Drowning in the Shallow End

Memoir of an Epic Obsession

By Charlie Mellor

About the Book

A darkly comic tale of obsessive infatuation, revealing the depths to which people can sink, before they realise they’re in too deep…

For years, all Charlie wanted, was to meet the alluring Pennie Fenton. Unfortunately for him, this wish came true. Following legendary encounters with fractious dwarves, false prophets and famous comedians; his captivation with the corrupting Miss Fenton develops into an overpowering obsession which sends his life spiralling out of control and jeopardises everything he holds dear. It was because of Miss Fenton that he turned his back on his wife and children, lost touch with his friends, got involved with the occult, upset members of the Greek Underworld and even volunteered one of his own fingers to be crushed by a sadistic stranger.

Before he could free himself from her curious charms, he would need to uncover her true identity and expose the devastating secret she had kept from him. Only then, would he find the courage to rebuild himself through a bizarre appearance on national television, where in front of millions, he’d abandon all dignity and reveal the full extent of his downfall.

Table of Contents

About the Book

Dedication

Epigraph

1. The End Has a Start

2. Here’s the Church and Here’s the Steeple

3. The Shores of Lake Wobegon

4. Indelible Pen

5. Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

6. The Primacy Effect

7. Cold Iron

8. A Blast From the Past

9. The Bosom of Suburbia

10. Dancing at the Edge of the Precipice

11. Buried Treasures

12. The Pennie Drops

13. Oh Captain, My Captain

14. My Own Worst Enemy

15. Fate, Against Your Will

16. In the Grip

17. Alarm Bells

18. Sins of the Father

19. Never Falls Far

20. The Magic of Television

21. Past Tense

22. As I See It Now

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Author

Dedication

Dedicated to my wife

and our four little apples

Epigraph

‘A wise man hath his foibles, as well as a fool... the foibles of the one are known to himself, and concealed from the world; the foibles of the other... ‘

John Mason (1818)

1. The End Has a Start

Of all my many foibles, the unconditional regard I had for Penelope Fenton was without doubt the worst. Oh, there were others - numerous little idiosyncrasies and peculiarities - but it was always the burgeoning interest in Pennie that would prove to be my greatest undoing. She introduced me to the best and worst of times, to the funniest, wildest encounters I can remember and at the same time, managed to fill every part of me with an overwhelming sense of dread. Ultimately, Pennie brought me to my knobbly knees, to the point where I was willing to surrender anything for just one more encounter with her. It was because of Pennie that I turned my back on my wife and children, lost touch with many of my good friends, got involved with the occult, fell out with members of the Greek Underworld and even volunteered one of my own fingers to be crushed by a sadistic stranger.

I first met her many years ago as an impressionable teen, but got to know her much better as a gullible adult when the two of us would go on to become practically inseparable. As our acquaintance grew, she demanded an unquestioning and absolute loyalty. I was told by others who knew her well, that if you were able to manage her incessant demands, she was capable of being a formidable ally. Unfortunately, I rarely saw this side. Instead, for me, she was always unyielding and unappeasable - a strict and merciless companion who insisted on complete obedience. Before I knew it, every choice I made and every action I took depended on her approval.

Of all the questionable decisions made during the course of our tempestuous thirty-year relationship, agreeing to appear on a seemingly respectable television show was by far the most ludicrous. By complying with this particular request, I was forced to abandon all dignity and unwittingly reveal the extent of my downfall not only to myself, but also to millions of unsuspecting viewers.

It would be wrong to suggest that Pennie dragged me kicking and screaming to the television studios on what would become the most deplorable of days, but it was certainly down to her that I felt obliged to get involved with that programme in the first place.

I can still hear her whispering in my ear, “What an opportunity… Go on do it… you’ll be good at it… You’ll enjoy taking part… I think you should jump at the chance… You deserve this… Imagine all the exposure this will bring for your business, all the money you could make… It will help us to see even more of each other.”

On the day of the actual filming, I travelled by train to the TV studios in Kent; it was a long and difficult journey, not made any easier by the fact that I hadn’t seen Pennie for two weeks and couldn’t get her out of my mind. What should have been a great opportunity for some time-out to consider what I wanted to say and how I wanted to present myself; was instead spent thinking about the easiest way to get in touch with my old flame as soon as the ordeal was over.

Arriving at the studios, I met up with a mate called Nigel Flitton, who’d only just agreed to accompany me on the show. Nigel couldn’t stand Pennie but had decided to take part after being impressed by the calibre of the well-known guests who’d previously appeared on the programme. It was clear that we were both a little tense. Nigel was ill at ease because, well, he was built that way and wasn’t exactly the easiest going person in the world. For me, it was because somewhere at the back of my mind, I knew it was vital to present a favourable impression of myself to the outside world yet conscious I was at my least equipped to do so.

The studio’s formidable reception area was filled with framed photographs of famous faces from yesteryear. We both took time to study the memorabilia on display along the succession of narrow corridors, daring every so often to take a peek at preparations for other programmes which were underway. Before being escorted to make-up we were invited to the green room for a buffet lunch and an opportunity to meet the uber-serious production team.

“How long has it taken you to get here then?” one of them eventually said, not even bothering to turn his head towards me.

“Just over forty-four years,” I quipped.

Nervously nibbling at the sandwiches, we watched as previous editions of the prime-time show, were being replayed over and over again. Nigel and I thought it funny that seemingly rational people were suddenly transformed into gibbering idiots, the second they were placed in front of the television cameras.

Sitting in make-up, we listened with interest to gossip about high profile projects, which the chirpy staff had worked on. I loved hearing the humorous stories they told about having to pander to the requests of various self-absorbed celebrities who’d once sat in the very chair I was now parked in. The anecdotes were almost enough to distract me from just how drawn and pasty I looked as make-up was plastered on to my gaunt and somewhat lifeless skin. Misjudging the affability of the make-up assistant assigned to me, I attempted to make light of the unfamiliar situation.

“Now look here my good lady, you really will need to pick up the pace and work your magic. Myself and my associate Mr Flitton are about to record an important show which will be transmitted through the wonders of wireless technology into millions of homes,” I said.

“Pardon me?” she said.

“Chop-chop. It was a rather early start this morning, so I implore you to pay particular attention to the unsightly dark rings located under my normally sparkling eyes,” I added, in a deliberately autocratic manner, thinking this would be an amusing way to demonstrate empathy with the stories she’d shared.

“I do beseech you, sir,” she replied in an intentionally facetious way, “Stop issuing instructions and let me undertake the duties I have been employed to provide.”

Sitting upright in the make-up chair, trying hard to avoid eye contact with the now uncommunicative make-up lady as she aggressively jabbed at the bags under my eyes, it had dawned on me that I knew absolutely nothing – probably less than anyone I’d ever met, about the very topic we were here to explore. Obsessing about Pennie all the way here had meant that I’d not bothered with any planning for the day and so, as the last layers of concealer were being applied, I began to worry that my lack of preparation was about to be made public.

By the time we were ejected from the now silent make-up room and ushered into the enormous Studio 5 for our induction briefing, I was in a terrible state. I’d not slept properly for days and ended up guzzling three or four large cups of complimentary coffee, which probably only added to my disorientated state. As unhelpfully high levels of cortisol poured into my system to combat the stress, most of what followed was pretty much a blur.

I vaguely remember wiping my palms on the sides of my trousers as my stomach turned to acid just before we were taken on a whistle-stop tour of the set. At some point, we were introduced to another four guests who were booked to appear on the show with us – two bubbly young women who had something to do with the leisure industry and two men from a top-notch university who looked only slightly less jittery than I felt. Next, we met our host, a well-meaning but obsequious man, someone who’d publically admitted to a little facial muscle freezing once in a while. He flounced over and introduced himself in a perfunctory fashion, underlining the fact that this was his show and each of us would be judged on the calibre of the contributions we provided.

The thought of being held to account by millions of the British public filled me with horror. To make matters worse, we were informed that because of timing restrictions there would be no rehearsals prior to the filming of today’s show. Instead of being told ‘to relax and enjoy the experience’, we were collectively briefed in militaristic fashion by the self-important production team. We were instructed how to respond, what to say, where to stand and even how much eye contact to offer each other. If we intended to speak directly to our host, we must always end our response with his name to illustrate the apparent rapport between us. It was all stiflingly prescriptive.

Pennie had always encouraged me to distrust authority figures of any kind and so the more I thought we were being ‘talked at’, the less inclined I was to listen. I totally misheard where I was supposed to wait and nearly fell out with an officious sound technician over where the microphone should be positioned on my shirt. As more and more requirements for the afternoon piled up, I started to regret my decision to take part in the programme. Trapped in the bowels of Studio 5 and caught by the unforgiving dazzle of the piercing spotlights, I could see that it was going to be impossible to project the favourable impression of myself I had hoped.

As someone who was overly concerned about how they were perceived by others, it was incredible that I ever let Pennie convince me that taking part would be a good idea. The corrupting Miss Fenton was well aware of how self-conscious I had become in recent months. She had witnessed the dramatic decline in my confidence and had been present during the recent panic attacks. Yet here I was – centre stage, at a loss for words, miked-up, caked in layers of make-up, wearing my most embarrassed expression and about to be presented to millions of viewers. It was humiliating. Then again, Pennie was always incredibly skilful at getting me to do things I didn’t really want to. She enjoyed exposing the inadequacies of others and gained pleasure from putting people into positions where they’d make a fool of themselves. Most of my friends, including Nigel, had fallen out with her because of these mind games, but I’d been besotted with her for far too long to be able to resist her curious charms.

I knew full well that during the course of our unconventional relationship, Pennie had deliberately undermined many of my relationships; had compromised my career and had even stolen some of my family’s savings. Yet despite her many attempts to dismantle the things I held dear, I continued to be intoxicated. Her manipulation was exquisite.

Desperate for greater approval, I welcomed her advice and agreed to all of her outlandish suggestions. Recently, she’d influenced some of the most important decisions I’d ever made and had successfully persuaded me that she was the only support I needed during difficult times. Now, at my most vulnerable, when I needed her most, crumbling under the greatest pressure I could remember feeling, I felt alone and exposed. Without my unreliable assistant to lean on, I was terrified that everyone would see me wobble and fall.

Unable to process the magnitude of what lay ahead, my eyes flitted around, eventually locking onto a roaming camera, which appeared to be moving into position, only three feet in front of where I was standing. Jolted back into reality by this beast of a machine, I had no choice but to take notice of what was happening in the studio. Catching a glimpse of my own distorted image in the camera’s convex lens, I was forced to see myself head-on, and I have to say, I didn’t like what I saw. This was the closest I’d been in over a decade to witnessing the full impact of my illicit affair with Pennie, to recognising the consequences of all the dubious decisions I’d made and to acknowledging the scale of the contempt I had for myself. At this unbearable moment, it dawned on me that I had finally reached the tipping point I’d feared for so long.

As our not-so-humble host slithered alongside the imposing camera with cue cards in hand, I knew I was at the very epicentre of my own lowest point. It was the strangest experience – almost spiritual. Here at the nadir, I was motionless, frozen by my own inertia in a place where time literally stood still. With all eyes on me, I was as detached from the outside world as anyone could ever be.

Surrounded by what I would later discover to be the largest live audience on British television, I saw for the very first time the person my family and friends must have seen for years: the washed-up, sallow, spineless shell of a man who, for ages, had let both himself and everyone he cared about down. This was the most atrocious I would ever feel. Feeling completely alone and with the ubiquitous Miss Fenton nowhere to be seen, my pitiful defences collapsed and I had no option but to admit that here on national television, I was defeated. While an appreciative audience gleefully cheered and clapped, the presenter bounced up and down and the harassed production assistants chased madly around in the background; all I could think was, How the hell have I ended up here?

2. Here’s the Church and Here’s the Steeple

The origins of my overwhelming infatuation with Miss Fenton go back as far as I can recall - perhaps even a little further than those earliest of memories. Growing up in the sixties in the North West of England, I expected very little and by and large received a tiny bit more than this. Dad worked as an engineering officer in the Royal Air Force, while Mum was training to be a schoolteacher. They both grafted hard to provide for their three children. Little sister Kirsty was the perennial tomboy whilst older sister Erin, was the one who desperately wanted to be a grown up. As our futures unfolded, we later discovered that we’d once had another sister who’d died when we were young. Nothing was ever said about this mysterious third sister and for many years we didn’t even know she had ever existed.

Unable to remember anything before the age of five, I've always felt a little cheated – as if there was something more I should recall from those formative years. To fill these gaps, all I had to rely on were a handful of embarrassing stories which were trotted out by family members to anyone who would listen. The earliest of these tawdry tales relates to the unfortunate timing of my birth (which was a full sixteen years, eight months and seven days before my first encounter with Pennie Fenton). It transpires I was born slap bang in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, literally in the eye of the storm. An introduction to a world on the brink of global catastrophe, coinciding with the very hour the USA decided to quarantine Cuba and force the Soviet Union’s hand. Here was a planet in turmoil, hurtling with conviction towards the most destructive nuclear conflict in its history, when, according to my unhelpful relatives, right at this point of optimum global tension, out pops a screaming, somewhat chubby addition to the Mellor household.  What a lovely association.

The second ‘unremembered incident’, forged again by un-tempered family anecdotes, was how I nearly drowned as an infant at the local public baths in Kirkham. This story was recited so many times growing up that it became a ‘virtual’ memory. The layering effect over the years, of so many repeated versions created a set of imagined impressions – firing synapses in the brain in just the same way a genuine remembered event would do. As far as I understand, this was the first time Dad had taken me swimming. I was expected to obediently watch from the side as he slid into the pool, swam a quick length and then returned back acclimatised to lift me carefully into the water. However, obviously impressed by what I’d seen, I couldn’t wait and belly flopped into the shallow end straight after him. Unable to swim, I flapped around for the briefest moment before sinking to the bottom of the pool, where I remained. According to legend, the attendant on duty that day, couldn’t swim and so had to pull me out using a gigantic fishing net. Drowning in the shallow end quickly became a metaphor for many of my future misadventures - jumping in where I shouldn’t, without regard for the consequences; struggling to deal with the implications of my actions.

The incident led to the first of numerous trips to the children’s ward at Blackpool Hospital, which always struck me as an unpleasant and unwelcoming place. This early opposition may have been a consequence of a natural squeamishness on my part, or it may have been due to the fact that any hospital stay invariably meant being parted from my family. Time away from home always created a mountain of unease for a little lad with self-esteem as fragile as the much documented East-West relations.

The final part in this ‘trilogy of unremembered events’ was forged from another confidence-condensing tale, again recited with relish at the slightest excuse for a family gathering. Coincidently this resulted in another unwanted trip to Blackpool Hospital. Amused relatives loved this particular story about how I was institutionalised for five weeks with severe pneumonia. To be fair, I’m sure their enjoyment wasn’t due to some twisted pleasure gained from how seriously ill I’d become, but instead because many of them found it hilarious that this particular medical intervention led to me developing an irrational fear of butchers. The escalation of an unexplored phobia meant I gained notoriety locally as the little Mellor lad who stubbornly refused to set foot inside any establishment which sold meat. It seems I was petrified of the butchers, associating their white coats with the ones worn by the all-too-familiar hospital doctors.

If the probable annihilation of mankind, a distressing near-drowning and the development of an extreme aversion to hospitals all sound rather traumatic for a tiny toddler, the good news was that I had no recollection of any of these seminal moments. While I certainly went on to become a tad nervous and may have lacked a bit of social confidence; I was also full of imagination and retained a positive outlook on life. Generally I believed that, over time, things would work out well. Indeed most of my later recollections, the ones generated from events I can actually summon up for myself, always seemed far more palatable. The only exception to this rule was the infrequent appearance of a niggling separation anxiety which peppered parts of my otherwise unremarkable childhood.

My earliest authentic memory probably resonated because of the intensity of feelings it created. At the age of five, I was sent with my older sister Erin, to a strict Roman Catholic school in nearby Lytham St Annes. I worked myself up into a terrible state, blubbering and wailing all the way there, terrified at the thought of being abandoned by my parents. To make matters worse (according to my own unreliable recall), Erin and I were then greeted by a flock of austere nuns who swept down on us with black gowns trailing behind them like the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings. My first recollection was steeped in terror, screaming at my mother, pleading with her not to leave me with these cold and uncaring monsters. Their presence terrified me so much that it required four of them to forcibly prise me away from her and carry me kicking and screaming into the classroom. Holy Mary, Mother of God. It was neither the happiest introduction to my school days, nor to the introduction to religious enlightenment that some of my family may have wished for.

While my adoration of Pennie Fenton would one day reach almost biblical proportions, it is fair to say I didn’t really commit myself to much of a spiritual life. Far from being blessed with a sense of ‘calling’, I always felt rather burdened by a purpose I’d yet to discover. This lack of spirituality contrasted strongly with my dad’s mother who lived just up the road from us and was generally regarded as the matriarch of the Mellor family. As a deeply spiritual woman, it was probably her suggestion that we should be sent to the Catholic school in Lytham. Regardless of this faux pas, I still loved Nan dearly and considered her to be a kind and loving woman, perhaps the best of all of us. I admired her for her strong sense of faith, which appeared to be immovable. She talked a lot about the Catholic Church but never in a righteous way. Most of what she said was probably beyond me or, quite frankly, rather dull to a little lad with a short attention span; however I recognised that her firmly held beliefs provided her with something the rest of us didn’t have.

“You are in charge of the life you’ve been blessed with,” she’d say.

“Always work as hard as you can at school Charlie. Get some qualifications, but bear in mind that true wisdom will only come when you improve your ability to cope,”

“You and your sisters will be happiest when you learn to accept who you are - warts and all - and appreciate the healing powers of forgiveness,” Heavy.

It would take me half a lifetime to really understand just how profound these words really were.

Nan was always supportive. The much embellished story about me being scooped out of the swimming pool, like a prize goldfish from the ‘hook a duck’ stall at the local funfair, was recycled by family members for years. It was only Nan who ever expressed any concern about the event, periodically reminding everyone that faced down, it was quite possible to drown in only a puddle of water. How right she was.

A woman of slender frame, she combined a prodigious work ethic with a subversive sense of humour. Always busy, she’d learned through necessity to become a proficient multi-tasker. How I enjoyed watching her scream obscenities at Kendo Nagasaki wrestling on the telly on a Saturday afternoon while earnestly vacuuming her modest house. A woman to trust and believe in, she lived by a set of moral principles and was both honest and upfront. Importantly, as my sisters and I approached our teenage years, she was the only person I knew who ever hinted that we’d once had another sister and the only one who ever implied that this ‘absent-other’ had once been a part of our family. Unfortunately, these occasional well-intentioned inferences made little impact on me or my sisters because they were so at odds with what was happening at home - where no reference to another sister was ever allowed to be made.

Grandad was a much quieter and more serious person, but still managed to create a strong impression. His hair was the nearest to blizzard-white I’d ever seen on anyone. Not grey or silver, but completely without colour, as if he’d once been terribly shocked by something. When he did speak, his word was always the last on a given subject. He was an extremely proud man who was highly respected in the local community and worked long hours to elevate his family from the grinding poverty he had endured as a child. Although fiercely proud of his Scottish roots, Benjamin Mellor was labelled a Sasanach by his relatives the moment he decided to move to England in search of work. He said very little to us ‘wee bairns’, except perhaps to warn us never to come back from the local playground ‘with clarty breeks’. By the time I realised this wasn’t actually somebody’s name; I was probably old enough to stick my grubby trousers into a washing machine for myself. I think he intrigued me, partly because of his slightly austere demeanour, but also because whenever he was agitated, Ol’ Ben reverted back to his native dialect. On these occasions he became completely incomprehensible.

When Ben started dating Nan in the 1930s, their relationship attracted disapproval in their small Lancashire town because he was three years younger than her. Resolute, they ignored local outrage and with no regard for the judgements of others, got engaged and set about making plans for a simple family wedding. Ironically it wasn’t the chants of ‘cradle-snatcher’ which caused them concern, but instead their own inherited religious beliefs. On hearing news of their engagement, Ben’s family immediately ostracised him. While his fiancé‘s parents were staunch Catholics, his own family was High Church of Scotland, itself affiliated to the Protestant Church. The thought of the two denominations coming together (and in England) at that time was probably about as pleasing as a mixed race union in the deep south of America. Undeterred by parental disapproval, they persevered. For years after their wedding, Nan sent thoughtful birthday presents to all of her husband’s relatives, enclosing long descriptive letters of how they were doing along with an open invitation to visit - only to have every gift returned un-opened. In acknowledgement of her selfless determination to reintegrate the two families, her husband was written out of his parents’ will and treated like a pariah.

Years later in the 1950s my parents also created controversy. They had met on a train and were instantly drawn to each other. Following a six month courtship, Mum discovered she was pregnant. In an absurd coincidence mirroring the turmoil caused by my grandparents’ relationship twenty-five years earlier, Mum’s Protestant parents opposed their marriage on religious grounds. In an attempt to ingratiate herself with the wider Mellor family, Mum promised to convert to Catholicism. It was a decision which resulted in her being excluded from her own family, who had little to do with her from that point onwards. Things change but remain the same.

Tensions between the famous work ethic of the Protestant church combined with a genuine fear of purgatory gained from my adopted Catholic dogma, guaranteed I would ‘work really hard at fostering a sense of crushing guilt’. Although my upbringing wasn’t particularly holy, there was an undercurrent at home of what I could only call ‘mild religious angst’ which was probably a legacy from these experiences. For me, this subdued tension resulted in a deep suspicion of all the established creeds and a desire to explore alternative explanations for what makes us who we are. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, my impending dysfunctional relationship with Miss Fenton was probably in part, an expression of this dissatisfaction.

We were invariably strapped for cash during the sixties and so big family outings were infrequent events. I fondly remember the commotion caused by news that diminutive entertainer Jimmy Clitheroe was attending a local fete and would be signing autographs. The appearance was just on the back of his most celebrated film role as Tom Thumb in the comedy Rocket to the Moon. Friends, family and neighbours were all beside themselves at the possibility of meeting the four-foot-three star of radio and television who, although in his mid-forties was still able to pass for an eleven year old boy. I was as enthralled by Clitheroe and the contradictions the pint-sized celebrity presented; as I would be eleven years later by Pennie Fenton. Seeing a grown man inside such a small body was perverse. Hearing his high pitched voice made you believe he really was the primary school boy he dressed up to be. Ignoring all the other attractions, we queued up with dozens of fans for hours to meet the Lancastrian celebrity. Face to face, I remember unconditionally approving of the modest little man who, like me, looked very young for his age. Treasuring my two minutes, I instantly decided I too would like to be an actor – or at the very least appear on television when I was older. Not so much for the glamour or for the money, but instead for the possibility I might one day capture even a fraction of the positive recognition which ‘the boy who never grew up’ had been afforded on that sun drenched afternoon.

