UNITED KINGDOM, Feb 04 — When there was only the three of us there she ruled that house, her hand sheathed in a Methodist glove with even the TV banned on Sundays.
My personality was built around these two, one my father being an introverted man more interested in the construction of ‘wireless sets’ than me and the other, my mother, finding God where ever she looked. This may account for many of the idiosyncrasies I showed then. It was there amongst the tall glass jars of mysterious pills and potions that after an initial examination and making no fuss over the two foot high gush of blood from the artery that I had severed, I was literarily ‘stitched up’ with him sending me back home with no more than a flea in my ears
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hen there was only the three of us there she ruled that house, her hand sheathed in a Methodist glove with even the TV banned on Sundays.
My personality was built around these two, one my father being an introverted man more interested in the construction of ‘wireless sets’ than me and the other, my mother, finding God where ever she looked. This may account for many of the idiosyncrasies I showed then. One in particular stands out as an example. In a Junior School photograph there is the whole of my year on the stage in uniform bar me. I am at the end seated in the front row dressed as a cowboy. I have the full regalia, a Stetson, waistcoat, guns and holster wearing a sheriff badge, if you find that troubling then imagine how I now feel seeing it. I not sure why I wasn’t a Marshall! The thing that really does upset me though is the unanswerable question why am I also wearing Carpet Slippers with no spurs?
When my parents first married they made their home in Green Hill barracks at the RA depot on Woolwich Common where apparently my maternal Grandfather would often visit carrying bags of needed groceries. This image of him I have to say brings me a sense of pride, as nowadays, having three grandchildren, my wife and I have mirrored his actions in providing their parents with both shelter in the form of housing and also treats and necessities in the shape of perishable goods.
I was born at Kings Collage Hospital Camberwell on the 29th July 1949 and judging by my christening photo’s could almost be mistaken as a girl. Someone dressed me in some long flowing dress with frilly cuffs and collar, no wonder I look bemused.
Within a year of my birth the family home was cleared of incumbents, the eldest son and his wife father and mother of bomb carrying cousin, and room was made for us three. It was in an area of London known as Abbey Wood but as the dilapidated Abbey was three miles away as a crow would no doubt fly, Plumstead was a more accurate location with the same titled Bus Garage opposite my School, five minutes walk away. In that educational building I spent the first six years of my formative life as Primary was just a short walk along its corridors from the Junior where I had so disgraced my Mum and Dad. Somewhere along that walk I lost the urge to become a reincarnated Wyatt Earp but I discovered more mischief to get up to!
Mum and I got locked out of the house one day. She had forgotten her keys but I soon came to her rescue, suggesting that I could gain entry ‘round the back.’ Here was an old ramshackle emerald green painted wooden outbuilding added on to the main house that eventually my father replaced with the bespoke conservatory previously mentioned. The chance had come to redeem myself in my mothers eyes. I smashed a window with my bare fist.
The first thing that happened after the crash of glass was the sound of a gasp from my startled Mum and her words of “my god what have you done.” I too wondered and then instantaneously realized that perhaps as a punishment for my lack of awareness of him, God had almost sliced of my arm. We had no telephone to summon help nor car in which to carry my profusely bleeding body off in, but we had something better. We were surrounded by small enterprising shops.There were two Grocery shops, one a Co-Op where you got the ‘Divi’ and had to quote your membership number which I knew by heart. A butchers, a hairdressers, a greengrocery, an off-license, a fish and chip shop, three sweets and tobacconists one selling newspapers, another the best ice-cream I’d tasted and the final one where I was sent for my fathers Golden Virgina and packet of green papers and his occasional bar of ‘caramac.’
But far more important to the situation that I found myself in, there was a Doctors Surgery which was closed and a Chemist which wasn’t. It was there amongst the tall glass jars of mysterious pills and potions that after an initial examination and making no fuss over the two foot high gush of blood from the artery that I had severed, I was literarily ‘stitched up’ with him sending me back home with no more than a flea in my ears.
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My first novel was published on 19 March and is available at Waterstone’s, Barnes&Noble and all the Amazon sites. THE DESOLATE GARDEN; a spy murder mystery. I am a London Licensed Taxi Driver.
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