I don’t normally do this but 15 or 20 minutes after I posted my last blog I found out an old friend had passed away. R.I.P Dave Gee. God rest

When I played as a kid on the streets. I knew instinctively that I was no different to any of my friends on the outside but very different on the inside. I didn’t know why I felt that way because I couldn’t possibly have been self aware as a kid. However, I recognised that I was an individual in my own right and my friends were individuals in their own right.

Now, as I’ve nearly reached the age of 54, I find myself looking back and wondering what happened to some of my childhood friends. Did their own unique set of skills or talents bring them success and happiness? Did they have any sort of ambition? If they did, then I was never aware of what they wanted out of life.

One of the boys who played football on the streets with us moved to Canada before he was 14 with his family. Someone who I hadn’t seen for years happened to be in a shop I was walking around a few years ago and we reminisced about the ‘Old days’, of playing football in the streets and getting into innocent mischief and he informed me that Terry, the one who moved to Canada, had become a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. a Mounty. He had married a Canadian woman, bought a house and eventually fathered 2 children. I remembered what he was like before he left England and my first instinct was to say that he didn’t seem the type to become a Mounty because he was a shy and withdrawn boy, only coming out to play football occasionally and never really got involved with the other games we played. It’s great that he eventually discovered who he was after emigrating.

Then I got to thinking about the other members of our group. My best childhood friend was Tony (See Bionic Tony) and after he left I never heard from him again. I hope he’s had a spectacular life and fulfilled the potential I could sense he possessed as a teenager.

Another good friend was Banno, and he moved about a mile away with his father after his mum passed away. Banno’s father was an alcoholic and a very heavy smoker and after his father died, Banno went down the same route. I’ve seen him a few times over the years since his father passed and his mental condition has visibly slipped into a nervous, shaking hole that he obviously can’t find a way out of. I’ve invited him to my house on a few occasions and he’s accepted but I’ve seen the distant look in his eyes that told me he wouldn’t call at the house.

Another friend from our childhood ‘Gang’ drank himself into an early grave just a few years ago whilst he was in his mid forties. He was such a nice guy, always smiling and joking. He had a longtime girlfriend who also abused alcohol and sometimes I see her walking around, looking haggard and devoid of life.

Another one of the gang only ever joined us when we played cricket on the street. He always came across as far more mature than the rest of us and always did as his mother asked of him. He went into the police force at 18 and rose up the rankings to become a DCI. Every now and then i’ll see him pass by in his car and he always acknowledges me with a wave. We passed each other on foot about 10 years ago and he asked me what I was doing with my life. When I told him I was in my second year of university at the age of 44, he looked surprised and said “You see, I told you not to waste your school days”. I responded by saying “Define waste”, and we parted with laugh and a hand shake.

Another two of the boys work in the town where I live, one of them works as a daytime security guard, the other works behind a bar, pulling pints for people he grew up with. They both look physically fit but I never see them smiling with no evidence of lines around the eyes that indicate lots of laughter. I wonder if they’re happy and content on the inside!

It’s sort of strange thinking about them now because for years I never gave them much thought. I wonder if any of them think about the past as much as I do? I wonder if any of them consider the time they’ve spent on living their life’s in the way they’ve chosen, a waste? I would love to find out how they’ve spent their time as a adult.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this in one of my earlier posts but if I did, it was only a passing reference, so it deserves embellishment. It still makes me smile to myself when I think about it !

When I was in my 3rd year of university, I had the opportunity of choosing a subject that was unrelated to the degree subject, so I threw caution to the wind and chose French, mainly to break the monotony of exclusively reading the same subject over the entirety of my final year. and because I really wanted to learn how to speak and understand French.

So, French it was! Walking towards the building that languages were studied in, I tried to get into the right mindset by uttering ‘Bonjour’ to myself, swiftly followed by ‘Merci’.

I passed people in the street on my way to the building and carefully picked random individuals to say my 2 French words! I received looks of surprise, shock and a couple of ‘He must be insane ‘ expressions! I didn’t care, i accept it was practice without permission and I was verbally assaulting the ears of total strangers with my mispronunciation of the beautiful French language, but it was practice.

When I walked into the cramped classroom I looked at a woman who I presumed to be the tutor and gave her my best ‘Bonjour’. A small controlled laugh escaped her mouth, accompanied with a ‘Oh God no’! Expression and she replied with words I didn’t understand. My confused expression gave her a massive hint that I was a complete novice. That was the start of a brief but amusing relationship between an accomplished French speaking tutor and a incompetent student.

