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.