grey looking phlegm onto the grass. He bends down to look at it.

TOBY: Is that cancer?

JACK: Where did you get these from?

TOBY: Jack, Is that cancer?

Jack is trying to smoke but starts coughing. His face contorts.

JACK: These are nice aren't they? (Coughing) where you get them?

We hear the school bell go for the end of break. We all run back; Jack is still smoking his cigarette as we all bundle into the large elevator on the lower ground floor. The lift is very overcrowded, and we are all squashed.

The lift doors open and close a few times as more kids squeeze in. The doors eventually stay closed and the elevator heaves up slowly under all the weight.

I look around at Jack, his eyes are popping, and his face cheeks are straining, he looks like he is going to be sick. The lift doors open and we all burst out of the elevator like a squashed face pimple. Jack blows out a lungful of smoke and is coughing madly.

ME: Fucking hell Jack!

JACK: I'm dying,

A teacher sees all of this, and I am laughing.

TEACHER: Where is the cigarette boy?

JACK: I put it out downstairs sir!

The teacher pats down Jack looking for the cigarette packet.

JACK: I was given the fag sir!

TEACHER: Hmmm? Go to your class boy!

We both have the same English class on the 6th level, we sit at the back in the middle of the classroom. The teacher walks in and takes the register then stands at the front of the class.

TEACHER: Ok then, I want to you to think about writing an essay today, eh? about your family, just day to day life, a sort of short story, and eh? Can I smell a cigarette? Yes, I can can't I? who is it?

ME: Jack! It's you! you got a lit fag in your pocket!

JACK: Fuck!

ME: Do something!

The teacher opens a window.

Jack waits until the teachers head is turned and opens the lid of the desk he is sitting at, then puts the contents of his pocket into the desk.

The teacher wanders over to us both, we are over acting like we are good boys. The Teacher is sniffing around us.

The desk has a 2-inch hole at the top where an old ink well had been some years ago. Smoke starts to appear out of the hole like an old steam train waiting at a station.

TEACHER: What's that?

JACK: Sir?

TEACHER: This smoke, is it you?

JACK: No, not me sir, it was smoking like that when I sat here sir,

TEACHER: Do you think I am stupid?

JACK: Yes sir!

I pinch Jack, and cough a couple of words to him,

ME: Say no!

JACK: Say no sir?

TEACHER: WHAT?

The smoke goes black, the teacher opens the desk lid and flames emerge. The contents of the desk contain rubbish, greasy crisp bags, sweet wrappers, and a lighted cigarette. We jump up.

TEACHER: Everyone out!

The fire alarm sounds. The school is evacuated, the fire engines come. We get summoned to the new headmaster's office. A Mr Peter Dawson, AKA "Batman".

BATMAN: You can both be expelled, who was responsible?

JACK: Sir! It was already like that!

ME: Yes, that's right, it was like that when we sat down, Jack said to me, look! there is smoke coming out of that desk, should we sit there? He said we must, because they are the only spare seats left in the classroom, sir!

JACK: Yes sir!! That's right, sir!

BATMAN: So, you sat at a desk that was smoking, and you said nothing to the teacher?

JACK: EH? I forgot.

Our explanation was questionable at the very least. We got detention and a hundred lines each for not telling the teacher that a desk in his classroom was on fire. Quite light punishment really, considering.

CHAPTER 16:

Schools still not out, Yet!

Second year of high school is not the same as being in the first year, your school clothes are now worn, but not yet worn out. Your shirt is untucked and hanging over the top of your trousers, your shoes no longer get polished, and the laces are only in the middle two lace-up holes because they are broke and are now too short to fill the many holes they once did when new.

All the kids I had made friends with on the first day of secondary school had moved onto new friends that had more in common than with you. Once you are established you tend to move into a group of kids that suit you, like a group of nerds or cool kids, or kids that like pop music, you get the picture don't you.

Well, Mike Newall was a school friend of mine, he was pale, tall, skinny and gaunt with long scruffy hair and NHS glasses with a plaster in the middle to stop it rubbing his nose. He was also very clever. I had met him on the first day of high school and we were good mates, he was always smiling.

He came from a poor family (like all of us), and I could relate to that, his trousers were always the same ones, they were about 3 inches too short like Jacks, but his trousers seemed to be a lighter colour at the top, but had darker legs only on a Monday, I found out that this was because they had been washed on a Sunday evening and were not dried out properly, so were always damp around the bottom of the legs by Monday morning.

He wore a grey wool hand knitted jumper too big for his skinny body, and a nylon shirt with a worn-out collar and worn out cuffs under his holed woolly jumper. His leather boots must have had the heels replaced with pine wood ones from an old wood palette with nail holes filled in, then stained brown.

Every time I saw him he looked like he had been in a game show of "musical clothes". The show in my imagination was a bit like the game of "Musical Chairs" but where you had to get dressed as quick as you could from a pile of unknown clothes. I liked him because he was generous and shared what little he had.

Me and Mike loved school science lessons, we had both been pushed forward in our second year to fourth year studies for science as we had passed our test exams to an "A" level standard. We found Physics fun, as we would play around most of the time when we had completed the lessons experiment with lots of time to spare.

Depending on the experiments we did in physics we usually mucked around giving each other electric shocks or reconstructed experiments to do something else, like the vacuum test with an egg and glass bottle.

You lit a small ball of cotton wool soaked in methylated spirts and dropped it into glass milk type bottle, then put a hard-boiled egg in the neck. When the flame used up all the air in the bottle it sucked in the egg, thus displaying a vacuum in the bottle.

We did the experiment and got bored waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. So we reversed the process to get the egg out of the bottle by mixing some bi carbonate of soda with water in the glass container with the egg jammed up inside the neck, we had a bottle and egg each, we bet on who's egg would "POP" out of the bottle first.

Mine was first, and it went with a "BOOF" and spattered on the ceiling, but Mike's egg jammed in the neck and the glass bottle exploded!. We were both commended on that fact that we had the compulsory safety goggles on, but we both got two hours detention over two days.

We also thought the chemistry lesson was great as well, you learn how to mix chemicals that go bang. We decide one day that the jars that held sulphur, potassium, etc in the safe locked fireproof chemicals room that was unlocked that day were quite full, and if we took some it would not be missed.

We put the chemicals in folded paper origami balls we had learnt to make when wasting time during some boring lessons. We usually filled these hollow hexagonal paper balls with water from the water taps in the toilets and drop them out of a window on the 6th floor, then watch them explode on the ground. This time they were being used to carry chemicals in our green school jacket pockets.

It was lunch now time and we would always go to the local shops to get a bag of chips from the fish and chip shop. The chippie was a bit of a walk, around one kilometre to a small parade of shops called Newmarket Green.

We would first go to the bakers and buy a small loaf of bread between us and ask the shop assistant to cut it in half, we would then pick out the middle of the loaf and eat it or throw bits of it at other kids while waiting in the chip shop que to get served, then buy a bag of chips between us.

We would share the chips and put them into the hollowed out half loafs, and that was lunch. A chip loaf sandwich, this was washed down with a bottle or can of soda.

We were sitting on a low brick wall eating our lunch, whistling and making banter at the girls as they passed by as usual,

SHARON: Fuck off Newall,

ME: What? Don't you think your hot?

MIKE: She's hot, but that's only that's only cos the sun is making her hot,

ME: Ha! Yeah, what yeah think of that then!

Sharon turns around smirks and gives me the finger,

SHARON: You can fuck off as well Leo Marino,

As the girls walk off Mike is looking at his watch,

MIKE: Come on, look at the time, let's get back,

During the rest of the dinner break we go onto the playing field and lift one of the football posts out of the hole in the ground. We get out our origami balls full of chemicals we have obtained and put them in the post hole along with a fuse from a Jet-ex toy engine you could buy back then from a toy shop.

The goal post was put back and the fuse lit with a match, the fuse starts fizzing. It seemed like forever once the fuse was lit. We sat on the grass leaning back and watching intensely, but nothing happens.

MIKE: You should go and check it.

ME: Fuck off, you!

MIKE: Do you think I'm stupid!

ME: Yeah! You think I am!

MIKE: How long should we wait?

