Chapter 1 only here; but first, for context, a short synopsis of the full 32-chapter manuscript:

It’s the summer holidays and Terry and Denny are on a riotous adventure around Braeport, leaving havoc in their wake. From guitar-smashing to dropping a hamster into his granny’s knickers, Terry is the boss, with Denny at his heels. But when they take a trip to the big smoke, the tables turn’� With a raw hunger for discovery and an untamed imagination, thirteen-year-old Denny tells a story of the innocent bonds of childhood friendship.

Terry Shags Sheep (or Terry and Denny) is an 80,000 word literary fiction manuscript set in 1980s rural northern England. Here’s the first chapter:



CHAPTER ONE ’� The start of the book


On the twelfth of May 1984 at about four o’clock, I was up at Terry’s house, and he was punching my testicles.

It wasn’t just testicular torture for no reason. He was punching them because I wouldn’t agree with him. He said petrol engines are better than diesel ones, but I said diesel ones are better.

I was on the settee and I was fighting him off but I couldn’t fight properly because I was giggling too much.

He’s got big ears and stand-uppy hair, and he’d got his tie round his head like a bandana with the end flapping about. He was quite exciteable in his eyes.

Then he got the target and that was a shock that really hurt.

’�Ow, that bloody hurt, you sheep bollock.’�

’�Don’t call me a sheep bollock you cow rectum.’�

I got away and legged it round the settee. He chased me but I’m quite good at dodging and he couldn’t catch me. He ended up going upstairs to relieve his bowels.

When he came back down I’d got the Gazette and I was sat on the settee doing Spot The Dog. That’s a game where you have to guess where the sheepdog is because they’ve rubbed it out from the picture of sheep. You can win twenty-five quid if you get your cross in the right place. I’ve never won it. That’s because I don’t enter because it’s a quid and my mam won’t give me it. She says it’s a waste of money and someone else will just win it.

He came up behind me and was looking over my shoulder. He was breathing on my neck. There was even a bit of disgusting warm on my ear. I didn’t want to be impolite, even though he’s my mate, so I just moved away slowly. But then he was getting near again. I was creasing up my neck. I was hoping he didn’t goz when he talked.

’�Right,’� said Terry. He was pointing. ’�I reckon’� right’� if them yows are all headin’ that way’� he’s got to be somewhere down there ’�ant he eh?’�

He didn’t spit, but he wasn’t right either, because there was another sheep that wouldn’t’ve been where it was if the sheepdog had been where he said it was. I pointed it out, and he agreed with me for once.

Then we were just exploring the picture with our eyes. You could hear the clock ticking. Terry was leaning over the settee even more, but he wasn’t breathing on my neck now. His nose was really close to the paper. Then he grabbed it and walked off, which is typical. He started getting excited. He had a big grin on his face. He was jabbing the picture. ’�Lookster. It’s down in that bottom corner there int it. Look. Picture’s all fuzzy, that’s where it’s rubbed out from int it, eh.’�

I got up and had a gander. ’�Nah, not sure about that. You can’t really tell like. It’s fuzzy all overt’ blank bits.’�

’�Bollocks.’� He threw the paper at me. ’�It’s worth a shot. A quid’s nowt to you anyroad. You’re oul-fella’s rolling in it.’�

’�No, he’s tight as a nun’s fotze, he is.’� That’s not really true, even though it is amusing. My dad says he works at the quarry but with a white collar. But he usually wears a t-shirt. I’ve seen him wearing a blue shirt and he says it’s got a white collar on it, even though it was obvious it wasn’t. Anybody could see that.