Prior to Pennie getting her impressively presented talons into me, the only time I can remember being at all unhappy was shortly after this idyllic day. Around the age of eight, I was told that I was being sent to a nearby preparatory school in Blackpool. On hearing the news, all the horrors of being hoisted from my mother’s arms by that herd of nuns came flooding back. These fears were amplified ten-fold, when I discovered I was expected to attend as a boarder and would only be allowed home at the end of every term. Because I’d shown some promise at school, my parents had taken advantage of an RAF bursary scheme which funded a place for one child at public school each year. While the stated driver was to improve the standard of education received, I couldn’t help feeling I was being punished in some way. Excluded from the family unit, extricated from the place I lived. I wondered what I had done that was so awful that it merited this extreme sanction.

To say I wasn’t fond of the experience would be an understatement. I hated being left at the school at the start of every new term and was always terrified I wouldn’t be able to cope – or worse still, was consumed by a niggling worry that I would never see my parents again. Dissent was therefore always part of my boarding school days and for over two years I sulked, moaned and bleated, pleading with my parents to change their mind and let me return home.

When they did finally relent, any sense of relief was marred by the unsettling news that Dad had just been transferred to a different RAF station. So, before I was able to wedge either one of my shiny size four shoes back into the living room door; the whole family was preparing to pack up and leave. Within six weeks of returning home, we’d sold up and bought a rather grand Georgian town house nestled in the shadows of Ripon Cathedral. This impressive building was much larger than any of the other properties we’d lived in – perhaps five times the size of our Lancashire home. For no logical reason I automatically regarded its dominating presence as a symbol of permanence. Standing in the garden on the day we agreed to buy it, I peered upwards to the highest point of its towering structure - thinking the bigger the build, the more likely we were to hang around for a while. Happy days.

Following success in the 11+ exam in 1974, it was agreed I would attend the local grammar school while my sisters would go to the nearby secondary modern. Ripon Grammar School had an excellent academic reputation and its' somewhat draconian approach to teaching reminded me of life at boarding school. Mum and Dad moaned about everything they needed to buy to enable me to attend, the exhaustive reading list and the cost of the prescriptive uniform which was only available from a single overpriced supplier in Ripon. One oversized wool overcoat had to be bought, two school blazers, a couple of sets of cricket whites, running spikes, three pair of grey flannel trousers, eight pair of branded socks. Biros were not allowed to be used anywhere in the school; instead all pupils had to use a traditional fountain pen, filled only with navy Quink ink. Even these pens became a form of status symbol, with a hierarchy of nibs prevalent across the school.

“You - new boy, do you use a Sheaffer, a Waterman, a Parker pen or an inferior economy brand?”

Or, “Is your pen filled from an ink reservoir or have you used a cartridge system?”

In terms of the nib, “Have you opted for iridium, gold plated version or the more common steel variety?”

From an early stage it was evident I’d never get my head around this type of mindless one-upmanship and very soon the common biro began to represent everything I aspired to be.

Un-phased, I cycled to school each day, studied hard and bided my time. I was optimistic that just around the corner, I was about to meet a number of kindred classmates. In reality this would take a few more years to materialise, but did turn out to be worth waiting for. This was the group who would introduce me to Pennie Fenton and through her my real education would begin.

Biding my time, I rekindled my interest in public speaking. Inspired by both a terrific English teacher called Miss Carrick and fading memories of Jimmy Clitheroe, I made attempts to overcome my reluctance to assert myself and for three or four years in a row auditioned for small roles in school productions such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and The Death of a Salesman. The desire to appear on television like my boyhood hero, had remained undiminished even after hearing the tragic news Little Jimmy had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets on the day of his mother’s funeral. These amateur school productions were seen by only twenty to thirty obliging parents, but soon exposed a problem with my master plan. It quickly became evident that I struggled to deliver lines in a way which was clear enough to be understood. Projecting my voice to the most sympathetic live audience available (who were sitting centre-stage, inside an acoustically balanced school hall), I was consistently hampered by a slightly hesitant disposition. It seemed that while I enjoyed the acting side of things, I lacked almost all of the oratorical skills required to succeed. Labouring to disguise my unease, I reluctantly decided that the theatre might not, after all, be the ideal platform for presenting my particular range of talents.

3. The Shores of Lake Wobegon

Miss Carrick was a young and progressive teacher. She was well travelled and enjoyed listening to an American radio show called A Prairie Home Companion. Towards the end of each term, if we completed our work on time; she would play us taped recordings of the variety show which had been airmailed to her by relatives in the States. As each of the short recordings ended, she’d ask provocative questions to her spellbound audience about the social and moral issues which had been presented. One debate in particular really captured my imagination. It was about a fictional town which was regularly featured in the programme, called Lake Wobegon. This was ‘...the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve… where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average[1]’. An entire English lesson was devoted to exploring whether or not we thought it would be a good thing to live in a place like Lake Wobegon. The class was split into two teams and each group tasked with putting forward the most persuasive argument. For me this was easier than acting. There were no lines to learn, no parents to watch you fall. In my mind, if you believed in what you were saying, the words flowed easily. Opting, therefore, to be spokesperson for the group who were arguing that Wobegon might not necessarily be the ideal place to live; I constructed what I thought was a compelling case for why this utopic vision was an anathema.

Even as a teenager, I could see that the majority of my studious classmates expected, sooner or later, to outgrow their own limitations. In the main they thought, as the years progressed, their lives would improve as each of them strove to develop themselves and gradually iron out any minor personal niggles. I had never shared this particular aspiration. Instead, for most of my short life, I’d positively revelled in the knowledge my own long list of shortcomings appeared to be eminently durable. I therefore welcomed the opportunity to speak out and challenge what I regarded to be a flawed assumption. My position was that Lake Wobegon (or woe-be-gone) sounded like a grotesque place to live. Its promise of a bland and vacuous existence only served to reinforce a risible human tendency to overestimate personal capability. During the heated debate which followed, our vastly outnumbered team demanded to know what name could instead be given to a town where everyone underestimated their own potential. A community filled with like-minded people who shared the same deep seated desire to down-play their own effectiveness. Now here lay a much more interesting proposition.

This electrifying debate stuck with me for years. We didn’t win the argument, in fact our numerically-biased counterparts made mincemeat of us, but I did feel exceedingly satisfied by the end of the lesson. Whatever the official outcome I firmly believed we were the moral victors: the handful of people who had the more realistic take in terms of what to expect from the future.

Confidence growing, I found myself at the front of the audition queue for a big budget movie called Black Jack after reading that (non-speaking) film extras were required. The film, directed by Ken Loach in 1978 was being shot in North Yorkshire and the production team were looking for local teenagers to appear in an important fairground scene. Perhaps without the presence of a live audience to put me off, I could excel? I was ecstatic to be recruited for a couple of days and once on set, gravitated towards a group of diminutive actors who were practising dance steps for a pivotal scene. Just as with Clitheroe, I was fascinated by their condition and tried to ingratiate myself with their principal actor - the up and coming David Rappaport.

“Hi, my name’s Charlie – is it all right to sit up here with you all and watch you rehearse?” I said in my deepest fifteen year old voice.

“Of course - no problem, I’m David and this is Carl, Sol, Pete, Merrick and Elliot – pleased to meet you. Who are you playing in the film?” he asked.

“Oh I’m just an extra, only here for this one scene,” I replied.

“Ahh, well I hope you enjoy the day. You’re very welcome to hang around for as long as you like, although we still need to get this routine in shape – so you’ll have to excuse me.”

Oblivious to his request to disengage, I continued “I once met a few dwarves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. There were loads of them working there in the early seventies.”

“What did you say?”

“1971, 1972 - round about then. Dwarves – lots of them, operating the rides, collecting the money. The whole Fun House was run by ….” before I could dig myself a deeper hole, David interjected.

“Many of my good friends worked there ...”

“I bet they had a right laugh,” I said, speaking over him

“No they didn’t. None of them. Because they couldn’t get any work, they were forced into doing it and paid a pittance for their efforts. They had to dress up in the most ridiculous outfits and were treated like freaks. Ridiculed on a daily basis … by ignorant people like you”

“Oh … do they still use … dwarves …now?” I said, instantly regretting my decision to continue the conversation.

David was particularly incensed by the use of the word dwarf, which I’d always thought was the preferred and politically correct terminology. Lacking the social skills to win him round I then threw in a few Jimmy Clitheroe references for good measure, and in doing so guaranteed he went absolutely ballistic with me. His expletives probably caused more of an impact that afternoon than the actual film on its release. It was so embarrassing. All the cast and crew looked over as he jumped up and down on the makeshift fairground stage ranting and raging at me for using what he regarded as derogatory language. Mr Rappaport would later become one of the most famous ‘diminutive’ actors in television. He went on to be revered by many for his work on Time Bandits, but on this day he presented a terrifying spectacle as he tore strips off one naive teenage fan who was attempting to befriend him. I later discovered my three foot eleven inch colleague may have been a very troubled soul. Sadly, a few years after our small talk (no pun intended) he committed suicide - although not I hope as a result of our fractious encounter. Just like my celebrated introduction to Jimmy Clitheroe in the late 1960s (which ironically ignited my interest in acting in the first place); this was the second time I’d been excited to meet someone famous because of their limited stature, and the second time this person had died soon afterwards.

The encounter, coupled with comments in my school report which referred to my ‘tentative vocal projection’ during school plays, meant my thespian ambitions would probably never be realised. I convinced myself that at this juncture, the only things getting in the way of a dazzling showbiz career were my aptitude, ability, confidence, disposition, impact and lack of interpersonal sensitivity.

Dreams of stardom more submerged than dampened, I focused instead on spending time with a few lads who took the same options as me. We were all developing a healthy preoccupation with teenage girls, but remained equally unwilling to share this fact. I particularly enjoyed the company of girls and, rather surprisingly, had little problem in persuading a number of short-lived girlfriends to allow me to practice my developing kissing techniques on them. Unlikely as it was, the female of the species did not appear to be the unfathomable creature that most of my contemporaries seemed to think they were. I liked them and in the main found them easier to talk to than boys. At the start of the fifth form, I started to date a girl who was as easy to talk to, as she was to listen to. She was called Gillian Drake. Within a couple of months together, Gill elevated my social standing. She wasn’t typical of the girls I’d previously been attracted to. More physically developed than many of her peers; blessed with a body ideally suited to the rearing of young children, she was a young woman.

Unlike many of the androgynous urchins I’d been hanging about with who spent too much time in their bedroom, Gill was regarded as the sporty-prefect type. If we were in the States I’ve no doubt she would’ve been principal cheerleader material. While I was getting into new wave music, Gill listened to American MOR artists. Somehow, for a few months at least, the differences between us complimented each other and in spite of a little stick from both sets of friends, we became the schools most unlikely couple. Stop Press: Unknown Delta set boy with no sporting credibility dates darling of the fifth form shocker. Gillian was lovely, no other word for it. She was a real catch – a star pupil who was attractive, intelligent and well connected.

Most people thought the relationship was a temporary thing, but as days became weeks, shares in C. Mellor of 5C began to rocket. I became regarded (solely through my association with her) as much more interesting and therefore far cooler to talk to. Gill and I enjoyed each other’s company and soon I was being invited to a series of previously impenetrable parties. We had tea at both parents’ houses and shared many Colgate flavoured kisses. It became clear to me this must be what having a ‘proper’ girlfriend was all about, yet even with the almost irresistible appeal of (nearly) losing our virginities; something at the back of my mind was telling me I wasn’t quite ready to blend into the land of A-grade squeaky clean, uniformly uniform teenage conservatives who were all too eager to dissect last night’s homework in excruciating detail.

My worries about ‘assimilation’ into this top group, who were all destined for financial and career success, might have been down to a fundamental worry about not measuring up.  I may have been scared about not being quite bright enough, quite athletic enough or quite ‘posh’ enough to fit in. However I think holding-back was about more than just these insecurities. I recognised this particular set of students were actually a pretty boring lot, who lacked any sense of adventure. Gillian should indeed have been the ideal first love, but somehow it just wasn’t enough. Despite her converting me to the joys of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and me reciprocating by providing her with Talking Heads Fear of Music; we were essentially different people.

There were many advantages to dating the darling of the fifth form, who was not just a catch but was also, like me, sexually curious. However I consciously made a lifestyle choice and walked away from what promised to be a 100% guaranteed cherry-popping moment behind the bike sheds in favour of ... something I couldn’t yet describe. I just knew I hadn’t found it yet. Restless and believing I was undeserving of her affection, I split up with Gill, overwhelmed by a feeling I’d experienced for years, that I didn’t quite fit in.  It wasn’t just a case of the old joke where I   ‘...didn’t want to belong to any club which would have someone like me for a member.’ Quite the opposite, since I desperately wanted to be part of one – problem was I just hadn’t found the right type of club yet – one that reflected what I was about. What I did know, was that such a clique wouldn’t be represented by the conservatism of the buttoned-down Kids From Fame I’d accidently found myself part of.

There were times with Gill when I felt we didn’t belong together – that I wasn’t good enough for her. Other times I yearned for a bit more complexity, something a bit more exciting. Ultimately I respected her in the truest sense and felt it unfair towards her to carry on being together simply for the improved social standing our relationship had brought about.

The night we broke up I sat in my bedroom playing her Fleetwood Mac record, thinking about the inevitability of it all. Every song on the album reassured me I’d made the right decision and as I read the lyrics and listened to the drama of the record unfold; I began to understand precisely why this apparently perfect relationship had so quickly run its course. Rejecting what I considered to be ‘the numbing effects of a life less lived’; I realised my summer with Gill had simply reinforced all my prejudices about a life spent too close to the shores of Lake Wobegon.

Because of the elevated social standing my former girlfriend had provided, I was invited with a few other lads to super-cool Andrew Hoare’s house on a Friday night. This would become a weekly event where we’d all chill out listening to music and drink alcohol. Here was a club more suited to my needs; an association closely aligned to my errant inclinations. Invitations to these evenings were issued to a select crowd, who on the face of it played the game by studying hard, but were also human enough to enjoy a laugh. Without exception, everyone invited was especially furtive about these secret shindigs.

The only girl allowed to attend was Andrew’s older sister Debbie. Blessed with a surname straight out of a Carry On film, she invariably attracted a lot of attention from lads for all the wrong reasons. She would sometimes join us after returning from the pub to entertain her brother’s little mates with colourful descriptions of Ripon nightlife. The first time I ever heard Pennie Fenton being mentioned was through listening to one of Debbie Hoare’s conversations.

During these weekly socials in early ‘79 our little group comprised of: host Andrew, a lad called Paul who was a fanatical about punk band The Stranglers, the eponymous Smithy (there is always someone called this in any gathering of boys), Miserable Joe Morrit and a cheeky Asian lad called Rav who’d never drink any of the cans of cheap lager we took round. On my first night there, I sat next to Joe who I recognised from English lessons. I respected the fact he was one of the few people who’d joined me in arguing against the Lake Wobegon Effect. Joe was the tall, lanky lad who tended to sit at the back of the class on his own. His pale complexion always made him appear slightly malnourished, while his jet black hair may have contributed to him being one of the few boys at the school capable of growing a beard. Clean shaven, he looked a bit like a young Bryan Ferry. I was drawn towards him because he struck me as a bit more reserved than the other more extrovert lads present. I wrongly assumed the two of us were equally undeserving of our invitation to drink with the ‘cool’ lads. Luckily, Joe broke the ice, turning his dipped head towards me as if to speak in confidence.

“Now then, how’s it going?  Tell me, what happened between you and that Drake bird? She was a bit of all right” he said.

“Oh, It was all getting a bit serious” I replied, in a way which underlined how much I wanted to close this particular subject down.

“So come on, tell me more, did you get to shag her?” he continued, catching me completely off guard.

“Err…err, well, what happened was…”

“Only joking mate, you don’t need to spill the beans, I reckon you did really well just pullin’ a fit lass like her. You know I’m sure I dreamt about her once.”

“Really? I replied, concerned where this conversation may lead.

“I’m positive. Did you know dreamt is the only word in the English language which ends in ‘mt’?”

“Huh? Did you find that out from Miss Carrick?”

“No chance, I’m usually half asleep during English – it’s so boring, although I did enjoy the stuff about Lake Wobegon. Don’t know about you, but I might actually pay more attention at school if we could take better subjects, like say… philosophy.

“Yeh, me too. I’ve always been interested in psychology,” I said, confident we were now on safer ground.

“Ha, be careful what you wish for. Psychology students are known for being a bit flaky. I heard about this one psychology student from New York who rented out her spare room to this carpenter bloke, just so she could nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of picking on him, he snapped, picked up his axe and smashed her fucking head in. She was left a cabbage for the rest of her life,” he said, before adding, “Rumour has it, this is where the term food for thought comes from.”

"Well, If at some point in the future, I’m ever called upon to design a psychology experiment … I’ll remember to bear that story in mind.” I laughed, not knowing whether to believe a single word he’d said.

While Joe barely muttered a word at school, he turned out to be in full control of a spiky wit and a vivid intelligence. By combining the two he had a skill for diverting conversations in a way which usually enabled him to introduce his uncompromising take on most things. He had an innate knack of sussing people out, identifying areas of potential discomfort and then finding inventive ways to expose them. A complex character who employed whatever means it took to achieve the result he was after. Suitably impressed by his approach, I made sure the two of us sat together in most lessons from then on and soon we became great friends.

The son of a rep for a slot machine company, he and his family lived only a short cycle ride away in a four story terraced property near to Ripon College. Their eccentric house always felt rather dimly lit, its many rooms cluttered with partially repaired fruit machines and broken juke boxes. Joe’s family appeared to be as unstructured as my own and this meant I could sleep over at their unkempt house for days without anyone bothering.

Like most teenagers we were distracted by music and girls in equal measure. Big fans of early Bowie albums; the two of us saw ourselves as outsiders at Ripon Grammar School, smart enough to conform but not quite dumb enough to fully align ourselves to the school values and expectations. While Joe was ‘selectively social’, he also remained somewhat detached. He was the only person I ever met who genuinely didn’t give a damn what others thought about him and, as a result, he developed a reputation for being a bit obstinate. If Joe didn’t want to do something, there was no budging him. He had no sense of natural limits to his actions and I admired him for this. He indulged his most basic impulses without any concern for the consequences. As we were both competitive and reluctant to concede, we convinced each other into undertaking various tests of stamina, trying out daft things, like seeing how many nights we could go without sleep or how long we could leave a lit cigarette on our arm without yielding to the pain. We once goaded each another to see who could inhale the most pipe tobacco rolled up inside a cigarette paper. This particular caper resulted in us both throwing up all over his bedroom floor.

Other endurance tests followed – the more daring the better. One evening at Joe’s house we discovered that if we clasped our hands behind our necks and then pulled our elbows together under our chins, we’d become very dizzy and nearly lose consciousness due to oxygen deprivation. After a couple of seconds we’d both experience the strangest sensation: effectively it felt like we literally didn’t know anything. In this state of nothingness, we’d forget who we were, why we were standing there and what day it was. Then, just as we were milliseconds away from fainting, our muscles would slacken and involuntarily loosen our arms from around our necks, thereby releasing the pressure on our bulging arteries. This was the moment when blood flow finally returned to our developing brains - providing us with a marvellous euphoria. Even though we knew it was dangerous, something appealed to us about this condition. Because we were so competitive, we didn’t have the common sense to take turns and therefore ensure the other person was okay – not when we needed to know who could last the longest before they collapsed. Occasionally one of us would fall heavily to the floor during our state of semi-consciousness and while neither of us seriously injured ourselves, a succession of bruises and bloodshot eyes did eventually put an end to this particular contest.

Although we agreed to stop, I remained intrigued and surreptitiously continued with the practice in my own bedroom for weeks. I originally thought it was an exciting pastime which we’d stumbled upon by accident, one which provided a shortcut to a fascinating altered state of consciousness. Little did I realise the potentially deadly game I was now playing in isolation had a history dating back thousands of years. My attempts at achieving an ‘altered state’ had already caused a number of teenage fatalities across the UK and abroad and had resulted in brain injuries, seizures and even strokes.

Joe and I felt invincible. We were at that exciting age where we were attempting to break away from the limitations set by our parents and establish our own understanding of the world. Each of us assisted the other with this process, redefining our views by challenging the other to consider alternative ideas. We forcefully discussed everything and everyone we encountered in the small Yorkshire town. None of it was particularly earnest. We talked about freedom of the press, the merits of perseverance, the demise of the eight track cartridge, even attitudes towards body art. Back in the seventies it was rare to see a heavily tattooed woman and while Joe and I both agreed this was a good thing; we came to the conclusion that the appearance of a small discreet design wasn’t too bad - since they helped us identify girls who were capable of making hasty decisions which they might later regret. Always more motivated by teenage hormones than by any vocational calling, we were the only two boys in the entire school who opted to take home economics as an O-level subject – not to learn to cook, but simply to identify some of the girls who might have the potential to make some of those hasty decisions we were so keen to take advantage of.

When you have a clear picture of what it is you are searching for, it tends to be much easier to find it and so it wasn’t long before we were mixing with somewhat more knowing girls. Andrew Hoare’s sister had accepted a summer job before heading off to university. She was working in a newsagent’s just off Ripon Market Square. Because it was conveniently located between the school exit and Joe’s house we’d pop with invented messages for her to pass onto her brother - aware she was the most likely person we knew to let us buy cigarettes. Hanging around with her younger brother’s friends wasn’t cool, so she soon introduced us to a couple of her co-workers who were employed to cover weekend shifts. We’d seen them both at school, but didn’t know them well enough to talk to. Lucy Drew was a little younger than us, while her friend Bronwen was in the sixth form. Neither of them had a tattoo, but they did strike me as just the sort of girls who would. Not exactly lawless teenagers in a feral kind of way; but unquestionably a bit wilder than the upstanding young women I’d dated up to this point. Lucy and Bronwen were both sharp, socially confident girls who, for whatever reason, gravitated towards everything their parents disapproved of. They smoked cigarettes and tended to like cooler bands such as The Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols. Combine this with the fact they were known to be sexually active was precisely what made them so interesting. These were the clever girls who had a bit of a reputation, the ones who tested the rules and were most likely to be either in detention or close to being excluded.

