I also enjoyed digging the mud out from the pool, and once it was on the side we had to shovel it into the wheelbarrow, run it up the ramp on to the back of the lorry. Because the brickwork was ancient, they had to dig it out and put a retainer wall in to make it safe. The farm didn’t have much money to employ people, so it made sense for the volunteers to dig out the mud. So we did that from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; my back was killing me, my arms were killing me and I got home and I was absolutely cream-crackered, but I enjoyed it.
I did my run in the morning, went for a four- or five-mile run, did the work, then came home, and I think all the work and fresh air made me sleep again.
One woman there was a bit like me. She said: ‘I don’t work any more, I’ve got a few properties I take rental income from, nothing complicated. I used to work on the markets, but I’ve given that up now. So I just wanted something to do for a couple of days a week.’ She was a lovely woman, and me and her were grafters. You got a lot of kids there who had been kicked out of school, and sent to special schools because they’d been naughty. Then they’d send them to the farm to work, and they were good as gold. It was an eye-opener for me.
One kid said: ‘Are you a policeman?’
‘No, I’m not a policeman.’
‘What car d’you drive?’ he asked.
‘A BMW.’
‘Yeah, you’re a policeman!’ he said. ‘They all drive BMWs.’
He didn’t have a clue what I did for a living. So I just got chatting to him. I liked him; he was buzzy and hyperactive, and had good energy about him.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I come here once or twice a week,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve been kicked out of school, and they make me come here.’
He was 15, and it made me think, some people have had it hard. Perhaps he’s not had much discipline in his life, and had just been able to get away with things.
‘What did you do at school?’ I said.
‘Oh, just fight with the teachers, they get on my nerves.’
‘What do your mum and dad say about it?’
‘Well, they don’t care,’ he said.
I thought, these kids have had nobody to support them. Their mums and dads just don’t care about them. It made me think about Lily and Ronnie, and I thought it was so important to be there for them, to try to steer them in the right direction, to make them feel loved and wanted, and have respect for people. I wouldn’t want my little boy or girl going to school and treating people the way that boy was, yet he was a nice kid; he just needed someone to tap into that and get the best out of him, make him feel good about himself and loved. It made me think about how lucky I was growing up, having a father and mother to support me like they did, and to discipline me, and tell me right from wrong.
I don’t think I ever managed to convince the kid I wasn’t a copper. Part of the fun of working there was being anonymous. The volunteers didn’t have a clue who I was, or they didn’t care. Normally wherever I go I’m not sure if people are just nice to me because I’m famous, and I get fed up of that. You get people wanting an autograph and picture and to talk to you about snooker, whereas these people were just talking to me as if I was a normal person, a proper civilian as Liz Hurley would say. The only other time I’d had that was when I went to New York on holiday; they don’t watch snooker out there, so they were just treating me as a normal punter.
But this was great because it was only two to three miles from home and I was anonymous. For once I wasn’t having to worry about why people were talking to me. It was like going back to basics, and seeing how you could interact with people who know nothing about you. You’re all on a level playing field.
You could tell a lot about the people who were there. There was one kid who wouldn’t move a muscle. For five or six hours he didn’t pick a shovel up, didn’t do a thing.
I said: ‘Mate, what is the point of you being here? You are just a waste of space’, and he looked at me and we got on really well. We had a laugh. He was 14 or 15. Another naughty kid.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘get involved, just get a shovel, you’ll feel better, trust me.’
But he wouldn’t. He was just flicking stones in the pool, winding people up. He was good to have a laugh with, but a genuine waste of space. Whatever I said to him made no difference. He had no intention of doing anything. He’d just sit back and tell me how to feed the animals.
‘Well, don’t do that,’ he’d say. ‘Put this over there, put that over there, do this, do that.’
I remember Tony coming in and saying: ‘He’ll drive you mad, he will. Good kid, but he’ll drive you nuts.’ And in the end he was telling me everything I should do, but he wasn’t doing any of it himself. He was just making it up. Even if he wasn’t sure what he was saying, he’d blag it. That’s when I told him he didn’t have a clue.