ME: I dunno? I reckon leave it till we go home, check it then, the fuse should had burnt out, I think?

MIKE: Yeah, ok, let's go then,

We get up and "BOOM!"! The goal post goes up in the air and lands back straight in the hole, not much smoke, but you can hear the school windows rattling, we both run like fuck across the schools playing field to the changing rooms hoping no one saw us.

We hide out at the changing rooms for a while to see if anyone comes over to investigate, but strangely no one does, but we see people looking out of windows up in the sky.

Was it Concorde? doing a Sonic boom that day? No, it was Me and Mike Newall.

Disappointingly no one comes to see what the "BOOM!" was, so we make for gym four. We get close to gym four and Mike gets a stone in his shoe,

MIKE: You go on, I got to get this stone out of my shoe,

ME: Ok,

I walk along the side wall of gym four and turn a corner, I then accidently headbutt someone,

ME: Ow!, fuck me head, what the fuck,

I look up holding and rubbing my forehead, and there standing in front of me is this girl of my dreams, Bridgette. She is as tall as me slim, olive skin, black stockings, short skirt, stilettos, shirt unbuttoned at the top as much as you would dare so you could see her bra, long auburn hair, red lip stick, blue eyes, eye shadow, eye lashes, and a black choke pearl necklace. She is with her best friend Anna.

BRIDGETTE: Look where your fucking well going, Marino!

She lights a cigarette and blows smoke in my face, I apologise, but I just stand there, watching her inhale the cigarette, she walks off and then looks back at me, up and down go her blue eyes scanning me like a barcode,

BRIDGETTE: Come on Anna, let's go,

She walks off with Anna in tow. Mike has caught up and has witnessed the confab between me and Bridgette,

MIKE: And so, Romeo! you formally met your Juliet at last then, ha, ha,

ME: I'm in love Mike!

MIKE: She's in the fourth year yah know,

ME: She smells good, I've seen her around, I think she lives near where we live. She is hot Mike,

I put my hands-on Mikes shoulders and drop my head into his chest and pretend to cry,

ME: Sob, Sob, she's gone away Mike! She gone away; she's gone away to her geography lesson Mike!

MIKE: Stop it, people are looking, come on let's get to woodwork,

After our woodwork lesson there was a short afternoon break. It had started raining in the afternoon, but the die-hard smokers are still all at the back of gym four puffing away. We are standing around with our jackets pulled over our heads to avoid the rain.

ME: I can't stand around here watching you all smoke while I get wet,

TOBY: Fuck off then! See yah later!

ME: I'm going back now,

JACK: That new big kid in my next lesson searches me for fags, can you put out this half smoked ciggie and keep it for me for later?

ME: Ok, see yah all later,

As I started to walk back and turned a corner Bridgette was walking towards me on her own. I see that the cigarette that Jack has given me is still partly alight, as I was about to put Jacks cigarette out Bridgette shouts out at me.

BRIDGETTE: Leo! Don't throw that away, I'll have it!

ME: Ok! Here you go,

Not thinking that it was Jacks cigarette, I gave it to her.

BRIDGETTE: Just what I need, I don't want a whole one, just a few drags really,

ME: Oh! Right, I was going to dock it for later,

BRIDGETTE: I do that sometimes,

ME: I gotta get back, I'm soaked,

BRIDGETTE: Yeah, me too,

It rains harder and we both run back to the lower floor entrance. I bang on the big double glass doors but the prefects inside won't let us in because break time is not over, and they just laugh at us.

ME: Fuckers, could let us in if they wanted to! I know, follow me, come on this way!

We run around the side of the building and sneak in by a teaching staff entrance not meant for us. We duck and crawl below the security counter giggling all the time and get into the dry school building.

BRIDGETTE: Your bad Leo!

ME: How do you know my name?

BRIDGETTE: I asked around,

ME: Really? Why?

BRIDGETTE: Cause I'm a girl, we do things like that!

ME: Oh!, Your Bridgette, aren't you,

BRIDGETTE: Yeah,

She smiles broadly at me as she pushes her long wet hair away from her face.

ME: I'm going up to my class now, see you around,

BRIDGETTE: Hey! Want to come to a party this weekend?

ME: What party?

BRIDGETTE: My 16th,

ME: Sure!

BRIDGETTE: You can bring your friends, but you got to bring a bottle!

ME: A bottle of what,

BRIDGETTE: Wine, or beer stupid,

ME: Where do I go?

Bridgette gets out some pre-written invitations from her shoulder bag and hands me one and winks at me.

BRIDGETTE: See you on Saturday, I know you live close by Leo!

CHAPTER 17:

Party Party

It's around 7 p.m. on Saturday night, the four of us (Me, Toby, Mike and Jack) are outside an off licence arguing.

TOBY: Look, I am too short, I don't look old enough to go in there,

ME: I don't see why I should go, because if it was not for me you would not be going to the party!

JACK: Give us the money, I'll go in, what I got to get?

MIKE: Champagne!

ME: Fuck off Mike, Wine and beer,

I give Jack a five-pound note.

ME: No sweets, I want the change!

Jack goes into the off-licence; it's a warm summer evening and the shop door is left open. Me Mike and Toby listen in.

JACK: Wine, and some beer, mister, sir,

SHOP KEEPER: What?

JACK: Please?

SHOP KEEPER: What wine?

JACK: Eh? I got five pounds!

The shop keeper glares at Jack.

SHOP KEEPER: How old are you?

Jack thumble's around in his pocket and finds a crumbled cigarette, he then lights it.

JACK: How much are those cigars?

SHOP KEEPER: They are 80 pence each,

JACK: I'll take one of those, and that wine and that beer,

The shop keeper takes the money and gives Jack a carrier bag with two cheap bottles of wine and some cheap beers, plus a cigar.

ME: Well done Jack!

TOBY: Lets drink some now,

We all get a can each and start drinking. We arrive at Bridgette's house where the party has already started. Loud pop music from fully open downstairs windows is blaring out. I bang on the door and ring the doorbell.

The door slams open, I recognise one of Bridgette's friends, Anna. She is a bit drunk, and has a cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth, she has overdone the makeup so much she looks like an escaped clown from a mad person's hospital.

ANNA: OH! You got some booze! Come in then!

The carrier bag of booze is grabbed by Anna and we are led in. The front room is loud and full, we all sit together squashed up on a settee sipping our beers watching the action. The music and dancing stops as the record ends. A "RIPPPP" noise is heard from the stereos loudspeakers as the stereos needle is dragged across the old record and a new record is lined up on the record player. The music is turned up and the action starts again, everyone is dancing, chatting, laughing. Anna comes into the room and looks over at us all sitting down.

Mike is dressed like it's a normal school day, Toby has an oversized white frilly shirt and oversized black suit that I had seen his older brother wearing to a ballroom dancing competition once. Jack had on his two sizes too small trousers on with plimsoles and a Hawaiian shirt with a badly matched tie and raincoat for some reason, and I was wearing light blue flared velvet trousers with silver platforms, ben Sherman shirt and a denim waistcoat, and we all thought we were cool.

ANNA: I was sitting there!

Anna is sipping a full glass of wine and is spilling it over the floor. She is unsteady on her feet, drunk, she gestures at Toby.

ANNA: You're in my seat, Ha! Ha! Stay there, you look comfy!

Anna sits in Toby's lap; she wiggles for a while.

ANNA: Your uncomfortable, what's in your pocket? Keys or something? That's fucking awful music, let's put something else on!

Anna then gets up,

JACK: Look, Toby's got a hard on!

ME: OH! Yeah!

TOBY: NO! It's a fold crease in me trousers, they just go like that sometimes!

JACK: Flatten them down then! Go on!

TOBY: No, I Don't want to,

Toby gets up with his erection in his trousers looking like a sideways tent supported with a horizontal pole.

TOBY: That beer makes you want to take a piss don't it? Is that today's newspaper there! I need to read that!

Toby picks up a newspaper and covers his erection, then exits the front room. The drinks flow, some kid throws up into a waste bin, the rest keep dancing, singing, shouting.

Police soon arrive and tell us to keep the noise down, so the music gets turned down and the yelling stops.

