Synopsis
'SURVIVING the BATTLEGROUND of CHILDHOOD'
by T.D. McKinnon
A memoir of survival.
This is the true story of the first fifteen years of a boy's life - growing up in the coal mining communities of Scotland and England in the 1950s and 60s and how he survives the adversities of that battleground.
The book is written on two levels; on the first level it is a compulsive, easy to read, true story. The protagonist's narration compels the reader's empathy as, from his earliest memory, he is beaten by a father who - subjected to the harsh existence of a coal miner, and frustrated by the betrayals of an unfaithful wife vents his anger on him. After suffering a nervous breakdown in his earliest childhood, Thomas endeavours to escape his father's tyranny and his mother's complacency, but in his search for a nourishing love he falls foul of situations he is ill equipped to deal with; often taking him into forbidden and dangerous areas.
At just five years of age he is introduced to sexuality by the two little girls next door, who were themselves sexually molested by their uncle. When he is only six years old, taking advantage of his doting love and trust, a grandfather repeatedly sexually assaults him; unhappily this is just the beginning. Enduring the interminable beatings and psychological tribulations at home and facing the predators, antagonists and bullies in his immediate environment; will his inner courage, determination and indomitable sense of adventure carry him through? Surviving near death experiences and sexual misadventures, and in spite of all adversities, will Thomas manage to reach young adulthood, and still keep the balance of his mind?
On another level 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' is a relative mud map that invites the reader to compare his or her own childhood adversities and to see past them. Offering a framework that will perhaps, in spite of perceived ruination for life, assist those in need to be survivors, not just casualties - maimed remnants of the battleground - but real survivors.
'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' will appeal to anyone who grew up during the 1950's and 60's, especially in the United Kingdom; and more specifically still, those who grew up in the working class areas during that era. Conversely, anyone with an adverse or traumatic experience in their childhood, or if they have been the subject of a physically and or psychologically abusive upbringing will relate to this book. However, the potential market for 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' is, quite literally, endless. It is a sometimes funny, often tragic but ultimately an uplifting and entertaining story about growing up; most people, young, old and in between, will relate to it in some way, regardless of country, era or sociology.
The book is written on two levels; on the first level it is a compulsive, easy to read, true story. The protagonist's narration compels the reader's empathy as, from his earliest memory, he is beaten by a father who - subjected to the harsh existence of a coal miner, and frustrated by the betrayals of an unfaithful wife vents his anger on him. After suffering a nervous breakdown in his earliest childhood, Thomas endeavours to escape his father's tyranny and his mother's complacency, but in his search for a nourishing love he falls foul of situations he is ill equipped to deal with; often taking him into forbidden and dangerous areas.
At just five years of age he is introduced to sexuality by the two little girls next door, who were themselves sexually molested by their uncle. When he is only six years old, taking advantage of his doting love and trust, a grandfather repeatedly sexually assaults him; unhappily this is just the beginning. Enduring the interminable beatings and psychological tribulations at home and facing the predators, antagonists and bullies in his immediate environment; will his inner courage, determination and indomitable sense of adventure carry him through? Surviving near death experiences and sexual misadventures, and in spite of all adversities, will Thomas manage to reach young adulthood, and still keep the balance of his mind?
On another level 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' is a relative mud map that invites the reader to compare his or her own childhood adversities and to see past them. Offering a framework that will perhaps, in spite of perceived ruination for life, assist those in need to be survivors, not just casualties - maimed remnants of the battleground - but real survivors.
'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' will appeal to anyone who grew up during the 1950's and 60's, especially in the United Kingdom; and more specifically still, those who grew up in the working class areas during that era. Conversely, anyone with an adverse or traumatic experience in their childhood, or if they have been the subject of a physically and or psychologically abusive upbringing will relate to this book. However, the potential market for 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' is, quite literally, endless. It is a sometimes funny, often tragic but ultimately an uplifting and entertaining story about growing up; most people, young, old and in between, will relate to it in some way, regardless of country, era or sociology.
Reviews
* April 29, 2012 - By Alison Brady.
Couldn’t put it down! This wonderful story allows you to experience the hardships and adventures associated with growing up in working class England and Scotland in the 1950s/60s. Told through the lens of young Thomas, we are privy to a frank and open exploration of his formative years. At times dark, at times funny and always hopeful, the book left me with confidence that courage and strength can prevail. Thank you!
* Nov. 22, 2011 - By Ruth Medcraft - 5 stars
"Amazing and heartfelt story about a young boy that overcomes childhood hardships and extremely difficult tragedies in his young life, and manages to turn his life around through finding the courage to overcome the many hard battles he faces. The way this book has been written was so well done and different in so many ways than many other books I have read before. Well done, an absolute pleasure to read! I laughed ,cried and was astounded with how well it had been worded to make you feel that you could see it all happening and felt relief to see our young hero succeed in the end."
* 2008 - A review by Cherrell Ward at New Book Review.org.Cherrell Ward, NewBookReviews.org
"Our New Book Review: T.D. McKinnon's 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' is inspirational reading! This narrative about his childhood is a revealing story about painful experiences and the everyday struggle to overcome serious challenges he faced as a child, and the strength he developed in becoming a survivor. McKinnon's frankness and fearless attitude are amplified by his ability to tell a story well! I give Surviving the Battleground of Childhood - 4 ½ Stars!"
* 2008 - Pat Qua, Acclaimed Australian painter, sculptor and musician - 5 stars
"Such honesty about the difficulties of the human condition is rare to find - some damaging problems of sex and cruelty are faced with refreshing openness. I just couldn't put it down."
CLICK ON ANY ICON TO BUY YOUR BOOK!
Couldn’t put it down! This wonderful story allows you to experience the hardships and adventures associated with growing up in working class England and Scotland in the 1950s/60s. Told through the lens of young Thomas, we are privy to a frank and open exploration of his formative years. At times dark, at times funny and always hopeful, the book left me with confidence that courage and strength can prevail. Thank you!
* Nov. 22, 2011 - By Ruth Medcraft - 5 stars
"Amazing and heartfelt story about a young boy that overcomes childhood hardships and extremely difficult tragedies in his young life, and manages to turn his life around through finding the courage to overcome the many hard battles he faces. The way this book has been written was so well done and different in so many ways than many other books I have read before. Well done, an absolute pleasure to read! I laughed ,cried and was astounded with how well it had been worded to make you feel that you could see it all happening and felt relief to see our young hero succeed in the end."
* 2008 - A review by Cherrell Ward at New Book Review.org.Cherrell Ward, NewBookReviews.org
"Our New Book Review: T.D. McKinnon's 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood' is inspirational reading! This narrative about his childhood is a revealing story about painful experiences and the everyday struggle to overcome serious challenges he faced as a child, and the strength he developed in becoming a survivor. McKinnon's frankness and fearless attitude are amplified by his ability to tell a story well! I give Surviving the Battleground of Childhood - 4 ½ Stars!"
* 2008 - Pat Qua, Acclaimed Australian painter, sculptor and musician - 5 stars
"Such honesty about the difficulties of the human condition is rare to find - some damaging problems of sex and cruelty are faced with refreshing openness. I just couldn't put it down."
CLICK ON ANY ICON TO BUY YOUR BOOK!
Sample Chapters
'SURVIVING the BATTLEGROUND of CHILDHOOD'
by T.D. McKinnon
A memoir of survival
Chapter 1: Earliest Memories - My best friend Georgie
"Hey…Georgie, that's not fair!" I said apprehensively, edging my way nervously towards the gate.
Although only a little taller than me Georgie was probably about half as heavy again. A rather skinny child for my age, I must have struck a pathetic figure: after an earlier fall I'd been crying and rubbing my eyes with my dirty hands, and my elbows, badly grazed and sore from the fall, were still sticky with half congealed blood.
I would have been barely four-years-old, living in Kirkintilloch with my family. Georgie had befriended me some three weeks previously, and starving for companionship I'd attached myself to him. Today, however, when I'd called at his house he told me to go away, and when I didn’t immediately do so he and Hamish, his new friend, decided to have some fun with me. The transfer of Georgie’s friendship from me to Hamish was something to do with the shiny, new thruppenny piece in Hamish's pocket, stolen from his mother's purse.
Georgie was smiling that cruel sort of smile that bullies get; even those as young as five-years-old. "Lock the gate, Hamish," he ordered. At the shout from Georgie I panicked, scrambling like a scalded cat I ran, and hitting the partially open gate on my way out I ripped my shirt half-off. They were on my heels in an instant, and I desperately sprinted for home with their blood curdling yells ringing in my ears. Adrenaline aided my flight, but unfortunately caused me to run straight into my father, who'd just opened the front door, almost taking the legs from under him. He quickly slapped me a couple of times around the ears for not watching where I was going. I tried to blurt out my story of woe, but winded and sobbing hard I couldn't complete one word. Then noticing my ripped shirt and bloody arms he became more enraged slapping me with increasing venom, this time around the legs until I collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Eventually he did hear the story I was so desperately trying to tell. The hitting stopped, but to my dismay my father was not sorry and understanding. Still angry, he told me that unless I went out and stuck up for myself I would receive even more punishment.
Memory Point: ‘I'm standing in a quandary, in the middle of the front yard, with my father looking out of the window behind me, and the two jeering bullies out on the footpath. Well, there isn’t really any big choice to make; I'm frightened of the bullies, but at least I stand a chance against them, even if it is a slim one.’
{This was my earliest memory point; and where I began my particular method of recovering a complete memory from a memory snapshot. In so doing, I gleaned the first part of chapter one of this book.}
I stood in the front yard for what seemed to be an eternity, hoping the ground would open up and swallow me. Suddenly my eyes were drawn to a piece of broken fence paling at my feet; I had been using it as a sword that very morning. Running towards the gate I swooped up my trusty sword and the bullies out on the footpath lost valuable seconds standing open mouthed as I, their tormented victim, attacked with a sudden, vicious vengeance.
Chasing them down the street I smashed my sword over Georgie's head, the rough broken wood gashing quite deeply, and he squealed like a stuck pig. Then swinging my sword across the back of Hamish’s legs he immediately plummeted face first into the concrete path, loosing his front teeth. Surprised at my ability to turn the tide of events, feeling both elated and scared, I made my way quickly home.
“You bloody wee lunatic!” yelled my father furiously, meeting me at the door. Instinctively, I put my hands up in a vain attempt to fend off the blows that always followed the verbal assault. Grabbing both arms he hauled me into the house, and in one swift movement he stripped my pants off and proceeded to whack, endlessly, into my bare bottom.
“Please…Daddy! Please!…Don’t…I promise I’ll be good… P-l-e-a-s-e!!…” I vainly attempted to twist and squirm out of the path of that hard, callused hand as it tore into the soft skin of my buttocks and legs, and where ever else he happened to connect with in his rage. “I’ll knock the devil out of you…you wee lunatic…picking up a stick…I’ll teach you!” and ignoring my pleas he continued to lay into me.
At some point I could no longer breathe, and only then did the beating stop. “Stop that!” he yelled, and I tried to inhale, but couldn’t. I was becoming light-headed and there were black spots in front of my eyes: I was passing out. “Come on Thomas!… Breathe,” I could barely hear him now. He slapped my back and suddenly my lungs opened and I could breathe again.
Oh no it's to-day!
I opened my eyes; as usual I was the first person in the house to awaken, even my baby sister slept right through the night, not so I. I dreaded sleep: the ghosts, ghoulies and boogeymen always lay in wait. So, I eluded the inevitable nightmares for as long as possible, and awoke after having the minimal amount of sleep necessary to survive.
It was December, well into winter, and there were still a couple of hours before dawn as I slipped quietly out of bed and made my way to the window. Since my father's recent return I had to be very careful indeed.
Memory Point: ‘Standing now behind the curtain at the window I feel a wee bit safer. It's as if I'm no longer in the room, almost as if I'm out there in the dark streets among the people I'm watching. At our old house, I knew all the characters that came and went in the wee hours of the morning; since we moved in with Nanna I've had fun giving the new shadows and silhouettes names and personalities.’
My father had been away for what seemed like a blessed eternity, but was in fact only a few months. Working at a coalmine in England, he had now returned to take the whole family to live there. Prior to my father's return, my sister, mother and I had gone to live in Queenzieburn with my Nanna in readiness for departure to England.
I was somewhat ambivalent about the move. Maybe things would be better in England; maybe my Daddy wouldn't hit me so much; maybe everybody would be happier. Given the choice I would have rather stayed in Scotland with my Nanna; she never hit me, and I was thoroughly Scottish after all, even if the cold, wet weather was often almost unbearable…I was happy here.
"Oh no it's today!" I almost shouted. My hand shot to my mouth in a futile attempt to halt the words that were already out as I remembered the slumbering household. My vocal outburst had been prompted by the sudden memory that today was the day we were to leave for England. It seemed to my panic stricken mind that I had been holding my breath for ten long minutes; afraid that even the sound of my beating heart would give me away, bringing the shouts and slaps that terrified me so. But of course only a few seconds had passed since my traitorous vocal chords had broken the morning silence.
On this occasion my fears proved groundless; however, the effect of the fright proved too much for my bladder, providing me with yet another problem. The communal toilet was out there in the night; it was one thing to be standing safe behind the glass, observing. It was an entirely different thing to actually venture out there where the minus four degree wind cuts right through to the bone, and the memory of that nights nightmares are still fresh in a four-year-olds mind. I made my way nervously, braving the cold and the dark scary shadows to the outhouse, the fear acting like a double edged sword: increasing my need to pee, and making me too nervous to relax enough to let it go.
So… This is England
The day we moved in with Nanna all of our furniture and household goods were sent on to England. We traveled to Coventry by train and now finally, with growing trepidation on my part, we traveled the last five miles of our journey by taxi.
Memory Point: ‘"This is it!… We're here!" says my father excitedly! I've already guessed as much, and with mixed feelings about the move from the start, looking out of the window of the taxi now I see nothing to get excited about: the rain is pouring down on unsurfaced roads and half-built houses, splashing everything with mud.’
In fact, at that moment I wished I’d been left with Nanna. Nanna was so nice to me; there was always a kiss, a cuddle, and a chocolate biscuit for me. For some reason Nanna's kindness always made Daddy angry: he said Nanna spoilt me. I wasn’t sure what spoilt meant but I wished I could get a whole lot more of it.
First English Christmas
I don’t recall many good memories from my early childhood but Christmas day 1954, a month or so after arriving in England, was one of the nicest memories in my young life to date. I had tried to stay awake on Christmas Eve to catch a glimpse of Santa, eventually however I fell asleep. When I awoke there it was… My beautiful new bike! It had trainer wheels, but of course I wouldn't be needing those. I was sure I could ride that bike on just two wheels. I cycled around inside the house getting in everyone’s way until at last, after much prompting from me, my father took the trainer wheels off my bike and then took me out onto the road.
Memory Point: ‘My heart is beating fast as I peddle harder; I can feel the support of my father's hand on the saddle but I know I can do without it. "Are you ready?" he says, as he runs alongside laughing. It's quite a mild day compared to winter in Scotland, and the sun is shining. ‘This is the nicest day I have ever had.’ "Yes Daddy… Yes! Let me go…please!" and I speed off down the road with the wind blowing fresh in my face, and the sound of my father's laughter echoing after me. ‘Yes… It is a beautiful day… Just beautiful! Maybe life will be different now?’
The breakdown
We were barely settled in England when my father injured his back in a mining accident that laid him off work for a year; the injury was to affect him for the rest of his life. It was around this time that I had a five-year-olds version of a nervous breakdown. My memory of that time is pretty hazy, so the following paragraph is partly a rendition of events told to me many years later.
Within months of arriving in England, and as a result of the accumulated stresses of my life, my relationship with my father, and interaction with my family, I became an emotional wreck: crying for most of the time. Losing every hair on my body, I scratched and tore at my skin, which was constantly irritated and itchy. They tried everything to stop me scratching, even tying boxing gloves on my hands. As a result of me ripping my own skin off, I became covered in scabs. The scraping off of those scabs and the application of ointment became a daily ritual. My mother wasn’t emotionally or physically capable, and so of course this job fell to my father. Furthermore, over the course of a year, I had to be taken to hospital three or four times a week to have injections.
Memory Point: “Come on Thomas, don’t be a baby…you should be used to this by now,” says the doctor, holding onto my bottom, while I squirm, fighting and screaming. My father holds my upper body, while the nurse holds my legs to stop me kicking, as the doctor administers the injection. “Please Daddy? I don’t want it!… It hurts!! Nooo…aaahhh!!”
I do remember those injections, very clearly. I never did get used to them, and no matter how much my father coaxed, coerced, or threatened I fought tooth and nail to the very last one. When I started school I was totally bald, not even an eyelash. Consequently, I wore a leather helmet that buckled under my chin.
“Quick grab him!” and three boys took hold of me as I walked through the school gate: Raymond Goodly and his cronies. It wasn’t the first time, I should have been more alert. They wanted to take my helmet off; my helmet never came off. It was a daily occurrence for some group of kids to deem it their mission, for the day, to unmask the freaky kid they called ‘Baldy’.
“Get off me!!” I screamed, but they just laughed as Raymond struggled to push my chin up so that he could unbuckle the helmet. As I screamed and struggled Raymond ordered, “Just rip it off him!” and I gagged and choked as they tried to do just that, but it would not budge: every morning I made sure that it was fastened as tightly as I could bear it.
“Get your chin up!” Raymond ordered through gritted teeth, as he stuck his thumbs in my ears.
“A-a-a-h-h-!” I screamed, and then kicking out as hard as I could, and squirming and thrashing around I managed to get loose; I ran around the building into the schoolyard proper, straight into Mrs Mills.
“Thomas!… What on earth is the matter with you?” she demanded.
“Th-th-them, M-miss!” I stuttered, pointing at Raymond Goodly and his mob as they came tearing around the corner. “Th-th-they’re t-trying to t-take my helmet off, Miss!”
“We were only kidding, Miss,” said Raymond, putting on an innocent, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, look.
“No you weren’t!” I yelled.
“Thomas!… Stop that shouting this instant!” Mrs Mills demanded.
“But, Miss, he’s telling lies…he tried to choke me…and he stuck his fingers in my ears while they held me!” I shouted incensed by the injustice.
“I told you to stop shouting, Thomas. And I’m sure you’re exaggerating. Just calm down, now.” Her back to them, Goodly's gang were now sticking their tongs out at me; Raymond was shaking his fist, dragging an imaginary knife across his throat and then pointing at me.