I fed the pigs and the goats. The pigs were good fun. You’d just lob their pellets in, and they’d eat anything that mob. Frightening. Unbelievable. I don’t even eat ham now, seeing how they live. I’d loved a bit of ham till then, but seeing the shit the pigs eat I won’t touch it now.
The goats were alright, but I was a bit frightened of them. As soon as you gave them their food they’d bang you about. We’d leave the barrels of hay for the cows right by the field and somebody else would go to feed them.
Working on the farm has made me like chicken more because chickens are not dirty animals. But I didn’t get too involved with them because they’d come flying out and I’ve never been keen on live creatures flying around me.
I worked on the farm for around six weeks. They sent me an email early February saying they hadn’t seen me for a few weeks and was I still interested in volunteering; if not, no problem. I emailed them back and said, I’ve just decided to go back to work, you probably won’t see me for a while, but in the future I’d like to go back to do a bit again.
I liked the idea of the community spirit at the farm. They were a genuinely nice bunch of people just getting on with their lives. There was no rush to get things done whereas outside everything was pressure, pressure, pressure. On the farm I found myself in an environment where people appreciated your help but didn’t demand anything of you. If I gave them half an hour of my time they were grateful; it was like, thanks so much, d’you want a brew? It was great being around people who didn’t care what I did or what I drove. All they were interested in was, can you help us, can you feed a few chickens and ducks because if you can that allows us to get on with the more important stuff. It restored a lot of faith in life for me. I felt I’d been battered for three years, and it had made me ill and dispirited. Going to the farm was a way of grounding myself again.
As I’ve said, it made me sleep better, too. I think I’ve tried every sleeping aid in the world – Nightnurse, Piriton, Zolpidem, Stilnox, the lot – and none of them worked for me. I went to this doctor and he said, insomnia’s a common problem.
‘Take this pill,’ he said, ‘it’s an anti-depressant, but it’s the only thing that will give you eight hours’ sleep guaranteed.’
Lovely, I thought, and that got me back sleeping. Not sleeping was killing me. Now I’m getting about four to five hours. If I go to bed at 11 p.m., I’m up for 4 to 5 a.m. It’s not great, but it’s better than going to bed at midnight and being up at two, which I did for two and a half years. In the end my brain was gone.
Despite allowing me to see more of the kids and giving me time on the farm, part of me thought I shouldn’t have stopped playing. I’m sure that whatever happened Jo wouldn’t have banned me from seeing them just because I was playing snooker and had to miss a few of my scheduled times with them. After all, she’s a good mum and has the children’s interests at heart. I still don’t know what the right thing to do is. I couldn’t love my kids more, but snooker is my career. And not one that’s going to last much longer. Over the past year I have seen lots of the kids and it’s been wonderfu
l but you’ll never convince me that it was the only way I could have done it – to sacrifice my career for my children.
9
WE ARE FAMILY
‘Ran hard, pace felt fast, slowed down at halfway for a bit then worked hard up the hills.’
I’d run a bit at school. Everyone had to do the old cross-country, and a bit of sprinting for sports day. But I can’t say I liked it. It was Dad who got me running regularly when I was 12, and then it became even more of a chore. This was way before we struck up our deal about leaving school early so long as I kept disciplined and did my daily three-milers. He was always a fit fella, with the football and going down the gym regularly, boxing and skipping, and maybe he looked at me, saw all the shit I was eating, and thought, if he doesn’t watch it he’s going to be a right lardy fucker. Whatever: from an early age he told me to get myself out for a regular jog. Dad wasn’t the kind of person you argued with. He was dead right, of course – by the age of 10 I was already spending a lot of my waking life in snooker halls, and you needed a balance to that. Not only would I become a little chubster eating crisps and chocolate, but stuck in those the horrible, dark, smoky rooms I’d start to look like Dracula for lack of fresh air. Dad instilled in me the belief that exercise and fresh air meant feeling better, and feeling better meant playing better.
