So the weathers gone from one extreme to another last few days, so if you had all your shorts and t shirts washed, ironed and ready to go then like me you will be thinking what a fucking waste of time that was. I am going to carry on last week’s topic I think regarding one extreme to the other and the drug topic which a few of you lot found to be quite similar to your own experiences. Remember I am not bragging or encouraging anyone to take drugs because apart from being expensive they can ruin you lives and the lives of others around you.
After discovering pills at about 21/ 22 years old I was living in brockley house on east street, it was a one bedroom flat we rented of a girl called Amanda who I hated because she came across as a bully, she did ultimately let us stay there so I cant really say anything bad about her. Whilst living there I had no income and things were super tight, there are low points in my life that I remember and a couple of them were whilst living there, such as going to the shop with about 40p in pennies to buy a chocolate bar and it felt like a tramp paying for my twirl completely in coppers, but my addiction and craving for chocolate was so strong that the shame was worth the reward of the intense velvet flavored bar. Another low point which you may think is me over reacting was cooking a sausage stir fry. Now you may think there’s nothing wrong with putting sausages and rice together in a wok and knocking up an English twist to an ancient Chinese dish that’s been around since time began, other than the fact I don’t like sausages. But being poor the choices you get in life are slimmer than a supermodel with and eating disorder.
It’s amazing how your financial situation can motivate you into things that you might otherwise consider to be not your thing or how good something tastes when you haven’t eaten for that day, even if the said meal is something you hate.
At that time in my life its fair to say I had given up on a few things thinking life was going to always be that shit, I had the court case for access to my kids going on which was killing me, I was getting weekly letters from my kids mums solicitors calling me all the names under the sun. I wasn’t working and I had recently discovered the joys of taking drugs, namely ecstasy which was like taking a problem forgetting pill and all the hurt used to go away for that particular period.
What I then done was not to set up a shop or stall, but what came next seemed like a natural progression as if promoted from user to seller. I realized that I could make enough money to pay for my weekends out partying and have enough left over to get me through the week without having to scrape together pennies to buy chocolate bars and basic dinners. I’m not saying I went and bought a car or house, I was strictly small time.
After all, I knew people that I had grown up with selling FAKE pills by going and getting pro plus or any tablets on sale that could pass as ecstasy. Then file them down if necessary to remove any writing then finally coat them in “stop n grow” the nasty tasting substance used to coat your nails to stop you biting them. This made the pill taste bitter when taken so the person taking it believes that they are not buying a dud pill. As clever as it sounds I didn’t actually agree with this way of earning a living because sooner or later they would end up taking a beating because you cant go to trading standards with a faulty pill and get a refund off anyone, this was strictly a dangerous area of the field that I was only to happy to stay away from.
Not that I thought what I was doing was ok either, but I thought quite selfishly that I was not hurting anyone and having quite a good time in the process, meeting loads of new people and some of them people cant do enough for you, you are elevated into a position of folk hero, breaking the law for the good of the people who wanted to get wasted. Well that’s how it felt at the time. But the laws of club land are very different from the laws on the streets, for instance think about this.. dance clubs emerged off the back of illegal raves in the mid to late 80s and promotions and clubs were run by a lot of the people who put together the illegal raves, so how do you go from organizing illegal raves filled with drugs and drug dealers who were making thousands of pounds a night to running a legit club with no drugs in?? Answer you don’t. And why would you?
Some clubs and I am going to say some as my get out, some clubs allowed dealers to operate inside the club with the clubs blessing for a fee, now I’m not going to pretend I know every in and out of this operation because I have never done it on behalf of a club, the things I am presenting to you are things I have witnessed and been told whilst going out clubbing for years in a scene I loved and worshiped.
Going out was like a birthday at the end of a very stressed week, I was pretty much living for the weekends, no real money or work but having them weekends made up for a lot of the shit things that were going on at the time. I had to do a drug course later on when I was about 29 to be able to teach DJ workshops in schools and I remember the guy teaching us saying that ecstasy in its purest form is pretty safe if taken properly, I couldn’t believe my ears.
There hasn’t been enough study into it to say otherwise, but I am not going to suggest you do it, after all the downsides are looking down syndrome, sweating like a pedophile in a playground as well as the comedowns and depression you suffer after prolonged usage, it can also lead to paranoia and trigger mental breakdowns, because remember what goes up must come down.
Drugs and drink are responsible for many situations that I have been in that I wouldn’t have been in otherwise, some of them good and others bad, anyone who says they remain unaffected from years of drug taking are probably not aware of their symptoms or the long term damage they have suffered.
Before I rap up this bit about drugs I want you to be aware of a few facts, more people die each year from alcohol related incidents including drinking alcohol and smoking than any drug related incidents. If the governments legalized drugs here, we would have to be friends and do business with the people we have been demonising since time began and it would be very hard to tax, after all people have been smuggling them in and can get around paying the tax. Look at the cigarette situation in this county, abroad fags are cheap, but if you’re a smoker in the UK you have to pay a high duty on them because they are addictive and people will continue to buy them even if they get to £10 for 20. But now we are at the stage where we all know someone selling cigarettes illegally, you can get 200 for £20/£25 depending on your brand, as a county we are standing up to the government and saying we won’t stop smoking but we will not pay what you want us to.. (now reading back it seems like I’m really interested in politics, but let me reassure you I’m not, I just like to be aware and I’m a nosey fucker lol)
Fucking hell another rant over, quickly I know I shouldn’t and I said I wouldn’t but I’m 4 days in on this Cambridge diet, I feel pissed off its got to this but I need to get down to what I want to be and its very hard as per this topic being all or nothing, I could lie and what have you, but I cant be arsed.
I will let you know how I get on, please remember to drop your feedback, it does make me feel like I’m not sitting in a room babbling and going mad lol
Right in the words of jerry Springer >> fuck off lol
Wednesday 14 July 2010
Thursday 1 July 2010
1st july 2010 the drugs dont work
When I was a child I used to gorge on chocolate and listen to pirate radio stations like Lightning Fm, then I managed to get a job and used to play fruit machines and lost most of what I earnt on more than one occasion. But what seemed to happen was that a cheeky fiver became twenty pounds and by then your chasing the money you lost, thinking that the machine was about to pay out at any minute. You couldn’t walk away because somebody else will walk up, put in twenty pence and win all your money. But it’s not your money is it really? Because as soon as you put it into the machine it becomes someone else’s money, so you really don’t have a claim to it. Well I hated walking away but once you have spent all you have in cash, there’s nothing else to do other than watch someone else put in that one coin and win the jackpot. It’s at this point that you feel a failure. All sorts of things used to run through my head and a bout of depression would set in. At the time this was happening I was about 18 and wasn’t really a fan of Pubs, so I didn’t go in very often, not to mention the fact that I had 2 kids aged one and two. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t spend the money for nappies or clothes on fruit machines, it was money that I just happened to have. Money that I could have put to good use.
Then as I got older, well I was about 21/22 I started experimenting with speed, I always said I wouldn’t touch drugs because my mums husband became a heroin addict and we had to leave home to get away from the cunt. So not taking drugs and not smoking was a very easy thing to say no to, but after splitting up with my kids mum, I sort of thought my world had ended, well at the time it had because I was still young and I didn’t know any better, or any different I should say, I had been with her from the age of 15 and had grown up together, its a bit silly now when you think of it, but at the time I needed a distraction, so DJ’ing became a good way to express myself and achieve something in the way of pride and a little extra money that didn’t involve crime.
When I became a weekly resident I started drinking loads whilst I was DJ’ing partly nerves and partly just being upset over the split, a friend of mine said to me that speed keeps you sober but keeps the happy vibe from the alcohol. And to start with it worked a treat; I would have gone on ITV after Coronation Street and promoted speed as the perfect accompaniment to drinking loads of lager.
It was then that I got introduced to the club scene and started going to channel club and strawberry Sundays in Vauxhall, it was in channel club that some guy we were out with suggested I take an E. Now what I should have said is no but in the spirit of things I thought “fuck it, why not?” so we split the pill 3 ways. It tasted absolutely vile but at the time it seemed un cool to mention it, so I just cracked on and waited for the effects to take over.
I couldn’t tell you how long it took but I can still remember coming over all warm as if you was snuggled up in your favorite pajamas in front of a hot fire drinking hot chocolate whilst it’s snowing outside. I was sat in room two and the song playing was Insomnia by faithless, I was sat on a podium thing drinking a can of red stripe (I can assure you that is not a drink I would order at a bar, but in them clubs its all they had in the way of lager... I think it’s cheap to buy in, but they sold it for about £3). There was one of them fans that turn’s around in different directions, and every time it was on me I felt better and when it was off me, I became hot and sluggish. It was at that point I started to become a bit worried because I wasn’t in control and it felt different from any feeling I had ever felt before, it was at that point that someone sat down with me and told me not to panic.
Enter Sandra, she was a complete stranger up to that point, she’s a black woman who loves clubbing through and through, whatever it is, clubbing looks as though it courses through her veins. She explained what was happening to me and the worst thing I can do is panic, the girl I was with was monged out and was enjoying the feeling as she had a big stupid grin on her face and the bloke was off dancing somewhere, so it was all down to Sandra to stop me having a panic attack. Now you think that would of been the last time I would of taken ecstasy, but my friends I cant tell a lie and say its a bad thing I done because on reflection I enjoyed it so much that I went out most weekends and ate doves, I love you’s, Mercedes, Rolex’s and all sorts of names that seemed a bit weird at the time but I suppose brand awareness is quite important, even in the drug making business, lol
The problem with some if not most drugs is that they certainly do lead to taking other drugs, I’m not saying if you smoke a bit of puff your going to be on heroin before the nights out, but once you open certain doors the rest of the drug options seem to present themselves like walking into a sweet shop and asking for a kit kat chunky, now the shop owner doesn’t want to tell you that he hasn’t been to the cash and carry, so he tries to show you the new kit kat chunky now with caramel. Yes folks its better than the original and has more sugar for your money than the boring old chunky version, that’s pretty much how some people sell you drugs, you might go to buy speed and walk out with ketamine, coke or baby teething powder if your not careful. The drug business is not regulated and follows no rules other than they are breaking the law. Now some people, well most people don’t mind bending a few rules or even breaking tiny non important laws like parking on a double red line. But the drugs game is a very different animal, you face years in prison and the prospect of not being able to get a decent job if you ever get out, so why do so many people risk getting caught taking and selling the fucking things?
Escapism is the answer, I don’t care how happy someone says they are, how many houses, cars or blow jobs they get, if they take drugs its part escapism or as it was in my case switching off, or being able to switch off and escape from any problems that were in my life at the time. Certain drugs give you a comfort blanket that protects you from whatever’s bothering you. Anyone who takes drugs regularly and says that nothing bothers then or that they are happy is probably lying to you and themselves, some drugs become a coping mechanism for all manner of situations from smoking weed because you can do your job standing on your head to sniffing cocaine because you work in a high octane environment such as a trader on the futures market, I’m not saying everyone does because I’m not everywhere to say that its the truth, I’m just saying it goes on.
Up to now you have probably got the impression that I advocate taking drugs, well let me clear something up. I do not.
What I haven’t got to yes is the day after the night before, have you heard of the saying what goes up must come down? Well it’s a true as life itself.
Being 22 I was able to go out all night, take a few drugs such as ecstasy and drink loads of alcohol and get into my bed at 9am, then wake up at 5 in the afternoon as if I had been in bed at 9.55pm with a cup of coco, then skip forward 5 years. I was able and needed to take more drugs for it to have any affect and staying up would sometimes include me by myself sniffing coke and taking ecstasy with a glass of vodka on the go. This is when what started out as a social pastime became an addiction and the good times were defiantly outweighing the good. Paranoia had set in and my mental state was less than fragile. Some people find themselves owing money for the nights that never ended and working all week to pay dealers for drugs that they smoked or sniffed. I was fortunate to be earning enough money to not owe anyone any thing but know and met enough people who would sell you their property such as personal music players, videos just to get more money to buy more drugs.
Its like working in clubs every week, I get to see people at their best, happy and up for a laugh, they drink as if they are rich and take various drugs, but then the can you lend me money comes out of the mouth and you have to think can this guy pay me back? I remember lending a guy £40 once so he could stay out longer, he gave me his cash point card and said he would ring me the next day with his pin number so I could go to the bank and draw the cash out. Now that seemed pretty reasonable as the guy had been coming to the club for ages and was a friend of a friend. Well let me just say that he didn’t ring me the next day and I have never seen him since, the lengths people will go to ah!
Right more next week about all the ups n downs of drugs, I just want to thank everyone who sponsored me for the charity bike ride I done on Sunday, I just want to say it was fucking easy and have decide to try and keep the training up to do the London to Brighton and the London to Windsor ride which is much longer than 27 miles. Its not too late to sponsor me as I need to get the fund up about and other £100, so if everyone gives £5 it will exceed my target, all you have to do is click on www.justgiving.com/daniel-blaze and use your debit card or credit card, its simple or if you don’t feel safe you can in box me on facebook and arrange to give me the cash and I will put it on for you, I have to say special thanks to Sarah LT from crawley , Express national Carriers (the best cab company in London, use them loads as they are great, the numbers 0207 404 3333), Ekrim, Alex, Hux, EJB, Richie, Lisa & Nancy, Dwayne, Michelle Buckley, Cheryl , Stacy, Sam, Natalie, Mc Sez, Dj Metts, Digital disco plus everyone who is yet to still give me the cash. Oh and I cant forget to say thanks to Barbra and Andrew who arranged it all, id love for you guys to be my Mum & Dad, and they gave a £100 sponsorship which is above and beyond the call of duty considering everything they done on the day.. Thanks to you all xx
Right remember you can shout me with your feedback on this blogs, it does mean a lot when you do so do the right thing lol..
Have a lovely time in this weather, I’m off to knock out 30 miles on my bike like its nothing lol
Then as I got older, well I was about 21/22 I started experimenting with speed, I always said I wouldn’t touch drugs because my mums husband became a heroin addict and we had to leave home to get away from the cunt. So not taking drugs and not smoking was a very easy thing to say no to, but after splitting up with my kids mum, I sort of thought my world had ended, well at the time it had because I was still young and I didn’t know any better, or any different I should say, I had been with her from the age of 15 and had grown up together, its a bit silly now when you think of it, but at the time I needed a distraction, so DJ’ing became a good way to express myself and achieve something in the way of pride and a little extra money that didn’t involve crime.
When I became a weekly resident I started drinking loads whilst I was DJ’ing partly nerves and partly just being upset over the split, a friend of mine said to me that speed keeps you sober but keeps the happy vibe from the alcohol. And to start with it worked a treat; I would have gone on ITV after Coronation Street and promoted speed as the perfect accompaniment to drinking loads of lager.
It was then that I got introduced to the club scene and started going to channel club and strawberry Sundays in Vauxhall, it was in channel club that some guy we were out with suggested I take an E. Now what I should have said is no but in the spirit of things I thought “fuck it, why not?” so we split the pill 3 ways. It tasted absolutely vile but at the time it seemed un cool to mention it, so I just cracked on and waited for the effects to take over.
I couldn’t tell you how long it took but I can still remember coming over all warm as if you was snuggled up in your favorite pajamas in front of a hot fire drinking hot chocolate whilst it’s snowing outside. I was sat in room two and the song playing was Insomnia by faithless, I was sat on a podium thing drinking a can of red stripe (I can assure you that is not a drink I would order at a bar, but in them clubs its all they had in the way of lager... I think it’s cheap to buy in, but they sold it for about £3). There was one of them fans that turn’s around in different directions, and every time it was on me I felt better and when it was off me, I became hot and sluggish. It was at that point I started to become a bit worried because I wasn’t in control and it felt different from any feeling I had ever felt before, it was at that point that someone sat down with me and told me not to panic.
Enter Sandra, she was a complete stranger up to that point, she’s a black woman who loves clubbing through and through, whatever it is, clubbing looks as though it courses through her veins. She explained what was happening to me and the worst thing I can do is panic, the girl I was with was monged out and was enjoying the feeling as she had a big stupid grin on her face and the bloke was off dancing somewhere, so it was all down to Sandra to stop me having a panic attack. Now you think that would of been the last time I would of taken ecstasy, but my friends I cant tell a lie and say its a bad thing I done because on reflection I enjoyed it so much that I went out most weekends and ate doves, I love you’s, Mercedes, Rolex’s and all sorts of names that seemed a bit weird at the time but I suppose brand awareness is quite important, even in the drug making business, lol
The problem with some if not most drugs is that they certainly do lead to taking other drugs, I’m not saying if you smoke a bit of puff your going to be on heroin before the nights out, but once you open certain doors the rest of the drug options seem to present themselves like walking into a sweet shop and asking for a kit kat chunky, now the shop owner doesn’t want to tell you that he hasn’t been to the cash and carry, so he tries to show you the new kit kat chunky now with caramel. Yes folks its better than the original and has more sugar for your money than the boring old chunky version, that’s pretty much how some people sell you drugs, you might go to buy speed and walk out with ketamine, coke or baby teething powder if your not careful. The drug business is not regulated and follows no rules other than they are breaking the law. Now some people, well most people don’t mind bending a few rules or even breaking tiny non important laws like parking on a double red line. But the drugs game is a very different animal, you face years in prison and the prospect of not being able to get a decent job if you ever get out, so why do so many people risk getting caught taking and selling the fucking things?
Escapism is the answer, I don’t care how happy someone says they are, how many houses, cars or blow jobs they get, if they take drugs its part escapism or as it was in my case switching off, or being able to switch off and escape from any problems that were in my life at the time. Certain drugs give you a comfort blanket that protects you from whatever’s bothering you. Anyone who takes drugs regularly and says that nothing bothers then or that they are happy is probably lying to you and themselves, some drugs become a coping mechanism for all manner of situations from smoking weed because you can do your job standing on your head to sniffing cocaine because you work in a high octane environment such as a trader on the futures market, I’m not saying everyone does because I’m not everywhere to say that its the truth, I’m just saying it goes on.
Up to now you have probably got the impression that I advocate taking drugs, well let me clear something up. I do not.
What I haven’t got to yes is the day after the night before, have you heard of the saying what goes up must come down? Well it’s a true as life itself.
Being 22 I was able to go out all night, take a few drugs such as ecstasy and drink loads of alcohol and get into my bed at 9am, then wake up at 5 in the afternoon as if I had been in bed at 9.55pm with a cup of coco, then skip forward 5 years. I was able and needed to take more drugs for it to have any affect and staying up would sometimes include me by myself sniffing coke and taking ecstasy with a glass of vodka on the go. This is when what started out as a social pastime became an addiction and the good times were defiantly outweighing the good. Paranoia had set in and my mental state was less than fragile. Some people find themselves owing money for the nights that never ended and working all week to pay dealers for drugs that they smoked or sniffed. I was fortunate to be earning enough money to not owe anyone any thing but know and met enough people who would sell you their property such as personal music players, videos just to get more money to buy more drugs.
Its like working in clubs every week, I get to see people at their best, happy and up for a laugh, they drink as if they are rich and take various drugs, but then the can you lend me money comes out of the mouth and you have to think can this guy pay me back? I remember lending a guy £40 once so he could stay out longer, he gave me his cash point card and said he would ring me the next day with his pin number so I could go to the bank and draw the cash out. Now that seemed pretty reasonable as the guy had been coming to the club for ages and was a friend of a friend. Well let me just say that he didn’t ring me the next day and I have never seen him since, the lengths people will go to ah!
Right more next week about all the ups n downs of drugs, I just want to thank everyone who sponsored me for the charity bike ride I done on Sunday, I just want to say it was fucking easy and have decide to try and keep the training up to do the London to Brighton and the London to Windsor ride which is much longer than 27 miles. Its not too late to sponsor me as I need to get the fund up about and other £100, so if everyone gives £5 it will exceed my target, all you have to do is click on www.justgiving.com/daniel-blaze and use your debit card or credit card, its simple or if you don’t feel safe you can in box me on facebook and arrange to give me the cash and I will put it on for you, I have to say special thanks to Sarah LT from crawley , Express national Carriers (the best cab company in London, use them loads as they are great, the numbers 0207 404 3333), Ekrim, Alex, Hux, EJB, Richie, Lisa & Nancy, Dwayne, Michelle Buckley, Cheryl , Stacy, Sam, Natalie, Mc Sez, Dj Metts, Digital disco plus everyone who is yet to still give me the cash. Oh and I cant forget to say thanks to Barbra and Andrew who arranged it all, id love for you guys to be my Mum & Dad, and they gave a £100 sponsorship which is above and beyond the call of duty considering everything they done on the day.. Thanks to you all xx
Right remember you can shout me with your feedback on this blogs, it does mean a lot when you do so do the right thing lol..
Have a lovely time in this weather, I’m off to knock out 30 miles on my bike like its nothing lol
Tuesday 15 June 2010
15th June 2010 Jesus saves - put him in goal for England
7 days without prayer makes one weak.. the church have had to result to word play to grab peoples attention because of church attendance numbers being at an all time low unless you count the African churches that have popped up like sweat shops all over the place, housing them in clubs, tenant halls and any place that’s available.