Lucy was by far the easiest to read. I could imagine precisely what she was like growing up, undoubtedly the impetuous junior school girl who shook bottles of fizzy drinks on long car journeys and then passed them to her little sister to open; the unfettered teenager who would wait until you were ready to deliver the punch line of a well-rehearsed joke, before jumping in to steal your thunder. Now a young woman she was attractive, yet not especially so; however she was strangely alluring. Physically she was slightly less shapely than many of her peers, of average height and had shoulder length mousy brown hair. Overall, she looked very much like the average sixteen year old schoolgirl. While Lucy appeared to be healthy and well turned out, she gave out a vibe that she was already slightly jaundiced about life, a little crumpled in her thinking. From time to time, when tired, her left eye became a little lazy which made her momentarily cross eyed. I found this quite endearing, as if the fault somehow humanised her. Because Lucy loved to tease the boys about their faults (her principal flirting mode), I foolishly attempted an ill-advised jibe about her intermittent strabismus. My attempt at bonding was savagely rewarded by a thunderous slap to the face, followed by her stonewalling me for the rest of the week – or possibly until Lucy needed something from me again. Either way it did nothing to dampen the crush I was developing on her.

Lucy wore her bad girl status like a badge of honour and enjoyed all the attention she received from pinning it to her lapel, right in the place where the rest of her peers were fastening their own prized prefect badges. Although still adolescent by most standards, Lucy seemed to both despise men and adore them at the same time. She enjoyed playing with the affections of every young man she attracted; demanding their trust and their loyalty before undermining both. Lucy was also unusually sexual for her age. Corrupted and corrupting while still so young. Rumour was that she had already bedded most of the older hip sixth formers, including hipster Jez Calvert. JC was something of a legend at school – a good looking older lad, who had a reputation as a lothario. Lucy had been just fourteen at the time.

The fact she was promiscuous obviously added to my teenage attraction. Lucy knew this and used it to her advantage. On numerous occasions she told me how much she loved the smell of sex. These discussions invariably took place when we were alone together, but well before I became involved with her. Such frankness about an unfamiliar and taboo subject was disarming. This was not the everyday language of most of the girls I’d known up to this point and it was enticing. By openly relating sex to one of the less frequently associated senses it made the act of copulation even more real, more possible and potentially easier to imagine.

Unfortunately for me Lucy already had a boyfriend. Neil was older than her, had passed his A-levels and was already working. This was unheard of at RGS. A Ripon Grammar A-level student who didn’t progress to university was an abomination. Such insurrection on his part wasn’t down to rebelliousness, or because he was fighting a particular convention; instead he simply wanted a weekly wage - which said a lot about him. Neil had left school with a handful of decent A-levels with the sole intention of applying for a two-year trainee assistant manager programme at the local supermarket. Not that retailing isn’t a perfectly upstanding career choice, but come on, training – for years - to one day become an assistant manager! All that education, short-changed by the draw of a weekly wage and the promise of discounted bread rolls.

He was an inoffensive, but boring individual. The short-lived deference to his age, status and financial independence couldn’t detract from this verifiable truth. I knew he had little to offer the mercurial Lucy beyond the contents of his weekly pay packet. Dull Nelly, must have been about nineteen, but already looked to be in his late twenties. I’m sure I may have been a little jealous at the time due to my captivation with his girlfriend, but I swear Neil was one of the least attractive blokes you were ever likely to encounter. He looked pale – as if he never went outside, dressed like someone fifteen years older than himself (who had no style) and wore the most basic NHS glasses. Whatever the lens prescription was in those cheap frames, they failed to help him keep a good eye on Lucy.

Dissolute Lucy was not especially loyal to her beau and she enjoyed openly flirting with numerous boys. She once boasted to me that she had gained a tactical advantage over Neil by getting her friend Bronwen to tell him she’d missed her period. The lie was fabricated as a simple distractor – a device to diffuse some tension between them which had been created by her decision to abandon Neil at some party and disappear into the darkness with another hapless lad. The manner in which Lucy had concocted the story without any concern for the impact on herself, her family, or her now petrified dunce of a boyfriend was bad enough; but the way she freely propagated news of the phantom foetus around the school was truly terrifying. Quickly picking up on the notoriety she had caused for herself by sharing her alibi with a couple of close friends, she was soon encouraging the entire upper school to share in her sensational story without a flicker of remorse.

If steady Neil wasn’t around she would flirt with most males and this would include me, if it entertained her to do so. If she had no one to buy her a coffee I would suffice. I knew all this, but was still happy to fulfil my duties to whatever standard was required. As this pattern became more established, Lucy treated me like the doting little puppy I willingly evolved into, until eventually I found myself completely beguiled. Her detachment and lack of availability, combined with a slightly mean, manipulative streak made her the perfect accessory for my tattered esteem.

Living out of town she often convinced me to skip lessons so we could hang out and listen to records back at my parents’ empty house. She would obediently take off her shoes on arrival at the house, but then later struggle to fasten them back up whenever we were required to walk the short distance back to school. We both knew the routine, Lucy would provide a feeble excuse as to why she was unable to lace them back up properly and I would be required to gently prise each foot into the shoe in the manner of the subservient serf I had gladly become, spending as long as I possibly could to get each bow just right. It was a game which provided both of us with a great deal of enjoyment. Lucy sat provocatively on the edge of a tall kitchen stool, while I floundered around by her ankles pretending not to be at all aware of her lovely legs.

As you can imagine, I was thrilled to be asked to go to camping with her and a couple of the other girls from the newsagents, to Robin Hoods Bay during the Easter break. This would turn out to be the trip where I lost my virginity, although as ever, the landmark event would happen on Lucy’s own demanding terms. On this much anticipated evening, I’d been granted permission to spend the night inside her tent. The proviso was that I understood as soon as any other lads arrived during the next few days I would have to vacate the tent and find somewhere else to stay. The reason, which was spelt out to me in very clear language, was in case she fancied any of the new lads. During our first fumble together in her tiny tent, Lucy laughed her way through all my clumsy attempts at pleasuring her.

“I do hope you’re going to be up to this, I’m starting to feel a little horny.” Lucy said.

“Course I am, now what is it you want me to do next?” I asked.

“Well, I’m not on the pill and hate using Durex, so you are going to have to remember to pull out”

“What?”

“Pull out – you know, withdraw at the last minute so I don’t get pregnant”

“I’ve never done it like this so you’ll have to…”

“No Mr Virgin, you mean you’ve never done it at all. I’ll show you how to put it in, but it has to be down to you to know when to pull out. Keep it going for as long as you can, but as soon as you feel like you are about to come inside me, pull it straight out. Don’t hang about either ‘cause if you’ve never done it before it’s not likely to take very long.” Before adding “You do at least know what it feels like to come don’t you?”

Since Lucy had only just quashed her own ‘phantom foetus’ rumour which had been the hot topic at school all term, I was quite relieved that she’d even remembered to consider contraception. While the unreliable method in question probably put far more pressure on me, I didn’t mind in the slightest – the promise of one brief moment of tenderness was enough. Soon I was overwhelmed by the significance of the moment, while she lay on her back singing the chorus to the Stones’ The Last Time, quietly (but with lots of intonation on the word ‘last’) in my ear just to let me know this situation would probably never happen again.

What I didn’t anticipate was that the ‘pulling out’ method would create such a sticky mess. Lucy on the other hand, was completely un-phased by the outcome. As soon as our short lived embrace was over, she reached out across the tent, picked up one of her own tops for a split second then discarded it in favour of a friend’s prized tee shirt she’d just borrowed for the night. In one precise scooping movement she wiped her lily white stomach down with all the familiarity of a city centre barmaid being tasked with clearing another dozen mucky tables. Job done.

Always thinking of others, Lucy even had the grace to provide what she called full, fair and fast feedback. She took no time to rate my performance, ranking it against the glut of other lads she’d been with. Instead of being upset by the immediacy of these post coital comments, I relished every humiliating description of my own ineptitude, like a needy child pleased to be in receipt of some bona fide attention. I was delighted to simply be lying next to the half-naked Lucy. My awkward attempts were inevitably scored very poorly and positioned (with each embarrassing reason celebrated by Lucy to authenticate her marking scheme) right next to the bottom of her long list. My ‘next to last’ result didn’t matter, I was over the moon I hadn’t actually been considered the most atrocious person she’d ever slept with. In typical low-esteem fashion, I forgot to ask what I should to do to improve my performance and instead wanted to know all about the poor lad who’d come last – just precisely what had he done or not done to achieve his ‘last in a very long list’ accolade?

4. Indelible Pen

The first time I ever saw Pennie Fenton was because of Lucy. This was always going to be the case. After all, it was Lucy’s role to prepare the way for Pennie. She’d always referred to Pennie in a reverential way and this made me intrigued to discover what she was like. The date was Saturday June 30 1979. Andrew Hoare, Smithy, Paul and I had all been invited round to Lucy’s house to celebrate the end of our exams. I was surprised to have been included in the invitation and then excited when I heard the infamous Pennie Fenton was going to be there.

On arrival, I was gutted to see Lucy back on good terms with Neil. I tried hard to avoid catching her eye as I glanced over enviously at them intertwined in the middle of the sofa. Just to their left, nestled on the arm of the sofa was Pennie Fenton. From the moment I entered the room I sensed she was there. Although there were plenty of unfamiliar faces present, I recognised her immediately. It is said you can’t miss what you’ve never had, yet at that moment, I realised I’d missed her during all the years building up to that day. She was immaculately presented and reminded me of a 1960s waif. Both were dainty, with slender frames and the whitest skin imaginable. Just like a fashion model, Pennie was a little taller than I’d expected. Since no-one I’d arrived with had met her before I kept my distance, remembering how awkward I was at breaking the ice with new people. Recognising that she appeared to be somewhat flirtatious, I decided to avoid direct conversation, concerned that my under-confidence may be exposed. I was initially wary that someone apparently so worldly-wise might reveal I had nothing of value to talk about.

When, later in the afternoon I did eventually pluck up the courage to go over and introduce myself, my nose began to bleed. This didn’t seem important at the time, but looking back it now seems to be a rather foreboding response. I’d had loads of nose bleeds as a young child, but hadn’t experienced any problems for years following the cauterization of the inside of my nose by my old friends at Blackpool Hospital. I had no idea of the significance I’d later impose on this extreme reaction. Instead, I ignored this symbolic ‘red flag’ and shuffled both of my embarrassed feet into Lucy’s kitchen while pinching the bridge of my nose. For almost an hour, I was effectively marooned in there. Stuck next to the sink, re-applying one cold compress after another, I prayed for the bleeding to stop. It was so frustrating. Even through closed panel kitchen doors, I could tell that most of my friends had soon built up the courage to go over and meet Pennie. By the time the gathering was drawing to a close, I could definitely hear Andrew, Paul and Smithy all attempting to recite the wittiest of Joe’s offbeat jokes as they vied for her attention.

On the walk home, observations about Pennie dominated the conversation. I listened intently, intrigued to find out what everyone else thought about her.

“She wasn’t what I expected,” said Paul.

“What were you expecting?” asked Andrew, curious as to the image he’d constructed.

“I don’t know, but she was just… different. Probably softer - a bit less serious.”

“I think I’d heard Debbie go on about her so many times, I’d got a picture in my mind as to what she’d be like,” replied Paul.

At this point, I felt compelled to join in. “And, for those of us stuck in the bloody kitchen for the entire duration, while you were all sucking up to her, tell me, what was she like?”

“Hot!” shouted Smithy, before being shot down by Paul.

“You know, you’re a real prat sometimes Smithy – ‘hot’ makes you sound like you’re twelve. “

“Just ignore him,” Paul continued. “I’ll agree that she was … interesting.”

“A bit … out there,” Andrew added, flicking his left arm into the air. “I can see why people enjoy having her around, but reckon you’d get fed up with her after a while.”

“I’d never get sick of her,” defended Smithy, clearly smitten. “I thought she was great fun. Hey, why don’t we invite Lucy and Pennie over on Friday nights? It’d be a right laugh.”

Before any decision could be made about this, it was time for me to take my turning home. Now walking alone, I continued to reflect on the party. I concluded my first encounter with Pennie Fenton probably hadn’t left the same impression on me as it had on everyone else. What I did manage to take away was a blood stained shirt and a rather unsettling (and still unexplained) sense of déjà-vu.

Andrew turned out to be strongly against inviting anyone else over on a Friday, although Pennie did appear at a few other parties over the summer invariably arriving with Lucy. I’d often catch sight of her and sometimes managed to secure a peripheral role in a conversation she was contributing to, but never really felt I connected with her. The one day I managed to spend any prolonged time with Pennie turned out to be the last occasion I’d see her for about seven years.

Following a solo shift at the newsagents, Lucy’s partner in crime and best buddy Bronwen was at a loose end. She contacted me to see if she could pop round to my house and asked me invite Joe Morrit. In return she would find out if Pennie wanted to come along. While Lucy was callous, selfish and often misguided, she was also relatively harmless. Her friend on the other hand was a total fruitcake. She was the girl who sneaked a half bottle of vodka to every lesson she was unable to skip. Lucy may have pushed boundaries and tested her luck at school, but Bronwen genuinely knew no limits whatsoever. If Lucy skated skilfully around institutional rules and procedures, her best friend bulldozered her way through every restriction, invariably spending most of her time in detention. Bronwen was instantly recognisable. At seventeen she was already taller than most of the male teachers at school. On her ungainly frame, all clothes looked just a little bit too small, which itself had the effect of making her look even more statuesque. She had a cute little snub nose which was framed by her badly cut, raggedy blonde hair. She was definitely attractive, but seemed to deliberately do everything she could not to be.

Bronwen had been schooled privately before joining the grammar school part way through her A-Levels. Like many people institutionalised against their will, we shared an antipathy towards authority figures. I loved the way that the mandatory elocution lessons she’d been forced to take at her old school somehow made her rebellion sound even more potent. Hearing her form swearwords in her plumy voice was exquisite

“Don’t be a baaarstard Charlie, pass me the faaarkinggg ciggiees. “

I always thought it was easier to kick back if you were socially disadvantaged in some way – had little money, few prospects, were marginalised by an oppressive boss or misogynistic partner. It was easy to understand how such experiences could sharpen your mind and provide you with an external purpose. I was therefore intrigued by anyone with an orientation for disruptive behaviour, who didn’t conform to this assumption and was instead in possession of every social advantage. I was naive and believed the rebellions of the disaffected wealthy like Bronwen, were indicative of a more individual mind set because they weren’t involved in any ‘class war’ or political mentality. For an impressionable youth with a tendency to feel a little bit of an outsider, this flawed idea was compelling.

Being with Bronwen was like watching a crackling fire – mesmerising, you couldn’t take your eyes off her. She was dangerously exciting and just a little scary, so Joe and I were both flattered and frightened when this older sixth former wanted to hang out with us. An afternoon with Bronwen was a tantalising prospect on its own, but knowing she was bringing the fey Miss Fenton along with her was almost too much to bear. Anticipating what may lie ahead, I thought about my bloody nose and told myself to play it cool this time and not get too flustered by this good fortune. Joe came straight over, he was especially curious about Pennie because while he’d never met her, he had heard about the impact she’d created at Lucy’s party.

If it’s true you can evaluate someone through the friends they keep, I should’ve picked up valuable clues about Pennie’s character through her association with barmy Bronwen. Little did I know what a dreadful decision it was to invite them round to my parents’ house. Then again, how could I have possibly anticipated the significance of this visit? How could I have known that this event would provide Pennie Fenton with a springboard so that one day she could persuade me to move her into a spare room in my own house alongside my wife and family, in order for her to begin a duplicitous campaign to undermine my health, wealth and happiness?

Bronwen arrived at the house in flamboyant style with Pennie by her side, about an hour after Joe had sprinted over. She waltzed into the lounge, checked no adults were present and then made herself at home. Grabbing the fullest bottle of spirits she could find, she demanded we drink. Next, we trundled upstairs to my room, closed the door as if to isolate our activities, put on some music and started to talk at a rate which betrayed our excitement. Bronwen was in her element being the centre of attention and explained to her attentive congregation, all the various techniques she’d ever used to get high. Her current favourite was taking five times the recommended amount of Feminax tablets, normally prescribed for period pains. In these quantities she claimed, it brought on a real ‘buzz’. I strongly suspect she’d failed to adhere to the recommended dosage long before arriving at the house.

While all eyes were on Bronwen, all my thoughts were fixed very much on Pennie. What you saw was what you got with the flamboyant Bronwen, but with her ally, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Pennie had intuitively sensed that Joe and I were nervous and encouraged us to relax a bit by sharing stories about each other. I noticed the intriguing Miss Fenton had a splendid habit of revealing very little of herself, by simply repeating back to us whatever we had already said in the form of a question.

“She said it back to you as a question then?”

“Repeating the key points of what you had been told?”

“Was harder to work out than most of the people who were present?”

In this way, Pennie contributed without ever having to offer very much. She was right there at our side, yet remained a puzzle which was impossible to solve.

Following the eradication of most of Mum’s whisky, Pennie suggested that Bron, Joe and I should play a rapid-fire game of strip poker. Before the boys had time to express their extreme discomfort with this idea, Bronwen was splitting a deck of cards like a Vegas croupier. Fair play to her as well. She hardly knew us, yet without any reservation was happy to strip totally naked and clearly revelled in this state of undress. Joe and I were rather more self-conscious about playing but reluctantly conceded as we gradually revealed our pale, un-toned pubescent bodies. Before Bron had time to snigger, we were all sat staring at each other’s butt-naked bodies.

I am sure the intention was we’d all jump in to bed together and thrash about in wild sexual abandonment, but Joe and I were so paralysed by our circumstance that I have to admit, we just froze. Lascivious Bronwen flopped onto my spacious bed, like a wanton woman. Following an awkward delay (which lasted as long as it took for her to finally recognise that we were both much less experienced in these matters than she had hoped); Bronwen changed tact and decided to get her kicks from a tube of replacement lighter gas which she’d pulled from her handbag. Removing the nozzle, she pressed the thin feeder tube between her teeth and inhaled deeply. Even after all the whisky we’d drank, I knew this couldn’t be good for you. Whatever damage was done, it certainly provided her with the anesthetising effect she was after because she was absolutely off her face for the next thirty minutes. This brief sabbatical allowed Joe and I to regain our dignity, pull up our respective Y-fronts and finally spend a few minutes alone with Pennie, who by this point seemed far less intimidating than her insane accomplice.

This second encounter with Pennie had therefore turned out to be as memorable as the first. Up ‘close and personal’ with her had provided a hint of what was to come. During her visit, Pennie had taken on the role of gentle provocateur. She never actively insisted that we complied with Bronwen’s crazy wishes; but there was always a lingering subtext that Pennie approved of them and, if we were to join in, she would approve of us. It is astonishing how she could generate such a subtle yet complicated message without uttering a word. It was as if Pennie was intrigued by the possibility of our corruption.

A total of two brief encounters with Miss Fenton, one where I had been lost for words and suffered a never ending haemorrhaging of the nose; the second where I sat speechless in my faded blue C&A underpants completely petrified as to what would happen next. Pennie had seen the absolute worst of what I could offer and my awareness of this would make it difficult to forget her.

5. Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

By the age of sixteen, Joe and I still weren’t old enough to drive but could usually get into the local pubs. While I still looked young for my age, Joe could get served if he didn’t shave for a week. We were initially suckered in by Debbie Hoare’s exaggerations of a throbbing Ripon nightlife, but soon discovered there was in reality very little going on. For this reason most of the old Friday night gang gravitated towards the students union bar at Ripon College. We’d discovered that if you timed it right and turned up in a large group during Freshers’ Week, the bar staff would assume you were part of the new intake of student teachers, who were, like policemen … looking younger every year.

Our cunning plan worked and for twelve months Ripon College was the centre of our universe. We had a terrific time in the union bar most nights, getting served with alcohol in the same way real grown-ups did, meeting new, interesting people and blagging our way into loads of student parties. During this period, I continued to see Lucy on and off. We would capture the odd hour or two together when Neil was elsewhere and I wasn’t pretending to be a trainee teacher. While she remained just as demanding and manipulative; my exposure to lots of other people – many of whom treated me like an equal, meant I was growing increasingly dissatisfied playing second, third or fourth fiddle to her revolving range of suitors.

One evening, overcome by a wave of uncharacteristic courage, I decided to tell her how frustrated I felt. Following yet another heated altercation, this time over who should buy the cigarettes, (once again I conceded); we walked the short trip up to the college, chain smoking to conceal our tension.

“It’s not just about the cost of the bloody cigarettes Lucy, it’s everything… you always take me for granted,” I said, sounding like a submissive mistress in a Mills and Boon novel.

“You know I’m seeing Neil, he is my boyfriend. This is how things are. I always thought you were cool about it.” She laughed. “It’s not like I’m ever going to date you, am I! You’ve always known it Charlie”

“Maybe so, but even when we do manage to hang out together, you treat me like shit. Everyone takes the piss out of me for being your lackey,” I said, standing my ground. “I used to really look forward to seeing you, but recently…”

“Recently, what?” she said, looking rather more serious

“Well, recently, I don’t”

“Is all this because you’ve promised to meet your sad little mates again at the union bar, Charlie? I do hope this isn’t an attempt to get out of waiting with me for my bus home – you know how I hate standing in that grotty shelter by myself.”

It was another pointless exchange. Walking in unison, mirroring one drag on a ciggie after another, we were miles apart. Arriving at the college grounds she was more annoyed I wasn’t intending to wait with her, than by anything I’d told her. Unable to change my mind, she turned round, faced squarely up to me and without warning laid into me with a barrage of punches and kicks. By enduring the most violence attack I’d ever encountered, her uncontrollable rage reinforced why I needed to separate myself from her. Amazing how a little rain can sometimes clear the streets. Even though the beating took place in the vast open space of the college grounds, not a single person was around and so my humiliation was a thankfully private affair. Years later I would become entangled in a far more dangerous abusive relationship. The equally explosive ending to this second destructive relationship would however, be as public a conclusion as was possible to imagine. Significantly, this next battering would turn out to be a high-visibility affair and would be played-out in front of millions of people.

