CONTENTS
Chapter 1. The Formative Years
Chapter 2. The School Years
Chapter 3. Out Into the Big Bad World
Chapter 4. Post U.S
Chapter 5. The Training Years
Chapter 6. The Fire Brigade Experience: Early Days
Chapter 7. The Italian Connection
Chapter 8. Fire Brigade: Mischief to Management
Chapter 9. Back To the Smoke
Chapter 10. Going Up the Ladder
Chapter 11. College Life
Chapter 12. The Great Joke Competition
Chapter 13. College Life Continues
Chapter 14. Back to Reality – Well Sort Of…
Chapter 15. Changing Roles
Chapter 16. Challenging Times
Chapter 17. The Big Change
About the Author
Copyright
FOREWORD
The purpose of this book is to entertain; to put a smile on your face as laughter really is the best medicine. Many people over the years have tried to get me to write about my life as I have lived at least three full normal lives rolled into one. My family, friends and work colleagues are aware of certain events in my life, but none of them are aware of all of it; hence the title of the book. I have excluded much of the detail and I have been particularly brief about certain events, places and peoples’ names in order to protect the guilty as well as the innocent. I do not want to be the cause of re-opening cold cases. Nor is it my intention to embarrass anyone. I certainly have not had a boring existence. What has finally prompted me to write my story is that I know of many people—and keep hearing about more—who are in difficult circumstances through no fault of their own. Be the proceeds of this book large or small, it would be great to help such people and more. Much more rewarding to me than receiving personal gifts or cash.
I have not always felt this way. I have been a nasty, aggressive individual who has changed completely due to ageing, other people’s influence and life threatening/changing events that have forced me to re-consider my ways. A sort of “All-Year-Scrooge” syndrome.
The title was suggested to me by a dear friend who is no longer with us.
Another suggested title was “If I fell into a barrel full of nipples, I would come out sucking my thumb.” Yes, I have had obstacles placed in my way, but I have always overcome them. Having had at least three life threatening situations to challenge me, I have to conclude that I have been rather lucky.
I dedicate this book to my dear recently departed mother, however, I would not have wished her to read it, even though it has been substantially watered down.
It can also be used by comedians as a reference book.
Chapter One
The Formative Years
I was born into a loving family. I was very much wanted, in fact my mother underwent surgical procedures to improve her chances of conception. After my arrival at hospital, I moved into my grandparents’ home which was shared with their four other children and two respective husbands; a bit of a Tardis as it only had two bedrooms. This was fairly common for the era just a few years after the Second World War.
My parents were delighted when they obtained their own home which sported all mod-cons such as central heating, an electric cooker and even a refrigerator. Life was good and I was brought up in a very safe environment. I was mollycoddled and received all of the latest toys, peddle cars and bikes. When asked by my playmates if my bike was second hand, I really wasn’t sure what this was, and thinking that this may be a more upmarket feature, I replied: “Of course it is.” When reporting this conversation to my parents, they displayed a rather disappointed and angry look.
Once I had commenced primary school, I was actively encouraged to attend a Church of England morning service, Sunday school and Evensong. I even became an altar boy so that the vicar would allow me access into the belfry to study the pigeons. To a boy of my age, it was really exciting up there. I was not at all happy with attending church, ever since discovering that Santa Claus was not real. I was really angry with my parents for lying to me and I assumed that the stories about God and Jesus were just another fable. As you go through life accumulating education and experiences you realise what mumbo-jumbo it really is. Would be nice if it were true, though. Anyway, back to reality.
Throughout my life I have always been very keen on humour and have often tried to make all situations humorous, perhaps to a fault. It is important to identify the right time and place. When I think of certain events in my life, I think of the in-joke of the day and I will record some of them in the text, providing I consider that they have stood the test of time. Here is the first one or two.
Little boy lives down our street
who wears his sister’s clothes;
I don’t know what they call him,
but I think he’s one of those.
If I had the wings of an eagle and the arse of
a dirty black crow,
I’d fly to the top of a steeple and shit
on the buggers below
These two missionaries were captured in the jungle by a tribe which they feared were cannibals. They were being boiled in a large pot while all the natives were getting very excited. All of a sudden, one of the captives bursts out laughing. The other one says, “What have you got to laugh about?” to which he replies, “I’ve just made an awful mess of their gravy”.
This is the alternative version:
Two missionaries were captured in the jungle by a tribe which they feared may be cannibals. They were placed in a guarded tent while the natives were dancing around, getting very excited and the Chiefs were debating the prisoners fate. Finally, the Chief enters the tent and says to them: “You got two choices: death or mumbo-jumbo.” The first missionary bursts into tears and says, “I don’t want to die – I’ll take the mumbo-jumbo.” He is immediately dragged outside to great applause. There is a great round rock about six feet in diameter and ropes are tied to both of his wrists and feet and then passed around this great rock. The natives, who by now are in a highly excited state, line up behind the strapped down missionary. The Chief shouts out: “Let’s have mumbo-jumbo!” and then lets out a loud scream, which is repeated by the natives and signals the first one to launch himself on the missionary’s back and have his evil way with him, followed by the next one and the next one and so on. He is cut free when the natives are finished with him. Now the other missionary managed to catch a glimpse of what was going on through a break in the tent material, so when the Chief enters the tent and gives him the same choice as his unfortunate colleague: “Death or mumbo-jumbo”, he is slightly more prepared. Being made of sterner stuff, he replies: “You can stick the mumbo-jumbo up your arse, I’ll take death.” The Chief rubs his chin for a while in thought and then announces to the waiting crowd: “Death by mumbo-jumbo!”
