Actually, it was one night in late October but hey, who’s being pedantic when it’s nearly Christmas!

The night in question was quite a warm October night and I had just finished work for the day. The bus stop was and still is a 2 minute stroll from the doors of the property where I walk.

I walked out of the door, crossed the road and lit a cigarette and hadn’t meandered 200 yards when I heard the soft yet troubled murmurings of a male voice pleading “Help me, I’m stuck”! I looked around and heard the words repeated again and again “Help me, I’m stuck”!

The voice was subdued and helpless, in fact, it was so haunting that I immediately thought it was children fart arseing around behind the bushes near the bus stop.

However, the voice became slightly louder, so being the inquisitive type and fancying myself as Sherlock Holmes, I followed my ears and went to investigate. I walked across the road in the direction of this phantom voice, tiptoeing like Fred Flintstone around the houses, flats and bungalows, all the time guided by “Help me, I’m stuck”! which, by the way, had become more urgent.

I looked wherever I could get access to, but I couldn’t find the owner of the voice. As I walked around the front of a block of 2 storey flats a guy came around the corner walking his pooch. He looked at me and said. “Can you hear what I hear”? I nodded in acknowledgement as “Help me, I’m stuck ” met our combined ears.

So this guy with his dog joined me in the search. We looked for a few minutes without discovering the owner of the voice until the voice suddenly stopped!

The guy with the dog said “Well, must get on” and walked off into the distance, leaving me still snooping around. Then I saw the headlights of the bus coming around the corner of the street. I listened intently for the voice once more before running for my bus.

The moral of the true story, schizophrenic people are not the only people who hear voices that have no immediately obvious source.

Consequently, I listened to the local radio for a couple of days after the incident just in case anything came to light, but nothing ever did. I often wonder who it was and what happened to him. Guess I’ll never know.

So, just to clarify, I’m not a chef, not by any stretch of the most imaginative person. However, I’ve watched many people cook lots of different dishes on TV’s Masterchef over the years and it doesn’t look that difficult!!!

The first time I ever watched anyone cook anything was when my dearly departed mum who, god bless her, cremated Breast of Lamb with homemade chips for Saturday tea. The chips breaststroked in the grease running from the lamb and to this day I still don’t understand how I survived it because it was a regular Saturday thing. That was when I first realised cooking wasn’t for me, it just looked to technical!!

After that I watched many different cooks on the TV making it look easy and pretty and appetising.

Then, many years later I saw a painfully skinny guy appearing on Big Brother with a very colourful personality but with no apparent intellect, tackling the art of cooking. When I say ‘Cooking ‘ I actually mean boiling an egg, and whilst he boiled the egg he was skipping around the kitchen singing to himself these words. “I’m boiling an egg for the very first time, ahh ooooooo ahh oooooo”. After considering what an idiot he looked, I realised I hadn’t boiled many eggs over the course of my life, so maybe it was a genuine milestone for him!

Now, I can boil an egg, cook a lasagna, make a damn good fry up and cook a full roast dinner for several people.

So I’m considering my options. Should I carry on with what I’m doing, which is caring and supporting people with severe learning disabilities whilst writing every now and then for pocket money, or audition for Masterchef and show those professional chefs and aspiring contestants who the daddy of the boiled egg really is ?!?!

Apologies for this random post, I’m working a night shift and thankfully, it’s a fairly quiet one so far.

In fact, I have time so I’m going to boil the perfect egg.

I have written about destiny many times on WordPress, or more accurately, about the personal life paths of every person on earth being preordained. Now, I know that’s a fairly Contentious idea or belief, but I don’t care because that’s what I believe.

Here’s my take on life as we know it Jim! The whole of the planet and all things living on it are going through continuous change, and nothing anybody or anything does can stop that change. The strange thing is, very few, if anyone, actually notices the changes they are constantly going through, probably because change is so subtle over time. So, everything changes even though we don’t see it. Agreed? Ok, good.

The human body initially changes from the inside (Basic biology) which, by a chain reaction, changes how the outside world sees us as individuals, in how we look and how our personalities change. So, every cell, every atom that makes up the human body is in constant, irreversible change, which means nothing stands still or remains exactly the same. That uncontrollable fact also shows in our everyday life. We change jobs, work with different people, learn new things, have new experiences and develop different opinions and learn to do things differently. All these little increments often go unnoticed by the person going through this change and often go unnoticed by the people who blindly witness these changes.

However, when some people actually notice the change they are going through, it affects them in a variety of ways, and I think, the worst possible reaction we have as human beings to change is the knee-jerk, natural reaction to resist change. However, resisting change is futile and can only lead a person to suffer in a multitude of ways. Depression, anxiety, sleeping problems and even behaviour problems can result from resisting change. In my opinion, the main reason we all resist change during our life is the fact that the majority of us are romanced by nostalgia. We want things to stay the same because we feel safe, we only remember the good times, or we only remember the good times fondly. We feel comfortable in the past. If we were only strong enough or confident enough to embrace change and accept “Whatever will be, will be” (Doris Day, I think) then actually understanding and accepting that non of us can stop change, the unstoppable deviations that life brings could probably, if given the chance,  be pleasant, if not beautiful.