After the cops leave the party resumes to its original excess. Bridgette has been with her friends most of the night, but I wasn't too bothered as I was having a good time.

I was dancing with Tania, one of her best friends in the middle of the crowded front room when a hand grabs my hand and I get dragged through the crowd.

I remembered thinking "What does Jack want now?" or was its Toby grabbing me? As we reached the hallway and I looked around I found my head being turned and my mouth being opened with a wet cheap sweet white wine tasting tongue. The tongue belonged to Bridgette.

BRIDGETTE: Where you been, I thought you had left, you know Mike is in the front garden.

ME: Is he Ok?

BRIDGETTE: He's was really pissed earlier, I checked him though, he's asleep now, in the front flowerbed, I put a blanket over him,

ME: Oh, ok,

BRIDGETTE: I want my present now,

ME: Eh! All I got was the booze,

BRIDGETTE: I know, come with me, I need to show you something,

Bridgette is holding my hand and pulling me though the crowd, we go through the kitchen and into the back garden.

BRIDGETTE: We need more booze, it's in the shed,

ME: Ok, you need me to give you a hand then?

BRIDGETTE: Yeah, something like that,

She opens the shed door and we go in, its dark, but light from the house is coming though the sheds only window and makes it a bit easier to see.

BRIDGETTE: You going to give me my birthday present now Leo,

ME: Eh?

BRIDGETTE: Sit down here with me, on the floor, look, its soft,

I sit down cross legged and feel the floor, it's sort of got curly wood shavings on it. She then pushes me backwards gently while kissing me. I respond by kissing her back.

Before I know it she's pulled down my light blue velvet flares and my underwear is down around my knees, then her head moved down. I thought "Why is she doing that?". Oh! That's why! well that got it hard! She magicked a condom from nowhere and gave it to me.

As we know, I had some experience of condoms and had read the instructions a while ago. And while Toby wore condoms over his head because he couldn't be bothered reading instructions, I, at least knew where it went, and how it went on, and it's purpose.

She stood up and off came her knickers, she then sat on me. All over in 20 minutes! or was that just 19 seconds? who cares, not a virgin anymore, anyway, I wasn't counting how long because Toby was interrupting by banging on the shed window. Great! I have an excuses for my 19 seconds, I mean 20 minutes of fantastic first sex.

TOBY: Bridgette! Bridgette!

ME: TOBY!

TOBY: WHAT!

ME: FUCK OFF!

Bridgette gets up and pulls her knickers back on, then opens the shed door.

BRIDGETTE: What's up?

TOBY: Someone's been sick in the cooker!

BRIDGETTE: OH! Fucking great! Come on then, who was it! show me!

I stand pulling my trousers up at the same time, I can hear a crunching noise behind me and look around. All the time me and Bridgette have been at it her fucking big white rabbit has been sitting there chewing a carrot and watching us! Realising these curly wood shavings were put down for the rabbit, I find that I had been laying in rabbit droppings! I go back to the party after I have brushed myself down with an old broom head I found in the shed.

JACK: Where you been?

ME: Outside,

JACK: You smell like a?

ME: Rabbit?

JACK: YEAH!

ME: Yeah! I been playing with her Rabbit,

JACK: It was hairy, wasn't it!

Now, I am thinking "Are we speaking some sort of code to each other?" because, I am also thinking that Jack must know what I have been up to, and maybe he is being facetious?

ME: Yeah! Was hairy, very hairy, you know what I mean!

JACK: (Laughing) Yeah! I can see all the hairs on you,

ME: YEAH! ay? Her hairs are on me? Where?

JACK: Look! There!

ME: Oh!

So, Ok, And I thought that Jack had known what I have been up to and he was being facetious, but he wasn't, he was pointing to the white rabbit hairs clinging to my velvet trousers.

CHAPTER 18:

Sick Lap dance

So basically, I did well at school, I was top of my year at Physics for a few years and did well in all other subjects. I was moved from second year to a fourth-year group to do 'O' level physics and was studying for my A levels earlier than normal, but I decided I wanted to leave and start work at 16. I left school with 'O' levels and started an apprenticeship at an engineering company called Molins Limited in Deptford, this came with an opportunity to go to college as well. I chose this path as I knew my parents could not afford to send me to a university, and at college I could gain a degree, plus I got paid to work as well.

As an apprentice I started work at seven in the morning, then I would go to college after work. I would get home at ten at night 5 days a week, and sometimes I would work through the weekend for a bit of overtime. They were very long days.

I got a degree in engineering but had my heart set on computer science that I had been studying in parallel with engineering. I had a good time at college and made some mad friends (Just like me)

Some of the things me and my new mates got up to were just dumb and stupid, like driving to the top level of Lewisham multi storey carpark during our lunch break, so we could drive ours cars up a ramp in such a way that we had discovered we could get our cars up on two wheels with some practice.

Or, race backwards around big closed supermarket carparks at night. Or, see how many people you can get in your car and race it backwards (We never seemed to go over 8 MPH though)

After I had finished my apprenticeship the company fell on hard times, so some of us were laid off, and I was one of them. It was common practice to use the "First in First out" scenario. But the state of the workforce and job situation in the UK was generally good back then, so finding a new job was easy.

My next job was working for a company called "Bell Fruit". They hired out and serviced fruit machines, pool tables, pinball, and video game consoles (Space invaders)

I also ran a mobile Disco for some years with a guy called Stephan. We started off in small halls moving on to bigger venues and ended up doing Thames river cruise Discos going up and down the river at weekends for some years.

We sold tickets around the pubs and various other venues around Greenwich, then hired a tourist riverboat out for the evening and setup the Disco on board the boat. Bar staff were paid via the booze and snacks that was sold, and we profited after the boats hire and fees were paid. Stephan did it for the Women, I guess I did as well to an extent, but I enjoyed the music and dancing mostly.

I would go around the boat getting the shy girls who were sitting and watching everyone else enjoying themselves to get up with me and dance.

My philosophy was that they would then tell their friends that they had had a great time and we would sell more tickets as a result. You would be surprised how sexy and pretty these shy girls would be once they came out of their shells. One night, I had parked the "Bell Fruit" company estate car close to Greenwich pier, and we are unloading the disco equipment and taking it to the tourist boat moored at the pier for a show that evening.

Stephan: How many tickets did you sell Leo?

ME: Forty-four, You?

Stephan: Seventy-six!

ME: Fuck, it's going to be a busy one tonight!

Stephan: Yeah! You get those new white label records?

ME: Yeah, I'm going to put them on as soon as we are setup, to be sure they don't jump tracks. I'm going to record tonight's set on a cassette tape to play in the car, do you want a copy?

Stephan: Sounds good, I'll get a blank tape for you later,

Four girls all dolled up to the nine's walk up to us on the pier,

GIRL ONE: Can we go on the boat yet?

ME: You got your tickets,

GIRL TWO: These?

ME: Yeah, four tickets, right?

GIRL ONE: So, can we go on the boat yet?

ME: We are still setting up, not supposed to be letting anyone on till eight, it's seven thirty,

Me and Stephan look at each other, and then back at the girls who are standing there looking us up and down like they are choosing which of us two will give them the best performance. We give back big smiles.

ME: Of course, you can get on, there's two bars, one up and one down,

GIRL THREE: There's one down? I like the idea of going down!

The girls are all giggling, I can see Stephan gulping,

GIRL THREE: I'm Vicky, it's my birthday party tonight. I've been told its good on the ship,

ME: Boat! It's a boat!

The girls are all giggling again,

VICKY: You going to show me a good time?

ME: We always intend to please the clients, eh, passengers,

Stephan whispers to me,

Stephan: Tarts!

I see Philip, he is one of the bartenders, lugging crates of beer to the downstairs bar below,

ME: Heh! Philip! Get all these girls a drink each!

PHILIP: Ok!

ME: Have the first drink on me girls, first free drink for your birthday!

VICKY: OOO! Thank you! see you soon!

The girls go and find the bar,

Stephan: You're a cunt Leo, you know the first drinks are free anyway! And I fancy the blond!

I am laughing at Stephan,

ME: Yeah! I know, but they don't! If you want the blond, then go for it,

Stephan: I fucking will mate!