My first encounter with a member of the opposite sex was when a neighbouring girl invited me to see her hens. I guess that I was only about four or five and she invited me to crawl into the hen cree (hen house) and I was not too keen about crawling about in short trousers through all that dirty straw and cackling chickens dropping feathers everywhere. When we got to the end of the chicken run, this girl invited me to feel her tuppence, which highly embarrassed me and I got out of there much quicker than I went in. I did not mention this experience to anyone, figuring out that there was something ‘naughty’ about the situation. I avoided this girl for the rest of my childhood.
At about the age of seven, an uncle of mine stated that when it was cold outside I was sent out wearing two top coats. This gives a flavour of the mollycoddling, to which I was unfortunately exposed. This uncle decided that I needed toughening up and volunteered to take me swimming
.
He called to collect me in his 1937 Morris 7, which was un-taxed and presumably un-insured about 6:45 one morning. He was the loose cannon of the family and he was determined to inflict his influence on me. We quickly changed into our trunks and I appeared with flippers and a floater around my middle. My uncle went mad and hurriedly made me part company with these devices and threw me into the deep end. Panic set in as I couldn’t swim without them. I seemed to be floating around aimlessly not knowing what direction the surface or the bottom or the sides were. I thought I was on my last breath, when someone plucked me from my dilemma. On reflection I realised that in this particular pool you did not keep your mouth open, otherwise you may get an unwanted floating device entering your orifice. It was the sort of pool where the local populous went for a bath and other functions. This panic attack made me determined to swim so that such an event would never happen again.
During these years, I developed a really bad habit of continually throwing stones without any regard to where the missiles would land. I once threw one which went straight past the nose of a driver, whose car window was fortunately open. The passenger window was not. The event was witnessed by my sister and when the angry motorist pulled his vehicle to a halt, he screamed at my sister and asked if she knew who the boy was that had thrown the stone at him and his car. By this time, I had fled the scene and was nowhere to be seen. My sister very kindly informed the motorist that I was her brother and she went on to show the man where I lived. This was the first of many embarrassing encounters with my parents and complaining adults and consequential grounding. I was a well-grounded boy.
One day I was returning home from school passing by a group of garages. The Anderson Shelter corrugated iron type were especially attractive targets as they made plenty of noise when the stones ricocheted from the surfaces between garages. Unfortunately, a man happened to be working on his car in his garage when his day was interrupted by my missiles thundering off his roof and magnifying the sound inside his workshop. He came out, red in the face, and shouting threatening words of abuse at me. I gave a cheeky reply which launched this man into a sprint and he was closing in on me fast. I started my sprint, hampered by my school satchel and just as I was starting to pull away from him, he stuck out a foot and tripped me up and I landed in a big pile of soot (you don’t see much of that substance lying around these days; probably no children of today have any understanding of what the substance is). I must have looked like a black and white minstrel and my white shirt was no longer that. The man grabbed me and shouted more words of abuse before returning to his garage. My first thoughts were of the extreme scolding that I would get upon returning home and the fact that I hated being dirty. In fact, my nickname was Little Lord Fauntleroy. This was perhaps my first experience of rage. I waited until the man returned to his garage. He moved inside towards the rear, perhaps to get a tool. I then moved swiftly and closed his garage door and slipped in his padlock into the hasp and locked him in. I then gathered a good supply of sizeable bricks and then let him have it with a continuous bombardment of bricks showering his roof. I gave him a rendition of all of the swear words that I had learned to date and left to face the music at home.
I really did not like being dirty or having close contact with other people in case I contracted germs. This characteristic has followed me throughout my life. When reluctantly attending Church, my friend and I used to lark about as much as we could get away with. We used to stand on as high a pile of kneelers as we could without toppling over. We used to take communion and—bearing in mind my loathing of germs—we used to fill our mouths with as much saliva as we could manage and eject this into the communal drinking cup. The trick was to get to the chalice before my friend. Serves the idiots right. Would you drink from a pint glass being passed around in a pub? Think Herpes, Hepatitis C, HIV, Influenza and a host of other nasties. I rest my case.
Chapter Two
The School Years
I continued my uneventful, well-grounded life until I reached 11 years of age, pounding out the miles on my bicycle and playing football. I became very proficient at both activities. I would think nothing of joining a group of riders and cycling to Edinburgh and back, a distance of at least 240 miles round trip. I played football with a group of older boys, two of whom went on to be very well known professionals, for several hours every day. The consequence of all of this activity was that I developed very strong muscular legs, out of synch really with the rest of my body. I also developed a greater need for and love of food. This was further encouraged by my attendance at the dog racing track with my father. I was very bored with the fact that there was a race only every thirty minutes and not much happening in between, so I filled in this time by consuming very nice steak and kidney pies – about ten in an evening.
