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A couple of months before I had the aforementioned operation on my spine, we, that is the family which comprises of me, the wife, the two girls Emma and Becky and the two boys Nick and Matt took a much needed family holiday to Marmaris in Turkey for two weeks. When the aeroplane touched down in Bodrum the heat encased me in a fine sheet of perspiration, despite it being about 2 in the morning. The transfer took around an hour and we finally reached the apartments where we were stopping for the holidays. The harsh, Turkish tones that assaulted our ears upon our arrival were definitely the last thing we needed to hear after an exhausting journey but a small guy with hardly any teeth led the way to our rooms. We settled in without unpacking. Myself, Angie and Becky shared one room, Nick, Matt and Emma had the other room. During that first night there was a tremendous thunder storm that constantly woke me up. Around 5 or 6am everything was silent except for one noise, an absolutely beautiful sound of what I perceived to be singing that resonated around the area where we were staying. It was actually the sound of prayers coming from a mosque which was situated about a quarter of a mile from our apartments. To this day I have never or am ever likely to hear such a haunting, angelic and beautiful sound as I heard on that morning. The next sound I heard was a gentle splashing as Becky got out of bed and went to the bathroom. ‘SPLASHING’!! I propped myself up on one arm and saw about 2 inches of water on the apartment floor. My wife sat up and said, as only she can “f*”+ng hell, were flooded”. Our apartments were on the top floor and bye the way, there were only about 4 or 5 floors to the complex and the rain had been so torrential that the whole of the top floor had ‘Collected’ the rainfall. In a short space of time we had been moved to another 2 apartments on a lower floor, but incredibly, the person who came to see the evidence actually asked us why we hadn’t told them sooner, as if by some miracle, that would have made the rain stop or have made any difference to the apartments flooding ! Anyway, the new apartments were actually better than the original ones, so the storm had actually done us a favour. During the first couple of days we really didn’t like being there. The children thought it was fantastic being in a foreign country, but myself and Angie were regretting coming to this country that harboured people who appeared to be aggressive in the way they spoke and the way they went about their everyday lives. How wrong we were! Incredibly, we met up with two of our friends who actually lived a 5 minute drive from our house in England. They, Penny and Mick, had been to Marmaris several times and ‘Showed’ us the ropes. We all spent about 3 or 4 days together which helped my wife to relax and come to like, no, love that corner of the world. During our time together we went to a traditional Turkish wedding, which was a spectacle to see in itself. Everyone, and I mean everyone who was present at the wedding pinned money to the bride’s dress, at the end of which, her dress resembled Joseph’s coat of many Turkish notes. The food that was put out during the wedding looked absolutely delicious, unfortunately we didn’t get to try much of it because a table across from ours, which was full to the rafters with German tourists, very nearly consumed the entire buffet. They were very loud and boisterous, which added to the joyous occasion but unfortunately they didn’t appear to have the ability to keep their mouths closed while they ate our share of the buffet. Now, please don’t misunderstand me, I absolutely love to mix and talk to other nationalities, but their behaviour didn’t do a great deal for the reputation of the ‘Sun lounger’ hogging German people. Anyhow, I found it very amusing and it merely added to my personal holiday experience. Those few days with Penny and Mick went by very quickly and soon, we were left to our own devices for the remainder of the holiday.
As it turned out, the second week was even better than the first, a second week that I will recount in the not to distant future. Until then, Au revoir

Now, where was I, ah yes, factory shenanigans. As I was saying, the jokes, the pranks, the tom foolery were all in the worst possible taste, but with a huge slice of humour. I had the ‘Pleasure’ of working nights for about 2 years and it was on nights that I met and worked with a man who had the unfortunate nickname ‘Chip Pan Charlie’. He was at least, and this is a conservative estimate, 25 stone, a big guy and tall with it. In retrospect, I was quite cruel, but on the first night of working with him he managed to ruffle my feathers a little bit with his attitude. I had already earned a reputation as a joker, something that he obviously knew about, because he very quietly warned me, in quite an arrogant way, that he didn’t like to play around, that he was very good at his job and that he expected me to toe the line and get on with the job without joking around. Now, I didn’t mind getting on with the job, I always did, but I took exception to his tone and decided there and then to have some fun, which turned out to be  mostly at his expense. Please understand, we had lots of laughs along the way, but sometimes, I went a little bit to far. What follows are a few examples of how far I went.