The majority of us like the many surprises that life brings, even if those surprised bring with it a sense of shock, euphoria or sometimes, sadness, but that is how we grow, through life experience and change. When I left my previous job working in a bakery (See Gunstones) I had very mixed feelings. I couldn’t wait to leave the job because it was monotonous, hum drum and at times very soul destroying. However, I worked with the craziest bunch of great, hilarious, compassionate, thoughtful, genuine people it has ever been my pleasure to work with. But, things change, people move on, even when they don’t want to, but, as the old crooner Frank said “That’s life”. So, I accepted change, and with that change came a whole new crazy, at times surreal experience that I am still working through now. However, I guess I am one of the very lucky ones who can accept change, embrace those very funny changes every day and still look back on my crazy, funny times at Gunstones with a fond sense of nostalgia.

After accepting life is an ever changing life and that it changes every second of every day, I can honestly say I am now content to look back in a nostalgic way and remember it with a smile on my face. It’s the highs in life that we all tend to remember and look back on for comfort and inspiration, yet it is often the low points during our life that shape how we change and who we become. I stepped into the unknown when I left the bakery because the security of my life there made me comfortable. I didn’t want to step back out into the unknown because I was afraid of change. I can say, hand on heart, that I am not afraid of facing the many changes life will inevitably bring because I know change can be scary, hilarious and rewarding.

Those with a nervous or delicate disposition may want to skip this post.

What I am about to confess is perhaps not the best thing to write about but sometimes it can be liberating to push the boundaries and I guess it could be taken as a warning for anybody with a similar sense of ‘Adventure’ as me, but let’s hope not because there can’t be many places left in hell!

Some of you may think it’s a little far fetched and a fabrication of what actually happened, but take my word for it, everything you are about to read is the truth, the whole truth and unfortunately, nothing but, and it all started whilst I worked at Gunstones Bakery. (Not that I’m blaming Gunstones)

I’ll start from the beginning. I worked at “Gunnies ” for nearly 4 and a half years, with 4 of those ‘Magical ‘ years working constant nights. During those 4 years of existing like a Vampire, I was always tired, drained, lacklustre and pale, you get the message! Nearly everyone who worked the night shift were virtually lifeless on their 2 days off at the ‘Weekend’ and I was no different.

As you can imagine, the constant tiredness had a domino effect on what remained of every aspect of life, even the little R&R at the weekend was tiring. One of the blessed R&R’s that suffered the most in my life was my libido; sexual activity was virtually non existent. A cruel twist of fate (Or stupidity) on a personal level was that when he decided to stand to attention, he was alone with nowhere to hide because everyone was at work, if you get my meaning?! Frustration or/and non performance had never really been something that applied to my sex life, but working nights had confused him and he had developed his own ideas of when to wake up and rise to the occasion, which was as rare as steppingin dinosaur shit. He had a stubborn mind of his own and I believe if he’d been able to detach himself from me and live his own life he would have worn a hard hat and been a useless, non compliant union rep, the type who never got the job done. Anyway, on the days that he did find a lease of life, he wouldn’t stand up for long, which made the situation even worse. Now this is where it gets embarrassing yet strangely funny. One mid-week afternoon in the middle of 2016, I was going through the ‘Can’t sleep’ routine again, for the 400th time! I decided to crawl out of bed and go downstairs to make myself a cup of tea, smoke a cigarette on the garden and feel sorry for myself. However, he decided to spring a surprise on me. Whilst I was standing at the kitchen sink, filling the kettle, he became swollen and eager! I couldn’t believe my luck, so very urgently, I tried my very best to help him out a little, but he had other piss-taking ideas, and slowly but surely started to deflate! I’d had enough of his sadistic sense of humour and came up with an instantaneous, genius plan to force him to stay awake. I would apply something to stimulate him so he had no choice but to remain inflated so we could finish the job together. I quickly stumbled and searched through the food cupboards to find something to rub into his rapidly deflating body, and put my hands on a sauce bottle with ‘Jalapeno’ printed on it in big red letters. I thought what the hell, I didn’t have time to deliberate on my choices, anyway, I couldn’t do any harm!!! So, I poured a dollop on-top of him and started to rub like a demented rabbit on speed! Let me tell you, for the first 30 seconds the sensation was electric and I thought to myself, what a great idea. However, on the 31st second mark, the burn took over, the pain became unbearable and I thought, what a f%^$ng stupid idea. In a panic and squinting through watering eyes, I ran through the house, up the stairs, and put my blistering chap under the cold water tap in the upstairs bathroom, with the window open wide so I could catch the breeze whilst looking out over the garden. The feeling of very cold water cooling him down was euphoric!! I stood there for about 10 minutes of sheer bliss. I looked down at him, he looked limply at me, and we were happy.