Anyway, as the weeks flew by I became slightly better but I had developed a way of speaking French in the style of Charles Asnavour, complete with a little shake of the head. I can’t remember the tutors name (Sorry Madame) But she appeared to be more than happy with my enthusiasm, which probably explained why she tolerated my way of murdering the language she obviously loved.

It came towards the end of the subject and I had been paired up with a younger woman to speak for 10 or 15 minutes entirely in French. She was far more advanced than I, so she helped me as much as she could during the weeks of practice before the exam.

The exam began very well, better than I had hoped for. We were having a conversation about staying in a coastal town in France and choosing a restaurant to eat in,  that sold seafood. We were both sat side by side, in front of separate computers, speaking into a mic with headphones on. Three quarters of the way through the exam I glanced at her and she looked so happy, literally beaming with confidence. That was the turning point! What I had learnt regarding the rest of the practised conversation escaped my panicked brain, and flew out of the open window to flutter around the city below, abandoning me at my hour of need!

I looked at my speaking partner and listened to her perfect French until it was my turn. I couldn’t remember anything! I continued to stare at her whilst she tried in vain to prompt me without talking, moving her arms around wildly in a game of French charades! Her rising panic caused me to nervously laugh and all I could think of that vaguely resembled French was Rene from the British sit-com Allo Allo. So I spoke the remaining few minutes of the exam as Rene, saying random words in a French accent with English words!!

At least my insane, desperate impression gave my partner the opportunity to complete her part of the exam! At one point the tutor passed behind our computers without looking down at us and I could see her mouth attempting to stifle a laugh.

The end of the exam finally came and my partner jumped to her feet, gripping the arms of her swivel chair with white knuckles and without saying a word, picked up her bag and walked away, her expression resembling that of a potential mass Murderer. I didn’t even get the chance to apologise. I watched her walk out of the classroom as I muttered ‘Au revoir ‘ in her direction!

Remarkably, I actually passed my exam and the whole French course and I have no idea how!

So that’s it, my total journey into learning French. So it’s au revoir from me and merci for reading.

In relation to the posts I wrote about working at Gunstones Bakery, the smoke shelter attached to the factory was a place to let the smoke blow out of the anus if anyone was having a shitty night or to swap funny stories.

The smoke shelter was built like a cage to keep the tigers from running back into the free world and there were always the same faces dotted around the cage, the smoke was often dense and the humour raw and imaginative. Some extremely intelligent individuals worked there and I guess if Brexit had been negotiated by everyone in that smoke shelter (Multiple nationalities) then there would have been no deal, but nobody would have cared or held a grudge, we’d have just smoked the shit out of it. Joe, Matt and Jimmy were mainstays, especially Jimmy, who spent most of his time smoking when he should have been working! Joe was there more often than not with his aunt Karen. Matt always assumed the same position, leaning on a waist high steel barrier, ploughing his way through 2 or 3 cigarettes, chipping in with funny quips before returning to the factory floor.

The banter was always lively and no holds barred, each foreign individual firing out a one-liner in their own pigeon English, which gave it even more of a comedic edge. Marian, a large jovial Romanian man mountain, would chip into the banter by referring to people as superheroes. He was the Hulk, then there was Batman and Spider-Man. He often referred to me as Batman or Freddie Mercury simply because I wore a moustache. Marian once or twice smuggled in a small bottle of Romanian liquor (Against company policy) he called Palinka, which he described in a funny way. He discovered myself and Joe liked Whiskey and he told us that Whiskey was for children, holding his hand to his waist, and that Palinka was for men, holding his hand above his head. We had a quick gulp on a couple of occasions and it went down the gullet like molten lava, casually stripped away the stomach lining and rushing to the head like a hungry T-Rex, feasting on our senses! A Bloody good alternative to dynamite!

We had some great laughs down there talking utter bollocks that somehow made sense to everyone there. I remember me, Joe and Karen sharing a joke about something or other and I had an itch on the back of my neck. For some reason I scratched it with the fingers that held my cigarette and burnt my neck, dropping the fag into the puddle of rain I was standing in. We laughed because I had been stupid enough to use the burning fag hand and not my free hand.

Me and Matt would torment Jimmy, joking about Jimmy’s taut little bottom and openly discussing what we would do to him sexually whilst we kept straight faces! Jimmy would always rear up and defend his Virginial bottom which just threw petrol onto the fire!

In the most genial way we took the piss and had the urine extracted which enabled all of us to bond naturally.

Great times, thanks for the memories Mr Smoke Shelter.