I remember from the De Vinci code that written in the bible or somewhere is the saying that I am all around you, lift a stone, break a piece of wood and I am there. What I got from that message was that you do not need to go to church to pray, because god (I would just like to point out at this moment in time that I do not believe in god, well I don’t believe in god as we have been told it, but more about that in a bit, well maybe as I don’t actually know what I am going to write next) is everywhere.
I really don’t know why I don’t believe in god or the version of god we have been told exists, it just seems highly unlikely that things would be as they are now if such a being existed, after all why would he send his so called son (yeah that’s Jesus) down to earth and we have heard no more since? And the stories in the bible all contradict each other. I watched some programme the other day saying as a kid Jesus was a really naughty kid (I know that just sounds weird don’t it), he was believed to be involved in his friends death (how could they accuse him of all people, lol), they thought he pushed his mate off a roof and he fell to his death. Now I know you are dying (excuse the pun) to know how this story resolved itself, because I’m sure you haven’t got the impression of lord and savior was some sort of rude boy who people were scared of, who went round pushing people off roofs if they didn’t do what he said.
No our mate on the cross (well before he was on the cross) brought his mate back from the dead to tell people that he didn’t kill him, brilliant! Maybe he should come back to earth and solve a few murder mysteries for us. But seeing as his dad (yes I’m mean god) is everywhere he wouldn’t even need to turn up to the scene of the crime, he could just send a text message or email to save man hours.
I’m not sure if you are actually aware that the bible is loads of other books, well parts of other books put together so the people of the time it was written can all stick to one set of rules and guidelines if you want to call it that (I’m sure there is a more official name, but I’m going to stick with my way of explaining things). Well basically a group was set up to pick and choose stories and letters from all these other books to make one official book. There were books and stories that were not put in at the time but were considered to be just as or more important than the ones finally chosen.
There was one on Mary, whom they say remained a virgin throughout her life but had other kids, so you can’t be sure that it’s the truth. There was a version of one called Adam and eve that says that one of there sons married a woman. But seeing as they were the only humans invented by god, it doesn’t add up because who was she? One book called the book of jubilees says that he married his own sister. Now that sounds about right in my opinion, but either way it’s all a load of shit. None of it is consistent and lets face it, there was fuck all else to do in them times other than have sex, eat and pray.
You might think this is all a bit weird banging on about religion but I am fascinated by the fact that so many people believe and have faith in something that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you have been to or seen a programme that shows what happens in a court room, you will know that you have to swear on the bible to say that you are not lying. Come on how fucking stupid is that?
Even if you do not believe in god, fairy’s or even that the moon is made of cheese you have to swear on a book of stories to say that you are not going to tell any lies in court. I will be honest with you now and tell you I have lied in court, it’s a serious matter called perjury and if found out you can go to prison. But my reason for telling you is that putting you hand on a bible and saying that the sky is luminous black with pink spots is not going to make anything happen, the sky is not going to open up and a big hand come down and give you a dry slap. So ask yourself why the fuck do they do it. All I can think is tradition.
So now the bible bashing bit is over how the hell are you? I been trying to prepare mentally for this 26 mile bike ride I have coming up next week Sunday, I know its going to kill me if I’m honest but I will get through it so I don’t let anyone down. I’m trying to raise £500 because its a nice round figure, I have set a just giving page which is linked to the charity that I am supporting and you can use your debit or credit card to make a donation, it really does count even if you only donate £1 or £100, and it all goes straight to the charity with no funny business, as I am the most skeptical person when it comes to giving my card details out. If you would like to sponsor me the web address is http://www.justgiving.com/Daniel-blaze or if you are in south London you can just give me the cash and fill out a sponsor sheet. So far if everyone who has said gives me the cash I will have raised nearly £300, so not far left to go, so don’t be fucking tight and gives ya fuckin money (that was a bob Geldof quote there, but I’m using it now lol)
I tried doing that fucking Cambridge diet last week, I got to day 5 and gave up, I really don’t know what the fucks the matter with me, and I’m just going to mug it off and get into this training and gym and maybe gradually cut out eating the junk I eat. I do feel like a bit of a failure for not being able to stick to it, but you cant spend your life stopping and starting it as it means I have a constant headache and never got any fucking energy as the first couple of weeks is the killer. So tomorrow which is Wednesday I am going to get back out on my bike and go gym this week and eat what the fuck I want for now and see how that pans out.
Went to see the Michael McIntyre comedy road show last night and had a really good night and was lucky enough to meet him during and after the show, not really a bin fan but he was actually funny, so I have to give him ratings. What happens is comedians write there material and try it out over and over again until its funnier to a more commercial crowd, but for me by then its been watered down and a bit shit, so I think the smaller venues like the comedy store are much better than going to see them in a 30’000 venues when all you can see is a dot on the stage. Keep it real peoples.
Right I am going to chip (remember that old skool saying), but please remember to drop feedback on my blogs or any opinions you might have feel free to share them as I’m always interested and even fascinated in some cases. So with that in mind have a lovely week and have a think about what I said about religion, it’s all down to the individual but I hate being lied to.
Be good Daniel Blaze
I remember from the De Vinci code that written in the bible or somewhere is the saying that I am all around you, lift a stone, break a piece of wood and I am there. What I got from that message was that you do not need to go to church to pray, because god (I would just like to point out at this moment in time that I do not believe in god, well I don’t believe in god as we have been told it, but more about that in a bit, well maybe as I don’t actually know what I am going to write next) is everywhere.
I really don’t know why I don’t believe in god or the version of god we have been told exists, it just seems highly unlikely that things would be as they are now if such a being existed, after all why would he send his so called son (yeah that’s Jesus) down to earth and we have heard no more since? And the stories in the bible all contradict each other. I watched some programme the other day saying as a kid Jesus was a really naughty kid (I know that just sounds weird don’t it), he was believed to be involved in his friends death (how could they accuse him of all people, lol), they thought he pushed his mate off a roof and he fell to his death. Now I know you are dying (excuse the pun) to know how this story resolved itself, because I’m sure you haven’t got the impression of lord and savior was some sort of rude boy who people were scared of, who went round pushing people off roofs if they didn’t do what he said.
No our mate on the cross (well before he was on the cross) brought his mate back from the dead to tell people that he didn’t kill him, brilliant! Maybe he should come back to earth and solve a few murder mysteries for us. But seeing as his dad (yes I’m mean god) is everywhere he wouldn’t even need to turn up to the scene of the crime, he could just send a text message or email to save man hours.
I’m not sure if you are actually aware that the bible is loads of other books, well parts of other books put together so the people of the time it was written can all stick to one set of rules and guidelines if you want to call it that (I’m sure there is a more official name, but I’m going to stick with my way of explaining things). Well basically a group was set up to pick and choose stories and letters from all these other books to make one official book. There were books and stories that were not put in at the time but were considered to be just as or more important than the ones finally chosen.
There was one on Mary, whom they say remained a virgin throughout her life but had other kids, so you can’t be sure that it’s the truth. There was a version of one called Adam and eve that says that one of there sons married a woman. But seeing as they were the only humans invented by god, it doesn’t add up because who was she? One book called the book of jubilees says that he married his own sister. Now that sounds about right in my opinion, but either way it’s all a load of shit. None of it is consistent and lets face it, there was fuck all else to do in them times other than have sex, eat and pray.
You might think this is all a bit weird banging on about religion but I am fascinated by the fact that so many people believe and have faith in something that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you have been to or seen a programme that shows what happens in a court room, you will know that you have to swear on the bible to say that you are not lying. Come on how fucking stupid is that?
Even if you do not believe in god, fairy’s or even that the moon is made of cheese you have to swear on a book of stories to say that you are not going to tell any lies in court. I will be honest with you now and tell you I have lied in court, it’s a serious matter called perjury and if found out you can go to prison. But my reason for telling you is that putting you hand on a bible and saying that the sky is luminous black with pink spots is not going to make anything happen, the sky is not going to open up and a big hand come down and give you a dry slap. So ask yourself why the fuck do they do it. All I can think is tradition.
So now the bible bashing bit is over how the hell are you? I been trying to prepare mentally for this 26 mile bike ride I have coming up next week Sunday, I know its going to kill me if I’m honest but I will get through it so I don’t let anyone down. I’m trying to raise £500 because its a nice round figure, I have set a just giving page which is linked to the charity that I am supporting and you can use your debit or credit card to make a donation, it really does count even if you only donate £1 or £100, and it all goes straight to the charity with no funny business, as I am the most skeptical person when it comes to giving my card details out. If you would like to sponsor me the web address is http://www.justgiving.com/Daniel-blaze or if you are in south London you can just give me the cash and fill out a sponsor sheet. So far if everyone who has said gives me the cash I will have raised nearly £300, so not far left to go, so don’t be fucking tight and gives ya fuckin money (that was a bob Geldof quote there, but I’m using it now lol)
I tried doing that fucking Cambridge diet last week, I got to day 5 and gave up, I really don’t know what the fucks the matter with me, and I’m just going to mug it off and get into this training and gym and maybe gradually cut out eating the junk I eat. I do feel like a bit of a failure for not being able to stick to it, but you cant spend your life stopping and starting it as it means I have a constant headache and never got any fucking energy as the first couple of weeks is the killer. So tomorrow which is Wednesday I am going to get back out on my bike and go gym this week and eat what the fuck I want for now and see how that pans out.
Went to see the Michael McIntyre comedy road show last night and had a really good night and was lucky enough to meet him during and after the show, not really a bin fan but he was actually funny, so I have to give him ratings. What happens is comedians write there material and try it out over and over again until its funnier to a more commercial crowd, but for me by then its been watered down and a bit shit, so I think the smaller venues like the comedy store are much better than going to see them in a 30’000 venues when all you can see is a dot on the stage. Keep it real peoples.
Right I am going to chip (remember that old skool saying), but please remember to drop feedback on my blogs or any opinions you might have feel free to share them as I’m always interested and even fascinated in some cases. So with that in mind have a lovely week and have a think about what I said about religion, it’s all down to the individual but I hate being lied to.
Be good Daniel Blaze
Tuesday 8 June 2010
8th june 2010 // sorry for missing a week
So here we are in the British summer, everyone’s got there shorts on but also wearing a waterproof poncho because we all know its going to bloody rain any minute, were told its down to global warming and all that shit, but if we can be truly honest with ourselves the weather in this fucking country has always been shit, and even worse if you live in Scotland where you can buy heroin in the local sweet shop because its so grim up there (just for the record you can not buy heron in sweetshops in Scotland it was just a dig at how much I think Scotland is depressing.. no offence Scotland, none taken. Oh thanks).
I remember passing through Scotland and seeing that you can buy fags in the chip shop, which I have never seen before. I mean in London we have shops for everything from milkshakes with chocolate bars in them to rubber cocks in the shape of famous porn stars (not that I can name any guys from the world of porn, I am pretty sure that’s where women seem to excel and don’t mind non equal working practices and pay. But who really wants to be any of those women? That’s what I thought lol).
Another odd thing I have seen on my many travels is a drive through....spar, yes the mini supermarket chain where you can pay for your electric or buy 3 day old bread and there is always a crazy deal on something that you never usually buy but when its buy one get one free it seems like you need it in your life all of a sudden.
So back to our drive through spar in north Belfast, now compared to Belfast, Scotland is Disney land, not the shit one in France, Disney land Florida, with Mickey mouse who doesn’t small of garlic and is always pleased to help (quick info alert..A one day pass for Disney land Florida for 3 adults and 4 kids is about £700+). God I keep deviating from this bloody drive through that I’m getting sick of talking about already, well my actual point was that I thought it was weird, and I didn’t see anybody use the fucking thing, I did go in the shop and buy stuff whilst I was there, and in case you didn’t know they use the Euro over there because that’s how much they fucking hate us, lol. Even Scotland has there own currency, and they hate us more than that lool.
Whilst in Belfast I did feel a bit scared, no fuck it.. I was proper shook. There are roads where people have flags and banners outside of there houses to state weather they are protestant or catholic (and if your not aware they kill each other for there beliefs), and there are potholes in the roads where they have massive fires and demonstrations against things that are going on in there country. I felt like I shouldn’t be walking the streets at night in case something bad happened to me (so I didn’t), now you may think I am exaggerating but ask yourself this question. Why is it that if your gas or electricity runs out after 7pm at night, how come it doesn’t actually go off? They allow you to continue to have “said” amenity’s until the following morning when it’s safe to go out of your house again.
Don’t get me wrong I know all of Ireland isn’t like that, and when you get into the city centre its pretty much like any town centre, but the part I was in was a bit frightening for an outsider like me, lol
Had so much on over the last few weeks, but now I’m sitting here trying to remember my flipin minds gone blank, saying that I had a laugh at someone’s expense on Sunday night at the club I run, we have a Jamaican night on Sundays, and I get involved asking people to buy tickets of cue up if its busy, on Sunday this group of Jamaican men came up to the cue and I said “excuse me guys, you need to grab a ticket”, one of the dudes was offended saying that guys sounds too much like gays, and he don’t want to be referred to as guys.. I couldn’t stop laughing at this bloody idiot
Trying to get mentally adjusted to do this 26 mile bike ride on the 27th of June, if you don’t know already its for charity and I would really like everyone to sponsor me, as much or as little as you can afford, the easiest way you can give is by my just giving page which is located by clicking on http://www.justgiving.com/Daniel-blaze or the old fashioned by giving me the cash to put in the collection tin I have been given by the charity. I haven’t actually been out on my bike in the last few days, but I will be doing some major catch up later on from this week. Trust in me people and I will get this ride done.
I Dj’ed at scala in kings cross on Saturday for the school reunion party where I got to play loads of wicked tunes then on to Wesley Jays birthday party at Opera house where we did our new Funk mob projects new tune called Funky Moves, we have so much stuff coming up. Like tomorrow the official mix Cd comes out tomorrow and the Video will be on a music channel near you in the next few weeks, as well as a Tour of the UK and Abroad to look forward to.. so look out for the Cd and Video, if you haven’t already, please join the Funk Mob group on facebook, also they are live on radio Wednesdays from 8pm-10pm, check them out.
Right I am going to keep it short as I’m mad busy still but I will get back on this blog situation from now.. Remember all your feedback and stuff is always welcome, have a lovely week.. Will try doing another blog this weekend
I remember passing through Scotland and seeing that you can buy fags in the chip shop, which I have never seen before. I mean in London we have shops for everything from milkshakes with chocolate bars in them to rubber cocks in the shape of famous porn stars (not that I can name any guys from the world of porn, I am pretty sure that’s where women seem to excel and don’t mind non equal working practices and pay. But who really wants to be any of those women? That’s what I thought lol).
Another odd thing I have seen on my many travels is a drive through....spar, yes the mini supermarket chain where you can pay for your electric or buy 3 day old bread and there is always a crazy deal on something that you never usually buy but when its buy one get one free it seems like you need it in your life all of a sudden.
So back to our drive through spar in north Belfast, now compared to Belfast, Scotland is Disney land, not the shit one in France, Disney land Florida, with Mickey mouse who doesn’t small of garlic and is always pleased to help (quick info alert..A one day pass for Disney land Florida for 3 adults and 4 kids is about £700+). God I keep deviating from this bloody drive through that I’m getting sick of talking about already, well my actual point was that I thought it was weird, and I didn’t see anybody use the fucking thing, I did go in the shop and buy stuff whilst I was there, and in case you didn’t know they use the Euro over there because that’s how much they fucking hate us, lol. Even Scotland has there own currency, and they hate us more than that lool.
Whilst in Belfast I did feel a bit scared, no fuck it.. I was proper shook. There are roads where people have flags and banners outside of there houses to state weather they are protestant or catholic (and if your not aware they kill each other for there beliefs), and there are potholes in the roads where they have massive fires and demonstrations against things that are going on in there country. I felt like I shouldn’t be walking the streets at night in case something bad happened to me (so I didn’t), now you may think I am exaggerating but ask yourself this question. Why is it that if your gas or electricity runs out after 7pm at night, how come it doesn’t actually go off? They allow you to continue to have “said” amenity’s until the following morning when it’s safe to go out of your house again.
Don’t get me wrong I know all of Ireland isn’t like that, and when you get into the city centre its pretty much like any town centre, but the part I was in was a bit frightening for an outsider like me, lol
Had so much on over the last few weeks, but now I’m sitting here trying to remember my flipin minds gone blank, saying that I had a laugh at someone’s expense on Sunday night at the club I run, we have a Jamaican night on Sundays, and I get involved asking people to buy tickets of cue up if its busy, on Sunday this group of Jamaican men came up to the cue and I said “excuse me guys, you need to grab a ticket”, one of the dudes was offended saying that guys sounds too much like gays, and he don’t want to be referred to as guys.. I couldn’t stop laughing at this bloody idiot
Trying to get mentally adjusted to do this 26 mile bike ride on the 27th of June, if you don’t know already its for charity and I would really like everyone to sponsor me, as much or as little as you can afford, the easiest way you can give is by my just giving page which is located by clicking on http://www.justgiving.com/Daniel-blaze or the old fashioned by giving me the cash to put in the collection tin I have been given by the charity. I haven’t actually been out on my bike in the last few days, but I will be doing some major catch up later on from this week. Trust in me people and I will get this ride done.
I Dj’ed at scala in kings cross on Saturday for the school reunion party where I got to play loads of wicked tunes then on to Wesley Jays birthday party at Opera house where we did our new Funk mob projects new tune called Funky Moves, we have so much stuff coming up. Like tomorrow the official mix Cd comes out tomorrow and the Video will be on a music channel near you in the next few weeks, as well as a Tour of the UK and Abroad to look forward to.. so look out for the Cd and Video, if you haven’t already, please join the Funk Mob group on facebook, also they are live on radio Wednesdays from 8pm-10pm, check them out.
Right I am going to keep it short as I’m mad busy still but I will get back on this blog situation from now.. Remember all your feedback and stuff is always welcome, have a lovely week.. Will try doing another blog this weekend
Wednesday 26 May 2010
26th may 2010 everybody loves the sunshine
last weeks rant it got me thinking about things like, when did people stop cueing for the bus? I mean I can remember when people used to stand in line in the order that they arrived at the bus stop, and when the bus came you got on in the same order. If the bus was full you simply waited for the next bus to come along. Fast forward to 2010, everyone just sort of hangs around the bus stop like they was undercover police trying not to be noticed, and then when the bus comes it turns into survival of the fittest.
To be honest its just the shit society we live in and the calibre of the people cueing up for the bus, most people who don’t like them terms and conditions for travel on the bus have bought a bike like yours truly, got a car or got the trainers out, and in this weather I suggest you do the latter (which for those of you don’t understand the word latter in a sentence means “the last one”, wow I’m slyly confusing myself now)
Yes the weather has been lovely for the last couple of days and if I never mentioned it in last weeks blog I went and bought a bike to do this charity bike ride, and its just under 5 weeks away and I really do expect some of you lot to sponsor me, or I will put a gypsies curse on you, well I wont but I will however think your a tight fucker with no compassion for sick peoples. And you don’t want that on your conscience does ya?? Come on does ya? Lol
Just going over the very large park opposite so far, as I’m not being seen on road wearing the helmet that makes me look like someone I’m actually collecting for (yes I know that’s a bit bellow the belt, but its funny and I’m raising money for leukaemia not a sunshine bus lol). I have to get used to having a numb bum from the bike seat, and I don’t expect any gay sore arse jokes please.
Yeah anyway I do feel a bit of a Wally on the bike but its all part of trying to change my lifestyle and move towards being healthier and living longer. I restarted this fucking Cambridge diet yet again on Monday just gone, I weighed in at 16 stone 11lb and I am so pissed off, but with only myself to blame for eating 10 bars of chocolate a day, I cant be mad at anyone and will try use that energy to keep myself motivated. I know what I need to do, and for those actually interested I shall tells ya. I’m planning (this is the theory part of my plan, I need to make it happen) to get down to 14 stone something and gradually introduce a cooked meal of an evening to start with, but still keep my calorie intake as low as I can for now, avoiding all chocolate and snacks. This all coupled with the bike riding should start to balance out my exercise to diet ratio and help to continue to lose weight but not at such a fast rate, as the quicker you lose it, the quicker it seems to go back on if you eat junk.
Last year I got down to 15 stone and managed to stay there for ages by keeping a food diary, thus not over eating and keeping my calories at roughly 2500 a day which is the normal mans allowance, I even managed to chuck in a couple of chocolate bars at around 300 calories each, so basically ate super healthy other than the two chocolate bars. It did work, so I know I can do it, I was playing a bit of badminton as well at the time, but everyone seems to have given up on that as well so if any of you lot live in south and fancy a game of badminton just shout me because its one of the few sports I’m good at and enjoy, which is a bit of a luxury to me, as I never really got into the whole football thing for some reason. I used to watch a bit of wrestling on a Saturday as a kid, but it’s wasn’t exactly WWF or WWWF or whatever it’s bloody called these days. Yes the wrestling I’m referring to had its best wrestlers called BIG DADDY and GIANT HAYSTACK, the TV programme was called world of sport hosted by some man called Dickey Davis who wouldn’t look out of place in a 80s porno with a dodgy looking moustache and come to think of it, even his name sounds like an 80s porno star. Not that I actually knew any porno starts names in the 80s as I was only 5 years old in 1980.