However, over the course of several months, he developed a dry, irritating patch just below the German helmet, a dry patch that would occasionally bleed if I didn’t constantly treat it with a moisturising cream. After a few weeks the bleeding stopped, but a white patch had developed where the dry patch had been, and this white patch had shrunk the skin around it which in turn caused a thin white ring to appear around the circumference. He was being strangled! As time went by, the white ring became whiter and more prominent and very, very, very tight. About a year after the white patch had first appeared, I plucked the courage up to visit the doctor and show him my party piece.

The doctor was so fascinated with the condition that he actually asked me if he could call another doctor to come into the room and take a look at it. So, there was I, standing red faced with trousers around my ankles whilst two doctors gazed on my anomaly like two adventurers who had discovered Atlantis! After two weeks of applying steroid cream with no improvement, I was referred to hospital to see a specialist, who took one look and decided then and there that what was needed was a circumcision!!! I’ll leave the rest of this true tale for another time, but thinking back, I wonder if I could sue the bakery because if it hadn’t been for working constant nights and therefore, constant tiredness, I wouldn’t have felt the need to try Jalapeno sauce as a lubricant to keep my pecker pecking!

When the sandwich lines finally closed down and stopped producing, everyone was shunted over to the last remaining line that was working in High Risk, the living nightmare that was Sushiiiiiiii !!! Muahahahaha

I thought that the workers were tightly packed on the sandwich lines until I looked over and saw hundreds of people standing sideways, forced to bump groins whilst raised on platforms attempting to keep up with a product that passed them by at warp factor 1 !! Actually, there was around 20 people but it looked like a hundred rapidly moving arms, moving like Bruce Lee on speed. I kid you not when I say I was dreading it, the actual thought of being squashed like a sardine whilst trying to place a piece of sushi into a warp speed, passing tray was a prospect I wasn’t looking forward to!

The mostly short, Ewok creatures (Joking) machine-like people who worked on there were very nice, friendly and surprisingly , they actually found time to talk whilst they were whipped into going faster. Whenever I tried to talk to someone, half a dozen trays would fly past me in the blink of an eye, untouched by the piece of Sushi I was supposed to be putting in them! So, the people or person who was standing directly to my right, the one who’s turn it was to put their item into the tray were forced to put mine in as well, which believe me, didn’t go down to well with the poor man/woman, especially when it made me laugh! I have to be honest, when I was ordered (Hilton)  to go on Sushi during the few weeks after I started, I didn’t like the look of it, so I made sure I was absolutely useless as it. I remember telling Joe and Brian that I messed up on purpose just so they wouldn’t order me (Hilton) to go on there again. For the most part it worked. However, when I had to go back on there over the last few months on nights, I discovered that I WAS actually rubbish at it, so It turns out I needn’t have pretended 4 years ago! Anyway, all my friends joined me on the Sushi Line and Matt and Chris were given the job of running an adjacent sushi line to speed up production and eventually, Matt’s line was full up with almost all of the workers from the sandwich line.

The first two of my friends, who came over to sushi with the rest of us, who I haven’t mentioned yet were untraditional and legendary (Idle) in that they never seemed to do much yet unbelievably, got away with it. Jimmy was small, slim and very quick at what he was doing, when he could be bothered to do anything. On the very rare occasions that he did do something, he either complained all of the time, or claimed he needed the toilet (Which he didn’t) We all knew he was sneaking out to the smoke shelter because when he finally came back (We were all given 5 or 6 minutes for toilet breaks: Jimmy took 15 or 20, known as Jimmy time) he  reeked of tobacco. When he was challenged about his phantom toilet breaks, he more often than not threw his dummy out of the pram, stamped his feet and begged Matt or Chris to move him to another part of the line so we couldn’t question or tease him, and the smell of tobacco would follow him like a skunk leaving an odorous trail. Alongside Jimmy’s legendary status, (complimenting Jimmy like Champagne and strawberries) lurked a man in the shadows, a man who made James Bond seem unsophisticated. His name was Art and if there had been a University degree on how to look busy whilst doing nothing, Art would have been the professor! Art was brilliant and ingenious. His job was servicing the lines, but he was always missing in action, pretending to do something that he shouldn’t have been doing! (Like fixing a machine that wasn’t broken) We would often hear his name being called above the din of the machinery because an ingredient was running out (Again) but he couldn’t be found, and when he was located he was more often than not using his silver tongue on one of the European ladies who populated the sandwich and Sushi lines.  Art’s big bright smile lit up any situation, whereas Jimmy’s grimace meant he was about to complain (Again) They were fantastic. I remember once they were both given the job of working together on a machine that made rice blocks and they both argued with each other about the best way to do it, in fact they argued that much that at one point the sushi lines stopped because they had run out of rice blocks. Legends.

