02/06/05 CHAPTER 1-childhood

My earliest memory of childhood is sitting on a blanket in the garden on a sunny day with my mom and younger sister Hazel, I was about six, my sister was four and a half, I think it was for the silver jubilee. I had curly blond hair as a child and was so fat as an infant that my mother had to lift the roles of fat up to dry me after a bath. I have three older brothers Barry, George and Jim, the eldest who is my half brother from my mother's first marriage, before I was born. Growing up I felt closer to my half brother than any other members of my family, he seemed to take a special interest in me, he acted like he knew something I didn't, probably because his own life experience wasn't ideal, not being with his own father must have felt strange. To my immature mind my father seemed to show less affection for him. When I was eleven he bought me a racing bike for Christmas costing one hundred pounds, which was a lot of money at the time, he had a job in a local Indian restaurant washing dishes. He went on to work at the "pit", the local coal mine, he worked there for ten years until the mines became unprofitable and Thatcher closed them. Not without a fight from the miners and their families which seemed to last forever and effect everyone.
We lived in a three bedroom council house on a rough estate in a small town in the midlands, things were tight but we never went hungry. I don't have a lot of memories under the age of about eight or nine, I don't know if this is normal but it's the way it is. I remember my dad tucking me into bed one night, hearing a loud noise and knowing something strange or bad had happened but being too young to realize what to do about it, I learned later that he had blacked out and fell down the stairs, no serious damage done. I remember moving house about aged nine and not really wanting to move, I've never really liked change, I seem at times to become overly attached to things, compared to other people anyway. A few months later I went back to visit our old house, it was about two miles away, the nostalgia in me, a trace of things to come.
Our new home was a three bedroom semi-detached council house, four doors away from my high school. There is a working men's club just across the road, my dad used to go there two or three times a week to play snooker, his passion.
He was good at it and played a game with Ray Reardon once almost becoming semi-professional, I don't think he had the time to study it full time, having five kids to feed.
I joined primary school for the last year or two. My memories of primary school aren't particularly pleasant, I remember going camping for a week to Shugborough Hall, at the time lord lichfield's home. I shared a tent with two other boys, one an overweight smelly redhead, the other, the class geek. God knows what they thought of me. We went to visit the hall and a guide was telling us about the paintings, one of an old regal looking guy, some duke or something, I remember one of the teachers Mrs salt saying to the other teacher Mr curtain, (I swear that is there names), looks like an old puff to me and laughing. I had a vague realization of what she meant.
I had a friend called David when I was nine or ten, I would stay over at his house and we would play games. One day we were in his bedroom while his parents were out and he said to me "lets get naked and you lie on top of me", I thought about it and said no, maybe later or something, I just wasn't attracted to him, I had no sexual feelings at that age.
When I was about fifteen, I would go camping in the fields beneath our house with a load of older boys, they would chase me round and say they were going to put there dicks on me, little did they know I would slow down on purpose hoping they would catch me. I was particularly attracted to one of them, Paul, who was later kidnapped and had one of his kidneys removed for the black market, according to my mother anyway. One boy I used to go camping with turned up in a gay bar years later in Birmingham, he saw me but didn't speak, I never saw him out on the scene again it was probably just an accident or he was curious, he was handsome, his father was the caretaker of the school.
I was never very sporty as a child, I was more interested in making a macrame basket, my pottery class and growing my sunflower. One day we went out to play football on the play ground which was covered in gravel, I would just stand there and my teacher would shout Nick, get stuck in, I attempted a tackle of the ball just to shut him up but also to show him that I couldn't play, I tripped over the ball and went flying through the gravel scraping all the skin off my arm, it was an overly dramatic touch at making a point. I was taken to the emergency room and had it cleaned and bandaged, my dad attended the school, the first of many visits to tell them we should never have been playing on the playground as they have a big grass playing field and it was a dry day.