Big Daddy being the good guy and weighing in at about 30 stone and looked and if I remember correctly was a granddad then, he used to bash up the bad wrestlers and he used to get the crowd involved by making them sing EASY – EASY – EASY, it was fun to watch a 50 year old man who looks like he might drop dead any minute, not that that’s why I watched it you understand. No I thought Big Daddy real name Shirley Crabtree (yes that was his not a woman’s real name, no wonder he took up a violent sport, well its not really violent is it? Its ballet for fat bloke’s lol) well at the age I was when it was on, which is about 10, I thought he was Britain’s version of the 64 million dollar man (you can Google who the hell he was, I’m not doing all the fucking work round ere lol). His arch enemy was 6ft 11 and 48 stone and went by the name Giant Haystacks (yes I did just Wikipedia him as talking about him made me wonder how much he did actually weigh), well these two guys were a ratings winner for ITV on a Saturday afternoon and little kids like I was used to lap it up, well I did for a bit then saw a few Bruce Lee films and thought wrestling was gay and more fixed than a father playing his son at football in the back garden. But it was fun whilst it lasted.
Sunday just gone I managed to drag myself out of bed with only 4 hours sleep and go to Brighton for the day, I am seriously thinking of moving down there as its that nice, and no that don’t make me gay, its just so lovely down there, plenty of shops and things to do.. If you haven’t been seriously check it out. I was asked to win a big dolphin on some game which involves throwing balls up some table with holes in, they have 18 players and they spin some dial with numbers on, it lands on your number then you actually manage to win you get a BIG prize. The man spun the dial and it landed on my number, then during the race the commentator was changed over and I thought nothing of it, I threw my balls and my little racing dolphin won. I asked for my BIG DOLPHIN as I had won fare and square, but the man said NO.. Yes I did go absolutely fucking mental until the fucker handed over my oversized pink dolphin. So after a minor drama I got what id won, so make sure they don’t try have you over if you manage to get down there lol
This week im DJ’ing at coliseum in Vauxhall for Exposure, so if you like your old skool House & Garage get your bums down there as it should be a wicked night.
Probably not going to continue with the Thursday nights at BOHo’s at the minute as its not really how I wanted it to be, people getting there too late and I think with summer finally here it will be nice to spend some more time doing some nice things with the fammo.
Right I’m off for now, but please do try and drop some feedback on these blogs as it shows I’m not talking, well writing to myself, and if you are silly rich and would like to pay for a much needed holiday for your truly please feel free as I am slyly knackered..
Even though I couldn’t care less about football I think I should be a bit nice and wish Millwall luck this week, as it seems the sporting thing to do, with the England hype starting and the shops trying to cash in, even my pack of razors had a flag and fucking whistle in it, but I only bought that pack because it was £3 cheaper than usual for some reason..Well hay ho.. Enjoy the weather
To be honest its just the shit society we live in and the calibre of the people cueing up for the bus, most people who don’t like them terms and conditions for travel on the bus have bought a bike like yours truly, got a car or got the trainers out, and in this weather I suggest you do the latter (which for those of you don’t understand the word latter in a sentence means “the last one”, wow I’m slyly confusing myself now)
Yes the weather has been lovely for the last couple of days and if I never mentioned it in last weeks blog I went and bought a bike to do this charity bike ride, and its just under 5 weeks away and I really do expect some of you lot to sponsor me, or I will put a gypsies curse on you, well I wont but I will however think your a tight fucker with no compassion for sick peoples. And you don’t want that on your conscience does ya?? Come on does ya? Lol
Just going over the very large park opposite so far, as I’m not being seen on road wearing the helmet that makes me look like someone I’m actually collecting for (yes I know that’s a bit bellow the belt, but its funny and I’m raising money for leukaemia not a sunshine bus lol). I have to get used to having a numb bum from the bike seat, and I don’t expect any gay sore arse jokes please.
Yeah anyway I do feel a bit of a Wally on the bike but its all part of trying to change my lifestyle and move towards being healthier and living longer. I restarted this fucking Cambridge diet yet again on Monday just gone, I weighed in at 16 stone 11lb and I am so pissed off, but with only myself to blame for eating 10 bars of chocolate a day, I cant be mad at anyone and will try use that energy to keep myself motivated. I know what I need to do, and for those actually interested I shall tells ya. I’m planning (this is the theory part of my plan, I need to make it happen) to get down to 14 stone something and gradually introduce a cooked meal of an evening to start with, but still keep my calorie intake as low as I can for now, avoiding all chocolate and snacks. This all coupled with the bike riding should start to balance out my exercise to diet ratio and help to continue to lose weight but not at such a fast rate, as the quicker you lose it, the quicker it seems to go back on if you eat junk.
Last year I got down to 15 stone and managed to stay there for ages by keeping a food diary, thus not over eating and keeping my calories at roughly 2500 a day which is the normal mans allowance, I even managed to chuck in a couple of chocolate bars at around 300 calories each, so basically ate super healthy other than the two chocolate bars. It did work, so I know I can do it, I was playing a bit of badminton as well at the time, but everyone seems to have given up on that as well so if any of you lot live in south and fancy a game of badminton just shout me because its one of the few sports I’m good at and enjoy, which is a bit of a luxury to me, as I never really got into the whole football thing for some reason. I used to watch a bit of wrestling on a Saturday as a kid, but it’s wasn’t exactly WWF or WWWF or whatever it’s bloody called these days. Yes the wrestling I’m referring to had its best wrestlers called BIG DADDY and GIANT HAYSTACK, the TV programme was called world of sport hosted by some man called Dickey Davis who wouldn’t look out of place in a 80s porno with a dodgy looking moustache and come to think of it, even his name sounds like an 80s porno star. Not that I actually knew any porno starts names in the 80s as I was only 5 years old in 1980.
Big Daddy being the good guy and weighing in at about 30 stone and looked and if I remember correctly was a granddad then, he used to bash up the bad wrestlers and he used to get the crowd involved by making them sing EASY – EASY – EASY, it was fun to watch a 50 year old man who looks like he might drop dead any minute, not that that’s why I watched it you understand. No I thought Big Daddy real name Shirley Crabtree (yes that was his not a woman’s real name, no wonder he took up a violent sport, well its not really violent is it? Its ballet for fat bloke’s lol) well at the age I was when it was on, which is about 10, I thought he was Britain’s version of the 64 million dollar man (you can Google who the hell he was, I’m not doing all the fucking work round ere lol). His arch enemy was 6ft 11 and 48 stone and went by the name Giant Haystacks (yes I did just Wikipedia him as talking about him made me wonder how much he did actually weigh), well these two guys were a ratings winner for ITV on a Saturday afternoon and little kids like I was used to lap it up, well I did for a bit then saw a few Bruce Lee films and thought wrestling was gay and more fixed than a father playing his son at football in the back garden. But it was fun whilst it lasted.
Sunday just gone I managed to drag myself out of bed with only 4 hours sleep and go to Brighton for the day, I am seriously thinking of moving down there as its that nice, and no that don’t make me gay, its just so lovely down there, plenty of shops and things to do.. If you haven’t been seriously check it out. I was asked to win a big dolphin on some game which involves throwing balls up some table with holes in, they have 18 players and they spin some dial with numbers on, it lands on your number then you actually manage to win you get a BIG prize. The man spun the dial and it landed on my number, then during the race the commentator was changed over and I thought nothing of it, I threw my balls and my little racing dolphin won. I asked for my BIG DOLPHIN as I had won fare and square, but the man said NO.. Yes I did go absolutely fucking mental until the fucker handed over my oversized pink dolphin. So after a minor drama I got what id won, so make sure they don’t try have you over if you manage to get down there lol
This week im DJ’ing at coliseum in Vauxhall for Exposure, so if you like your old skool House & Garage get your bums down there as it should be a wicked night.
Probably not going to continue with the Thursday nights at BOHo’s at the minute as its not really how I wanted it to be, people getting there too late and I think with summer finally here it will be nice to spend some more time doing some nice things with the fammo.
Right I’m off for now, but please do try and drop some feedback on these blogs as it shows I’m not talking, well writing to myself, and if you are silly rich and would like to pay for a much needed holiday for your truly please feel free as I am slyly knackered..
Even though I couldn’t care less about football I think I should be a bit nice and wish Millwall luck this week, as it seems the sporting thing to do, with the England hype starting and the shops trying to cash in, even my pack of razors had a flag and fucking whistle in it, but I only bought that pack because it was £3 cheaper than usual for some reason..Well hay ho.. Enjoy the weather
Thursday 20 May 2010
20th may 2010 (respect)
They say patience is a virtue, but I really think it’s worth a hell of a lot more, I suggest that anything you wait more than 10 years for should be rewarded with some sort of medal. Growing up as a teenage dad I was so jealous of my mates going out clubbing, getting drunk and even the sleeping around bit I was jealous of. I know what I had was worth a lot more but the grass does always look greener on the other side most days. Whilst I had a job from 14 my pals were at millwall on a Saturday afternoon, whilst I was working to earn money to support myself and have enough money to not have to rely on anyone, because to me I thought it was weak to ask for help or rely on someone who is going to let you down. So working seemed like the natural way to stand on my own two feet, when I try to explain that if I wanted my jeans cleaned I used to have to wash them in our sink with the nail brush, now I didn’t even mind doing these things, and why should I? They were my jeans; I wore them and made them dirty so if I want them clean I should wash them. It’s as simple as 2 + 2 to me.
But what I can’t not understand about today’s youth and I am generalizing now, going by things I have seen for my own eyes and issues I have with my own kids. I honestly believe they are spoilt to the point where we feel we are working for them like some sort of unreasonable boss. Because if I went to a job and was treated like kids treat parents today, I would be able to go to a tribunal and have them punished. The thing I see now is kids owning things they really don’t deserve; I challenge you to find a child under 10 years old who doesn’t own a mobile phone. Now why the fuck does a 10 year old need a phone? I remember knocking on friends doors and asking if my friend could come out. I was told yes, no or he’s out playing already. And if someone knocked for me and it was too late or dinner was about to be served up then I didn’t go out. It’s not quantum physics, its knowing your place and having respect for the decisions made in my household. I knew that no amount of pleading was going to get me out so I just figured that it was easier to do as I was told. That’s not to say that when my mums back was turned I didn’t stick my finger up or think she was a cunt, but I can tell you this with 100% certainty, if I had openly called my mum a cunt I would not be alive to be writing this, my mum was not the best mum in the world or even a great mum but I knew where the line was and as my mum used to say “I brought you into this world and I can take you out this world” and you know what I 100% believed her because she meant every single word.
When I was about 12 I was going out with this girl who was a year older than me who went to Notre dame school in the elephant, well one day we was with my cousin and some random dude, now Kelly had found this dog and wanted to take it to Peckham police station to hand it in as a stray, and being the nice guy I said we should all walk up to the station as it was dark, not midnight but dark enough and Peckham isn’t the safest place in broad day light so we all trooped off to the station. When we got to the corner before the station a massive group of maybe 20 or 30, now I’m going to say black boys because there’s no point in trying to say it was a mixed group just so it don’t sound racist, because every single one of them was black, it’s a fact of the story. So as we neared the station maybe 8 or so of the boys surrounded us, one of the boys asked my cousin Steven where we was going, and Steven replied “to the police station” with that he got a punch in the face, then he was asked again to which he still replied “to the police station”, to which he received another punch to the face, on being asked the third time I intervened that we were taking the long way home, because I don’t think my cousin quite understood the gangs line of questioning. After we established our final destination I was asked to hand over my stop watch which had cost me about £3 so I wasn’t exactly going to put myself on the line for it., and we were allowed to leave as it were.
When arriving home my mum asked where my stop watch had gone I told her what happened and she went fucking mental....at me. She dragged me down to the police station to report what had happened and I was given a bolloking by the police, what I tried to explain is that out of maybe 30 boys, they were not going to catch all of them and they might not even catch the ones who actually done the robbing. I had to walk around Peckham on my own and as long as I stayed away from particular parts at certain times of the night I knew I would be fine. But reporting them and them getting arrested I felt I would genuinely have to watch my back for all 30 of them cunts and felt I done the right thing for me. But my mum beat the shit out of me for allowing it to happen.
Life doesn’t come with a booklet because you can be sure that if it did the likes of us wouldn’t be able to afford it, bringing your kids up is your responsibility and good or bad you have to take the credit or the blame whatever that may be. Blaming other people is shit, it’s never too late to turn your life around, so think about what you’re saying to your kids before they leave the house.
Wow after that deep outburst I thought I should get back to my week.
Basically I have been working far too much and honestly I have to admit that the no chocolate thing went out the window after 4 days I am ashamed to say, and I have been eating loads of non healthy stuff, it’s so annoying when you know what you want to do but feel too weak to stick to it. So I have just bought 3 weeks of this Cambridge diet shit and I am going to re start on Monday and do my best to stay focused, I have bought a mountain bike today so I can start some gentle training for my 26 mile sponsored bike ride on 27th of June, I am still demanding that some of you lot sponsor me, so stop being a fucking tramp and give me at least £1, as anything is more than nothing. I know that the key to weight loss is diet and the key to maintaining it is exercise, knowing this and it finally sinking into my brain feels like I have cracked the matrix, you can hear it a million times from people but finding out for yourself means more.
On Sunday we had a video shoot for a song me and nyke wrote last year, it’s been produced by funk mob who are about to blow throughout the summer this year. We had loads of fun on location with some of the boys getting into the spirit of things by jumping in the hot tub with some of the models, I think the alcohol delivered helped the party along just a bit, a friend of mine helped sponsor the shoot by supplying some drinks from his alcohol delivery service, I got to shamelessly say thanks to the boys at www.drinksdriver.com and if you ever need some booze at silly o’clock give there’s guys a shout. Also I got to thank everyone who gave up there time to be in the video. It will be on your screens very soon so look out for the funk mob name..
I got a few bookings coming up soon such as exposure at coliseum on the bank holiday Sunday and Wesley jays birthday as well as the big school disco rave happening at scala both on the Saturday 5th of June, so look out for those badboys..
Which reminds me, last Saturday I was asked to dj at a party for an 18th birthday, the birthday girl sent an email with 87 song requests for the evening that must be played.. And no I wasn’t happy, but it’s all turned out ok and I didn’t murder anyone.
Getting a bit bored of twitter, I got 160 friends and its not going up so I’m sulking, so what you need to do for me is join up and stop me feeling like a Billy no mates please.. Lol
Right I’m out of here, please remember your feedback, you can also read this on http://mrdannyblaze.blogspot.com/ or facebook depending on what you’re reading now. The first couple of rough chapters of my book are on there to read as well as a few old blogs for you to re read if you never saved them.
Have a lovely weekend... and in the words of the man we used to call terry the poof “take it easy, and if you take it easy, take it twice” ouch lol
But what I can’t not understand about today’s youth and I am generalizing now, going by things I have seen for my own eyes and issues I have with my own kids. I honestly believe they are spoilt to the point where we feel we are working for them like some sort of unreasonable boss. Because if I went to a job and was treated like kids treat parents today, I would be able to go to a tribunal and have them punished. The thing I see now is kids owning things they really don’t deserve; I challenge you to find a child under 10 years old who doesn’t own a mobile phone. Now why the fuck does a 10 year old need a phone? I remember knocking on friends doors and asking if my friend could come out. I was told yes, no or he’s out playing already. And if someone knocked for me and it was too late or dinner was about to be served up then I didn’t go out. It’s not quantum physics, its knowing your place and having respect for the decisions made in my household. I knew that no amount of pleading was going to get me out so I just figured that it was easier to do as I was told. That’s not to say that when my mums back was turned I didn’t stick my finger up or think she was a cunt, but I can tell you this with 100% certainty, if I had openly called my mum a cunt I would not be alive to be writing this, my mum was not the best mum in the world or even a great mum but I knew where the line was and as my mum used to say “I brought you into this world and I can take you out this world” and you know what I 100% believed her because she meant every single word.
When I was about 12 I was going out with this girl who was a year older than me who went to Notre dame school in the elephant, well one day we was with my cousin and some random dude, now Kelly had found this dog and wanted to take it to Peckham police station to hand it in as a stray, and being the nice guy I said we should all walk up to the station as it was dark, not midnight but dark enough and Peckham isn’t the safest place in broad day light so we all trooped off to the station. When we got to the corner before the station a massive group of maybe 20 or 30, now I’m going to say black boys because there’s no point in trying to say it was a mixed group just so it don’t sound racist, because every single one of them was black, it’s a fact of the story. So as we neared the station maybe 8 or so of the boys surrounded us, one of the boys asked my cousin Steven where we was going, and Steven replied “to the police station” with that he got a punch in the face, then he was asked again to which he still replied “to the police station”, to which he received another punch to the face, on being asked the third time I intervened that we were taking the long way home, because I don’t think my cousin quite understood the gangs line of questioning. After we established our final destination I was asked to hand over my stop watch which had cost me about £3 so I wasn’t exactly going to put myself on the line for it., and we were allowed to leave as it were.
When arriving home my mum asked where my stop watch had gone I told her what happened and she went fucking mental....at me. She dragged me down to the police station to report what had happened and I was given a bolloking by the police, what I tried to explain is that out of maybe 30 boys, they were not going to catch all of them and they might not even catch the ones who actually done the robbing. I had to walk around Peckham on my own and as long as I stayed away from particular parts at certain times of the night I knew I would be fine. But reporting them and them getting arrested I felt I would genuinely have to watch my back for all 30 of them cunts and felt I done the right thing for me. But my mum beat the shit out of me for allowing it to happen.
Life doesn’t come with a booklet because you can be sure that if it did the likes of us wouldn’t be able to afford it, bringing your kids up is your responsibility and good or bad you have to take the credit or the blame whatever that may be. Blaming other people is shit, it’s never too late to turn your life around, so think about what you’re saying to your kids before they leave the house.
Wow after that deep outburst I thought I should get back to my week.
Basically I have been working far too much and honestly I have to admit that the no chocolate thing went out the window after 4 days I am ashamed to say, and I have been eating loads of non healthy stuff, it’s so annoying when you know what you want to do but feel too weak to stick to it. So I have just bought 3 weeks of this Cambridge diet shit and I am going to re start on Monday and do my best to stay focused, I have bought a mountain bike today so I can start some gentle training for my 26 mile sponsored bike ride on 27th of June, I am still demanding that some of you lot sponsor me, so stop being a fucking tramp and give me at least £1, as anything is more than nothing. I know that the key to weight loss is diet and the key to maintaining it is exercise, knowing this and it finally sinking into my brain feels like I have cracked the matrix, you can hear it a million times from people but finding out for yourself means more.
On Sunday we had a video shoot for a song me and nyke wrote last year, it’s been produced by funk mob who are about to blow throughout the summer this year. We had loads of fun on location with some of the boys getting into the spirit of things by jumping in the hot tub with some of the models, I think the alcohol delivered helped the party along just a bit, a friend of mine helped sponsor the shoot by supplying some drinks from his alcohol delivery service, I got to shamelessly say thanks to the boys at www.drinksdriver.com and if you ever need some booze at silly o’clock give there’s guys a shout. Also I got to thank everyone who gave up there time to be in the video. It will be on your screens very soon so look out for the funk mob name..
I got a few bookings coming up soon such as exposure at coliseum on the bank holiday Sunday and Wesley jays birthday as well as the big school disco rave happening at scala both on the Saturday 5th of June, so look out for those badboys..
Which reminds me, last Saturday I was asked to dj at a party for an 18th birthday, the birthday girl sent an email with 87 song requests for the evening that must be played.. And no I wasn’t happy, but it’s all turned out ok and I didn’t murder anyone.
Getting a bit bored of twitter, I got 160 friends and its not going up so I’m sulking, so what you need to do for me is join up and stop me feeling like a Billy no mates please.. Lol
Right I’m out of here, please remember your feedback, you can also read this on http://mrdannyblaze.blogspot.com/ or facebook depending on what you’re reading now. The first couple of rough chapters of my book are on there to read as well as a few old blogs for you to re read if you never saved them.
Have a lovely weekend... and in the words of the man we used to call terry the poof “take it easy, and if you take it easy, take it twice” ouch lol
20th may 2010 (respect)
They say patience is a virtue, but I really think it’s worth a hell of a lot more, I suggest that anything you wait more than 10 years for should be rewarded with some sort of medal. Growing up as a teenage dad I was so jealous of my mates going out clubbing, getting drunk and even the sleeping around bit I was jealous of. I know what I had was worth a lot more but the grass does always look greener on the other side most days. Whilst I had a job from 14 my pals were at millwall on a Saturday afternoon, whilst I was working to earn money to support myself and have enough money to not have to rely on anyone, because to me I thought it was weak to ask for help or rely on someone who is going to let you down. So working seemed like the natural way to stand on my own two feet, when I try to explain that if I wanted my jeans cleaned I used to have to wash them in our sink with the nail brush, now I didn’t even mind doing these things, and why should I? They were my jeans; I wore them and made them dirty so if I want them clean I should wash them. It’s as simple as 2 + 2 to me.
