As it's an 'encore' weekend at Spiritplantsradio.com I thought I'd share with you the thrilling early chapters of my life.
It explains a lot
I was born 15th February 1956 in Rushgreen
hospital Romford Essex, my identical twin did not survive long after birth due
to his skull being badly crushed. My first memory is in my
pram in Wooly's (I think at that age all department stores were known to me as
Wooly's), Teddy fell out and although I screamed and screamed I couldn't get
"them" to stop and rescue him. My next memory is again in Wooly's, I was a
little older as now I was walking, as I moved through the shoppers I suddenly
felt Teddy brush past my face, I spun round and grabbed hold of him with a
desperate vice like grip and buried my face in his fur, when to my horror my
mummy grabbed me by the collar and pulled me away from my beloved Teddy (yes my
own mother!), as I lost my grip I looked up at him and found a women in a fur
coat! To this day I suspect this fiend was probably Cruella deVille who had
kidnapped Teddy and killed him and skinned my lovely Ted to wear his
pelt.
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| Mum & Me |
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| On my Dads bike |
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| There always has to be a naked in the bath pic |
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| The Shop in Clacton |
While playing pirates with my friend Ginge
(below) we had a sword fight using our penknives, Ginge took a swipe and sliced
my arm open across the inside of my left elbow opening the main vain and the
blood started pumping out. I remember coming down the outside steps saying over
my shoulder “I might not ever play with you again” and made my way into the shop
obviously freaking out mum & dad. I was rushed to hospital where I claimed I
had fallen on a drawing pin as I didn't want to get Ginge into trouble. The
surgeon who stitched my vain back together pointed out the obvious holes in this
account, but I stuck to my guns.
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| Ginge |
The year after 'Pirates' I went to stay with my
mothers foster parents Granddad Moon & Nana Fluff in
Romford. Their surname was Moon but for some reason I named Nana after the next
door cat! Whilst out on my trike I fell off and hurt my arm, I cried and
complained about the pain all night but was told “it's only a graze don't make
such a fuss.” At the doctors the next day he took one look and said It's broken
and I had my first trip in an ambulance, the ambulance men thought it funny I
insisted on giving my Clacton address. The rest of my stay was wonderful as GM
& NF were so guilt ridden I was able to twist them round my little
finger.
Whilst at Clacton I made my mother proud of me
for the first and I suspect only time. I came second in the school sports day
wheelbarrow race, I was the barrow and Ginge the pusher. I know she still had
the newspaper clipping when I was in my 30s.
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| I seem to have been a miserable sod |
The year we took the shop the first supermarket
opened, disaster. Dad held on for another year before we lost the shop and had
to leave. This meant I missed the last episode in a Flash Gordon series and to
this day I don't know how he escaped the deadly crushing arms of the robot
enemy.
At Clacton was the
best pub I have ever known it was the Golden Lion and had it's own cinema that
showed non-stop animation. The kids were parked there while the adults went to
the bar. It was fantastic, not just the usual cartoons but films of Javanese
shadow puppets and other wonders slipped in between the Popeye and Woody
Woodpecker, I loved it, a big bag of flying saucers and non stop animation. It
also had a sign in the car park reading 'please park prettily' which I found
hilariously funny imagining cars parked in circles with fairy
lights.
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| Me & Uncle Chas |
We went to stay with my fathers parents at their
pub in the docklands (at that time actual docks) 'The Brunswick Arms' for a
while (2 or 3 months I think) and then moved in with my god parents Chaz (above)
and Doreen in Basildon and I had to restart school. All I can really remember of
the house is the home made wine bubbling away at night in my bed room. I
remember we had constipations to see who could get the most kids on their bike
at the same time and make it all the way down the hill. The school had a film
club and I remember on night for some reason I had the wrong colour ticket and
burst into tears, the teacher was mystified why I had started crying – I thought
I was going to miss the film I don't see what she didn't understand. To this day
I have no trouble crying – in fact the day before I wrote this Dave came round
to find me crying at the final episode of The Woman In Black. The girls used to
like to bring friends round and then put ST TNG episode “Skin Of Evil” because the eulogy for
Tasha Yar always starts me off. I think it was at this school I was made to
write with my left hand for a week because my hand writing was so bad they
thought I might be left handed – I'm not, but I did/do use a smeary stile to
cover up my complete inability to speal evan the simplist of
words (I never tire of that joke).
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| I didn't like cowboys |
I have no real
idea how long it was before we moved to the bungalow at Thundersley. I remember
the first morning as I went off to the woods alone so I could listen to the
Archers omnibus, I was an 'Archers Addict' even at the age of 6. One radio
program I did avoid was 'The Clitheroe Kid' as I didn't like cowboy stories
(above), then I happened to catch it by mistake and realized my
mistake.
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| Me, Dad & the Van |
And if you don't behave there will be more of this in the future.