Its near two in the morning, and the disco boat is swinging, most passengers are pissed now, but hey! If you're not drunk how will your friends know you love them at two in the morning!

The river is a bit rough, and the boat is rolling side to side, not a lot, but if you are drunk on a boat walking downstairs you may as well be trying to walk a tight rope on roller skates. Worse still the toilets have piss and sick all over the floor and the passengers are slipping in it, falling over, and wearing it! The night is over, and the boat pulls up by the pier.

The passengers get off apart from a few who have drunk so much they aren't even sure who they are. As I am taking the Disco apart and loading it into the car I go and look for Stephan so he can help me. I look around the boat and I see Stephan and Vicky kissing in the galley below. I decide to leave them to it for now.

As I go back and forth up the boat ramp I can see them though a port hole. I have nearly finished loading and I am aching from all the hard work. I start cursing Stephan as he has done little and had an easy night so far.

I look through the port hole again and see Vicky and Stephan sitting next to each other, they stop kissing and Vicky unzips Stephan's trousers, she then bends down, and his penis disappears into her mouth. She then throws up. She looks up, her hair is a mess, her makeup is all smudged, and she is obviously very drunk.

She looks at Stephan then down at his lapful of sick, and laughs. She just gets up and stagers away. And Stephan, well, I wish I had a camera, No, that would had been rude. As Vicky walks off the boat she is reunited with her drunk friends who all get into a taxicab and go home.

Stephan appears on the top deck in his underwear with his trousers in a plastic supermarket bag.

ME: What's up?

STEPHAN: I slipped in the toilet sick downstairs,

ME: Oh! Bad luck mate,

CHAPTER 19:

A quick Introduction to BDSM

While working for "Bell Fruit" Amusements I was stopped outside our offices and asked if I wanted to earn a few bob doing a delivery. "Rob" was a guy who ran a small company that re-sold old run-down amusement machines stopped me after he had finished buying and loading his van with some old junky space invader machines that he had just purchased from the company. I had seen him around often, and my boss had asked me to give him a hand loading the machines before I left to do my service calls for the day.

ROB: Leo, want to earn a few bob this coming weekend?

ME: Doing what?

ROB: I need these machines fixing and then setup at a new venue, cash in hand?

ME: Tell me more,

ROB: Have a look at these machines and let me know what you need to fix them up, fix them and drive them in this van across on the ferry to a new night club in Belgium, then you set them up there. Leave the van with them as its going be loaded up with some antiques for my shop here in London. They are driving the van back for me once it is re-loaded. You can get a plane back. Work out the cost, you know, petrol, hotel, food etc, eight hundred quid for your trouble.

ME: £1200!

ROB: £900!

ME: £1100

ROB: Ok! One kay!

ME: Thousand! Done!

I spend a couple of days after work fixing these old arcade machines. On Friday night after work I pack an overnight bag with my passport and documents for the machines and drive the van to dover. I get on the ferry and have an uneventful trip to the ferry port on the other side of the channel. It's mid-morning now and I drive off the ferry and onto Belgium.

I find the nightclub and park outside then go in. The club is supposed to be opening that evening, but it is really busy with builders and decorators working, bartenders are filling shelves and cleaners are hoovering and wiping down the bars. I look in the notes that Rob gave me, and I am looking around for a "Sally". I ask around.

ME: Anyone seen Sally?

MAN ONE: No.

MAN TWO: Who? Sally, she's over there at the BDSM counter,

ME: BDSM?

I walk over to a female with her back to me, she is leaning across a glass countertop. She is wearing black mesh tights, small black leather skirt, a black leather waistcoat and high black heels, her long black hair is in two plaits down each side of her head. She is telling a smartly dressed man how to arrange merchandise inside the counter.

ME: Sally? You Sally?

She turns around and looks me up and down,

SALLY: Who are you? Have you come for an interview?

Sally is very attractive, and I decided to have some fun with her,

ME: Interview? Yes! It's Leo,

SALLY: LEO! All right, come with me,

I followed her to into a room that looked like a typical back room office. Office chairs, office desk, filling cabinets, and what looked like to me a "Black Leather Casting Couch". We both sit, she is behind the desk, I am in front. I look around the walls, there are whips, thong things hanging up, I can see various photos of people dressed in leather with tight straps around groins and breasts, zips and studs, candle wax being dripped onto bare bums, and they all looked like they were is various states of pleasure.

SALLY: Well then, so you think you are good enough for us then?

ME: Yeah! I am, fantastic!

SALLY: Fantastic Leo! Yes! Well then, show me your moves!

ME: Moves?

SALLY: Yes! Your dance moves! For the cage!

I stood up and started to wiggle my hips and unbuttoned my shirt. I was singing a "Da, Da Da" to stripper music that I was miming very badly. (I think I sounded more like a humming version of "Mary had a little lamb")

SALLY: This is a bit old Leo,

I stopped with my shirt off and my trousers around my ankles.

ME: What do you think then?

She was laughing at me.

SALLY: Your fucking shit Leo!

ME: I know,

SALLY: Are you fucking with me?

ME: Yeah! I'm delivering and installing some video game machines from Rob,

She is laughing with her head in her hands,

SALLY: I was having a bad day, but you made it a bit better now,

I pulled up my trousers and did up my shirt,

ME: What is this place?

SALLY: It's a new Bondage Discipline Sadism and Masochism nightclub,

ME: OH!

SALLY: I'm very busy, can I show you where the games go and leave you to it?

ME: Yeah, of course you can,

I get shown where they must go and get the job done. Its evening time now and I need to find a hotel to stay at overnight. The club opens and people dressed in all bondage and discipline types roll into the new club. Music is pretty good club music, and people are dancing. I go look and find Sally to update her on my progress.

ME: Sally!

SALLY: Leo!

ME: All done, they work fine, here are the keys to the cash drawers, here are the keys to the van, which is locked and around the back, all yours now,

SALLY: Have you eaten?

ME: You offering me food?

SALLY: And a beer!

ME: Yes please,

We both sit at the bar; she asks me what I want, and she orders it. We sit and chat and we both get drunk. At first I felt a bit odd being around with all these people dressed in leather, tight plastic, with chains with bits attached.

I was the odd one out, but after a few beers and whiskey shots I was dancing with Sally and some people who I had no idea what gender they were, and really didn't care either, I was having a great time "Grinding" on the dance floor with Sally. We got closer and closer dancing, eventually smooching and kissing.

ME: I must go,

SALLY: Come on Leo!

ME: What?

SALLY: This way,

She holds my hand tightly and pulls me though the pulsating dance floor crowd and up to the bar,

BARTENDER: What do you want Sally?

SALLY: A bottle of Champagne, Krug Grande Cuvée,

She grabs the bottle and leads me to a quiet and foggy outside, we walk a short distance and stand in a doorway, she prompts me to engage in some more passionate kissing. She stops the kissing.

SALLY: Move,

ME: Eh?

SALLY: This is my flat, move so I can get the key in the door,

We go up some stairs, then go straight to the bedroom and drunkenly try and get each other's cloths off, and all while drinking from the champagne bottle. The sex was a bit animalistic; I think I was expecting some BDSM, but she later told me she was not into that, and confessed to me that she had told the club owner she was into BDSM in order to get the job.

Next morning after more sex, and after a shower, and some brain tablets to stop the punk rock band in my head, we go to a local café.

We both ordered some bacon and eggs on toast at the counter and sit down at a recently vacated table to eat. Someone had left a newspaper on the table. I could not read it because it was in German, but I could have a look away.

I had nearly finished my breakfast when I turned to the back pages where there were car advisements. There was an advert in English that read "Pontiac firebird, fitted 455 engine, generally good condition, engine was running rough".

I had an idea; I could use the air flight money and the cash I had got for doing this job to buy this car and drive it back to the UK. I called the number and found out that it was a guy in the air force who was going back to the states. And the car was at an air force base. I said my goodbyes to Sally, we exchanged phone numbers and then I take a taxi to the air force base pilots family's accommodation and looked over the car.

Wow! Well, I went for a drive and the engine coughed and spluttered, the gearbox would not change down property either. The owner had told me that he had fitted a new Holley carburettor a few years back, and it never ran property again. I thought, ok! I could drive it back the way it is, just! But it could break down.