“Look at them, Miss!” I yelled, but by the time she turned around, of course, they were putting on innocent faces. Crying in frustration, I ran off to hide. At that time it seemed to me that I was always fighting: fighting off bullies who were trying to remove my helmet; fighting groups of screaming kids who were shouting ‘Baldy’; fighting nurses, doctors and my father when they held me down to stick those bloody needles into me. In fact, I felt that I was fighting the whole world, all by myself. During that early time at school, I made very few friends and no one called me by my given name: my taunting, jeering antagonists called me Baldy and one or two original little sods called me Scotty because of my persistent Scottish accent.
I should have said no one called me by my name, except Ena. Ena was a popular little girl in my class who, for some strange reason, took a liking to me. She didn't care about the ribbing she got for befriending me; in fact, she even declared that she was my girlfriend and that one day we would marry. I of course was totally rapt in this cherub who always had time for me and seemed to genuinely care.
The first time she stepped forward I know that she did so out of pity; we'd never really spoken before that. “Baldy!…Baldy!…Baldy!…Baldy!…Baldy!…” the chant went on and on as I stood with my back against the toilet-block wall, fists clenched and tears rolling down my face. There were about ten boys around me jeering and threatening to rush me at any moment to rip my helmet off. To make things worse, there were about thirty children crowding in behind them just to gawk; making it impossible for me to dash through and escape. I had been alert as I came through the school gate that morning and Raymond Goodly and his cronies, lying in wait, hadn’t surprised me. But with Raymond shouting, “Stop him!…Stop him!” as they pursued me around the school buildings more boys joined in the chase, until they cornered me against the toilet block wall.
Memory Point: “Stop that right now!” I can hear a voice screaming from somewhere on the outer edge of the crowd. The antagonists, and in fact the whole crowd, turn to watch the little girl with pigtails push her way through the multitude. Marching, red faced and angry past my antagonists, as they stand open mouthed, she walks up to me, giving me the smallest of smiles before turning on the ringleader. “Raymond Goodly!…” she states, as though the mention of his name is an accusation, “…You stop this at once!”
“Or what?..” says Raymond defiantly.
“Or my mum will be over to talk to your Dad tonight!” she tells him, pointing a finger at his chest, and his whole demeanour changes: the defiance melting away.
“So what?” he says finally, “See if I care…” and he turns and swaggers away, pretending that that is what he had intended from the start. The situation defused, the rest of the crowd disperses just as the school bell rings.'
Ena had a big heart for such a little girl, and from that moment I knew that I had at least one friend at school.
Our first television
We were one of the first houses in Keresley to acquire a television; I remember that standing on its own it was taller than I was: this huge box that probably weighed half a tone, and had a screen like a bubble which measured about ten-by-ten-inches. It was a black and white picture of course, and most of the time looked like there was a snowstorm going on inside it, but it was a genuine television and I looked forward to watching, each week, the programs I was allowed to. I remember my father telling me that watching too much of this strange one-eyed creature would damage my eyes; he was probably right.
I suppose that there really weren't too many programs that I would have chosen to watch had I the choice. The early days of the BBC were pretty boring, and the children of today would probably find it inconceivable that we could bear to watch anything that was so hard to look at. But I remember fondly its blissful escapism and how painful it would be if, for any reason, my privileges were taken away and I couldn't watch Roy Rogers and Trigger, or Superman. Of course I quickly learned that displaying any signs of being upset earned me a good smack, and the subsequent vetoing of television privileges would last longer: for being so willful.
Memory Point: “Thomas! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” and as my mother dashes towards me I pull away in fright, and tumbling out of the ground floor window I land on my head.’
I had being playing at cowboys; I was Roy Rogers and my mother’s old treadle, Singer sewing machine – with its wooden cover making a perfect horses back – was doubling as Trigger the wonder horse. My mother had entered the room just as I was digging my heels in to encouraging my trusty four-legged friend to gallop across the plains.
The next thing I remember is waking up on the settee with a cold wet towel on my forehead, and my mother sitting next to me, a worried expression on her face. Needless to say, that was the last time mum’s sewing machine was allowed to double as Trigger. I remember taking a towel from the bathroom, tying the end around my neck, and draping it down my back I ran around the garden trying to take off with the aid of my Superman cape. After a little while with no success I thought, ‘wait a minute, Superman is always diving out of windows! Or leaping from tall buildings!’ I climbed onto the coal bunker, not exactly a tall building but way taller than me. Leaping from the coal bunker, I could feel wind catching under my ‘Superman Cape’ and I soared “Up!…up!…and…away—” plummeting four feet down to the grass bellow I knocked the wind out of myself, and with my knees scraped and bruised I thought, ‘maybe flying will have to wait, for now, until I’ve done more practice, just a wee bit of course!’ and feeling the stinging soreness in my knees I looked down at them: ‘and maybe I’m not made of steel either – yet!’
During my first year at school I was off sick quite a lot, visiting the hospital and so forth. On some of those occasions I was allowed to see daytime television shows like Andy Pandy: a puppet of dubious gender who wore striped pyjamas and a girls bonnet; or Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men: two little men who were made out of flowerpots and lived at the bottom of some gigantic gardener’s garden and talked in baby talk. Those shows were probably meant for pre-school toddlers of course, but even those silly shows, featuring marionettes, were an escape from a reality I was finding increasingly more painful with each passing year.
Chapter 2: Convalescing In Scotland
The acquisition:
The family summer holidays of 1956 were spent back in Scotland, and when they came to a close somehow Nanna managed to persuade my father to leave me with her for a couple of months: to help me recover from my recent illness.
Nanna had recently remarried. She divorced her first husband, my mother’s father, who apparently was an unsavoury character whom no one wished to talk about. I did hear that he had been thrown out of the army over some kind of criminal activity. Her new husband however, was a gem of a man known affectionately to me as Uncle Andrew. They both adored me and while I reveled in their adoration I adored them in return.
Queenzieburn, a little mining village about fifteen miles outside of Glasgow, was built in the late nineteenth century to accommodate the mineworkers. The school I was to attend, built around the same era, looked positively Dickensian. My hair, which had begun to grow again, looked like a short crew cut. Also, during my long illness I had undergone sun lamp treatment for my skin complaint, which now resulted in a beautiful brown skin. With my appearance a little different from the local children and my accent now smacking of English I received a mixed reaction in Queenzieburn. Most of the girls and, after proving myself no slouch in a fight, some of the boys liked me. I was still fighting though – it seemed I would be fighting all of my life – but I would never again put up with the kind of treatment I had received in my first year at school in England.
Any slight directed toward me, however small, would provoke a violent attack. In mining communities in the 1950’s kids grew up tough. I did not like to fight: I did not like being hurt or inflicting pain. But sometimes the only choice was whether you were going to feel the pain, or inflict it. I discovered that I could turn the fear, which gripped my gut in adverse situations, into raw energy. If I acted quickly that energy – now violent anger – delivered me unscathed on the other side of most situations. If I did not act quickly, however, the fear would engulf me, and if I was lucky I would run, terrified. But a worse scenario was likely: I might stand cringing helplessly, while being ridiculed, or beaten, or both. I didn’t realise that most of the boys disliked me through envy. I just knew that I had to be ready to fight, at any time: on my way to school, running an errand to the local shop, or simply going out to play.
I had been in Queenzieburn for about a month, during which time I had received more love, fun and virtually anything else I could think of than ever before. However, as my popularity grew in some areas, I was drawing the attention of some of the older, tougher boys. A couple of times I had run home from school to escape confrontation with these boys who wanted to know just how tough this ‘wee English bastard’, as they referred to me, really was. I knew that I couldn’t keep running forever, and so I came up with an idea to improve my chances against the bigger boys. That week I applied myself, in every way I knew how, to acquire the necessary leveler.
Saturday found me playing with a group of children in the local swing-park. I was a little nervous, but felt a sense of confidence that previously had been missing, and while enjoying the company of five or six boys and girls the inevitable happened.
Memory Point: “That’s ma swing yur sittin’ on!” Turning from the girl sitting on the next swing I look up and am confronted with the sneering face of Roy Stark. Roy is a couple of years older, a couple of inches bigger and at this moment looks very mean. My stomach tightens and I feel that sick feeling that is the beginning of the adrenaline rush; that's my cue. Not waiting a second longer I kick out as hard as I can; my ‘brand new’, steel studded, leather boot smashes into Roy’s kneecap. Surprise mixed with agonising pain registers on Roy’s face as he staggers back holding his knee; spurred on, leaping from the swing, I keep up a none stop barrage of kicks, which for the most part land on Roy’s bare legs. Soon, squealing with pain, he's running, stumbling down the road.’
Breathing heavily I watched his retreating figure, and as my violent rage subsided I tasted the salty tears that had flowed down my face and were now trickling in the corners of my mouth. Cursing the tears, which always accompanied my violent rages, I ran home without looking back. As I splashed my face with cold water, while my Nanna waited patiently for an explanation, there was a heavy banging on the door.
“Just look at the state o’ ma Roy’s legs!” shrieked Mrs Stark, looking fit to burst. While Roy’s face was pitifully contorted in an effort to coax out more tears, positive that this, along with his bleeding legs would, at the very least, secure me a good thrashing. My Nanna took in the sight calmly, and then told Mrs Stark that she would find out what had happened and deal with the matter. She then turned to look at me, and I felt that old, familiar feeling creep into my gut…
“That bloody wee lunatic needs a good beltin’!” exploded Mrs Stark. At these words my Nanna turned on her as if she had just been slapped. “Your son…is nothing but a wee bully and probably got everything he deserved!” and while Mrs Stark stood open mouthed, and Roy’s wailing halted abruptly she continued, “Furthermore…if you don’t get out of here, right now, you’ll get the same medicine as your son!”
“Well!…I never!!” exclaimed a shocked Mrs Stark. And then grabbing Roy’s arm she dragged him off down the road cursing under her breath as she went. At that my Nanna slammed the door and as she turned round, red faced and angry, not knowing what to expect, I jumped back.
“The nerve of that woman!” she proclaimed loudly, but when she saw me cringe away her tone changed abruptly and she said tenderly, “Come here,” and taking me in her arms she gave me a cuddle. After telling her the full story, including the reason I had persuaded her to buy me the boots, she scolded me gently for my deception, but admitted that she would not have bought the boots had she known. “Anyway…as they’re already paid for – and how could we take them back with blood on them? – you can keep them as long as you promise to only kick bullies!”
Two days after the incident with Roy Stark I was waiting in line at the local shop to buy my biscuit for morning play break. “It’s the wee English bastard!” I looked around to find David Barney leering at me and for a second I was rooted to the spot; the feeling of nausea mounting in my gut. David Barney was the meanest, toughest kid for his age in Queenzieburn, older still than Roy Stark and a lot tougher. “Whit'r ye lookin’ at? Ye wee yella bastard!” David growled. “Let’s see whit ye kin da with yer fancy boots?”
There was nothing else for it, flying at him I let swing – the boot never reached its mark. Knowing my game plan, exactly, it was almost too easy for him. As soon as I was within range he punched me straight in the mouth. The punch, along with my half-started kick completed the action of putting me flat on my back, and for a moment the lights went out as I slipped into unconsciousness. I looked around in a dreamy haze at my blurry helpers as they assisted me to my feet. My top lip felt like a big fat sausage hanging under my nose, and my front teeth felt numb. I actually thought, at first, that I was in one of my nightmares, but then tasting blood in my mouth I tentatively felt, with my fingers, a gap where once my front teeth had been. That’s when realisation hit me: my nightmare was real. Shaking myself free of my helpers, I bolted through the door and ran staggering and sobbing home.
“Oh! My god!” moaned my Nanna, horrified, as I came through the door. She washed my mouth and, after bathing me in a big tin bath in front of the fire, dressed me in some warm pyjamas and sat me down with a cup of cocoa; then rubbing my spiky head, she said with a smile. “OK, Bruiser! What have you been up to this time?” After getting the full story she reasoned that, although she knew that David Barney was a cruel bully, he had been smart enough to get me to make the first move, and there was nothing much to be done about it.
Dogs don't get lost!
The Campsie hills are a magnificent range of rolling hills bordering the Kelvin Valley, with Queenzieburn couched at the foot. Summer had turned into autumn and I was determined that before winter set in I was going to explore those hills. I had heard stories of an aeroplane that crashed and the wreckage, so they said, was still up there somewhere. Encouraging the involvement of my best friend of the moment, Eddie, I planned an expedition to scale the mighty Campsies. After scheming all week, Saturday morning eventually came around and we met early in the morning in front of my Nanna’s house. I had heard of people getting lost in the Campsies, and although I was quite sure that I wouldn't get lost, I took my Nanna’s dog, Lucky, with me; just in case: because I knew…dogs don't get lost!
Although Eddie and I were around the same age he looked up to me; he actually had me on a bit of a pedestal. “You always seem to do pretty much as you please and you’d stand up to King Kong," he said to me one day. "In fact you did just the other week. Well…maybe not quite King Kong, but David Barney’s the next best thing; and so what if you lost your front teeth…they were only your baby ones anyway!” It was good for my ego, and he made up for some of the others who thought I was a jerk, or to be more accurate ‘a wee English jerk’.
We'd been walking up the steep hills, following a burn, since leaving the dirt road, which had taken us the first few miles. I knew that the burns came from the very top of the Campsies and I figured that if we followed this one to its source, and got to the highest point, we’d be able to see the plane wreck. Not only did the burn give us the general direction but also provided crystal clear drinking water, and a source of endless fun.
At one point we tried to catch a trout by hand. Locally this practice was called guddling, or tickling, but neither of us had mastered the art and although we had lots of fun trying the exercise finished with us both soaking wet, with not a single fish in sight.
Memory Point: '"We'll get belted if we go back like this," and then looking around I'm suddenly blessed with inspiration. "Over there! Come on!" Running over to a group of four large boulders I strip my clothes off and lay them flat on the boulders to dry in the sun; while Eddie stands watching, dubiously. “Well! What are you waiting for?”
"What if someone sees us?" With that I burst out laughing. "Don't laugh at me!" he says; I can see he's obviously embarrassed.
"I'm not really laughing at you." I manage between giggles. "It’s just that we're probably lost and miles from the nearest living soul," and I laugh some more. Eventually, seeing the humour of the situation he laughs and giggles infectiously along with me, as he too strips off.’
We played in the stream for a while, squealing with laughter as we splashed Lucky and each other with the freezing cold water, until at last our clothes were dry and we carried on our way.
It had been hours I was sure since we had decided to climb straight up rather than follow the twisting path of the mountain stream; and always when we reached the top we’d scramble over the crest only to look up, in awe, at another towering crest.
"I'm hungry…and tired," whined Eddie, throwing himself on the grass, and I turned to look down into the Kelvin Valley, far bellow.
"We'll try just this last time…because we still can't see Queenzieburn yet," I coaxed, and Eddie got to his feet. "If we can't see Queenzieburn from the top of this next one," I said giving in to the inevitable, "we'll just have to put the rope on Lucky and let him lead us home," and then looking at Lucky, who lay panting on the ground, I said. "Come on Lucky let's go. One more climb and then home."
I was the first to scramble over the top and turning I shouted through cupped hands. "We've made it!… We're here!… I'm on the top! Eddie!" My joyous yells reached Eddie spurring him on and he scrambled over the very top crest. Our jubilant whoops and yells, and Lucky's barking, for he had been caught up in the excitement too, echoed all around for miles.
"But Nanna!..." I said. "We weren't lost! We could see Queenzieburn from the top and we just came down in a straight line. And besides, we had Lucky with us and everybody knows…dogs don't get lost!" My Nanna had been worried sick all day long, and at about 4 p.m. she and Eddie's parents had mustered all the men in the village, organising a manhunt to find us. She was in tears with Uncle Andrew comforting her when, just before nightfall, I walked through the door with Lucky and declared, "I'm starving! What's for dinner?” and without a pause, "You'll never guess where I've been today?"
She was so overcome with relief that she couldn't scold me. All she could do was listen and laugh at the very different way in which Eddie, Lucky and I had experienced the same day. "And I don't think there ever was a plane crash up in the Campsies,” I said yawning. “But I’m glad I went anyway,” and immediately fell asleep with my head in my empty dinner plate. It had been a monumental day for this six-year-old explorer.
‘Promise… Now you promise!’
My Nanna became infirmed during my stay and could eventually only walk with the aid of sticks. I wasn't aware of the gravity of the problem but muscular dystrophy had started its slow and inevitable course. For reasons beyond my comprehension, Nanna and Uncle Andrew began to sleep apart. The little miner's cottage was comprised of a lounge room/kitchen area and one bedroom. My Nanna slept on the settee, which converted into a bed, and Uncle Andrew slept on a little double bed in the bedroom. During my stay, I was usually off to bed by 7:00pm so I slept in the bedroom.
Uncle Andrew worked down a local coalmine on a rotating roster; sometimes he shared the bed with me and other times, when he was on night shift, I had the bed to myself. He was a gentle little man, less than five feet tall; he doted on me and took me everywhere, spoiling me even more than Nanna did. As winter started to set in I preferred Uncle Andrew home at night so that we could cuddle up and keep warm. The winters in Scotland can be, quite literally, freezing.
One night I woke up as Uncle Andrew was getting into bed. "I need a weewee!" I said, sleepily.
"Well, you know where the pot is,” replied Uncle Andrew. The outside toilet was a bit of a trek in the middle of the night, especially in the winter, so a chamber pot was kept under the bed.
"Oh! Uncle Andrew…I wet my pyjamas!" I said, embarrassed and near to tears. Trying to use the pot, in the dark and half asleep, I had a bit of an accident.
"It's all right, just slip your pants off and jump into bed. We'll sort it out in the morning." I was pleased not to be in trouble and dropping my pants I was about to jump into bed.
"Uncle Andrew!" I said again, consternation evident in my voice.
"What is it?"
"My jacket is wet too!"
"Just take it off."
"But I'll be cold!" I whined.
"No you won't…not once we cuddle up. Come on…quickly! Before you freeze out there!" he encouraged. Taking my jacket off and jumping into bed I cuddled up behind him.
"I'm cold!" I said, shivering against his back.
"Oh, turn round then!" and turning around he cuddled up and began to rub me all over. Soon, the friction of his hands moving swiftly over my bare skin, along with the heat from his own body, had me warm as toast and I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up, or rather I half woke, and in my semiconscious state I had a funny fluttering feeling low down in my stomach and became aware of a tingling feeling in my groin… Flitting for a moment, or an eternity, into a deeper sleep I relived an experience I had when first I moved to England…
When my family and I first moved to England we lived for eighteen months or so in a house in Beaumont Road. Next door lived two little girls – one about my age, three or four-years-old, and one about a year or two older. One day while the three of us were playing we climbed into their coal bunker, which was almost empty at the time. Every house in Keresley had a coal bunker: a concrete construction in the back garden about six square yards by four feet high. A two-foot hole was situated on the top to pour the coal into, with a hole of similar dimensions at the bottom, in front to retrieve the coal from.