Just a quick explanation on why he came by his nickname. Charlie, despite his size, always harped on about his healthy eating habits, but on one particular occasion, his ‘Healthy’ eating nearly burnt his house down. The story goes that he was at home, frying a portion of ‘Healthy’ chips in his chip pan when his attention was taken away from the kitchen. It was while he was away from the kitchen that the chip pan caught fire. Apparently the fire brigade came to his rescue, the house survived, the chips didn’t and neither did the chip pan, hence his nickname. Anyway, as I mentioned in my previous post, we took turns to go upstairs to the canteen for drinks, which was much needed considering we worked on a furnace all night long which was very thirsty work. The stairs leading up to the canteen were in the corner of the factory. On one occasion, when it was Charlie’s turn to do the errand, I prepared my first assault. I waited at the bottom of the stairs, just around the corner, out of sight. Charlie came around the corner with a tray full of cold drinks, whistling to himself, completely oblivious to my presence. At the right moment, I jumped out behind him and slapped his back whilst shouting “Charlie” at the top of my voice. The tray went up in the air, and the drinks covered poor Charlie from head to foot. He reaction was classic comedy. He stopped dead in his tracks and tensed from the coldness of the multi coloured, sticky drinks and the fact I had frightened him half to death. Without looking back he walked back to the work station and carried on working as if nothing had happened. Unfortunately, I constantly reminded him something had happened because I couldn’t stop laughing.
Now, Charlie had a Lada, a car (By the way, the interior of his car smelt of chips) that he was intensely proud of and on a few occasions he actually picked me up on the way to work when he passed me as I was walking. On one particular night I had a grand idea, I would make a false number plate and attach it to the rear of his car, which he hopefully wouldn’t notice. Throughout the night and with great stealth, I made a false plate with hard cardboard and wrote his ‘New’ licence number, well, actually, it was a message. It read. “No Tax, No Test, F*#k you Coppers”. My plan went perfectly because he walked out to his car at the end of the night, climbed inside and drove off down the road, non the wiser to the message for the police attached to his car. He never mentioned  my joke but he knew it was me.
The last occasion I will mention was quite dangerous, and thinking back I regret doing it because it could have turned out very bad, for him and for me. My best friend, who worked on nights with me but on another furnace, brought some high strength laxative to work. His father was ill at the time and the hospital had prescribed him laxative to help his bowels move. My friend gave me what was left of the bowel mover and I put my plan into action. It was only meant to be administered in small doses every 4 hours, so I volunteered to go for the drinks on several occasions that night. After about 4 hours I had slipped the tasteless laxative into his orange juice, in fact I had emptied half of the bottle into Charlie’s drinks by about 3am, but it didn’t seem to be having the desired effect. It’s important that you understand how we actually did part of the job. The furnace was a system of deep metal buckets, big enough to carry car and commercial windscreens, all linked together and driven in a clockwise direction through a furnace that shaped the glass to the desired shape. Every time a bucket came around and rested on the floor, myself and Charlie would put fire proof gloves on, bend over the bucket together and lift the heated glass out.
By quarter past five in the morning I had emptied the entire contents of the bottle into his drinks and waited. This is how it played out. At 5.30am we put on the gloves and bent over the bucket, we took hold of the hot windscreen, but he let go of his end and stood bolt upright as if he’d received an electric shock, didn’t move for a second then threw his gloves off and ran in the direction of the toilets. We didn’t see him again until about 6 am, at which time he ran out of the toilets, straight past us, out of the main doors and into the car-park. I tell you, for a big man he sure was a fast mover. When he came back to work 2 days later he told us he had been sat on the toilet all weekend, sweating and sh*#£ing. He never found out what I had done and he actually blamed his brother-in-laws home made beer for his forced toilet marathon. I really regret playing that trick, it was immature, foolish and it could have had dire consequences, pardon the pun. I have many other stories of factory life that one day, I will share with everyone, but until then……..