A lady with a speech impediment went into a butcher’s shop and asked for a pound of steak and kidley to which the butcher replied: “You mean steak and kidney madam, don’t you?” The lady angrily retorted: “That’s what I said, diddle-i?”
At primary school I was very academic, particularly gifted in art, and I was also sent (I wasn’t very keen) to music lessons for piano. I was still a bit of a loner and I never had and never attended a birthday party, or any other party or gathering for that matter.
By the time I reached eleven and a half years of age, I was over five foot eleven and weighed around eleven and a half stone. I expected to be bigger than all of the other kids when I turned up for my first morning at secondary school in my school blazer and short trousers. I was absolutely amazed when I met my future friend at the school gates—all six foot seven of him—and wearing short pants too. Thinking about it now, I suppose he looked like Peter Crouch would have looked if he had turned up then. He also had obviously been shaving for some time. The rest of the kids were, indeed, smaller. I developed a great interest in athletics as well as football. Pretty soon I was winning most events in athletics and was pushing everyone else around in football. By the age of thirteen, I had grown to six foot two and weighed around thirteen and a half stone. I had been offered a trial for the city football team, which was an honour for both me and the school. I could kick a football harder and further than anyone I had ever met; the only problem was that I could not determine, with any great accuracy, the direction that the ball would take.
I was given the opportunity to attend a week-long outward-bound course in the Lake District. This was offered to those who showed promise at sporting events. About twenty or so of us attended, both males and females. There was of course strict dormitory control exercised by the supervising teachers. We had long treks during the day such as scaling Helvellyn and fell races, which I always won. At night we had organised social events such as learning the standard dances and after that a bit of pop (fizzy drinks). This was really my first encounter with the opposite sex and stimulated my interest in the other species. Pretty soon I was engaged in a bit of exploratory fondling, but that was as far as it went, however, the hormonal seeds were sown.
Back at school came a day that would shape the rest of my life. Things were going very well for me until I interrupted a game of football in the school yard, having been encouraged to do so by my school mates. I borrowed their football and kicked the ball into orbit. This was witnessed by the Games Master, who considered himself to be a real tough guy. He shouted my name and called me into the gymnasium. He was holding a plimsoll in his hand; I knew what was coming. He had a bad habit of making boys drop their trousers and whacking them on their bare buttocks with his trusty plimsoll. This was more about displaying his toughness to the rest of the school than punishing me. Being the most physically developed boy in the school and being publically humiliated was going to be the ultimate display of invincibility by this bully. He told me to bend over. All eyes and ears were glued to my reaction. Encouraged by my peers to stand up to him, I came out with the unfortunate response: “Take a step toward to me with that thing and I’ll shove it up your arse.” I can
still hear the gasps and anticipation of the crowd. The master threw the plimsoll at me and said, “Wait there.” He stormed off, returning very quickly with two pairs of boxing gloves. He threw a pair at me and said, “Put those on.”, while he put the other pair on. He was now going to teach me the lesson of all lessons. I was surprisingly very calm. It was this day that I discovered a talent that I never knew that I had.
As well as taking me to the dog track, my father used to take me to boxing events. I used to meet the best fighters of the day in their dressing rooms. One particular fighter I saw regularly was Brian London and his father Jack. My father knew Jack very well and the Second World War had robbed them both of their best years of boxing. One of the most famous boxers to grace this venue was Sonny Liston, who came to give an exhibition. I remember him skipping to the musical strains of “Night Fever”. More impressive was his arrival into the city. On alighting from his train, he rode around the streets on a borrowed white horse. I used to watch all the fights at this venue and I was incredibly nervous and did not want to see anyone hurt, or worse. I didn’t like the blood which splattered about. I thought that I could never be a fighter: I was just too scared.
So, I am stood there and the Games Master comes rushing towards me and I instinctively thrust out a ramrod of a stiff left jab which reverberates right through his Master’s body and there is an explosion of blood from his nose. Without any conscious thought, instinctively, by natural reaction, I had stopped this charging man right in his tracks. He picked himself up and rushed into the toilets, embarrassed as well as hurt. Oh no, what have I done?
An interview with the Head and the Games Master was the result, where I was informed that my forthcoming football trial for the city was cancelled and so was all my involvement in all future school sports. I thought this to be very unfair, particularly as I was invited to participate in the Games Master’s public humiliation. This was a great turning point: I lost interest in school. I was sent to the library during games and just messed about. The only physical exercise that I entered into with a remote school connection was an eight-mile cross country race, which was entered by a school friend who was a particularly talented distance runner. I went along and joined his race club as a guest runner for the evening event. The other runners were knocking at the door of representing the country. I had now developed a dogged determination that no other human person was going to beat me at anything physical. We shocked the life out of these runners and we finished fifth and sixth, only because we had been so far out in front that we took a wrong turning and we did what seemed like an extra couple of miles before we re-joined the race.
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