As a teenager (Many aeons ago) I often attempted to spark my dormant mind by reading as many books as possible, including Mayfair ( It had some good articles in it, honestly!) I would read just about anything and everything, Mills & Boon, science fiction, horror, autobiographies about Sporting icons, political giants and great actors and actresses, history books, Classics, DIY 😊, martial art instruction manuals, occult manuals, football histories and even wild and wacky self help books.

Many of those books stick in my memory, not least Dr Bruno Fursts’ infamous! Memory Aid.

Dr Bruno Furst I hear you cry, who the f£&k is/was that. Well let me tell you something, I didn’t know either but his name sounded terrifically impressive! I recall The New York Times ran a piece on Dr Furst (You see, I did my research!) I didn’t actually read the profile they printed on him, but hey, if a simple bloke like me couldn’t trust the NY Times judgement on who to run a story on, then who could I trust?!

Ok, Dr Furst was/is (Not sure if he’s passed) an absolute world leader in mnemonic knowledge !!! (Memory retention/improvement through practising memory exercises)

I worked my way through several of the techniques outlined in his book, absolutely convincing myself that with Dr Furst’s help I could and would improve my memory ten-fold. The first exercise I tried out was the art of achieving total relaxation, without which, his students would find it very difficult to improve their memories. Reading through his instructions whilst laying in bed chomping on a large chocolate and cream eclair was perhaps not the best preparation. However, like the dedicated student I pretended to be I followed his instructions word by word. I lay down flat in bed with the light off and began. I tensed my toes for 30 seconds, then curled them under, like clenching a fist. After getting excruciating cramp in my toes I managed to do the exercise and felt my feet relax. Then, I tensed both legs for 30 seconds and released. Then the buttocks, then the stomach, then the back, the same thing with the arms and hands and then finally the jaw. I was like a human jelly.

After going through all the tensing and relaxing I felt my body sink into the mattress. My god, was it actually working?! I went through this ritual every night before falling to sleep and the only product I gained from it was every time I tensed my buttocks up and then relaxed them, I farted like a trombone on acid. So, although this technique didn’t improve my memory retention, it did improve my gas expulsion.

Next exercise required me to walk to the nearest library, go inside, glance at all the books on the shelves, walk out of the library, stand and look at the library exterior and estimate the number of books in the library, go back inside the library and ask how many books they had!! Unbelievably, I actually did this, once! Apparently this technique developed the ability to guesstimate the amount of articles/items in any shop/building on the high street and would ultimately improve memory retention!! I remember the strange expression on the librarians face when I asked her how many books the library held, she must have thought I was a very special person. I’m surprised she didn’t reach for the phone and call security!! Another of the exercises was to walk into a shop, look at 10 random items, walk out of the shop and write them down on a piece of paper, go back into the shop to discover how many I was able to remember in order of my list. Eventually, after persevering for several weeks, I gave up and stored the book away for safekeeping but ironically, I could never remember where I’d put the f£&@“ng thing.

That was my journey into the science of mnemonics.

When I was a boy I was very quiet and shy, in fact I didn’t allow my personality to reveal itself for the first 10 years of my life. Thinking back, all the turmoil that was happening at home probably had an adverse affect on me. I was firmly under my shell, occasionally peeking out to see if it was safe!

So, at school, up to the age of 10, I had very few friends, very few people I could be myself around.

Most of the teachers terrified me and as a result, my learning journey suffered immensely. I fell behind in the majority of my lessons and was often thrown into the bottom class, probably because they believed I didn’t get it or they didn’t have the patience to teach me properly or more importantly, get to know me. Whatever their reasons, I tumbled into the bottom class of everything like an out of control snowball. One of the teachers in particular made me literally shake with fear. The teacher was female but her name escapes me. She stood very tall and broad for a woman, had a quadruple chin and wore large rimmed glasses on the end of her nose. She singled me out most days and made me stand by her desk and read to her whilst the rest of the class carried on with their work. My mum later discovered I had mild dyslexia.

I would very often mispronounce words whilst I was standing to attention next to her, which initially forced a laugh to escape her tight lips then she would bark the correct pronunciation in my face and made me repeat it several times until she was happy.

The tables turned one afternoon that is seared into my memory. It’s important to mention that the classroom was on a slight slope, with the teachers sitting at the bottom. My desk was situated in direct line with hers but right at the very back of the classroom, so I could plainly see the horns sticking out of her tightly pulled back hair. I was bursting to go to the toilet because I had played football over the lunch break and hadn’t given myself enough time to go. She had made me so afraid of her that my hand refused to go up to ask to be excused.