Memory Point: "This is our house!" says Kathy, the older of the two girls. "I'm the mummy, you're the daddy and Emmy is our baby." There's a lid on the top hole, which we prop open to let some light in for awhile. “It's night time, now,” says Kathy, closing the lid. "Come on baby, it's your bedtime." I stand in the semi-darkness while Kathy starts taking Emmy's clothes off. "Come on daddy! Help me get baby ready for bed," and so I help to get Emmy down to her knickers and vest; and making a bed out of the rest of her clothes we lie her down.
"All right daddy…it's time for mummy and daddy to go to bed," and with that, Kathy starts to take her clothes off, I follow suit until I'm down to my underpants and singlet. "Mummy and daddy take all their clothes off when they go to bed," says Kathy, making a bed with her clothes.
"No they don't!" I say sceptically.
"Oh yes, they do!" says Kathy assuredly, and stripping off the remainder of her clothes she lies down. I of course had seen my little sister with no clothes on, but she was just a baby, not much more than a year old; seeing Kathy lying there was different. After looking to see how Emmy's taking it, she's actually pretending to be asleep, not wanting to be a party pooper I take the rest of my clothes off and lie next to Kathy. "You have to lie on top of me and kiss me," says Kathy, casually.
"What?!"
"That's what mummies and daddies do. Don't you know anything?" I like Kathy and kissing her is not a problem so I do as I'm told. Almost immediately, I get a strange, fluttering feeling in my stomach, and a tight, tingling feeling in my groin, which I relate to the feeling I sometimes get when I wake up needing to pee; except this time I don't need to pee.
"Ow!" Kathy lets out a yell and I jump, rolling straight off her.
"What's the matter?" I say concerned.
"Your bone was sticking into my belly!" she says pointing at my now, stiff erection.
"I'm sorry!" and embarrassed I try to cover it with my hands.
"No…no, it's all right," she says quickly. "That's what happens to daddies." By now, I'm not surprised at anything she says. She seems to be very knowledgeable. "If you want, I'll show you what you do with it? Uncle Jim showed us, didn't he Emmy?" Emmy's sitting up by now, nodding vigorously. The fluttering in my stomach and the tingling in my groin is reaching fever pitch, and I'm quite literally shaking, as Kathy takes hold of my penis and begins moving her hand up and down. "Now…you won't tell anyone, will you?" she says. "Uncle Jim made us promise!… Now you promise!"
Waking now from my dream – still with the funny, fluttering feeling in my groin – I can hear Uncle Andrew whispering, “Now…you won’t tell anyone, will you? Promise… Now you promise.”
I felt vaguely guilty the next day, I wasn’t sure whether the feelings had foundation or not: sometimes I'd have obscure feelings of foreboding the day after one of my nightmares. By the time I went to bed that night exhausted after a full days activities, I'd forgotten all about the events of the previous night: as you might forget a dream.
“Come on Thomas…move over,” I barely heard as I drifted near consciousness when Uncle Andrew came to bed and snuggled up behind me, before drifting off again. I don’t know how much later it was, as I began to drift back towards consciousness; I felt very warm, too warm, and I was aware of a familiar fluttering feeling in my stomach and groin, and I was rocking gently. Bit by bit, as consciousness seeped into my being, I became aware, firstly, that Uncle Andrew was hard against me, and then that, not only could I hear his breathing but I could feel his hot, rapid breath in my ear. Automatically, still half asleep, I edged away from the oppressive heat, and immediately began drifting into slumber again.
Again, I don’t know how much later, I began to drift towards consciousness, and again, bit by bit, I became aware of the heat, the fluttering in my stomach and groin, the rocking, and Uncle Andrew’s proximity and his breathing. This time I continued to surface, and as I did I felt something pushing between the cheeks of my bottom in time with the rocking. Putting my hand down I discovered that neither of us had pyjama pants on, and it was his hard penis that he was pushing between the cheeks of my bottom! I didn’t know what to do: he was being gentle with me, but the feelings of guilt were so overwhelming that I felt physically sick. I also urgently needed to urinate.
“Un-Un-Uncle A-Andrew?” I stammered, and he abruptly stopped rocking and pushing.
“Shhh!… You don’t want to wake your Nanna do you? You know how much trouble she has getting to sleep,” he whispered, and then putting his mouth right up to my ear, whispering again, he said, “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
I was frightened, trapped, and felt guilty: I was always asking Uncle Andrew to cuddle up to me, keep me warm, give me some attention and show me some affection; wasn’t that what he was doing?
“N-no…” I whispered back in answer to his question: Daddy hurt me, Uncle Andrew would never hurt me. “…I need a weewee,” I said, and gently disentangling myself from his embrace I slipped out of bed. Crouching down I reached under the bed and finding the chamber pot I slid it out and relieved myself. By the time I got back into bed I was shivering and I didn’t struggle as Uncle Andrew pulled me in and cuddled me tight, but as he slipped his penis between my buttocks again I stiffened.
“It’s alright, “ he whispered, and as he rocked gently back and forth, pushing his penis against my bottom, he reached down and fondled my penis until it was sticking up again. After a little while he began to shake, uncontrollably, and then he drew away from me; after sighing deeply a couple of times, he lay back and was quiet for a few moments. He then got out of bed, used the chamber pot, and slipped his Phttp://search.diesel-ebooks.com/author/McKinnon,%20T.%20D./results/-brand.desc/1.html pyjama pants on. “Here…” he whispered, handing me my pyjama pants “…you’d better put them back on,” and then, climbing back into bed and lighting a cigarette, he smoked in silence.
Lying in the darkness, I watched the red tip of his cigarette growing dim and then flaring bright as he inhaled, lighting up his face; a face that, in the past, had meant safety and succour to me. A face that I had looked forward to seeing, with expectation, each summer since I could remember. And this year, a face that I’d watched for, in anticipation, as I’d waited for him to come home from work each day. I wasn’t sure what it was that I was feeling right now, but it certainly wasn’t the same anymore.
“Thomas?” he said quietly, as he stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray. “Thomas…are you awake?”
“Yes…” I said expectantly: I was hoping that somehow he was going to make it all right again.
“Now…this is to be our wee secret, remember. You mustn't tell anyone…especially not Nanna… Promise… Now you promise…”
“I promise,” I said, and I felt a darkness close in around me that had nothing to do with the night.
The next day the feelings of guilt were no longer vague, I could hardly bear being under my Nanna’s loving scrutiny: not only had Uncle Andrew destroyed my relationship with him, he’d changed my relationship with my dear Nanna. Every night, that he wasn’t on night shift, Uncle Andrew made me make that promise, after indulging in his nocturnal, carnal games. Very quickly I changed from a bright little spark, recovering from a nervous breakdown while basking in a safe and loving environment, to a dark, tortured little soul again: I had to escape. I was learning that when things were to be kept secret there was generally guilt attached. I associated guilt with the beatings that I received from my father; so at all costs I had to keep the guilt, or the secret, away from him. I never did tell anyone about Uncle Andrew – how could I? I buried it along with all the other things that had guilt attached.
No longer comfortable and secure in my grandparent’s home, I dreaded rather than looked forward to Uncle Andrew’s company on those cold winter nights. He cheated me of the warmth, protection and love that I had come to depend upon from my Scottish home. At six years old I wasn't sure what was wrong and what was right, but if an adult is ashamed, or feels guilt it becomes a pretty strong indication that it must be wrong. For the first time ever, I wanted to go home…to England.
Chapter 10: High School! An Entirely Different World
‘A’ stream student:
"Turn to page twelve in your text books and carry on where you left off on Friday!" ordered the maths teacher, Mr Alderson, in his booming, baritone voice and the whole class scrambled to obey.
Turning to the boy next to me I began to ask, "Where can I get a pen—?" when a piece of chalk pinged, painfully off my ear. Turning quickly to pounce on whoever had thrown the chalk, I found Mr Alderson looming over me, resembling a large, bespectacled ogre.
"What do you mean by chattering in my class? Boy!" the ogre bellowed.
"But Sir…I didn't kn—"
"Don't lie to me… Boy! I saw you!" and as he finished his piggy little eyes ran searchingly over my desk. "Where's your pen, boy?"
I was so shaken by now that all I could say was, "I...ah...I...I don't have one, Sir."
"What!?… Stand up boy!" he barked, and I sprang to my feet, knocking my chair over in the process, positively beside myself. This horror of a man instilled the same kind of fear in me as my father, and that old familiar feeling began its chain reaction. "Hand…out!" the ogre bellowed.
"Sorry, Sir?" I said, not quite understanding.
"You will be… Boy!” said the ogre, grabbing the wooden ruler from my desk and raising it above his head. At last, understanding dawned, and not wanting to upset him more than he already was I stuck my hand out.
Memory Point: ‘'THWACK' The ruler comes down onto my palm, and without pause it comes down again; this time there's a loud 'CRACK' as the ruler snaps in two, and the broken end goes clattering across the floor. There are subdued sniggers and giggles from the other children, not helping my case one little bit. Enraged even further, he leans over and with a snarl snatches the ruler from the next desk.
"Hand out!" he bellows again, and with my hand already stinging, swollen and red I can only obey. 'THWACK' the second ruler comes down on my hand and without a pause it comes down again 'CRACK'… In the silence that follows you could hear the proverbial pin drop. Breaking the silence at last, Mr Alderson says, "Now, go and stand in the corridor!"
Five minutes later, while gingerly checking my hand for damage, my face still wet from the recent tears, Mr Alderson opened the door and stepped into the corridor. "Why didn't you inform me that this is your first day at this school?" I looked up at Mr Alderson through bleary red eyes. This was not only my first day; it was also my first class. I had arrived back two weeks late for the beginning of term after my grandfather’s funeral. In the junior school pens had been provided, so that whole performance with Mr Alderson had totally confused me. Now, I was afraid to even speak in case I unwittingly prodded the ogre into life again. After a few seconds of silence, handing me his own pen, he said quietly, "You can borrow this for today. Now, go and wash your face before you go back in."
High school, I quickly learnt, was an entirely different world from junior school. I had been assigned to an 'A' stream class: it seemed that Mr Kay's recommendations had landed me in the top form. There were several reasons I didn't really appreciate Mr Kay's well-meaning optimism. For one thing the homework load was extremely heavy: I found myself with copious amounts of assignments. Another thing was, for the most part, I found myself in the company of strangers. The high school catered for a much larger area than the junior school and most of the children that I had previously associated with were in the classes below me. Thirdly, and the worst thing of all, the children who were not strangers were not friends. And starting in my class they spread the infamous story that had scandalised the junior school. With each telling it became more outrageous and by the time it got all the way around the school I was labelled the local purveyor of perversion. Consequently, I retreated behind my castle walls, battlements on full alert.
The odd angry moment
“Thomas!” Looking up from my Superman comic-book I could see my mother framed in the back door.
It was Saturday afternoon at the end of my first week of high school and the summer was turning on one last performance, with temperatures in the seventies, before sliding into autumn. I'd thrown an old mat down in the back garden to lie on and taken my shirt off to enjoy the late summer sun, while reading one of my favourite pieces of literature.
“Come and wash these dishes,” she said.
“Yeh, in a minute,” I said absently as I looked back down at my comic book.
Memory Point: ‘Not more than two minutes have passed when my father comes storming out of the back door, moving so fast that I don’t even see him covering the six or seven yards to where I'm lying. Vaguely aware of the sudden movement, I look up and I'm slapped across the face. Before I can react he grabs me by the arm, heaves me off the mat, and throws me in the direction of the back door.
“What?... What did I do?” I cry, confused and terrified, as he advances on me again, menacingly. Picking me up by the arm I'm pathetically attempting to defend myself with, he drags me into the house, giving my backside several hefty slaps. Squirming, to avoid the blows, I fall from his grasp and he kicks my backside propelling me from the kitchen into the living room, where Uncle Bill and my mother are sitting. He continues to slap and kick me through the living room and then up the stairs until reaching my bedroom. Holding me over the bed, he roughly pulls my pants down and flogs into my bare buttocks. Eventually after begging him to stop, for what seems an eternity, he finishes of with several, mandatory, hard smacks.
“Don’t you ever tell your mother to wait a minute!” he says angrily, and then before turning to leave, his breathing a little laboured from his exertions, he adds, “Just stay up here until you have to leave for school on Monday morning!”
I lay on my bed sobbing quietly for hours. I did not understand; my father’s attack caught me completely by surprise. I had not intended to be disrespectful to my mother: I would not dare. I was a little too preoccupied to see exactly what Bill and my mother’s reaction had been, as I was belted through the living room; however, I was vaguely aware of Bill frowning disapprovingly and my mother, as always, had a worried expression on her face. The fact was, in part at least, she must have instigated the whole incident; she certainly did nothing to stop it. So, not for the first time, I fell asleep hating both of my parents.
Welcome to my nightmare
I had been having nightmares for as long as I could remember. When I was much younger it was nearly every night, now it was only intermittently. Some of them might be termed very bad dreams, but others were indeed nightmares.
It always took me a long time to fall asleep, not because I wasn’t tired – generally, after getting up early for school, I was very tired – it was the horrors that lay in wait for me just on the other side of consciousness. I might go for weeks without a bad dream, and then I’d have one of my repeats. I wore my vulnerability like a flag, it seemed. During my waking hours, at school, I attract the bullies and antagonists almost as if I was waving that flag, which read in big bold letters ‘This Person Is Extremely Vulnerable’. When I went to sleep, I wandered into those other states of consciousness waving that same flag.
The nightmares were many and varied, but some of them were repeated showings; like a familiar horror movie in which you are aware of each scene as it comes up. But, unlike sitting in a movie theatre, you cannot hide your eyes or get up and leave when it gets to the scary bit; you have to play the scene out, and no matter how familiar you are with that scene it always comes as more than a shock. One of my repeat performances had me in a school.
Memory Point: "While sitting at my desk minding my own business the teacher, who appears for all the world like an ordinary person, stands in front of me, smiling. He leans towards me, his hands on my desk, his face getting closer; suddenly I notice that his hands are turning into claws, and a single talon is actually buried into one of my hands, pinioning it to the desk. Although it hurts, surprisingly it's more uncomfortable than painful, but the terrible feeling of being trapped is overwhelming. The face, which is now mere inches away from mine, undergoes a metamorphosis and the eyes become red, devils eyes; the smile transforms into a snarl, the teeth turn into fangs and a low growl emits from the throat. I sweat profusely and whimper as I lower my head and avert my eyes.
“Look at me boy!” the monster growls, and terrified I do as I'm told, but as I glance up he transforms once more; and there is a normal teacher, his hand resting gently on top of mine and the smile is back as he says, “Pay attention boy.”
The bell sounds for break and as I head outside with the rest of the milling crowd of boys I wonder if I dreamt it. Sometimes I remember that I’m still dreaming, and knowing what is to come next I try in vain to wake myself up. When we get outside it is night-time, the school buildings look Gothic and foreboding, the grounds dark and portentous. At first, being in the crowd of boys seems safe but the feeling quickly dissolves when a boy comes running down a path, screaming. “The headmaster’s out!!… He’s prowling the grounds!!” and everyone scatters. I try to stay close to a group of boys as they flee down one of the paths, but suddenly it feels like I am running in slow motion and I am left alone; a feeling of blind panic comes over me.
I look around and there, at the other end of the path, is the headmaster. The tall, gaunt, Dracula figure is familiar. He looks like an amalgamation of all the headmasters I have ever known, plus my father. Suddenly he is gliding towards me, with his black cloak fluttering he appears to be flying, and as he descends on me I begin to scream. I feel the vice like grip of his talons closing on me and I, desperately, tear myself out of the nightmare…into waking reality, to find myself drenched in sweat, alone and terrified in the pitch-black night. Relieved that of course it was just a dream, but terrified because it was so real, and waits for me still – just on the other side of consciousness.’
Over the years that I’d been having this nightmare I had forced myself awake at various points in the dream because most of the time I knew what it was. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to bear. In fact, it seemed more real than reality itself. As soon as I realised where I was I would attempted to wake myself, but it wasn’t so easy to do. I was, on occasion, able to wake up when the claw pierced my hand, pinioning me to my desk; but when I tried to wake and couldn’t it merely re-enforced the nightmare, like a superimposed reality, and I’d scream ‘Oh my god…it’s not a dream…it’s real!! It’s real!!” and the horror would intensify. Often there would be a variation on the nightmare: the incident with the teacher and the claw might not happen at all. But then, as we all went outside for break, the boys would turn into little ogres with sharp teeth and evil eyes, and they would chase me around the school grounds, screaming, until the headmaster came along. This time he was an ordinary, stern looking headmaster who scared the children off. But then as he stood towering above me, his hand protectively on my shoulder, he would suddenly turn into the monster and I’d wake up screaming again.
Six easy steps to the ‘B’ stream
While in the 'A' stream I made very few friends, but for a brief spell I became friendly with Jim Partin. Jim was originally from Scotland and that was probably the only thing he and I had in common; he was an only child and used to getting his own way. The main part he played in my life was introducing me to the 1st Exhall Scout Group.
Scouts went camping, and other interesting things. More to the point, the 1st Exhall Scout Group was going camping the next year to 'Switzerland', and so I became a keen Boy Scout. I joined the school gymnastic club where I kept in contact with John Hughes, who quickly became the star of the gym club. John didn’t get any homework: he was in the 'G' form and they hardly did any schooling, let alone get homework. So he and I didn't see much of each other during that time, except at gymnastics. I also joined the chess club, but dropped it after a couple of months due to my heavy social commitments: two nights Scouts, two nights gymnastics club, a heavy homework load and weekends at Camp Hill proved to be too much.
A few days before Christmas of 1961 finds me in high spirits. I am getting a bike for Christmas, the Scouts are having a joint Christmas party with the Girl Guides, and I have just heard that I will be moving into the 'B' stream after Christmas: I made my decision before the half-yearly exams.
Exam Results:
English 17/100,
Maths 12/100,
Science 18/100,
Geography 25/100,
History 27/100,
French 5/100.
The results, as you might expect, did not go down too well at home. The bike I was getting for Christmas was mostly due to my scholastic efforts the previous year. Never the less my new bike would be there on Christmas morning, just a few days away.
Girl Guides and mistletoe
Memory Point: "School is over for three weeks and here I am getting a haircut, in a gents hairdresser in Coventry City no less! No sixpenny barber cut for me this day! Three-shillings-and-sixpence for a semi-crew-cut and blow wave, or what is currently being called a ‘Tony Curtis’ after the film star of the same name who initiated its popularity. ‘And tonight…the party!’
"Yes," I say to the hairdresser holding a mirror to show me the finished cut at the back. ‘Yes!’ I think to myself, as I stand up, viewing my reflection in the large mirror. "Merry Christmas," I say loudly, while giving the hairdresser a sixpenny tip.