The headmaster at the school was particularly frightening, he was forever brandishing his wooden cane, (obviously this was when it was still legal to punish children with corporal punishment). My dad said if he ever threatens to use it on you run home immediately, If I remember rightly my older brother Barry was caned and my dad went to the school and broke the cane over his knee and threw it at the headmaster.
Every morning we used to sit in assembly and sing hymns, the teachers would lecture us on the life of Christ, I used to wander off in my mind and think about death and what it meant, I tried to grasp the concept in my ten year old mind, I used to sit there and say to myself "when you die, you never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever come back", saying it over and over to myself until I got it, the thoughts scared me more than a little and made me afraid of dying and possibly afraid of living.
My father, a Welshman, worked on and off during my early school years taking work where he could find it. He was quite a strict father, the eldest in his family who was beat regularly by his own father. I never knew my grandfather, he died when I was an infant. My dad's family were so poor they used to drink there tea out of jam jars. I guess at least they had tea.
My mother was born and raised in Scotland and like most Scots had a taste for the sherry and later, Bacardi. My mother like my father was the eldest in her family. Her mother died when I was very young. Strangely my mother's father and my father's mother moved in together, they were the only grandparents I knew, very old-fashioned, they enjoyed a laugh and a night out. I remember I would often get money off them if I could make them laugh, one time telling them that my dad sent my brother Barry to the super market for a Christmas turkey and he came back with a duck, this they found hilarious.
My gran gave my older brothers fifty pounds for there eighteenth birthdays, I never received anything and at the time this was quite a big deal to me, children, even young adults translate this into lack of feeling for them, I just decided my gran didn't like me because I was different, of course in reality she probably just didn't have it. My grandad used to go fishing, come back with his catch and throw it straight into the pan, head and tail included with the blood swirling round the pan, I told my mother in disgust and she laughed. I worked at a fairly classy hairdressers when I left school at sixteen, it was about ten pounds for a gents haircut, when my gran told my grandad, he said in his Scottish accent "I'd poo my fuckin hair out first" meaning that's expensive.
My first day of high school was exciting, I had a skinhead and new clothes, my brother Barry was in the year above me, he was a bit of a nut, a hard case, I was in awe of him, proud of him and wanted to please and impress him. The first day he wanted me to start as I meant to go on, he picked someone out for me to fight, he urged me on and in my eleven year old way I pushed this boy, saying, "come on then", all the time thinking, "I don't want to do this, why am I doing this" ?. We never fought, I was just pleased I had made the effort, I think that was a defining moment in my future relationship with my brother, (not fighting that boy), he was disappointed in me.
I made friends easily and was well liked, never wasting time in telling people who my brother was. I had a fairly easy time in high school, managing to get through five years with only two fights, both in the last year, aged fifteen.
I didn't enjoy studying, it wasn't the cool thing to do and people who did had a difficult time of it. I was put into a class with strangers with none of my primary school friends. I quite liked school, the socializing anyway, to me it was a laugh a chance to expend energy. I took no real notice in classes, I preferred to chat or look out the window. Maths was my least favorite subject, a double period was worse than having a tooth pulled, the teacher talked in a repetitive drawl never breaking cadence for lunch or fire .His voice, like the subject was pointless repetition. Fortunately for me I had learned my times table in primary school and was able to calculate quite quickly in my head, algorithms and the square root of pie holding no interest for me whatsoever, I took to a pot of tea and ten cigarettes in the town cafe and gave maths a miss for the last couple of years.
The only subject I took an interest in was English, the teacher was flamboyant, she wasn't afraid to make a fool of herself, she seemed to enjoy what she did which made you take an interest in what she was saying, unlike the biology teacher who would stand there all period, never opening a book, telling us about her husbands' wandering ways, We read To kill a Mockingbird in English. I quite liked it, man's inhumanity to man, what a novel idea.
My parents showed little interest in my education, failing to show up to help choose my subjects but appearing like clockwork when I did something bad. The something bad was writing disgusting things in a rough book, about a girl I knew in maths and having it confiscated and handed to the headmaster. Things like, "Mary hasn't got any fanny pubes", "when Mary lifts her arms up the smell starts a fire", such was my wisdom aged thirteen. It was a special moment for me having to read aloud what I had written in the headmaster's office, then having my father called to the school and my poetry showed to him. He gave me a look I'll never forget, I felt like the lady of Shalott.