But what I can’t not understand about today’s youth and I am generalizing now, going by things I have seen for my own eyes and issues I have with my own kids. I honestly believe they are spoilt to the point where we feel we are working for them like some sort of unreasonable boss. Because if I went to a job and was treated like kids treat parents today, I would be able to go to a tribunal and have them punished. The thing I see now is kids owning things they really don’t deserve; I challenge you to find a child under 10 years old who doesn’t own a mobile phone. Now why the fuck does a 10 year old need a phone? I remember knocking on friends doors and asking if my friend could come out. I was told yes, no or he’s out playing already. And if someone knocked for me and it was too late or dinner was about to be served up then I didn’t go out. It’s not quantum physics, its knowing your place and having respect for the decisions made in my household. I knew that no amount of pleading was going to get me out so I just figured that it was easier to do as I was told. That’s not to say that when my mums back was turned I didn’t stick my finger up or think she was a cunt, but I can tell you this with 100% certainty, if I had openly called my mum a cunt I would not be alive to be writing this, my mum was not the best mum in the world or even a great mum but I knew where the line was and as my mum used to say “I brought you into this world and I can take you out this world” and you know what I 100% believed her because she meant every single word.
When I was about 12 I was going out with this girl who was a year older than me who went to Notre dame school in the elephant, well one day we was with my cousin and some random dude, now Kelly had found this dog and wanted to take it to Peckham police station to hand it in as a stray, and being the nice guy I said we should all walk up to the station as it was dark, not midnight but dark enough and Peckham isn’t the safest place in broad day light so we all trooped off to the station. When we got to the corner before the station a massive group of maybe 20 or 30, now I’m going to say black boys because there’s no point in trying to say it was a mixed group just so it don’t sound racist, because every single one of them was black, it’s a fact of the story. So as we neared the station maybe 8 or so of the boys surrounded us, one of the boys asked my cousin Steven where we was going, and Steven replied “to the police station” with that he got a punch in the face, then he was asked again to which he still replied “to the police station”, to which he received another punch to the face, on being asked the third time I intervened that we were taking the long way home, because I don’t think my cousin quite understood the gangs line of questioning. After we established our final destination I was asked to hand over my stop watch which had cost me about £3 so I wasn’t exactly going to put myself on the line for it., and we were allowed to leave as it were.
When arriving home my mum asked where my stop watch had gone I told her what happened and she went fucking mental....at me. She dragged me down to the police station to report what had happened and I was given a bolloking by the police, what I tried to explain is that out of maybe 30 boys, they were not going to catch all of them and they might not even catch the ones who actually done the robbing. I had to walk around Peckham on my own and as long as I stayed away from particular parts at certain times of the night I knew I would be fine. But reporting them and them getting arrested I felt I would genuinely have to watch my back for all 30 of them cunts and felt I done the right thing for me. But my mum beat the shit out of me for allowing it to happen.
Life doesn’t come with a booklet because you can be sure that if it did the likes of us wouldn’t be able to afford it, bringing your kids up is your responsibility and good or bad you have to take the credit or the blame whatever that may be. Blaming other people is shit, it’s never too late to turn your life around, so think about what you’re saying to your kids before they leave the house.
Wow after that deep outburst I thought I should get back to my week.
Basically I have been working far too much and honestly I have to admit that the no chocolate thing went out the window after 4 days I am ashamed to say, and I have been eating loads of non healthy stuff, it’s so annoying when you know what you want to do but feel too weak to stick to it. So I have just bought 3 weeks of this Cambridge diet shit and I am going to re start on Monday and do my best to stay focused, I have bought a mountain bike today so I can start some gentle training for my 26 mile sponsored bike ride on 27th of June, I am still demanding that some of you lot sponsor me, so stop being a fucking tramp and give me at least £1, as anything is more than nothing. I know that the key to weight loss is diet and the key to maintaining it is exercise, knowing this and it finally sinking into my brain feels like I have cracked the matrix, you can hear it a million times from people but finding out for yourself means more.
On Sunday we had a video shoot for a song me and nyke wrote last year, it’s been produced by funk mob who are about to blow throughout the summer this year. We had loads of fun on location with some of the boys getting into the spirit of things by jumping in the hot tub with some of the models, I think the alcohol delivered helped the party along just a bit, a friend of mine helped sponsor the shoot by supplying some drinks from his alcohol delivery service, I got to shamelessly say thanks to the boys at www.drinksdriver.com and if you ever need some booze at silly o’clock give there’s guys a shout. Also I got to thank everyone who gave up there time to be in the video. It will be on your screens very soon so look out for the funk mob name..
I got a few bookings coming up soon such as exposure at coliseum on the bank holiday Sunday and Wesley jays birthday as well as the big school disco rave happening at scala both on the Saturday 5th of June, so look out for those badboys..
Which reminds me, last Saturday I was asked to dj at a party for an 18th birthday, the birthday girl sent an email with 87 song requests for the evening that must be played.. And no I wasn’t happy, but it’s all turned out ok and I didn’t murder anyone.
Getting a bit bored of twitter, I got 160 friends and its not going up so I’m sulking, so what you need to do for me is join up and stop me feeling like a Billy no mates please.. Lol
Right I’m out of here, please remember your feedback, you can also read this on http://mrdannyblaze.blogspot.com/ or facebook depending on what you’re reading now. The first couple of rough chapters of my book are on there to read as well as a few old blogs for you to re read if you never saved them.
Have a lovely weekend... and in the words of the man we used to call terry the poof “take it easy, and if you take it easy, take it twice” ouch lol
But what I can’t not understand about today’s youth and I am generalizing now, going by things I have seen for my own eyes and issues I have with my own kids. I honestly believe they are spoilt to the point where we feel we are working for them like some sort of unreasonable boss. Because if I went to a job and was treated like kids treat parents today, I would be able to go to a tribunal and have them punished. The thing I see now is kids owning things they really don’t deserve; I challenge you to find a child under 10 years old who doesn’t own a mobile phone. Now why the fuck does a 10 year old need a phone? I remember knocking on friends doors and asking if my friend could come out. I was told yes, no or he’s out playing already. And if someone knocked for me and it was too late or dinner was about to be served up then I didn’t go out. It’s not quantum physics, its knowing your place and having respect for the decisions made in my household. I knew that no amount of pleading was going to get me out so I just figured that it was easier to do as I was told. That’s not to say that when my mums back was turned I didn’t stick my finger up or think she was a cunt, but I can tell you this with 100% certainty, if I had openly called my mum a cunt I would not be alive to be writing this, my mum was not the best mum in the world or even a great mum but I knew where the line was and as my mum used to say “I brought you into this world and I can take you out this world” and you know what I 100% believed her because she meant every single word.
When I was about 12 I was going out with this girl who was a year older than me who went to Notre dame school in the elephant, well one day we was with my cousin and some random dude, now Kelly had found this dog and wanted to take it to Peckham police station to hand it in as a stray, and being the nice guy I said we should all walk up to the station as it was dark, not midnight but dark enough and Peckham isn’t the safest place in broad day light so we all trooped off to the station. When we got to the corner before the station a massive group of maybe 20 or 30, now I’m going to say black boys because there’s no point in trying to say it was a mixed group just so it don’t sound racist, because every single one of them was black, it’s a fact of the story. So as we neared the station maybe 8 or so of the boys surrounded us, one of the boys asked my cousin Steven where we was going, and Steven replied “to the police station” with that he got a punch in the face, then he was asked again to which he still replied “to the police station”, to which he received another punch to the face, on being asked the third time I intervened that we were taking the long way home, because I don’t think my cousin quite understood the gangs line of questioning. After we established our final destination I was asked to hand over my stop watch which had cost me about £3 so I wasn’t exactly going to put myself on the line for it., and we were allowed to leave as it were.
When arriving home my mum asked where my stop watch had gone I told her what happened and she went fucking mental....at me. She dragged me down to the police station to report what had happened and I was given a bolloking by the police, what I tried to explain is that out of maybe 30 boys, they were not going to catch all of them and they might not even catch the ones who actually done the robbing. I had to walk around Peckham on my own and as long as I stayed away from particular parts at certain times of the night I knew I would be fine. But reporting them and them getting arrested I felt I would genuinely have to watch my back for all 30 of them cunts and felt I done the right thing for me. But my mum beat the shit out of me for allowing it to happen.
Life doesn’t come with a booklet because you can be sure that if it did the likes of us wouldn’t be able to afford it, bringing your kids up is your responsibility and good or bad you have to take the credit or the blame whatever that may be. Blaming other people is shit, it’s never too late to turn your life around, so think about what you’re saying to your kids before they leave the house.
Wow after that deep outburst I thought I should get back to my week.
Basically I have been working far too much and honestly I have to admit that the no chocolate thing went out the window after 4 days I am ashamed to say, and I have been eating loads of non healthy stuff, it’s so annoying when you know what you want to do but feel too weak to stick to it. So I have just bought 3 weeks of this Cambridge diet shit and I am going to re start on Monday and do my best to stay focused, I have bought a mountain bike today so I can start some gentle training for my 26 mile sponsored bike ride on 27th of June, I am still demanding that some of you lot sponsor me, so stop being a fucking tramp and give me at least £1, as anything is more than nothing. I know that the key to weight loss is diet and the key to maintaining it is exercise, knowing this and it finally sinking into my brain feels like I have cracked the matrix, you can hear it a million times from people but finding out for yourself means more.
On Sunday we had a video shoot for a song me and nyke wrote last year, it’s been produced by funk mob who are about to blow throughout the summer this year. We had loads of fun on location with some of the boys getting into the spirit of things by jumping in the hot tub with some of the models, I think the alcohol delivered helped the party along just a bit, a friend of mine helped sponsor the shoot by supplying some drinks from his alcohol delivery service, I got to shamelessly say thanks to the boys at www.drinksdriver.com and if you ever need some booze at silly o’clock give there’s guys a shout. Also I got to thank everyone who gave up there time to be in the video. It will be on your screens very soon so look out for the funk mob name..
I got a few bookings coming up soon such as exposure at coliseum on the bank holiday Sunday and Wesley jays birthday as well as the big school disco rave happening at scala both on the Saturday 5th of June, so look out for those badboys..
Which reminds me, last Saturday I was asked to dj at a party for an 18th birthday, the birthday girl sent an email with 87 song requests for the evening that must be played.. And no I wasn’t happy, but it’s all turned out ok and I didn’t murder anyone.
Getting a bit bored of twitter, I got 160 friends and its not going up so I’m sulking, so what you need to do for me is join up and stop me feeling like a Billy no mates please.. Lol
Right I’m out of here, please remember your feedback, you can also read this on http://mrdannyblaze.blogspot.com/ or facebook depending on what you’re reading now. The first couple of rough chapters of my book are on there to read as well as a few old blogs for you to re read if you never saved them.
Have a lovely weekend... and in the words of the man we used to call terry the poof “take it easy, and if you take it easy, take it twice” ouch lol
Tuesday 11 May 2010
rough draft of chapter 2 of my book
Chapter 2 Bellenden road
90 Bellenden road was in a very nice part of Peckham, it had a front and back garden and it wasn’t on an estate and best of all I would have my own room, the only obstacle to over come is the fact that its not ours, a fact my mum didn’t let bother her, she went to the council and asked if she could moved in as it had been empty for some time but the people at the council said there were other people who would be offered the house before as they had been on the waiting list, so rather than admit defeat my mum climbed over the garages next door and threw a kettle through the back kitchen window to gain entry before noticing that the back door wasn’t actually locked. She had the locks changed and went back to the council claiming “squatters rights“ which basically mean that the council have to go through a lengthy, costly and time consuming procedure to evict you.
at the time the law stated that if you occupy a property for twelve years and one day that property would then become the property of the person occupying it, its a mad little number that the government have since got rid of but it was very useful at the time to us being able to have rights over a house that really didn’t belong to us.
So now we were squatters, we didn’t pay rent or council tax but being on the social as we were we wouldn’t of had to pay any of that anyways, its was all taken care of by the load bearing tax payers.
As a sort of moving in present ant boys mum Tina gave us a Labrador called Ben he was there dog before but I recon they just wanted to palm him off on someone else and us having a garden was all the excuse they needed, my mum dressed the act up as me having someone to play with, but how do I say this without sounding harsh?
I can’t fucking stand animals, I’m not cruel to them I just didn’t want to have the responsibility of looking after anyone or anything, I did love Ben and I fed him and all the stuff your supposed to do as a pet owner, but he wasn’t a replacement for a normal family that did normal things, he would run away quite often and when he was ready to come home jumped up at the letter box which was strange to understand, a dog knocking on the door to get in, I should of just give him a key, the clever little sod would of properly used it.
Now I needed to find a new primary school, I wasn’t doing too well at the pervious one so I had to start all over again making new friends with a group of people that had known each other most of there lives, and it just didn’t seem to happen for me at Bellenden primary, I didn’t really get on with anyone and I just wasn’t picking up what they were teaching, its didn’t help that I was always missing days, so if I never went on a Monday I would not go back until the following Monday, hoping that my absence want noticed, I would get up early enough, I just couldn’t face them, I would write notes of reasons of absence claiming non existent grandparents had died and I had to attend funerals in Ireland and my mum was really ill.
I am shocked now that social services were not called, but with all my excuses the fact of the matter was I just didn’t want to go to that school, I knew I was in danger of becoming uneducated and just like my family who none of them seemed to have jobs so I would wake up every morning and watch all the open university programes and learn what I could from them as well as programes like “how we used to live” which showed how life was before our parents and grandparents were born, I did pick up loads from those programes and my source of reading came solely from reading my mums sun newspaper after she had finished it.
Mondays were a big deal in our hose because that was when my mum got her social money, I remember it was about £62 a week as I was the one who had to go to the post office often enough to cash her book. Me and My mum would go shopping and get food for the week and more often than not she would spend the rest on going to the pub, at first I did have a baby sitter but I think my mum realized that I was independent enough to look after myself and I did prefer my own company to that of a stranger. I knew how to make lemon curd or peanut butter sandwiches and I knew how to wash my clothes in the sink so as far as I was concerned I was self sufficient.
It had been a while since I had my own bedroom, so Bellenden road was the beginning of me starting to have any sort of privacy. I had been sharing a bed with Jamie and sharing a room with my mum since we left St Georges Terrace which for a kid growing up doesn’t allow you to surround yourself with things that you need to develop like posters of kylie or just having somewhere to do your homework in peace, not that I have ever done any homework, but I’m sure you understand what I mean?
My first item that I managed to get for my room was a record player; mum bought it off her friend’s daughter Gail. It had a built in tape player and a radio on the front that you had to tune to the station you wanted with a big silver dial; it didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t new or even cool, I was just happy to have my music again.
I went to Woolworths in Peckham and bought my first ever records, I had to buy them because the kept them behind the counter. I paid about £1.29p each for Bangles – walk like an Egyptian and a novelty record by Spitting Image called Santa Claus is on the dole. At the time spitting image was very popular on the TV as it used to take the Mickey out of people in the public eye, and if like me you had nothing, it was a very good distraction from the reality of it all.
Because I didn’t have many records I used to listen to a lot of radio, mainly at night because that’s when all the best shows used to be on for some reason, I used to love listening to Tim Westwood on capital radio, now I know you’re thinking what? Yeah he did the capital rap show and it was amazing for somebody like me to have access to this music, you had people like leaders of the new school which had buster Rhymes in the group, Digital Underground which had Tupac as a member. The music really spoke to me as it was mainly about expressing yourself about any number of situations you might find yourself in.
I would tape these shows and listen to them over and over again, sometimes Westwood played a whole album from an American artist because you wasn’t able to get the albums over her in the uk, this was fantastic as it started to help me open up to different ideas and ways of doing things, another favorite was Lightning 90.8, where I could listen to reggae music from the likes of Super cat, who looking back sounds like Sean Paul does now.
I was taking all this music in like a sponge, soaking it up, learning the lyrics and singing and rapping them to myself over and over again, I used to look forward to being left alone by my mum so I could immerse myself in my music without being disturbed, it was heaven.
Soon after my mum met a man called Jim Downing in the pub called the Lord Lyndhurst which was just behind our house, my mum hadn’t been keen on men since her marriage with Chris, so I will be honest and say it was nice to see my mum happy with someone, he was like a giant to me, he worked on a building site and looked like he could lift up a house with one hand, he soon moved in and we were kind of like a normal family.
my mum stopped going out for days on end and just went for a drink with Jim in the pub behind our house so I knew where she was and I stared to feel settled again, Jim started to make the house nice buying a TV and video from rumbleows as well as a microwave that up to that point I had never seen before, they had to go in weekly and pay for it, bit by bit. Our house was nowhere up to the standard of Tammy’s house and between me and my cousins I did have the worst house, but I didn’t care.
On a Friday night Jim would get paid and I would get £5 pocket money, it was the first time I had been given pocket money and I started to feel grown up being given this money to spend on what I wanted, I remember buying razors to do my sideburns as I thought it was time to have my own razor, after I had my pocket money I would then go and stay with Jamie in Stockwell, my cousin Stephen in new cross or go My auntie Maureen’s in Lewisham.
out of my aunts Maureen was my favorite, she lived in a house in limes grove in Lewisham with her fella Danny O’Conner who is from Belfast so when he spoke you knew about it, he was very kind though and treated me like a son when I stayed over, Maureen was the person who convinced my mum to call me Danny as my mum was going to call me “Trent” what a name to inflict on a child, I don’t think I would of made it to 10 years old being called Trent, so for that alone I will always be in Maureen’s debt god rest her soul.
Weekends at Maureen’s would always involved a cooked breakfast which was always gratefully received by yours truly, I would have to do a couple of errands for her but I was always happy to oblige, Maureen and Danny had two Daughters Sally the oldest and Connie the youngest obviously and I would look after them changing nappies or whatever else needed doing if Maureen was busy again I was only too happy to help, I was even taken on holiday to broad stairs on the Kent coast to help with looking after the girls and as I saw it a treat for me. Again when I was working in Margate recently I went back to broad stairs and all the good memories with my auntie and her family came flooding back, and I decided there and then that if I ever retire I will move there because it really is a lovely place.
At this point in my life I was quite happy, there wasn’t anything wrong with the world, people still had arguments but everyone was alive and healthy so time seemed to pass quickly.
After leaving Bellenden primary school my mu had wanted me to go to London Nautical secondary school as her father had been in the royal navy and thought it would be a really good school for me, we went to the open day but I didn’t get in, so our second and last choice was Geoffrey Chaucer on new Kent road, I remember my mums shock when we saw hello in about 30 different languages, I just laughed I had grown up around all sorts of people and figured that there were good and bad people in all races, so live and let live.
I got into Geoffrey Chaucer and did make an effort to attend, as everyone was new and starting at the same time, so we were all in the same boat which was less stress to me for once, I remember getting a dinner ticket and being able to choose exactly what I wanted for dinner even burgers n chips if id wanted, and yes I did want.
I made friends quite easily at Chaucer and it was a relief to wear a uniform rather than my own clothes which were far from fashionable, but in the first year my mum bought me some Farah trousers and some black leather shoes with tassels, and yes I did look like a square, I mean who in 1987 wore Farah’s? But it didn’t matter I think I was the only one who noticed the little F tag on them.
It was around this time that my mum started being around this other guy called Leslie, I just remember thinking that’s a girl’s name, and a man can’t be called Leslie? He lived opposite my school in the flats and my mum was happy enough to be around him, he used to buy me things or give me money to “go and play” in other words DO ONE, I remember when he gave me some money to “find somewhere else to be” so I decided I would go to the coronet cinema in elephant and castle to watch the film of the year Goonies,
I remember getting there and the film wasn’t due to start for an hour or so, so I decided to go into the shop next door to buy a load of sweets to eat during the film, I properly looked like I was buying sweets for the whole family but I didn’t care as long as I was happy that’s all that mattered, that took all of about 5 minutes away from the hour I had to wait so I decided to pop into the kebab shop a couple doors along to play the gambling machine, I put my £2.30p in my other pocket for my cinema ticket and very quickly pumped my money into this machine which I had no hope of winning from because I didn’t actually know how to play it.
it wasn’t a fruit machine, u had to tap it so the light lands on some prize or another, so having lost what I put in I stood outside the cinema for the other 50 minutes until the doors opened, needless to say I was bored so I ate my sweets one by one and continued to wait patiently, well there wasn’t an impatient way of waiting as far as I can remember, finally the doors opened after what seemed like years, I should of brought my razor I could of had that shave, I was first in the line, One for Goonies I said, I searched for my £2.30 frantically but it suddenly dawned on me that I must of put it in that bloody machine in the kebab shop without realizing in a gambling frenzy, so all that wait for nothing and not even my bus fare home I had to walk back to Peckham without seeing Goonies on that occasion, I did however go the week after and stayed away from the kebab shop machine but the sweetie shop did get a repeat visit.