On the wrapping machinery on sushi and the sandwich lines we had two other legends. Big Scott (Yeti) and Derek (Del) boy, the love machine from Granada. Scott was excellent at manipulating the machine, he hardly ever put one of his big feet wrong, but Del thought the machine was temperamental, and rarely got it right. (Sorry Del) they worked well together and were always laughing and joking between themselves. One of the managers, well, maybe 2 or 3 of them, liked to blame Del for the machine not working properly, but Del always had his say and generally shrugged their criticisms off in his own laid back, very cool way. Whenever I asked Scott what the problem was when production stopped, he always answered ‘Derek’, and Del would always extend the middle finger in his direction.

Apparently, the Sushi line was the brain child of a guy who actually ran the line for years, Ben. If that was true then he must have made the factory hundreds of thousands in profit over several years. Ben ran the line like Guardiola runs a football team, efficient and accurate. On the days when Ben didn’t work, one of his prodigies ran the line. His name, Danny, his strategy, not giving a f:!!k whilst looking like he did give a f;(“k. Genius. Danny was a great chap, always smiling, always talking and the women loved him. In fact, one of the women did actually fall for him and now, I think they have a child together and I believe they’re very happy. There are several other characters who I haven’t mentioned yet, like Peter, Ladders, Yannis, Brett, Magdalena, Dominica, Armstrong Muela and Ronald. The sushi line had quite a few characters as well, but I’ll leave that for another day.

The last 6 to 12 months were  difficult, a little sad but very funny. They were difficult and sad because we all knew that the end of the line was coming, we could see a light at the end of the tunnel but it wasn’t as bright as we wanted it to be, because reaching the light would mean we would eventually split up and go in different directions. Over those last few months, the factory floor in the high-risk department went from about 8 or 9 working lines of between 12 to 24 workers on each line to just 3 lines, but more often 2 lines working through the night. It was rapidly becoming a ghost town. The last sandwich line to finish producing was line 6 and Matt had the privilege of running it. As I mentioned before, Matt was/is a large jovial guy with a heart of gold, never rushed things but always got the job done, which made him popular as a line manager (People preferred working on the line he was running)  Matt got along with almost everybody, but especially got along with Marshy because their sense of humour was very similar, they were both laid back but most importantly, they had the same taste in music (Smiths, Wedding Present, 80s music in general) As I recall, the last sandwiches we produced were for a famous airline or/and a leading supermarket chain (I think!) but I won’t mention their names. There was all manner of fillings that were placed in the ‘Cobs’ ‘Baps’ ‘Rolls’ ‘Buns’ (Nobody could agree on the proper name for the small round ‘Cobs’) that travelled down the line at a fair old speed.

Working in very close proximity to someone means you have the chance to get to know someone personally if you want to, and we wanted to because standing amongst a long line of people, often shoulder to shoulder was difficult and awkward. The incessant repetition of the job you were doing meant monotony and mind numbing boredom! So we had to talk to maintain sanity, and talk we did. Matt would walk up and down the line to either help with production or just stop and chat to keep his sanity. Marshy would work anywhere on the line wherever he was needed and when Matt wasn’t there to test his knowledge with opportune 80s music questions, Marshy would keep himself relatively sane by occasionally singing out a few words of a football song to elicit a response from whoever wanted to respond. One of Marshy’s favourites was “Guess who’s been on match of the day?” More often than not, Joe would reply “You have, in ya big shorts”, which always made me laugh and join in, which in turn made other people smile, but unable to join in because of the language barrier. I always tried to stand next to Joe on the line because we would talk entertaining rubbish to each other in an attempt to make the time pass quickly. (At Christmas we would sing Fairytale Of New York together) During those last few months of Line 6, Karen worked on the line with us on a regular basis because quite a few people had already left and the need for ad-min was not as urgent as it was when we were busy. Karen would position herself very close to myself and Joe because we usually guaranteed a laugh through the night. We would play ‘Games’ between the three of us to pass the time and our favourite game was ‘Would you rather’. For those who aren’t familiar with this game, ‘Would you rather’ was a game that offered the person you were playing against a hypothetical choice between preferring to do one disgusting thing as opposed to doing another alternative but equally disgusting thing! As I remember, we more often than not ‘singled out’ the same two people to use hypothetically in our sick and twisted minds. (That’s right, the monotony of repeating the same action over and over and over again destabilised our minds) I won’t mention their names (Obviously) but one of the people we always chose, came across as, how can I put it. missing a pickle from their pickle tray. I don’t want to be disrespectful (Ha) but I believe dental hygiene was not at the top of this person’s priorities because it looked like he/she was saving yesterdays pizza for tomorrows supper on their teeth!! The other person was a little unhygienic (Sorry) as indicated by the green cloud that escaped their white coat when he/she occasionally moved!! Anyway, one of the questions was “Would you rather eat pizza off ……… teeth and go in for a French kiss or lick the pungent armpits or bum crack of …….. and chew their hairs? Disgusting I know, but it passed the time and made us laugh, and they never knew, which was a very good thing!