Then Terry got an idea because I could see it in his eyes. He went, ’�I tell you what laddio, right. We’ll go an’ nick a quid from Whely’s eh. How about that for an idea me young compadreo?’�

’�O ay, and how you gonna do that then? Blindfold him and tie him up and hypnotise him and pickpocket his till? You’ll never get a quid off him.’�

He was coming near and his eyes were shining. He still had his bandana on. He had his front teeth on his bottom lip like he does sometimes and his head dead far forward like a chicken. He didn’t start clucking though. He was talking fairly quietly, ’�No, it’s dead easy right, you just tell him you want a broom handle, and he goes through tot’ back to get yan an’ you can nick all his stuff.’� He got a dead big massive smile on his face. ’�How about that eh?’�

’�Don’t talk daft, he’ll hear you opening his till. He’s not deaf you know.’�

’�O ay, well nick a knife or summat then. He’s got loads of ’�em. I wouldn’t mind one o’ them swiss-army knives. They’re brill, they are.’�

Swiss-army knives are dead good. But it was tight to nick one because he doesn’t make loads of money. He probably does alright in the tourist season, but that’s got to last him all year and he’s got lecky bills to pay and he’s got to eat as well. And he’s got a car so he needs petrol for that.

Terry knew I didn’t want to do it. He goes, ’�Come on you chicken. Don’t be such a pussy.’�He took his tie off his head and started whipping me. His eyes were shining.

’�Get knotted.’� I was trying to get away from the whipping but he just carried on.

He kept just saying, ’�Chicken. Chicken. Chicken.’�

Then I went, ’�Right, give us that tie you bondage bastard,’� and I grabbed the tie.

’�Ey you bastard, you’ll brek me tie. Come here you b’�’�. He was trying to get it back. But I wouldn’t let go. I wrapped it round my hand and fell on the floor and I curled up in a ball. He fell over me and I was giggling, but I still wouldn’t let go. ’�Err you gay fucker. Gedoff. Err, Terry’s trying to shag me. Terry wants to bugger me.’�

He pinched me and it hurt. Then he said, ’�Let go of me bastard tie or I’ll pull your dick off.’�

I still wouldn’t let go so Terry grabbed my goolies. I was screaming like a newborn baby. And I was thrashing about like a fish. It was as painful as if someone was squeezing one of your internal organs. I didn’t even realise I still had the tie because I was so excruciating. My eyes were wet like I was crying but I wasn’t really.

Then he let go and I realised I still had the tie in my hand because I heard him say, ’�Let go of my tie.’�

It was a pretty serious voice even though he’d let go of my private parts. And when I let go I could see just red and white splodges on my hands and the insides of my fingers all white. They looked stretchy except they felt all seized up. I was moaning and the pain wasn’t as bad but it was still lots of pain. I curled up on my side on the ground. I had my hands on my groin and my face was on the carpet. It was really soft and my eyes were wet. Terry couldn’t see my face and he started talking. But then he saw it and he started apologising and saying sorry and it sounded like he meant it. He sat on the settee and didn’t say anything. So I sat up and I was leaning on my arm and wiping my eyes.

I went, ’�You sheep shagger.’�

Terry stood up and started doing humping with his hips. ’�Ay, I’m a right sheep shagger I am. Not as much as people from Beedale though.’�

That was funny. And also true. But it’s not funny if you really do it ’� you can go to prison. If you want to investigate if it really happens and you live in a town so you don’t have easy access to fields to go and watch, the best place to start looking is in the paper. One time I saw this and I cut it out because it was quite interesting:

A 20-year-old man at the centre of bestiality allegations at locations in the Greenton Fell area has been remanded without plea for psychiatric assessment. The man, granted interim name suppression, appeared before Judge Stephen Brast in Carlisle Crown Court yesterday, facing three charges of bestiality with sheep, and two charges of being in an enclosed yard in Bracken Street without reasonable excuse. The man has been granted bail with residence and curfew conditions and a requirement not to go onto any private farmland. He is next to appear on 12 November.
(Cumberland Post, Friday 23 October 1983)

That’s not Terry because he’s not twenty. But just because that’s not Terry it doesn’t mean Terry isn’t a sheep-shagger. He might be because there’s lots of opportunities. Like there was a farmer in Crudale that did sheep-shagging with a goat which is goat-shagging and he was caught by his wife and she divorced him. I know for definite they did get divorced because she moved to Braeport. And an extremely large amount of people reckon that Vinbo goes sheep-shagging before his milkround.