A number of years ago,  I luckily found a job that was a mere 10 minute walk away from my house.  It involved working in a commercial and car windscreen producing factory that wasn’t very big but the pay was very very good for the amount of work that was required.  I made some acquaintances,  if you have read my last post you will know why I’m reluctant to call them friends.  Anyway,  some of them were,  how can I put it,  quirky,  unusual,  very funny and ideal candidates for a,  excuse my language,  ‘Piss take”.   Working in a factory setting was something alien to me so it took me a while to settle in,  but settle in with a vengeance I did,  and I discovered to my amusement but to the despair of others that I was good at teasing and  taking the ‘Michael’ out of some of the others in the factory,  but only with fun loving intentions.
The factory worked 3 shift patterns,  days,  afternoons and nights,  all of which I had the ‘pleasure’ of working.
There are a number of situations that spring to mind that were,  how can I put it,  invented and instigated by me,  the outcomes of which were funny at the time,  but in retrospect could actually have had quite serious consequences,  so for that,  I am sorry,  he says,  with a mischievous grin.
One incident I recall involved a tall,  handsome,  but painfully shy Italian guy who found it difficult to speak to women.  I decided,  in my infinitely twisted wisdom, that I should and would appoint myself ‘Cupid’ to the love life and sex life of Alessandro,  the emotionally stunted Italian stallion.
So,  picture the scene,  I know a limited amount of Italian words,  but only the very basic ones,  but this did not deter me and I had a brilliant idea!  One particular day I was causally chatting to Alex about nothing in particular when the ‘Light’ came on.  I asked him how I would say “I think I love you,  you have great tits” in Italian.  It took a while,  but after much persuasion,  Alex,  between fits of embarrassing laughter,  taught me how to say it to a fairly good standard. In fact, I could have passed as an Italian extra from The Godfather ! Now,  there was a separate room within the factory that was used by just the female workers.  It was deemed by the management that the particular type of work that happened in that room required small,  fast hands with nimble fingers.  Within that room there was an Italian woman,  whose name was Maria. Memory tells me that she ‘Wasn’t backwards at coming forwards’ if you know what I mean,  but she had a lovely welcoming personality and seemed very genuine.  When the ladies went for their lunch breaks,  toilet breaks and drinks during production,  they had to walk past my work station,  which was where I hatched my cupid plan.  Not 1 hour after persuading Alex to teach me ‘The phrase’ Maria breezed past me on the way to get drinks for the girls.  “Maria” I called,  “I have a message for you from Alex, he can’t say it to you himself,  you know how shy he is” She stopped and listened intently,  obviously completely unaware and unprepared for what was to come.  I said in a very bad “Just one Cornetto voice  “Ti amo,  avete grande tette”.  She looked at me,  turned bright crimson,  and burst into fits of laughter.  At that precise moment and with comical timing I looked up the factory floor and raised my thumb in victory,  and Alex reacted by raising his thumb back at me in complete innocence of what had just taken place.  The deed was done,  Maria looked towards the direction of the thumb and walked towards the canteen,  convinced that I was telling the truth.  10 minutes later I saw Maria approach Alex and I could almost feel the heat from his complexion as he sprayed his arms in the air like a crazy traffic policeman whilst looking at Maria,  obviously denying saying anything that I had said to her. I could see him gibbering something to her but I was relieved that she was laughing.  However,  the plan worked because they went out on a few dates after that incident and every time I saw them talking I would shout ” Ti amo”,  which made Alex turn red and Maria laugh and shake her head.
I have another ‘Stunt’ that I cooked up which involved someone else that could have had very bad consequences whilst I was working the night shift but I’ll save that for another time.

