One Chance

by Paul Potts

  This was turning out to be a great afternoon. We bought our ice creams from the resident van and ate them hungrily as we walked the long way home. We rarely went back the same way we got to the park—a habit I still follow. The three of us would walk through the whole of Oldbury Court Estate, pausing from time to time to play in the River Frome. We reached Snuff Mills and had a look at the old mill wheel. There was a café there, where sometimes we’d get our ice creams. The owners knew us and would sometimes give us a few extra sweets on top. The walk ensured that we got to experience the river; the feel of the waterfall always made us feel cool, and the force of it was awe inspiring.

  We walked on, climbing back up Blackberry Hill, which felt enormous when you had short legs. By now the heat was getting to me, and I was gasping for thirst.

  “Can we stop at the shop and get something to drink?” I asked.

  Mum shook her head. “No, Paul, we’ve got pop back at home.”

  The thought of pop to drink back at the house briefly got John and me excited.

  “Council pop,” Mum corrected.

  I sighed in disappointment. “Council pop” was of course tap water.

  I was born and grew up in Bristol, and have always felt lucky to have done so. Bristol is a fantastic city. It has always been a vibrant and exciting place to live, and boasts its own musical and cultural identity. With Wales just across the Severn Bridge, the Forest of Dean to the north, and the holiday resorts of Devon and Cornwall a short drive to the south, it is perfectly situated to enjoy some of Britain’s most beautiful countryside. As with many large British cities in the 1970s and 1980s, it had its share of problems, but that never took away from what made it a special place.

  My family lived in the Fishponds area of Bristol. We lived in a Victorian terraced house, which wasn’t small but not exactly big, either, for a large family like ours. I am the second oldest of four children: John is the oldest, then it’s me and the twins, Tony and Jane. I could describe us as living from hand to mouth, and perhaps by today’s standards we were, but we had the basics.

  Were we poor? It depends what you measure it against. We were fed, watered, and clothed, and in reality there isn’t much you can ask for apart from that. Our clothes were rarely brand new, unless a school uniform grant was provided for their purchase. When we had a television, it was rented from Radio Rentals.

  Dad did many different jobs, all of them manual labour, which paid only just about enough. Mum did some work from home, knitting jumpers and gloves to order. Every little bit helps, as the saying goes.

  Mum came from a coal-mining community in South Wales called Abertillery. Strangely enough, Julz’s dad lived a few streets behind her, and Julz’s grandfather and my maternal grandfather both worked in the same pit together. We always enjoyed going to see Nanny Beat (short for Beatrice) and Grandcha, as we called our grandfather. Grandcha could be a little mischievous sometimes: he once offered my older brother a pound if he would cut the grass—a lot of money for a small boy back then. When John said yes, he handed him a very rusty pair of shears for him to work with. It was just as well that John was resourceful from an early age.

  We saw signs for the M4 motorway to South Wales very frequently as we walked round Bristol, and longed for our next trip there. It wasn’t that our grandparents spoiled us with material things; it was more because they, and my grandcha in particular, doted on their grandchildren. Grandcha once made the trip to Bristol by himself without telling Nanny Beat where he was going, just so he could see us. That involved quite a difficult journey by bus, including several changes along the way. He got into trouble with Nanny because he left without telling her where he was going, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to see his grandchildren.

  As with my grandparents, there was a definite power balance in our own house, but in this case the power was on the man’s side. Mum was, and has always been, the mild-mannered, quiet, hard-working sort of person who got on with her life with few complaints. Dad, by contrast, was the disciplinarian. On the whole, we were all well behaved, but there were times when we wouldn’t listen and we’d hear the immortal words, “Wait ’til your father gets home!” That usually got the desired effect.

  As is often the case, my siblings and I were quite different from each other. My older brother was born just over a year before me, while Tony and Jane, the twins, were born just under two years later. These differences became apparent as we got older. John had the gift of the gab. He always seemed to know what to say and what to do. When he got to school, he knew exactly how to deal with the strong characters on the playground. I, by contrast, didn’t have a clue.