During this time I had become a very good thief, nicking from shops like Woolworths and WH Smiths, Woolworths was in Peckham high street so nice and local, I used to knock around with a girl called Eileen Conroy.
Both our mums had been in prison together and she lived one road away in holly grove which was on route to the high street, her house was enormous it had 3 floors and what seemed like 10 bedrooms a front and back garden, Eileen had an older brother Joe who everyone didn’t really like or trust, Anita who didn’t seem the full shilling, she was on one of those YTS programes in the late 80s which basically meant you had to live on about £12 a week, Gail who seemed pretty grounded and was quite pretty, she used to look after me sometimes with her mate Shelly who as kids we all fancied as she was about 4 years older than us, and then the was wee Paul as his mum called him the youngest, and Eileen was a year and a few days older than me.
she was the original tomboy and I loved hanging around with her, we used to decide to “have a party” which basically meant we would go and rob the shit out of Woolworths, I mean we would steal the banners, cakes, drinks and even toys, we didn’t pay for anything, we would set up our parties and for a time we were inseparable, I would often stay at my aunts houses but I knew Eileen was always there for me when I got back, our mums would joke that me and Eileen should marry when we get older and we even used to sleep in the same bed when I stayed over her house and we would promise each other that we will never turn out like our parents.
I had my second kiss with Eileen and we even had our first fumble together, but we both had our clothes on so it wasn’t anything sinister, just two kids who got along and pledged not to become alcoholics and be mean to our kids, Eileen has since come out and moved to Australia with her partner, and before you think I had some hand in her persuasion I shall protest my innocence to the bitter end.
Still on the subject of crime during my weekends hanging around with my cousins, me Stephen and a friend of ours called Simon decided to get a red bus rover which was the equivalent of a bus pass then and go out for the day, we got on a tube at new cross and got off at Whitechapel for some reason, Stephen said he needed to go to the toilet and went through some door in the station. Seconds later he came running out and instructed us to follow him back down to the tube.
Once on the train he showed us a package about the size of a rugby ball, he had stolen the days takings for one of the newspaper vendors, as the cash bags were wrapped in the big sheet of paper they use with that days news on it, we jumped on the train at the next stop and went about finding somewhere to divide up the spoils, we were used to nicking but having cash was unheard of.
We found a stair well in some flats and shared out the money, I cant remember why but Simon ended up making his was home from there, I think we were being horrible to him for no reason as well I imagine, so me and Stephen decided to go up west and continue with our day out, we arrived in Hamleys in regent street and went about taking what we wanted, we got some Duncan YO YOs and a computer game for Stephen, next stop carnaby street which was one of our favorite places to steel stuff as it was always busy with tourists, the best shop which had the things we wanted was Cascade, it had handcuffs and we were collecting different key rings, especially the ones with the condoms in that read “in case of emergency break glass” we found them hilarious.
Now considering we both had about £35 each which was a very lot of money at the time, Stephen decided to nick a pack of stink bombs that cost 99p, I was more than prepared to pay 99p as we were kind of rich, but knew if I bought mine then Stephen would have 99p more than me and I couldn’t have that, no way so I just stuck them in my pocket without a care in the world.
Just as we were about to leave the shop a woman grabbed us both by the arm and asked us to come to the managers office, now either we were the shops one millionth customers or we had been seen putting the stick bombs in our pockets, I had never been caught before so I wasn’t sure how to play it, my cousin Jamie got caught nicking a torch out of my Woolworths not long before that and been caught, they took him to the managers office and he cried, so they gave him the torch and sent him on his way, but I wasn’t the cute baby faced type, I was the hardened criminal who was going to front it, do my bird and all the crap I had heard that your supposed to do when you get caught and sent to jail.
We get taken to the managers office and the woman asks me where I’m from, so I tell her “Jamaica” then she asks my name so I tell sincerely “Bob Marley” I think of saying Mickey Mouse but that would be too predictable, as I stand there with my cocky doing the right thing attitude the woman picks up the phone dials the police and says she has caught two boys stealing ect, after she puts down the phone I do my very very best to throw insults at her calling her a “cunt” a “slag” and whatever nasty comments I can muster at my age, with astonishment the woman turns to me and says “you horrible little cunt, I didn’t actually call the police then But I will now” Shit!
What an idiot had I just played ball with her I would have walked out of there a free man with just a slap on the wrist?
We were taken to the police station and placed in separate cells where I could hear someone crying for there mum and I can tell you it wasn’t me, the police checked on me and noticed I had a pair of handcuffs hanging off my jeans, they kept asking if I wanted to be a policeman, big joke laugh at the kid with the handcuffs. when we had to empty our pockets the police were interested to know why we had so much money on us, being a very good liar on top of being Peckham’s number one junior tea leaf it came to me to say I had found a wallet on the 36 bus, even going to the trouble to describe the wallet, I thought it through we were not going to say our mums gave it to us in case the police ask them first, so my plan was fool proof, now only the thieving to try and wriggle out of now.
After about 5 hours my mum came to west end central police station to get us out, I knew to expect a whack round the head, not for stealing though, for getting caught!
When I got to see my mum she was quite calm and was trying to tell the police that she had given us the money, but pc plod wasn’t having any of it, properly due to my convincing story about the wallet on the bus, when my mum asked what was we being charged with the policeman stated that because we didn’t actually leave cascade with the stink bombs they were unable to charge us with stealing them, however and are you ready for this bit, the bit where Danny’s story gets him his just deserts?
Well the policemen as proud as punch declares that due to the fact we didn’t hand in the wallet we found on the 36 bus that didn’t even exist, we were going to be charged with Theft by finding, which translates to we didn’t hand it in so we stole it. Justice served.
During that period of hanging around with Simon who I would like to point out now is a very successful designer now, we went out one Christmas day when me and my mum were visiting Betty for Christmas day which we did occasionally for something to do, Christmas day was always boring no shops open and fuck all to do unless you had a big family to play monopoly with.
This Christmas Stephen said we should break into Millwall football ground and play football on the pitch, even though I was not big on football I wasn’t exactly busy, so I thought why not? Simons mum was drinking with our mums in the Spanish steps pub, so we headed over to cold blow lane which was 5 minutes away, we jumped the fence and made our way to the pitch, whilst walking around the ground Stephen noticed a metal fence that backed on the bar/players lounge area, so he jumped over and shouted for us to look, we climbed over and saw crates and crates of beer, none of us were particularly interested in drinking but when its free, you take what you can get.
After swigging a few mouthfuls of some rank beer we started shaking cans and opening them as if in celebration for the grand prix, we got covered from head to toe in the stuff, we decided, very stupidly I might add, to climb onto the roof of the terraces and throw cans onto the pitch, only god knows why but after a few minutes we heard a woman shouting at us so we got down jumped back over the fence and back through cold blow lane, just as we got about half way through a police van came racing through and stopped right in front of us, there wasn’t any point in running, we denied any knowledge of the kids they were looking for and put the fact we were dripping in alcohol down to the fact it was Christmas and our parents were having a party. But they weren’t having any of it and I imagine three kids soaked in beer might actually need to be taken away from parents that allow kids to have beer.
This time we were taken to Lady well police station which wasn’t local but apparently had some free cells, our mums were called for but couldn’t be found for some reason and considering none of our mums had cars and there were no busses Christmas day we were in for a long wait, in the meantime I was served Bernard Mathews turkey drummers and boiled potatoes for my Christmas dinner that day.
After six and a half hours Simons mum had come along with my mum to get us out of the police station, this time I could hear my mum shouting, drunk and threatening to hit me for making her walk from new cross to Catford on Christmas day, as soon as we were shown into the room where my mum was I ducked and avoided a whack, but Stephen managed to get one round the head, after being led outside my mum was busy trying to get me my whack but luckily the policeman who let us go followed us outside I threatened my mum that “if she so much as touches us he would nick her” I couldn’t help thinking how funny that would be at the time.
After my mum calmed down we walked over to my aunt Maureen’s which was close by and I was told I had to babysit as my punishment, and that was it now beating for me.
Whilst I was at Chaucer my aunt Tammy had met this nice guy called Tony, he seemed super rich and spoilt her rotten, even buying her a house in Carshalton surrey, the place was like a palace and because Jamie didn’t really know anyone round there I used to stay over quite a lot, we would get up early get the 157 bus to Morden tube station then get a tube into London to go to school, Jamie went to London Nautical which as you know was the school my mum wanted me at but because of some minimum year rule of releasing armed forces records.
What the meant in laymen’s terms is that anyone who had or has family that serve or served in the navy was given priority places at London nautical, but it was a year away from my granddads records being released, and Jamie wasn’t. I was offered a place in my second year at Chaucer but had far too many new starts in the past to uproot and start again.
Nothing too exciting happened in Carshalton, its was a pretty sleepy town but picturesque, I could see my aunt was getting bored housewife syndrome as Tony worked away sometimes, and she seemed to drink more when he was away, which meant the carpenters would come out and the sleepy neighborhood became filled with the sound of “rainy days and Mondays always get me down” but this time the stereo was a lot more expensive and a dam site louder.
On one of Tonys trips away Tammy invited Maureen her friend Dolly and my mum over for a drink which turned into the first time I every got drunk, I was in charge of being barman so I poured myself one to see what all the fuss was about, after all my family had spent most of their lives putting alcohol first, so it must be brilliant, this is going to be the making of me, I’m going to have my first grown up drink, I may be only 12 but I’m a quick starter. I didn’t like the first glass but no one said it was going to be easy, glass two goes down better and I don’t remember glass three and so on.
what I do remember is being carried upstairs by these women to the toilet where I was violently sick, then they carried me to Tammy’s bedroom, the bed was a king-size wooden bed with loads of pillows and silk sheets, I have no idea why I was put in that bed, but she must of regretted her decision soon after when I threw up all over it, I didn’t drink vodka after that until I was twenty one, and every time I even smelt a whiff of the stuff I was transported back to that toilet in Carshalton and the pain kept me away from it.
It was clear that my mum was seeing Leslie the man with a girl’s name, but she didn’t quite get round to telling Jim this little fact, she would be with him when I was about and then we would go home where Jim lived with us and play happy families, I didn’t see the point in this masquerade, Jim was solid and dependable but a right miserable bastard, he looked after us when we had nothing, I mean we still had nothing, but more than we would if he hadn’t been there. I never let on I liked him because he used to call me “precious” taking the piss because he thought my mum spoilt me, I think he thought I should be beaten at six am every morning and made to work on some imaginary farm before school, then home to do my chores. He even caught me wanking one day which was quite embarrassing for me.
Then you had Leslie, he was a lot older than my mum and I really didn’t see the attraction other than he had a bit of money now and then, and he treated my mum to a few nights out, with me in tow for a good cover story. He even used to give me a days work here and there taking plug sockets and light fittings out of buildings that were being either knocked down or done up, he would clean them up and sell them on second hand, he used to have all these annoying says like “think about it”, it doesn’t seem that annoying writing it but I think it might of been him that was annoying thinking about it, lol.
For my thirteenth birthday my mum managed to convince Leslie to pay for my first holiday aboard to sunny Spain, I even remember that the resort was called salou, my mum said I could bring my cousins Jamie and Stephen as long as their mums paid for there part of the trip, now a trip to Spain did sound exciting, but did I mention how we were getting there?
Well on the morning of the trip we all went to Victoria coach station, yes coach station. We met Leslie there and we sorted out the tickets and jumped on board all excited ready for our big adventure, I remember asking the woman who would have been a stewardess had we been on a plane like normal people, “excuse me how long does it take to get the Spain?”, well I really wished I hadn’t asked because the reply was “twenty six or seven hours, depending on traffic” I was dumbfounded, I was so glad I had my Walkman and rap albums, I must of listened to my Run DMC album over 15 times, I still know all the words to this day, I also remember seeing a brilliant film called The Jazz singer, if you haven’t seen it, you should get it out of blockbusters or Bobs in Peckham depending where you live, its basically about this Jewish guy whose dad is a rabbi and doesn’t approve of his sons choice of career, I wont spoil the ending but I know the whole coach cried at the end, it might have been due to the sandwiches and rolls being served by our fake air stewardess, who was caked in make up.
We finally arrived to our destination to a nice resort, but after the long journey Leslie was seriously getting on all our nerves, me Jamie and Stephen were non stop making fun of him and his cleaver wide boy ways, I really think he was trying to impress us with his knowledge of all things, but we just thought it was annoying. We were kids give us money and we are happy, that’s all it took, you didn’t need to pretend to be able to understand Spanish.
We all became friends with a German girl whilst we were there, and it sounds really silly now as we had only known her for about five days. No she didn’t die or break any bones, her holiday to sunny Spain was over and we had all become close friends, so we all broke down crying with the sound of Phil Collins number one single Groovy kind of love blasting out the local disco, we promised to write and stay in touch and all that other crap you say when you meat people abroad, it was a holiday romance with no kissing or funny business involved, and four people involved instead of two.
On the second to last night there was a completion in the hotel, now I’m not sure if we were staying in a particular part of Spain or this really is normal because the completion was for men to dress up as the most convincing woman, Jamie and Stephen jumped at the chance which seemed a bit worrying, but we was on holiday and were up for a laugh, mum said I should enter, but I was the oldest boy and everything about me said I don’t dress up as a woman for fun. But after a few vodkas and tonics my mum demanded that I get involved, so I begrudgingly and I do mean that, took a few things mum gave me and put them on.
We had to join up at reception and were all ushered into a back office by the hotel staff where there were a few grown men dressed up, taking it all a bit serious I might add. One guy even had a mustache and had a plastic half sort of mask covering it up, it wouldn’t have been so obvious but the mask was see through, we was offered a glass of wine to relax before having to walk out on stage, but I was 13 and any attempts for a grown man to give a child alcohol were seen as grooming in my suspicious mind, so we said nooo.
Once on stage all three of us dressed in my mums clothes and make up did the turns required to show off our feminine persona, but I knew I just looked like a fat kid dressed up in woman’s clothing, a site some people there thought may have been the start of some weird journey into being a transvestite, but I assure you I am as fucked up as the next person, dressing up is only for special occasions.
At the end of this very wrong act a pal that we had met on holiday won the completion, a few of the weirdo’s that had entered made some bitter comments about letting kids win and how unfair it was, well I say balls to them, they shouldn’t be dressing up like that with kids about, and for anyone thinking I am homophobic at this point doesn’t know me.
After being back for a while and not writing to the poor German girl we all cried over, I started going to Maureen’s a lot more, she used to treat me like a mum should treat there kids and I must say it was lovely, she would give me money to buy myself things like clothes, records and tapes.
On one occasion I bought a French connection jumper, it was the first bit of designer clobber I had owned, I only bought it because I really fancied the girl in the shop, she was a lot older than me and could of convinced me to buy it for her if she had tried, now my jumper was lush, it was bright red on the front with a massive white F and white on the back with a big C which unless you are a doughnut means FRENCH CONNECTION.
I had had this jumper a little while and always felt the bee’s knees when wearing it, then one day, just any ordinary day I was walking down the road as proud as punch when some guy called off a building site “what does the FC stand for?” and before I could proudly answer he him added “FAT CUNT” now I was thirteen, he must of been over twenty one so I didn’t want to risk getting a slap on top of insulting my only bit of decent clothing, so I just laughed and told him to politely “fuck off” I never wore that jumper ever again outside the house.
We needed some money so mum said we was going to Sainsbury’s in Sydenham to nick some smoked salmon to sell around the pubs, we had teamed up a few times to go shoplifting, and we did need the money to get shopping as well as money to buy a bus pass to get me to school, so I went. We got to Sydenham and my mum filled the bag with goods then passed the bag to me so I could walk out the shop with it, I did really care at the time, I was a good enough thief or so I though. I just got outside the shop when the security guard grabbed me and lead me back inside. I was taken to the manager’s office where I thought I had been caught on my own, a man came from downstairs and told the manager that the value of the goods came to £157.
I thought to myself that would of been my all time high score of goods in one steal until I heard my mum screaming, I looked at the glass door and could see two men dragging my mum somewhere, something came over me and I looked about for a weapon, on the floor I noticed a tool box opened, so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand which happened to be a chisel, I ran towards the manager and threatened to stab him if they didn’t let my mum go, I saw fear in his eyes but was willing to go through this ludicrous act to save my mum. The people handing my mum saw what had happened in the manager’s office and brought my mum to the door to show me she was ok, I calmed down and mum told me through the door that I should put it down and everything would be alright.
90 Bellenden road was in a very nice part of Peckham, it had a front and back garden and it wasn’t on an estate and best of all I would have my own room, the only obstacle to over come is the fact that its not ours, a fact my mum didn’t let bother her, she went to the council and asked if she could moved in as it had been empty for some time but the people at the council said there were other people who would be offered the house before as they had been on the waiting list, so rather than admit defeat my mum climbed over the garages next door and threw a kettle through the back kitchen window to gain entry before noticing that the back door wasn’t actually locked. She had the locks changed and went back to the council claiming “squatters rights“ which basically mean that the council have to go through a lengthy, costly and time consuming procedure to evict you.
at the time the law stated that if you occupy a property for twelve years and one day that property would then become the property of the person occupying it, its a mad little number that the government have since got rid of but it was very useful at the time to us being able to have rights over a house that really didn’t belong to us.
So now we were squatters, we didn’t pay rent or council tax but being on the social as we were we wouldn’t of had to pay any of that anyways, its was all taken care of by the load bearing tax payers.
As a sort of moving in present ant boys mum Tina gave us a Labrador called Ben he was there dog before but I recon they just wanted to palm him off on someone else and us having a garden was all the excuse they needed, my mum dressed the act up as me having someone to play with, but how do I say this without sounding harsh?
I can’t fucking stand animals, I’m not cruel to them I just didn’t want to have the responsibility of looking after anyone or anything, I did love Ben and I fed him and all the stuff your supposed to do as a pet owner, but he wasn’t a replacement for a normal family that did normal things, he would run away quite often and when he was ready to come home jumped up at the letter box which was strange to understand, a dog knocking on the door to get in, I should of just give him a key, the clever little sod would of properly used it.
Now I needed to find a new primary school, I wasn’t doing too well at the pervious one so I had to start all over again making new friends with a group of people that had known each other most of there lives, and it just didn’t seem to happen for me at Bellenden primary, I didn’t really get on with anyone and I just wasn’t picking up what they were teaching, its didn’t help that I was always missing days, so if I never went on a Monday I would not go back until the following Monday, hoping that my absence want noticed, I would get up early enough, I just couldn’t face them, I would write notes of reasons of absence claiming non existent grandparents had died and I had to attend funerals in Ireland and my mum was really ill.
I am shocked now that social services were not called, but with all my excuses the fact of the matter was I just didn’t want to go to that school, I knew I was in danger of becoming uneducated and just like my family who none of them seemed to have jobs so I would wake up every morning and watch all the open university programes and learn what I could from them as well as programes like “how we used to live” which showed how life was before our parents and grandparents were born, I did pick up loads from those programes and my source of reading came solely from reading my mums sun newspaper after she had finished it.
Mondays were a big deal in our hose because that was when my mum got her social money, I remember it was about £62 a week as I was the one who had to go to the post office often enough to cash her book. Me and My mum would go shopping and get food for the week and more often than not she would spend the rest on going to the pub, at first I did have a baby sitter but I think my mum realized that I was independent enough to look after myself and I did prefer my own company to that of a stranger. I knew how to make lemon curd or peanut butter sandwiches and I knew how to wash my clothes in the sink so as far as I was concerned I was self sufficient.
It had been a while since I had my own bedroom, so Bellenden road was the beginning of me starting to have any sort of privacy. I had been sharing a bed with Jamie and sharing a room with my mum since we left St Georges Terrace which for a kid growing up doesn’t allow you to surround yourself with things that you need to develop like posters of kylie or just having somewhere to do your homework in peace, not that I have ever done any homework, but I’m sure you understand what I mean?
My first item that I managed to get for my room was a record player; mum bought it off her friend’s daughter Gail. It had a built in tape player and a radio on the front that you had to tune to the station you wanted with a big silver dial; it didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t new or even cool, I was just happy to have my music again.
I went to Woolworths in Peckham and bought my first ever records, I had to buy them because the kept them behind the counter. I paid about £1.29p each for Bangles – walk like an Egyptian and a novelty record by Spitting Image called Santa Claus is on the dole. At the time spitting image was very popular on the TV as it used to take the Mickey out of people in the public eye, and if like me you had nothing, it was a very good distraction from the reality of it all.
Because I didn’t have many records I used to listen to a lot of radio, mainly at night because that’s when all the best shows used to be on for some reason, I used to love listening to Tim Westwood on capital radio, now I know you’re thinking what? Yeah he did the capital rap show and it was amazing for somebody like me to have access to this music, you had people like leaders of the new school which had buster Rhymes in the group, Digital Underground which had Tupac as a member. The music really spoke to me as it was mainly about expressing yourself about any number of situations you might find yourself in.