I told this to the seller and was going to walk away. But he wanted to sell it badly as he was leaving the next day. I got the car for half of what he wanted for it. I drove it back to the hotel and packed my bags and left. Driving through town the car started to backfire badly, just before the autobahn I stopped at a petrol station and opened the hood. It was getting dark, so, I went into the petrol station and got a torch. I took off the air filter and shone the torch down one of the four barrels and pushed the throttle.

Ok, petrol is there, but? Why can I see light on the outside of the base of the carburettor? I checked, Fuck! The carb isn't bolted down, it's all loose, letting in air badly. Using a cheap petrol station spanner, I tightened down the carburettor, and then dropped the torch down the side of the engine. Fuck! What is that the torch is shining on down there? I could see a bit of old tree branch jammed alongside the kickdown on the gearbox? So I fixed that as well.

I manually adjust the ignition timing while I was at it, and then filled up the car with petrol. I Start the car and rev it. It sounds way better! Did the gearbox kickdown now work though? I drove out of the petrol station and onto the autobahn slip road, as I left the petrol station road and got onto the autobahn I pushed the gas pedal to the floor, FUCK! The rev counter spun around to the red line and the rear of the car started to go sideways, what is going on? What have I broken?

I was doing about 20 mph, the speedo read 65, I turned the steering wheel to straighten up the car and looked in the mirror to see if there were any fast approaching cars behind, all I could see was a haze of greyish white smoke, then I realise that it is me that is creating this Smokey cloud because the rear tyres are spinning.

Suddenly the tyres found grip and I get pushed firmly into the tall seat, 1st gear, 2nd gear, 70, 80, 110 mph, I looked in the mirror and could see in the fading distance a cloud of smoke I have left behind along with a pair of wide black tyre marks. The speedo reads 135 now, I better slow down. I cruise for a while and then get overtaken by a Porsche; I then quickly realise that the autobahn I am on has no upper speed limit. I quickly cross 145 mph and overtake the Porsche.

I slow to 110 and the Porsche catches up, the two occupants of the car pull alongside waving and giving me the thumbs up and are both grinning at me before speeding away. I drove the car back to the UK and on to Greenwich. When I got back I organised a temporary lockup while I sorted out the paperwork and new number plates.

I had already had a taste of this powerful car and wanted more. I picked up a few American car magazines and poured over the extras and upgrades advertisements. I mail order an automatic gearbox shift kit, a big camshaft and a new manifold for a second carburettor, plus a second carburettor. The bits arrived three weeks later on a Friday and were all fitted by Sunday night at a lockup garage along with the legal stuff required for use in the UK like legal left side driving headlights.

A few days later the paperwork arrived, and I took the car for a MOT. It passed with flying colours. I drove the car carefully to break in the new parts and had been cautious not to drive it hard since the upgrades. It was Friday, and it had been a normal day at work, but I had one last call in town at a nightclub to fix a faulty fruit machine. Of course, I would get into clubs for free when I was working and fixing fruit machines or space invader video amusement consoles, so I would leave this particular job till late, because and I decided to make a night of it and leave the company car at home this evening. I would dress up nice and take the firebird out with me for its first outing and make a night of it.
CHAPTER 20:

Work and play at the same time

The nightclub was a Gay and mixed nights venue not far from Trafalgar square, but no one who went there seemed to mind which night was which. It was a popular Disco with girls because the guys were interested in the guys, and the girls liked it there as there was very little trouble at this venue, because there wasn't any (Or many) testosterone bulging heterosexual males fighting over the women, and trying to chat them up continuously all night. Besides, there were lots of good dancers there.

I had been going to these clubs for a few years repairing the amusement machines, and I realised very early on that once these guys knew I was there to fix the fruit machines and not gay myself that I wasn't getting chatted up by them anymore.

I got to know a few of them and had a different view of gays than a lot of straight people had. They never bothered me at all. But this did give me unhindered access to the females at these clubs. This club was just off Trafalgar square, and was easy to park close to, just around the corner if you knew the area.

The door staff know me as I push past the waiting punters outside. Two big bouncers, Phil and Phil (yes, they both had the same name) stand either side of the main doors of this busy night club. I nod as I pass them both and they nod back.

As I get let in I can see flashing lights and strobes further down the hallway in the main dance floor arena. The club was already full and swinging, I could hear a popular track and was wiggling my hips as I walked along the wide carpeted hallway to where the fruit machines were parked at the end of one of the bars. My bum gets slapped. It's George, he's gay and runs the club.

GEORGE: Hello lovely, you know what one it is?

ME: I guess it's the one that is turned off?

GEORGE: Correct!

ME: How much does it owe you?

GEORGE: Eh! About 30 quid?

ME: Ok! I will put a note out for the collector, Ok?

GEORGE: Fantastic! What would you like to drink my darling?

ME: A Shandy!

GEORGE: Bar tender, shandy here please!

GEORGE: Hmmm! My Man calls me Shandy! Or does he say "Shag Me" Ho, Ho, Ho, see you later Leo darling,

I open up the fruit machine and find a steel washer jammed in the mechanism, I check the machines operation and set it up for a win. I put in a ten pence piece and win four pounds in change.

I see behind me in the fruit machines mirroring glass front that a girl has been watching me all along. I get my drink and walk over to the girl. She is standing next to a heavy room dividing curtain, she seems to be deliberately standing in its shade, I cannot see her clearly, but her perfume smells good, seductive even.

ME: I'm not stealing from the machine, I fix them,

She looks at me then quickly looks down, she then turns her head and looks into the club's dance floor. I stand there for a few seconds and a light flashes across her briefly, she looks tanned, she is very pretty, maybe she is foreign and probably cannot speak English and does not understand me, maybe that's why she did not reply.

I walk away. I go sit on a stool at the bar and buy some bar snacks and nibble away while watching the clubbers dancing. A couple looking rather drunk get to the bar hugging and kissing, the girl I saw earlier comes over to them and is talking to them both.

It's getting late and I decide to go. I take a slow walk out and the girl I had tried to chat to and her friends are rushing towards the exit and push past me.

I am walking behind them towards the exit as I see an opportunist thief grab the girls shoulder bag halfway down the hallway. The thief runs towards the exit doors. The club was closing, and no one was coming in, so the hallway was clear, Phil (one of the bouncers) was going towards the exit doors. I had seen what had happened and shouted,

ME: PHIL!

Phil looks around and I point to the guy running towards him, Phil tackles the guy and gets the bag back. The thief gets away. I walked up to the pretty girl to see if she was Ok as Phil was giving her back her bag. The pretty girls friend makes sure she is ok too.

GirlS Friend: We were going to go get a taxi outside,

PRETTY GIRL: Ok, I'll be there soon!

ME: Hi I'm Leo, You Ok?

PRETTY GIRL: Yes! Thank you for the quick thinking!

ME: Phil, well done mate!

PHIL: My pleasure Miss, highlight of the night for me Leo!

PRETTY GIRL: Sorry about earlier, I thought you were...

Just then her friend comes back into the club's hallway,

Girl Friend: We got a taxi, come on!

The pretty girl gets a pen and envelope from her bag and tears off a piece of envelope and writes a number down.

PRETTY GIRL: I'm, Sophia, Call me, please?

Even in the dim light I can see better now, she has dark shinny hair that is a sort of short-layered haircut which is side parted called a pixie cut, olive skin, high cheekbones, low cut short light blue silk dress, fantastic looking legs, high heels, and electric blue eyes with long black natural eyelashes, her slightly naturally pouting lips have just an unnecessary smear of pink lipstick on them. She is very polite and well-spoken; I watch her leave; she looks back and smiles at me. I give her this silly hand wave from chest level.

PHIL: She fancies you Leo.

I get a good look at her, Wow! She is so fucking hot, she looks like a model, but she can't be, there is some shyness about her, that would never work for a model. I watch her bum as she walks out of the club, it looks like two small puppies fighting under a silk blanket.

ME: Yeah! Ok, how do you know that then?

PHIL: I've worked at many clubs around here, I know mate, I know!

I leave and make my way home. I go through the west end and back though the commercial area of London where the banks and insurance companies are. There is no one around in the early hours, so it is a short cut for me on the weekend.