Two of the people who worked on the line were/are man and wife, he was very large, powerful and jolly and his wife spoke better English then he did. His name was/is Marian and his wife was/is Claudia and they were very hard workers who originally came from Romania. At times it was very difficult to understand what they were trying to say but they always managed to put their point across somehow. At one point, on one of the many occasions that I was trying to decipher what they were saying, Claudia, quick as a flash said “You understand English”? We laughed at the irony of her question, they were a lovely couple. Another of their compatriots worked there, on the same line, but for some reason they didn’t seem to like him! His name was Prodan and he once explained to me that he had studied in a rural Indian monastery and had become a lethal fighting machine. (Ummmm) He was a very strange, quirky, unusual, mixed-up character, who spoke very good English and had an air of ‘I’m the boss’ about him. To be fair to Prodan, he was very good at the different jobs he was given and actually informed me that he was the ‘Best’ at whatever he did (Haha…He really believed he was the best) and he absolutely revelled in his triumph of becoming a member of the quality control team, in fact he confided in me that things would change for the better now he had the authority to stop production if he wasn’t happy with the quality. (By the way, he didn’t change anything) Before he was ‘Promoted’ to the heady heights of quality control, he worked on the line with us and seemed to take an uncomfortable shine to me!! Someone (I know who you are) had unfortunately told him that I wrote academic essays in my spare time and so decided then and there that I could and would become his mentor as a writer. (I didn’t) Prodan would seek me out at every opportunity, asking me questions, giving me his life story and laughing at almost everything I said (Even when it wasn’t funny) Marian watched Prodan whenever he approached me and always took the opportunity to inform me Prodan liked me, moving his big index finger in and out of circled fingers (If you know what I mean) which made us laugh and was the cause of Marian eventually calling me Freddie Mercury, which made me laugh even more.

Anyway, Prodan asked me to write a small children’s book on his behalf so he could put it up for sale on Amazon, and after much consideration and attempts of avoidance, I agreed to write it for him. I eventually E-mailed him the finished product and when he came to work the following night he was gushing with so much enthusiasm I half expected foam to come out of his ears. However, after a few days had passed he told me that he wanted to change a few things in the ‘Book’ because he wanted it to transmit a religious message to the children, who were his intended audience.  A few weeks later he E-mailed me the result of his ‘Editing’ and I read it before I returned to work the following night. When I came face to face with him, Prodan asked me what I thought of the ‘Book’? I looked him square in the eye and as gently as I could, used the word ‘Shit’ which visibly upset him.  He used the word ‘Mate’ frequently, and said “Mate, you don’t like it”? I left him in no doubt that I didn’t and when he told me he was going to write a short dedication to me in the forward, I insisted he could not, under any circumstance, mention my name in the ‘Book’ because he had completely re-written it and it was all his own work. I think he was insulted because nearly 2 weeks passed without Prodan talking to me (Phewwww) However, Prodan came back to me with a beaming vengeance and proudly handed me a copy of his first ‘Book’, which he had signed “To my special friend, John”. I took it home and read out a few lines to my wife and daughter, who, judging by their collective reactions, thought it was a comedy! Despite Prodan’s obvious problems, I believe he was a genuinely nice chap, but since leaving ‘Gunnies’ I haven’t heard anything from him.  However, I hope he’s in a good place (Hopefully not an asylum) All of these shenanigans took place whilst production carried on, which was/is a testament to the skill, expertise and dedication of all the people who worked on the line. In the next post I will remember Del boy, Scott (Yeti) Jimmy and Art and a few other characters who I can’t forget.

One of the unparalleled aspects of working at ‘Gunnies’ was the absolute diversity of the place. I don’t just mean the multitude of nationalities, I also mean the colourful, larger than life personalities, the people who always smiled, the different attitudes to work and the spirited determination displayed by so many. The workplace employed over a thousand people, all  from different backgrounds and countries around the globe. The working population were split into several groups, separated by the colour of their hairnets. Red indicated management or people who were selected to be leaders of different departments or production lines. Yellow or orange (I can’t remember) were quality control and the blue hairnet denoted cannon fodder (Send him/her over the top, their replaceable), which I was one of. In reality, and in my humble opinion, many of the blue ‘Hats’ knew more and were better at working out a problem than some of the red hats. For instance, on my very first night, I was paired with a young chap called Joe, a large, intelligent, instantly likeable and popular bloke who knew the machine he was working on better than most of the engineers. Joe taught me the finer points of the automatic slicing machine, but with a sense of humour and a big bright smile that indicated to me that he thought I wouldn’t last the week (Neither did I) I remember during the first few weeks of getting trained up by Joe that I learnt how to operate the machine slowly but surely. We would go on our breaks together and we both smoked marijuana (Joke). We both went down to the smoke shelter together and shared cigarettes when the other one didn’t have any. Joe’s aunty Karen also worked there, but mostly as admin. Karen was a lovely woman who car-shared with Joe and was always ready for a laugh with a naughty smile.