It seemed like we had free dinners for the whole five years of high school, this being something every child is proud to discuss.
I made friends with a boy named Paul, he was short and never seemed to grow taller even in the last year. I used to visit his house, a few miles away and we would play in the local factory. I remember one day his mother asked me if "I wanted a cake", I said "yes" and then sensed some tension, I asked "what's wrong", Paul told me his mother said there was only four and someone would have to go without, I thought this was strange, even then. Paul used to have a mars bar and a packet of crisps every day which he used to share with me, until one day he didn't want to share anymore and we stopped speaking. Paul had a massive dick, aged thirteen, fourteen, for a short boy he was the only one in our class who had a full set of pubes and quite a large penis, I never saw it hard. He seemed proud of it because in p.e. he would ruffle his pubes and say "these are getting on my nerves". My puberty occurred quite late, around sixteen or seventeen, about the same time as my sexual attraction to boys. Staring at Paul's dick aged fourteen never made me think anything other than that's big. I remember one other boy who had also developed early, he ran past me in the showers one day and his dick rubbed up against the back of my hand. He was more attractive to me being taller and broader, but I had no real sexual attraction aged fourteen.
The last year of school was when I started to realize I was different to all the other boys, I would wear Hawaiian shirts instead of school uniform and would spend twenty minutes styling my hair, I had hi-lights. My English teacher encouraged my individuality, she was the only one . My brother and I hardly ever spoke, I think he was ashamed of me, he never said it but we spent little time together. He would often call me a puff, like many other people.
I started to hang around with girls, this seemed natural to me, we would truant together, up the railway banking and smoke cigarettes. One time I skipped maths and went to the local hospice with some girls for their community care class and proceed to play the piano, singing George Michael's last Christmas. Never having had a piano lesson I was quickly ejected and reported to the teacher in charge who wasn't amused. I thought it was hilarious.
One girl I used to hang around with in school had a boyfriend called Andy, he was seventeen, tall, dark and built like a brick shit house, he lived down the street from me, we had never really spoken, there was some rivalry between him and my brother, he was the sexiest boy I had ever seen at sixteen, his legs were that big that his jeans were the baggiest you could find and were still tight on him, his girlfriend informed me. Years later when I was twenty three I used to go out with my friend on occasion to the local wine bar, she was still with Andy, one night she said to me "get me a drink and you can have me in the market later", I threw back my drink and rolled my eyes, she laughed, it became clear that she was spending every weekend in the wine bar just waiting there, on her own, until someone picked her up. I couldn't believe it and still can't, you have a dreamboat at home and you risk it all by going with other guys for casual encounters, not something I would do, but I shouldn't judge and it's easy to when your not in that place, part jealousy of course.
When I was younger I had an especially close relationship with my sister, Hazel, she's two years younger than me. I was overly protective of her, my mother's influence, my sister was spoiled and still is. My mom used to take me to bingo with her on a Saturday, it was a big day out for me, I used to blow dry my hair especially, I had little confidence. One Saturday I finished my hair, sprayed it and asked my sister what she thought of it, she shouted maliciously, " your a queer". Her words cut like a knife. I picked up the foot long full can of hair spray and threw it at her, it hit her right in the forehead, she burst out crying, I could have killed her, to this day I can't think about it without cringing. I hated myself for doing it and still do.
I had no real problem with being gay, to me it was just the way I was, to others it seemed like I had a deadly virus, a serious illness. My head teacher called my parents to the school to discuss what to do about me, he suggested they take me to the doctor. My parents agreed, the appointment was made and I counted the days. I didn't want to go, I was fifteen. There is something wrong with me, I don't feel like there is anything wrong with me but there must be if an educated adult says I need to see a doctor.