I would tape these shows and listen to them over and over again, sometimes Westwood played a whole album from an American artist because you wasn’t able to get the albums over her in the uk, this was fantastic as it started to help me open up to different ideas and ways of doing things, another favorite was Lightning 90.8, where I could listen to reggae music from the likes of Super cat, who looking back sounds like Sean Paul does now.
I was taking all this music in like a sponge, soaking it up, learning the lyrics and singing and rapping them to myself over and over again, I used to look forward to being left alone by my mum so I could immerse myself in my music without being disturbed, it was heaven.
Soon after my mum met a man called Jim Downing in the pub called the Lord Lyndhurst which was just behind our house, my mum hadn’t been keen on men since her marriage with Chris, so I will be honest and say it was nice to see my mum happy with someone, he was like a giant to me, he worked on a building site and looked like he could lift up a house with one hand, he soon moved in and we were kind of like a normal family.
my mum stopped going out for days on end and just went for a drink with Jim in the pub behind our house so I knew where she was and I stared to feel settled again, Jim started to make the house nice buying a TV and video from rumbleows as well as a microwave that up to that point I had never seen before, they had to go in weekly and pay for it, bit by bit. Our house was nowhere up to the standard of Tammy’s house and between me and my cousins I did have the worst house, but I didn’t care.
On a Friday night Jim would get paid and I would get £5 pocket money, it was the first time I had been given pocket money and I started to feel grown up being given this money to spend on what I wanted, I remember buying razors to do my sideburns as I thought it was time to have my own razor, after I had my pocket money I would then go and stay with Jamie in Stockwell, my cousin Stephen in new cross or go My auntie Maureen’s in Lewisham.
out of my aunts Maureen was my favorite, she lived in a house in limes grove in Lewisham with her fella Danny O’Conner who is from Belfast so when he spoke you knew about it, he was very kind though and treated me like a son when I stayed over, Maureen was the person who convinced my mum to call me Danny as my mum was going to call me “Trent” what a name to inflict on a child, I don’t think I would of made it to 10 years old being called Trent, so for that alone I will always be in Maureen’s debt god rest her soul.
Weekends at Maureen’s would always involved a cooked breakfast which was always gratefully received by yours truly, I would have to do a couple of errands for her but I was always happy to oblige, Maureen and Danny had two Daughters Sally the oldest and Connie the youngest obviously and I would look after them changing nappies or whatever else needed doing if Maureen was busy again I was only too happy to help, I was even taken on holiday to broad stairs on the Kent coast to help with looking after the girls and as I saw it a treat for me. Again when I was working in Margate recently I went back to broad stairs and all the good memories with my auntie and her family came flooding back, and I decided there and then that if I ever retire I will move there because it really is a lovely place.
At this point in my life I was quite happy, there wasn’t anything wrong with the world, people still had arguments but everyone was alive and healthy so time seemed to pass quickly.
After leaving Bellenden primary school my mu had wanted me to go to London Nautical secondary school as her father had been in the royal navy and thought it would be a really good school for me, we went to the open day but I didn’t get in, so our second and last choice was Geoffrey Chaucer on new Kent road, I remember my mums shock when we saw hello in about 30 different languages, I just laughed I had grown up around all sorts of people and figured that there were good and bad people in all races, so live and let live.
I got into Geoffrey Chaucer and did make an effort to attend, as everyone was new and starting at the same time, so we were all in the same boat which was less stress to me for once, I remember getting a dinner ticket and being able to choose exactly what I wanted for dinner even burgers n chips if id wanted, and yes I did want.
I made friends quite easily at Chaucer and it was a relief to wear a uniform rather than my own clothes which were far from fashionable, but in the first year my mum bought me some Farah trousers and some black leather shoes with tassels, and yes I did look like a square, I mean who in 1987 wore Farah’s? But it didn’t matter I think I was the only one who noticed the little F tag on them.
It was around this time that my mum started being around this other guy called Leslie, I just remember thinking that’s a girl’s name, and a man can’t be called Leslie? He lived opposite my school in the flats and my mum was happy enough to be around him, he used to buy me things or give me money to “go and play” in other words DO ONE, I remember when he gave me some money to “find somewhere else to be” so I decided I would go to the coronet cinema in elephant and castle to watch the film of the year Goonies,
I remember getting there and the film wasn’t due to start for an hour or so, so I decided to go into the shop next door to buy a load of sweets to eat during the film, I properly looked like I was buying sweets for the whole family but I didn’t care as long as I was happy that’s all that mattered, that took all of about 5 minutes away from the hour I had to wait so I decided to pop into the kebab shop a couple doors along to play the gambling machine, I put my £2.30p in my other pocket for my cinema ticket and very quickly pumped my money into this machine which I had no hope of winning from because I didn’t actually know how to play it.
it wasn’t a fruit machine, u had to tap it so the light lands on some prize or another, so having lost what I put in I stood outside the cinema for the other 50 minutes until the doors opened, needless to say I was bored so I ate my sweets one by one and continued to wait patiently, well there wasn’t an impatient way of waiting as far as I can remember, finally the doors opened after what seemed like years, I should of brought my razor I could of had that shave, I was first in the line, One for Goonies I said, I searched for my £2.30 frantically but it suddenly dawned on me that I must of put it in that bloody machine in the kebab shop without realizing in a gambling frenzy, so all that wait for nothing and not even my bus fare home I had to walk back to Peckham without seeing Goonies on that occasion, I did however go the week after and stayed away from the kebab shop machine but the sweetie shop did get a repeat visit.
During this time I had become a very good thief, nicking from shops like Woolworths and WH Smiths, Woolworths was in Peckham high street so nice and local, I used to knock around with a girl called Eileen Conroy.
Both our mums had been in prison together and she lived one road away in holly grove which was on route to the high street, her house was enormous it had 3 floors and what seemed like 10 bedrooms a front and back garden, Eileen had an older brother Joe who everyone didn’t really like or trust, Anita who didn’t seem the full shilling, she was on one of those YTS programes in the late 80s which basically meant you had to live on about £12 a week, Gail who seemed pretty grounded and was quite pretty, she used to look after me sometimes with her mate Shelly who as kids we all fancied as she was about 4 years older than us, and then the was wee Paul as his mum called him the youngest, and Eileen was a year and a few days older than me.
she was the original tomboy and I loved hanging around with her, we used to decide to “have a party” which basically meant we would go and rob the shit out of Woolworths, I mean we would steal the banners, cakes, drinks and even toys, we didn’t pay for anything, we would set up our parties and for a time we were inseparable, I would often stay at my aunts houses but I knew Eileen was always there for me when I got back, our mums would joke that me and Eileen should marry when we get older and we even used to sleep in the same bed when I stayed over her house and we would promise each other that we will never turn out like our parents.
I had my second kiss with Eileen and we even had our first fumble together, but we both had our clothes on so it wasn’t anything sinister, just two kids who got along and pledged not to become alcoholics and be mean to our kids, Eileen has since come out and moved to Australia with her partner, and before you think I had some hand in her persuasion I shall protest my innocence to the bitter end.
Still on the subject of crime during my weekends hanging around with my cousins, me Stephen and a friend of ours called Simon decided to get a red bus rover which was the equivalent of a bus pass then and go out for the day, we got on a tube at new cross and got off at Whitechapel for some reason, Stephen said he needed to go to the toilet and went through some door in the station. Seconds later he came running out and instructed us to follow him back down to the tube.
Once on the train he showed us a package about the size of a rugby ball, he had stolen the days takings for one of the newspaper vendors, as the cash bags were wrapped in the big sheet of paper they use with that days news on it, we jumped on the train at the next stop and went about finding somewhere to divide up the spoils, we were used to nicking but having cash was unheard of.
We found a stair well in some flats and shared out the money, I cant remember why but Simon ended up making his was home from there, I think we were being horrible to him for no reason as well I imagine, so me and Stephen decided to go up west and continue with our day out, we arrived in Hamleys in regent street and went about taking what we wanted, we got some Duncan YO YOs and a computer game for Stephen, next stop carnaby street which was one of our favorite places to steel stuff as it was always busy with tourists, the best shop which had the things we wanted was Cascade, it had handcuffs and we were collecting different key rings, especially the ones with the condoms in that read “in case of emergency break glass” we found them hilarious.
Now considering we both had about £35 each which was a very lot of money at the time, Stephen decided to nick a pack of stink bombs that cost 99p, I was more than prepared to pay 99p as we were kind of rich, but knew if I bought mine then Stephen would have 99p more than me and I couldn’t have that, no way so I just stuck them in my pocket without a care in the world.
Just as we were about to leave the shop a woman grabbed us both by the arm and asked us to come to the managers office, now either we were the shops one millionth customers or we had been seen putting the stick bombs in our pockets, I had never been caught before so I wasn’t sure how to play it, my cousin Jamie got caught nicking a torch out of my Woolworths not long before that and been caught, they took him to the managers office and he cried, so they gave him the torch and sent him on his way, but I wasn’t the cute baby faced type, I was the hardened criminal who was going to front it, do my bird and all the crap I had heard that your supposed to do when you get caught and sent to jail.
We get taken to the managers office and the woman asks me where I’m from, so I tell her “Jamaica” then she asks my name so I tell sincerely “Bob Marley” I think of saying Mickey Mouse but that would be too predictable, as I stand there with my cocky doing the right thing attitude the woman picks up the phone dials the police and says she has caught two boys stealing ect, after she puts down the phone I do my very very best to throw insults at her calling her a “cunt” a “slag” and whatever nasty comments I can muster at my age, with astonishment the woman turns to me and says “you horrible little cunt, I didn’t actually call the police then But I will now” Shit!
What an idiot had I just played ball with her I would have walked out of there a free man with just a slap on the wrist?
We were taken to the police station and placed in separate cells where I could hear someone crying for there mum and I can tell you it wasn’t me, the police checked on me and noticed I had a pair of handcuffs hanging off my jeans, they kept asking if I wanted to be a policeman, big joke laugh at the kid with the handcuffs. when we had to empty our pockets the police were interested to know why we had so much money on us, being a very good liar on top of being Peckham’s number one junior tea leaf it came to me to say I had found a wallet on the 36 bus, even going to the trouble to describe the wallet, I thought it through we were not going to say our mums gave it to us in case the police ask them first, so my plan was fool proof, now only the thieving to try and wriggle out of now.
After about 5 hours my mum came to west end central police station to get us out, I knew to expect a whack round the head, not for stealing though, for getting caught!
When I got to see my mum she was quite calm and was trying to tell the police that she had given us the money, but pc plod wasn’t having any of it, properly due to my convincing story about the wallet on the bus, when my mum asked what was we being charged with the policeman stated that because we didn’t actually leave cascade with the stink bombs they were unable to charge us with stealing them, however and are you ready for this bit, the bit where Danny’s story gets him his just deserts?
Well the policemen as proud as punch declares that due to the fact we didn’t hand in the wallet we found on the 36 bus that didn’t even exist, we were going to be charged with Theft by finding, which translates to we didn’t hand it in so we stole it. Justice served.
During that period of hanging around with Simon who I would like to point out now is a very successful designer now, we went out one Christmas day when me and my mum were visiting Betty for Christmas day which we did occasionally for something to do, Christmas day was always boring no shops open and fuck all to do unless you had a big family to play monopoly with.
This Christmas Stephen said we should break into Millwall football ground and play football on the pitch, even though I was not big on football I wasn’t exactly busy, so I thought why not? Simons mum was drinking with our mums in the Spanish steps pub, so we headed over to cold blow lane which was 5 minutes away, we jumped the fence and made our way to the pitch, whilst walking around the ground Stephen noticed a metal fence that backed on the bar/players lounge area, so he jumped over and shouted for us to look, we climbed over and saw crates and crates of beer, none of us were particularly interested in drinking but when its free, you take what you can get.
After swigging a few mouthfuls of some rank beer we started shaking cans and opening them as if in celebration for the grand prix, we got covered from head to toe in the stuff, we decided, very stupidly I might add, to climb onto the roof of the terraces and throw cans onto the pitch, only god knows why but after a few minutes we heard a woman shouting at us so we got down jumped back over the fence and back through cold blow lane, just as we got about half way through a police van came racing through and stopped right in front of us, there wasn’t any point in running, we denied any knowledge of the kids they were looking for and put the fact we were dripping in alcohol down to the fact it was Christmas and our parents were having a party. But they weren’t having any of it and I imagine three kids soaked in beer might actually need to be taken away from parents that allow kids to have beer.
This time we were taken to Lady well police station which wasn’t local but apparently had some free cells, our mums were called for but couldn’t be found for some reason and considering none of our mums had cars and there were no busses Christmas day we were in for a long wait, in the meantime I was served Bernard Mathews turkey drummers and boiled potatoes for my Christmas dinner that day.
After six and a half hours Simons mum had come along with my mum to get us out of the police station, this time I could hear my mum shouting, drunk and threatening to hit me for making her walk from new cross to Catford on Christmas day, as soon as we were shown into the room where my mum was I ducked and avoided a whack, but Stephen managed to get one round the head, after being led outside my mum was busy trying to get me my whack but luckily the policeman who let us go followed us outside I threatened my mum that “if she so much as touches us he would nick her” I couldn’t help thinking how funny that would be at the time.
After my mum calmed down we walked over to my aunt Maureen’s which was close by and I was told I had to babysit as my punishment, and that was it now beating for me.
Whilst I was at Chaucer my aunt Tammy had met this nice guy called Tony, he seemed super rich and spoilt her rotten, even buying her a house in Carshalton surrey, the place was like a palace and because Jamie didn’t really know anyone round there I used to stay over quite a lot, we would get up early get the 157 bus to Morden tube station then get a tube into London to go to school, Jamie went to London Nautical which as you know was the school my mum wanted me at but because of some minimum year rule of releasing armed forces records.
What the meant in laymen’s terms is that anyone who had or has family that serve or served in the navy was given priority places at London nautical, but it was a year away from my granddads records being released, and Jamie wasn’t. I was offered a place in my second year at Chaucer but had far too many new starts in the past to uproot and start again.
Nothing too exciting happened in Carshalton, its was a pretty sleepy town but picturesque, I could see my aunt was getting bored housewife syndrome as Tony worked away sometimes, and she seemed to drink more when he was away, which meant the carpenters would come out and the sleepy neighborhood became filled with the sound of “rainy days and Mondays always get me down” but this time the stereo was a lot more expensive and a dam site louder.
On one of Tonys trips away Tammy invited Maureen her friend Dolly and my mum over for a drink which turned into the first time I every got drunk, I was in charge of being barman so I poured myself one to see what all the fuss was about, after all my family had spent most of their lives putting alcohol first, so it must be brilliant, this is going to be the making of me, I’m going to have my first grown up drink, I may be only 12 but I’m a quick starter. I didn’t like the first glass but no one said it was going to be easy, glass two goes down better and I don’t remember glass three and so on.
what I do remember is being carried upstairs by these women to the toilet where I was violently sick, then they carried me to Tammy’s bedroom, the bed was a king-size wooden bed with loads of pillows and silk sheets, I have no idea why I was put in that bed, but she must of regretted her decision soon after when I threw up all over it, I didn’t drink vodka after that until I was twenty one, and every time I even smelt a whiff of the stuff I was transported back to that toilet in Carshalton and the pain kept me away from it.
It was clear that my mum was seeing Leslie the man with a girl’s name, but she didn’t quite get round to telling Jim this little fact, she would be with him when I was about and then we would go home where Jim lived with us and play happy families, I didn’t see the point in this masquerade, Jim was solid and dependable but a right miserable bastard, he looked after us when we had nothing, I mean we still had nothing, but more than we would if he hadn’t been there. I never let on I liked him because he used to call me “precious” taking the piss because he thought my mum spoilt me, I think he thought I should be beaten at six am every morning and made to work on some imaginary farm before school, then home to do my chores. He even caught me wanking one day which was quite embarrassing for me.
Then you had Leslie, he was a lot older than my mum and I really didn’t see the attraction other than he had a bit of money now and then, and he treated my mum to a few nights out, with me in tow for a good cover story. He even used to give me a days work here and there taking plug sockets and light fittings out of buildings that were being either knocked down or done up, he would clean them up and sell them on second hand, he used to have all these annoying says like “think about it”, it doesn’t seem that annoying writing it but I think it might of been him that was annoying thinking about it, lol.
For my thirteenth birthday my mum managed to convince Leslie to pay for my first holiday aboard to sunny Spain, I even remember that the resort was called salou, my mum said I could bring my cousins Jamie and Stephen as long as their mums paid for there part of the trip, now a trip to Spain did sound exciting, but did I mention how we were getting there?
Well on the morning of the trip we all went to Victoria coach station, yes coach station. We met Leslie there and we sorted out the tickets and jumped on board all excited ready for our big adventure, I remember asking the woman who would have been a stewardess had we been on a plane like normal people, “excuse me how long does it take to get the Spain?”, well I really wished I hadn’t asked because the reply was “twenty six or seven hours, depending on traffic” I was dumbfounded, I was so glad I had my Walkman and rap albums, I must of listened to my Run DMC album over 15 times, I still know all the words to this day, I also remember seeing a brilliant film called The Jazz singer, if you haven’t seen it, you should get it out of blockbusters or Bobs in Peckham depending where you live, its basically about this Jewish guy whose dad is a rabbi and doesn’t approve of his sons choice of career, I wont spoil the ending but I know the whole coach cried at the end, it might have been due to the sandwiches and rolls being served by our fake air stewardess, who was caked in make up.
We finally arrived to our destination to a nice resort, but after the long journey Leslie was seriously getting on all our nerves, me Jamie and Stephen were non stop making fun of him and his cleaver wide boy ways, I really think he was trying to impress us with his knowledge of all things, but we just thought it was annoying. We were kids give us money and we are happy, that’s all it took, you didn’t need to pretend to be able to understand Spanish.
We all became friends with a German girl whilst we were there, and it sounds really silly now as we had only known her for about five days. No she didn’t die or break any bones, her holiday to sunny Spain was over and we had all become close friends, so we all broke down crying with the sound of Phil Collins number one single Groovy kind of love blasting out the local disco, we promised to write and stay in touch and all that other crap you say when you meat people abroad, it was a holiday romance with no kissing or funny business involved, and four people involved instead of two.
On the second to last night there was a completion in the hotel, now I’m not sure if we were staying in a particular part of Spain or this really is normal because the completion was for men to dress up as the most convincing woman, Jamie and Stephen jumped at the chance which seemed a bit worrying, but we was on holiday and were up for a laugh, mum said I should enter, but I was the oldest boy and everything about me said I don’t dress up as a woman for fun. But after a few vodkas and tonics my mum demanded that I get involved, so I begrudgingly and I do mean that, took a few things mum gave me and put them on.
We had to join up at reception and were all ushered into a back office by the hotel staff where there were a few grown men dressed up, taking it all a bit serious I might add. One guy even had a mustache and had a plastic half sort of mask covering it up, it wouldn’t have been so obvious but the mask was see through, we was offered a glass of wine to relax before having to walk out on stage, but I was 13 and any attempts for a grown man to give a child alcohol were seen as grooming in my suspicious mind, so we said nooo.
Once on stage all three of us dressed in my mums clothes and make up did the turns required to show off our feminine persona, but I knew I just looked like a fat kid dressed up in woman’s clothing, a site some people there thought may have been the start of some weird journey into being a transvestite, but I assure you I am as fucked up as the next person, dressing up is only for special occasions.
At the end of this very wrong act a pal that we had met on holiday won the completion, a few of the weirdo’s that had entered made some bitter comments about letting kids win and how unfair it was, well I say balls to them, they shouldn’t be dressing up like that with kids about, and for anyone thinking I am homophobic at this point doesn’t know me.
After being back for a while and not writing to the poor German girl we all cried over, I started going to Maureen’s a lot more, she used to treat me like a mum should treat there kids and I must say it was lovely, she would give me money to buy myself things like clothes, records and tapes.
On one occasion I bought a French connection jumper, it was the first bit of designer clobber I had owned, I only bought it because I really fancied the girl in the shop, she was a lot older than me and could of convinced me to buy it for her if she had tried, now my jumper was lush, it was bright red on the front with a massive white F and white on the back with a big C which unless you are a doughnut means FRENCH CONNECTION.
I had had this jumper a little while and always felt the bee’s knees when wearing it, then one day, just any ordinary day I was walking down the road as proud as punch when some guy called off a building site “what does the FC stand for?” and before I could proudly answer he him added “FAT CUNT” now I was thirteen, he must of been over twenty one so I didn’t want to risk getting a slap on top of insulting my only bit of decent clothing, so I just laughed and told him to politely “fuck off” I never wore that jumper ever again outside the house.
We needed some money so mum said we was going to Sainsbury’s in Sydenham to nick some smoked salmon to sell around the pubs, we had teamed up a few times to go shoplifting, and we did need the money to get shopping as well as money to buy a bus pass to get me to school, so I went. We got to Sydenham and my mum filled the bag with goods then passed the bag to me so I could walk out the shop with it, I did really care at the time, I was a good enough thief or so I though. I just got outside the shop when the security guard grabbed me and lead me back inside. I was taken to the manager’s office where I thought I had been caught on my own, a man came from downstairs and told the manager that the value of the goods came to £157.