One night, not 3 weeks into starting work there, one of my shoes went missing, that’s right, just ONE ! Obviously, someone was messing about. It was 6.am in the morning, at the end of the night shift, and I couldn’t find one of my shoes. (I did’t find it funny because I was tired, there was snow on the ground and some idiot thought is was funny to  take one shoe) At the time I didn’t own a car, so I was constantly catching the bus to and from work. There was I, with one shoe on and one shoe off, with no choice but to wrap a plastic bag around my shoeless foot and hope my toes didn’t fall off with frostbite! However, my friend Joe offered to give me a lift home, which considering he lived in Barnsley, miles and miles in the opposite direction, was very kind of him. So, give me a lift he did, and when I walked into my house, my very understanding wife asked me where my other trainer was but obviously wanted to laugh at the plastic covered foot. I was and always will appreciate the lift Joe and Karen gave me that night, It illustrated to me what kind, genuine people they were and still are. Joe’s best friend at work was Brian, who had taught Joe how to work the slicing machine. He was very funny and full of hilarious, sarcastic one-liners. He would take the ‘mick’ out of everyone but was very good at his job, very popular and liked a beer or three. In fact, and this is very random, I noticed the outline of his trouser monster once whilst we were in the canteen (No wonder he was popular) The line leaders, wearing red hats were all shapes, sizes and genders. On line one was Junior, a bronzed Brazilian who seemed to be in direct competition with Adam, who ran line six, the golden boy of Gunnies (Sorry Adam). Junior had a voice that was so deep that at first I thought he was talking like that to impress the ladies, but in fact it was his natural voice. Adam was very efficient and always hit and surpassed the numbers they expected of him. He was and is a lovely chap, and is now living his dream over in New Zealand with his soon to be wife (I think) and 2 or 3 children (I can’t remember how many) Scott was Adams servicer, and Scott was one of the most knowledgeable people I have every known. He was very quick at his job and everybody liked him because of his zany, infectious sense of humour.  Tom took over from Junior after he left to go back home to Brazil with his wife. Tom was a tall, good looking chap with a cheeky, mischievous sense of humour but (Sorry Tommy baby) wasn’t the greatest at running the line! In fact, even before he started running the line, when he was servicing for Junior, he wasn’t the best! (Sorry again) However, Tom was understanding! I say that because of the innocent mistake I made when I was asked to clean line one down after they had finished producing on it for the night. They had large metal receptacles, dispensers shaped like upside-down cones that held egg mayonnaise. During the process of cleaning the line down I unfortunately threw not one but two buckets of cleaning fluid into the dispenser, believing and trusting that it had been emptied by Tom before I started cleaning things down! I looked into the dispenser to check that it was clean and was met by the sight of 4 kilos of egg floating in cleaning liquid. I called Tom over to the line and invited him to look inside the dispenser, which he did! The expression on his face was very comical. He looked at me with a look of confusion and said “F*”k” followed by “Why?” I explained the situation to him whilst I let out a few giggles and watched him go over and tell Junior what had happened.  I watched Junior take in the information from Tom, who was smiling. Junior looked at me like I was an alien, shake his head and say something to Tom, who then walked back over to me and asked me to get rid of the evidence without being seen! In my defence, Tom should have emptied the bloody thing before I had started to clean the line down. 

Then there was a little red netted guy from Morocco or Algeria (Can’t remember) and not to put to fine a point on it, he was regarded as a ‘bell-end’ who couldn’t be trusted. (In my personal experience, the popular opinion was right!) Then there was the Polish or Lithuanian (Again, I can’t remember) Amazonian warrior  princess Zeena, who would often be heard shouting across the factory floor “Where’s by fu$%ng Brie?” when things weren’t going to plan.  Another little lady who was arguably louder than Zeena was Dominika, a pocket Polish dynamo, a red hat who helped to run one of the sushi lines and blessed with a voice could actually be heard in Newcastle!