  I wasn’t a bad kid, but often I seemed to find myself getting into scrapes, especially when I was with Alex, one of my early friends. Alex was about the same age as me, with red hair and prominent freckles that really stood out in the summer. He was perhaps not the greatest of influences, and whenever we hung out, we’d egg each other on to see what we could get away with. More often than not, we ended up getting into mischief.

  One day after school, Alex and I were playing at the bottom of the street. At the end of my road there was a filling station, and while we were messing about I noticed the safety shut-off switch at the back of the yard.

  “Go on,” I said. “I dare you to push the switch.”

  “Why?” Alex replied. “Are you too scared to push it yourself?”

  We looked at each other to see who would be brave enough to push the switch to the pumps off position. After a delay, I took the plunge. Since I wasn’t the tallest of children, I had to scramble up a wall to reach it. Even then it was harder than it looked, but I managed to push it up with both hands.

  Somehow, I got away with it. No one had spotted us, and Alex and I went over to watch the bemused looks as drivers filling up their cars found their pumps had stopped operating. As the chaos unfolded, we chickened out and made a run for it before anyone saw us. Which was probably just as well: Mum worked in the garage as a part-time cleaner, and I’d have been in for it if I’d been caught.

  On another occasion, Alex suggested we go by bike to St. Paul’s, where his father worked. St. Paul’s was a part of Bristol that in the early eighties was considered something of a no-go area, even in the daytime. A couple of years later, it made national headlines after rioting broke out. A bike trip to St. Paul’s, therefore, was something of an adventure.

  Alex had a Raleigh Chopper, which was the bike at the top of every boy’s wish list back then. The Chopper looked like a small version of a Harley-Davidson, with the handlebars going out wide and a gear stick with three gears in front on the crossbar. It was to die for, particularly since I didn’t have a bike.

  “That’s okay,” Alex told me. “You can borrow my sister’s bike.”

  His sister Caroline’s bike was the height of trendiness at the time, but for girls rather than boys. Instead of being a Raleigh Chopper, it was a pale-blue Raleigh Shopper, complete with shopping basket on the front. I felt like an idiot, but the only other option was to run alongside Alex like a wimpy boxer out for a run with his ginger (red-haired) trainer. So without Caroline’s knowing, I took her bike.

  It was a three-mile journey from Fishponds to St. Paul’s, through St. George and Easton. It was in Easton where things started to unravel. Alex, I quickly realized, was far more confident than I was on two wheels. I was struggling to keep up.

  I was following Alex as he pedalled into the underpass above the M32, the motorway that links Bristol to the M4, the main road from London to South Wales. Today these underpasses have a marked cycle lane through them, but back then bikes were banned. That wasn’t the only thing telling us we weren’t meant to be there on two wheels: there was also a four-foot-high barrier made of metal tubing that went halfway across the path and another just behind it.

  As an experienced cyclist, Alex didn’t have a problem with the barriers. He dodged them both without even putting his feet on the ground or even slowing down very much.
As a much less experienced cyclist, the sensible thing for me to do was to brake and walk my bike round. Instead of braking, however, I thought I would use the slope alongside the underpass tunnel to stop my momentum. I pointed the bike straight at the tunnel wall and pedalled ahead. Wallop! The bike hit the wall and I followed straight after with a loud crack.

  The crack was my middle tooth, which I had chipped and exposed a nerve in. It was painful, and only became more so when I got back onto Caroline’s bike and felt the wind whistle through it. To make matters worse, the Shopper hadn’t come out well from the crash, either: The wheel had buckled in the fall, and I had to pedal even harder to get it to continue turning.

  We made it to St. Paul’s and then started to head back. All the time, the pain in my tooth was increasing. At least on the return journey I made sure to walk the by now complaining bicycle round the barriers. What followed was even more unpleasant. As we turned the corner into Alex’s street, we could see a very displeased mother and daughter scowling at us. Alex was in trouble for not telling his mum where he was going, and we were both in the doghouse for taking Caroline’s bike without asking, then bringing it back in such a mangled condition.