When people speak of friendship,  the majority only consider friends to be those they work with,  people they grow up with or very close family members.  In my experience true friendship is something more,  something deep,  something out of the ordinary,  something substantial,  having someone you can tell your inner most  darkest secrets to without the fear of being judged. Sometime ago I wrote my feelings down on this blog site entitled “What does friendship mean to you”? I wrote that poem after going through an experience that temporarily squashed and shattered my personality and my confidence.  Thinking back to the moment in question,  I had finished work unusually early on a Friday evening and took the opportunity to go out with my best friend for a game of snooker and a few beers. After our game we walked up into the town centre where I bumped into a couple of other friends who invited me to join them for a drink.  I don’t really remember much of what happened after joining them but here goes.  After talking to them for a while inside the pub I walked outside,  looked around the corner and saw a large group of men jumping all over my friends car which was parked just around the corner. I’m not sure if it was stupidity or bravery but I recall running down to the car and pulling a couple of them of the bonnet. It was from that point that my memory fails me and I can only give an account of what happened next from a few eye witness reports.  The two friends I had joined and a bouncer from a pub that was situated across the road informed me that I was jumped on by the group of car wrecking thugs and I almost instantaneously disappeared underneath a sea of arms and legs that were kicking,  punching and stamping me all over my head and body,  and carried on attacking me even though I was already unconscious.  I woke up two days later in a hospital bed barely able to move.  I later discovered that I had been in a coma from the time of the attack.  On the night of the attack my wife had been called away from work to be told I was in hospital.  She told me that when she arrived she had walked past someone laying on a trolley without realising that badly beaten man with a head and face swollen beyond all recognition was actually me.
I remember struggling out of the hospital bed the day after regaining consciousness and walking over to a mirror that was hanging in my hospital room and staring at myself,  unable to recognise or accept the person that was staring back. Strangely, the first thought that came to my mind was that I hadn’t brushed my teeth for days!

I can’t remember arriving back home,  but I can remember sitting on the couch for hours and days,  not saying much to anyone, not able to do much,  just lost in my thoughts of trying to remember what had happened (Feeling Sorry for myself) and wanting,  willing myself to heal quickly.  The bruising,  the cuts and the swelling eventually disappeared but I was shattered inside. It was a while before I could come to terms with my broken self and it was even longer before I could explain or express how I felt to anyone.  This is where my one true friend came to the mark.  I can’t remember going back to work but strangely,  I can recollect that nobody seemed to care what had happened to me.  I can’t remember any words of comfort or support from my so called workmates,  that is none of them except for one.  His name was Stuart and we had become really good friends over the course of a few years working together.  Over those initial years of becoming friends we had grown into the habit of relaxing on his back garden every Friday night after work,  putting the world to rights over a few well earned beers.  I’m not sure how long it was after returning to work but eventually I returned to his back garden one Friday night and poured my heart out to the one person I knew would listen. I remember explaining how I felt about myself.  My lack of self esteem had drained me of confidence,  I no longer felt like a man,  I felt like the little boy who just wanted his mum to hold him until the pain went away.  I told him everything I was feeling as a few tears fell silently down my cheeks,  and he didn’t say a word,  he just listened,  and understood. Looking back,  it was from that moment that I started the long process of healing from the inside out.
I learnt a lot from that overall experience,  the bad and the good.  Although the night of the attack was a nightmare it would have been even worse if I was able to recall every detail.  I may never have regained my confidence and self esteem. However,  I did discover who my one true friend was and I truly believe that destiny brought us together so he could help and guide me through many of the trials that life has thrown at my feet thus far.  Long may our friendship remain true and supportive.

Moving back in time, to when I was starting my learning journey at the adult education centre (GCSE) my head and emotions were well and truly in turmoil. I began the course in September 2005 and just after that my mother became very dependent on myself, my wife and my children. Just to put you in the picture, when I first began dating my eventual wife, my mother took an instant dislike to her. I think the primary reason was that my mother could probably tell that I was growing away from home and she probably thought she was being replaced by another woman. She was very bitter, which caused a gulf to open up between us. Mother’s bitterness only forced me to dig my heels in and do what I wanted to do for me, regardless of her or anyone else. To give you an idea of the things my mother did to make my life difficult I will recount a couple of incidents. The first one was childish, dangerous and comical all rolled into one. My mother took every opportunity to call Angie horrible names, which to a greater extent, Angie allowed to bounce of her without little retaliation. However, that changed one afternoon when for a reason I will never know or understand, we blatantly witnessed my mother throw a glass bottle onto our back-door step and run back towards her house. What made her actions worse was that our 3 children were forever running in and out of the back door to play on the garden. Angie understandably saw red, she pushed past me, swearing and spitting in anger. I called to my mother that “She’s  coming, and I’m not going to stop her this time”. Her door slammed shut and we heard the key turn in the lock. Angie banged on the door shouting for her to open the door, which, of course, she didn’t do. The actual sight of my mother disappearing on her broom with my girlfriend in hot pursuit is burnt into my memory because it was quite amusing. We laughed about it over the years on numerous occasions.