I thought to myself that would of been my all time high score of goods in one steal until I heard my mum screaming, I looked at the glass door and could see two men dragging my mum somewhere, something came over me and I looked about for a weapon, on the floor I noticed a tool box opened, so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand which happened to be a chisel, I ran towards the manager and threatened to stab him if they didn’t let my mum go, I saw fear in his eyes but was willing to go through this ludicrous act to save my mum. The people handing my mum saw what had happened in the manager’s office and brought my mum to the door to show me she was ok, I calmed down and mum told me through the door that I should put it down and everything would be alright.
tuesday 11th may 2010
I haven’t typed a blog for what seems ages, so here goes nothing...
I started this Thursday night @ Bohos a few weeks ago and the first week went ok as far as the amount of people goes and week two which was a bank holiday was a poor show but week three was busy again, so I’m hoping that this night is going to even it self out a bit now and I am actually looking forward to this weeks night, as this will be week four and I think its safe to say everyone knows about it and a few friends are due to come down and show there faces. That means you too lazy arse lol
Had a really brilliant night Friday as I went to see the musical Legally Blonde.
Now I have only seen two other musicals which were la miz and dirty dancing. La miz was more than a disappointment as there were no spoken words, just singing about shit didn’t no or care about, i.e. the French revaluation, now I don’t even care about what happens in France today so don’t bore me with what happened a million years ago (I know it wasn’t a million years ago before you start, I am exaggerating)
And dirty dancing was just pure over hype, the night was somewhat ruined before it started as the cab I ordered turned up late, then whilst we was on the way there was a demonstration at the houses of parliament which meant the traffic was redirected to other bridges so we were sat in traffic for ages and had to jump on a tube to charring cross and then run and I do mean run up to the Aldwich to the theatre, now when I booked the tickets I asked for the best tickets I could have and paid £60 each as they were dead centre and only a few rows back.
We managed to get to our seats as they were calling for everyone to sit down, I took my seat only to be sitting behind the worlds tallest man whose head was so big it blocked the centre of the stage, so as the actors moved about I had to look round this guys oversized head to see what was happening. All I kept thinking was that I was not coming to see this musical for my benefit; it was a treat for my fiancée, so I kept quiet.
Well when I say I kept quiet I did for the first half of the show, after the interval I tapped the jolly green giant on the shoulder and said the following “excuse me I have paid just as much as you to watch this musical and for the first half of it all I have seen is the back of your fucking head so I suggest you slouch for the second half”, now this guy was quite big but being quite shocked at what I had said apologised and I was able to see the second half, but after seeing it, I couldn’t help missing the big fuckers head.. Well that’s my review of dirty dancing.
As for legally blonde I made sure we had plenty of time so got a cab and made sure the traffic wasn’t going to be a problem, got to the theatre and picked up the tickets and then went to a bistro over in Covent garden for a quick meal and a bottle of wine, the place advertised 2 courses for about £10 and it was very near the theatre so thought we would chance it, the wine was rank but it still got drunk (waste is such a shame lol) then they put a 12.5% surcharge on the bill which is a bit of a liberty as there was only two of us (now if you don’t know what a surcharge is, its a tip. Now tips should be 10% of the total bill if you are happy to tip the waiter because you are happy with the service, and you may have picked up from me moaning about it, I wasn’t)
We then walked back over to the theatre and headed straight for the bar and another bottle of wine and of course desert which in this case was malteazers, we headed for our seats as they were calling out the performance started in one minute. Now I know you are going to think I am a moany cunt, but when I booked our tickets with Ticketmaster I could see what seats were available and I asked for really good seats which again I paid £60 each for. They said the dress circle was the best and seated us in the back part of it, I suffered it on the phone because it was all that was available according to the map and Ticketmaster. But as the performance was starting I noticed quite a few empty seats nearer the front of the dress circle so I grabbed an usher and demanded to be moved, in short she got her supervisor and we got moved to better but the same priced seats.
As for the show all I can say is it was very funny and sheridan smith is amazing in it, she is my new pin up girl, so Lilly Allen if your reading this ya flat chested cow its over between us, lol
Seriously worth watching, the theatre isn’t as nice and the sweets selection is slyly dry but go see it if you get the chance, you don’t have to be an idiot like me, you can get tickets from £20 or meal deals for about £30 which gets you a limited menu in a restaurant somewhere near by.
I done loads of DJ bookings the bank holiday weekend and as a result of five late nights in a row I got man flu so didn’t write a blog, but I did send out a very rough chapter of a book I’m writing, so if you managed to have a look please let me know, the link is http://mrdannyblaze.blogspot.com/
I will put a rough draft of chapter 2 up today for those of you who read part 1.
This week we are filming a music video for a tune we made last year that has just been remixed, so anyone fitting model status please feel free to get in touch and I will forward your details of the guy looking after that department.
Right that’s enough for now, please forward any feedback on blogs or the book, its all gratefully received peoples..
Oh shit nearly forgot I am looking for sponsorship for a 26 mile bike ride I am doing on Sunday 27th of June in aid of Leukaemia research, the official website is www.londonbikeathon.co.uk I really do need your support and I am giving up chocolate and all sweets etc for 2 months to try and change my eating habits, so it will all form part of the training for this special event. If you can afford to sponsor me please do so, even if its £3 I would be grateful for any monies you can afford to give as I know times are hard.
I started this Thursday night @ Bohos a few weeks ago and the first week went ok as far as the amount of people goes and week two which was a bank holiday was a poor show but week three was busy again, so I’m hoping that this night is going to even it self out a bit now and I am actually looking forward to this weeks night, as this will be week four and I think its safe to say everyone knows about it and a few friends are due to come down and show there faces. That means you too lazy arse lol
Had a really brilliant night Friday as I went to see the musical Legally Blonde.
Now I have only seen two other musicals which were la miz and dirty dancing. La miz was more than a disappointment as there were no spoken words, just singing about shit didn’t no or care about, i.e. the French revaluation, now I don’t even care about what happens in France today so don’t bore me with what happened a million years ago (I know it wasn’t a million years ago before you start, I am exaggerating)
And dirty dancing was just pure over hype, the night was somewhat ruined before it started as the cab I ordered turned up late, then whilst we was on the way there was a demonstration at the houses of parliament which meant the traffic was redirected to other bridges so we were sat in traffic for ages and had to jump on a tube to charring cross and then run and I do mean run up to the Aldwich to the theatre, now when I booked the tickets I asked for the best tickets I could have and paid £60 each as they were dead centre and only a few rows back.
We managed to get to our seats as they were calling for everyone to sit down, I took my seat only to be sitting behind the worlds tallest man whose head was so big it blocked the centre of the stage, so as the actors moved about I had to look round this guys oversized head to see what was happening. All I kept thinking was that I was not coming to see this musical for my benefit; it was a treat for my fiancée, so I kept quiet.
Well when I say I kept quiet I did for the first half of the show, after the interval I tapped the jolly green giant on the shoulder and said the following “excuse me I have paid just as much as you to watch this musical and for the first half of it all I have seen is the back of your fucking head so I suggest you slouch for the second half”, now this guy was quite big but being quite shocked at what I had said apologised and I was able to see the second half, but after seeing it, I couldn’t help missing the big fuckers head.. Well that’s my review of dirty dancing.
As for legally blonde I made sure we had plenty of time so got a cab and made sure the traffic wasn’t going to be a problem, got to the theatre and picked up the tickets and then went to a bistro over in Covent garden for a quick meal and a bottle of wine, the place advertised 2 courses for about £10 and it was very near the theatre so thought we would chance it, the wine was rank but it still got drunk (waste is such a shame lol) then they put a 12.5% surcharge on the bill which is a bit of a liberty as there was only two of us (now if you don’t know what a surcharge is, its a tip. Now tips should be 10% of the total bill if you are happy to tip the waiter because you are happy with the service, and you may have picked up from me moaning about it, I wasn’t)
We then walked back over to the theatre and headed straight for the bar and another bottle of wine and of course desert which in this case was malteazers, we headed for our seats as they were calling out the performance started in one minute. Now I know you are going to think I am a moany cunt, but when I booked our tickets with Ticketmaster I could see what seats were available and I asked for really good seats which again I paid £60 each for. They said the dress circle was the best and seated us in the back part of it, I suffered it on the phone because it was all that was available according to the map and Ticketmaster. But as the performance was starting I noticed quite a few empty seats nearer the front of the dress circle so I grabbed an usher and demanded to be moved, in short she got her supervisor and we got moved to better but the same priced seats.
As for the show all I can say is it was very funny and sheridan smith is amazing in it, she is my new pin up girl, so Lilly Allen if your reading this ya flat chested cow its over between us, lol
Seriously worth watching, the theatre isn’t as nice and the sweets selection is slyly dry but go see it if you get the chance, you don’t have to be an idiot like me, you can get tickets from £20 or meal deals for about £30 which gets you a limited menu in a restaurant somewhere near by.
I done loads of DJ bookings the bank holiday weekend and as a result of five late nights in a row I got man flu so didn’t write a blog, but I did send out a very rough chapter of a book I’m writing, so if you managed to have a look please let me know, the link is http://mrdannyblaze.blogspot.com/
I will put a rough draft of chapter 2 up today for those of you who read part 1.
This week we are filming a music video for a tune we made last year that has just been remixed, so anyone fitting model status please feel free to get in touch and I will forward your details of the guy looking after that department.
Right that’s enough for now, please forward any feedback on blogs or the book, its all gratefully received peoples..
Oh shit nearly forgot I am looking for sponsorship for a 26 mile bike ride I am doing on Sunday 27th of June in aid of Leukaemia research, the official website is www.londonbikeathon.co.uk I really do need your support and I am giving up chocolate and all sweets etc for 2 months to try and change my eating habits, so it will all form part of the training for this special event. If you can afford to sponsor me please do so, even if its £3 I would be grateful for any monies you can afford to give as I know times are hard.
Thursday 6 May 2010
first chapter of my book // rought draft
Foreword
Imagine if you will, that life is like a theatre all singing, dancing and magic tricks that blow you away and leave you in awe of the entire spender that is LIFE, as you sit there with the best seats in the house tucking into your ice cream tub for one and a large glass of rose lapping up the show and transfixed on how its all done and what’s making it all work.
Well whilst your sat front and centre I am standing directly above the stage on a walk way watching everything from above, getting to see how things magically appear from the “fixed” props and how peoples on stage behavior changes once they get back behind the main curtain, seeing things how they really are as a posed to seeing peoples characters that they put on for all our benefits to make them seem more palatable.
Yes I would defiantly say my glass is always been half empty, I cant really help that view I think I have always had it, it comes with being let down so many times, “expect the worst and if it don’t happen its a bonus” that’s pretty much my philosophy in life, it keeps me sane and able to deal with the things that get thrown to me on an almost daily basis, don’t get me wrong I wasn’t brought up in a workhouse in Victorian times or born during medieval times when you would be lucky to live to 25/30.
No I am just going to tell you my story in my own words and let you be the judge and jury, the truth doesn’t suit everyone but in my case I have learnt that being truthful is not always the best thing but its better that somebody hates you for telling the truth rather than for telling a lie.
Chapter one -
Its Monday the 13th of October 1975 David Essex - "Hold Me Close" is number 1 in the charts its roughly 11.50am and I am being born in kings collage hospital in Denmark hill in London se5, the day I was born my mum was supposed to be in court for breaking into phone boxes in Peckham where she lived, but she was a bit busy giving birth to yours truly, no one even knew my mum was pregnant she wasn’t a petite girl as 70s fashion dictates you should be, no my mum was 17 years old and didn’t care about such things, she was the second youngest of six children, even thinking about it now six kids seems a lot to me, the eldest was the two brothers Raymond and David, then you had the oldest sister Betty, Maureen then my mum Diane, lastly there was the youngest Tammy who even up to a few years ago remained spoilt.
When my mum finally did get to court she was sent to prison and my auntie Betty looked after me for a bit as she had a daughter Sarah a year older than me and a son Stephen who was a whole month younger than me, unfortunately my aunt wasn’t able to keep me until my mum was released, something that my mum was never able to forgive Betty for but I don’t really know the full ins and outs of the situation so I will just thank Betty for taking me in at the time and keeping me fed and clothed for as long as she did.
I went to live with an old couple that looked after me until my mum was out of prison and able to look after me, my nearest memory of that time was November 5th 1977 when my mum married Christopher Judge at a registry office in Camberwell opposite Southwark town hall, I can only remember because of the pictures that were in our house and the date was written on the back, studying the pictures as a kid I did often wonder why I wasn’t in them, but it never occurred to for some reason.
Now I don’t know how Chris met my mum and I did ask if he was my dad but my mum said he wasn’t, so I just sort of left that question there, not wanting to find out that something terrible had happened and I was the result, He was a quite manly man, a bit skinny with long gingery brown hair down to his shoulders. He was Irish and I have almost clear recollections of going to Dublin to see his family who owned and ice cream van and another member of his family who bred greyhounds in the mountains, that sounds so strange even writing that now but I did have fun that summer collecting bumble bees in old jam jars and just being a kid (good times)
Now we lived at 5c ST Georges terrace in Peckham on the middle floor there were two flats below us and one flat above, I remember the nice couple bellow who had a baby called Aaron that died of cot death and I still to this day remember his name which is very strange but thinking about it now must be where my fear of dying comes from, I am told its quite natural to fear death, they even have a name for it but being five years old that shouldn’t be one of my main concerns.
In the summer I remember all the kids from the other flats all climbing onto one another’s gardens playing and talking absolute nonsense like kids do to try and seem the most popular or just trying to fit in by saying you all eat on the same side of your mouth, god knows why? But kids will be kids.
Our family income was mostly accumulated through crime of some sort; my mum was a “kite’er” and for those of you looking it up in the dictionary I shall save you the bother, this is the practice of somebody who commits cheque fraud, cashing stolen cheques that don’t belong to them, you can get a cheque book and card belonging to somebody else, in other words stolen and soak the card in brake fluid and the signature on the strip magically disappears, you write your own version of the signature and Hey presto a made to measure cheque book and card as well as having unlimited access to someone else’s cash, sometimes shops ring the bank for authorization on high purchases but if you happen to be shopping in a all night off license at 8pm the banks will be closed, so the shop will not want to miss out on a customer who wants to spend a small fortune, everyone’s happy, of course I don’t include the owner of the cheque book or the bank who finally has to take responsibility in that statement, but its just the way the cookie crumbles.
Another way we made money at Christmas was by “fly pitching” which involves setting up a makeshift stall on a street corner or shopping centre from a clothes horse and putting Christmas wrapping paper on each section and calling out at the top of your voice “eight sheets for a pound” sometimes we would have hankies or socks to sell as well and it really remember enjoying selling stuff and I think the novelty of a child doing this really helped with sales.
I’m not sure why or how but my mum told me that they were running out of money and Chris boasted “if I had a gun I would go and rob somewhere” now my mum decided to make Chris come good on his offer, the next day Chris had his gun and he set about robbing petrol stations and jewelers, nice work if you can get it I hear you say, well yes it was actually as there were less cars on the road to make your getaway and shop security was very minimal so the chances of getting away were very high, now the only problem you have is explaining where your new found wealth came from and what to spend it on.
Chris decided to spend money on drugs, lots of lovely problem solving no consequence drugs, in one of his many mood swings he picked me up by my ankles and dropped me into a large wooden toy box my granddad had made for me and then threw a cup of tea over my mum who was hiding under her covers screaming. This carried on for a while as far as I can remember, but it kind of seemed normal at the time.
My prizes position as a kid had to be my record player I bloody loved it, it was a wooden one that had a draw that you pulled down and there would be my savior, playing 78’s (not that I had any of them, I’m not that old) 45’s and 33’s, I had my mums entire record collection to play which consisted of tons of Mowtown, Beatles and loads of songs I still listen to today as well as hits like “its my party and I cry if I want to”, “Luton Airport”, and some annoying kids who sang grown up hits called something like “teeny boppers” they murdered every song but people thought it was cute, kind of like s Club 7 Jrs did a few years ago.
The point I’m making is that like a friend music has always been there through the good and bad, it helps me deal with almost any situation, for instance if I am feeling aggravated I listen to some of my gangster rap albums singing along and before you know it I have got all that out of my system or if I am upset I might listen to Don Mclean, who some of you will know sung American pie, but he also made a song called Vincent which is a very nice song that he sung about the painter Vincent VanGough who had a sad life even cutting off his own ear and as far as I’m aware didn’t actually manage to sell any of his paintings whilst he was alive, which pretty much defeats the object in my eyes.
Don Mclean is one of my favorite folk singers and that earthy simple music with real words that seem to speak to me and release the upset and allow me to get on with things, seeing that the world isn’t all false and overcomplicated.
I don’t know what day it is or what Chris has done to make us leave but its all done in a hurry, we pack up what we can take and go to the council who tell my mum that leaving the family home means we have made ourselves internally homeless and we do not qualify to be re housed, we should return to the abuse and work it out or get the police involved who have not coined the phrase “domestic violence” yet, in the late 70s a man hitting his wife was doing nothing wrong, they were having “troubles” and things like that were dared not spoken about in pubs by big men who spent there wages on fags, booze and drugs and women were too frightened to tell anyone.
So what we did was go to stay with Chris’s sister Annie and her family in Norfolk who gladly put us up for a while, they were a pretty normal family apart from the fact me and their son Keith were told at nights that if we go to bed and be good that we would get really big ice creams as treats the following day, but if we didn’t go to sleep some character called Hairy Lemon would come for us and put us in his sack, now I’m assuming that they made this person up or Hairy lemon was the local paedophile (now again the whole innocence of the late 70s forgot to take in to account there were men who did things to children, they were called “dirty old men” just say it to yourself it actually sounds like and endearing term you might call your dad or granddad, but these were in fact pedophiles, its nuts).
I remember staying there long enough for my mum to try and get me into the local school, but just before this actually managed to happen Chris has somehow found out where we were so we had to pack up again and we were dropped to Norfolk main line train station by Annie’s very nice husband who gave my mum some money to help us get away, they said we shouldn’t say where we were going in case Chris managed to get wind of our destination.
Don’t ask me how but we ended up in Norwich in a battered wife’s home full of dirty untrustworthy people who talked like farmers. You couldn’t leave food in the fridge as other mums would steal it to feed there own kids, and whose to say that they weren’t more needy than us?
That was where I had my first girl kiss with a girl, I couldn’t remember her name if you paid me a million pounds, there was a camp set up as you do as a child it had one of them old prams as a roof supported by some chairs and we had a peck on the lips, I am going to say that it wasn’t that memorable but I was still a baby and that was a very long time ago I do however remember that place being a living hell and I’m not sure how long we stayed there.
After being in Norwich for what seemed far too long it was decided that we should try and get back to London, it had been months and I hadn’t seen the inside of a classroom for a long time, so we ended up in another battered wife’s home in Streatham, my toys that I had taken with me when we first left St Georges terrace had whittled down to a Pinocchio and some McDonalds toys that I had picked up somewhere along the way, I don’t think we was there long before it was decided that we were going to live with my aunt Tammy on the Stockwell park estate.
43 Addington house was not as bad as it sounds, it was on the second floor with a lift that always smelt of wee even if it had been cleaned, it was the last door on the right at the end of the balcony with a varnished door with brass numbers and letterbox, I had visited Tammy’s quite a lot as a child so I felt really safe there, Jamie was my cousin who was two years younger than me and we shared a single bed with me at one end and Jamie at the other end not so bad I hear you say, well no it wasn’t until you wake up in the morning and your feet are wet from where Jamie used to wet the bed almost every night.
Soon after I was enrolled to Stockwell juniors, I was back in school but I had some serious catching up to do if I wasn’t going to be put back a year, I knew I was way behind academically and I remember filling in a maths multiple choice test randomly because I didn’t understand how letters had become involved in maths, using numbers was hard enough for me at the time now they are inventing things for me to be rubbish at, my reading was a bit better for some reason finding out about Rodger red hat, Billy blue hat, Johnny & Jenifer yellow hat in there many adventures must of helped somewhat, thinking now though its a bit weird that a story like that shows three guys and only one girl about, shouldn’t they be promoting the “family” unit? Or was they preparing us early that some dads don’t stick around?
As time went on my mum went back to “kyte’ing” so me and Jamie had very nice clothes now, I remember a multicolored Benetton tracksuit that we both had and wore to school at that time we were the smartest kids on the block, I remember asking for a millwall football kit royal blue with white shorts, I think it was more for Jamie’s benefit as he was the football mad kid I was happy enough with a bar of chocolate, I even remember the advert on TV for it, BANJO that what they were called, but they don’t do them any more I also remember buying monster munch drinks & snacks, the snacks are still about but they discontinued the drinks for some reason, enter my mum with a bag from a sports shop containing two brand new football kits royal blue tops with white shorts, the only problem was that they were Birmingham city kits, we didn’t even know where Birmingham city was so supporting the football team was a bit baffling, and before you can say “jack Robinson” we were the laughing stock of the estate, but we were made to wear them as our mums wouldn’t have waste and it was the same colour as millwall so it didn’t matter, let me say it did matter it mattered a lot.