  Because she didn’t know where he was, Alex’s mum had been round to my house to see if he was there. I groaned. That meant my parents also knew I’d slipped off without permission. I trudged disconsolately home to a double whammy of punishment and a trip to the dentist.

  The bike incident wasn’t the only accident I was involved in growing up, and the next occasion was far more serious. It happened on a trip to Wales. I had been to a parade service for the Boys’ Brigade (a Christian youth organisation) as I was being awarded a badge. After the service the plan was to drive to see Nanny Beat and Grandcha for lunch.

  We didn’t always have a car growing up, but at this time we had a Ford Escort van. It was brown, had a rear seat-bench and rear windows, and was a tight fit for the four of us children in the back. Tony and Jane, the youngest in the family, often sat in the very rear of the van as we travelled. This was an era when wearing seatbelts was not legally required. Seatbelts in the back were not even thought of at this point.

  Dad hated wearing a seatbelt. He dreaded the upcoming law change that would make wearing them compulsory, saying that wearing it made him feel trapped. On this particular Sunday, however, my brother John had persuaded Dad to strap himself in. Dad had put it on to humour him, intending to remove it shortly thereafter. As it happened, Dad forgot he had it on, and he drove away from home with it still attached.

  It took us some twenty-five minutes to get from our house to the motorway. We were all looking forward to our day trip to Nanny Beat’s. These excursions were very special, and we’d stop at the Aust service station on the way back for a drink and a view across the Severn Bridge. This particular journey, however, was to prove memorable for all the wrong reasons.

  It happened shortly after we pulled onto the motorway. We were travelling at about fifty miles per hour in the inside, or slow, lane, when there was a loud bang on the back of the van. We learned later that we had been hit by a driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. His car was traveling at ninety-five miles per hour when it hit us. The van lurched as the other car hit us, and then everything went into a spin. Such was the impact that our van overturned five times into the central reservation (median strip), then rebounded back across the active lane before landing upside-down in the embankment.

  It was while all this was happening that Mum risked her life trying to make sure we were okay. The overturning happened quickly, yet I can still see Mum climbing over the front seat, desperately checking on us even as the windscreen glass lacerated her legs. I was in the middle, and if Mum hadn’t done that, the glass would have cut up my face.

  We were lucky to be alive. The traffic police who attended the accident made it clear that our lives had been saved because we were travelling in a small passenger van. Ordinarily, with the way the accident occurred, we should have all been killed. Passenger vans weren’t popular vehicles, and were cheaper to buy because they rarely had rear seats and windows. But they did have reinforced roofs, and that’s what protected us when the van overturned.

  Dad’s life was saved by the fact that he was still wearing his seatbelt. Even so, he had severe bruising from being thrown against the steering wheel. Most of us just had cuts and bruises, though Jane wasn’t so lucky. She was sitting by the right-hand window and had the worst of it. Her face was sliced open on the edge of her mouth and needed plastic surgery to put it right.

  The accident was a huge shock to us all. Sitting in the back of the ambulance, I cried all the way to the hospital. It took us a long time to get the courage to return to the motorway after that. For a while we’d go to Nanny Beat’s via a roundabout route of country lanes instead. To this day, I remember the site of the accident. On my trips back from Heathrow I think of it as we pass a sign that gives the mileage to Newport, Cardiff, and Swansea.

  One other important memory from my early childhood is of a time when my father’s disciplinarian side came head-to-head with Alex’s mischief making. It was over an altercation with our next-door neighbour Mrs. Hunt. I was the one stuck in the middle, with painful repercussions that lingered long after the incident itself.

  Mrs. Hunt had a son called Clive who once tripped John up against a wall, cutting his upper lip open and leaving a scar that my brother still has. Clive’s response was to laugh at John’s misfortune. Clive’s mother was also someone we’d never got on well with. And if we were playing in our back garden and kicked a ball over the low wall, it was confiscated for good. In fact, Mrs. Hunt only returned these balls (all of them) many years later. We always found her a little stubborn and were too afraid to ask for the balls back.

