"Come to the cinema," said my dad, "You'll enjoy it."

I was only about five years old and I was terribly excited to be going for the first time. What my father didn't tell me was that the film was Watership Down, a seriously brutal slaughter-fest of rabbit death.

"Did you enjoy it?" chirped my father as we left the cinema.

I didn't reply, being too traumatised to speak. No doubt my father thought it essential to my upbringing to be exposed to the harsh realities of life at such an early age.

Just like the fucking tortoise.

"Will it be alright to leave it outside during dinner Daddy?" John asked nervously, looking up at his father with large trusting eyes.

"Sure it will son," said father, "It'll be just fine."

And secure in the knowledge that his pet tortoise, Fred, would be o.k., John went for his dinner. But when John came out to play after dinner, Fred had gone. Fuckers!

The next installment of John's childhood trauma will follow next week, when John is used in his elder sister's mind control experiments and also discovers that none of the other children at school are expected to "Go play in the nettles son, it'll do you good."

It was April 1st, the day of fools, and I had been making preparations for several days. I woke early, went downstairs and began to make some mischief. I sellotaped my fathers newspaper shut, put salt in the sugar pot and played a number of other lame irritating pranks which seem so amusing to the mind of a child or Jeremy Beadle. The whole family was caught out and I was very pleased with myself.

It was at this point that my mother and father decided to get their own back. Noticing that I was still in my pyjamas, my mother went upstairs to prepare my school clothes, but came back with the dreadful news that there was no clean underwear, and that as a substitute I would have to wear a pair of my sisters knickers.

These days I might well be delighted, even ecstatic, at the thought of being forced to wear womens underwear. At age seven however, knowing that it was games that day at school and that I would be expected to change in front of the rest of the class, and that my occasional nickname of Knickers would undoubtedly become permanent, I began to cry.

Having reduced their son to tears, my parents revealed that it was only a joke and that there was in fact a large number of clean Marks and Spencers white cotton y-fronts ready for usage.

The bastards.

Primary school was a lot of fun. I was very clever which made the work simple; my mother was soft and would often allow me to stay at home for the most minor of ailments; and best of all I sat opposite a girl who was horribly shy and easily embarrassed, and therefore very simple to tease.

Myself and my friend, Peter Eadon, whiled away many an hour making this girls life a misery. Her main defect (a harsh word, but amusing) was her ghostly pale skin. She was very white indeed! Ho ho! The fun part however was when she got embarrassed, when her face would transform into hot glowing redness. Although these days I would empathise with the poor girl, back then it caused no end of amusement.

Every ten minutes or so myself or Peter would lean over the desk and say "Big tomato" in a sing-song voice. We would then sit back and admire our handiwork, as our victim turned miraculously from ghostly white to bright red (like a tomato). How clever we were!

One day, we were sat in class writing an essay on Roman fortifications. I had meant to write "Every five miles there was a Roman fort," but I had lost concentration while taunting ghost-girl and accidentally written "Every five miles there was a big tomato." Upon realising my mistake, myself and Peter laughed and laughed and laughed, and just to make the situation perfect ghost-girl turned red again.

With bonfire night approaching, my friends and I spotted an opportunity to make a fast buck using the "penny for the guy" routine. We were lazy however and quite simply could not be bothered to make a guy, which left us with a dilemma. Being bright young things, we quickly came up with a plan which would solve our problem; we decided that one of us should be the guy. The people of this fair isle are not an ungenerous race but it would be pushing even their benevolence to expect a "penny for the adolescent, lying motionless on the floor." This was the clever part of our plan - with the simple application of balaclava, ill-fitting wind-cheater, my fathers wellington boots and a liberal amount of straw and soil, a small boy was miraculously transformed into a Guy Fawkes dummy.

Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we set off to the local pub, The Sea View, and set up stall. I had been chosen as guy for the night and I slumped convincingly outside the main entrance (I believe I may even have been lying in a wheelbarrow for added effect), my friends on either side acting the roles of juvenile beggars.

After only a short period of time my father came out of the pub, instantly saw through my flimsy disguise and gave us a right bollocking. I was marched straight home, receiving a steady rain of blows to the balaclava en-route and being told I was "an embarrassment."
 
 

As you probably know, I am a real hard-case. It would be fair to say that my fighting record is unblemished, with a success rate of 100% victories in actual fights. My record is:

F. 2, W. 2, D. 0, L. 0, R.A. 23, F.M.I.A.D.L.A.S. 7, D.T.S.W.W.B. 2.

Key:

The initial stages of the bout were evenly matched, with Jonathan and Steven grappling each other to a standstill. I, being the smaller of our tag-team partnership, wrestled against Julie. A girl. Julie Leyland, although a girl, was taller than me (as is often found amongst children of that age (although the situation doesn't seem to have changed much regardless of my age). Her knowledge of wrestling moves however was sadly limited and it was not long before I had extracted a submission from her by gratuitously rotating her arm around in its socket.

One-nil to us then. First to two.