The other occasion that springs to mind was the Monday morning after we had got married on the Saturday. We couldn’t afford any type of honeymoon so we just went about our new married life as normal. We went to the local post office for something or other and my mother was there. She didn’t come to the wedding just because she didn’t want to and in front of everyone at the post office she shouted an obscene name at my wife. We didn’t react, we just walked away, and for a number of years after there was no contact between us, which was both a relief and a heartache.
Moving forward to when she became dependent on us, (We had made up our differences) my wife had inexplicably become the apple of my mother’s eye, mainly because she looked after her every need, which included shopping for her and bathing her. Over a few months before her demise my mother had lived with us because she had become almost entirely wheelchair bound, and on one particular weekend she became very confused and distant. We called a doctor who took one look at my mother and said immediately “How long has she been like this?” Not an hour later we drove her up to the hospital because she flatly refused to go in an ambulance. There was one hilarious incident that happened when she was admitted to hospital that still makes me smile, but it doesn’t amuse my wife. The nurses were helping my mother move her bowels behind a curtain on the ward when my mother shouted that she needed something from out of her handbag. My wife put her hand into the handbag and pulled out what appeared to be an old, dried up turd, and what was in fact, an old, dried up turd. The look on my wife’s face was priceless. Was she going to throw up? Was she going to scream? Was I going to fall on the floor with laughter?
It was such a surreal, “Carry on Nursing” moment, but it was something we kept between ourselves.
Two days later we were called to the hospital because my mother had deteriorated very quickly. When we arrived on the ward my mother was barely breathing. I sat down by her side and held her hand as my wife did the same thing on the other side of the bed. Unbelievably, she was slipping away and I, not thinking properly implored her not to leave. My wife brought me to my senses, and I quietly told my mum to go to her dad. I sobbed on her hand for a long time until I felt sure she was in her father’s arms.
The point of telling you this is that I believe destiny played a huge part in me meeting Angie simply because of, and in spite of, the heartache of the early years. My wife and my mother became great friends over the last few years of her life.

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Now, for me, studying at University for 3 years and student life was a very mixed bag of ups, downs and ups. The day of the interview 3 months previous to beginning the course should have been one of the most nerve racking experiences of my life. I’m not sure why but I was very calm, maybe it was because of my previous life experiences, maybe it was because I inadvertently took the pressure off myself because deep down, I never really believed I would be accepted into University anyway. I took the short train journey to the city where the University was with my wife by my side. I can’t remember what we talked about but it was quite relaxed. Angie held my hand as we walked up from the train station to the University entrance, and as strange as this sounds, when I walked into the atrium I felt at home. The interview itself went smoothly, I was asked questions to informally test my knowledge of Literature and History and was then asked the deal breaker, “Why do you want to study your chosen subjects, why have I chosen their University and what makes me believe I will succeed”? I guess the answers I gave must have been good enough. I remember speaking from the heart and explaining it had always been a dream I had kept to myself to one day be good enough to go to University. The lady’s name was Jill and she shook my hand and said ” Well, your dream has come true, I’d like to offer you a place, you start in September. In a state of elation I walked back to the station with my wife. I had finally made it!