"Thank you! and a merry Christmas to you," the smiling hairdresser calls after me as I bounce out of the shop.’
I spend the next couple of hours wandering around the shopping precincts and arcades, smiling at people and enjoying the festive feelings in the air. ‘Why?... Why don't people feel like this more often? Today, if I bump into someone they’re ready with a quick smile and an apology. Whereas usually, a scowl and a sharp, “Watch where you're going!” is par for the norm.’ Letting the thought go I abandon myself to the euphoria of the day.'
From the moment I walked in the door, I was the centre of attention at the party. I'd been worried that I hadn't anything to wear until, plucking up the courage, I decided to wear my kilt. Proud Scot that I was, I could not have done better had I the largest wardrobe in the world.
At first, as I expected, I got a little ribbing from the boys: “Donald where’s your trousers?” was the most used heckle (the lyrics of a current, comic song by Scots singer, Andy Stewart) and “What have you got under your kilt?” ran a close second. But once they saw the girls reaction there was nothing but envy on their faces.
"Aren't you going to ask those young ladies to dance?… And after I went to all the trouble of inviting them for you," said Skip, the man who ran and organised the 1st Exhall Scouts.
There were murmurs of, "Aw Skip!" and "I can't dance!"
Skip immediately started lining chairs back to back up the centre of the hall, and in no time flat the music was going and Skip was calling for everyone to begin dancing or walking around the chairs in a large circle. "When the music stops," he shouted to be heard above the noise, "the boys have to sit on a chair and the girls have to sit on a boys lap," and he paused, grinning widely. "And, anyone not finding a chair...or a lap...is out!"
I walked around with the other boys, checking out the girls who were skipping and dancing around, appearing to be bothered little about a lap to sit on. The music stopped, and for a fraction of a second I froze while the place erupted as boys dived for chairs and girls jumped onto boys laps. Taken totally by surprise, I was about to accept that I'd been caught napping when I was grabbed from behind, thrown into a chair and jumped on! There was a few more seconds pause in the music as Skip counted out anyone who didn’t have a seat. When the music started again the girl who’d grabbed me sprang to her feet, and turning she gave me a quick smile before dancing off around the chairs again. More relaxed now, shuffling to the music, I followed the trim little rear that only seconds before had been parked on my lap.
Some chairs were removed and the next time the music stopped I leapt immediately into a vacant chair; the cute little girl who’d grabbed me the first time turned and made a beeline for my lap. Only to be pipped at the post by a girl who almost knocked me and my chair over. In the few seconds that followed she introduced herself. Brenda was cute too, and I didn't mind being in demand, not in the least.
The music started again and Brenda jumped to her feet, but instead of dancing off she grabbed my hand as I stood up and danced along side of me. Engrossed in conversation, Brenda and I completely missed getting a chair the next time. Promising to give her a dance later, we parted company and joined our friends.
As the party warmed up the girls and boys mixed and chatted more easily. I went to the outside toilet at one stage and when I re-entered the hall I walked straight into a branch of mistletoe, which in my absence had been tied above the door. The girl who had first made physical contact with me now stood facing me. I knew a little more about her by now, her name was Jenny and she was really quite shy. Leaning forward, I gently kissed her; the boys cheered, the girls giggled and Jenny hurried back to her friends.
I was half way back to my friends and still feeling a little embarrassed when I felt something tickling the back of my neck; turning, I found Brenda holding a large sprig of mistletoe above my head. At that precise moment the lights went out, suddenly Brenda was hard against me, kissing me passionately. A few seconds later I was actually running out of breath when the lights came back on; finding Brenda standing sedately, holding my hand. My favourite record began to play: Cliff Richard, singing ‘Living Doll’, and as Brenda and I danced closely I sang along, quietly, ‘Got myself a cryin’, talkin’, sleepin’, walkin’, livin’ doll’.
The night was a roaring success and I ended up kissing Brenda and Jenny goodnight at the end of the party. ‘What a great start to Christmas,’ I thought, as I closed my eyes and pulled the covers up around my ears. ‘What a great start to Christmas.’
‘Pure joy’
Memory Point: "A couple of days before Christmas, I'm standing on The Green opposite our house at about 6.45pm, and the snow is falling heavily. The street is almost empty, and with the heavy winter drapes drawn in all the houses, it is in complete darkness apart from the street lamps that, because of the snow, illuminate only a small circle around the lamps themselves. With no wind, the snow is falling in large, soft flakes; in the dark of the night they appear like large, black butterflies falling gently out of the heavens. It's the first snow of the year, the ground was dry, so the snow is immediately forming a thick carpet. Around the Green, the angles and straight lines of houses and fences are softened, and any sounds are muffled, by the steadily falling snow. The entire environment, and my existence within it, is transformed into something ethereal, magical: a winter wonderland. And as I tilt my smiling face to catch the large flakes of snow, feeling them softly land and then melt, trickling down in tiny rivulets; the feeling welling up inside of me is nothing short of pure joy.'
The joy of receiving
Not wanting to wake anyone else, I whispered quietly, "Jane! Wake up!"
Sitting up, sleepily, rubbing her eyes she said, "What time is it?"
Excitement bubbling out of me I said, "Christmas time!" and as realisation broke over her, like crashing surf, her eyes widened and she leapt out of bed.
Memory Point: "It's still dark outside, but we can hear the children’s rapturous voices echoing around the empty streets as we co-conspirators creep quietly down the stairs. It's Christmas; at Christmas children don't stand on ceremony for darkness or zero temperatures.
Jane and I slip into the living room, hardly able to contain our excitement; I flick the light switch on revealing two piles of neatly wrapped, brightly coloured parcels, an assorted array of Christmas confection, and two sparkling, shiny bicycles. "Wow!" I exclaim; I can't help myself, it's like a dream: everything is just perfect. "Ow!" feeling a sharp dig in the ribs I turn on Jane but stop abruptly.
"Shh!" holding one finger to her lips, the other hand cupped at her ear, her eyes are full of warning and I'm quickly alerted to the muffled sounds from upstairs.
"What on earth are you two doing up at this hour of the morning? Do you know what time it is?" Stepping out of the living room, we look up to see my father at the top of the stairs. Not thinking of anything he might want to hear, we simply look down in a guilty, caught in the act manner. At this point we hear a loud whisper, only just audible...
"It's Christmas, for Christ’s sake! Leave them alone."
We're still looking at the floor and shuffling our feet, there's a short pause... "You can stay down there. But no going outside, or eating chocolates until after your breakfast," and with that he disappears back into the bedroom leaving us staring at the empty space at the top of the stairs.’
In spite of the shaky start, Christmas day 1961 was an unqualified success. Bill and the boys turned up around mid morning, and the festivities carried on until the evening, when I returned to Camp Hill with the Davis family for the next few days.
Back to school and a painful crush
When I returned to school after the Christmas break I was more comfortable with schoolwork than I had been for a long time. Life in the 'B' form was fairly easy compared to ‘A’ stream activity, and for the first time since starting school I found myself in the same class as Hughie Donnelly. He was nearly a year older and had started school a year in front of me; in fact Hughie was one of the oldest in first year high school, while I was one of the youngest in the entire school. Throughout the rest of that year we sat next to each other in most classes, and were comfortable working at the same pace.
Lynne Layton was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. She had big brown eyes, with the longest lashes, long dark brown hair and the trimmest little shapely figure a twelve-year-old could have. The daughter of a landowner, gentleman farmer, quite obviously money was not a concern: her school uniforms, which she always wore, were expertly tailored to fit her perfect little figure. She sat close to me in most classes and always smelled like spring flowers. I couldn’t help myself; I fell in love with her.
At first I think she found it amusing when she caught me staring at her, but eventually it annoyed her. Lynne’s best friend, Anne Kattford, who was loud, outspoken and had the well-earned nickname, ‘The Cat’, took great delight in embarrassing me at every opportunity.
Memory Point: “Lynne doesn’t want anything to do with a little pervert like you! Why don’t you go and find your little pervert girlfriend, Sally Ritter?” Her cruel jibes are like pouring salt into open wounds, but it doesn't deter me."
I couldn’t help myself; for the remainder of first year high school I fantasized about Lynne being my girlfriend, constantly leaving myself open to unkind remarks from ‘The Cat’ by mooning after Lynne. Pathetic really, my heart ached every time I saw her and it was not until we moved into different classes that I stopped making a fool of myself. It took a long time to get over her. Outside of school I still had a busy social life with two nights per week at the Scouts, two nights at gym club and, when I wasn't camping at the weekends with the Scouts, I still liked to spend time at Camp Hill.
The final procurement
The summer of 1962 approached, and the 1st Exhall Scout group begun to prepare for their trip to Switzerland. As the weather improved more weekends were spent camping out. Initially, I had to borrow everything I needed for camping: most of the stuff was very expensive. My Scout uniforms and camping gear was purchased, second-hand, from some of the Scouts who came from more affluent families, as they bought new ones. Slowly but surely I obtained everything I needed: clip-together knife, fork and spoon set - plate, bowl and mug set - sleeping-bag - waterproof cape - walking boots, and the ready for anything pen knife. Eventually, getting together almost everything I needed, I had to borrow less and less until pretty soon I was planning my final procurement.
Every Scout worth his salt had a Parker: a Scout’s Parker was a shower-proof smock type jacket, with lots of pockets. It pulled over the head, had a hood with a yellow lining, and was light grey in colour to match the light khaki of the Scout uniform. But they were expensive. I had already given up my two shillings per week pocket money to go towards the purchase of my second-hand gear and my trip to Switzerland. The trip alone was to cost my parents twenty-five pounds; in those days, to a mining family, a small fortune.
‘Bob-A-Job Week’ actually lasted a couple of weeks, and that year the last week went over the Easter break, when most kids are out playing. Not I. Every day I made a flask of hot chocolate and some sandwiches, and packing them in my saddle bag, donning my Scout uniform, I cycled off, ‘Bob-A-Jobbing’ all day long. I was sure no one else had given up his Easter break, but more importantly, I knew that no one wanted to win as much as I did. Working my hardest, making twice as much as my nearest rival, I won and a Parker, my final procurement, was my choice at the camping shop.
Scouts athletics day
As well as Switzerland, the 1st Exhall Scouts were preparing for the annual, area athletics meeting.
“I want to see a good response for these athletics… Lets see everyone get into the spirit of the games,” said Skip enthusiastically. There were a few moans and groans but most of our Scout troop gave a spirited response. I participated in all of the training and most of the heats, placing well in almost every race; my best distance, and the one I was picked to represent the troop at the area meeting, was the 220 yards.
I awoke on the Saturday morning of the athletics meet conscious of an air of excitement, we had been training for weeks and I was feeling confident; nervous of course but self-assured none the less. The night before, I'd whitened my sandshoes, and laid out a clean white singlet and my white shorts: it was actually my gymnastic gear, but it was comfortable and I always felt crisp and clean in it.
Completing my chores by 10:00am, I was about to cycle to the designated sports field, about four miles away, when to my surprise my father got out of bed. He’d gone to bed at 7:00am, as was his normal practice after coming home from the night shift. “Give me a minute to have a cup of tea, and I’ll take you there," he said. “Save your energy for the race.”
To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. After checking in, and as I got ready for my race, I began to get really nervous. I hadn’t ever taken part in an athletics meeting: at school I avoided getting involved in competition; I did well in the class activities, but I didn’t take part in the inter-house competitions, which was what the school athletics day was all about. I didn’t play team sports either: football or cricket et cetera, so I was completely unused to performing in front of spectators, and today there was about fifty Scout Groups present. With all their families and supporters, that amounted to perhaps a couple of thousand people; plus of course, my father was in the audience.
Memory Point: “Take your marks!”
We move forward onto our staggered starting lines. Five out of the ten participants have their own starting blocks, a fact that only adds to my nerves, and as I get down into position I notice my hands are actually shaking.
“Get set!”
I fight down the feeling of nausea, swallowing the bile that has risen into my mouth.
Bang!
I leap immediately into a flat run: head down, arms pumping. However, horrified, I soon realise I'm running in slow motion: like those dreadful nightmares where everyone else is running away from the monster, but semi-paralysed, like moving through treacle, I’m hardly moving.
I try with all my might to break the spell, but it holds me fast and the rest of the field is streaking away from me. Exhausted and gasping for breath, as if I’ve just run a marathon, I cross the line last by a long way and throw up. Feeling like the worst looser, I head directly for the car where I wait for my father.’
“What happened?” he said, after we were out of the car park and heading for home.
“I don’t know,” I said feeling totally miserable.
“Nerves, I suppose?” he offered, and then, “Oh well…never mind.”
I don’t know what I expected him to say; I don’t suppose anything he might have said would have made me feel any better, but somehow I managed to feel that it was his fault, just for being there. I mean, if he hadn’t been there, and I had still choked, I wouldn’t have felt so bad; or would I?
I didn’t go back to Scouts the next week; in fact if it wasn’t for Switzerland I probably wouldn’t have gone back at all. When I did go back, the following week, I said that I’d been ill on the day of the athletics, but hadn’t wanted to let the Troop down so I’d turned up and made the effort; and I was only just now over my sickness. Much to my relief, my performance on the day was so inferior to my efforts in training that nobody doubted my explanation, and my standing in the Scouts was at least no worse.
A happy moment with my father – few and far between
My Nanna had taken very ill, it was a difficult time for my father to take time off work, so Bill – close family friend that he was – volunteered to take my mother to Scotland to look after Nanna for a week.
“Where are we going Daddy?” Jane said, for about the tenth time, as we bundled into the car. Saturday morning a week after Bill and my mother left for Scotland, out of the blue, my father told us to put on some nice clothes. He was taking us out somewhere; it was to be a surprise.
Memory Point: “But…Daddy, you’ve got to tell us?” persists my young sister. I'm saying nothing at all. He seems in a good mood, but I've seen so little of my father’s good moods that I'm not ready to trust it. We're heading towards Coventry, it's Saturday morning; any shopping is always done on a Saturday morning. ‘Oh! That’s what it is, he just wants a hand to get the shopping,’ but when we reach Coventry he just keeps driving through and out the other side. Now I'm intrigued.
After about fifteen minutes we pull off the road and park in an open field where several hundred other cars are already parked; across the road I can see a large fairground. “Are we going to the fair?” I ask, not persuaded that that's why we're here: he's never taken us to the fair before. “Why else do you think we’re here?” he says, and by now he's beaming. Jane and I are so excited as he holds our hands, and we keep exchanging quick, little glances as he leads us across the road; this is not the father we're used to seeing.’
The day could not have been better. He took us on every ride that we wanted to go on, and took part in all the games with us: throwing balls at coconuts and shooting air riffles at targets. He even bought us hot dogs, candy floss and toffee apples, and when at last he said, “I think it’s about time we headed home,” I had never seen my father laugh as much in my entire life.
Returning home, he made us chips and eggs, our favourite meal. Afterwards when Jane, exhausted and falling asleep, went off to bed he let me watch the late film, a science fiction movie called ‘The Man From 1999’. My usual bedtime was eight o’clock during the week and nine o’clock on a Friday and Saturday nights. The late film didn’t finish until almost eleven o’clock; I'd never been allowed to watch it before.
As I lay in bed waiting for sleep I tried to work out what it was that was different; what had caused my father’s complete change of character? I was just reaching a conclusion as I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning I couldn’t remember what that conclusion had been. Bill brought my mother home later that night.
Switzerland here I come
I waved goodbye to my mother, father, and little sister as the coach pulled away from the 1st Exhall Scout Hall, and as I lost sight of the cheering, waving crowd I breathed a sigh of relief; I was actually on my way.
In Dover, we boarded the cross channel ferry to Oostende, and traveled by coach again through Belgium and into Northern France where we camped for the night. The following day we continued through France and Luxembourg, finally arriving in Switzerland where we stayed at a campsite near Englberge, situated in the mountains high above Lake Lucerne.
"Why do you keep staring up at that mountain?" said Ian, one of my fellow Scouts. I didn't regard Ian as a friend he was too rich, too spoilt and too stuck up.
"I'm going to climb that mountain!" I said, speaking my thoughts aloud in a matter of fact tone.
"Yeh! Sure you are, Mr Toughie," replied Ian, with more than a little sarcasm.
Turning away from the mountain I looked directly at him; firstly with anger but then, seeing a flash of fear cross his face, sympathy and a little more understanding replaced it. "OK, Mr Smarty-pants. You just stand there and watch me climb that bloody mountain."
"Tom!" I heard my name being called as I reached the first steep grass slope; looking back I could see Ian running after me. "Can I come with you?" Ian puffed as he drew close.
We headed up the first slope and had been going for about fifteen minutes or so when I paused in my uphill scramble and turned to look down. Ian was only a few yards behind me but was having a much harder time; I realised he was going out of his way not to put his hands down, looking down-right dangerous. "What are you doing?" I said exasperated.
He looked up at me, his face flushed and his breath coming in gasps. "What do you mean?" and he looked genuinely perplexed.
"What I mean…" I said, a note of compassion creeping into my voice, "…is if you don't stop worrying about getting your hands dirty and start using them to climb you won't make it up this first slope, let alone climb the bloody mountain!" Ian peered up past me at the towering rocks above, and then back down towards the campsite already far below. Breaking into his thoughts I said, "Maybe you'd better just go back!"
"You just keep going!" he retorted. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."
We pressed on. After picking our way up the first slope and over a rocky overhang we stopped for a rest; from our resting-place we could see out over the whole valley. Englberge, at around four thousand feet above sea level, is situated in a valley a couple of thousand feet above Lake Lucerne, and the tallest of the mountains around Englberge reaches an altitude of over nine thousand feet above sea level.
"It's beautiful," I remarked in awe.
"Well… You do surprise me," said Ian, with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm and I turned toward him with a question in my eyes, but said nothing. "I'm sorry," he said in answer to my unspoken question. "I wasn't meaning to be sarcastic that time. It's just that I didn't think toughies like you used words like beautiful."
"That's a whole load of shit, Ian!" I spat the words out and immediately regretted them; I could see the defensive shutters slamming back down behind his eyes. "I'm sorry." I continued quickly, "I don't mean to sound tough. I'm not tough. But you can't let people walk all over you!" A better understanding began to develop between us as we progressed on up the mountain.
The climb became increasingly difficult, but I managed to pick a route which kept us ascending the mountain until at last we stood before a seemingly, insurmountable obstacle: a sheer cliff face, rising out of the opposite side of a small glacier, that would have done justice to a team of seasoned mountain climbers, with all the appropriate equipment.
"I don't think we should go any further," and there was a note of desperate hope in his voice. Falling silent, I looked long and hard up at the mountain peak towering three or four hundred feet above us.
"As much as I hate to admit it," I said at last, "I have to agree with you." Finding an observation point, we rested while enjoying the breathtaking view.