Defending myself on the college lawn was the last time I saw Lucy. Her job was done. She had effectively cleared the ground for Pennie’s introduction. In retrospect, Lucy was always there to wipe away the bracken, remove the obstacles and even dust the path. Her instrumental role was to make it as easy as possible for Pennie to arrive. She fulfilled all her requirements to a high standard and in doing so also provided me with a mental template to work from, in terms of what to expect from future relationships.

Released from Lucy’s clutches, it seemed like my life was finally taking off. Flanked by old mates Joe, Andrew, Paul and Smithy, I felt lighter and more self-assured. Back in action, we flirted with the freshers, went to gigs, signed up for as many college trips as we could afford, helped out with discos and even joined the various clubs and societies. It was like being a student without any of the hassle of studying. Then, just as the year was turning into being the most liberating so far, my dad was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. It was an aggressive form which was picked up too late to operate on and he was given only weeks to live. No one had chance to take on board the ramifications of this shocking news and before any of us could begin to process what this might mean, Dad was gone. As a family, we didn’t discuss his death, talk at all about his life or about the impact of not having him around anymore. Numb and in a dissociative state, I felt cheated by his death. Cheated not only because I had lost my father, his love, his companionship, his presence and his support; but also for ever believing all the ‘how you should live your life’ messages which I had absorbed from adults in an unquestioning manner. All his life Dad had been a model of sobriety, never smoked, ate the right things and exercised regularly. The implied equations for a long and prosperous life therefore did not add up.

On the day he died, ill-equipped to express my emotions and with little opportunity to do so, I went up to my bedroom and blacked-in the eyes of all the posters pinned on my wall using a felt-tipped pen. After I’d finished, the array of actors, musicians and models appeared as soulless as I felt.  I looked back at one of the prized letters I’d received from Dad while he was away with the RAF ‘Be good son and if you can’t be good be careful – don’t forget you are the man of the house now’. Wiping away the tears I was aware that this responsibility was going to sit uneasily on my narrow sloping shoulders.

Soon after the funeral Mum accepted a teaching job in Harrogate, an affluent but strangely impersonal kind of place. Because she’d always flatly refused to learn to drive, we had to move house to the nearby spa town. Although only twelve miles from Ripon, it may as well have been on another continent. Since none of the family had access to any form of transport, we were effectively marooned in the middle of a large, partially-completed housing development. I felt particularly lonely in the characterless house which seemed more like an empty shell filled with bits of new furniture, all paid for through a recently redeemed life assurance policy.

Bored and disconnected with our new environment, I half-heartedly began an A-levels course at a local technical college but soon felt disillusioned with it. Instead of focusing on my assigned texts, most of my time was spent at the back of the class reading either copies of the New Musical Express (NME) or The Unexplained magazine - a fortnightly glossy guide to all things paranormal. I made no effort to talk to any of the other pupils during the first term and actively avoided one ingratiating lad from our estate called Gav Langham who always tried to sit next to me in lessons. He appeared to have no friends at the college and must have assumed that any new boy in town would be as desperate for company as he obviously was. He was wrong.

Flunking out of my new course before it had time to get going, I signed on the dole and spent most of the next year in a magnolia painted bedroom thinking too hard about possible ways to occupy the next hour. I admired my sister Kirsty, for having taken the initiative to fill her spare time by joining a girl’s rowing club. I’d never been interested enough in any of the organised sports to benefit from the social introductions their membership provided and so, bereft of any useful distractions, I looked elsewhere for ways to keep myself entertained.

No longer harbouring ambitions to become an actor, I searched for unconventional role models who could help me to vicariously lead a more exciting life than the one my arid house promised. While many of my peers were encouraged by their parents to emulate celebrated sporting heroes or the academically gifted; I spent hours watching Woody Allen films on a repetitive basis. Sleeper, War and Peace, Take the Money and Run and Annie Hall were seen so many times I could (and did) recite certain lines word-perfect - much to my family’s annoyance. I was drawn to the comedian’s pessimistic view of the world, one which still managed to be gloriously humorous. I loved the way his screen character’s somehow managed to generate entertainment from their own anxiety; comedy from their own unhappiness.

Encouraged by the neurotic ramblings of the people he played in his films, I cultivated my own expanding list of foibles during this uneventful time. Like my new antihero, I acknowledged and embraced them. Interest in Woody also helped me to recognise an inclination towards slightly compulsive behaviour. On discovering any new interest I invariably became quite obsessive about it, collecting as much as I could to do with the new found fascination. Wanting to get all of a band’s records, read all of an author’s books, make lists of all the director’s films seen and not seen. While this orientation may have satisfied the hoarder within me, it also hinted at one of my more dangerous characteristics, one which Miss Pennie Fenton would latch onto and then exploit.

With so much time on my hands during what was turning out to be a fairly miserable year, I spent most days in my bedroom listening to records. With very few friends to consult, all my tastes were influenced by NME. I would wait for the paper to arrive each week and then cadge money off my mum to buy the most unusual sounding new release by artists like Joy Division, The Young Marble Giants and The Teardrop Explodes. As these were all newer bands, it meant that I was able chart their rise through the music press and feel a little more connected to what was happening on the outside world.

A liking for The Teardrop Explodes, took me to another new Liverpool group called Echo & the Bunnymen, who I felt an instant affinity with. I loved their debut album Crocodiles. The whole record was filled with a sense that they recognised something was wrong, but were unable to pinpoint precisely what it was. The Scouse combo were full of contradictions. They were a little belligerent like my old mate Joe Morrit, but also had the same caustic wit as Woody Allen. Their music was at times uplifting, but also as cold and dark as the most sombre Joy Division song. The music press would later go on to dub them as the ‘band who could’ve been bigger than U2’, but to be honest I always liked the fact they were regarded as an underground group who only attracted a cult following.

One rumour I loved from around this time related to an alleged incident which took place while both U2 and the Bunnymen were jostling for recognition as they tried to establish themselves. Both post-punk bands were extremely competitive and had slagged each other off a few times in the press. As luck would have it, they both ended up in a nightclub together following gigs in Dublin. An opportunity to make amends. The story goes that U2 decided to offer an olive branch to the Bunnymen and sent over some expensive champagne with flutes on a fancy trolley, accompanied by a note which said ‘Come over and join us’. The Bunnymen, in typical dour fashion, waited for ages to reply and then sent over four cans of best bitter on a battered old tray along with the message, ‘No, you come over and join us [2]’.

I was pleased the Bunnymen came across as a little awkward in interviews, less deferential to the music press and not inclined to play the fame game. Their lead singer Ian ‘Mac’ McCulloch, had a big mouth and enjoyed verbally jousting with music critics. He often made himself unpopular by slagging off many of his contemporaries such as Simple Minds and The Cure. As a result of this confrontational and non-compromising stance, not everyone ‘got’ the band. They remained something of an acquired taste. I took particular pleasure from the fact more people hadn’t heard of them, than had. Their musical style – a form of epic melancholy – would go on to shape many of my other musical choices for decades.

Aside from flicking through the Radio Times in search of Woody Allen films and listening to Bunnymen records; much of my free time was spent looking back at my old life in Ripon. I thought a great deal about my Dad and the times we’d shared; I reflected on the magnificent house we’d all lived in; I even romanticised about my school days. I knew I’d done the right thing ending the unsatisfying affair with Lucy Drew, but sorely missed the company of many of our mutual friends. I also started to wish that I’d taken the trouble to find out more about Pennie Fenton before leaving.

In an attempt to get me to think more about the future, Mum offered to pay for me to take a short series of driving lessons. As an incentive to pass, it was suggested that if I was successful before my eighteenth birthday, she would buy me an old banger to run about in. How could I say no? Before the year was out I could have the freedom of the road, be nipping back to Ripon whenever I liked and saving the rest of the family a fortune on taxi fares.

One of Mum’s school colleagues, who’d completed her teacher training in Newcastle alongside rock musician Sting; had recommended her father as a suitable driving instructor. Although close to retirement age, he was regarded as a brilliant tutor - with not one person under his tutelage ever having failed their test. We both agreed he would be the ideal instructor. Mum was impressed by his credentials and I was impressed by his tenuous link to The Police.

The two of us spent months together. His initial enthusiasm and patience diminished with each fraught encounter. It’s fair to say I didn’t take to driving easily and found the experience stressful from the second I sat behind the wheel, right through to the very last lesson. I developed splitting headaches before every lesson and regularly invented excuses as to why I couldn’t attend. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but the anticipation of driving the humble car absolutely terrified me.

Every lesson appeared to be as much hard work for him as it was for me. During 1980, I took four driving tests, but wasn’t ready for any of them. Each time I sent the application form to the test centre, it was like submitting a wish list to Santa – an aspirational message which both my instructor and I knew could never be fully achieved. Following the crushing disappointment of hearing that one of his pupils had endured three consecutive ‘fails’ at the hands of various examiners, the once unflappable instructor found himself against the ropes and suggested I might be better off looking for a different driving school. After a two-week cooling down period he recognised he was more humiliated than angry by his first ever failer (and triple failer at that); my instructor graciously informed me that from my third test onwards he wasn’t going to charge me any more money for my lessons. Instead of this being a simple commercial transaction, my inability to pass had now become a matter of professional integrity to him and one way or another he was going to remove ‘the blot on his copy book’. I took the news rather less seriously and was only concerned that we may now miss the deadline for the free second hand car which had been muted.

Next session he arrived with a brand new Datsun Cherry, which he assured me (aka the blot) would be much easier to control. Amazingly he was right and within a few weeks we both agreed I was ready to send another letter to Santa. Test number four was going to be either make or break. I was getting sick of failing at something I didn’t even want to do and had told myself if I didn’t pass on this attempt; I would stop learning to drive forever.

The test centre in Harrogate was situated at the bottom of a steep hill. The road approaching it was quite narrow and, as a result, was only one way. We arrived with little time to spare so there were already several cars parked on both sides of the road. Near the top of the hill I found a small opening and in a move which suggested the gods were with me that morning, I effortlessly manoeuvred the car into the confined gap between two other parked vehicles. At the centre reception, I was introduced to my examiner, undertook the reading of the number plate exercise outside and then jumped in the neatly parked and polished Cherry. Still smug from my parallel parking result (and a little disappointed this wouldn’t form part of the evaluation), I totally forgot to heed the explicit advice of my instructor:

“Remember you must keep your clutch down until you straighten up on the road, because it’s going to be really tight getting out of this space.”

Instead, fuelled by a profusion of positive omens, I was pumped and ready to get on with it – nothing was going to stop me passing this time. Nothing, it turned out, except for me lifting my foot off the clutch pedal far too soon, which engaged the engine before I’d time to pull out of the impossibly small parking space and straighten up. Hurtling towards the cars parked on the other side of the road, I slammed on the brakes. The instructor who didn’t have a seat belt on at this point (and to be fair, was probably surprised to be even moving), was flung forwards by the sudden jolt, smashed his forehead on the windscreen and had to pick himself up out of the foot well. What a disaster.  My fate was surely sealed. Awareness that there was nothing I could do about the inevitable outcome of test number four, helped me to relax. With all the pressure to perform removed I set off like I was applying for the Advanced School of British Motorists. My driving was sublime. While I did receive a cautionary note during the feedback for poor clutch control, there was actually insufficient items to fail me and, miraculously, I passed my test. I’d have to wait longer than expected to feel sufficiently confident to gain any benefit from my new full UK licence holder status, but for now was just pleased to have been awarded it. My long suffering instructor looked equally relieved. His reputation had been tarnished, but not destroyed. Asking if I’d like to drive the car home as a full licence holder I sensibly declined, believing I’d done quite enough driving for a while. I had somehow managed to become a legal road-user, yet remained an unfathomably dreadful driver. As Woody Allen had said in Annie Hall, “Do I drive? Yeah, I got a licence but …I gotta – I gotta problem with driving[3]”.

This ‘problem’ is a legacy which has plagued me to this day and while I am now more mindful of the responsibilities of driving, it still requires inordinate effort and intense concentration every time I get into a car. The thought of having to drive always makes me feel incredibly tense. Back in 1980 I had still to discover the root cause of this extreme reaction and why I associated cars with a sense of impending danger.

6. The Primacy Effect

While I‘d been attempting to satisfy the needs of successive driving examiners, Mum had temporarily plastered over the void in her life by dating a widower called Edward Baxter. Following a subdued eleven week courtship, the two of them announced they were getting married and were planning to live in the South of England. Baxter irritatingly described his home town destination as being situated in ‘Royal – Berkshire’ as if this additional tag would impress us. Royal Berk, I thought to myself. He was a fairly sombre bald bloke, whose defining characteristic was a whopping grey beard which made him look much older than his years. I thought it abnormal the way he smoked Dunhill cigarettes like his life depended on them and disliked the way he seemed to pride himself on his absolute knowledge of many things. Despite my reservations, I did try to give him the benefit of the doubt, pleased that Mum appeared to be a little happier. However it didn’t take long for my sisters and me to conclude that Baxter was an inflexible and excessively controlling man. Not in any way an ideal partner for our fragile mother.

Ignoring the unvoiced concerns of us all, the betrothed couple blithely rushed into their marriage of convenience. This union prompted my sisters to vote with their feet. Flatly refusing to join Mr & Mrs Baxter on other side of the country, Erin and Kirsty leased a tiny one bedroom flat together in Harrogate. With no room at the inn for their brother, and no sign of any spare cash floating around for that elusive second-hand car; I had no choice but to pack my things and travel down south.

The enforced move did at least provide me with the impetus I needed to return to college and complete my A-levels. Finally recognising I wanted something more, I hung all my hopes on passing a sufficient number of exams to get into university. This lifeline might offer a potential release from the dull ache of Baxter’s house and from the growing number of acrimonious exchanges between the two newlyweds. By working hard and forgetting the situation I found myself in, I believed I could finally gain independence and, if my student grant application was successful, some financial autonomy. I literally couldn’t wait for my exams to begin and was therefore delighted in the spring of 1982 to receive an unconditional offer from a small college in the midlands to study for a degree in social sciences.

It may well be a truism, but I’ve always found the more you put into something, the more you get out of it. As soon as I stepped out of the taxi and onto the recently tarmacked footpath down to the Nene College campus, I had committed myself to having a full and active student experience. To paraphrase the outrageously upbeat Mari Wilson song from the same year, student life was Just What I Always Wanted. By the time I reached the end of the deceptively long drive and had parked my tatty vinyl suitcase on the steps of the snazzy Central Building, I knew that this was the beginning of something monumental.

The college was very much a small fish in an Olympic sized higher education pool. Reflecting my inbuilt orientation to ‘aim-low’, I’d deliberately secured a place at one of the tiniest higher education establishments in the country, to study BA Combined Studies - a subject which provided prospective employers with absolutely no indication as to what the three years in academia had all been about. Nene College wasn’t therefore the choice of your average overachiever, as not too many of its alumni ever went into senior government posts, became CEOs of multinational organisations or won prizes for their philanthropic pursuits. As a matter of fact, the only two notable Nene graduates I’ve ever heard about remain just moderately well-known. In a strange twist of fate, both of these former Nene pupils are known for specific achievements which I really do admire. Firstly, Bill Drummond, record producer and one time Echo & the Bunnymen manager and also Andrew Collins, UK broadcaster and Radio Times columnist – coincidently the only band and the only magazine I’ve remained loyal to since my youth. When opting to go to Nene, I was unaware such lofty luminaries had once trodden many of the same concrete steps I was about to stagger over. Indeed, as someone who is able to find symbolic significance in the most inconsequential events, I am glad I didn’t know this at the time, otherwise I may have been even more convinced by the peculiar sensation I’d been harbouring from the second I arrived - namely that fate itself had drawn me to this fine, split-site former teacher training college with new leather sellers training centre added on to it.

Unaware and therefore undaunted by the calibre of its former students, I approached Nene with a fearless enthusiasm. This was fuelled by fond memories of life at Ripon College; a desire to re-establish myself socially and by a strong sense of relief at having finally departed from the suffocating atmosphere inside Mum’s new house. For what Nene lacked in academic acumen, it more than made up for by being a friendly and welcoming place, one which was as easy to fathom as it was to like. Attending an emergent college which had only a few thousand students meant you instantly felt part of a small community. This was something I’d coveted for years. Unassuming and unassertive, I’d occasionally felt a bit disconnected, so to finally sense I was part of something worthwhile was great. As bewildered and impressionable freshers, we were all in this together – nascent spirits enjoying our first real taste of independence funded by our first pristine student grant cheque. This would be a time of countless inaugural experiences, as we all set sail on a defining adventure, guaranteed to create memories which would reverberate for years to come.

While many of my contemporaries were using higher education as a way to consolidate what it was they wanted to do; I was still finding out who I was. Nene allowed me to explore the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. It was an unbridled time, one without restriction or limitation, which provided you with the space to find your own balance. As a full time student you could drink to excess, swear without reprisal, mismanage your own finances, form a band, dye your hair, pierce your body, shave your head, dress in whatever you liked and whatever you didn’t. For a while I was unremitting in the pursuit of hedonistic activity, but never lost focus of the reason I’d applied: I was thankful to be in higher education and wanted to get as good a degree as I could. As a result, I invested as much energy in my academic endeavours as I did in the activities which could undermine these scholarly goals.

Two short days into the thrill of independence, I joined a couple of lads from our hall of residence who’d decided to celebrate their new found liberation from the shackles of parental ties by undressing in the middle of the perfectly presented central lawn and streaking around the college grounds. My limited athletic ability meant that not only was I at the back of the line of gangly white bodies darting self-consciously between the relative cover of the teaching blocks; but also the only person unable to run fast enough to avoid our principal who had spotted our unique interpretation of The Fresher’s Parade. The man who in three years would be responsible for authorising our degrees had just stepped out of an important fundraising event in the main building, flanked by a number of startled benefactors. Unimpressed by our merry jape, he hollered at the top of his voice for us all to stop or face immediate disciplinary action. With nowhere to run to and no energy to run with, I was the single streaker foolish enough to comply with this unambiguous instruction. As I stood with cupped hands barely covering my bantam bashfulness, our honourable principal was at a loss how to deal with the defenceless mite in front of him. Buying time, he waggled his most admonishing finger, for much longer than either of us felt appropriate and then demanded I knuckle down and focus forthwith on my academic studies.

Any repeat of this lewd incident and I would be ejected from the college, “In a flash, young man. In a flash.”

Skulking off with my head held low and genitals even lower, I returned to the halls and explained to my now fully-dressed accomplices what had happened. Obviously everyone found it hilarious and I was immediately re-christened ‘Flash’, a moniker which would hang heavily for the rest of my days at college. The person most impressed by my new ‘bare-faced rebel’ status was a lad called Billy Farrell. He lived in the room opposite, but up until this time hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. Offering an olive branch to cover my shame, he unexpectedly knocked on my door to introduce himself.

“Ey, I hear you were caught out by The Suits today,” he said in a rich Scouse drawl. “Don’t let those overpaid bastards get you down mate; at least everyone now knows who you are. I reckon your new name is dead funny. Reminds me of that Queen song – Flash, ahh-ahh you know, from Flash Gordon?”

“More like Flesh, ahh-ahh, from the dodgy porno flick, Flesh Gordon,” I replied, delighted with the play on words

“Ha ha, deffo – you know, I once saw that film at mi cousin’s flat. Best part of it was that doctor - what was he called – Flexi… Flexi Jerkoff? You should thank your lucky stars you weren’t given his name – or you really would be in trouble!”

It turned out Billy was a thoroughly decent bloke who was studying many of the same subjects as me. Within weeks, the two of us became the best of drinking buddies. Brought up in a rough part of Liverpool, he was impossible to miss because of his trademark long curly platinum-blond hair, which resulted in him often being mistaken for a girl from the back. He was a very funny guy, but was perhaps too anarchic for many of our middle class peers. As the student who hated students, he joined the college socialist society on the day he arrived and quickly aligned himself to many of its more radical left wing causes. Billy was obsessed with Karl Marx and frequently quoted entire passages from Das Kapital. He posted political flyers in the kitchen about the miners’ strike, encouraged us to attend national rallies to demonstrate against education cuts and watch any programme which featured left wing entertainers such as Alexi Sayle. He was the most unlikely looking political agitator in the world with his baby face, golden locks and juvenile complexion. Although he had a blatant antipathy for many of our more affluent hall-mates, comrade Billy usually managed to get away with his extremist rantings because everyone recognised that he was quite a vulnerable person. Trips into Northampton with the androgynous leftie were always an event, as he’d insist on wearing his ‘town outfit’ which comprised of a shiny red satin jacket, skin-tight drainpipe trousers and patent leather winkle pickers. We must have looked more like a couple out on a date, rather than two lads in search of the next watering hole.

As our birthdays were only a day apart, friends had organised a joint celebration in the middle of the autumn term. A number of late night drunken discussions had already revealed that Billy had been through a tough time growing up, and wasn’t the sort to buy (or expect) any presents. Because of this we all made even more of an effort. Remembering he was a fan of flamboyant US super-groups, I ordered a limited edition Journey tee-shirt for him, but was then blown away to discover he’d bought me a twelve-inch edition of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division. It was a rare recording which I’d scoured every record fair to try and get hold of. On the night of the birthday bash, Billy proudly donned his new Journey garment and watched from the bar as I attempted to replicate Ian Curtis’s angular dance in the centre of the room. We both got spectacularly pissed and spent most of the party insisting the DJ play Joy Division over and over again. Unfortunately for us, this classic record turned out to have quite a prophetic message, as love would indeed tear us apart over the next few months.

Getting to know people wasn’t hard. There were only ten of us in our hall, five young men and five young women. Next door had exactly the same split. None of us had been away from home before and as a result we quickly became reliant each other for companionship and support. Billy took a shine to one of the girls in the hall next door called Annie Munroe, who sat with us in our sociology lectures. She was great and, like Billy and myself, was one of the few northerners at Nene. Annie had a depreciating sense of humour, looked younger than her age, but at the same time appeared to possess an inner wisdom beyond her years. She always wore simple, loose fitting, shapeless clothes which when combined with her long, free flowing auburn hair, accentuated her unaffected appeal. Annie played the guitar and wrote bits of poetry – reinforcing the initial impression I’d made that she looked like she’d just stepped out of a folk band from the sixties. I’d always thought poetry was a safe place for a shy person who wanted to express themselves. It was widely understood Billy had a bit of a crush on her and while she was very fond of Billy, she regarded him as a mate. With both of them wanting different things they tended to blow hot and cold with each other and after a few drinks Billy would sometimes get quite belligerent with her and I’d have to jump in to prevent things getting out of hand. To complicate matters, Annie and I went through a few stages where one of us would fancy the other, but the other wasn’t as keen. As our infrequent attraction for each other never coincided, it never went anywhere. So accepting this was our fate, we initially parked such messy matters and went on to become great friends.