  On this occasion, Alex and I were playing at the bottom of the road as usual, when Mrs. Hunt passed us. It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine what mischief children could get into with a name like Hunt. It wasn’t something I would do, no matter how much I disliked my neighbours. Alex, however, found it extremely funny.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “It’s Mrs. C——.”

  As Alex shouted out the obscenity, he stood there laughing at the annoyance he had caused. The trouble was that Mrs. Hunt thought I had shouted at her. I watched in horror as she stormed up the street and knocked on our door. Before I knew it, there was my red-faced angry father shouting at me.

  “Paul! Get in here right this instant!”

  I looked round to Alex for support. But he, of course, had had the foresight to make himself scarce.

  As I went inside, I wasn’t sure who was more furious, my father or Mrs. Hunt.

  “I want you to tell me exactly what you shouted at Mrs. Hunt,” he said.

  “I didn’t shout anything,” I replied. “It was Alex!”

  “Don’t hide behind your friend,” Mrs. Hunt said. “I know it was you who shouted at me.”

  “It wasn’t,” I repeated. “Dad, it was Alex, not me!”

  “Are you calling Mrs. Hunt a liar now?” Dad responded.

  For a child to call an adult a liar was a serious accusation. But I stuck to the truth, and again insisted that it wasn’t I who had shouted.

  My father sent me out of the room and spoke with Mrs. Hunt alone. I was left cowering behind the living-room window, straining to hear what was being said. Mrs. Hunt was adamant that I had sworn at her, and wanted me to be disciplined.

  “If you don’t teach that boy how to behave, he’ll become uncontrollable,” she told my father. “It’s unacceptable for a child to use language like that.”

  Ironically, I was in complete agreement with Mrs. Hunt over the obscenity; even to this day, that particular word is one I abhor. But neither this, nor the fact that I was telling the truth, was enough to save me: I got the strap of my father’s belt no less than ten times. I was insistent to the end that I hadn’t said it, being honest to the point of stupidity. The more I protested my innocence, th
e more strikes I got. I was upset, not so much about the beating, which at this time would have been seen as acceptable, since corporal punishment was still being carried out at school. I was upset more about not being believed, as I wasn’t the sort to tell lies about this kind of incident.

  In the end, my father believed me. I’m not sure exactly what made him change his mind, but the fact that I had taken a beating and stood by my word may have had something to do with it. He apologised and told Mrs. Hunt that I had been disciplined unnecessarily because of her insistence. Even then, she didn’t back down. From then on, whenever she was walking on my side of the road, I crossed to the other side.

  Early on in life, I learned the hard way that the only person I could rely on was myself. Alex, I realized, wasn’t as dependable a friend as I’d thought he was. Rather than standing by my side, he buckled under pressure and left me to face my difficulties alone. When it came to school, as I was about to discover, I would have many such difficulties to deal with.

  CHAPTER TWO

  School

  “COME ON, Paul,” my mother said. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything?”

  It was breakfast time, but not like any I was used to. Today was my first day at Chester Park Infant School. My new school uniform felt scratchy and uncomfortable, and my stomach was tight with nerves.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’m really not that hungry.”

  “Don’t worry, love,” my mother said, “it’ll all be fine. And John will be there if you need help, won’t you, John?”

  I looked across at my older brother, happily wolfing down his breakfast without a care in the world. He had a natural confidence I wished I could share. Somehow, he had the knack of knowing what to say and what to do, and dealt easily with other people.

  My own social skills were close to zero. To John, meeting people didn’t appear to be a risk at all. To me, it felt like the most dangerous thing in the world. I didn’t like uncertainty, and I doubted myself the whole time. I preferred to hide in a corner and hope someone would approach me, saving me the risk of being rejected. I have always struggled in crowds, and in some ways I still do.