During my 3 years there I met some real characters, some of them not so friendly, some of them fantastic. One fellow student sticks in my mind, primarily because of his life journey to reach University. His name was Gary, he was 10 years older than me and most of his life had been a nightmare. We became friendly because we sat next to each other during the lecturers and seminars. One afternoon we sat in one of the café’s on campus drinking coffee before a seminar when he took a box out of his bag, opened it and discreetly injected himself with insulin. I asked him about his diabetes and he told me how he had become insulin dependent. Gary told me he had been homeless for several years, living on the streets of Nottingham. I’m sure he won’t mind me telling his story, so here goes. In the space of a few weeks he had been made redundant, his wife had left him, taking their children with her and his house was repossessed. With nowhere to go and no-one to turn to he begun sleeping rough, on park benches, behind tree’s and bushes, in undergrowth, in fact anywhere he could find. He was eventually given a bed in a hostel and received a pittance from the social to help him live from day to day. As often happens in those circumstances, he spent his money on alcohol and became friendly with a group of men and women who were also dependent on alcohol. They listened to him and drank with him. Gary and his friends often found themselves victims of violence just because they were regarded as low life down and outs. It was one particular violent incident that resulted in a life change for him. Gary and one of his friends had drank copious amounts of alcohol throughout a 3 day binge, and they had both collapsed by the side of a canal which runs through Nottingham city centre. Gary told me he was drifting in and out of sleep when he felt blow after blow of fists raining down on his head and body. He caught a glimpse of his friend, who was trying in vain to defend himself. Then Gary lost consciousness for what must have been a few seconds. Gary explained to me that he remembered becoming conscious for a few seconds and watching through half closed eyes the gang of men attacking and dragging his friend underneath the bridge. Helplessly, he saw them pouring something over his friend, which he discovered later was petrol, and setting him alight. Gary woke up a few days later in hospital, where he was visited by the police who confirmed what he vaguely remembered. He confessed to me that he must have sobbed for hours.
I listened to him recount his story and I didn’t know what to say in response so I remained silent. Obviously, Gary’s journey to University had been incredibly harrowing and was a testament to his character and determination to succeed and change his life for the better. He became an inspiration to me on a personal and academic level and his knowledge and life story will remain an important part of my memory for the rest of my life.
In retrospect, I believe I was meant to meet this gentleman simply because he made me realise my life journey had been a piece of cake in comparison to his. For one of the first times in my life I felt privileged and lucky to have the opportunity to realise my dream.

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After I received my appointment to go and see the hospital consultant, I went to see him and was given a piece of news that at the time, devastated me. After the initial examination, x- rays and an MRI, I was informed that I had a couple of discs in the cervical spine area that were slowly but surely working their way through my spinal cord, which if left untreated, would potentially paralyse me. I was told I would need an operation asap and I would have to stop working immediately and I couldn’t, under any circumstances, go to the gym. I drove home from the hospital with all sorts of things racing through my mind. The ironic thing was, even though I wasn’t happy in the job I was doing, the fact that I had to stop working was a physical and psychological blow. So, I informed work of my circumstances and went on sick indefinitely, with a slim hope of returning to work as early as I could. Then, I waited. After what seemed like an eternity, I was referred to a private hospital, where I had the operation and alarmingly woke up a few hours later with very little feeling down one side of my body. It so happened that I my body had unluckily suffered an adverse reaction to the anaesthetic and I had suffered a minor stroke. It took me almost a year to recover, during which time the limp I was left with slowly dissipated. I went to work a year later and retired on the grounds of ill health. It was during this long, never-ending year that I made a choice which I believe was part of my destiny. I was severely bored so made the decision to go and enrol on a basic computer course because I knew next to nothing about how to use one and I saw working on computers as a viable way back into work. It was during the duration of the course that I received a slap in the face. The tutor told me in no uncertain terms, that my English, especially my spelling, was atrocious. This insult, though hard to take, motivated me to enrol on an English GCSE course at a local further education centre. I didn’t really give myself much chance of doing the course, never mind passing it. However, pass it I did with an A star, which in turn gave me the motivation to enrol on a collage course. The course consisted of not just English A level, but also history, maths, biology, science, creative writing and a host of other subjects. It was a 2 year course and I was only able to participate in it because my wife supported me financially and emotionally, which is something that I will remain eternally grateful for. Near the end of my first year, I was asked by the course director if I would consider editing the in-house collage newsletter throughout my second year. I was still unsure of myself but accepted with a quiet reluctance. The second year was long and arduous, made even more difficult because as the year went on, more and more students dropped out of contributing to the newsletter. However,  I persevered and almost single handedly hit deadline after deadline of publication as well as completing all of my assignments. In the end, I graduated comfortably and was then faced with a decision. To try and find work to help out with the bills or try for a place at University. I bit the bullet and plumped for University.