"Can you remember the way back down?" asked Ian absently.
After a brief reflection I said, "Probably not. What about you?"
"Not a hope in hell!" he answered, sounding suddenly concerned.
"Oh well," I said with a shrug, "I didn't know the way up and I got us this far."
"Oh great!!" said Ian, that familiar note of sarcasm was back. "I hope we don't have the same amount of success going down. If there’s one thing worse than having a four-hundred-foot wall of rock to ascend…it's having a four-hundred-foot wall of rock to descend!”
I was well aware of the gravity of Ian's statement but gave no indication of that as I stood up and, before heading off, replied, "I'll tell you what, Ian. You go whatever route takes your fancy," and I began my cautious descent – with Ian staying very close behind.
We had been tracking back and forth across the mountain, gingerly picking our way down for about an hour when we came to a wooded grass slope. It wasn't the route we'd taken coming up. The slope was so steep that the trees were almost parallel to the ground.
Memory Point: ‘'C-R-A-C-K'
"T-o-o-o-m!!"
I hear the branch break and the plaintiff cry from Ian, but can do nothing as he slams into me. Sliding down the slope, we gather speed as we head towards a more heavily wooded patch fifty yards further down. Crashing through the first line of small trees, I hit a larger tree head on. I'm still in a state of terror, the wind knocked completely out of me, as Ian slams into me again, almost dislodging me once more. Hanging onto the tree for grim death, while Ian clings to me, our downward career has halted, but only just. Eventually, recovering enough, we carefully manoeuvre downward and ten yards further we come to a sheer drop of close to a thousand feet. I feel the blood drain from my face, and as we turn, wide eyed, to face each other I notice that Ian is as white as a ghost.'
There were no more sarcastic remarks from Ian, or smart comments from me. Tracking back and forth across the mountain, we made the rest of the journey in complete silence, eventually finding a safe descent to the campsite.
For our irresponsible assault on the mountain we were confined to the camp for the next two days. I was glad that Ian had come along, because although I was basically blamed for leading him astray, they had to give us both the same punishment. Ian was one of the favourites, hence the relatively cushy sentence.
What the hell! It was fun in camp, anyway. It rained on our first night of confinement. It rained so hard that within a couple of hours the normally gentle little stream, running through the campsite, became a raging torrent, resulting in half the campsite being under six inches of water. Everyone helped to evacuate the submerged half, and then doubled up in the relatively dry tents for the remainder of the night.
Come the morning the rain had stopped, the water had subsided, and the sun was shining; so mopping up operations got under way. ‘What a top holiday,’ I thought as I helped to clean up the camp. I had only been in Switzerland a couple of days and I had already climbed a mountain and been in a flood.
"Zis is goot fun? Ya?" Looking around, I was expecting to find one of my fellow Scouts putting on a, rather bad, German accent. "I am Eric. Und I am very pleased…to you," and I stood open mouthed as the youth, who appeared to be about the same age as me, repeated his introduction, and then put out his hand.
Eric was a young German boy and typically Aryan, blonde hair and blue eyes, plus a very friendly smile. "I'm very pleased to meet you too," I replied as I took the boys hand and shook it enthusiastically. "My name is Tom. And yes…it is good fun, isn't it!?"
Eric and I spent a lot of time together during our holiday. It turned out that Eric was on holiday with his parents; his father taught English at a school in West Germany so communication between us was very good. Also, Eric and his father had climbed some way up the same mountain just two days before me, and they were extremely impressed when I told of my adventure on the mountain. The friendship blossomed and when it came time to depart we exchanged addresses. Alas, I lost Eric's address somewhere on the trip home, and I assume that something of a similar nature happened to Eric, because I never, ever heard from him again.
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"Hey…Georgie, that's not fair!" I said apprehensively, edging my way nervously towards the gate.
Although only a little taller than me Georgie was probably about half as heavy again. A rather skinny child for my age, I must have struck a pathetic figure: after an earlier fall I'd been crying and rubbing my eyes with my dirty hands, and my elbows, badly grazed and sore from the fall, were still sticky with half congealed blood.
I would have been barely four-years-old, living in Kirkintilloch with my family. Georgie had befriended me some three weeks previously, and starving for companionship I'd attached myself to him. Today, however, when I'd called at his house he told me to go away, and when I didn’t immediately do so he and Hamish, his new friend, decided to have some fun with me. The transfer of Georgie’s friendship from me to Hamish was something to do with the shiny, new thruppenny piece in Hamish's pocket, stolen from his mother's purse.
Georgie was smiling that cruel sort of smile that bullies get; even those as young as five-years-old. "Lock the gate, Hamish," he ordered. At the shout from Georgie I panicked, scrambling like a scalded cat I ran, and hitting the partially open gate on my way out I ripped my shirt half-off. They were on my heels in an instant, and I desperately sprinted for home with their blood curdling yells ringing in my ears. Adrenaline aided my flight, but unfortunately caused me to run straight into my father, who'd just opened the front door, almost taking the legs from under him. He quickly slapped me a couple of times around the ears for not watching where I was going. I tried to blurt out my story of woe, but winded and sobbing hard I couldn't complete one word. Then noticing my ripped shirt and bloody arms he became more enraged slapping me with increasing venom, this time around the legs until I collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Eventually he did hear the story I was so desperately trying to tell. The hitting stopped, but to my dismay my father was not sorry and understanding. Still angry, he told me that unless I went out and stuck up for myself I would receive even more punishment.
Memory Point: ‘I'm standing in a quandary, in the middle of the front yard, with my father looking out of the window behind me, and the two jeering bullies out on the footpath. Well, there isn’t really any big choice to make; I'm frightened of the bullies, but at least I stand a chance against them, even if it is a slim one.’
{This was my earliest memory point; and where I began my particular method of recovering a complete memory from a memory snapshot. In so doing, I gleaned the first part of chapter one of this book.}
I stood in the front yard for what seemed to be an eternity, hoping the ground would open up and swallow me. Suddenly my eyes were drawn to a piece of broken fence paling at my feet; I had been using it as a sword that very morning. Running towards the gate I swooped up my trusty sword and the bullies out on the footpath lost valuable seconds standing open mouthed as I, their tormented victim, attacked with a sudden, vicious vengeance.
Chasing them down the street I smashed my sword over Georgie's head, the rough broken wood gashing quite deeply, and he squealed like a stuck pig. Then swinging my sword across the back of Hamish’s legs he immediately plummeted face first into the concrete path, loosing his front teeth. Surprised at my ability to turn the tide of events, feeling both elated and scared, I made my way quickly home.
“You bloody wee lunatic!” yelled my father furiously, meeting me at the door. Instinctively, I put my hands up in a vain attempt to fend off the blows that always followed the verbal assault. Grabbing both arms he hauled me into the house, and in one swift movement he stripped my pants off and proceeded to whack, endlessly, into my bare bottom.
“Please…Daddy! Please!…Don’t…I promise I’ll be good… P-l-e-a-s-e!!…” I vainly attempted to twist and squirm out of the path of that hard, callused hand as it tore into the soft skin of my buttocks and legs, and where ever else he happened to connect with in his rage. “I’ll knock the devil out of you…you wee lunatic…picking up a stick…I’ll teach you!” and ignoring my pleas he continued to lay into me.
At some point I could no longer breathe, and only then did the beating stop. “Stop that!” he yelled, and I tried to inhale, but couldn’t. I was becoming light-headed and there were black spots in front of my eyes: I was passing out. “Come on Thomas!… Breathe,” I could barely hear him now. He slapped my back and suddenly my lungs opened and I could breathe again.
Oh no it's to-day!
I opened my eyes; as usual I was the first person in the house to awaken, even my baby sister slept right through the night, not so I. I dreaded sleep: the ghosts, ghoulies and boogeymen always lay in wait. So, I eluded the inevitable nightmares for as long as possible, and awoke after having the minimal amount of sleep necessary to survive.
It was December, well into winter, and there were still a couple of hours before dawn as I slipped quietly out of bed and made my way to the window. Since my father's recent return I had to be very careful indeed.
Memory Point: ‘Standing now behind the curtain at the window I feel a wee bit safer. It's as if I'm no longer in the room, almost as if I'm out there in the dark streets among the people I'm watching. At our old house, I knew all the characters that came and went in the wee hours of the morning; since we moved in with Nanna I've had fun giving the new shadows and silhouettes names and personalities.’
My father had been away for what seemed like a blessed eternity, but was in fact only a few months. Working at a coalmine in England, he had now returned to take the whole family to live there. Prior to my father's return, my sister, mother and I had gone to live in Queenzieburn with my Nanna in readiness for departure to England.
I was somewhat ambivalent about the move. Maybe things would be better in England; maybe my Daddy wouldn't hit me so much; maybe everybody would be happier. Given the choice I would have rather stayed in Scotland with my Nanna; she never hit me, and I was thoroughly Scottish after all, even if the cold, wet weather was often almost unbearable…I was happy here.
"Oh no it's today!" I almost shouted. My hand shot to my mouth in a futile attempt to halt the words that were already out as I remembered the slumbering household. My vocal outburst had been prompted by the sudden memory that today was the day we were to leave for England. It seemed to my panic stricken mind that I had been holding my breath for ten long minutes; afraid that even the sound of my beating heart would give me away, bringing the shouts and slaps that terrified me so. But of course only a few seconds had passed since my traitorous vocal chords had broken the morning silence.
On this occasion my fears proved groundless; however, the effect of the fright proved too much for my bladder, providing me with yet another problem. The communal toilet was out there in the night; it was one thing to be standing safe behind the glass, observing. It was an entirely different thing to actually venture out there where the minus four degree wind cuts right through to the bone, and the memory of that nights nightmares are still fresh in a four-year-olds mind. I made my way nervously, braving the cold and the dark scary shadows to the outhouse, the fear acting like a double edged sword: increasing my need to pee, and making me too nervous to relax enough to let it go.
So… This is England
The day we moved in with Nanna all of our furniture and household goods were sent on to England. We traveled to Coventry by train and now finally, with growing trepidation on my part, we traveled the last five miles of our journey by taxi.
Memory Point: ‘"This is it!… We're here!" says my father excitedly! I've already guessed as much, and with mixed feelings about the move from the start, looking out of the window of the taxi now I see nothing to get excited about: the rain is pouring down on unsurfaced roads and half-built houses, splashing everything with mud.’
In fact, at that moment I wished I’d been left with Nanna. Nanna was so nice to me; there was always a kiss, a cuddle, and a chocolate biscuit for me. For some reason Nanna's kindness always made Daddy angry: he said Nanna spoilt me. I wasn’t sure what spoilt meant but I wished I could get a whole lot more of it.
First English Christmas
I don’t recall many good memories from my early childhood but Christmas day 1954, a month or so after arriving in England, was one of the nicest memories in my young life to date. I had tried to stay awake on Christmas Eve to catch a glimpse of Santa, eventually however I fell asleep. When I awoke there it was… My beautiful new bike! It had trainer wheels, but of course I wouldn't be needing those. I was sure I could ride that bike on just two wheels. I cycled around inside the house getting in everyone’s way until at last, after much prompting from me, my father took the trainer wheels off my bike and then took me out onto the road.
Memory Point: ‘My heart is beating fast as I peddle harder; I can feel the support of my father's hand on the saddle but I know I can do without it. "Are you ready?" he says, as he runs alongside laughing. It's quite a mild day compared to winter in Scotland, and the sun is shining. ‘This is the nicest day I have ever had.’ "Yes Daddy… Yes! Let me go…please!" and I speed off down the road with the wind blowing fresh in my face, and the sound of my father's laughter echoing after me. ‘Yes… It is a beautiful day… Just beautiful! Maybe life will be different now?’
The breakdown
We were barely settled in England when my father injured his back in a mining accident that laid him off work for a year; the injury was to affect him for the rest of his life. It was around this time that I had a five-year-olds version of a nervous breakdown. My memory of that time is pretty hazy, so the following paragraph is partly a rendition of events told to me many years later.
Within months of arriving in England, and as a result of the accumulated stresses of my life, my relationship with my father, and interaction with my family, I became an emotional wreck: crying for most of the time. Losing every hair on my body, I scratched and tore at my skin, which was constantly irritated and itchy. They tried everything to stop me scratching, even tying boxing gloves on my hands. As a result of me ripping my own skin off, I became covered in scabs. The scraping off of those scabs and the application of ointment became a daily ritual. My mother wasn’t emotionally or physically capable, and so of course this job fell to my father. Furthermore, over the course of a year, I had to be taken to hospital three or four times a week to have injections.
Memory Point: “Come on Thomas, don’t be a baby…you should be used to this by now,” says the doctor, holding onto my bottom, while I squirm, fighting and screaming. My father holds my upper body, while the nurse holds my legs to stop me kicking, as the doctor administers the injection. “Please Daddy? I don’t want it!… It hurts!! Nooo…aaahhh!!”
I do remember those injections, very clearly. I never did get used to them, and no matter how much my father coaxed, coerced, or threatened I fought tooth and nail to the very last one. When I started school I was totally bald, not even an eyelash. Consequently, I wore a leather helmet that buckled under my chin.
“Quick grab him!” and three boys took hold of me as I walked through the school gate: Raymond Goodly and his cronies. It wasn’t the first time, I should have been more alert. They wanted to take my helmet off; my helmet never came off. It was a daily occurrence for some group of kids to deem it their mission, for the day, to unmask the freaky kid they called ‘Baldy’.
“Get off me!!” I screamed, but they just laughed as Raymond struggled to push my chin up so that he could unbuckle the helmet. As I screamed and struggled Raymond ordered, “Just rip it off him!” and I gagged and choked as they tried to do just that, but it would not budge: every morning I made sure that it was fastened as tightly as I could bear it.
“Get your chin up!” Raymond ordered through gritted teeth, as he stuck his thumbs in my ears.
“A-a-a-h-h-!” I screamed, and then kicking out as hard as I could, and squirming and thrashing around I managed to get loose; I ran around the building into the schoolyard proper, straight into Mrs Mills.
“Thomas!… What on earth is the matter with you?” she demanded.
“Th-th-them, M-miss!” I stuttered, pointing at Raymond Goodly and his mob as they came tearing around the corner. “Th-th-they’re t-trying to t-take my helmet off, Miss!”
“We were only kidding, Miss,” said Raymond, putting on an innocent, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, look.
“No you weren’t!” I yelled.
“Thomas!… Stop that shouting this instant!” Mrs Mills demanded.
“But, Miss, he’s telling lies…he tried to choke me…and he stuck his fingers in my ears while they held me!” I shouted incensed by the injustice.
“I told you to stop shouting, Thomas. And I’m sure you’re exaggerating. Just calm down, now.” Her back to them, Goodly's gang were now sticking their tongs out at me; Raymond was shaking his fist, dragging an imaginary knife across his throat and then pointing at me.
“Look at them, Miss!” I yelled, but by the time she turned around, of course, they were putting on innocent faces. Crying in frustration, I ran off to hide. At that time it seemed to me that I was always fighting: fighting off bullies who were trying to remove my helmet; fighting groups of screaming kids who were shouting ‘Baldy’; fighting nurses, doctors and my father when they held me down to stick those bloody needles into me. In fact, I felt that I was fighting the whole world, all by myself. During that early time at school, I made very few friends and no one called me by my given name: my taunting, jeering antagonists called me Baldy and one or two original little sods called me Scotty because of my persistent Scottish accent.
I should have said no one called me by my name, except Ena. Ena was a popular little girl in my class who, for some strange reason, took a liking to me. She didn't care about the ribbing she got for befriending me; in fact, she even declared that she was my girlfriend and that one day we would marry. I of course was totally rapt in this cherub who always had time for me and seemed to genuinely care.
The first time she stepped forward I know that she did so out of pity; we'd never really spoken before that. “Baldy!…Baldy!…Baldy!…Baldy!…Baldy!…” the chant went on and on as I stood with my back against the toilet-block wall, fists clenched and tears rolling down my face. There were about ten boys around me jeering and threatening to rush me at any moment to rip my helmet off. To make things worse, there were about thirty children crowding in behind them just to gawk; making it impossible for me to dash through and escape. I had been alert as I came through the school gate that morning and Raymond Goodly and his cronies, lying in wait, hadn’t surprised me. But with Raymond shouting, “Stop him!…Stop him!” as they pursued me around the school buildings more boys joined in the chase, until they cornered me against the toilet block wall.
Memory Point: “Stop that right now!” I can hear a voice screaming from somewhere on the outer edge of the crowd. The antagonists, and in fact the whole crowd, turn to watch the little girl with pigtails push her way through the multitude. Marching, red faced and angry past my antagonists, as they stand open mouthed, she walks up to me, giving me the smallest of smiles before turning on the ringleader. “Raymond Goodly!…” she states, as though the mention of his name is an accusation, “…You stop this at once!”
“Or what?..” says Raymond defiantly.
“Or my mum will be over to talk to your Dad tonight!” she tells him, pointing a finger at his chest, and his whole demeanour changes: the defiance melting away.
“So what?” he says finally, “See if I care…” and he turns and swaggers away, pretending that that is what he had intended from the start. The situation defused, the rest of the crowd disperses just as the school bell rings.'
Ena had a big heart for such a little girl, and from that moment I knew that I had at least one friend at school.
Our first television
We were one of the first houses in Keresley to acquire a television; I remember that standing on its own it was taller than I was: this huge box that probably weighed half a tone, and had a screen like a bubble which measured about ten-by-ten-inches. It was a black and white picture of course, and most of the time looked like there was a snowstorm going on inside it, but it was a genuine television and I looked forward to watching, each week, the programs I was allowed to. I remember my father telling me that watching too much of this strange one-eyed creature would damage my eyes; he was probably right.
I suppose that there really weren't too many programs that I would have chosen to watch had I the choice. The early days of the BBC were pretty boring, and the children of today would probably find it inconceivable that we could bear to watch anything that was so hard to look at. But I remember fondly its blissful escapism and how painful it would be if, for any reason, my privileges were taken away and I couldn't watch Roy Rogers and Trigger, or Superman. Of course I quickly learned that displaying any signs of being upset earned me a good smack, and the subsequent vetoing of television privileges would last longer: for being so willful.
Memory Point: “Thomas! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” and as my mother dashes towards me I pull away in fright, and tumbling out of the ground floor window I land on my head.’
I had being playing at cowboys; I was Roy Rogers and my mother’s old treadle, Singer sewing machine – with its wooden cover making a perfect horses back – was doubling as Trigger the wonder horse. My mother had entered the room just as I was digging my heels in to encouraging my trusty four-legged friend to gallop across the plains.