I had been fighting more at home with my brothers, but we had always fought. I was into Boy George and Culture Club. Think I'll write a letter to his fan club, would love to meet him some day, "send the money to this address", they wrote back, "money, what money" ?, I get fifteen pence a month for sweets, if I'm lucky. My brothers would rip my posters down and we would fight, or they would hit and I would save face as best as possible.
The doctors visit came and off we went, I felt sick and hot, we went in and sat down. "He's getting into trouble at home and at school doctor" my mother said, "what do you think the problem is the doctor said". I didn't realize I had one until now I thought. "why do you spit in your brother's face", he said, "what do you expect me to do if he spits in mine", I said, "just stand there" ?, "no", he said, the whole thing was so ridiculous, we discussed, "my problems", for what felt like three days. I think my parents meant well but they will never know the psychological damage that caused to a fifteen year old boy. I tied it to my homosexuality, irreversibly.
I've never been big on therapy, preferring to work things out for myself, unless the going gets real tough, but we'll get to that later. Maybe that was my problem, if I had seen a therapist regularly when I was younger, things might be quite different. The psychiatrists I have seen over the years, like doctors, never seemed particularly interested in me.
I had an aunt while I was growing up, Cissy, she wasn't my real aunt, she was my mom's friend, she had no children of her own so decided to spoil me, she would take me on holiday to Scotland to visit her sisters, I would go to the local shop and buy ten pounds worth the chocolate, I would eat it until I was sick, she used to buy me shoes for school and pay for me to have my hair hi-lighted, in return I would go to the shop for her with a note to purchase half a bottle of Bell's whiskey, this seemed to happen two or three times a week, like a lot of alcoholics once she started drinking she was unable to stop for days or weeks at a time, her husband saw me as the villain and treated me accordingly. I was seventeen when she died and her so called friends descended on her house after the funeral like a pack of vultures, telling her sisters that she promised me this and her that, I found the whole thing distasteful, then and now. One time I had misbehaved at home and my mother had hit me that hard that I couldn't sit down, my bone in my backside hurt, my mother was afraid she'd broken it or something and began crying, she sent me to my aunts for the rest of the day, I didn't blame my mother, I was the child from hell and she had five to cope with.
As a teenager I had a pair of roller skates, my aunt bought them for me, I loved them, I would go to the local roller disco with friends and would skate so fast that one time I went crashing into the wall and fractured my arm, my dad had to take me to the hospital, I remember the nurse trying to unfold my arm, asking me if I liked cornflakes, as if that was going to distract me from the pain.
Another hobby of mine was swimming, I had my gold swimming badge in primary school when I was just ten. My dad took me and my brother swimming, out of town to big open-air pools with diving boards, sweet machines and other facilities, one time my dad's friend asked me if I was going to have some chocolate, I replied "I'm fine", knowing full well my father did not have the money for such things, "they've not long had dinner my father said". What happened next though more than made up for the chocolate, my dad's friend got into our car and slammed the door that hard I thought it was going to come off, my dad was always shouting at my brother and I for slamming the door, he was protective of his car, needless to say when his friend slammed the door my brother and I just looked at each other and tried unsuccessfully to hold our laugh in all the way home.
Age ten I decided to impress the other kids at my school by taking orders off them, for things they would like from Woolworths, the local store, in I would trot with a bag, filling it up two or three times a week, for about a month, until I was caught and had to attend the police station, with my parents for a chat and caution. Nothing was said to me about shoplifting by my parents, I guess they thought the police chat was frightening enough.
I had a dog called Ben, a jack Russell terrier, from the age of nine to about nineteen. I would have died for that dog. I used to take him for a walk two or three times a week, he was small, sometimes an eagle would circle above us and I would call him to me, if that eagle would have swooped down, I would have ripped it apart. He was my best friend for a long time. His death wasn't pleasant. My dad took him to the vets one day and came back without him. They put him down, my dad waited while he went to sleep, a brave thing to do. Sometimes I was cruel to that dog, hitting him repeatedly when he ate my A4 size bar of chocolate, climbed on the bed and got it off the bookshelf, then came sheepishly downstairs with a bowed head, I wish I hadn't been so cruel to him at times. The things you'd change if you could do it again.