The combatants tagged and Jonathan and Steven came together again for a further stint of closely fought grapple-mania. But with neither wrestler gaining a clear upper-hand, they tagged again and myself and Julie resumed battle. The battle was quickly over however, for having already weakened Julie's left arm, John the ultra-competitive 11-year old bastard moved in on the weakened limb and it was just a matter of a few simple twists to produce a second, screaming submission. Victory to us!

The action was not over however, Steven being unsatisfied with the rather poor performance put up by his (now crippled) sister. Me and you John, he said, Me and you!

And so battle was rejoined in this previously untried pairing. In the heat of the contest tempers became frayed and the red mist descended. Fists flew in every direction, although most of them seemed to connect with Stevens face. He went down, momentarily dazed, but sprang right back up with the heart of a warrior.

"You've had it now!" was his battle cry. Unfortunately for Steven, cry was the only part of the last sentence which was germane, because a combination of straight jabs to his nose sent him straight back down.

"Where's my wellies?" I shouted, and having retrieved them from the kitchen, myself and Jonathan left the Leyland's house, leaving Steven crumpled on the floor and his sister, rather perversely, laughing at his plight (girls - they're all bastards).

We avoided each other for about three weeks, before the matter was forgotten and we resumed play, although thence forth wrestling bouts were generally avoided in favour of football. I was indeed glad I had resumed my friendship with Steven, since it was he who introduced me to porno and horror movies and cider laced with paracetemol, all before the age of 14.

A happy ending.

(The time comes when every father must take his son aside and explain frankly and openly the details of the sexual act)

It was a sunny summers day and being a healthy 14 year old boy my first thought was how splendid it would be to go on an invigorating bike ride (it is strange that only ten years on, my first thought would now be how splendid it would be to lie motionless on the floor and drink cider). I collected my bicycle from the garage and shouted across to my father who was gardening, "Im going for a ride on my bike."

My fathers usual response, a barely audible grunt, was not forthcoming. Instead, he looked up, stared me in the eye and said, "Well, you know about the facts of life don't you ?"

I froze. This was not what I had been expecting. My father had introduced a new and dangerous gambit into the conversation, one which I was totally unprepared for. After a moments hesitation, I meekly ventured "yes" by way of reply.

My father then caused me further anxiety by saying, "Just bear it in mind," and nodded in a knowing sort of way. My thoughts were now reeling. I could not equate my fathers insinuation that I was on the way to fuck someone with my initial plan, which was to go for a bicycle ride up a hill.

I was fairly certain I did know 'the facts of life', but my fathers strange utterances now caused me to doubt whether the sexual act simply involved intercourse between a man and a woman. The context of his comments seemed to indicate that perhaps a Peugeot premier 10-speed should be involved somewhere along the line. I was confused and frightened.

Since my only subsequent conversations with my father pertaining to sex involved the lines "You look like a puff," and "I hope youve not been...been...been doing it in my bed," then it remains a mystery I have never quite resolved.

As youngsters, my friends and I had difficulty fitting into conventional youth society, shirking the more common forms of entertainment such as under-age discos and sports clubs in favour of a more hedonistic, free-living lifestyle.  Although this may conjure up a rather romantic image of rebellious youth, fighting the system, unshackled by the conformity and unimaginativeness of a conservative society created by control-hungry adults, what it actually involved was a lot of hanging around in bus stations and petty arson.

Even at age sixteen, a night in the park with a bottle of Thunderbird and a bottle of turpentine stolen from the parents' garage was de rigour amongst my immediate peer group, since access to public bars was still  not possible due to a range of factors including lack of facial hair, lack of height, lack of smart clothes and lack of false I.D. any better than a clearly falsified birth certificate.

And so it was that 4 boys found themselves stood outside a chip shop at the end of a college night, three of them slightly damp but content with the night's activities, the fourth boy, Ian, covered in blood, beer, turps and chip fat.  How did they come to be in this situation….

The night had started off in typical fashion - a two mile walk to the nearest off-license which would serve us.  Having stacked up on cheap (yet powerful) alcohol and matches (how the off-license staff could sleep at night having just sold the equivalent of a well-stocked alcohol cabinet and the tools to create a small inferno to a group of unwashed immature youths I will never know), we set off back to Astley Village housing estate for a night of fun, frolics and laughter.

Two hours of standing in a subway and forcing down foul-tasting booze later, we felt sufficiently lively to step out into the evening drizzle and perform some mischief.  This started by lighting a couple of small fires in litter bins, which burned well despite the dampness, thanks to the arsonist's friend, white spirit.  After a while though, the absence of easily inflammable material drove us to seek alternative entertainment, which as usual involved mindlessly knocking on peoples' doors then running away.  What twats we were.

A favoured variation of this game was to knock on door after door after door on the same street, which increased excitement (from zero to some) by giving less time to get away and at the same time aggravating the maximum number of people.  It was during one such multiple-door raid that Ian , already unsteady on his feet due to Thunderbird, tripped over a flagstone on his way towards a door.  The result of this trip was to send him head-first through a plate-glass panel, leaving only his torso and legs visible on the driveway.