This weekend there are roadworks and three sets of lights to go though, I figure out that if I had gone quicker I could had maybe got though them all together at the same time. But no rush, just listen to my mixtape and listen to the engine rumble as I head home.

Next morning, I get up and go to a Wimpy bar to get some breakfast. As I get out my wallet to pay for the food at the counter I see Sophia's phone number, I think? is it a real number? Only one way to find out. I get in the car and drive to a phone box on Blackheath just for the great wide space view and peace. The dialled number rings.

POSH PHONE VOICE: Hello?

ME: Hello, Could I speak to Sophia please!

POSH PHONE VOICE: Who is it that what's to speak to her?

ME: I am Leo, I met her last night at the club!

POSH PHONE VOICE: What club?

I think, that maybe she should not be going to clubs,

ME: Eh? I mean, she was passing by a club in London, and I eh? Got her bag back for her!

POSH PHONE VOICE: Please wait,

It sounds like a hand has been put on the phone at the other end, and a discussion is under way.

SOPHIA: Hello Leo, it's me Sophia!

ME: Hi! Sorry, I haven't got you into any sort of trouble, have I?

SOPHIA: Well! Very nearly!, don't worry though! You going to that club tonight?

ME: Well, I was there yesterday because I was working,

SOPHIA: I guessed that it was something like that, I put two and two together, and that nice bouncer man knows you as well.

ME: Phil, yeah,

SOPHIA: I think your safe,

ME: Yeah! I'm safe,

SOPHIA: I'll see you at the nightclub at nine tonight?

ME: Can't wait!

SOPHIA: Giggles, Ok,

CHAPTER 21:

I fall in love

That night, the disco electro and house music at the nightclub is buzzing, it's a mixed night, hot and sweaty. We sit and chat in a quite area for a bit, then, a slow dance number comes up. Sophia grabs my hand and pulls me up.

SOPHIA: Come on Leo, I love this song, let's dance to it, please!

ME: Yeah!

We dance slowly and get close, I am inhaling her sweat and expensive perfume that is mixing together like a hypnotic elixir, her scent and sweat are like a drug, sexy and alluring. If I could bottle it and sell it to myself I would be poor.

I have my hand on her waist, when I look up at her face I am temporality memorized by her smiling at me, and I don't mean to, but I unexpectantly move my hand down onto her bum, her smile goes, I move my hand back to her waist but she grabs my hand.

I think she is going to push my hand away, but instead she pushes my hand back onto her bum. Her smile returns. I realise her expression wasn't one of "No! NO!, but a serious look of "I mean business".

We stand still and kiss passionately in the middle of the dance floor. The music cranks up and we start to dance to a heavy club house beat.

SOPHIA: I'm hungry! Are you?

I point at the bar.

SOPHIA: No, I don't want a snack, a bags of chips!

ME: What! Like fish and chips?

SOPHIA: Yeah!

I smile, and think that "a hot posh female wants fish and chips?",

ME: Ok! Let's go!

We are driving towards the Bank area of London towards the east end.

ME: There aren't any fish and chips shops around the Trafalgar square area.

SOPHIA: I know!

ME: OK!, there are some in the east end, some good ones!

SOPHIA: It's late, will they still be open?

ME: That's a point?

We reach the roadworks and temporary traffic lights in the Bank area, as we approach I can see the sets of lights further down have changed to green, I push the gas pedal to the floor the engine revs hard, tyres smoke up, we get pushed back into the bucket seats as the car accelerates hard. We get pass the last set of lights as they change to red.

SOPHIA: That was awesome!

I look over at her and smile. We get to the east end, but it is late, and the chippies have closed.

ME: Ok, sorry, they are closed!

SOPHIA: I'm hungry.

I start driving and think for a bit, then turn on the radio, good club music is playing.

ME: Well, there is a place over where I live, a kebab shop, chicken kebab and chips, there good!

SOPHIA: Yeah! How long?

ME: Oh? maybe 20 minutes from here, over to south London, though black-wall tunnel.

SOPHIA: And if you drive quicker?

ME: OH! Well let's see then.

Sophia checks her watch.

We get to the tunnel and I put my foot halfway down, the big V8 roars and echoes against the tunnel walls, Sophia winds down her window and leans her arm on the door frame.

SOPHIA: Faster!

The tunnel goes into a slight curve and I push the gas pedal to the floor, I can see in the mirror tyre smoke, Sophia is looking in her door mirror looking back and grinning.

We come out of the tunnel and I slow down and turn left off the motorway towards Greenwich, we stop outside the kebab shop.

ME: what would you like?

SOPHIA: I'm coming in with you.

ME: OK!

The kebab shop has three or four men and some girls in there waiting for their food orders, they look Sophia up and down and nod at me, I grin back. Sophie does not see any of this, she is too excited about getting some chips in a paper bag with salt and vinegar over them. We both get our orders and get back in the car, Sophia looks at her watch,

SOPHIA: So, you don't live far from here?

ME: No, just minutes away,

SOPHIA: Can we eat this at your place?

ME: Yeah, course we can,

We go back to my flat, I give her a quick tour and we sit and start to eat straight from the paper wrapping,

SOPHIA: This food is good!

ME: Yeah, it is, Wow! You are hungry!

SOPHIA: Starving!

ME: Drink?

SOPHIA: What you got? What you having?

ME: Scotch, water, on the rocks.

SOPHIA: Great!

I get the drinks, when I get back she has found the radio station we were listening to in the car.

SOPHIA: I like this radio station,

ME: I do to,

We finish eating and I change the radio station to a slow music one. She takes her shoes off and we start slow dancing, we kiss, she grabs my bum and squeezes it hard. I whisper to her.

ME: Want to go to bed?

Sophia just looks at me very seriously, I think, OOPS! She does not reply but takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. The radio gets left on and you can just hear it from the bedroom.

We stand opposite each other and start to undress. She removes her underwear which drops around her ankles, she pushes the shoulder strap off her arms and her dress drops around her feet.

She is so beautiful naked.

I am undressed apart from one sock, which I am having trouble getting off standing up and also hopping around the bedroom. I fall onto the bed, she starts laughing, we start kissing, it gets very passionate and the moment gets close. She whispers to me.

SOPHIA: I have never had a man,

I look at her with a straight face. I don't know what to say, I hide my surprise and say something stupid.

ME: And neither have I!

SOPHIA: Giggles...

Relive! Sophia giggles! We both return to the seriousness of this occasion. I reassuringly nod at her.

We make love passionately, then make love again.

Next morning, we take a shower, we get out of the shower and lay on the bed, wet. Again, we make out, we are still wet and slippery from the shower, fuck she is hot, its passionate. We make more love a few times, she wants to and so do I.

We get dressed and are sitting on the side of the bed. She's finished dressing and is patiently waiting for me. As soon as I get my shoes on she gentle holds both my hands rubbing the backs with her thumbs. She is looking me in the eyes. I can see and feel her want to say something to me, but it's like she does not know how or where to start.

I am thinking the worst, this could hurt!

She is going to say something like "It was nice, but I cannot see you anymore".

So, here we go then...

SOPHIA: Can? Will?, Me? Will I see you again?

ME: Tonight?

SOPHIA: OH YES!

ME: Oh Yeah!

Her hesitant face converts into a broad smile, her delicate hands squeeze my hands very tightly.

SOPHIA: I need to go home and get some bits and pieces first?

ME: Come on, let's go,

SOPHIA: I can get a taxi and come back,

ME: I want to take you, make sure your safe,

I don't want her out of my sight! I want to look at her, inhale her.

SOPHIA: OH, yes, OK!

We drive across London to Kensington and Sophia directs me to a huge house which has been converted into big flats. I park right outside.

Sophia jumps out and skips up the steps to the front door and stops at the top. I am looking at her, she is looking at me and just smiling back, then she skips back down the steps and opens the car door.

SOPHIA: You coming in?

ME: Oh! Ok!

I get out and lock the car. As we go into her flat it is obvious there is money in this family. She holds my hand then leads me down a corridor and points out the various rooms to me.