Our ease with each other was based on an openness we shared and on the packets of Silk Cut cigarettes we relied on each other for. I’d never met anyone who made smoking look quite so effortless, quite so cool, as Ms Munroe. She would light up and explain about her frustrations with Billy, who sometimes was lovely to her, sometimes really hurtful. In turn I would listen, suggest we had another ciggie and then would tell her about the latest girl I fancied, asking for tips about how best to approach them.

“There’s this one girl in Kirkby Hall who’s lovely, but doesn’t know I exist,” I said.

“How can you tell?” Annie replied, passing us both another cigarette.

“Well, I keep looking over at her in the bar and she never looks back.”

“Maybe she’s shy, or maybe she’s too self-conscious. I hate it if someone ever stares at me – not that it ever happens!”

“Oh, I bet you’ve plenty of admirers – I know Billy doesn’t stop talking about you.”

Annie side-stepped getting pulled into another discussion about Billy.

“Maybe the girl in Kirkby has another admirer Charlie, maybe she has a boyfriend at home, maybe she sees the two of us sitting together in the bar at night and thinks that we’re a couple?

I side-stepped getting pulled into a discussion about this intriguing possibility.

“You know, one of the things I like about you Annie, is that you’re literally the only person in the whole of the college who still uses my real name. Even my lecturers call me Flash these days. I wish everyone was like you. I mean...”

“Careful Charlie, or I’ll think you’re trying to flatter me…”

The turning point in our friendship was one evening when we’d arranged to meet up with mates for a themed disco. Although it was on campus, we’d forgotten the strict requirement for everyone to dress up as the opposite sex in order to gain free admission. Refused entry, Annie and I legged it 200m across to the sports hall and climbed through an unsecure window to swap clothes. Giggling away in the changing rooms as we undressed behind different sides of a frosted shower door, we were barely able to keep our eyes off each other.

Our relationship developed naturally as we spent more time together, teasing and taunting each other the way mutually attracted people do. Before we knew it we’d stopped discussing our thoughts about others and began to talk about the affection we had for each other. I started to pay more attention to her pale blue eyes, her pencil thin ankles, how she tilted her head to the side for a photograph and the way her voice went up at the end of a sentence, as if she was asking a question. While Annie put herself down for not being sufficiently interested in girly concerns and was frustrated by an involuntary stammer which happened whenever she was flustered; I loved the way she never wore (or needed) any make up and found her almost inaudible stutter, especially captivating.

Still hampered by feelings of low esteem, I was convinced Annie couldn’t possibly fancy me. She was always so open and friendly with everyone. Also, I was conscious that Billy may still be harbouring feelings for her. However as the weeks passed, our strong attraction for each other became too compelling and by the spring term we had started to see each other. On hearing news of our relationship, Billy pretended to be cool about it, but ultimately things changed between us all. Although he remained cordial with the two of us, the dynamic was never the same, the unqualified support for each other which had characterized our friendship was gone.

I assumed after a couple of days to get his head around the news, we would all carry on as normal, but I was wrong. Although we followed all the same conventions – sitting together in lectures, going to the bar together, almost saying the right things, an invisible connection was broken. Billy had always known Annie wasn’t interested in him as a boyfriend, but the knowledge we were now together and involved in a much more serious relationship than the succession of one-night-stands which had until this point been our agreed template; was too much for him. The whole painful experience taught me that even when there is a powerful desire to maintain the most important of relationships, the intensity of another interest can sometimes overshadow everything that has gone before. This lesson would be brought into much sharper focus after graduation, as Pennie Fenton came crashing back into my life, exercising her exceptional ability to weaken the strongest of established bonds.

My new girlfriend made it especially easy to be together and tolerate the cold shoulder treatment from Billy, along with some slightly more restrained criticism from other friends. Ordinarily, people who are consumed with a degree of self-reproach tend to be attracted to partners with a similar inclination. The net result of this cloning effect is of course that these dysfunctional relationships rarely last. However my relationship with Annie was different to any I’d experienced before. On the surface, she may have appeared to mirror many of my own insecurities, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. She was perhaps at worst a little under-confident, which simply made you feel like you wanted to protect her.

Annie was very grounded and seldom questioned her own instincts; one of the few people I knew who wasn’t in any way haunted by their own history. Honest and trusting, she always saw the good in people. There was a refreshing lightness to her, she wanted nothing from me, had no edge and no agenda and as a result there was nothing to push back against. I’d always ended up bored with other girlfriends - even the licentious Lucy, but not this time. In truth, I was flattered that someone so attractive and straightforward could possibly like me. Up until this point, I’d firmly believed the girls I fancied and girls I could trust were mutually exclusive. Annie was the first one who was both.

Importantly we made each other laugh and instantly felt comfortable together. We also kissed like we invented it. Sometimes while pressing our lips together, we would take it in turns to breathe out while the other inhaled. Sharing air in this way provided us with a feeling of real connectedness. Interdependent and inter-related in the most intimate way. The only problem was after few minutes ‘mutual breathing’ all of the exchanged oxygen would be used and we would end up collapsing in fits of laughter. During those early months we regularly stayed up all night talking about our values, our hopes for the future, our families and our friends. We discovered we’d much in common as we dissected the serious and celebrated the trivial. It was clear we owned many of the same records and had both resisted the eighties’ trend to dismiss the work of older artists such as Patti Smith, Melanie Safka and Leonard Cohen. Christ we had even both bought (and enjoyed) the much vilified Live at Budokan by Dylan. We would talk as long as we could stay awake and then in the early hours reluctantly fall asleep in each other’s arms, fitting miraculously into my single college bed.

It wasn’t just music we had in common, the more we talked, the more we realised we shared many other guilty pleasures such as a passion for the 1976 television series Rich Man Poor Man. It was a relief to hear how both of our teenage worlds were rocked the week Nick Nolte’s character was brutally slain by the evil Falconetti. Finally we’d both found someone to talk to about this terrific show and how disappointed we were with the sequel Beggarman Thief.

Being in a relationship which works makes you feel a whole lot perkier and after a couple of months together, I was feeling as happy as any breathing human being could be. I also noticed that Annie’s signature stutter had all but disappeared. Confidence temporarily boosted, I immersed myself in the college social scene and formed an alternative events society with a couple of mates. Our aim was simple – to extend the range of entertainment available on campus. By attracting a sizable fee-paying membership, we tried to exert pressure on the students union to secure better quality acts. All of us had attended the diabolical selection of aging C-list bands, performing ninety minute sets of unknown songs every few weeks in the central hall. We were bored to death with Alvin Stardust, Ruby Turner and Roy Wood and so our initial booking was deliberately at odds with this routine. In particular, we wanted to launch the society with a high profile showcase event, more in tune with the social unrest evident outside of our cosseted student existence. Convincing Students Union President Matt Buckley to release virtually all of our membership fees to finance this first function; we invested a substantial sum on the first ever Nene College Comedy Festival. Of all the union executive, Matt was the one I got on with best. He was a bright and focused bloke who was really committed to his job and the student community. He was one of those people who you thought would succeed in whatever he undertook. You knew he didn’t want to let people down and as a result you wanted to do right by him.

Ambitious plans eventually approved, everyone worked tirelessly during the build-up to the show. Tapping in to the emerging alternative comedy scene, our final bill was made up almost exclusively of satirical stand-up comics who came onstage one after another telling a succession of (very similar) left wing, anti-thatcher jokes. Needless to say they all went down a storm.

To ensure the event was financially viable – or at least broke-even, one concession was made. I’d agreed with the union that our headliner would be a mainstream big-name act, someone well known who was capable of pulling in punters from Northampton and beyond. We were lucky to get him. Currently riding high on the back of a hugely popular television series, the quick-witted comic added our show onto the midlands-leg of his mammoth nationwide tour. Unfortunately the lugubrious celebrity was in the clutches of a serious substance addiction at this time and ended up arriving hours late. As if this wasn’t bad enough, he then insisted on locking himself upstairs alone in the darkened student’s union office. With the audience getting restless and many demanding a refund, Matt Buckley made it clear it was down to me to extricate him from the corner of the unlit office. Conscious of the lambasting I’d received when I tried to ingratiate myself with the diminutive David Rappaport and quickly recognising Mr Funny was perhaps not at his most whimsical; I trod very carefully.

After a very long period, characterised by the novel experience of having all of my senses deprived of any stimulation within the blackened office; I nonchalantly announced, “Right then, everyone is waiting to see you…ready as soon as you are.”

Nothing... not even an acknowledgement as he remained immobile, slumped on the floor.

Next: a whopping lie, “Err, full house waiting to see you downstairs.”

Again nada. This went on for a while and I began to think I’d have to cancel our much-hyped final routine. In a last ditch attempt, I tried to engage him in a simple un-contentious conversation. Accepting this was going to be problematic with someone who was sprawled out on the floor and now busy licking the carpet; I asked him a series of inane closed questions.

“So was it a good journey over from Birmingham?”

“Are you staying overnight after the show?”

Followed by, the most banal enquiry of all, “Do you enjoy touring?”

I didn’t consider it at the time, but I think that in my terrified state the strategy was a subconscious attempt to wear down an already weakened man with superficiality. Perhaps I was hoping I could rile him into activity by being so un-incisive, so inarticulate and so bland.

Remarkably, these low value questions did provoke a response, as Mr Funny began to snort and then chuckle to himself, muttering away in his trademark dulcet tones, “You know lad, you should give up all this education malarkey and apply for a job at The Daily Mail as a hack - your questioning style would fit in perfectly with those tossers.”

Then, no doubt humbled at the thought of being in the presence of a future Pulitzer Prize winner for investigative journalism, he began to rise precariously to his feet. Steadying himself on my shoulder he staggered forward.

Pulling a pen from his jacket pocket, like a sword from a sheath he positioned himself ready to sign yet another autograph, before shaking his head a bit and then saying, “Sorry, to answer your last question, touring night after night is a bit like drugs - to start with it’s great fun, then it’s no fun at all, then it’s fuckin’ shite.”

I didn’t feel the need to ask which stage he was at with either of them.

Pen re-housed in pocket, we tottered downstairs and after another ninety minutes spent reassuring him he would be fine, I watched as he stood centre-stage delivering an uneven, but sporadically brilliant set of acerbic monologues to the handful of enthusiasts who had waited patiently to see him.

It was an incredibly stressful evening. I didn’t have a drop to drink until our headliner secured his first wave of applause, but then must have crammed in quite a few bevvies because I can hardly remember anything that followed. I do know there was a disco later and was probably really pissed by this point because I was sure I caught sight of Pennie Fenton out of the corner of my eye in that dimly lit concert hall. Next day I put this unlikely apparition down to the pressures of the night, but I must have been convinced it was her because I pogoed across the dance floor a number of times just to see if she was actually there.

After the substantial losses had been calculated following this first alternative event, we decided to play it safe and invest all our remaining funds into going to see shows rather than organising them for ourselves. This proved far more successful. Concerts were always the most popular. We would block-book tickets for various bands – Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, The Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths, The Pogues and of course the mighty Echo & the Bunnymen. Until forming the society, I’d never managed to see the Bunnymen in concert. College would therefore provide me with yet another milestone event.

Live, the Bunnymen were breath-taking, with all four members of the band bouncing sounds off each other, attacking every note with an unequalled ferocity. Almost visceral in their delivery, they managed to be dramatic without being theatrical. Each song seemed distilled – as if no note was ever wasted. Appealing to my left wing values, I liked the way on stage they all lined up across the front in a row as equals, drums as important as vocals. It was like musical communism, with everyone equal in status; equal in song writing royalties and equal when it came to band decisions. They were a true band, with the sum of the parts greater than each of their separate contributions. I dragged everyone in our hall of residence to see them so many times in the early eighties that they all knew the names of every band member and most of the roadies.

The only downside to the increasing number of events we were promoting was that we had to prepay for transport to take people to the venues. This additional cost pushed up the price of the trips, sometimes out of the reach of many students. The solution was simple. I needed to become a registered driver of the students union minibus. The union was understandably protective of its singular vehicle and heavily relied on the barely roadworthy bus for promotional purposes and transporting sports teams around the county. Any drivers therefore had to be carefully vetted and were required to undertake a skills test before being added to the college insurance. Matt was really supportive of my application. He loved driving, enjoyed the freedom it brought. He’d saved hard as an undergraduate to buy himself a soft-top sports car which he’d then spent the best part of a year lovingly restoring. The thought of having to drive again filled me with anxiety, but I went ahead with my application to use the bus and somehow managed to pass the skills test (conveniently failing to disclose I hadn’t driven since all those disastrous tests in Harrogate). Achieving authorised key holder status, I decided to let my driving speak for itself. Unfortunately for me and everyone I drove, it did – very eloquently. The rather unstable combination of poor ability mixed with my innate nervous disposition lead to a succession of unfortunate incidents in that damned minibus.

Access to the sixteen-seater vehicle meant that if you were discreet, you could sometimes use it to run personal errands. Annie and I found this perk particularly useful for the three mile trip to get our weekly food shop. On my very first outing, minutes behind the wheel, I totally miscalculated the width of the bus and snapped a wing mirror off a parked car. I just felt totally unable to control it. The second time out, heading along the same road, a vehicle was backing out from almost the same spot. I failed to notice it’s reversing lights and shunted it head on, knocking the car and its three elderly passengers right back onto the kerb. A letter of complaint was sent to the college principal about this incident. Many other mishaps followed.

Returning one afternoon from another unauthorised trip, I again misjudged the width of the contraption when attempting to park it in a bay which was, in reality, just wide enough to accommodate one underpowered motorbike. Oblivious to the two cars parked on either side of this Lilliputian space, I bulldozed the bus straight into the rather fetching red car parked on the left. The minibus bumper jarred its way all the way along the side of this impressive motor, twisted its wheel axel and completely destroyed two of its panels. Initially I was astonished at just how much damage had been achieved, but then horrified when I realised it was Matt Buckley’s recently restored 1969 MGB Roadster. Our president looked more helpless than annoyed when he arrived to inspect it. It was like watching someone descend into a state of defeat – a man trying and failing to process the magnitude of what was in front of him. He didn’t say a word, simply dropped his head, sighed deeply and adopted the same innate involuntary expression which makes you want to put your arm around someone and hand them a large mug of sweet tea. Following this incident, my minibus licence was revoked which meant that, in the end, I hadn’t used it to drive a single student to a concert. Having said that, being banned from using the bus was an outcome which suited both parties and one which allowed me to enjoy all the pedestrian pleasures college life could offer.

By the third year our little gang were still spending much of our spare time in the bar, but were also writing articles for the newspaper, managing the weekly discos, helping with fundraising events and even helping Billy Farrell with some of his less extreme political demonstrations. The pace was so fast, I hardly ever thought about life back home. I’m ashamed to admit it but the more I enjoyed college life, the less I would look forward to going back to hear Mum and Edward Baxter sniping at each other during end of term breaks. However, as term merged into term there was no avoiding the fact that we were all too quickly nearing the end of our studies.

There was just one significant hurdle left to stumble over. Since Annie and I had been so heavily involved organising extra-curricular activities, we’d both failed to submit proposals for our all-important final year project. This meant we were issued with letters of concern from our head of year. Both of us were given just 24 hours to submit our intentions or be forced to retake this part of the course.

“Oh no, it’s a really bad one…” was all Annie could say on receipt of the forceful ‘pull your socks up’ notification.

It was very rare for Annie to ever get stressed. Usually she was adept at side-stepping life’s trifling concerns, the trivial and the minutiae. She was always the most relaxed person in our group about the state of her student overdraft, because no one ever bothered her about having to pay it back. However on the infrequent occasions when she was presented with a problem which was time-critical, Annie was without exception…hopeless. Conversely, I tended to excel at fretting, but did accept that the majority of my everyday stressors were probably invented – distractors and inconsequential barriers which I had sculptured for myself. So whenever a more tangible problem like this letter of concern actually arose, I was quite pleased to have something valid to focus on.

“I can’t believe it’s me saying this to you Annie, but relax - there’s absolutely no need to worry. The deadline isn’t until first thing tomorrow – and then we only need to submit a brief outline of what we’re planning to do. I reckon I could do something about psychology and you are always good with child development. We’ll both be fine.”

“The reason it’s called a dead-line Charlie, is because here’s a line which you cannot cross - or you will die,” she’d say over and over again, without a hint of irony.

We stayed up most of the night, passing around a series of unsuitable half-baked suggestions which we hoped might placate our tutors. I rejected the old Joe Morrit idea of renting a room out to an American carpenter so I could nag them for weeks in order to study their reactions. The longer we spent on our deliberations the harder it became. By four in the morning we’d talked each other in and out of every idea put forwards and so decided to get a couple of hours kip before the dreaded meeting with our lecturers.

I’d remembered reading an article which claimed if you struggled to make a decision about something important, you should take a glass of water, drink half of it while focusing on your problem, then place what’s left next to your bed just before you fall asleep. Then, in the morning, after you wake, you should swallow the rest of the water and hey-presto the solution would make itself known. With no options worth considering, we followed these instructions to the mouthful before collapsing onto the bed next to each other.

Later in the morning, awoken by the familiar sound of clattering cleaners, we both drank the remains of our tepid water and were amazed to discover that, immediately afterwards, we were instilled with an overpowering sense of purpose. The two of us knew precisely what we wanted to study and how we intended to deliver our project plan. One hundred and twenty minutes of disturbed slumber and all of a sudden Annie was talking like an impassioned academic about how she intended to demonstrate the way pre-school children learn to play, while I was sketching out ideas for a simple card game to investigate how we remember information.

I was interested to see if it was possible to alter the outcome of a well-known memory effect called primacy-recency. In essence, the theory states that when people are required to recall from a long list of items, they tend to recall the high impact items shown at the beginning and at the end of the series with the greatest accuracy. Typically, items presented somewhere in the middle are usually forgotten or are remembered out of sequence. All of my initial exercises had demonstrated the tendency held up across a variety of age groups. Next, I was curious to see what would happen to people’s ability if a ‘disruptive event’ was introduced slap bang in the middle of the exercise. Would this deliberate distraction alter the way volunteers retrieved the rest of the information? Could the addition of a single high-impact coloured card, introduced half way, through a series of black and white cards for example, undermine conventional memory patterns?

Motivated as much by Annie’s obvious commitment to her own ambitious study as by my own desire to do well, I spent weeks testing my hypothesis by conducting hundreds of controlled exercises. Results revealed that while the overall number of cards remembered was never affected, it was clear the familiar pattern of mainly recalling cards from the beginning and end of the pack had been completely upset. In all the tests, respondents recounted roughly the same total amount of information, but were now remembering items from right across the whole of the card set.

I enjoyed conducting the research and found the whole experience to be an unexpectedly satisfying way to conclude to my student days. Completion of the project meant that I was even able to dupe my old mate, the finger wagging principal, into awarding me with a 2:1 degree, a result which astonished both parties. Achieving what turned out to be the best result for the year meant I was quite proud of myself for a day or two.

I thought it paradoxical, that I’d done so well at this particular topic, especially since I’d always regarded myself as extremely poor at remembering anything. Could it have been the case that my preoccupation with this project was born from an on-going frustration at having forgotten large portions of my own childhood? Did these blank spaces motivate me to investigate ways to alter capability in this area? Could some form of real-life high impact intervention ever help me to remember those missing episodes more clearly?

7. Cold Iron

Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade. "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, "But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all."  Rudyard Kipling

Armed with two pristine graduation certificates, Annie and I spent the summer of 1985 paying off our student overdrafts by working as waiters at a hotel in Ilfracombe on the North Devon coast. It was really a three month extension to college life. We lived in a decrepit old staff house with a transitory group of excitable youngsters from around the UK. We were all united by a shared desire to earn some money, get a sun tan and spend as much of our free time as possible getting drunk. It was great fun, but by the end of this summer sabbatical we were absolutely knackered. With little chance of finding permanent employment anywhere in Devon, we travelled up north to Annie’s home town, staying with her parents while we searched for work.

Annie had talked fondly about Scunthorpe and I’d originally pictured her birthplace to be another sedate coastal town. I was therefore surprised to discover it was highly industrialised and situated twenty miles inland of the nearest estuary. The town seemed a far cry from the picturesque coastline I was expecting. Nothing wrong with the place by any means, but it did lack the dramatic scenery, fresh bracing air and the innate charm of our recent summer break. Not the most impoverished place in the north, but still a town where almost 20% of its population were classified as ‘economically inactive’. Going to boarding school, grammar school and then on to study for a degree, I’d always assumed I’d slide seamlessly into a rewarding career, work hard and progress. It was therefore quite a shock for me to discover just how few jobs were available in the area – not just for me – but for anyone.

It would take me a while to warm to Scunthorpe’s steely charms and at first I secretly yearned to live in another place. I regarded this stage in my life as a transition – a stop gap to look back on as life unfolded. Captivation with my new environment would therefore be a slow process, requiring me to become more intimate with the region, the villages, the roads and the people before I truly felt settled in the Industrial Garden Town of the North. For ages I wondered where love had brought me.

Initially, I was struck by how much every aspect of the town seemed to be forged from the fortunes of the (then nationalised) steelworks. Although fewer people were working at the plant than in its 1970’s heyday, Scunthorpe remained economically dependent on it. Pubs and clubs were still organised to meet the needs of the dwindling numbers of shift workers. Even the language of local residents was informed by the spectre of the former British Steel plant. The town was one of the few places in the country where the word ‘slag’ had more than one meaning.

There was no denying that the steelworks did cast an imposing shadow over the region. The scale of business was immense - sprawling across acres of land containing hundreds of random rusty old sheds, many of which appeared to be unused. Some of the decrepit control rooms and gantries were clearly operational, but the overall impression of the site was that it was desolate and lawless. If you were a gritty northern band in search of a backdrop for your album sleeve, then here would be the ideal place to be photographed.

Early attempts to suspend judgement about life in the area were hampered by the stream of bad press which was continually levied at the town. Annie had warned me that Scunthorpe often received more than its fair share of criticism and had been an easy target for comedians in search of a cheap laugh.