Shortly after the football kit swindle my mum went back to prison again and I was in sole care of my aunt Tammy and I stayed on at Addington house thank god, now Tammy was a very nice lady she was dark haired and very pretty and when she cleaned her house it was like a royal palace with the cushions plumped up, the carpets shake n vax’ed even the rug tassels were uniform like she had used a spirit level to get them all exactly the same, we weren’t even allowed to use the toilet until the whole house was clean at the same time, it was all a bit nuts and over the top but it was also nice seeing my family and the place I lived in being so smart and clean.
but like the rest of my family Tammy enjoyed a drink, I’m not saying that’s wrong or she shouldn’t because I was a child and she was the adult, but when she did have a drink the flat became a different place it got messy with cans of lager and ash everywhere, the stereo would go on as loud as it would go and the sound of Dionne Warwick, john holt or carpenters would be broadcast as if we were in an open air concert.
this would happen every now and then and I remember hating every single song that she played as a kid but I shall have to come clean now because two of my favorite albums are john holt 1000 volts of holt and everything by the carpenters, is that irony or is it like when people get kidnapped and end up falling for the person who has imprisoned them? You decide.
During my time at my aunts we were taken to her boyfriends mums chalet in Leysdown which was a treat for me a taste of normal life as part of a family which was a very warm feeling indeed, the place seemed massive there were caravan parks and chalets which seemed to stretched as far as my little eyes could see, they had a club house and a beach and my personal favorite arcades, we must of gone there a few times because I remember being quite familiar with it, I recently went back there when I was working in Margate to look around and the place has not changed a bit it was like the land that time had forgotten, but it all seemed a very small place now, I wouldn’t book a holiday there now if you catch my drift with outside toilets and showers, that really isn’t the one.
Back on the Stockwell park estate I had made quite a lot of friends, race didn’t really come into who your friends were or who you hung around with, we were all poor and we all lived in the same place so nobody was really any better off to be bragging unless you had a mum and dad who were still together, then you were just weird. I loved the summer holidays on the estate as there was always plenty to do, me and Jamie were like brothers and we would have loads of adventures, like sometimes for no reason at all we would walk in the duck pond with our clothes on because it seemed like a good idea, we didn’t really go too far because the estate was huge and the fear of getting murdered in some dark stairwell didn’t appeal to either of us, we knew when it was time to go home for dinner when we could hear the Tammy shouting at the top of her voice J-A-M-I-EEEEE D-A-N-N-YYYYYY, even if we were our of ear shot someone would see us and say “you two better go your mums been calling you” so off we would go safe in the knowledge that dinner was ready and everything was right with the world, other than the fact we used to have to go to bed when crossroads would come on the TV now crossroads was on at 6pm and it was still light outside, we never understood why we had to go to bed when it was still day light outside, it didn’t help that there were all out friends playing football on the grass downstairs from our bedroom window, it seemed like torture at the time but I guess it was so was part of a routine that we had to live with to grow up to be sound individuals.
Whilst on the estate I met a boy called Richard whose Nan lived on the block next to us I remember being out playing one day when he said “do u want to stay over at mine tonight?” with the rest of my mates being behind him I looked at them and they were signaling me to not do it, but I was already turning out to be quite stubborn so I quickly agreed, it would make a change from waking up with wet feet I remember thinking at the time. When we got to Richards house I noticed his mum wasn’t there so I asked what was for dinner, he went to the fridge and opened the freezer and produced a tub of ice cream.
now I was used to egg chips and beans, I was starting top feel out of my comfort zone as I soon noticed a whole army of ants crawling in and out of his fridge, then I wondered if it was going to get any worse before noticing a double bed sat in front of the TV, I became itchy just looking at this mess of a place I was going to have to sleep in, I should of gone home straight away and who would of blamed me, but Richard suggested that we go out and play, so that’s what we did, spending the whole night roaming the streets like tramps, but it was better than ant boys house with his creepy bed, the moral of that story is check where your friends live before you agree to sleep over.
Finally my mum was out of prison again and it was decided again not by me but we would try to find a place to live of our own, my mum went to the council but didn’t get any joy, then a friend of Tammy’s “Richard the ant boys mum Tina” was offered a two bedroom house in Peckham that was unsuitable for her and her ant family, so it was suggested by someone that me and my mum squat in the house.
We or rather I didn’t see Chris ever again, years later on Christmas day in a bout of depression he walked into Peckham police station and confessed to all his crimes but they didn’t take him seriously and sent him away so he then walked to another police station I believe it was somewhere in Tulse hill, they listened more carefully and arrested him and he was sent to prison, he will be out now but I couldn’t say I would recognize him now, I have seen a man around Peckham who looks quite a bit like him but never had the courage to ask him just in case it is him, I wouldn’t know how to act, do I hit him or just ask him what he was playing at? I would be opening feelings that I don’t need to open so for now, so Chris is out of my mind and defiantly out of my life.
Imagine if you will, that life is like a theatre all singing, dancing and magic tricks that blow you away and leave you in awe of the entire spender that is LIFE, as you sit there with the best seats in the house tucking into your ice cream tub for one and a large glass of rose lapping up the show and transfixed on how its all done and what’s making it all work.
Well whilst your sat front and centre I am standing directly above the stage on a walk way watching everything from above, getting to see how things magically appear from the “fixed” props and how peoples on stage behavior changes once they get back behind the main curtain, seeing things how they really are as a posed to seeing peoples characters that they put on for all our benefits to make them seem more palatable.
Yes I would defiantly say my glass is always been half empty, I cant really help that view I think I have always had it, it comes with being let down so many times, “expect the worst and if it don’t happen its a bonus” that’s pretty much my philosophy in life, it keeps me sane and able to deal with the things that get thrown to me on an almost daily basis, don’t get me wrong I wasn’t brought up in a workhouse in Victorian times or born during medieval times when you would be lucky to live to 25/30.
No I am just going to tell you my story in my own words and let you be the judge and jury, the truth doesn’t suit everyone but in my case I have learnt that being truthful is not always the best thing but its better that somebody hates you for telling the truth rather than for telling a lie.
Chapter one -
Its Monday the 13th of October 1975 David Essex - "Hold Me Close" is number 1 in the charts its roughly 11.50am and I am being born in kings collage hospital in Denmark hill in London se5, the day I was born my mum was supposed to be in court for breaking into phone boxes in Peckham where she lived, but she was a bit busy giving birth to yours truly, no one even knew my mum was pregnant she wasn’t a petite girl as 70s fashion dictates you should be, no my mum was 17 years old and didn’t care about such things, she was the second youngest of six children, even thinking about it now six kids seems a lot to me, the eldest was the two brothers Raymond and David, then you had the oldest sister Betty, Maureen then my mum Diane, lastly there was the youngest Tammy who even up to a few years ago remained spoilt.
When my mum finally did get to court she was sent to prison and my auntie Betty looked after me for a bit as she had a daughter Sarah a year older than me and a son Stephen who was a whole month younger than me, unfortunately my aunt wasn’t able to keep me until my mum was released, something that my mum was never able to forgive Betty for but I don’t really know the full ins and outs of the situation so I will just thank Betty for taking me in at the time and keeping me fed and clothed for as long as she did.
I went to live with an old couple that looked after me until my mum was out of prison and able to look after me, my nearest memory of that time was November 5th 1977 when my mum married Christopher Judge at a registry office in Camberwell opposite Southwark town hall, I can only remember because of the pictures that were in our house and the date was written on the back, studying the pictures as a kid I did often wonder why I wasn’t in them, but it never occurred to for some reason.
Now I don’t know how Chris met my mum and I did ask if he was my dad but my mum said he wasn’t, so I just sort of left that question there, not wanting to find out that something terrible had happened and I was the result, He was a quite manly man, a bit skinny with long gingery brown hair down to his shoulders. He was Irish and I have almost clear recollections of going to Dublin to see his family who owned and ice cream van and another member of his family who bred greyhounds in the mountains, that sounds so strange even writing that now but I did have fun that summer collecting bumble bees in old jam jars and just being a kid (good times)
Now we lived at 5c ST Georges terrace in Peckham on the middle floor there were two flats below us and one flat above, I remember the nice couple bellow who had a baby called Aaron that died of cot death and I still to this day remember his name which is very strange but thinking about it now must be where my fear of dying comes from, I am told its quite natural to fear death, they even have a name for it but being five years old that shouldn’t be one of my main concerns.
In the summer I remember all the kids from the other flats all climbing onto one another’s gardens playing and talking absolute nonsense like kids do to try and seem the most popular or just trying to fit in by saying you all eat on the same side of your mouth, god knows why? But kids will be kids.
Our family income was mostly accumulated through crime of some sort; my mum was a “kite’er” and for those of you looking it up in the dictionary I shall save you the bother, this is the practice of somebody who commits cheque fraud, cashing stolen cheques that don’t belong to them, you can get a cheque book and card belonging to somebody else, in other words stolen and soak the card in brake fluid and the signature on the strip magically disappears, you write your own version of the signature and Hey presto a made to measure cheque book and card as well as having unlimited access to someone else’s cash, sometimes shops ring the bank for authorization on high purchases but if you happen to be shopping in a all night off license at 8pm the banks will be closed, so the shop will not want to miss out on a customer who wants to spend a small fortune, everyone’s happy, of course I don’t include the owner of the cheque book or the bank who finally has to take responsibility in that statement, but its just the way the cookie crumbles.
Another way we made money at Christmas was by “fly pitching” which involves setting up a makeshift stall on a street corner or shopping centre from a clothes horse and putting Christmas wrapping paper on each section and calling out at the top of your voice “eight sheets for a pound” sometimes we would have hankies or socks to sell as well and it really remember enjoying selling stuff and I think the novelty of a child doing this really helped with sales.
I’m not sure why or how but my mum told me that they were running out of money and Chris boasted “if I had a gun I would go and rob somewhere” now my mum decided to make Chris come good on his offer, the next day Chris had his gun and he set about robbing petrol stations and jewelers, nice work if you can get it I hear you say, well yes it was actually as there were less cars on the road to make your getaway and shop security was very minimal so the chances of getting away were very high, now the only problem you have is explaining where your new found wealth came from and what to spend it on.
Chris decided to spend money on drugs, lots of lovely problem solving no consequence drugs, in one of his many mood swings he picked me up by my ankles and dropped me into a large wooden toy box my granddad had made for me and then threw a cup of tea over my mum who was hiding under her covers screaming. This carried on for a while as far as I can remember, but it kind of seemed normal at the time.
My prizes position as a kid had to be my record player I bloody loved it, it was a wooden one that had a draw that you pulled down and there would be my savior, playing 78’s (not that I had any of them, I’m not that old) 45’s and 33’s, I had my mums entire record collection to play which consisted of tons of Mowtown, Beatles and loads of songs I still listen to today as well as hits like “its my party and I cry if I want to”, “Luton Airport”, and some annoying kids who sang grown up hits called something like “teeny boppers” they murdered every song but people thought it was cute, kind of like s Club 7 Jrs did a few years ago.
The point I’m making is that like a friend music has always been there through the good and bad, it helps me deal with almost any situation, for instance if I am feeling aggravated I listen to some of my gangster rap albums singing along and before you know it I have got all that out of my system or if I am upset I might listen to Don Mclean, who some of you will know sung American pie, but he also made a song called Vincent which is a very nice song that he sung about the painter Vincent VanGough who had a sad life even cutting off his own ear and as far as I’m aware didn’t actually manage to sell any of his paintings whilst he was alive, which pretty much defeats the object in my eyes.
Don Mclean is one of my favorite folk singers and that earthy simple music with real words that seem to speak to me and release the upset and allow me to get on with things, seeing that the world isn’t all false and overcomplicated.
I don’t know what day it is or what Chris has done to make us leave but its all done in a hurry, we pack up what we can take and go to the council who tell my mum that leaving the family home means we have made ourselves internally homeless and we do not qualify to be re housed, we should return to the abuse and work it out or get the police involved who have not coined the phrase “domestic violence” yet, in the late 70s a man hitting his wife was doing nothing wrong, they were having “troubles” and things like that were dared not spoken about in pubs by big men who spent there wages on fags, booze and drugs and women were too frightened to tell anyone.
So what we did was go to stay with Chris’s sister Annie and her family in Norfolk who gladly put us up for a while, they were a pretty normal family apart from the fact me and their son Keith were told at nights that if we go to bed and be good that we would get really big ice creams as treats the following day, but if we didn’t go to sleep some character called Hairy Lemon would come for us and put us in his sack, now I’m assuming that they made this person up or Hairy lemon was the local paedophile (now again the whole innocence of the late 70s forgot to take in to account there were men who did things to children, they were called “dirty old men” just say it to yourself it actually sounds like and endearing term you might call your dad or granddad, but these were in fact pedophiles, its nuts).
I remember staying there long enough for my mum to try and get me into the local school, but just before this actually managed to happen Chris has somehow found out where we were so we had to pack up again and we were dropped to Norfolk main line train station by Annie’s very nice husband who gave my mum some money to help us get away, they said we shouldn’t say where we were going in case Chris managed to get wind of our destination.
Don’t ask me how but we ended up in Norwich in a battered wife’s home full of dirty untrustworthy people who talked like farmers. You couldn’t leave food in the fridge as other mums would steal it to feed there own kids, and whose to say that they weren’t more needy than us?
That was where I had my first girl kiss with a girl, I couldn’t remember her name if you paid me a million pounds, there was a camp set up as you do as a child it had one of them old prams as a roof supported by some chairs and we had a peck on the lips, I am going to say that it wasn’t that memorable but I was still a baby and that was a very long time ago I do however remember that place being a living hell and I’m not sure how long we stayed there.
After being in Norwich for what seemed far too long it was decided that we should try and get back to London, it had been months and I hadn’t seen the inside of a classroom for a long time, so we ended up in another battered wife’s home in Streatham, my toys that I had taken with me when we first left St Georges terrace had whittled down to a Pinocchio and some McDonalds toys that I had picked up somewhere along the way, I don’t think we was there long before it was decided that we were going to live with my aunt Tammy on the Stockwell park estate.
43 Addington house was not as bad as it sounds, it was on the second floor with a lift that always smelt of wee even if it had been cleaned, it was the last door on the right at the end of the balcony with a varnished door with brass numbers and letterbox, I had visited Tammy’s quite a lot as a child so I felt really safe there, Jamie was my cousin who was two years younger than me and we shared a single bed with me at one end and Jamie at the other end not so bad I hear you say, well no it wasn’t until you wake up in the morning and your feet are wet from where Jamie used to wet the bed almost every night.
Soon after I was enrolled to Stockwell juniors, I was back in school but I had some serious catching up to do if I wasn’t going to be put back a year, I knew I was way behind academically and I remember filling in a maths multiple choice test randomly because I didn’t understand how letters had become involved in maths, using numbers was hard enough for me at the time now they are inventing things for me to be rubbish at, my reading was a bit better for some reason finding out about Rodger red hat, Billy blue hat, Johnny & Jenifer yellow hat in there many adventures must of helped somewhat, thinking now though its a bit weird that a story like that shows three guys and only one girl about, shouldn’t they be promoting the “family” unit? Or was they preparing us early that some dads don’t stick around?
As time went on my mum went back to “kyte’ing” so me and Jamie had very nice clothes now, I remember a multicolored Benetton tracksuit that we both had and wore to school at that time we were the smartest kids on the block, I remember asking for a millwall football kit royal blue with white shorts, I think it was more for Jamie’s benefit as he was the football mad kid I was happy enough with a bar of chocolate, I even remember the advert on TV for it, BANJO that what they were called, but they don’t do them any more I also remember buying monster munch drinks & snacks, the snacks are still about but they discontinued the drinks for some reason, enter my mum with a bag from a sports shop containing two brand new football kits royal blue tops with white shorts, the only problem was that they were Birmingham city kits, we didn’t even know where Birmingham city was so supporting the football team was a bit baffling, and before you can say “jack Robinson” we were the laughing stock of the estate, but we were made to wear them as our mums wouldn’t have waste and it was the same colour as millwall so it didn’t matter, let me say it did matter it mattered a lot.
Shortly after the football kit swindle my mum went back to prison again and I was in sole care of my aunt Tammy and I stayed on at Addington house thank god, now Tammy was a very nice lady she was dark haired and very pretty and when she cleaned her house it was like a royal palace with the cushions plumped up, the carpets shake n vax’ed even the rug tassels were uniform like she had used a spirit level to get them all exactly the same, we weren’t even allowed to use the toilet until the whole house was clean at the same time, it was all a bit nuts and over the top but it was also nice seeing my family and the place I lived in being so smart and clean.
but like the rest of my family Tammy enjoyed a drink, I’m not saying that’s wrong or she shouldn’t because I was a child and she was the adult, but when she did have a drink the flat became a different place it got messy with cans of lager and ash everywhere, the stereo would go on as loud as it would go and the sound of Dionne Warwick, john holt or carpenters would be broadcast as if we were in an open air concert.
this would happen every now and then and I remember hating every single song that she played as a kid but I shall have to come clean now because two of my favorite albums are john holt 1000 volts of holt and everything by the carpenters, is that irony or is it like when people get kidnapped and end up falling for the person who has imprisoned them? You decide.
During my time at my aunts we were taken to her boyfriends mums chalet in Leysdown which was a treat for me a taste of normal life as part of a family which was a very warm feeling indeed, the place seemed massive there were caravan parks and chalets which seemed to stretched as far as my little eyes could see, they had a club house and a beach and my personal favorite arcades, we must of gone there a few times because I remember being quite familiar with it, I recently went back there when I was working in Margate to look around and the place has not changed a bit it was like the land that time had forgotten, but it all seemed a very small place now, I wouldn’t book a holiday there now if you catch my drift with outside toilets and showers, that really isn’t the one.
Back on the Stockwell park estate I had made quite a lot of friends, race didn’t really come into who your friends were or who you hung around with, we were all poor and we all lived in the same place so nobody was really any better off to be bragging unless you had a mum and dad who were still together, then you were just weird. I loved the summer holidays on the estate as there was always plenty to do, me and Jamie were like brothers and we would have loads of adventures, like sometimes for no reason at all we would walk in the duck pond with our clothes on because it seemed like a good idea, we didn’t really go too far because the estate was huge and the fear of getting murdered in some dark stairwell didn’t appeal to either of us, we knew when it was time to go home for dinner when we could hear the Tammy shouting at the top of her voice J-A-M-I-EEEEE D-A-N-N-YYYYYY, even if we were our of ear shot someone would see us and say “you two better go your mums been calling you” so off we would go safe in the knowledge that dinner was ready and everything was right with the world, other than the fact we used to have to go to bed when crossroads would come on the TV now crossroads was on at 6pm and it was still light outside, we never understood why we had to go to bed when it was still day light outside, it didn’t help that there were all out friends playing football on the grass downstairs from our bedroom window, it seemed like torture at the time but I guess it was so was part of a routine that we had to live with to grow up to be sound individuals.
Whilst on the estate I met a boy called Richard whose Nan lived on the block next to us I remember being out playing one day when he said “do u want to stay over at mine tonight?” with the rest of my mates being behind him I looked at them and they were signaling me to not do it, but I was already turning out to be quite stubborn so I quickly agreed, it would make a change from waking up with wet feet I remember thinking at the time. When we got to Richards house I noticed his mum wasn’t there so I asked what was for dinner, he went to the fridge and opened the freezer and produced a tub of ice cream.
now I was used to egg chips and beans, I was starting top feel out of my comfort zone as I soon noticed a whole army of ants crawling in and out of his fridge, then I wondered if it was going to get any worse before noticing a double bed sat in front of the TV, I became itchy just looking at this mess of a place I was going to have to sleep in, I should of gone home straight away and who would of blamed me, but Richard suggested that we go out and play, so that’s what we did, spending the whole night roaming the streets like tramps, but it was better than ant boys house with his creepy bed, the moral of that story is check where your friends live before you agree to sleep over.
Finally my mum was out of prison again and it was decided again not by me but we would try to find a place to live of our own, my mum went to the council but didn’t get any joy, then a friend of Tammy’s “Richard the ant boys mum Tina” was offered a two bedroom house in Peckham that was unsuitable for her and her ant family, so it was suggested by someone that me and my mum squat in the house.
We or rather I didn’t see Chris ever again, years later on Christmas day in a bout of depression he walked into Peckham police station and confessed to all his crimes but they didn’t take him seriously and sent him away so he then walked to another police station I believe it was somewhere in Tulse hill, they listened more carefully and arrested him and he was sent to prison, he will be out now but I couldn’t say I would recognize him now, I have seen a man around Peckham who looks quite a bit like him but never had the courage to ask him just in case it is him, I wouldn’t know how to act, do I hit him or just ask him what he was playing at? I would be opening feelings that I don’t need to open so for now, so Chris is out of my mind and defiantly out of my life.
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