The next thing I remember is waking up on the settee with a cold wet towel on my forehead, and my mother sitting next to me, a worried expression on her face. Needless to say, that was the last time mum’s sewing machine was allowed to double as Trigger. I remember taking a towel from the bathroom, tying the end around my neck, and draping it down my back I ran around the garden trying to take off with the aid of my Superman cape. After a little while with no success I thought, ‘wait a minute, Superman is always diving out of windows! Or leaping from tall buildings!’ I climbed onto the coal bunker, not exactly a tall building but way taller than me. Leaping from the coal bunker, I could feel wind catching under my ‘Superman Cape’ and I soared “Up!…up!…and…away—” plummeting four feet down to the grass bellow I knocked the wind out of myself, and with my knees scraped and bruised I thought, ‘maybe flying will have to wait, for now, until I’ve done more practice, just a wee bit of course!’ and feeling the stinging soreness in my knees I looked down at them: ‘and maybe I’m not made of steel either – yet!’
During my first year at school I was off sick quite a lot, visiting the hospital and so forth. On some of those occasions I was allowed to see daytime television shows like Andy Pandy: a puppet of dubious gender who wore striped pyjamas and a girls bonnet; or Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men: two little men who were made out of flowerpots and lived at the bottom of some gigantic gardener’s garden and talked in baby talk. Those shows were probably meant for pre-school toddlers of course, but even those silly shows, featuring marionettes, were an escape from a reality I was finding increasingly more painful with each passing year.
Chapter 2: Convalescing In Scotland
The acquisition:
The family summer holidays of 1956 were spent back in Scotland, and when they came to a close somehow Nanna managed to persuade my father to leave me with her for a couple of months: to help me recover from my recent illness.
Nanna had recently remarried. She divorced her first husband, my mother’s father, who apparently was an unsavoury character whom no one wished to talk about. I did hear that he had been thrown out of the army over some kind of criminal activity. Her new husband however, was a gem of a man known affectionately to me as Uncle Andrew. They both adored me and while I reveled in their adoration I adored them in return.
Queenzieburn, a little mining village about fifteen miles outside of Glasgow, was built in the late nineteenth century to accommodate the mineworkers. The school I was to attend, built around the same era, looked positively Dickensian. My hair, which had begun to grow again, looked like a short crew cut. Also, during my long illness I had undergone sun lamp treatment for my skin complaint, which now resulted in a beautiful brown skin. With my appearance a little different from the local children and my accent now smacking of English I received a mixed reaction in Queenzieburn. Most of the girls and, after proving myself no slouch in a fight, some of the boys liked me. I was still fighting though – it seemed I would be fighting all of my life – but I would never again put up with the kind of treatment I had received in my first year at school in England.
Any slight directed toward me, however small, would provoke a violent attack. In mining communities in the 1950’s kids grew up tough. I did not like to fight: I did not like being hurt or inflicting pain. But sometimes the only choice was whether you were going to feel the pain, or inflict it. I discovered that I could turn the fear, which gripped my gut in adverse situations, into raw energy. If I acted quickly that energy – now violent anger – delivered me unscathed on the other side of most situations. If I did not act quickly, however, the fear would engulf me, and if I was lucky I would run, terrified. But a worse scenario was likely: I might stand cringing helplessly, while being ridiculed, or beaten, or both. I didn’t realise that most of the boys disliked me through envy. I just knew that I had to be ready to fight, at any time: on my way to school, running an errand to the local shop, or simply going out to play.
I had been in Queenzieburn for about a month, during which time I had received more love, fun and virtually anything else I could think of than ever before. However, as my popularity grew in some areas, I was drawing the attention of some of the older, tougher boys. A couple of times I had run home from school to escape confrontation with these boys who wanted to know just how tough this ‘wee English bastard’, as they referred to me, really was. I knew that I couldn’t keep running forever, and so I came up with an idea to improve my chances against the bigger boys. That week I applied myself, in every way I knew how, to acquire the necessary leveler.
Saturday found me playing with a group of children in the local swing-park. I was a little nervous, but felt a sense of confidence that previously had been missing, and while enjoying the company of five or six boys and girls the inevitable happened.
Memory Point: “That’s ma swing yur sittin’ on!” Turning from the girl sitting on the next swing I look up and am confronted with the sneering face of Roy Stark. Roy is a couple of years older, a couple of inches bigger and at this moment looks very mean. My stomach tightens and I feel that sick feeling that is the beginning of the adrenaline rush; that's my cue. Not waiting a second longer I kick out as hard as I can; my ‘brand new’, steel studded, leather boot smashes into Roy’s kneecap. Surprise mixed with agonising pain registers on Roy’s face as he staggers back holding his knee; spurred on, leaping from the swing, I keep up a none stop barrage of kicks, which for the most part land on Roy’s bare legs. Soon, squealing with pain, he's running, stumbling down the road.’
Breathing heavily I watched his retreating figure, and as my violent rage subsided I tasted the salty tears that had flowed down my face and were now trickling in the corners of my mouth. Cursing the tears, which always accompanied my violent rages, I ran home without looking back. As I splashed my face with cold water, while my Nanna waited patiently for an explanation, there was a heavy banging on the door.
“Just look at the state o’ ma Roy’s legs!” shrieked Mrs Stark, looking fit to burst. While Roy’s face was pitifully contorted in an effort to coax out more tears, positive that this, along with his bleeding legs would, at the very least, secure me a good thrashing. My Nanna took in the sight calmly, and then told Mrs Stark that she would find out what had happened and deal with the matter. She then turned to look at me, and I felt that old, familiar feeling creep into my gut…
“That bloody wee lunatic needs a good beltin’!” exploded Mrs Stark. At these words my Nanna turned on her as if she had just been slapped. “Your son…is nothing but a wee bully and probably got everything he deserved!” and while Mrs Stark stood open mouthed, and Roy’s wailing halted abruptly she continued, “Furthermore…if you don’t get out of here, right now, you’ll get the same medicine as your son!”
“Well!…I never!!” exclaimed a shocked Mrs Stark. And then grabbing Roy’s arm she dragged him off down the road cursing under her breath as she went. At that my Nanna slammed the door and as she turned round, red faced and angry, not knowing what to expect, I jumped back.
“The nerve of that woman!” she proclaimed loudly, but when she saw me cringe away her tone changed abruptly and she said tenderly, “Come here,” and taking me in her arms she gave me a cuddle. After telling her the full story, including the reason I had persuaded her to buy me the boots, she scolded me gently for my deception, but admitted that she would not have bought the boots had she known. “Anyway…as they’re already paid for – and how could we take them back with blood on them? – you can keep them as long as you promise to only kick bullies!”
Two days after the incident with Roy Stark I was waiting in line at the local shop to buy my biscuit for morning play break. “It’s the wee English bastard!” I looked around to find David Barney leering at me and for a second I was rooted to the spot; the feeling of nausea mounting in my gut. David Barney was the meanest, toughest kid for his age in Queenzieburn, older still than Roy Stark and a lot tougher. “Whit'r ye lookin’ at? Ye wee yella bastard!” David growled. “Let’s see whit ye kin da with yer fancy boots?”
There was nothing else for it, flying at him I let swing – the boot never reached its mark. Knowing my game plan, exactly, it was almost too easy for him. As soon as I was within range he punched me straight in the mouth. The punch, along with my half-started kick completed the action of putting me flat on my back, and for a moment the lights went out as I slipped into unconsciousness. I looked around in a dreamy haze at my blurry helpers as they assisted me to my feet. My top lip felt like a big fat sausage hanging under my nose, and my front teeth felt numb. I actually thought, at first, that I was in one of my nightmares, but then tasting blood in my mouth I tentatively felt, with my fingers, a gap where once my front teeth had been. That’s when realisation hit me: my nightmare was real. Shaking myself free of my helpers, I bolted through the door and ran staggering and sobbing home.
“Oh! My god!” moaned my Nanna, horrified, as I came through the door. She washed my mouth and, after bathing me in a big tin bath in front of the fire, dressed me in some warm pyjamas and sat me down with a cup of cocoa; then rubbing my spiky head, she said with a smile. “OK, Bruiser! What have you been up to this time?” After getting the full story she reasoned that, although she knew that David Barney was a cruel bully, he had been smart enough to get me to make the first move, and there was nothing much to be done about it.
Dogs don't get lost!
The Campsie hills are a magnificent range of rolling hills bordering the Kelvin Valley, with Queenzieburn couched at the foot. Summer had turned into autumn and I was determined that before winter set in I was going to explore those hills. I had heard stories of an aeroplane that crashed and the wreckage, so they said, was still up there somewhere. Encouraging the involvement of my best friend of the moment, Eddie, I planned an expedition to scale the mighty Campsies. After scheming all week, Saturday morning eventually came around and we met early in the morning in front of my Nanna’s house. I had heard of people getting lost in the Campsies, and although I was quite sure that I wouldn't get lost, I took my Nanna’s dog, Lucky, with me; just in case: because I knew…dogs don't get lost!
Although Eddie and I were around the same age he looked up to me; he actually had me on a bit of a pedestal. “You always seem to do pretty much as you please and you’d stand up to King Kong," he said to me one day. "In fact you did just the other week. Well…maybe not quite King Kong, but David Barney’s the next best thing; and so what if you lost your front teeth…they were only your baby ones anyway!” It was good for my ego, and he made up for some of the others who thought I was a jerk, or to be more accurate ‘a wee English jerk’.
We'd been walking up the steep hills, following a burn, since leaving the dirt road, which had taken us the first few miles. I knew that the burns came from the very top of the Campsies and I figured that if we followed this one to its source, and got to the highest point, we’d be able to see the plane wreck. Not only did the burn give us the general direction but also provided crystal clear drinking water, and a source of endless fun.
At one point we tried to catch a trout by hand. Locally this practice was called guddling, or tickling, but neither of us had mastered the art and although we had lots of fun trying the exercise finished with us both soaking wet, with not a single fish in sight.
Memory Point: '"We'll get belted if we go back like this," and then looking around I'm suddenly blessed with inspiration. "Over there! Come on!" Running over to a group of four large boulders I strip my clothes off and lay them flat on the boulders to dry in the sun; while Eddie stands watching, dubiously. “Well! What are you waiting for?”
"What if someone sees us?" With that I burst out laughing. "Don't laugh at me!" he says; I can see he's obviously embarrassed.
"I'm not really laughing at you." I manage between giggles. "It’s just that we're probably lost and miles from the nearest living soul," and I laugh some more. Eventually, seeing the humour of the situation he laughs and giggles infectiously along with me, as he too strips off.’
We played in the stream for a while, squealing with laughter as we splashed Lucky and each other with the freezing cold water, until at last our clothes were dry and we carried on our way.
It had been hours I was sure since we had decided to climb straight up rather than follow the twisting path of the mountain stream; and always when we reached the top we’d scramble over the crest only to look up, in awe, at another towering crest.
"I'm hungry…and tired," whined Eddie, throwing himself on the grass, and I turned to look down into the Kelvin Valley, far bellow.
"We'll try just this last time…because we still can't see Queenzieburn yet," I coaxed, and Eddie got to his feet. "If we can't see Queenzieburn from the top of this next one," I said giving in to the inevitable, "we'll just have to put the rope on Lucky and let him lead us home," and then looking at Lucky, who lay panting on the ground, I said. "Come on Lucky let's go. One more climb and then home."
I was the first to scramble over the top and turning I shouted through cupped hands. "We've made it!… We're here!… I'm on the top! Eddie!" My joyous yells reached Eddie spurring him on and he scrambled over the very top crest. Our jubilant whoops and yells, and Lucky's barking, for he had been caught up in the excitement too, echoed all around for miles.
"But Nanna!..." I said. "We weren't lost! We could see Queenzieburn from the top and we just came down in a straight line. And besides, we had Lucky with us and everybody knows…dogs don't get lost!" My Nanna had been worried sick all day long, and at about 4 p.m. she and Eddie's parents had mustered all the men in the village, organising a manhunt to find us. She was in tears with Uncle Andrew comforting her when, just before nightfall, I walked through the door with Lucky and declared, "I'm starving! What's for dinner?” and without a pause, "You'll never guess where I've been today?"
She was so overcome with relief that she couldn't scold me. All she could do was listen and laugh at the very different way in which Eddie, Lucky and I had experienced the same day. "And I don't think there ever was a plane crash up in the Campsies,” I said yawning. “But I’m glad I went anyway,” and immediately fell asleep with my head in my empty dinner plate. It had been a monumental day for this six-year-old explorer.
‘Promise… Now you promise!’
My Nanna became infirmed during my stay and could eventually only walk with the aid of sticks. I wasn't aware of the gravity of the problem but muscular dystrophy had started its slow and inevitable course. For reasons beyond my comprehension, Nanna and Uncle Andrew began to sleep apart. The little miner's cottage was comprised of a lounge room/kitchen area and one bedroom. My Nanna slept on the settee, which converted into a bed, and Uncle Andrew slept on a little double bed in the bedroom. During my stay, I was usually off to bed by 7:00pm so I slept in the bedroom.
Uncle Andrew worked down a local coalmine on a rotating roster; sometimes he shared the bed with me and other times, when he was on night shift, I had the bed to myself. He was a gentle little man, less than five feet tall; he doted on me and took me everywhere, spoiling me even more than Nanna did. As winter started to set in I preferred Uncle Andrew home at night so that we could cuddle up and keep warm. The winters in Scotland can be, quite literally, freezing.
One night I woke up as Uncle Andrew was getting into bed. "I need a weewee!" I said, sleepily.
"Well, you know where the pot is,” replied Uncle Andrew. The outside toilet was a bit of a trek in the middle of the night, especially in the winter, so a chamber pot was kept under the bed.
"Oh! Uncle Andrew…I wet my pyjamas!" I said, embarrassed and near to tears. Trying to use the pot, in the dark and half asleep, I had a bit of an accident.
"It's all right, just slip your pants off and jump into bed. We'll sort it out in the morning." I was pleased not to be in trouble and dropping my pants I was about to jump into bed.
"Uncle Andrew!" I said again, consternation evident in my voice.
"What is it?"
"My jacket is wet too!"
"Just take it off."
"But I'll be cold!" I whined.
"No you won't…not once we cuddle up. Come on…quickly! Before you freeze out there!" he encouraged. Taking my jacket off and jumping into bed I cuddled up behind him.
"I'm cold!" I said, shivering against his back.
"Oh, turn round then!" and turning around he cuddled up and began to rub me all over. Soon, the friction of his hands moving swiftly over my bare skin, along with the heat from his own body, had me warm as toast and I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up, or rather I half woke, and in my semiconscious state I had a funny fluttering feeling low down in my stomach and became aware of a tingling feeling in my groin… Flitting for a moment, or an eternity, into a deeper sleep I relived an experience I had when first I moved to England…
When my family and I first moved to England we lived for eighteen months or so in a house in Beaumont Road. Next door lived two little girls – one about my age, three or four-years-old, and one about a year or two older. One day while the three of us were playing we climbed into their coal bunker, which was almost empty at the time. Every house in Keresley had a coal bunker: a concrete construction in the back garden about six square yards by four feet high. A two-foot hole was situated on the top to pour the coal into, with a hole of similar dimensions at the bottom, in front to retrieve the coal from.
Memory Point: "This is our house!" says Kathy, the older of the two girls. "I'm the mummy, you're the daddy and Emmy is our baby." There's a lid on the top hole, which we prop open to let some light in for awhile. “It's night time, now,” says Kathy, closing the lid. "Come on baby, it's your bedtime." I stand in the semi-darkness while Kathy starts taking Emmy's clothes off. "Come on daddy! Help me get baby ready for bed," and so I help to get Emmy down to her knickers and vest; and making a bed out of the rest of her clothes we lie her down.
"All right daddy…it's time for mummy and daddy to go to bed," and with that, Kathy starts to take her clothes off, I follow suit until I'm down to my underpants and singlet. "Mummy and daddy take all their clothes off when they go to bed," says Kathy, making a bed with her clothes.
"No they don't!" I say sceptically.
"Oh yes, they do!" says Kathy assuredly, and stripping off the remainder of her clothes she lies down. I of course had seen my little sister with no clothes on, but she was just a baby, not much more than a year old; seeing Kathy lying there was different. After looking to see how Emmy's taking it, she's actually pretending to be asleep, not wanting to be a party pooper I take the rest of my clothes off and lie next to Kathy. "You have to lie on top of me and kiss me," says Kathy, casually.
"What?!"
"That's what mummies and daddies do. Don't you know anything?" I like Kathy and kissing her is not a problem so I do as I'm told. Almost immediately, I get a strange, fluttering feeling in my stomach, and a tight, tingling feeling in my groin, which I relate to the feeling I sometimes get when I wake up needing to pee; except this time I don't need to pee.
"Ow!" Kathy lets out a yell and I jump, rolling straight off her.
"What's the matter?" I say concerned.
"Your bone was sticking into my belly!" she says pointing at my now, stiff erection.
"I'm sorry!" and embarrassed I try to cover it with my hands.
"No…no, it's all right," she says quickly. "That's what happens to daddies." By now, I'm not surprised at anything she says. She seems to be very knowledgeable. "If you want, I'll show you what you do with it? Uncle Jim showed us, didn't he Emmy?" Emmy's sitting up by now, nodding vigorously. The fluttering in my stomach and the tingling in my groin is reaching fever pitch, and I'm quite literally shaking, as Kathy takes hold of my penis and begins moving her hand up and down. "Now…you won't tell anyone, will you?" she says. "Uncle Jim made us promise!… Now you promise!"
Waking now from my dream – still with the funny, fluttering feeling in my groin – I can hear Uncle Andrew whispering, “Now…you won’t tell anyone, will you? Promise… Now you promise.”
I felt vaguely guilty the next day, I wasn’t sure whether the feelings had foundation or not: sometimes I'd have obscure feelings of foreboding the day after one of my nightmares. By the time I went to bed that night exhausted after a full days activities, I'd forgotten all about the events of the previous night: as you might forget a dream.
“Come on Thomas…move over,” I barely heard as I drifted near consciousness when Uncle Andrew came to bed and snuggled up behind me, before drifting off again. I don’t know how much later it was, as I began to drift back towards consciousness; I felt very warm, too warm, and I was aware of a familiar fluttering feeling in my stomach and groin, and I was rocking gently. Bit by bit, as consciousness seeped into my being, I became aware, firstly, that Uncle Andrew was hard against me, and then that, not only could I hear his breathing but I could feel his hot, rapid breath in my ear. Automatically, still half asleep, I edged away from the oppressive heat, and immediately began drifting into slumber again.