SOPHIA: That's the dining room, that's my sister's bedroom, that's the kitchen, here's my room,

Her bedroom had expensive looking solid wood furniture, the bed had beautiful white cotton linen and silk sheets, the handmade carpet just looked expensive. I sat on the bed while she got a Hermes leather overnight bag and starting to fill it with cloths and underwear from her drawers.

SOPHIA: Hmm? I don't know which scent to take, you chose,

She skips across the room and hands me some scent bottles. I sprayed them on my hand and sniffed. Caron's Poivre, Clive Christian No 1, Baccarat Les Larmes Sacrees. Wow! These are fucking expensive perfumes.

I didn't really look, I just picked one,

ME: This one!

SOPHIA: Clive Christian, good choice!

She seems excited. I sit there and watch her get changed, then she gets her stuff together. It's Strange how I feel comfortable with her. I pinch myself. Am I falling in love with this goddess?

ME: Come and give me a cuddle,

SOPHIA: I can do that,

We cuddle and kiss for a short while, but it's not long before we are both between the sheets and making out. We both lay in bed for a while then hear the front door open. We both get up and get dressed in seconds.

SOPHIA: Back door!

I follow her down some stairs to a back door, we lock it and go around the front.

SOPHIA: Oh! Look, that car, it's the cleaner's car, panic over. My parents are away this weekend, I must be back before ten tomorrow night!

ME: You sure you got what you need?

SOPHIA: Yes, where we going tonight?

ME: I thought we would go to an old and very quiet pub in the countryside, down in Kent. Just to chat and have a drink, maybe something to eat?

SOPHIA: I like the sound of that,

We drive out of London down the motor way and into Kent. After leaving the motorway and traveling down a country lane for 15 minutes we reach the small country pub.

We go in and walk up to the bar to get some drinks. The bar is divided into two, a salon and a public one. We are on the saloon side. We hear someone yelling from the public bar.

A PERSON: Leo! Leo! LEO!

SOPHIA: Who's shouting your name?

ME: Dunno?

The dividing door between the two bars fly open with a crash, and a leather clad biker is standing in the doorway.

MIKE: Leo! Where you been mate!

Mike comes over to me and is shaking my hand, hugging and kissing me.

ME: Shit! How longs it been?

MIKE: Too long!

I look around at Sophia, she is fascinated by Mike,

SOPHIA: You two know each other?

MIKE and ME TOGETHER: YEAH!

MIKE: Come on, come around the other side, my brothers are here,

We follow Mike though the door, and the first person I lay my eyes on is BRIDGETTE. She has a biker jacket on with a short skirt and fishnet stockings wearing high biker boots. Her makeup is different from when I last saw her, it suited her now thinner face and made her look more attractive than I had remembered her.

She is too busy chatting to another biker girl to had seen me, she had been laughing, and as her head turned to me the laughing stopped, and a blank but surprised look appeared on her face, she quickly looks across at Sophia and then looks back at me, then a smile emerged. There are a dozen bikers in the small public bar, some have their Hells Angels colours on.

There is Andy and Joe who are Mikes older brothers, some bikers are from Andy and Joes motorcycle club, and others I don't know, but are from an affiliate motorcycle club.

I find out that Bridgette and Mike have been dating for some years now. Mike gets us some stools to sit down on and puts them in the middle of the action. I am thinking, OH! Shit, what is Sophia going to be thinking about some of my friends?

ME: So, what's going down Mike?

MIKE: It's pigs' birthday, so we came here to piss it up!

ME: Ok!

MIKE: Who's the tasty bird,

ME: Sophia,

MIKE: Fucking hell, she's a keeper!

ME: Do you think!

MIKE: Yeah! Very nice!

ME: I'm going to collect our drinks from the bar, want anything,

MIKE: Maybe later mate,

I go to the bar and ask for a shandy and a dry white wine for Sophia. I get a nudge in my side, I look around.

BRIDGETTE: Hello big boy!

ME: How you are doing,

BRIDGETTE: I'm good, you're doing well I see, I could never compete with her though, where did you find your bird,

ME: she's a celestial being that fell from heaven, Sophia is her name,

BRIDGETTE: Thought you was going to say that she is a fallen Angle like you told your mates about me once!

ME: You still are, what you up to these days, dating Mike I see,

BRIDGETTE: We've been an item for a while now. I got a job at Tesco's as a checkout chick when I left school,

ME: Do you like it?

BRIDGETTE: Not really, I just saw the bigger picture, I'm deputy supervisor now. I am working my way to be a manager,

ME: Oh, sounds like a good plan,

BRIDGETTE: Mike and me are getting engaged soon, going to buy a house and have kids. Mike is a mechanic at New Cross London transport buses now you know!

ME: Yeah, he's a clever bloke, I'm happy for you both, I really am, Mike is a good guy you know,

BRIDGETTE: Yeah, he will be the manager of the depot one day, I love him,

ME: Gotta take this drink to Sophia,

I get a £20 note out and hold it up in the air,

ME: HEH! You lot, I am putting £20 behind the bar for drinks!

The gang acknowledges my gesture, and with this they all say cheers and thanks,

BRIDGETTE: They were good times Leo weren't they,

ME: We had a good times. Invite me to the wedding won't you,

BRIDGETTE: Off course we will, might even name our first kid after you!

ME: Bridgette! I gotta get this drink over to Sophia before she is initiated into the Hells Angles,

Bridgette gives me a peck on the cheek and winks at me, I give her a wide smile and wink back at her,

SOPHIA: Who's that you are speaking to?

ME: Bridgette? I used to go to school with her, known her for years, she engaged to my Mate Mike over there. How they been treating you?

SOPHIA: Good, Good, I think they have been taking the piss out of me a bit, but Andy and Joe have been keeping them in line. It's that guys birthday over there, his name is PIG!. These two over here bought him a beer. Him, over there, he pulled out some of his pubic hair and put it in the glass, and him, he got out his penis, pulled his foreskin back, and then stirred the beer with it! Then Pig drunk it, but pig did not know what they did to his drink!

Sophia is giggling, I laugh,

ME: Yeah! They do that at gang birthdays, sometimes they, oh! You don't want to know about that. Pig is not his real name, they all have nick names, he is spider, that's boggle over there. It's just in case they need to talk to each other, and they don't want to give their real names away to anyone overhearing,

SOPHIA: Why? Do they do bad things, I always heard these men are bad,

ME: Cheeky! I have known them since I was a small kid, I hung out with them now and then, we all went out for rides and eh? Other stuff you know!

SOPHIA: Oh, Ok, so you're a bad boy then!

ME: Hey! Look at me! Do I look like a bad boy?

SOPHIA: Yes!

I start laughing, Sophia starts laughing, Andy and Joe raise a toast to "Leo, the bad boy"

MIKE: Hey Sophia, ever rode on a big motorbike?

SOPHIA: No, I was told they are very dangerous,

MIKE: LEO! Take her for a ride on my bike!

ME: She won't mate,

Sophia looks over at Bridgette who is nodding and mouthing to her "GO ON", Bridgette offers up her crash helmet, Sophia looks at me,

SOPHIA: Are you a safe biker?

ME: Just a few accidents, none of them my fault though,

SOPHIA: Just a few?

MIKE: Leo is good,

BRIDGETTE: He is,

SOPHIA: OK then,

ME: Where is it Mike?

Sophia is handed Bridgette's crash helmet and leather jacket,

MIKE: It's the Rocket 3 out the back, take my helmet and jacket,

Mike hands me his motorbike keys and me and Sophia go out to the rear carpark. We find Mike's BSA Rocket 3 parked amongst the other motorcycles,

ME: I'll get on the bike, then you put your foot on that foot peg and cock your leg over the seat,

I get on and Sophia sits on the pillion seat,

SOPHIA: What do I hold on to?

ME: Me! or there is a grabrail behind your bum,

Sophia holds onto the rear grabrail. I start the bike; Mike has fitted racing exhaust to the bike, and it is loud. It roars as I rev the engine, Sophia then puts her arms around my middle,

SOPHIA: Is it fast?

ME: Maybe!

CLUNK! As I put the bike into gear, her grip tightens. I let the clutch out and the back-wheel spins on the loose carpark gravel. The rear of the bike slides left and right as we get onto the narrow country lane. It's a very warm evening with little traffic around. Its not far to get to the motorway, so I take it slowly going down the country lane warming up the engine and tyres.