“Why wasn’t Jesus Born in Scunthorpe?

“Because they couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin.“ - Ba boom boom, tish.

In 1981 comedian Spike Milligan even published a book entitled Spike Milligan, Indefinite Articles and Scunthorpe. Following criticism of his description of the much maligned municipality, Milligan responded angrily with the following statement:

"We should like the people of Scunthorpe to know that the references to Scunthorpe are nothing personal. It is a joke, as is Scunthorpe.”

My own theory about why the region was attracting such a lot of bad publicity, related to the town’s rather grim name. As a boy, I remembered that my Scottish granddad used the term ‘scunnered’ in situations where he wanted to express strong disapproval or even disgust with something.

“I was scunnered to hear that Thatcher woman may get the job lad – she’ll destroy the rights of the working man...”

The name just didn’t create a positive impression. Imagine the difference if the town had been called Rowland on Trent?, I thought.

As it was, rival football fans continued to delight in the knowledge that they could use the words ‘cunt’ and ‘hor’ at the same time when referring to the opposing Scunthorpe team.

Looking beyond all the unflattering media portrayals, I gradually began to find the experience of living in the region actually rather enjoyable. Cutting through the hyperbole, I got to know some of the finest people you could wish to meet. This should never have been a surprise given my girlfriend, the most loyal of Scunny lasses, was born and raised in the town. True, it was evident that this wasn’t a particularly affluent area – there were few signs of ostentatiousness or real wealth. However, the people who had found jobs, worked hard and instead of parading their wealth, built their homes, families and futures in a quiet ‘steely’ kind of way which I admired. Almost everyone I met was friendly - if rather blunt - and as time passed I grew to respect their no-nonsense approach to dialogue. I noticed there was a ‘cut straight to the chase and tell it like it is’ philosophy which informed most conversations. No one was ever to think too highly of themselves that they couldn’t be brought down to size.

A couple of months after moving to the town I was introduced to Stuart Jackson who was dating Claire, one of Annie's neighbours. Stuart was very friendly and easy to talk to. Proud of his northern roots, he had a zest for life and was able to laugh at himself. He bore a striking resemblance to actor Matt LeBlanc and had much of the same cheeky charm. I warmed to him immediately.

“Hi, I’ve been really looking forward to meeting you mate,” he said. “I’ve heard that for a… “, pausing to select the right word, “posh lad, you’re all right. I don’t suppose you’ll know many people here yet, so if you ever need someone to show you round, someone who knows the score, let me know. Scunny is sound, I’ve lived here all my life. It’s the reason I got this done…” He rolled up the shirt sleeve on his left arm.

He revealed an enormous tattoo, covering most of his arm. The voluminous ink-work featured a skull with a burning cigarette hanging out of its mouth and the words ‘MADE IN SCUNTHORPE’ stamped underneath it in bold lettering. Note to self: Tonight I am in the company of an indigenous Scunthorpe male: a man of steel.

Annie and I would meet up with Claire and Stuart most weekends and then later, as friendships developed, Stuart and I would also arrange to go out together mid-week for a few drinks. On the face of it, it was amazing that we found anything to talk about, given that he and his entire family were enthralled by my mechanical nemesis: the motor car. I’d even go so far as to say Stuart and I sat at the opposite ends of the ‘I like cars’ continuum. His older brother was a moderately accomplished stock-car racer and Stuart had taken a job as a trainee mechanic in a local garage to support his brother’s interest. Our easy friendship overcame this and other apparent obstacles. Despite no shared history, dramatically different backgrounds and virtually no common interests; we immediately clicked. Because he was so unguarded, I found Stuart to be tremendously likable and something inside told me that he would become a lifelong friend.

One of the things I admired about him most was that he was a grafter, not afraid of hard work. If anything ever went wrong in his life Stuart quickly adjusted to changing circumstances and worked relentlessly to find a solution. He was a practical thinker and had an ability to see through complexity to find obvious solutions. At junior school he was picked-on for being small. His mother, furious at seeing her little boy upset, would grab his hand and frog-march him round to the perpetrator’s house. She would force Stuart to knock on the door, demand to see the antagonist and their parents and then make Stuart explain to them all precisely how he felt. If his Mum wasn’t convinced this had put an end to things, she would even encourage her little boy to fight with them on their own doorstep. This walk of bravery around the council estate where they lived was repeated every single time he was bullied, educating both Stuart and any potential adversary that ‘none of the Jacksons ever walk away from difficulties’.

Our favoured watering hole was a pub called The Ashby Star and during the mid-1980s, the majority of our social life centred around the rougher of the two bars inside this little boozer. The uninspiring Star building was constructed in the fifties and looked like a typical red brick estate pub, which had been plonked in the middle of a concrete car park which was too large for its intended purpose. Back then, there wasn’t exactly an exuberant atmosphere inside the pub. There was no frisson of excitement or jubilation about the place, but if you managed to keep your head down it was a satisfactory environment to enjoy a drink. Stuart’s brother was one of the Ashby Star’s best known regulars. He was very different in his nature to Stuart – less communicative and not as outgoing. Like all his mates he was direct and uncomplicated. A spade was never a spade, it was always a shovel.

Any regular, who’d demonstrated sufficient loyalty to the dated boozer by drinking at least five nights a week, over a number of years, would be rewarded with a simple nickname. Everyone called Stuart ‘Little Jacko’, while his older brother was known as ‘Jacko’; not because he was especially tall but rather eighteen months older. Regardless of your age or position, the same rules applied – the shorter the nickname granted, the higher you were in the pub’s pecking order. To this day I still don’t know many of the proper names of omnipresent boozers such as Wig, Botch, Piggy, Tommo, Sparks or Blowie. The convivial landlord, the six letter Fritzy, was a beast of a man who kept a hideously dented and alarmingly stained wooden baseball bat right next to the main till in full view of all his customers. It always surprised me he’d never been allocated a three or four letter replacement for his Fritzpatrick surname – this was after all his pub.

To the uninformed the Star could therefore be a pretty unwelcoming place – smoke filled and functionally decorated, it tended to attract exactly the same, grufty male clientele each night. Occasionally the brewery would treat punters to a band on Saturday or project the odd championship title boxing fight onto a temporary screen for the selected few. The regulars were not an easy group to integrate yourself with, however as a friend of ‘Little Jacko’, most people were at least tolerant.

The majority of customers stood around the large bar each session, chain smoking and occupying the same position night in, night out. Many drinkers worked (to afford the frequency of their visits) either at the steelworks or in a physically demanding manufacturing role. A high percentage would call in straight from work still covered in black oxide, safe in the knowledge that it was so Spartan inside the pub, no one worried about a little soot. The appearance of a few females at the weekend often added to the atmosphere. Sometimes it added to the tension. If a fracas escalated, everyone knew fights were taken outside - or Fritzy would step in to resolve matters.

One of my favourite of his sayings was, “This is the last time I am asking you using my voice...” Given that he only ever used this phrase when he was stood next to the till, the implication was that he was about to reach out for that infamous wooden bat.

Scunthorpe bars were very different environments to the Nene College social club where practically anything was tolerated. Codes of conduct and social expectations needed to be unlearned and repositioned. It didn’t take long for me to realise how uncomfortable I was listening to stories about someone getting clubbed with a baseball bat, or hearing about the best way to screw the council out of more money. As a result, I found myself responding to such diatribe with misplaced sarcastic suggestions and flippant comments which would inevitably get me into trouble. As the months passed and our patronage demonstrated our commitment to the bar, I inexplicably began to play a particularly dangerous game to endure an environment I quite liked but didn’t understand. I exaggerated the observed social differences, celebrating my own so-called poshness by occasionally picking up on other drinkers’ use of grammar. I enjoyed calling lads with a reputation for violence by their real names if I could work them out.

Likeable rogue Ed Baines who was always in the paper for fighting, would be greeted, “Edwardo, my good fellow, excellent to see you again.”

Particularly infuriating for others was the growing inclination to correct errors in their diction. During conversations with sometimes monosyllabic friends of friends, I would unexpectedly interrupt them mid-flow and rather pedantically say, “Err it may be only semantics lads, but it is important nonetheless, I think what the phrase ‘dog eats dog’ actually means is... “

Alternatively, I would interject to point out, “The correct pronunciation is tel-ee-graph, not what I am hearing - which is tel-graph.”

It was extraordinary that anyone tolerated me at all!  It was a bumbling attempt at overplaying what I regarded as my natural self, mistakenly thinking an upper class accent would somehow endear me to everyone. It was obvious I was no tough-nut, nor did I wish to pretend to be (for fear it may be tested), so instead I unwittingly exaggerated my background and lack of courage in an effort to make it seem funny. This was met with only moderate success and although I was dismissed by everyone for being ‘Little Botch’s toffy-nosed mate’; I was secretly rather chuffed at having my own tag. In my mind, it had taken just a few months regular drinking in the pub to attract a nickname - even if it was a lengthy twenty-six letter one.

Inevitably, one or two of my pompous asides were capable of inflaming a situation and gradually it became clear my misplaced humour had to be very carefully managed. Particularly given that as each night (and each beer) progressed, my ability to make rational judgements about when to apply it diminished. Normally Annie had a great instinct for anticipating when things were likely to get a little out of hand and would subtly tell me when to calm it down. However, as she was inclined to stay in with her parents mid-week, I was left pretty much to my own devices. During the most awkward of these situations I’d attempt to discharge any potential aggression by delivering the corniest joke possible (the poorer the better), followed instantly with a high pitched shrill laugh which was copied from Tom Hulce in the Amadeus film. The Mozart laugh was pretty much a last line of defence, left in my kit bag for those ‘just in case situations’. This was a piercing cackle of a laugh, loud and unpleasant, almost impossible to avoid. It provided entertainment for no-one except for the person brave enough to deliver its jarring sounds. It was however effective as it usually stumped the people in the immediate vicinity, like some kind of shrill whistle capable of freezing people in their tracks. The problem was, like all good whistles, other people would hear it further afield and without knowledge of the feeble joke which had preceded it; they’d invariably think I was a being twat and spend the rest of the night giving me evil looks.

The very real possibility that I could one day push things too far and get seriously beaten up, never once spoilt my enjoyment of these nights in the Star. Even though I was unemployed and living at my girlfriend’s parents’ house at the time; it still didn’t put a dent in things. In many ways, it was quite a comfortable existence. Technically it may have looked like mine and Annie’s relationship was in a state of limbo, yet somehow it flourished. I recognised Annie was enjoying catching up with her family and friends and I was enjoying seeing her so at ease. With lots of time on our hands, the two of used to invent daft little games to keep ourselves entertained. One of our favourites was a word game called ‘fifteen’. This required one person to describe what they imagined their life would be like at a given point in the future; while the other listened, using a digital watch to time precisely how long it took them to respond. Each person playing would take it in turns to have a go. To ensure you didn’t over-think your answer the winner was always the person who provided their answer in the shortest time. The only rules were that your response had to be truthful, it had to make sense and you had to reply as soon as you were asked using exactly 15 words. Any more or any less and you were out. The counting of words using your fingers was also not allowed.

After a few drinks this game usually got people talking and was a great way of gaining an insight into someone’s thoughts without being too intrusive. Because you were competing against the clock you had no choice but talk really quickly and say the first thing that popped into your head, which was often very revealing. Annie normally hated being pressurised and wasn’t a competitive person, but excelled at this game possibly because she rarely felt the need to censor her own thoughts.

“It’s your turn Charlie… eight years from today… starting now,” Annie said.

“Err, Settled, down, with, you, and, a, few, kids, in, a, big, house, doing, well, in, my, job,” I answered.

“Unlucky, you were fairly quick but used seventeen words – so it doesn’t count,” she said.

“Damn, I really thought I’d mastered it. Alright, here’s one for you, what about… twenty years from today… starting now,”

Annie smiled and then said “Sitting at the dining room table with all my children around me, laughing and joking.” All fifteen words carefully delivered in less than six seconds.

There was only one occasion when I can ever remember her struggling with this game. It was early spring in 1986.

“Annie, a quick fire game of fifteen before we go out to the pub …three months from today… starting now,” I said.

This was a tough call. We both knew that the nearer to present day, the harder it was to answer because you were less able to use your imagination.

“We, will, be…” followed by a long pause. “I, think, we’ll, have…” again nothing. “Sorry I’ll start again,” she said, making two more aborted attempts before conceding “I really don’t know.”

“What, don’t you know about … is it about us?” I said, cloying my way out of the game, back into the present day.

“No, no, don’t be daft Charlie, it’s just that I don’t… I honestly haven’t got a clue what will be different by this summer.”

“We’ll probably be sat here in your mum’s kitchen, still playing this bloody game!” I said, attempting a joke which we both realised rang uncomfortably true.

While our relationship continued to thrive, tensions between Claire and Stuart were becoming evident. During our Saturday night gatherings in the Star, arguments between the two of them were getting so frequent that Annie and I began to wonder about their long-term compatibility. Claire lacked my girlfriend’s carefree nature and Stuart eventually admitted that he was starting to feel a little restricted by her.

Stuart didn’t drink a great deal in those days because he enjoyed driving his Mk1 Escort too much. However given that Annie and I had a far greater tolerance for alcohol, built up through heavy drinking sessions at Nene and Ilfracombe; an early start on a Saturday night with the two of us meant he would sometimes consume six or seven pints of lager-shandy a night and end up over the legal driving limit anyway. One weekend which was memorable for the late arrival of about four-inches of snow, my girlfriend and I spent most of the evening attempting to pacify a quarrelsome Claire and Stuart by sharing anecdotes about how much fun we’d had working as waiters. The more we reminisced, the more excited we became as we began to consider the possibility of spending one final summer season working in Ilfracombe. A season in North Devon, basking in one of the sunniest places in England, with all our accommodation and meals provided and getting paid for the privilege! It was an attractive proposition, which we believed could be made even more fun if we had others on board. We were confident we could find work for the four of us and stressed just how much easy money could be made from a combination of wages and tips from the hotel guests. We chatted for hours about the idea, with Stuart in particular asking lots of questions about the hotel and the working conditions.

Mindful of the sub-zero conditions, no one was in a rush to leave the bar after last orders and brave the weather. Eventually a slightly inebriated Stuart offered us a lift home, reassuring us he was still okay to drive. Beer brains in charge, it was agreed by all that a carefully managed exit was preferable to a long cold walk home. Stuart would drive and I would navigate, with neither of us really in any fit state to do either.

Outside the conditions were treacherous so Annie and Claire sheltered under the protection of the entrance porch as we went to find the car. It was like a sheet of ice underfoot and Stuart and I both fell over during the treacherous walk to his Escort. The Star car park was usually pretty empty by this time, but on this night it was completely chocker after many drinkers had sensibly abandoned their cars because of the heavy snow. Once inside the safety of his now frozen icebox, we were further handicapped by thick frost on the inside and outside of the windscreen. Scratching a panel the size of The Highway Code booklet to see through, Stuart turned the reluctant engine over and began his attempt to gradually nudge the car out. We quickly realised we had no traction and were totally unable to estimate how close we were to any of the other parked cars because of the atrocious visibility.

Our departure proved predictably problematic and was hindered by my own misdirection. During our ‘carefully managed exit’, Stuart slid, glided and shunted his way into three different cars, badly damaging his own in the process. To begin with we reversed slap bang into the car parked directly behind us. This was certainly down to driver error. For our second incident, we skated helplessly across the compressed snow in true ‘Hollywood Slow-Mo’ knocking ourselves against another car - this was definitely down to the icy conditions. The third collision, I have to say, was totally my fault. For some inexplicable reason I’d left my passenger door wide open while we tried to get out and then watched in disbelief as its jutting frame scraped along the side of a metallic black Golf GTi, removing much of the paintwork and all of the door furniture. Memories of the demolition of Matt Buckley’s sports car steamrolled their way back into my mind. By the time we’d resigned ourselves to walking the half mile trip home, the car park looked like a breaker’s yard. Cold iron and fragments of broken Perspex were strewn across the icy snow. All three vehicles had been dislodged from their original parking bays; all compromised by our pitiful attempts to get out of the sodding car park. We did seriously contemplate doing a runner, disappearing into the night as fast as the arctic conditions would allow, but were shouted down by Annie and Claire who insisted we return to the pub, talk to each of the owners and come clean.

I gave Stuart the best part of a week’s dole money to help pay for repairs, but he still ended up having to sell his beloved Escort to raise the funds to fix all four vehicles. His relationship with Claire ended in the days which followed. Within the space of one week, poor Little Jacko had no car, no girlfriend, was broke and was having to work every weekend for the foreseeable future to clear all the debts this night had generated. As you can imagine the experience did nothing to address my aversion to driving. On the upside, this memorable affair did provide the three of us with all the impetus we needed to jump on board a National Express coach early April and head down to the West Country in time for the start of the holiday season.

8. A Blast From the Past

Annie and I had already worked in Ilfracombe as students for a couple of summer seasons to pay off our overdrafts, but travelling back there after the best part of a year unemployed I saw the town in a completely different light. Perhaps it was the dramatic contrast in scenery, when compared to the dour seventies’ concrete buildings which characterised Scunthorpe town centre; maybe I was just being more observant. Either way, Ilfracombe this summer appeared to be more picturesque than ever. I’d forgotten so much in just one year and it was great to be back feeling the blustery winds against your face, hearing the sound of seagulls up above and seeing the breath-taking coastal scenery and rugged cliff tops.

Arriving as we were, well before the main holiday season had started, we could detect a sense of an awakening about the place. It was as if Ilfracombe was emerging from the same long, winter hibernation that we were.  As the Easter holidays kicked in, shops, arcades and bars were all gradually coming to life. Locals were out painting shop front fascia’s and tidying up entrances in anticipation of the cash-rich ‘grockles’ arrival.

The most impressive of all the big Ilfracombe hotels was the Imperial Hotel, situated slap bang on the sea front. It would provide gainful employment and full board for Annie, Stuart and me for the next seven months. In exchange, we would work hard as waiters across three split shifts, six days a week. Each service was a frenetic rush which required you to lay tables, take orders, serve twenty people, wash up and relay tables in one compressed ninety minute sitting. Very quickly you learned that by being nice to your guests, you would not only find it easier to get through each intense service, but also secure more tips at the end of the week.

Ted Kingston, the boss and owner of the hotel was a formidable character. He was the former vice-chairman of a well-known football club which he’d personally helped save from liquidation. In the 1950s he’d invested in a small guest house and soon, through hard work and determination, had enough money to buy the imposing one hundred and twenty room Imperial Hotel which he managed like a military base. This was his hotel, his rules and his way of working. Although it was run on a very tight budget, it was always well maintained. Inside the hotel, the boss’s high standards were never compromised. All waiting staff were issued with uniforms and trained on how to present meals by full silver service.

Most of the (elderly) guests who visited were from coach parties, shipped in and out on a weekly basis. The boss at best tolerated them. No one ever argued with Mr K. He was a true force of nature whose default volume was a rumbling boom. On the rare occasion where a customer service issue had been flagged up and someone was stupid enough to demand to see the manager, Mr K would storm downstairs incensed at being interrupted. Then, in a very black and white manner he would underline that if a guest didn’t like the staff, the room, the food, the facilities or whatever else they were complaining about then, it was time to “Pack your bags and get out my bloody hotel right now.”

Although no one ever stood up to him, every single one of his transient summer staff completely respected his authority because of his un-wavering support for us against any complaint from a mere paying guest.

We would all enjoy stories about his resolute nature. Annoyed at people using his foyer toilets as a public convenience, he placed a big sign on the door to explain the lavatories were only for hotel guests. When this didn’t work, he fastened a lock on the outside of the door. When one poor chap, bursting for the loo, dared to venture in to the hotel he locked him in there for the best part of a morning. The following week, someone had avoided incarceration, so the boss rugby tackled him as he tried to escape, hands still wet from his attempts to wash them using Mr K’s own tap water.

After daytime service, waiters would either collapse on the lawned gardens in front of the hotel or head back to our dubious digs. The Staff House was a great, drab monolith of a building which stood behind the Imperial and in the shadows of the boss’s own house. Its one redeeming quality was because it was so vile, none of the permanent hotel staff ever dreamed of venturing into it. You could sneak friends in and let them stay in one of its ropey vacant rooms without any hassle. The place should have been condemned and everyone who visited it agreed it wasn’t fit to live in. There were large structural cracks along some of the walls and old rotten sash windows with broken glass which didn’t shut properly. All the ground floor rooms, used for storing old furniture, were so mouldy inside they’d been barricaded off. Cheap push-in timer switches had been put on every other landing to ensure no electricity was ever wasted. Because each timer only provided a few seconds of light, you had to sprint between the uncarpeted floors. Further up the five storey structure things weren’t much better. There was only one filthy bathroom for eighteen people. At least this season, the Scunthorpe contingent were in situ from week-one. This meant we were able to unlock the vacant building, vault up the steep slippery stairs, nick the best bits of furniture and drag it into the most habitable of all the musty rooms.

Kitted out with freshly laundered uniforms and assigned our own area in the dining room to look after, we were all set. With a couple of previous seasons behind us, the experience for Annie and myself felt like an extension to our college daze – there were lots of new people to get to know and lots of socialising to be done. Given that Stuart had never been away from home, lived in a communal situation or ever managed his own finances before; I could also see parallels with going to college for the first time. Just like those halcyon Nene College days, we all hoped that Stuart’s first taste of independence would end up being a truly transformational experience.

The three of us had no problem settling into the lifestyle. Truth be known we threw ourselves into everything the small seaside town had to offer: making friends with the locals, surfing at nearby Woolacombe Bay, taking part in the town’s summer carnival, embarking on boat trips to Lundy Isle, entering (and winning) the annual waiters’ race, even raising money for local charities through sponsored fun-runs up the impossibly steep cliff side paths. Hardly anyone knew us, there was no history to live down and for this one summer we could be whoever we chose to be.

As the weeks continued, a familiar daily pattern emerged. We waited on tables at breakfast, caught up with sleep for a couple of hours, worked through the lunchtime session, then relaxed by sunbathing in the afternoon, building energy (as well as quite a nice tan) for the truly intensive evening dinner service. The last meal of the day was always the toughest service and by the time it was over we’d all be so pumped up with adrenaline we would race over to the staff house, get changed and then dart into pubs and clubs, guzzling down pint after pint of Natch cider, chased-down with shots of Woodsy’s rum until the early hours of the next day.