Again, I don’t know how much later, I began to drift towards consciousness, and again, bit by bit, I became aware of the heat, the fluttering in my stomach and groin, the rocking, and Uncle Andrew’s proximity and his breathing. This time I continued to surface, and as I did I felt something pushing between the cheeks of my bottom in time with the rocking. Putting my hand down I discovered that neither of us had pyjama pants on, and it was his hard penis that he was pushing between the cheeks of my bottom! I didn’t know what to do: he was being gentle with me, but the feelings of guilt were so overwhelming that I felt physically sick. I also urgently needed to urinate.
“Un-Un-Uncle A-Andrew?” I stammered, and he abruptly stopped rocking and pushing.
“Shhh!… You don’t want to wake your Nanna do you? You know how much trouble she has getting to sleep,” he whispered, and then putting his mouth right up to my ear, whispering again, he said, “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
I was frightened, trapped, and felt guilty: I was always asking Uncle Andrew to cuddle up to me, keep me warm, give me some attention and show me some affection; wasn’t that what he was doing?
“N-no…” I whispered back in answer to his question: Daddy hurt me, Uncle Andrew would never hurt me. “…I need a weewee,” I said, and gently disentangling myself from his embrace I slipped out of bed. Crouching down I reached under the bed and finding the chamber pot I slid it out and relieved myself. By the time I got back into bed I was shivering and I didn’t struggle as Uncle Andrew pulled me in and cuddled me tight, but as he slipped his penis between my buttocks again I stiffened.
“It’s alright, “ he whispered, and as he rocked gently back and forth, pushing his penis against my bottom, he reached down and fondled my penis until it was sticking up again. After a little while he began to shake, uncontrollably, and then he drew away from me; after sighing deeply a couple of times, he lay back and was quiet for a few moments. He then got out of bed, used the chamber pot, and slipped his Phttp://search.diesel-ebooks.com/author/McKinnon,%20T.%20D./results/-brand.desc/1.html pyjama pants on. “Here…” he whispered, handing me my pyjama pants “…you’d better put them back on,” and then, climbing back into bed and lighting a cigarette, he smoked in silence.
Lying in the darkness, I watched the red tip of his cigarette growing dim and then flaring bright as he inhaled, lighting up his face; a face that, in the past, had meant safety and succour to me. A face that I had looked forward to seeing, with expectation, each summer since I could remember. And this year, a face that I’d watched for, in anticipation, as I’d waited for him to come home from work each day. I wasn’t sure what it was that I was feeling right now, but it certainly wasn’t the same anymore.
“Thomas?” he said quietly, as he stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray. “Thomas…are you awake?”
“Yes…” I said expectantly: I was hoping that somehow he was going to make it all right again.
“Now…this is to be our wee secret, remember. You mustn't tell anyone…especially not Nanna… Promise… Now you promise…”
“I promise,” I said, and I felt a darkness close in around me that had nothing to do with the night.
The next day the feelings of guilt were no longer vague, I could hardly bear being under my Nanna’s loving scrutiny: not only had Uncle Andrew destroyed my relationship with him, he’d changed my relationship with my dear Nanna. Every night, that he wasn’t on night shift, Uncle Andrew made me make that promise, after indulging in his nocturnal, carnal games. Very quickly I changed from a bright little spark, recovering from a nervous breakdown while basking in a safe and loving environment, to a dark, tortured little soul again: I had to escape. I was learning that when things were to be kept secret there was generally guilt attached. I associated guilt with the beatings that I received from my father; so at all costs I had to keep the guilt, or the secret, away from him. I never did tell anyone about Uncle Andrew – how could I? I buried it along with all the other things that had guilt attached.
No longer comfortable and secure in my grandparent’s home, I dreaded rather than looked forward to Uncle Andrew’s company on those cold winter nights. He cheated me of the warmth, protection and love that I had come to depend upon from my Scottish home. At six years old I wasn't sure what was wrong and what was right, but if an adult is ashamed, or feels guilt it becomes a pretty strong indication that it must be wrong. For the first time ever, I wanted to go home…to England.
Chapter 10: High School! An Entirely Different World
‘A’ stream student:
"Turn to page twelve in your text books and carry on where you left off on Friday!" ordered the maths teacher, Mr Alderson, in his booming, baritone voice and the whole class scrambled to obey.
Turning to the boy next to me I began to ask, "Where can I get a pen—?" when a piece of chalk pinged, painfully off my ear. Turning quickly to pounce on whoever had thrown the chalk, I found Mr Alderson looming over me, resembling a large, bespectacled ogre.
"What do you mean by chattering in my class? Boy!" the ogre bellowed.
"But Sir…I didn't kn—"
"Don't lie to me… Boy! I saw you!" and as he finished his piggy little eyes ran searchingly over my desk. "Where's your pen, boy?"
I was so shaken by now that all I could say was, "I...ah...I...I don't have one, Sir."
"What!?… Stand up boy!" he barked, and I sprang to my feet, knocking my chair over in the process, positively beside myself. This horror of a man instilled the same kind of fear in me as my father, and that old familiar feeling began its chain reaction. "Hand…out!" the ogre bellowed.
"Sorry, Sir?" I said, not quite understanding.
"You will be… Boy!” said the ogre, grabbing the wooden ruler from my desk and raising it above his head. At last, understanding dawned, and not wanting to upset him more than he already was I stuck my hand out.
Memory Point: ‘'THWACK' The ruler comes down onto my palm, and without pause it comes down again; this time there's a loud 'CRACK' as the ruler snaps in two, and the broken end goes clattering across the floor. There are subdued sniggers and giggles from the other children, not helping my case one little bit. Enraged even further, he leans over and with a snarl snatches the ruler from the next desk.
"Hand out!" he bellows again, and with my hand already stinging, swollen and red I can only obey. 'THWACK' the second ruler comes down on my hand and without a pause it comes down again 'CRACK'… In the silence that follows you could hear the proverbial pin drop. Breaking the silence at last, Mr Alderson says, "Now, go and stand in the corridor!"
Five minutes later, while gingerly checking my hand for damage, my face still wet from the recent tears, Mr Alderson opened the door and stepped into the corridor. "Why didn't you inform me that this is your first day at this school?" I looked up at Mr Alderson through bleary red eyes. This was not only my first day; it was also my first class. I had arrived back two weeks late for the beginning of term after my grandfather’s funeral. In the junior school pens had been provided, so that whole performance with Mr Alderson had totally confused me. Now, I was afraid to even speak in case I unwittingly prodded the ogre into life again. After a few seconds of silence, handing me his own pen, he said quietly, "You can borrow this for today. Now, go and wash your face before you go back in."
High school, I quickly learnt, was an entirely different world from junior school. I had been assigned to an 'A' stream class: it seemed that Mr Kay's recommendations had landed me in the top form. There were several reasons I didn't really appreciate Mr Kay's well-meaning optimism. For one thing the homework load was extremely heavy: I found myself with copious amounts of assignments. Another thing was, for the most part, I found myself in the company of strangers. The high school catered for a much larger area than the junior school and most of the children that I had previously associated with were in the classes below me. Thirdly, and the worst thing of all, the children who were not strangers were not friends. And starting in my class they spread the infamous story that had scandalised the junior school. With each telling it became more outrageous and by the time it got all the way around the school I was labelled the local purveyor of perversion. Consequently, I retreated behind my castle walls, battlements on full alert.
The odd angry moment
“Thomas!” Looking up from my Superman comic-book I could see my mother framed in the back door.
It was Saturday afternoon at the end of my first week of high school and the summer was turning on one last performance, with temperatures in the seventies, before sliding into autumn. I'd thrown an old mat down in the back garden to lie on and taken my shirt off to enjoy the late summer sun, while reading one of my favourite pieces of literature.
“Come and wash these dishes,” she said.
“Yeh, in a minute,” I said absently as I looked back down at my comic book.
Memory Point: ‘Not more than two minutes have passed when my father comes storming out of the back door, moving so fast that I don’t even see him covering the six or seven yards to where I'm lying. Vaguely aware of the sudden movement, I look up and I'm slapped across the face. Before I can react he grabs me by the arm, heaves me off the mat, and throws me in the direction of the back door.
“What?... What did I do?” I cry, confused and terrified, as he advances on me again, menacingly. Picking me up by the arm I'm pathetically attempting to defend myself with, he drags me into the house, giving my backside several hefty slaps. Squirming, to avoid the blows, I fall from his grasp and he kicks my backside propelling me from the kitchen into the living room, where Uncle Bill and my mother are sitting. He continues to slap and kick me through the living room and then up the stairs until reaching my bedroom. Holding me over the bed, he roughly pulls my pants down and flogs into my bare buttocks. Eventually after begging him to stop, for what seems an eternity, he finishes of with several, mandatory, hard smacks.
“Don’t you ever tell your mother to wait a minute!” he says angrily, and then before turning to leave, his breathing a little laboured from his exertions, he adds, “Just stay up here until you have to leave for school on Monday morning!”
I lay on my bed sobbing quietly for hours. I did not understand; my father’s attack caught me completely by surprise. I had not intended to be disrespectful to my mother: I would not dare. I was a little too preoccupied to see exactly what Bill and my mother’s reaction had been, as I was belted through the living room; however, I was vaguely aware of Bill frowning disapprovingly and my mother, as always, had a worried expression on her face. The fact was, in part at least, she must have instigated the whole incident; she certainly did nothing to stop it. So, not for the first time, I fell asleep hating both of my parents.
Welcome to my nightmare
I had been having nightmares for as long as I could remember. When I was much younger it was nearly every night, now it was only intermittently. Some of them might be termed very bad dreams, but others were indeed nightmares.
It always took me a long time to fall asleep, not because I wasn’t tired – generally, after getting up early for school, I was very tired – it was the horrors that lay in wait for me just on the other side of consciousness. I might go for weeks without a bad dream, and then I’d have one of my repeats. I wore my vulnerability like a flag, it seemed. During my waking hours, at school, I attract the bullies and antagonists almost as if I was waving that flag, which read in big bold letters ‘This Person Is Extremely Vulnerable’. When I went to sleep, I wandered into those other states of consciousness waving that same flag.
The nightmares were many and varied, but some of them were repeated showings; like a familiar horror movie in which you are aware of each scene as it comes up. But, unlike sitting in a movie theatre, you cannot hide your eyes or get up and leave when it gets to the scary bit; you have to play the scene out, and no matter how familiar you are with that scene it always comes as more than a shock. One of my repeat performances had me in a school.
Memory Point: "While sitting at my desk minding my own business the teacher, who appears for all the world like an ordinary person, stands in front of me, smiling. He leans towards me, his hands on my desk, his face getting closer; suddenly I notice that his hands are turning into claws, and a single talon is actually buried into one of my hands, pinioning it to the desk. Although it hurts, surprisingly it's more uncomfortable than painful, but the terrible feeling of being trapped is overwhelming. The face, which is now mere inches away from mine, undergoes a metamorphosis and the eyes become red, devils eyes; the smile transforms into a snarl, the teeth turn into fangs and a low growl emits from the throat. I sweat profusely and whimper as I lower my head and avert my eyes.
“Look at me boy!” the monster growls, and terrified I do as I'm told, but as I glance up he transforms once more; and there is a normal teacher, his hand resting gently on top of mine and the smile is back as he says, “Pay attention boy.”
The bell sounds for break and as I head outside with the rest of the milling crowd of boys I wonder if I dreamt it. Sometimes I remember that I’m still dreaming, and knowing what is to come next I try in vain to wake myself up. When we get outside it is night-time, the school buildings look Gothic and foreboding, the grounds dark and portentous. At first, being in the crowd of boys seems safe but the feeling quickly dissolves when a boy comes running down a path, screaming. “The headmaster’s out!!… He’s prowling the grounds!!” and everyone scatters. I try to stay close to a group of boys as they flee down one of the paths, but suddenly it feels like I am running in slow motion and I am left alone; a feeling of blind panic comes over me.
I look around and there, at the other end of the path, is the headmaster. The tall, gaunt, Dracula figure is familiar. He looks like an amalgamation of all the headmasters I have ever known, plus my father. Suddenly he is gliding towards me, with his black cloak fluttering he appears to be flying, and as he descends on me I begin to scream. I feel the vice like grip of his talons closing on me and I, desperately, tear myself out of the nightmare…into waking reality, to find myself drenched in sweat, alone and terrified in the pitch-black night. Relieved that of course it was just a dream, but terrified because it was so real, and waits for me still – just on the other side of consciousness.’
Over the years that I’d been having this nightmare I had forced myself awake at various points in the dream because most of the time I knew what it was. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to bear. In fact, it seemed more real than reality itself. As soon as I realised where I was I would attempted to wake myself, but it wasn’t so easy to do. I was, on occasion, able to wake up when the claw pierced my hand, pinioning me to my desk; but when I tried to wake and couldn’t it merely re-enforced the nightmare, like a superimposed reality, and I’d scream ‘Oh my god…it’s not a dream…it’s real!! It’s real!!” and the horror would intensify. Often there would be a variation on the nightmare: the incident with the teacher and the claw might not happen at all. But then, as we all went outside for break, the boys would turn into little ogres with sharp teeth and evil eyes, and they would chase me around the school grounds, screaming, until the headmaster came along. This time he was an ordinary, stern looking headmaster who scared the children off. But then as he stood towering above me, his hand protectively on my shoulder, he would suddenly turn into the monster and I’d wake up screaming again.
Six easy steps to the ‘B’ stream
While in the 'A' stream I made very few friends, but for a brief spell I became friendly with Jim Partin. Jim was originally from Scotland and that was probably the only thing he and I had in common; he was an only child and used to getting his own way. The main part he played in my life was introducing me to the 1st Exhall Scout Group.
Scouts went camping, and other interesting things. More to the point, the 1st Exhall Scout Group was going camping the next year to 'Switzerland', and so I became a keen Boy Scout. I joined the school gymnastic club where I kept in contact with John Hughes, who quickly became the star of the gym club. John didn’t get any homework: he was in the 'G' form and they hardly did any schooling, let alone get homework. So he and I didn't see much of each other during that time, except at gymnastics. I also joined the chess club, but dropped it after a couple of months due to my heavy social commitments: two nights Scouts, two nights gymnastics club, a heavy homework load and weekends at Camp Hill proved to be too much.
A few days before Christmas of 1961 finds me in high spirits. I am getting a bike for Christmas, the Scouts are having a joint Christmas party with the Girl Guides, and I have just heard that I will be moving into the 'B' stream after Christmas: I made my decision before the half-yearly exams.
Exam Results:
English 17/100,
Maths 12/100,
Science 18/100,
Geography 25/100,
History 27/100,
French 5/100.
The results, as you might expect, did not go down too well at home. The bike I was getting for Christmas was mostly due to my scholastic efforts the previous year. Never the less my new bike would be there on Christmas morning, just a few days away.
Girl Guides and mistletoe
Memory Point: "School is over for three weeks and here I am getting a haircut, in a gents hairdresser in Coventry City no less! No sixpenny barber cut for me this day! Three-shillings-and-sixpence for a semi-crew-cut and blow wave, or what is currently being called a ‘Tony Curtis’ after the film star of the same name who initiated its popularity. ‘And tonight…the party!’
"Yes," I say to the hairdresser holding a mirror to show me the finished cut at the back. ‘Yes!’ I think to myself, as I stand up, viewing my reflection in the large mirror. "Merry Christmas," I say loudly, while giving the hairdresser a sixpenny tip.
"Thank you! and a merry Christmas to you," the smiling hairdresser calls after me as I bounce out of the shop.’
I spend the next couple of hours wandering around the shopping precincts and arcades, smiling at people and enjoying the festive feelings in the air. ‘Why?... Why don't people feel like this more often? Today, if I bump into someone they’re ready with a quick smile and an apology. Whereas usually, a scowl and a sharp, “Watch where you're going!” is par for the norm.’ Letting the thought go I abandon myself to the euphoria of the day.'
From the moment I walked in the door, I was the centre of attention at the party. I'd been worried that I hadn't anything to wear until, plucking up the courage, I decided to wear my kilt. Proud Scot that I was, I could not have done better had I the largest wardrobe in the world.
At first, as I expected, I got a little ribbing from the boys: “Donald where’s your trousers?” was the most used heckle (the lyrics of a current, comic song by Scots singer, Andy Stewart) and “What have you got under your kilt?” ran a close second. But once they saw the girls reaction there was nothing but envy on their faces.
"Aren't you going to ask those young ladies to dance?… And after I went to all the trouble of inviting them for you," said Skip, the man who ran and organised the 1st Exhall Scouts.
There were murmurs of, "Aw Skip!" and "I can't dance!"
Skip immediately started lining chairs back to back up the centre of the hall, and in no time flat the music was going and Skip was calling for everyone to begin dancing or walking around the chairs in a large circle. "When the music stops," he shouted to be heard above the noise, "the boys have to sit on a chair and the girls have to sit on a boys lap," and he paused, grinning widely. "And, anyone not finding a chair...or a lap...is out!"
I walked around with the other boys, checking out the girls who were skipping and dancing around, appearing to be bothered little about a lap to sit on. The music stopped, and for a fraction of a second I froze while the place erupted as boys dived for chairs and girls jumped onto boys laps. Taken totally by surprise, I was about to accept that I'd been caught napping when I was grabbed from behind, thrown into a chair and jumped on! There was a few more seconds pause in the music as Skip counted out anyone who didn’t have a seat. When the music started again the girl who’d grabbed me sprang to her feet, and turning she gave me a quick smile before dancing off around the chairs again. More relaxed now, shuffling to the music, I followed the trim little rear that only seconds before had been parked on my lap.
Some chairs were removed and the next time the music stopped I leapt immediately into a vacant chair; the cute little girl who’d grabbed me the first time turned and made a beeline for my lap. Only to be pipped at the post by a girl who almost knocked me and my chair over. In the few seconds that followed she introduced herself. Brenda was cute too, and I didn't mind being in demand, not in the least.
The music started again and Brenda jumped to her feet, but instead of dancing off she grabbed my hand as I stood up and danced along side of me. Engrossed in conversation, Brenda and I completely missed getting a chair the next time. Promising to give her a dance later, we parted company and joined our friends.
As the party warmed up the girls and boys mixed and chatted more easily. I went to the outside toilet at one stage and when I re-entered the hall I walked straight into a branch of mistletoe, which in my absence had been tied above the door. The girl who had first made physical contact with me now stood facing me. I knew a little more about her by now, her name was Jenny and she was really quite shy. Leaning forward, I gently kissed her; the boys cheered, the girls giggled and Jenny hurried back to her friends.
I was half way back to my friends and still feeling a little embarrassed when I felt something tickling the back of my neck; turning, I found Brenda holding a large sprig of mistletoe above my head. At that precise moment the lights went out, suddenly Brenda was hard against me, kissing me passionately. A few seconds later I was actually running out of breath when the lights came back on; finding Brenda standing sedately, holding my hand. My favourite record began to play: Cliff Richard, singing ‘Living Doll’, and as Brenda and I danced closely I sang along, quietly, ‘Got myself a cryin’, talkin’, sleepin’, walkin’, livin’ doll’.