Alex, another Brazilian, was I think, part of the management team who ran the department were I worked, and he was very funny. Alex’s favourite trick was to initially shake your hand but then, whilst still holding your hand, move it down to his groin to brush and press against his penis. Then there was Mick, an ex army type who acted like he was a Sargent major, shouting at almost every opportunity at the red hats who were running the lines. (Some more than others) I didn’t really get to know him but always heard him shouting at some poor victim! Then there was Hilton, affectionately known as Paris. He rubbed quite a few people up the wrong way because he wanted everything done yesterday and had a way of communicating what he wanted by almost cuddling up to you and seductively whispering into your ear in a menacing (I’m going to kill you and your family) manner. Then there was Matt, who was/is a large man with a heart of gold. Matt unfairly got it in the neck from Mick and Paris to different degrees when he first started working as a red hat. I remember after I had finished doing my job I would jump onto his line at every opportunity because I like the way he ran the line. (No shouting, no fuss, just very efficient with a sense of humour) The department manager was a lovely lady by the name of Maxine. She was very understanding and reasonable, the type of manager who was approachable and genuine. Maxine “Batted for the other side” (No offence intended) and all I can say is, lucky other side.  Last but by no means least was Marshy, a red hat who, like Alex, helped to make sure the lines were run efficiently.  Marshy (Chris) jumped on line whenever he could to help out if there wasn’t enough people to get the sandwich orders out. Marshy had/has a very sharp, clever sense of humour that endeared him to everyone on the factory floor. He was always calculated, logical and generous when he helped out on line, mixed well and was liked by everyone. Marshy got along particularly well with Joe, Brian, Matt and a guy from Pakistan called Riaz, who consistently caused Marshy to fall about laughing with his unique pronunciation of words and sense of humour. “Lady shoes” was a phrase coined by Riaz, which swept through the lines like wildfire and became a popular ‘Put-down’ or gentle insult aimed at those who Riaz knew could take a joke. Some of the very best laughs we shared on the night shift happened a during the last 6 or 12 months we worked together before most of us were made redundant, but I’ll leave those laughs for another day.

Working at Gunstones Bakery was the worst (I hated working constant nights) and the BEST (The people were fantastic) place I have EVER worked. I worked there between the years of 2012-16, four years of up and downs, but mostly ups. I remember walking down the stairs onto the factory floor on my very first night shift, fully dressed in white PPC, looking like a nuclear physicist, but feeling like Rodney’s plonker. Everyone looked the same but all different in shape, size, height and gender. My cheeky mind worked overtime and I remember thinking that the pure white smocks stretched over some of the women’s breasts looked like snow topped Himalayan mountains, some peaks bigger than others. There was also a multitude of nationalities who worked there, it was like I had started working for the United Nations, and I loved it !

There was banter galore every night over those 4 years, so many witty, intelligent, crazy, zany and gullible people that the 8, 9 and occasionally 10 hour nights flew by. There was so many fellow workers who became firm friends that it’s almost impossible to mention who they all were/are, so I’ll recount one of the very funny wind-ups that unfolded over a number of weeks with one of the workers. His name was/is Shannon, he had red rosy cheeks and the very first time I met him I could tell instantly that he was extremely gullible and innocent but also a very nice chap.

I was the one to start our first conversation, and he politely answered, innocently unaware (I wasn’t sure what I was going to say) of what I was about to unleash on him. He asked me what I had done previously as a job and quick as a flash (I don’t know why) I answered ‘Paramedic’. My reply was aided by a very straight, serious expression with a monotone voice and he looked impressed and surprised. How I didn’t grin and laugh I’ll never know. Of course I knew what he was going to ask next ! “How come your working here in a bakery”? With the most serious of expressions I told him that I wasn’t allowed to do it any-more. Shannon then asked me why, and I came up with an elaborate and the most surprising amount of bull that I even surprised myself. In my best monotone, serious, medical voice I told him I had been called to an R.T.A, and when I arrived at the scene with my colleague, we found a car wreckage and we eventually released a young woman from her car and stretchered her into the ambulance unconscious. Shannon remarked that it must have been scary. I then went on to weave the bull. I told him we had managed to stabilise the victim and that my colleague stepped outside to radio through to the hospital. So, whilst I was alone with the still unconscious and very fit young lady, I had lifted up her t-shirt to have a look at her tits. The look on Shannon’s face was priceless. He looked shocked and disgusted and there was I, trying not to fall about laughing. To my amazement I could see from his reaction that he believed every single lie that I was making up, so I upped it a notch. I went on to say that because she was still unconscious and because my colleague was still outside of the ambulance I had a quick look at her nether regions and had popped a feel. Shannon stopped doing what he was supposed to be doing and said, “Fu;:!ng hell!!” About 3 or 4 times, and I was STILL looking at him with a straight face and added that I didn’t see the harm in it, after all, she was unconscious, but that my colleague had opened the ambulance door to catch me in the act red handed.