The first time I played snooker was on my cousin Glenn’s table. His parents, Peter and Maureen, my aunt and uncle, had a little table at their house in Orpington, Kent. When I was over there I’d hit some balls on it, wasn’t very good, but I enjoyed it, and Dad bought me a table for Christmas. I was seven years old, and it was my first table. Dad got it fitted a few days before Christmas, but I wasn’t allowed to play till Christmas Day. He and his mates were playing on it, and I kept going to look at it. I just wanted to hit a few balls on it, but he was, like: ‘No, just wait till Christmas, then it’s yours!’ It was a lovely table. Little Ronnie now plays on a similar one, and when I see him it reminds me of my young self – head just popping over the table. I’ve given Ron a few lessons, told him what’s right and wrong. In a way I’d hate him to play snooker professionally because it’s such a mentally tough sport. I’d much rather he played tennis or golf and was out in the fresh air. But if he decided snooker was what he wanted to do I’d back him all the way, and I do believe he’s got a talent. I watch him play, his bridge hand, the little things he does, and I think he’s got the natural hand-eye coordination. But I hope he doesn’t take it up professionally.
Playing snooker’s a horrible life in some ways. For one, you’re told to keep your emotions in check so you don’t talk a lot, there’s no interaction and you can spend five hours without saying a word. You learn to become a recluse, an automaton. Look at a lot of snooker players: they shut down and walk around like zombies. You can spot a snooker player a mile away. You can see the character in most of the players, too – they’re not big conversationalists, they’re quiet, introverted. And I wouldn’t want little Ronnie to be like that. I’d like him to be more outgoing, confident, playing in a band, anything like that, interacting with the world.
Snooker is a lonely sport, too. You have to work lots of things out for yourself. You’d rarely go to anybody and ask for help because that’s seen as a sign of weakness. You never want to share what’s going on in your mind with competitors – having said that, there are times when I overshare! – just in case they psychologically get one over you. Maybe it’s the same in every sport.
When I was a little boy, Mum and Dad were away working most of the time, but we were still a tight unit of three, until my sister Danielle came along when I was seven – then we became a tight unit of four.
From an early age, Mum and Dad left me with other people as they put in the hours – au pairs, friends, neighbours. There was one au pair who terrified me. I can’t remember why, but I was in total fear of her. That’s the only bit of my childhood I look back on negatively. The rest was good. Part of the time I lived with another family who were just round the corner. They had two girls and a son, and that’s where I stayed most of the time. Again, it was because Mum and Dad were working all hours. I’d sleep over at their house or, sometimes, the girl would take me back to my house and stay over with me. They were like older sisters – they had already left school while I was still in primary school. So even though I haven’t got older brothers and sisters, it felt as if I did have.
Mum and Dad were young parents. When I was six, they were still only in their mid-twenties, just beginning to get on in life. Mum’s family had quite a successful ice-cream business in Birmingham, a load of vans, and they tried living there. But Dad couldn’t hack it, so he came back to London and got a flat, and as soon as he got a flat Mum came down with me. I was 18 months old, and my parents had no money at the time. Because she was Sicilian and she had married an Englishman, Mum’s family decided she had dishonoured the family.
They thought Dad was lazy and didn’t want to work, and Mum’s family couldn’t stand him back then. They would sit there and talk about him in Italian in front of him, saying: ‘Look at him, he’s useless, all he does is eat all the food, sits on the settee, won’t drive the ice-cream vans, he’s lazy.’
Dad was sitting there, eating his pasta, thinking he’s having a wonderful time, and Mum would be sticking up for him in Italian and then she’d turn to him and say: ‘Right, come on, Ron, we’re going!’
And he’d go: ‘Why? What’s the matter? I’m having a great time here.’