So there was nothing else to do: the floodgates opened and a very warm Hoover Dam ran down in a very straight line and accumulated around the teachers very shiny shoes. The boy say opposite me started to laugh, which made the dragon move her feet, then the ‘Splash splash’ sound that her feet made compelled her to look down and scream like a wolf on crack cocaine. I managed to stop the flow and froze in fear as she vented her fury on me. I somehow found the strength to stand up and run for the hills accompanied by the screams of the dragon and the laughter of the class.

I ran home over the park in the freezing cold, the wind partially drying my school trousers and freezing the tears that fell.

Looking back, I’m glad I pissed on her shoes, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer dragon.

That doused her fire. 😊

Quite a few years ago my best friend and I were always out around town having a drink and partying as hard as we could (Which wasn’t very hard) The two of us would hit the same pubs, sampling cider and lager alternatively as we weaved our way to the bottom of town where the Spread Eagle took pride of place. Unfortunately, it’s closed down now and boarded up, reportedly awaiting a complete revamp. It was one of the oldest pubs in the area and the history and character oozed out of the old, dark wooden walls. It was friendly, comfortable and welcoming and had an old Victorian fireplace in the ‘Best’ room, which blazed through the winter months. We loved it as did all of the other locals who walked through the doors every Friday and Saturday night without fail.

Saturday night was Karaoke night and by the time myself and Stu arrived at the pub, it was pretty full and the songs were belting out from the mic standing in the corner of the largest room. Stu started going into the Spread a few years before I did, so he knew most of the people in there.

We were usually nicely drunk when we arrived at the pub but still in control of our facilities so we were able to pass comical judgement on the singers. After weeks of trying to persuade me to have a go at this singing malarkey, I gave in to him on the condition he would sing with me. I think the first song we murdered together was the Tom Jones classic, The Green Green Grass of Home. As far as I can remember it went down quite well with the punters because we received a ripple of applause from an old couple who were sat in the corner nursing a pint of stout each.

Our new fans (The old couple) gave us the confidence to get up again and again and again, despite the bleeding eardrums of the people in the pub.

We knew the landlord and landlady from a time when they managed a previous pub in town centre so when we walked into the pub, the landlord, Derek, would wait for us to have a couple of pints before calling “Stuart and John” up to the mic to give them a song.

Eventually, we actually received a genuine round of applause and even though the locals were as drunk as us, it was nice to hear.

I remember one old lady would get up and sing her rendition of “Crazy” by Tammy Wynette and she was always warmly received. Another guy would get up and sing. Myself and Stu nicknamed him Frank and he would inevitably sing “My Way”. He was very good.

The nights we spent in the Spread Eagle are amongst some of our happiest memories as friends. Even now, which isn’t very often, when the mood takes us and the chance is there, we’ll get up on a karaoke and belt out a song for old times sake. Happy days.

The irony of the title I chose is that the Adam and Eve was a nightclub that closed down many years ago. It was a virtual den of iniquity, the inhabitants of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah would have blushed at some of the behaviour at happened at this nightclub.

The first time I stepped through the doors of the “Eve” was when I was a fresh faced 17 year old, and boy, was I in for an education. I remember vividly one of the bouncers throwing a boisterous reveller down a flight of stairs that led through the doors that partially hid the flashing, pulsing lights of the dance-floor. The bouncers name was Alan Kirby and, at the time, he was a famous name in the world of wrestling, shown live every Saturday afternoon on Yorkshire TV. I’m pretty sure the money he was paid as a professional wrestler mustn’t have been that great because he was always working the door at the night club every weekend for a few years. Unfortunately, he was was deaf and dumb but he always seemed to have a pleasant nature, apart from when trouble brewed, as the gentleman found out to his cost as he flew down the stairs, touching the bottom with a thud. Every time I watched him wrestle on a Saturday afternoon i would say to whoever was there to listen “I saw him throw somebody down the stairs in the “Eve”.

