Child is Father of the Man (Part 2)

So, Castle Donington 1976, a bit warm! A nice house, nice road, nice village. Big field full of cows behind, then beyond that the power station.

Then I start at Orchard County Primary School. Nice enough, can't remember much about the first couple of years apart from a paint fight with Alison Lawley. I remember another girl called Kerry Clutterbrook. I was a 'latchkey kid', walking to school and back myself, as both of my parents were at work. No problem.

 This must be where the bullying starts. Think his surname was Austin. It was the old "I'm gonna kick your head in after school". How many bloody times did I hear that? So leg it home the long way and hope noone noticed or walk in his direction and get a slap. I had a recurring dream for years (and I can still see this image so clearly) of a massive lion blocking my way at the exact spot he used to wait for me.

The other kids noticed that I was being bullied, walking miles to avoid them, or just taking the beating without defending myself and I think I was marked man from there, open season.

At this time my best friend was Andrew Weaver, lived just round the corner on Bosworth Road, on the council estate. I also hung about with David Barlow and his brother. Bruce Weston was another mate from that estate.

Can't remember exactly when it happened but I bought a poster of my favourite football team and put it on my wall. Andrew threw a lump of blue-tack at it and ripped it. "It was already like that.", he said and left. This was not long after the incident where he fed me Ex-Lax chocolate. Cheers. He beat me up on my own back doorstep.

I'll talk more about my family later but we were never a close family, but as I said earlier, I didn't know any different. If I was punished it was a smack, a belt, or the back of the hand across the face. As I say, normal to me. When he was gardening, or doing DIY, halfway up a ladder or whatever I basically had to follow him around, handing him the correct tool at the correct moment, almost having to read his mind, and I hated it. If you could shout "Screwdriver!, no! the phillips one!" at me in his voice I'm sure I would shiver.

I liked going to primary school because when I was there I was safe. Then one year I was somehow put in the year class above the one I should have been in. That was a nightmare year. They saw me coming and they were merciless. Think I blanked most of that year out because I only just remember it now. It was then that I was basically attacked during a game of British Bulldog and as a result one of my front teeth was broken. I still have an ill-fitting crown to this day that stands out a mile.

I loved playing sport, and I took up cross-country running. I was bloody good at it because I'd had plenty of practice on those long diversions to get home. Mr Dickinson was the bloke who encouraged me to take part.

My nemesis came by the name of Robert Dix. Don't think he was what you would call hard, but he obviously knew I wouldn't fight back. That little shit made my life a fucking misery. On one of my roundabout detours to get to school he came up to me, said "Have you ever seen apples this big?", while holding his hands 18inches or so apart. Now I was obviously naive (maybe still am), and you can see what's coming. "No", I said. Quickly followed by BOOM, a nice hard punch in the middle of the face. If I ever come across that piece of shit I hope I recognise him so he can get a taste of those apples.

Phew, gonna need quite a few parts to this story. Keep Smiling folks.