The night was a roaring success and I ended up kissing Brenda and Jenny goodnight at the end of the party. ‘What a great start to Christmas,’ I thought, as I closed my eyes and pulled the covers up around my ears. ‘What a great start to Christmas.’
‘Pure joy’
Memory Point: "A couple of days before Christmas, I'm standing on The Green opposite our house at about 6.45pm, and the snow is falling heavily. The street is almost empty, and with the heavy winter drapes drawn in all the houses, it is in complete darkness apart from the street lamps that, because of the snow, illuminate only a small circle around the lamps themselves. With no wind, the snow is falling in large, soft flakes; in the dark of the night they appear like large, black butterflies falling gently out of the heavens. It's the first snow of the year, the ground was dry, so the snow is immediately forming a thick carpet. Around the Green, the angles and straight lines of houses and fences are softened, and any sounds are muffled, by the steadily falling snow. The entire environment, and my existence within it, is transformed into something ethereal, magical: a winter wonderland. And as I tilt my smiling face to catch the large flakes of snow, feeling them softly land and then melt, trickling down in tiny rivulets; the feeling welling up inside of me is nothing short of pure joy.'
The joy of receiving
Not wanting to wake anyone else, I whispered quietly, "Jane! Wake up!"
Sitting up, sleepily, rubbing her eyes she said, "What time is it?"
Excitement bubbling out of me I said, "Christmas time!" and as realisation broke over her, like crashing surf, her eyes widened and she leapt out of bed.
Memory Point: "It's still dark outside, but we can hear the children’s rapturous voices echoing around the empty streets as we co-conspirators creep quietly down the stairs. It's Christmas; at Christmas children don't stand on ceremony for darkness or zero temperatures.
Jane and I slip into the living room, hardly able to contain our excitement; I flick the light switch on revealing two piles of neatly wrapped, brightly coloured parcels, an assorted array of Christmas confection, and two sparkling, shiny bicycles. "Wow!" I exclaim; I can't help myself, it's like a dream: everything is just perfect. "Ow!" feeling a sharp dig in the ribs I turn on Jane but stop abruptly.
"Shh!" holding one finger to her lips, the other hand cupped at her ear, her eyes are full of warning and I'm quickly alerted to the muffled sounds from upstairs.
"What on earth are you two doing up at this hour of the morning? Do you know what time it is?" Stepping out of the living room, we look up to see my father at the top of the stairs. Not thinking of anything he might want to hear, we simply look down in a guilty, caught in the act manner. At this point we hear a loud whisper, only just audible...
"It's Christmas, for Christ’s sake! Leave them alone."
We're still looking at the floor and shuffling our feet, there's a short pause... "You can stay down there. But no going outside, or eating chocolates until after your breakfast," and with that he disappears back into the bedroom leaving us staring at the empty space at the top of the stairs.’
In spite of the shaky start, Christmas day 1961 was an unqualified success. Bill and the boys turned up around mid morning, and the festivities carried on until the evening, when I returned to Camp Hill with the Davis family for the next few days.
Back to school and a painful crush
When I returned to school after the Christmas break I was more comfortable with schoolwork than I had been for a long time. Life in the 'B' form was fairly easy compared to ‘A’ stream activity, and for the first time since starting school I found myself in the same class as Hughie Donnelly. He was nearly a year older and had started school a year in front of me; in fact Hughie was one of the oldest in first year high school, while I was one of the youngest in the entire school. Throughout the rest of that year we sat next to each other in most classes, and were comfortable working at the same pace.
Lynne Layton was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. She had big brown eyes, with the longest lashes, long dark brown hair and the trimmest little shapely figure a twelve-year-old could have. The daughter of a landowner, gentleman farmer, quite obviously money was not a concern: her school uniforms, which she always wore, were expertly tailored to fit her perfect little figure. She sat close to me in most classes and always smelled like spring flowers. I couldn’t help myself; I fell in love with her.
At first I think she found it amusing when she caught me staring at her, but eventually it annoyed her. Lynne’s best friend, Anne Kattford, who was loud, outspoken and had the well-earned nickname, ‘The Cat’, took great delight in embarrassing me at every opportunity.
Memory Point: “Lynne doesn’t want anything to do with a little pervert like you! Why don’t you go and find your little pervert girlfriend, Sally Ritter?” Her cruel jibes are like pouring salt into open wounds, but it doesn't deter me."
I couldn’t help myself; for the remainder of first year high school I fantasized about Lynne being my girlfriend, constantly leaving myself open to unkind remarks from ‘The Cat’ by mooning after Lynne. Pathetic really, my heart ached every time I saw her and it was not until we moved into different classes that I stopped making a fool of myself. It took a long time to get over her. Outside of school I still had a busy social life with two nights per week at the Scouts, two nights at gym club and, when I wasn't camping at the weekends with the Scouts, I still liked to spend time at Camp Hill.
The final procurement
The summer of 1962 approached, and the 1st Exhall Scout group begun to prepare for their trip to Switzerland. As the weather improved more weekends were spent camping out. Initially, I had to borrow everything I needed for camping: most of the stuff was very expensive. My Scout uniforms and camping gear was purchased, second-hand, from some of the Scouts who came from more affluent families, as they bought new ones. Slowly but surely I obtained everything I needed: clip-together knife, fork and spoon set - plate, bowl and mug set - sleeping-bag - waterproof cape - walking boots, and the ready for anything pen knife. Eventually, getting together almost everything I needed, I had to borrow less and less until pretty soon I was planning my final procurement.
Every Scout worth his salt had a Parker: a Scout’s Parker was a shower-proof smock type jacket, with lots of pockets. It pulled over the head, had a hood with a yellow lining, and was light grey in colour to match the light khaki of the Scout uniform. But they were expensive. I had already given up my two shillings per week pocket money to go towards the purchase of my second-hand gear and my trip to Switzerland. The trip alone was to cost my parents twenty-five pounds; in those days, to a mining family, a small fortune.
‘Bob-A-Job Week’ actually lasted a couple of weeks, and that year the last week went over the Easter break, when most kids are out playing. Not I. Every day I made a flask of hot chocolate and some sandwiches, and packing them in my saddle bag, donning my Scout uniform, I cycled off, ‘Bob-A-Jobbing’ all day long. I was sure no one else had given up his Easter break, but more importantly, I knew that no one wanted to win as much as I did. Working my hardest, making twice as much as my nearest rival, I won and a Parker, my final procurement, was my choice at the camping shop.
Scouts athletics day
As well as Switzerland, the 1st Exhall Scouts were preparing for the annual, area athletics meeting.
“I want to see a good response for these athletics… Lets see everyone get into the spirit of the games,” said Skip enthusiastically. There were a few moans and groans but most of our Scout troop gave a spirited response. I participated in all of the training and most of the heats, placing well in almost every race; my best distance, and the one I was picked to represent the troop at the area meeting, was the 220 yards.
I awoke on the Saturday morning of the athletics meet conscious of an air of excitement, we had been training for weeks and I was feeling confident; nervous of course but self-assured none the less. The night before, I'd whitened my sandshoes, and laid out a clean white singlet and my white shorts: it was actually my gymnastic gear, but it was comfortable and I always felt crisp and clean in it.
Completing my chores by 10:00am, I was about to cycle to the designated sports field, about four miles away, when to my surprise my father got out of bed. He’d gone to bed at 7:00am, as was his normal practice after coming home from the night shift. “Give me a minute to have a cup of tea, and I’ll take you there," he said. “Save your energy for the race.”
To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. After checking in, and as I got ready for my race, I began to get really nervous. I hadn’t ever taken part in an athletics meeting: at school I avoided getting involved in competition; I did well in the class activities, but I didn’t take part in the inter-house competitions, which was what the school athletics day was all about. I didn’t play team sports either: football or cricket et cetera, so I was completely unused to performing in front of spectators, and today there was about fifty Scout Groups present. With all their families and supporters, that amounted to perhaps a couple of thousand people; plus of course, my father was in the audience.
Memory Point: “Take your marks!”
We move forward onto our staggered starting lines. Five out of the ten participants have their own starting blocks, a fact that only adds to my nerves, and as I get down into position I notice my hands are actually shaking.
“Get set!”
I fight down the feeling of nausea, swallowing the bile that has risen into my mouth.
Bang!
I leap immediately into a flat run: head down, arms pumping. However, horrified, I soon realise I'm running in slow motion: like those dreadful nightmares where everyone else is running away from the monster, but semi-paralysed, like moving through treacle, I’m hardly moving.
I try with all my might to break the spell, but it holds me fast and the rest of the field is streaking away from me. Exhausted and gasping for breath, as if I’ve just run a marathon, I cross the line last by a long way and throw up. Feeling like the worst looser, I head directly for the car where I wait for my father.’
“What happened?” he said, after we were out of the car park and heading for home.
“I don’t know,” I said feeling totally miserable.
“Nerves, I suppose?” he offered, and then, “Oh well…never mind.”
I don’t know what I expected him to say; I don’t suppose anything he might have said would have made me feel any better, but somehow I managed to feel that it was his fault, just for being there. I mean, if he hadn’t been there, and I had still choked, I wouldn’t have felt so bad; or would I?
I didn’t go back to Scouts the next week; in fact if it wasn’t for Switzerland I probably wouldn’t have gone back at all. When I did go back, the following week, I said that I’d been ill on the day of the athletics, but hadn’t wanted to let the Troop down so I’d turned up and made the effort; and I was only just now over my sickness. Much to my relief, my performance on the day was so inferior to my efforts in training that nobody doubted my explanation, and my standing in the Scouts was at least no worse.
A happy moment with my father – few and far between
My Nanna had taken very ill, it was a difficult time for my father to take time off work, so Bill – close family friend that he was – volunteered to take my mother to Scotland to look after Nanna for a week.
“Where are we going Daddy?” Jane said, for about the tenth time, as we bundled into the car. Saturday morning a week after Bill and my mother left for Scotland, out of the blue, my father told us to put on some nice clothes. He was taking us out somewhere; it was to be a surprise.
Memory Point: “But…Daddy, you’ve got to tell us?” persists my young sister. I'm saying nothing at all. He seems in a good mood, but I've seen so little of my father’s good moods that I'm not ready to trust it. We're heading towards Coventry, it's Saturday morning; any shopping is always done on a Saturday morning. ‘Oh! That’s what it is, he just wants a hand to get the shopping,’ but when we reach Coventry he just keeps driving through and out the other side. Now I'm intrigued.
After about fifteen minutes we pull off the road and park in an open field where several hundred other cars are already parked; across the road I can see a large fairground. “Are we going to the fair?” I ask, not persuaded that that's why we're here: he's never taken us to the fair before. “Why else do you think we’re here?” he says, and by now he's beaming. Jane and I are so excited as he holds our hands, and we keep exchanging quick, little glances as he leads us across the road; this is not the father we're used to seeing.’
The day could not have been better. He took us on every ride that we wanted to go on, and took part in all the games with us: throwing balls at coconuts and shooting air riffles at targets. He even bought us hot dogs, candy floss and toffee apples, and when at last he said, “I think it’s about time we headed home,” I had never seen my father laugh as much in my entire life.
Returning home, he made us chips and eggs, our favourite meal. Afterwards when Jane, exhausted and falling asleep, went off to bed he let me watch the late film, a science fiction movie called ‘The Man From 1999’. My usual bedtime was eight o’clock during the week and nine o’clock on a Friday and Saturday nights. The late film didn’t finish until almost eleven o’clock; I'd never been allowed to watch it before.
As I lay in bed waiting for sleep I tried to work out what it was that was different; what had caused my father’s complete change of character? I was just reaching a conclusion as I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning I couldn’t remember what that conclusion had been. Bill brought my mother home later that night.
Switzerland here I come
I waved goodbye to my mother, father, and little sister as the coach pulled away from the 1st Exhall Scout Hall, and as I lost sight of the cheering, waving crowd I breathed a sigh of relief; I was actually on my way.
In Dover, we boarded the cross channel ferry to Oostende, and traveled by coach again through Belgium and into Northern France where we camped for the night. The following day we continued through France and Luxembourg, finally arriving in Switzerland where we stayed at a campsite near Englberge, situated in the mountains high above Lake Lucerne.
"Why do you keep staring up at that mountain?" said Ian, one of my fellow Scouts. I didn't regard Ian as a friend he was too rich, too spoilt and too stuck up.
"I'm going to climb that mountain!" I said, speaking my thoughts aloud in a matter of fact tone.
"Yeh! Sure you are, Mr Toughie," replied Ian, with more than a little sarcasm.
Turning away from the mountain I looked directly at him; firstly with anger but then, seeing a flash of fear cross his face, sympathy and a little more understanding replaced it. "OK, Mr Smarty-pants. You just stand there and watch me climb that bloody mountain."
"Tom!" I heard my name being called as I reached the first steep grass slope; looking back I could see Ian running after me. "Can I come with you?" Ian puffed as he drew close.
We headed up the first slope and had been going for about fifteen minutes or so when I paused in my uphill scramble and turned to look down. Ian was only a few yards behind me but was having a much harder time; I realised he was going out of his way not to put his hands down, looking down-right dangerous. "What are you doing?" I said exasperated.
He looked up at me, his face flushed and his breath coming in gasps. "What do you mean?" and he looked genuinely perplexed.
"What I mean…" I said, a note of compassion creeping into my voice, "…is if you don't stop worrying about getting your hands dirty and start using them to climb you won't make it up this first slope, let alone climb the bloody mountain!" Ian peered up past me at the towering rocks above, and then back down towards the campsite already far below. Breaking into his thoughts I said, "Maybe you'd better just go back!"
"You just keep going!" he retorted. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."
We pressed on. After picking our way up the first slope and over a rocky overhang we stopped for a rest; from our resting-place we could see out over the whole valley. Englberge, at around four thousand feet above sea level, is situated in a valley a couple of thousand feet above Lake Lucerne, and the tallest of the mountains around Englberge reaches an altitude of over nine thousand feet above sea level.
"It's beautiful," I remarked in awe.
"Well… You do surprise me," said Ian, with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm and I turned toward him with a question in my eyes, but said nothing. "I'm sorry," he said in answer to my unspoken question. "I wasn't meaning to be sarcastic that time. It's just that I didn't think toughies like you used words like beautiful."
"That's a whole load of shit, Ian!" I spat the words out and immediately regretted them; I could see the defensive shutters slamming back down behind his eyes. "I'm sorry." I continued quickly, "I don't mean to sound tough. I'm not tough. But you can't let people walk all over you!" A better understanding began to develop between us as we progressed on up the mountain.
The climb became increasingly difficult, but I managed to pick a route which kept us ascending the mountain until at last we stood before a seemingly, insurmountable obstacle: a sheer cliff face, rising out of the opposite side of a small glacier, that would have done justice to a team of seasoned mountain climbers, with all the appropriate equipment.
"I don't think we should go any further," and there was a note of desperate hope in his voice. Falling silent, I looked long and hard up at the mountain peak towering three or four hundred feet above us.
"As much as I hate to admit it," I said at last, "I have to agree with you." Finding an observation point, we rested while enjoying the breathtaking view.
"Can you remember the way back down?" asked Ian absently.
After a brief reflection I said, "Probably not. What about you?"
"Not a hope in hell!" he answered, sounding suddenly concerned.
"Oh well," I said with a shrug, "I didn't know the way up and I got us this far."
"Oh great!!" said Ian, that familiar note of sarcasm was back. "I hope we don't have the same amount of success going down. If there’s one thing worse than having a four-hundred-foot wall of rock to ascend…it's having a four-hundred-foot wall of rock to descend!”
I was well aware of the gravity of Ian's statement but gave no indication of that as I stood up and, before heading off, replied, "I'll tell you what, Ian. You go whatever route takes your fancy," and I began my cautious descent – with Ian staying very close behind.
We had been tracking back and forth across the mountain, gingerly picking our way down for about an hour when we came to a wooded grass slope. It wasn't the route we'd taken coming up. The slope was so steep that the trees were almost parallel to the ground.
Memory Point: ‘'C-R-A-C-K'
"T-o-o-o-m!!"
I hear the branch break and the plaintiff cry from Ian, but can do nothing as he slams into me. Sliding down the slope, we gather speed as we head towards a more heavily wooded patch fifty yards further down. Crashing through the first line of small trees, I hit a larger tree head on. I'm still in a state of terror, the wind knocked completely out of me, as Ian slams into me again, almost dislodging me once more. Hanging onto the tree for grim death, while Ian clings to me, our downward career has halted, but only just. Eventually, recovering enough, we carefully manoeuvre downward and ten yards further we come to a sheer drop of close to a thousand feet. I feel the blood drain from my face, and as we turn, wide eyed, to face each other I notice that Ian is as white as a ghost.'
There were no more sarcastic remarks from Ian, or smart comments from me. Tracking back and forth across the mountain, we made the rest of the journey in complete silence, eventually finding a safe descent to the campsite.
For our irresponsible assault on the mountain we were confined to the camp for the next two days. I was glad that Ian had come along, because although I was basically blamed for leading him astray, they had to give us both the same punishment. Ian was one of the favourites, hence the relatively cushy sentence.
What the hell! It was fun in camp, anyway. It rained on our first night of confinement. It rained so hard that within a couple of hours the normally gentle little stream, running through the campsite, became a raging torrent, resulting in half the campsite being under six inches of water. Everyone helped to evacuate the submerged half, and then doubled up in the relatively dry tents for the remainder of the night.
Come the morning the rain had stopped, the water had subsided, and the sun was shining; so mopping up operations got under way. ‘What a top holiday,’ I thought as I helped to clean up the camp. I had only been in Switzerland a couple of days and I had already climbed a mountain and been in a flood.
"Zis is goot fun? Ya?" Looking around, I was expecting to find one of my fellow Scouts putting on a, rather bad, German accent. "I am Eric. Und I am very pleased…to you," and I stood open mouthed as the youth, who appeared to be about the same age as me, repeated his introduction, and then put out his hand.
Eric was a young German boy and typically Aryan, blonde hair and blue eyes, plus a very friendly smile. "I'm very pleased to meet you too," I replied as I took the boys hand and shook it enthusiastically. "My name is Tom. And yes…it is good fun, isn't it!?"
Eric and I spent a lot of time together during our holiday. It turned out that Eric was on holiday with his parents; his father taught English at a school in West Germany so communication between us was very good. Also, Eric and his father had climbed some way up the same mountain just two days before me, and they were extremely impressed when I told of my adventure on the mountain. The friendship blossomed and when it came time to depart we exchanged addresses. Alas, I lost Eric's address somewhere on the trip home, and I assume that something of a similar nature happened to Eric, because I never, ever heard from him again.
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