For years, I always ended my nights at the club, mainly because if you couldn’t get lucky there (Wink, wink) then there was no hope for you! That being said, on one of the last occasions I went there, I had gone out and had been drinking with a few work friends for a few hours and as usual we stumbled into the club, greeted as always, by Mr Kirby. I went straight to the bar whilst two of my friends went directly onto the dance floor to do their thing. I watched for a while as i drank my southern comfort and spotted a woman who smiled at me with definite eye contact. Like John Travolta, I sauntered onto the dance floor, making my way to the girl with the eyes when someone bumped into me with a hip and an arm. I barely had time to look who it was when the owner of the hip and arm stepped in front of me and started dancing wildly. It was a woman who I would guess was in her mid forties. She gripped my neck with her hand and pulled my head to her breasts, jiggling them like a demented snake charmer in my face. I could actually hear her laughing above the very loud music. I swivelled my head to the side and caught a glimpse of my friends pointing and laughing and simultaneously caught a glimpse of the woman with the eyes walking off the dance floor. She had obviously witnessed what had happened to me and decided to moved on.  The demented middle aged but attractive woman was oblivious to my initial intentions when I stepped onto the dance floor and continued to smother my nostrils with her ample breasts. I gave up the fight and allowed her take control of my time on the dance floor.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know that she was going to clasp my fingers between her fingers and twist my little fingers back. I presume this was her idea of foreplay, but it certainly wasn’t mine!  I think she must have seen the pain and shock  that crossed my face because she stopped her torture and in an instant, her lips were forcefully devouring  mine in an attempt to suck what life was left in my body. Then she placed both of my large hands on her bottom, wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and bit my bottom lip. I think I nearly headbutted her as the pain made my head jerk, which only seemed to amuse her as she laughed and her kisses became even more forceful. Jesus, she was going to kill me! Then, without any indication, she started to behave normally, dancing very close, hugging me and kissing me softly. We wrestled on the dance floor for quite a while, but I couldn’t escape her.

During the last dance she was very gentle with me, allowing me the opportunity to look around and see my friends who were watching intently and putting their thumbs up. When the last dance ended, all of the lights went on and she held my hand and led me out of the main doors and down the stairs. Believe it or not, this is were it gets weird.

As the fresh night air washed over my sweaty body, she turned to me, pecked my cheek with the lightest of kisses and ran across the road to a waiting car with a man in the driving seat. They both waved at me, both of them smiling as I watched them drive off. One of my friends came and stood beside me and said “I thought she was a certainty”. I looked at him, he looked at me, and we both started laughing as we walked a few steps to the burger van. We lived a few doors from each other so we walked the mile home, eating, laughing and agreeing that I had probably dodged a crazy bullet.

Happy but physically painful memories.

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My girl Millie was unbelievably affectionate and intelligent, when we walked through the door after being out for a while, she would bounce around as if she had springs in her paws, jumping up very high so I could catch her and almost nurse her like a baby. The only thing wrong with that was she couldn’t hold her bladder very well, so she would dribble a little. I found this out to my cost during a trick we discovered she could perform.

As I said, she would follow me everywhere, at one point even sitting outside the toilet door. It’s important that you know Millie could jump like a gazelle, I’m not exaggerating when I say she could leap to around 6 foot. I’m nearly 6-4 and she got into the habit of jumping on my back and clinging on as I walked around the house. One day I took it one step further and decided to walk upstairs with her on my back just to see if she’d stay there or jump off. She stayed there, hugging my back like a furry backpack, up and down the stairs we’d go with her tongue brushing my ear accompanied by her excited panting and yes, you guessed it, she dribbled a little bit. Yes, Millie had quite a character and actually pushed in between me and my wife so she could snuggle up for the night. However, she grew pretty big during her 1st year so she was relegated to the bottom of the bed and eventually her own bed by the side of ours.

She was a bundle of loving fun for years, loved playing with children and making a cheeky nuisance of herself. In 2016 she came on an adventure with me, my wife, my son and my eldest grandson for a trek over a beautiful, rural part of the Peak District. She stuck by my Grandson as he found rocks to climb over and caves to explore. The terribly smelly thing was Millie had a knack of finding Fox droppings and gleefully rolling in it. She smelt the car out all the way back home, panting away, happy as a dog in Fox shit!! So the first port of call for her was a nice clean bath, which she wasn’t fond of. It was during her bath that we noticed a lump on one of her breasts. It was to late at night to take her to the vet and she didn’t appear to be bothered by it when we touched it so we resolved to take her to the vet the first thing in the morning.

In the morning it had visibly grown in size, so off to the vet we sped. The vet said the dreaded C word and gave us options. The option we chose was for the vet to attempt to take it away through surgery. we went around the family because it was very expensive but we didn’t care, we just wanted her well. She was in the vets for 3 days, didn’t eat anything they offered her and reluctantly left her cage to relieve herself. When she saw myself and my wife walk through the door to pick her up, the happiness was tangible in her face and in her tail, which rattled an indiscriminately fast tune on the cage bars. When we arrived home with her she pulled to get into the house and gently laid on the settee. She was home.

The sad thing was that despite the suffering she went through after the operation, we couldn’t beat that bloody disease. We tried helplessly to put some of her old vitality back into her but we could see she had no fight left in her.

On the day she left us we held her together whilst the light left her eyes.

We couldn’t drive away from the vets surgery for quite a while until I could drive safely.

It still makes me feel empty when I think of that day but I also smile and remember what she gave to us as one of the family.

Still love her. Still miss her.

Millie.