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It’s been a while, but here I am again. I’ve found out throughout my life that Destiny waits, well to a certain extent it does. How many times do we all want or feel the need to say something? To the people we love, admire or just want in our lives. It’s as if life, for many of us, is a long running event of procrastinations. “No, I don’t want” “Well actually, I don’t want to do that” “Yes, I would love to” “Actually, this is how I really feel”. The list for many of us is, to coin a phrase, “to infinity and beyond”. However, the real cause for concern is when we bottle up our emotions and don’t say the things we wish we had said at a previous time in the past, at a precise moment when it would have meant something. I have many memories of moments like these, when I wish I had said or done something that would have made a difference, but I didn’t. I’m not completely sure of the reasons, I just have an idea of what stopped me from doing and saying the things I wanted to say and do, was my lack of confidence, the absence of self belief that said ” I don’t really matter “.
As a boy I had a secret dream, so secret that nobody knew until now, this precise moment as I write my thoughts down for you to read. I secretly wanted to be better than I considered myself to be. Because of my young family life, which was at times, traumatic, painful, loveless, degrading and pointless, I lived my childhood devoid of confidence. The only time I really managed to escape was when I watched television, especially Mastermind or University Challenge. I know this sounds really silly, but I would mimic the answers silently to myself, at almost the same time as the contestants would give their answers on the small screen. I know it sounds crazy but I would feel as if I had answered the questions, becoming instantaneously smarter than I felt I was, which gave me a sense of worth. So, from an early age I wanted to be smart enough or deserving enough to one day, in my dreams, go to University. The thing was I didn’t go to school much (Major stumbling block) When I did I didn’t attempt to apply myself. The reasons I didn’t go were twofold. The first: I would leave the house in school uniform, with no intention of going to school, often watching men fishing or going on a trek through the woods. My mini adventures always seemed more appealing than sitting in a boring classroom. The second reason: My mother. If I had a cough, earache, toothache or anything else I could make up, would keep me off school. Actually, she would often let me have Thursdays off, primarily so I was there to carry the shopping bags home from town. My father was very rarely around, he would be either drinking alcohol, doing odd jobs for other people for a few pennies or off on one of his infamous ‘Walkabouts’ which took him away from his ‘family’ for days and weeks and sometimes moths at a time. I am still not sure if he loved any of us. In the cold light of day and taking into consideration his selfish way of life, he probably didn’t, not in the way we wanted him to anyway!
So, all of these factors were classically conducive of someone who would never live his secret dream of going to University.
Moving forwards quite a number of years, I was working for a company called RAC Auto windscreens. I had been there for 15 years and to break the monotony of factory work I worked an awful lot of steam off by going to a gym 3 or 4 times a week. My workouts were driven by an inner desire to better myself, but this time it wasn’t just fuelled by my lack of self esteem, it was fuelled by an intense desire to prove to myself I could get bigger, stronger and actually be a success at something. Without realising it I had become obsessed with body-building. Over a time period of just under 2 years I went from a 14 stone average looking guy to becoming a man who weighed in at just under 21 stone. Anyway, the point of telling you this is I felt like I had achieved something. However, one particular day it all began to go wrong. I had never been and am still not one of those people who checks himself out in the mirror, but one morning whilst I was at the gym I suddenly and inexplicably lost an awful lot of strength in my left arm. This downward spiral in strength continued for a number of weeks until one day I decided to look in the mirror to see if I could see anything that looked unusual or would give me a clue as to what the problem could be. In comparison to the right side of my upper body, the left side of my chest, shoulder and arm looked at least 2 inches smaller. Along with this very weird shrinkage, I was experiencing a lot of pain across the left side of my torso. A week later I visited the doctor who immediately referred me to the hospital for further investigation. Yet another unexpected episode in my life was about to unfold.

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