We get to the end of the lane which meets a roundabout that goes onto the motorway, I wind back the throttle and lean the bike over as we go around the roundabout.

I can feel the bikes rear tyre fighting for grip as the big bike slides around on the roundabouts tarmac, I look down and see the metal bike stand is rubbing on the road, a cascade of orange sparks fly away from the stand as it gets worn away by the road.

We get onto the motorway and I accelerate hard passing 125 mph, I see her in the rear mirror looking over my shoulder to see how fast we are going, once she has confirmed this I see her grinning like a Cheshire cat from Alice in wonderland. We travel 10 miles to the next turnoff and head back to the pub.

In the car on the way home Sophia is quiet,

ME: What's up, everything Ok? your very quiet,

SOPHIA: I'm just taking in all that happened tonight, meeting some of your friends, having a ride on a motorcycle for the first time,

ME: Oh? Sorry?

Sophia giggles,

SOPHIA: NO! Why you sorry, I had the best time tonight, and all since I met you. I would never ever do anything like that, ever!

ME: My friends are my friends, always there, I would never change that,

SOPHIA: I like your friends,

I got some snacks on the way back home along with some wine. When we got home we sat up and watched some late-night horror film that Sophia would not watch normally she tells me. She was funny to watch as each scene was predictable, and you knew there was going to be a scary bit coming up.

She would be sitting there legs up on the lounge cuddling up to me in a frozen state, staring straight at the TV screen with her mouth wide open and a prawn cracker in her hand completely stationary, waiting for the scary part to pass. I think she had had a very sheltered existence.

SOPHIA: What we doing tomorrow?

ME: Want to go to a rave?

SOPHIA: What's a rave?

ME: Like a disco, like a mad disco. The music is a bit different, loud, lots of lights, often in an old shitty warehouse,

SOPHIA: Ok, can you drop me off tomorrow at home and pick me up later?

ME: Yeah, it will give me a chance to find out where it is,

SOPHIA: You don't know where it is?

ME: You never do,

I drop her off midday and go back and pick her up in the early evening at her home. I ring on the bell and she comes to the door but does not open it, she shouts from the behind the closed front door,

SOPHIA: I hope you won't be angry,

ME: About what?

SOPHIA: Leo! Here I come,

The door opens.

Sophia has dyed her short black hair peroxide blonde; it looks really hot.

SOPHIA: I read about raves in Timeout magazine, is this Ok?

ME: Fuck, yeah!

SOPHIA: You got your company estate car with you?

ME: There is a good reason for that,

SOPHIA: What would that be?

ME: You'll see later,

We drive down to Worthing and go to a petrol station where we are meeting with hundreds of other party goers, I stop the car and get out,

ME: Just going to wait for a telephone call to find out where the rave is then we will be off, stay here don't go anywhere,

A guy who answers the phone in the telephone box at the petrol station announces that we should all follow him to the rave. We find ourselves in a convoy going down country lanes in the middle of nowhere. We get to what looks like an abandoned farm with a warehouse on it. We all park our cars in this field and go to the warehouse where you can hear music playing.

I pay a women in a tent £20 and we get our arms stamped with neon ultraviolet ink. We proceed into the auditorium where the music is loud, and the lights are dazzling. The party has already started. We get drinks and go and dance. I've been to raves before and was after something to make the evening more memorable. A guy who I had seen at other raves was pushing "E's", I got some from him,

SOPHIA: What's are those? Are they for headaches? For the loud music?

I giggle,

ME: NO!

I gave her a very careful explanation, telling her all the bad things about what could happen if you took some. But to my surprise,

SOPHIA: Give me one!

ME: I'm not so sure,

SOPHIA: Give me one! Look everyone else is taking them, and you. Fucking well give me one!

She prises my hand open and an "E" falls on the floor, she picks it up and waves it in front of my face, then swallows it with a plastic glass full of wine,

SOPHIA: There you are, how long does it take?

ME: Depends on the person,

SOPHIA: Let's see then,

We dance and dance, both of us are sweating hard, the music is good, the pulsating lights are hypnotic.

Next day.

I think I remember getting into the car last night or early morning. I am looking up at the ceiling in the company estate car. I am having trouble breathing, I look left, Sophia is half laying across me, I move slightly, that's better I can breathe now.

We both have glow sticks around our heads and wrists that are fading, we are both naked in a double sleeping bag, our clothes are just thrown around.

I lay there for while just trying to remember even the smallest detail. Sophia stirs. She opens her sleepy looking eyes and just smiles at me for a while,

SOPHIA: Hello!

ME: How do you feel?

SOPHIA: I remember asking you how long those "E's" would take to work, then I thought, wow, those lights are cool, then! Wow! I like the music, and I was dancing and dancing and dancing, and here I am! I just don't remember how I got here!

She pushes herself up and looks around,

SOPHIA: There's still a lot of cars here!

ME: Yeah, probably all having a sleep in,

SOPHIA: I do remember having a great time with the love machine,

ME: Who?

Sophia giggles and then dives headfirst into the double sleeping bag.

SOPHIA: You know! mister love machine!

ME: OH! Ok! mister love machine!

Yes, we made out in the middle of a muddy field in an estate car on an abandoned farm somewhere in Worthing.

Months passed by and I was having a great time with Sophia. One weekend we decided to go out to the cinema and then on to a restaurant. She had not spoken much all night. We finished dinner, but all evening we just seemed to be making small talk,

ME: Is something up?

SOPHIA: I've got something I need to tell you,

ME: Ok,

SOPHIA: I have to go home. To my own country. To get married,

You know when you get that feeling that all the blood in you head has just drained away, and you can feel your heart pumping in your chest,

ME: Married? Your engaged?

SOPHIA: I'm not engaged, I have been sworn to someone since I was a small child. It brings two families together. I have met him, some time ago. And now I must be his wife.

ME: Do you get a say in this,

SOPHIA: No,

She starts crying like she's been holding back all night,

I comfort her to a steady sob.

SOPHIA: I leave tomorrow,

ME: I'll get the bill and we can go, ok?

SOPHIA: Yes,

We get into my car,

SOPHIA: I must go home tonight,

ME: Yeah, I understand. What's going to happen, you just going to go and that's it?

SOPHIA: Its complicated. I never knew I would ever feel like this about someone. I didn't believe someone like you existed. I love you Leo!

I know we love each other, and I am moved by her frank innocence, but I am stunned by her morally pure affection for me,

ME: I love you,

We arrived at her house and I turn off the car's engine,

SOPHIA: Look, there looking though the curtains, I must go. There is just no time, meet me at Heathrow airport tomorrow, my flight leaves at 10 in the morning. I will say I am going to the toilet and meet with you at terminal three inquires counter at 7:30,

She gets out of the car and goes, turning around to blow a kiss before she enters the flat,

ME: I love you!

Next day I get up early and drive to Heathrow airport, I get as far as the carpark and an idiot taxi driver collides with a truck. The traffic comes to a standstill and time is now not on my side. I am late, very late. I park and rush up to the inquires counter and ask if Sophia had been there. She had, and there had been a last call for her when she did not turn up at her boarding gate. She had waited for me.

I ran to the boarding gate where you can see though the glass partition, and I saw her going though the check-in gate. She was with some people that looked like photographs I had seen at her home; I could she was looking around, she looked anxious. I was shouting and jumping. She sees me.

One last time. We blow kisses and mouth "I love you" to each other.

I get a letter from her a few weeks later. She had met her saunter and they had had dates, she said all he talked about was how he would bring the families together, and how they would share wealth; he would get her a lovely kitchen so she could cook for him and their children wonderful meals.

But how he was so boring and talked only about himself and how wonderful he was. She had to get someone to sneak this letter out for her. The letter was postmarked as being from the UAE with no return address.

I enquired about her family home in London and did find out that it was rented to someone who owned a bank overseas. I never heard from her again.

A beautiful angel stole my heart,

I thought that we would never part,

The body heals the scars may stay,

I wasn't ready for pain that day,

A woman gone, I cannot kiss,

Only dreams of love are made of this,

THE END

Of at least part one...