My friends and I, believing Ian to be seriously injured at the very least (I personally thought his head had been completely severed), behaved as any true friends would in such a situation and ran off.  Having fled to a suitable distance, we were in the process of fabricating stories about how we hadn't seen Ian all night, when who should come round the corner but Ian himself, having sustained only minor damage (in the form of lacerations to the top of his head), which is more than could be said for the glass panelled door, which was f*cked. (the reader may be interested to know that the door in question belonged to a little old lady who lived alone)

Ian did not get off too lightly though, because the bottle of turpentine he had been carrying in his pocket had smashed in the collision, and seeped into his clothing.  This, along with the rain, Thunderbird wine and blood combined to make Ian look a bit of a mess.  Deciding that we had had enough excitement for one night, we headed off towards the chip shop for a late supper before returning home.

Having bought ourselves a bag of chips each, we stood outside the chip shop discussing the nights events.  Ian was rather unhappy, worrying about what his mother would say when he returned home wearing clothes soaked with powerful-smelling solvent.  He need not have been concerned however, since Andrew Shackleton chirped up that a well known way of removing turpentine from clothing was to bring it into contact with the fat used to cook chips.  Not only was chip fat capable of cleaning the clothing, but it was also highly effective at removing the strong odour - miraculous !

Ian was delighted to hear this news and encouraged us all to hurry and finish eating so that he could have our chip paper.  He then proceeded to rub himself up and down with the greasy papers, content in the knowledge that the smell of turps would soon fade.  It was only after Ian had given himself a thoroughly good rub from tip to toe that Andrew revealed that there was in fact no truth to the story of chip fats turpentine-removing abilities.

Everyone went home happy, except for Ian, who looked a mess and stank.

My friend Gareth had a nickname at school.  It was not a nickname he was proud of, and he often reputed its origins, pulling an angry face as he did so, but the nickname stuck regardless.  If truth be told it was not even a particularly bad nickname, just one simple little word - Fish.

To explain where this name came from, we must travel back in time, to third year highschool in Chorley.  Gareth had a friend called Mark, to whom he was reported to have told the following story:

Gareth had a wank in his bathroom, which in itself is nothing to be ashamed of - he was a young adolescent, exploring his body for the first time, and in this particular instance encouraging stuff to shoot out of it. Nothing wrong with that I think you'll agree.  However, several minutes after vacating the bathroom, his mothered entered it and detected a strange odour.  Calling out to her son, she enquired, somewhat naively in my opinion, "Gareth, it smells of fish in here, what have you been doing ?"

It was this story then which Gareth confided to his friend Mark, who subsequently blabbed it all over school.  As I said earlier, Gareth vehemently denied that this sequence of events ever took place, insisting instead that the story was complete fabrication, a product of Mark's overactive adolescent psyche.  For those people who know Mark however, this seems an unlikely explanation, since Mark is, and always has been, a quiet, mature, dependable, almost bland person (with the one notable exception of the time he undressed and performed semi-naked star-jumps on my parent's front lawn, shouting "I hate trousers," whilst under the influence of gin and vimto).  With the exception of this occasion then, he was a man who could be trusted and believed.

Another possible flaw in the tale which Gareth likes to point out relates to his mother's behaviour - would she really be so naive as to ask "It smells of fish in here Gareth, what have you been doing ?"  It is a question which leaves little scope for a sensible answer, the only possibilities being:

(1)  I don't know (the favourite fall-back answer of every school child when faced with an awkward line in questioning).
(2) I had a haddock in there.
(3) I've just had a wank.

This is a strong argument in Gareth's defence then, or is it ?  If you cast your mind back you may recall that this is the same woman, who when faced by an angry neighbour waving a pair of Gareth's soiled underwear which he had tossed onto next door's garden the day before, enquired of her son "Gareth, these y-fronts have brown stains on them, what have you been doing?"

I rest my case.

Many children wore uncool coats at school, but Michael's was the least cool of them all.  His was a Parker, no crime in itself, for many children were unfortunate enough to be forced to wear them by their parents.  Whoever designed the children's Parker must have been a very sick f*cker indeed, because not only were they bulky and uncomfortable and
rustled when you moved, but they also had a deathtrap design feature of a large snorkel hood, which made it impossible to see traffic coming from any direction other than straight on.

Only in 1986, after 15 years of teenage road fatalities did the Parker become completely unfashionable, and it as
then that Michael's parents bought him one.  The other problem with Michael's coat was that it was maroon, and made Michael look like a gaylord (a popular insult in the mid-eighties).  The gayness of his coat attracted attention in the schoolyard and he was regularly beaten by his fellow pupils, the Parker providing the added disadvantage of restricting movement and therefore making escape impossible.

It may interest you to know that i also had a Parker whilst at school (pre-1986 and coloured blue), which Gareth was jealous of.  Now that is uncool.