Shannon couldn’t believe I would do something like that, but obviously believed me by his expression, his reaction and the fact that he avoided me for the rest of the night. I knew he would mention what I had told him to his friends, so I squared it with them and they played alone with the charade, which made it even funnier. Over the course of a few weeks I discovered that he was waiting for an operation on a hernia, so every chance I got, I asked him if he would like me to take a look at it because of my medical expertise. He always thanked me for the offer but without fail refused my help and then quickly walked in the opposite direction. On a few occasions, when he was late for his bus or one of his friends was having a lift off me, Shannon would accept a lift into the nearest town in my car. One particular morning, he reluctantly accepted the offer of a lift from me even though his other friends were not at work. (He probably accepted a lift because I hadn’t mentioned his hernia for a while) This is where the joke came to a head. Half way through our journey, I brought the subject of his hernia into conversation, and again offered to take a look for him. Uncomfortably, he refused, but this time, I was insistent. So I started to slow my car down, explaining that I was going to pull over to the side of the road so I could take a look and examine his hernia. His reaction was so, so funny. As I nearly brought the car to a stop, he unbuckled his seat belt with trembling hands to opened the car door, and attempted to jump out of the moving car. Through fits of uncontrollable laughter, I managed to grip his arm, which caused him to cry out “Leave me alone”! I laughed out the words “I only joking, I’m not really a paramedic”. The look of relief on his face made me laugh even more, and he called me quite a few rude words. After he had forgiven me for winding him up we became very friendly, but I never missed an opportunity to offer to look at his hernia scar after his operation.

I spent the first 5 years of my life living in a 3 storey (4 storey if you count the flooded cellar) Victorian Council House in Chesterfield Town Centre, a house that the local council very kindly bulldozed away in the mid 80s’ to make way for a brand new By-pass. (The cruel price of moving with the times) Surprisingly, even at the ripe old age of 5, I still have quite a few memories wrapped around that creaky old house. It was always dark and cold, the damp and mould decorated every wall in every room. I remember we had a piano which, looking back, was a bizarre item to own considering my family was very poor. The piano was situated in what I believe they call a parlour but what I call a front room ; ironically, I never heard any of the family play it, it was there purely for decoration, the only time I did hear sound coming from it was when my little fingers banged down on the black and white keys until I was told to “STOP” by my mother. (She seemed to say that word to me an awful lot)

My parents never had much money apart from the benefits they received from the social. I remember they were always struggling to find money to keep the house warm and their 3 children fed. (So why didn’t they sell the bloody piano?)  My father (The illusive Irish tinker) became very adept at breaking into the gas meter to relieve it of the 50 pence coins he had fed it previously so mum could use the Arger to cook on and also to enable him to scoot off to the pub, again! One of my abiding memories of that house was the smell of bread baking in the oven and my father tasting the first hot slice with pork dripping melting into it. That’s right, we ate well!

The house had 3 bedrooms, one of which was the attic that nobody ever used. It had an ancient 4 poster bed in it, fully made up but covered in dust and cobwebs. Us children were never allowed up there for some reason (It was probably condemned) but I would sneak up commando style, but only as far as the top of the staircase, to take a peek at the perfectly made up bed that was covered in a thick layer of dust with cobwebs in every corner of the room. On one particular occasion my mum, in her infinite wisdom decided to lock me in the attic room as punishment for being a naughty boy! I don’t mind admitting I was terrified and banged on the locked door screaming and crying until she let me out. I can tell you I wasn’t naughty for a long time afterwards. (But I have been since)

Actually, I remember that everybody in the family, me, my older siblings Michael and sister Catherine, mum and dad, all slept in the same bedroom in a failed attempt to keep warm (I wonder why i got into swinging!) JOKE. The bedroom was directly below the four poster in the attic and we could see the bed through the hole in the bedroom ceiling. One particular night we were woken abruptly by two pieces of the attic floor boards falling onto the edge of the bed. (I shit myself) However, my father didn’t wake up because he was snoring through one of his many drunken slumbers.

For some reason, about a year before we vacated the house, I was playing outside amongst all of the rubble, which turned out to be the back garden, when I picked a broken piece of roof slate up and preceded to push it into my right ear! Good old watchful mother !! came outside and witnessed the aftermath as blood poured out of my ear. As a result, I have been partially deaf ever since. Actually, there’s always a silver lining because it comes in handy now when I’m in bed and struggling to sleep; I turn over onto the left side of my body and I enjoy almost complete silence. (By the way, I don’t recommend pushing a roofing slate into your ear as an eventual antidote to a restless nights sleep)

On the morning we left the house, I was the last one to walk out of the front door before my father locked up for the final time. I was the last one out because I had a problem with my sisters favourite doll, the evil ‘Tiny Tears’. At least I think I must have had a problem with the doll because my very last act in the house was to sneak it away from my sisters gaze, run through the house, outside into the back ‘Rubble’, into the outside lavatory, and stuff Tiny Tears head down the u-bend. Sometimes I think about the dolls’ head being the only member of our dysfunctional family to never leave the house.

I never lived the murder of Tiny Tears down because my sister never allowed me to forget it, even right up to the point when my sister left home to live with her boyfriend when she turned 18. Ahhhh, I miss the old days, NOT!!!!