My first experience of pain, from relationships, came to me second hand courtesy of my eldest brother Jim and his first wife Dilys. They were married ten years and had two children, Claire six and Samantha four, last time I saw them. Like a lot of marriages it had run it's course and they had drifted apart, my brother working away from home regularly and when he was at home he would like to go out and socialize, a few drinks in the local pub, this I believe was a contributing factor to their divorce, he would want to go out and his wife Dylis did not. Not only did she not want to go out she didn't want him to go out either. He wanted another child, a son, she did not. It ended one night at my parent's house when Jim took another girlfriend Joe and started living with her in Kent, they came up for a visit and Jim went to the pub. Joe, my mother and I were sitting talking when Dilys and her sister appeared at the gate, they knocked the door and walked in, my mother said to me, "go and get Jim", I ran to the pub as fast as I could and found my brother, we came home and Jim tried to make Dilys leave, the atmosphere was tense, my heart was racing, all she kept saying was, "why Jim, why ?". The pain in her face took on a personification of it's own and it's something that stayed with me long after that night. A realization that one person could unintentionally inflict so much pain onto another was frightening. Dilys finally left not before kneeing my brother in his groin as hard as she could, an attempt to lessen her pain, no doubt, or inflict on him some of the pain she was feeling. My brother is still living in Kent, with Jo, they have three sons now. He called me a few months ago drunk, the only time he ever calls anyone, we talked for a few minutes awkwardly and that was that, I find it difficult enough to talk to my brothers without them being drunk, us having so little in common.
When I was about ten, one of my brother's friends asked me to go for a walk with him, he was about fifteen, we went down the local fields and behind a bush. He took out his penis and started to masturbate. He asked me to do the same, I proceeded to but couldn't get a hard on. I had no sexual feelings at that age and wasn't attracted to the boy. He ejaculated while saying "look at that" , it wasn't particularly pleasant and I was glad when it was over.
As I began puberty I remember telling my mother that my penis keeps sticking up and asking her what it meant, never really getting an answer, one day being taken into the bathroom by my mother and eldest brother and being told to show them, which I did, they started laughing. A cheap harmless laugh to amuse themselves. At my expense.
A girl joined my school for the last year, her name was Michelle, she wore a short black mini skirt and had long blond hair, she spoke with a Geordie accent, I thought she was sexy, at least I thought I did, we used to hang around together, I think she had quite a bit of sexual experience, we were sitting watching television in her house one day and her dad came home from work, came in the house and said, "I just saw you two necking on the couch, from outside", I just looked at her in disbelief, "no you didn't, she said, we weren't doing anything". When we did get round to kissing and feeling, we went into the bedroom and she said to me, "just shove it in", no matter how I tried, or what I thought of, I just couldn't get a hard on, I was disappointed, she was more embarrassed than me, asking me not to tell anyone, probably thinking they would think that it was her that was unattractive, poor girl. That was my confirmation.
Aged sixteen I had my first gay sexual experience, I would go cottaging, (snooping round toilets), down town. I would look through the spyhole, one day an old man came into my cubicle, it had no lock on, he took out his penis, he was about sixty. I was frightened and just sat there, he started masturbating and fondling me, he leaned down and sucked my dick, then he started to kiss my chest , he tried to kiss me but I turned away, I thought about sucking his dick but was glad afterward that I didn't. He ejaculated, zipped himself up and went out. I went home a changed person, I felt disgusting, I went straight in the bath and scrubbed myself.
By the age of sixteen, I had pretty much had the campness beaten out of me, by my brothers and other kids, I learned pretty quickly, that in order to be liked and not hit, I needed to be someone else, anyone but me. I wasn't exactly sure what was wrong with me but other people seemed to know and weren't shy in telling me. I was a skinny child and remain so to this day. I started to develop an inferiority complex about my body and sexuality. I was very thin. I was unhappy.

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