The evening service was characterised by two hours of concentrated physical effort, with us all running in and out of a steaming hot kitchen, precariously carrying six to eight plates at a time. We were always understaffed and there was phenomenal pressure to serve as many people in as short a period of time as possible. Invariably you would burn your hands on either the unstable tower of plates you were carrying or the steel trays which were overfilled with steaming vegetables. At some point during each service you were guaranteed to fall out with at least one the intractable kitchen staff. To relieve the tension we’d play games, hiding other people’s crockery, glasses or butter portions - anything to take our minds off the forthcoming service. Just prior to the guests being released into the dining room like wild horses into an open field, we’d each grab a handful of the freshly baked bread rolls which were about to be offered to the diners and chuck them across the dining room at each other in a primitive version of dodgeball.

The more capable waiters were asked to work in the nearby ‘Private Dining Room’ on a rotational basis. In this much smaller room, short stay guests were treated with far more consideration and offered a wider choice of meals than their coach party counterparts. Stuart and I hated being asked to work there. For a start, private diners were more demanding and had higher expectations, they were poor tippers and, worst of all, were allowed to turn up at any time during service which meant we could be late joining everyone for a few drinks after service down by the harbour.

Early afternoon, Tuesday May 27 1986, I was called down to the reception area at the front of the hotel where someone was asking to see me. Thinking it may finally be a tip from one of my overbearing private guests I fastened my Imperial Hotel jacket and made sure I looked presentable. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a lad I remembered from Harrogate called Gavin Langham. He was someone I’d known vaguely back then because of his repeated attempts to befriend both me and my sisters when we first moved to the town. It must have been about six years since we’d seen each other.

Even back in 1980 I’d only put up with him for a month or so before realising he was too boring. I was therefore shocked to see him and taken back he’d somehow managed to track me down – or to be honest, that he’d even want to. Is he on holiday, I wondered? Does he expect me to take him out for a drink?

“Wow, this is unexpected, how are you Gavin?” I said.

“Oh, you know, can’t complain. Six years at the University of Life have flown by. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, so thought I’d track you down. Not much going on back in Harrogate these days. Mr White, - you remember, our Head of FE - eventually married Miss Potts – been seeing her for years it turns out… The college built a new science block last year - cost millions according to the Advertiser. There’s even some talk that the tech-col will have to merge with Rossett High sixth form next year.”

“Oh right,” I said, not in the slightest bit interested.

“Now what else can I tell you … me Mam ended up in hospital in January, a problem with her digestion – it’s a bit better now, but she still can’t eat anything with too much fat content… Our lad still works at Farrah’s Toffee – the jammy git…” and so it went on. “I was just saying to your Mr Kingsley, it takes ages from Exeter station to get over here, doesn’t it?”

“It’s Mr King-ston,” I said, relieved there was an opportunity to stop him talking and even more pleased the boss hadn’t heard what he’d called him.

Picking up his one-way conversation by comparing the interior of the Devon bus he had travelled on with the ones in he had used Yorkshire; it all came flooding back to me. This was the Gav Langham, the misfit, the person most likely to be labelled a social liability at the Harrogate technical college. During the brief time I knew him, people I’d never spoken to before would come over and discourage me from hanging about with him because of his innate talent for getting on everyone’s nerves by trying just a bit too hard. Through bitter experience of starting school after school, I learned to be very cautious of people who were too keen to latch on to the new boy. Langham was one of these sycophants and, anxious not to get lumbered like I had done before, I fired a gigantic warning signal to my brain to remind myself not to spend any prolonged period of time with him.

Standing at reception, it was immediately evident he’d made no progress in his ability to engage others and although he explained what he’d been up to since leaving college, I was already anxious to get as far away from him as I could. Flashing a frozen smile which would shame a solar-panel salesman, I nodded and listened to his dull ramblings praying his trip was just a short one. In fairness to him and through some twisted sense of duty, I did try to rein-in my involuntary disdain by reminding myself of the friendship he’d once offered. I appreciated the way Langham had made an effort to get to know me in those early weeks arriving in yet another new town.

As the droning continued, it transpired Langham had heard what I was up to after talking to my sister Kirsty who’d stayed in Harrogate. With time on his hands he’d simply decided to jump on a train and see if he could find me. This meant he’d nowhere to stay, had little money and no job. Not ideal for either of us as I now felt it was my responsibility to look after him, even though I’d had no contact with him in years and didn’t consider him to be someone I’d have chosen to keep in touch with. Paralysed by his dullness, I felt obliged to respond to his request to see if I could find him a job, secretly thinking this might be a great way of absolving any sense of future responsibility for him. This was the mid-eighties and there were usually plenty of seasonal vacancies in the town for kitchen staff, waiters, cleaners or chambermaids. Perhaps to try and position myself as a mover and a shaker, I foolishly agreed to speak to Mr Kingston, who made an uncharacteristically bad business decision by offering Langham a waiter’s job without bothering to interview him. At least Langham might be able to make some new friends and Annie and I would be able to continue undisturbed with the rest of our summer adventure. What I hadn’t anticipated however was that he wasn’t alone.

Somewhere in the intervening years he’d been introduced to Pennie Fenton. His intention was to stay in Devon for a while and invite Pennie to visit him on a regular basis – ideally crashing in the staff house. Bloody hell - PENNIE FENTON!

Now, for the first time in his life Gavin had my full attention. He knew Pennie Fenton? She was coming to Ilfracombe? I’d not expected to see either of them again, not this summer, not together. The prospect was electrifying and terrifying in equal measure. I could almost feel my pupils dilate with the news. It was, after all, Pennie who had made my nose spontaneously bleed; the same Pennie who’d once caught sight of me tripping over my faded blue C&A underpants...

Pennie did indeed arrive, and although I was eager to spend time with her, we saw precious little of her or Langham. Instead the two of them cocooned themselves in their own little world, constantly together behind his now locked staff house door. The rest of the waiting staff were not especially bothered about Langham’s secret lodger – it made it easier to put up with the lad not having to see him. I wasn’t quite as laissez-faire about the arrangements as I desperately wanted to see Pennie and spend some time catching up. Annie and I had been together for nearly four years and were really happy, but following occasional references to my adventures with Pennie, she too was a little curious to discover what our mysterious new lodger was all about.

I was extremely miffed thinking about Pennie spending so much time alone with Gav. He was just the sort of bloke you would forbid your daughters from dating. His unexpected association with Pennie amplified my antipathy for him. I began to tell anyone who would listen that he was not a cool guy, and in fact quite easy to dislike. Middle America would probably label him a ‘bit of a chump’. In northern England the phrase applied was ‘a complete wanker’. Not only had he been a dreary, lazy person to know at college, he was also a slovenly and work shy co-worker. It was clear nothing had changed during the intervening years.

The majority of residents in the staff house wasted no time in taking an immediate dislike to Langham. It made sense for them to do this – subconsciously recognising that sooner or later they would grow to detest him. Up until his arrival there had always been a good team spirit between us, we looked out for each other, swapped shifts as required and all chipped in to keep the staff house in what we considered to be an acceptable state. Within days, it was obvious that Langham wasn’t interested in the needs of others: here after all was a man who boasted that shutting an open cupboard door as he dawdled past represented helping out around the house.

If Langham’s arrival in Ilfracombe had been a shock, his friendship with my old Ripon contact was a disappointment. Their clandestine union tarnished my views of Pennie and, although I was still intrigued by her, I also thought less of her as a result. Clearly she was less discerning than I thought in terms of whom she spent her time with.  Annoyingly, the two of them remained inseparable for most of the summer. Overall, he lived down to all the limited expectations I had of him; while Pennie left me with a sense of maddening frustration. I was dismayed someone I once thought so exciting now seemed so willing to compromise herself with such a loser. Thinking about it, I may also have been jealous.

She wasn’t about every week, but whenever she did arrive we knew about it - because Langham effectively disappeared from view. If we did ever manage to drag the imbecile out (motivated by a desire to spend time with Pennie); it was by exception and he usually engineered it so he and Pennie were peripheral to the main group.  I also noticed he became especially irritating in Pennie’s company. His lame jokes became lamer, his showing-off more blatant and his obsequious nature more transparent. When he wasn’t with Pennie, he ignored the few friends he’d made in Ilfracombe and came across as a miserable sod who was only interested in talking about her.

Poor Langham was out of his depth. Terribly impressionable he had, I surmised, become a convenient conduit for Pennie’s many ambitions. While the majority of us continued to socialise after service, the two of them sneaked out to nightclubs none of us would have contemplated visiting. On one Friday night when we did all trek out together, we ended up getting totally paralytic – probably down to the novelty of all drinking in the same space. There was an odd atmosphere caused by the inclusion of a number of people Pennie had attracted, but who we didn’t know. She always managed to pull in life’s outsiders, the oddballs and the weak minded. With Langham she had found all three. On this particular night we were joined by what must have been Ilfracombe’s last remaining punk rocker the imaginatively named ‘Punky Pete’. He was an uncommunicative character with bleached spikey hair and seemed a little too old to still be wearing ‘bovver boots’ and bondage trousers from the late seventies. Judgements about dress code aside, he’d obviously managed to befriend Langham and at the end of the night invited Gav, Stuart, Annie and myself back to his flat – on the proviso that Pennie came too. She was always in the midst of things that summer - a catalyst for absurd episodes. Like in Ripon she was never directly culpable, but controversy and the unexpected were never far behind.

On arrival at his ropey pad, this unlikable character claimed to have lost his door keys and told us all to crawl in through an unlocked window at the back of the property. Inside and once again incentivised by Pennie, he invited us to try some tea made from magic mushrooms. Stupidly, we all joined in. The experience reminded me of a few years earlier when Joe Morrit and I had dabbled with magic mushrooms. We’d tried them once and had a rotten time. I suspect we’d picked the wrong ones from a nearby golf course and had both ended up violently sick for nearly a week. I would normally have been much more cautious about experimenting again, however we’d all been to the pub and Miss Fenton, who was in her element, goaded us all on to taste the hallucinogenic brew.

Much of what happened next felt like I was observing events from outside myself. Shortly after tasting the vile infusion I started to notice various distortions. I was amused watching Annie as she became transfixed by her own hands, swirling them madly around above her head. My stomach also felt warmer as if positioned too close to an open fire. Other falsifications followed as Stuart’s neck seemed to narrow and then stretch itself upwards. It became so long and thin I wondered how it could possibly support his now enlarged head. Amused by the many apparitions, I started to laugh until I was unable to stop. The only thing which managed to curb what turned into incessant yelping was Langham’s paranoid claim that I was sucking all the air from inside the room. Next thing I knew, all of us were collapsed in front of a large old black and white television set - marvelling as we witnessed programmes being transformed into vibrant 3D colour - way before such technology was ever invented. Characters appeared to jump out of the screen and into the room, making us feel like we were all connected to the unfolding drama. Our uncongenial host oversaw this early euphoria, repeatedly enticing us try more of the revolting mixture. Unsure of my natural limits, I sipped only the smallest of amounts, completely unable to get an animated image of a shrinking Alice in Wonderland out of my head. Conscious I was no longer able to trust my own senses, I began to worry about being out of control. This resulted in the rather peculiar decision to crawl over to the centre of the living room, lie down and launch into a series of vigorous squat thrusts.

Next, for reasons known only to myself, I jumped up and started crashing around the house like a bird in a box. Darting around opening the curtains and windows of every room I could find. Upstairs I even had a go at forcing my way into the bedrooms of various bewildered tenants, driven by a maddening desire to switch on any electrical device I could get my clammy hands on. Justifiably, agitated by this deranged behaviour our host pulled me back into the living room and promised to ‘kick my fucking head in’ if I didn’t calm down. He demonstrated exactly how this would be achieved by booting several large holes into the living room door. All the amazing multi-coloured holographic images, which had been so distracting, turned monochrome. Storming out of room with Pennie and Langham scuttling behind him, Ilfracombe’s last remaining punk slammed the back door as if to make an emphatic statement and then disappeared into the darkness.

To give him his due, when he did eventually return with his little gang, clearly calmer and more centred than before; he marched over shook my hand and apologised for getting so upset.

“Hey soz for having a go at you, you know what it’s like – my head was all over the place – that stuff fucks you up. Walking around has straightened me out a bit. I know where I am again. You have my word I’ll make it up to you.”

“No worries, I shouldn’t have gone upstairs. I still feel a bit strange,” I replied.

“Why don’t I make everyone some coffee?” Langham said, stringing those seven words together in that order for the first time in his life.

As Langham went into the kitchen, Punky Pete innocuously asked if anyone fancied a light hearted game of dare before we all went home. The idea was he’d start off with a couple of easy challenges and then introduce a few tougher, more risky exercises before we reached the point where we all decided it was time to go. In Pennie’s company I was, like Langham, much more inclined to try things I wouldn’t ordinarily do. So foolishly I volunteered to be the first guinea pig – believing this would let Pennie know how fearless I was. New best buddy Punky Pete was delighted and instructed me to stand in the centre of the room, extend my little finger and see if I was capable of keeping it extended and motionless for a full two minutes. Ha – is this it? This is my so-called challenge - holding one finger out-stretched? Easy, I thought, until he unveiled a pair of garden shears and opened its two jagged blades across the fleshy part of my trembling finger. Christ, if this was the easiest dare – what would the others be? By pressing the cold steel blades across my finger right next to the knuckle, it was just enough to nip the skin and trap me alongside him in the middle of the room. The event was undeniably perverted by the remaining hallucinogenic concoction still in my system which continued to distort reality.

Eventually after an interminable one hundred and eighteen (and a half) seconds and only a quantum particle away from my promised release, Langham’s low-life mate looked up at me with his dead eyes and smiled. Without a flicker of hesitation he then applied all his force, snapping the wooden handles together. With my soft little pinky caught firmly between the two folding blades, I yelled out in pain. For a second I honestly thought my finger had been severed. Although the shears weren’t razor sharp, their rusty blades still managed to gouge deeply into my soft skin. It was agony, unable to stop myself shrieking, panic quickly spread around the room as other converts to the scream-fest joined in. Watching fresh blood dripping down my hand onto the grubby carpet, made me feel nauseous and my legs buckled. Only Annie had had the strength of character to detach herself from the chorus of wailing, which had by now seized hold of our friends’ faculties, in the same way an infectious Abba song hijacks the mind. My girlfriend, without a moment’s thought, whipped her bra away from under her shirt and wrapped the 34B undergarment around the cut to slow the bleeding. Her emergency care must have been quite a spectacle, since the only concrete recollection I have of the end of the night was I’d that never seen her remove her bra for me quite so quickly before.

I’m not sure what happened afterwards, precisely how we got out of there or if we ever saw the volatile punk rocker again. I did vow to never touch another hallucinogenic drug again and I’ve remained true to this promise. If I had my way, this entire incident would’ve faded long ago from my memory. Unfortunately one notable guest who was present on the night, would continue to take great pleasure in reminding me about it for years to come. They would be able to recount every little detail, the programme being watched on the black and while telly, the music we listened to and even the type of shears which were so brutally snapped together in an attempt to dismember my finger.

Following the mushroom tea incident Pennie disappeared from view for a couple of weeks. She was good at that. Sometimes I thought it was a deliberate ploy to appear even more unfathomable. On her next visitation she brushed aside references to my recovering finger and skilfully deflected any suggestions she may have contributed to what had taken place. I’d promised myself I was going to keep my distance from her until the end of the season, but as usual on hearing she’d returned I was at least as keen as the rest of the staff house to find out what demented scheme she would get us involved in next.

Instead of dragging us off to another dodgy bar with Langham, she managed to convince us all to attend an exhibition of tarot reading at a local gym. There we were introduced to a young woman who offered to read our cards. The girl wanted no payment for the reading, following a commitment she’d made to herself never to profit from her psychic abilities. I was expecting a Blackpool fortune teller dressed in a shawl, charging me forty pounds for some generic messages which sounded more like a horoscope; but instead I discovered an engaging and warm young woman who seemed to be very balanced. With my scepticism abetted, I became quite intrigued about the possibility of a glimpse into the future. I can’t recall much of what she said, except for her insistence that my future wasn’t in Ilfracombe and would probably be ‘in print’. I didn’t read too much into this, thinking she must be suggesting I look at job advertisements published at the back of newspapers. True to her word, she didn’t accept any payment for the card reading which for me made her soothsaying seem even more credible.

It was immediately after this card reading Pennie and I started to talk freely again. She was absolutely fascinated by what had taken place and wanted to know what the young woman was like. What did the cards say to me? What events were foretold?  Most importantly, did any of the predictions ring true? While I wasn’t ready to admit quite how impressed I’d been by the reading, I was extremely grateful for all the attention I was now receiving from Pennie. In some ways it was worthwhile visiting the tarot reader just to get back in her good books. Pennie’s obvious excitement about my dabble with divination elevated the significance of the reading to me. My increased interest, in turn, appeared to stimulate Pennie’s interest in me. A win-win situation. Reconnected by my first taste of the occult, we also found room to reminisce about mutual friends and our time together back in Yorkshire. This was what I’d been waiting for ever since I heard she was with Langham.

Back on good terms with Pennie, I became more tolerant of the spineless Langham and openly supported opportunities for the two of them to mix more freely with everyone as we approached our final months together. With the communication floodgates prised open, Pennie took full advantage of her eleventh hour acceptance. She was adept at influencing people and so it wasn’t long before most of us had fallen under her spell, including Annie and the majority of the Staff House. The only person immune to her charms was Stuart. While I always valued his opinion and usually acted on his advice, we simply agreed to differ when it came to Pennie. Not that this was a major problem. We’d already spent a lot of time together this summer and I knew he was somewhat distracted by his quest to date a popular local girl called Faye Rainton. Other than Langham and a gay lad from Manchester, Stuart and I were the only males living in the Staff House. If I wasn’t sure of something I’d go to Annie first, then if I was still undecided I’d ask him. If we all three of us agreed on something, we could usually talk the rest of the gang into doing what we wanted to do. This was how things were. Conscious that she was less able to manipulate Stuart, the astonishingly shrewd Pennie would invariably sweet-talk me first, knowing that if I liked the sound of it, I would act as her emissary and try to convince Stuart.

It was Pennie who successfully planted the idea for Stuart and me to gather every article of girls’ underwear from around the staff house, pile it into the communal bath and then dye each garment an unpleasant shade of orangey-brown. She provided us with the motivation to dangle one of the kitchen staff upside-down by their ankles from a fifth floor window. The same Pennie provided the reason why we were both stupid enough to climb up onto the apex of the staff house’s hideously high and unstable slate roof in the dead of night, just to prove that it was possible. When the hotel’s pot-wash kindly invited us all to the opening of his parents new guest house, it was Pennie who implied that Stuart and I would have more fun at what promised to be a rather dignified gathering, by ignoring the recommended formal dress code. Impressed by this peculiar proposal, we both invested a week’s wages hiring identical gorilla costumes for the event. We then spent the entire evening roaming around inside them refusing to reveal who we were to any of the suited and booted guests. What cheeky little monkeys we were.

The following month all the waiting staff sashayed as usual into the dining room to begin breakfast service, only to be met with the news Mr Kingston wanted to see us all. What on earth could it be? He never spoke to us unless it was serious and had never in three years asked to see everyone at the same time. On arrival, he came storming into the dining room, absolutely livid. I’d never seen him so angry – even with a paying customer. His sleeves were rolled up as if he’d been in a fight and appeared unusually shaken.

“If you bloody casual staff in that bloody Staff House of mine expect to be treated like bloody adults, then you’d better start behaving like bloody adults – do you hear?” he shouted at us, in a boiling rage.

We all wondered what on earth was going on.

“I had the decency to take you all in, feed and clothe you, give you jobs, only to discover one of you has betrayed my trust in the worst possible way. In doing so they have compromised not only their own employment, but also the employment of everyone in this room”

Christ this was serious. We all looked at each other in a way designed to let the boss know we didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. What had happened and who was the culprit?

“Someone in that there Staff House has been harbouring an unauthorised guest in their room. No, harbouring in MY room. This is completely unacceptable and as a result the individual in question has been identified, spoken to and evicted. They will not be returning.”

The normally controlled Mr K was still decidedly rattled by this whole experience, as he arched forwards and bellowed his way through each word of the unambiguous message he was here to share with us all.

“I – want – nothing -  and - no-one - in - that bloody - house - but - the - people – who - are  - here – in front - of - me - now - is -  this – understood…?“ You’ve never seen twelve people nodding so fast or so furiously to a closed question.

The boss left and for what seemed like hours we all stood frozen, waiting for someone to break the silence. We were all taken aback by the ferocity of his rage. Blindsided by the sheer force of delivery it took a while for us to even realise he must have been talking about Langham, the only person not down for service. Shit – he’d found out about Pennie. Game over.

Next came the realisation they were both gone, no warning, no notice, just booted unceremoniously out of the house and out of Ilfracombe. Boy, the boss didn’t mess around. Gradually it began to sink in: Langham must have been fired for allowing Pennie to crash in his room for a few nights. At first I thought, what a dipstick, then, when it seemed likely the boss wasn’t going to return to the dining room, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that his response may have been a trifle steep. The punishment felt disproportionate to the crime. Moreover this harsh decision probably meant that I was never going to see Pennie again.

It was Annie who was first to speak.

“D-d-do you think that’s it? Has he finished? I really h-h ate it when people bark at you. I know Gav did wrong, but I still can’t help feeling so sorry for him. How do you think the boss found out what he’d been up to? I hope everyone else is going be all right. What if the boss decides to g-g-get rid of us all? Maybe he’s heading over to the staff house at this moment to check out all of our rooms…” she said

“Annie, relax, don’t give it a second thought. Langham is probably on his way back to Harrogate along with Pennie. If the boss wanted to fire anyone else, we’d know about it,” I said, trying to be as dispassionate as Mr Kingston had been.

It was obvious my easy going girlfriend, was still troubled. The last time she had stuttered had been in the early days of Nene College. It turned out she was frightened she too would meet the same fate as Langham. Just one month earlier, Annie had invited her fiend Claire from Scunthorpe over to stay in the Staff House. She was concerned because it was public knowledge what a disaster this visit had been. Her own unauthorised guest had arrived, hoping for reconciliation with Stuart under the warm Ilfracombe sun, but had instead discovered her former beau was now besotted by his new West Country girlfriend. Stuart and Claire therefore argued throughout the entire weekend break - mainly up and down the echoing Staff House stairs, before Claire finally accepted the finality of the situation, bid farewell to her neighbour and headed back alone to Scunthorpe.