He said it was only later on that he found out they didn’t like him. But Mum’s family did grow to love him as a son.
Mum’s always been a grafter – old-school. And Dad’s still lazy, despite building up a business. He’s never been overly keen on a day’s work, although he was forced to do one when I was young. Mum just said to him: ‘Okay, you’ve got to go and earn some money now. All this playing football and that, I don’t see no money coming in. Go and get a proper job and bring some money in!’ So that’s why they ended up working so hard.
First of all, he was cleaning cars with Mum – Mum was doing the ins and he was cleaning the outs. Then she started wait-ressing in the evening, and he got into the porn game. The porn business suited him down to the ground. Mum was the one who gave him the little shove he needed, and once he got a taste for it he thought he’d found the dream job – instead of sitting behind a desk, he was up the West End, having a laugh with the lads. He just landed a job working for someone in the first place. He was pretty good at selling, pretty good with figures, and they liked him.
The police were raiding a lot of the sex shops at the time, and the people running the shops got a bit bottly and worried – they didn’t want to go to prison, and they thought if they were nicked under the old obscenity laws they’d end up doing time. But Dad just thought, there’s good money in this game and if I get six months or a year it’s worth it. He never went down for running the sex shops – but he did end up doing a lot longer than that in the end.
He was selling pornographic magazines. He told me that a lot of people would put stars on the vaginas and the penises so when they went to court they’d go: ‘Yes, it’s obscene, but there’s a star to cover it’, but Dad left the vaginas and arses exposed, and began putting stars on elbows and armpits and feet and toes because he said he found them obscene! These were the days before sex shops were licensed. His brothers have still got a few shops left in London’s West End called Harmony, but Mum and Dad are out of the game now. I think Mum got frightened when she got banged up. She did six or seven months, and she never wanted to go through that stress again. She thought she’d rather take less money and be out of the firing line. She’s chilling out, going on holidays and having a good time these days.
I had a snooker room built for me at the end of the garden when I was 11. It was a huge room with the table, obviously, a settee, a telly, and I’d spend 10 to 11 hours a day in there just hitting balls. Now I’m not sure that’s healthy for somebody
starting out in life but then again to be successful it’s necessary to go through that.
There’s that old cliché that being good at snooker is a sign of a misspent youth. It’s funny that people never say it about golf or football or cricket. But there is an element of truth in it. Why would you spend all those hours in the dark when you could be outside in the sun? I was such an early starter. By the age of 10 I was making centuries, at 12 I won my first pro-am tournament and when I was 15 I made my first maxi. In snooker terms, I was ridiculously precocious. I don’t think Stephen Hendry began playing till he was 13 or 14 and Steve Davis was 14 when he started the game. Maybe it’s not that they were late starters, it’s just that I was a ridiculously early starter.
I soon discovered that snooker messes with your head more than any sport. There’s no other sport where you just have to sit down till your opponent has finished their business. You’re sitting there knowing there’s nothing you can do. But in a way there is something you can do. If you play to your potential you definitely have an effect on what your opponent does. So although physically you can’t do anything, if you dominate the game when you are at the table it does have an effect on your opponent. In some ways that is even more satisfying because you can see him making mistake after mistake, unravelling in front of you. Even though you are not getting punched in the face, or punching your opponent in the face, you are bullying your opponents in some respects.
Having said that, I think I’d rather be punched in the face than bullied on the snooker table. There are a couple of players who have bullied me on the table – sometimes I’ve come away from playing John Higgins and Stephen Hendry feeling I’ve been battered. There is nothing worse than sitting in the chair, at the Crucible or any big venue, for eight or nine frames taking the punishment, not potting a ball, watching your opponent clock up the scores. You feel embarrassed, you start questioning your ability. But in a sick way for many fans this is the joy of snooker – watching someone sit in his chair, shrivelling, falling apart. There’s a sadistic pleasure people get out of it. It’s total punishment.
Running: The Autobiography Page 11