Annie wasn’t the only one who was rather worried. Fear swept around the room like a raging fire in an overstocked solvents factory, as many other staff confessed they had let friends stay. In this climate of chicken-heartedness, I began to wonder if I too should pack my bags and go, since it was me who’d originally introduced Langham to the boss and may therefore be deemed guilty by association.

Luckily, no other eviction did take place, we all kept a low profile for a few days until the boss came in again one breakfast and, attempting to put our minds at rest, told us, “There’s no need to be like bloody mice in that there house, you lot, you may as well enjoy the last few weeks.” Which was exactly what we did.

Those remaining few days were terrific, everyone pulled together both in work and out of it. We helped each other through service and socialised as one big group. No one missed Langham and no one dared to mention Pennie. As summer season drew to an end, Annie and I reluctantly booked our coach tickets back to South Humberside along with Stuart and his new girlfriend Faye. Sitting on the overcrowded bus, I looked back on our summer break and reminded myself (expressed in a slightly embittered tone) to never forget : A seven year interval in terms of catching up with Pennie Fenton, isn’t such a bad thing. Although I didn’t anticipate seeing her ever again; the one uncharitable wish I clung onto was that she’d eventually come to her senses and develop the same level of loathing for Langham the rest of us now shared.

9. The Bosom of Suburbia

Still almost young, we arrived back in Scunthorpe energised and full of life. We were struck by just how flat and emotionless everyone appeared to be back in The Ashby Star, as we droned on to them in true Gav Langham fashion about our fabulous summer by the sea. Stuart and I tried to replicate our cheeky chap personas from Ilfracombe, but were quickly brought back to down to earth by the more hardened, sometimes life-weary drinkers of the industrial garden town.

Notwithstanding Pennie’s appearance, Ilfracombe had been a fantastic odyssey, but one we knew couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later Annie and I would have to stop postponing the inevitable and find long-term employment. Years of boozing in Northampton and Devon had not only been tiring, but had also used up all of our cash reserves. Now in our mid-twenties, we’d reached the point in our lives where we both acknowledged we would have to adopt a slightly more mature outlook and begin to apply ourselves. Conscious that the few college mates we’d remained in touch with were already one or two years ahead of us in the work-stakes; we recognised it was time to catch up.

Permanent employment did follow. In 1987 Annie got a job working for a local computer manufacturer in quality control and at the end of the same year I started working for a regional newspaper group designing advertising. We worked hard in our new roles, saving enough money for a deposit on a family sized semi-detached house in a decent part of town. Evenings were filled at home together, either playing board games or practising ways to populate each of the vacant bedrooms. At least once a week we’d link up with Stuart and Faye, venture into town for a few drinks, reminisce about Ilfracombe and after a little Dutch courage make fools of ourselves on the karaoke.

The advertising job was originally based at a local Scunthorpe office, but as the role developed to include staff training, I was required to visit a number of sister-publications across the Humberside region. A few months spent at the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, back to the Scunthorpe offices, over to the Hull Daily Mail for the winter, then back across to Scunny. The work itself was rewarding, but the volume of driving combined with a very poor salary constantly frustrated me.

Three years commitment to the job, brought about the offer of a managerial position with an established publishing group based in Lincoln. It was a city I’d always liked and this new role at a successful newspaper group offered greater responsibility, my own team of reps to look after, and for the first time, a fully financed company car. Stuart, a real petrol-head, was forever swapping motors for higher performing alternatives - with a particular penchant for German engineering. I was still very wary of all motorised vehicles; I didn’t enjoy driving or understand their appeal beyond the obvious functional advantage of getting you somewhere. However, I began to sense a trace of excitement about the thought of being provided with my own brand new car. It would after all, send out a message to others, providing them with evidence I was doing well at work and on a practical level, offer a more comfortable forty minute commute each day. On top of this, I discovered the cost of the fuel, the servicing and the insurance were all to be met by my new employer. Hearing all the advantages of having this company vehicle was the closest I’d ever been to being mentally-erect about cars. Things were looking up.

I therefore accepted the role without hesitation and was invited over to the Lincolnshire Echo a week before the start date to meet the team, have lunch with the advertising manager and collect the keys to my swish new motor. My new boss seemed like a great bloke who had a really laid back style about him. The only thing I could imagine ever getting on my nerves was his assumption I’d be impressed by his former-professional football player status – an irrelevancy which he shared with me at every friggin’ opportunity. I’d never caught the footballing bug and was always disappointed at school whenever any potential friends had effectively deselected themselves because of their allegiance to the sport. After chatting to him, I was shown my desk and then given a tour of the print room. Meeting thirty new faces is always rather bewildering, but I felt I coped well and presented a ‘warm but professional’ impression. By late morning, all I really wanted was to inspect my company car, but was reluctant to ask about it outright, in case I came across as someone motivated by the benefits I was keen to secure. At noon, we left the office to join the editorial staff for a liquid lunch in a local pub at the back of the imposing newspaper production buildings. Walking through the rear car park, presented the perfect opportunity to ask about transport.

“Is my car in this car park?” I enquired in a casual tone. “Would it be possible to see it?”

The advertising manager was troubled by these direct questions, but the speed of his uneasy smile suggested he knew they were coming. Without slowing his pace on our brisk walk to the pub, he nonchalantly pointed into the centre of the car park.

“It’s over there, parked near to the delivery vans I think,” he mumbled, starting to walk a little quicker

“The black sporty looking one with alloy wheels?” I asked excitedly – thinking to myself, could this be my chariot?

“Err no...” he replied, “the one next to it – in err… green.”

At this point I fully understood his hesitation – the inexpensive, box-like carriage situated next to the black dream machine was a small olive green Austin Metro. Not the prettiest vehicle, in fact rather ugly. These cars combined a reputation for general underperformance with an inclination to rust. Still, think positively, I told myself, this was a free car – and like my old dad had always told me – it would get me from A to B. Closer inspection however, would reveal that while it would get me (eventually) to B, this would always be achieved at considerable personal embarrassment.

The car had been specially branded for the Echo, with enormous, white lettering written over much of its olive paintwork. I had to check it out two or three times before I fully appreciated the consequences of the liveried panels splattered along both sides of the four wheeled ‘Miss Lincolnshire Echo’ stallion. I’d only been provided with the former promotional girl’s free vehicle as my company car. Apparently the winner of the annual Miss Lincolnshire Echo beauty competition was unable to fulfil her duties and had resigned, meaning her prize of a promotional car could be passed on to whichever poor sap was foolhardy enough to accept the unfilled vacancy in the advertising department. Oh my God - was I going to have the mickey taken out of me, back home under the shadow of the steelworks. The Echo assured me they would of course arrange to have the word ‘Miss’ removed from each side of the vehicle, but since this was effectively a glued-on vinyl, dirt and dust simply stuck to the edges where the ‘Miss’ word once was – drawing even more attention to the sides of this bloody awful car. Although it was sold to me as a temporary situation until there was sufficient funding for a replacement vehicle, I ended up travelling back and forth to Lincoln in that rust bucket for years.

Fortunately time travelled much faster than that embarrassing car during my stint at the Echo. Not only was the work satisfying but Annie and I were feeling really settled and enjoying every aspect of the lifestyle we were building for ourselves. Having transport enabled us go on short trips at the weekend and travel down south to visit my mum during longer breaks. Mum thought really highly of Annie and always reinforced everything that was good in our relationship. She once told me that she believed my girlfriend was the one person in the world who was capable of bringing out the best possible version of myself.

During this, the happiest of periods, Annie and I belonged to a tight knit group of about a dozen close friends which consisted of Stuart, Faye, my youngest sister Kirsty, a few of Annie’s old school friends and a couple of my work colleagues. Because my oldest sister Erin, the sensible one had recently emigrated to Spain, we had started to see a lot more of Kirsty who’d not only moved from Harrogate to York, but had also shared with us that she was gay. This was something that Annie had suspected for years. My sister’s easy acceptance into the wider group was especially welcome, because through her I was able to keep track of what was happening with family members and old school mates.

It would be this same tight knit group of friends who in 1991 would all receive an invitation to attend the wedding of Mr & Mrs Charlie Mellor, the same ones who, the following year would hear how thrilled Mrs Mellor and I were to discover we were about to become parents.

* * *

After baby Hattie was born, Annie and I knew our already strong relationship had been transformed. We were no longer simply a couple but had suddenly become a family. Parenthood was intrinsically satisfying. Our baby’s arrival demonstrated we’d met our recent goal to become ‘slightly more grown-up’. Here was our most splendid achievement. I felt incredibly proud of Annie, and was immediately filled with an overwhelming desire to protect both my girls. I was mindful little Hattie represented the living manifestation of the love Annie and I had for each other - physical evidence of our unbreakable union. I was also taken aback by just how much additional capacity for unconditional love was still in the tank to give to our gorgeous little daughter. Bringing our new born baby back home from the hospital, the whole house felt more alive, filled with a sense of crackling in the air. Every undecorated room seemed to sparkle a little more with an indescribable charge which you could almost touch. Fatherhood was a very big thing.

Hattie provided me with a defining moment which for once wasn’t related to how inept I’d been at something. Instead this particular milestone event represented everything I could truly be proud of. I was grateful my baby girl brought with her a sense of future history. Watching her sleep in her cot, I decided my new role in life was akin to being in the NYPD – I too was there to ‘serve and protect’. My purpose was to look after Hattie’s emotional, moral, social and financial needs and keep her safe from harm.

Smug self-satisfaction was however quickly erased on the journey back to work following a week’s paternity leave. Overwhelmed and overtired by the enormity of it all, I fell asleep at the wheel of the car, skidded across the road, smashed through some fencing panels and ended up, rather shaken in the middle of a muddy field. I wasn’t badly hurt, but the car was a bit of a mess and needed towing to a local garage. Thirty short minutes after setting off from the house, I was back home with the girls. Parenthood, it seemed, had increased my ability to put other’s needs ahead of my own, but done nothing whatsoever to improve my driving skills.

The only negative emotions I felt in relation to fatherhood were the ones I never expressed. Ones which I assumed I shared with all new parents. Lying in bed as Annie tried to catch up with some sleep between night feeds, I would frequently be troubled with a real sense of dread. What if something should happen to Hattie? What if something were to harm her? What if she was ever taken away from us? Finally what about all the responsibility which goes with parenthood? – If we really are the builders of our children’s destinies, then was I going to be any good at mixing the required mortar?

We enjoyed being a family unit immensely and in 1994, Hattie was provided with a little brother called Toby to play with. With two small children to look after, everyone tended to gather at our house in the evenings, rather than us having to rely on babysitters. Conscious we didn’t want our two toddlers watching groups of grown-ups drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes in their vicinity, we all took turns to nip into a poorly constructed extension which we used as a utility room. This modest add-on to the main house contained a fridge, freezer, washing machine, ironing board and all the cleaning equipment. It was a cramped environment which had no insulation and was consequently bitterly cold throughout the long winter months. Despite these drawbacks, it was separate to the main house and allowed us to isolate the rest of the building in order to enjoy private discussions and act once again like indulgent students. More and more of us gravitated towards the utility which soon developed a reputation for being our party room. On many nights nine or ten adults would jostle forwards in the hope they’d be able to secure one of a handful of broken wooden stools stacked in the corner of this little icebox. Wobbling on their unstable legs, lucky recipients would hunch together under inappropriately positioned shelving units, while everyone else sat down in front of them on the cheap corded carpet tiles. Every so often a couple of responsible adults took turns to make sure the kids were sleeping peacefully elsewhere in the house and by the time they got back, their seats had always been taken. Music blared out of a cheap tape player and the hours flew by as we shared stories, Budweiser and Silk Cut cigarettes.

Although a few of Annie’s old school friends had gravitated back to Scunthorpe after university, the majority were forced to leave area in search of work. Some of these would return every few months to see their families. When this happened, we always looked forward to their calls in anticipation of a rare night out, or if this wasn’t possible, a rowdy trip to the utility room. Allan Hewitt was one of these infrequent visitors. Annie had known him since sixth form and although he was in the year below, he had ingratiated himself with many of her male friends through his interest in sports. A fanatical Castleford Tigers rugby fan, he was both exuberant and boisterous, a bloke’s bloke, who presumably got rid of whatever frustrations he had, playing amateur rugby at the weekends. I have to say, I wasn’t overly impressed with him on our opening meeting.

Allan, who was a big lad, introduced himself by shaking my hand a little too vigorously and saying the immortal lines, “Allan Hewitt, Assistant Distribution Manager from the town of Dudley, pleased to meet you.”

This laughable greeting was a great way of delaying the discovery that he turned out to be a very likeable fella, someone who was as easy to talk to as he was to wind up.

It wasn’t just the formality of his introduction which threw me. He also dressed very conventionally, nothing like friends I’d previously selected for myself - who, thinking about it, all tended to look like rejects from an unknown seventies rock band. Sometimes he used naff sounding phrases like ‘chill out’ and seemed very uncomfortable in female-only company. His saving grace was his lacerating sense of humour. As one of the best story tellers I’d met, I enjoyed listening as he built up a joke to its side splitting conclusion. I loved the way he was able to laugh at himself and therefore took full advantage of this by ribbing him whenever I had the chance. Getting to know him better, I could see that while the moustachioed Allan worked hard to project an ‘ordinary Joe’ kind of image, he did have one or two idiosyncrasies of his own. Even after we’d known him for a while, he never once sent us a Christmas card– not a big deal I know, but I was curious as to why, particularly when we always made the effort.

“Hey Allan, how come we never hear from you at Christmas?” I asked

“What do you mean? You always hear from me at Christmas – I come over to see Mum and Dad every year and I always let you know when I’m in town,” he said.

“No, I mean hear from you at Christmas,” I said, nodding my head towards all the greetings cards on the fireplace. “It’s not a big thing, but we always send you and your parents a card and yet to this day, we’ve never had one back. Annie wondered if it was a religious thing, or if we’d upset you in some way?”

“You have never sent me a card.”

“What?”

“You may have sent one to my Mum and Dad in the past, but you have never sent a card to me.”

“I can assure you I have, many, many times - birthday cards too, all posted to your home address.”

“A-L-L-A-N, repeat it, A-L-L-A-N - what does it spell?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m very serious about this. If someone sent you a letter, say to a Chris instead of to you, you’d probably not even bother to open it right?”

“Erm, I suppose…”

“Well I’m just the same. My name is A-L-L-A-N – with two Ls. Each one is as important as the other. It’s how you spell my name. I was christened Allan, not Al, or Alan. If someone can’t be bothered to get it right, I can’t be bothered to read it. It’s a principle I’ve applied for years, even with the senior managers at work. If a memo arrives inviting me to a meeting and it’s addressed to ‘Alan Hewitt’, I assume it’s for someone else and don’t turn up. It doesn’t take people long to realise they need to remember the extra L.”

This was typical of him. Allan liked rules, they made things easier – you knew where you were with a simple operating procedure. This black and white nature bled into other areas. Men who tucked pens into a shirt top pocket were, according to the Rules of Allan, ‘Unambitious losers’. I never thought of him as sexist, although he was adamant women shouldn’t be allowed to be lead singers for rock bands (guitar and drums were fine). As a distant descendant of the Buchanan clan from near Loch Lomond, the most amusing of his blind-spot for me was his uncompromising approach towards people from Scotland.

“Don’t know what it is, just can’t stand ‘em.”

In the interest of our friendship, I decided to keep as quiet about my own heritage as Allan had done about his extra L.  However I did nearly choke when I heard the news that his haulage firm were forcing him to relocate from his base in the Midlands to a Scottish distribution centre based near Livingston.

People warmed more easily to Allan’s partner Stacey who was blessed with a kind and positive nature. Her glass was always three quarter full and by choice she preferred to walk on the bright side of the road. Not ‘pathologically perky’ in a way which grates like a trainee hotel receptionist on their induction week; just slightly more upbeat than the rest of us. On form ‘Stace’ was capable of eclipsing the physically sizable Mr Hewitt with her infectious laughter and charitable mind set. Enthralled by other’s backgrounds, she remembered details and put new acquaintances at ease without ever being intrusive or pushy. She was the sort of woman who built long term friendships effortlessly. According to Stacey, the first thing which drew her to Allan was his outgoing nature. She liked his decisiveness, pleased that she always knew where she stood with him.

Her previous ‘serious’ boyfriend had been, “A dithering and possessive little boy, who never wanted to go anywhere,” so Allan probably represented everything he wasn’t.

Allan, on his part, summarised his own attraction to Stacey by saying that he knew the two of them were “… socially compatible. I noticed that she was a great cook and seemed less erratic than the other girls in our hall. All in all … she was low risk… a safe investment.”

The four of us had a lot in common. They too were a young couple with a growing family who’d met when they were students. Only geography prevented the four of us getting any closer. Livingston was a very long drive and after their transfer so far up north, it was more common for only Allan to travel the long journey back, to support his elderly parents. If they did come over as a couple, we would link up with Stuart and Faye and then all go out for a drink. Stuart, Allan and Annie would reminisce about local people and local places while Stacey, Faye and I would share our worries about being regarded as someone else’s appendage – known only as someone’s partner, an outsider who would always struggle to prove their own worth because they weren’t born in the area.

Before getting to know Allan better, I assumed we didn’t have much in common. His distribution and logistics background had trained him to always deliver the single most expedient answer to any given problem, an approach which was very much at odds with how I liked to work. It was true that we both liked a laugh and had a slightly dark sense of humour, but otherwise our responses to problems and people always came from a very different place. This was fine - Stuart Jackson and I were hardly synchronised in our thought processes. The quality which I did find redeeming with Allan was that I always felt he had my back. Perhaps this was a trait which he’d refined over time, through the spirit of camaraderie prized in the various amateur rugby league teams he had been involved with, but whatever its origins I always believed Allan was true to his word and exceedingly loyal to those he had befriended.

As this trust grew, so did the rapport between us. Over time two particular connections between us would go on to bolt us together. One of these unifying interests turned out to be Echo &The Bunnymen. Realising Allan was a fan of the group provided him with instant kudos. I was amazed and delighted when it became clear he was an even bigger devotee than I was. In my mind, anyone who liked the group was both informed and discerning. His admiration for a band, who’d split up in the eighties and had remained relatively unknown to many provided us with a powerful fixative - a common interest which would bond us together for years to come.

Notwithstanding the fact that Allan was not exactly famed for his ability to readily put himself in another person’s shoes; it didn’t take him too long to realise the subject of sports was never going to be a fertile source of conversation for us. As a heterosexual male you are supposed to be genetically predisposed to want to discuss aspects of the last footie match for hours on end; to have lots of opinions about the comparative skill levels of every single player. Problem was, I found most team games a bit dull and Allan could see that this was never going to happen.

However, keen to build on our initial discussions, we made an important early substitution (from the benches). From now on, the Bunnymen would be our team. This made perfect sense - over the years we’d both worn their shirts and collected their programmes. Sometimes they played well, other times they played dreadfully; whatever the outcome we’d always remained loyal. When they later went on to reform in the mid 90s, they released their first album in ten years, heralding a triumphant return to form. Back as an active band, meant that Allan and I could discuss management tactics and celebrate whenever they beat other groups to achieve chart success. As replacement musicians came and went we were inquisitive about their respective pedigree, their skills and their acumen. We had the same interest in the band’s set list for the gig, as followers of our ‘national sport’ have about the pre-match game plan. Most of all we revelled in the excitement of seeing our boys in their natural arena. We welcomed opportunities to be crammed into a small confined space with hundreds of fellow supporters who had also paid over the odds to chant familiar verses and cheer at their idols. Whichever way you looked at it, our shared experience seemed remarkably close to that of the average football enthusiast.

Coincidences are funny things. It is easy to read more into them than is actually there. In a way they can be ensnaring – perhaps suggesting there is a divine meaning behind certain spooky events, a cosmic connection or some kind of invisible driver pushing things together in an unexpected way. The truth is of course probably far less paranormal. I have to keep reminding myself about this, because the next connection between us turned out to be an even bigger shock. Allan Hewitt knew Pennie Fenton.

How could this be? What was going on? Someone else who knew Pennie Fenton? Would I ever be able to escape from her? I was aware my sister Kirsty irregularly bumped into Pennie back in Yorkshire and had been delighted to hear from her that Pennie and Langham had gone their separate ways; but Allan Hewitt, how on earth had he ever got entwined with the undependable Miss Fenton? Langham and Kirsty knew Pennie because we all hung out with the same people as teenagers, so this made sense, but Scunthorpe born Allan lived miles away from any of us and appeared to have no connection with my old stomping ground. Was this like the six degrees of separation type of thing where everyone knew everyone through someone else – and if so who was that ‘someone else’? Even odder, whenever I pressed Allan about Pennie, interested to find out information about how they’d met; the normally forthright Mr Hewitt became awfully vague as if he was hiding something. I have noticed pushing an idea too hard can result in people being less inclined to acquiesce. Mindful of this, I tried as hard as I could, to bide my time and skirt around the subject. If this was actually the same Pennie Fenton I was (doing my best not to be) thinking about, I could appreciate he might have met her during any number of shameful situations and so conceded this may be the reason for his reluctance to discuss the matter. I changed the subject for a while, but then consumed by curiosity, repeatedly introduced the idea that we should organise some sort of catch up between us all.

Allan remained non-committal.

10. Dancing at the Edge of the Precipice

The thought of a low key reunion tumbled around my head like a pair of trainers in a washing machine. Some days I was very excited about the possibility and on others, I sensed a danger associated with it, as I replayed all the problems Pennie had caused in the past. One part of me was saying, here is a bad moon rising; the other pointing out that here was a way to inject a little excitement into our settled domestic lives. Paralysed by my own inability to make a decision, I asked Annie for advice, but on this occasion found her to be frustratingly ambivalent; so then phoned my sister who thankfully had a much clearer preference. Kirsty loved the idea. As a matter of fact she was more enthusiastic about it than her unbridled support for same-sex marriage. Given that championing gay rights was her current raison d’etre; I concluded she was very much in favour of a possible get together. As we made plans I heard how Kirsty had occasionally come into contact with Pennie through her work around Leeds, the very same city where Langham now lived and the same place where the tight-lipped Allan had once attended polytechnic in the 1980s. Joining up the dots, I began to see how all this fitted together.

It was agreed Pennie would travel with Kirsty to attend our annual barbeque on Saturday 26 August 1995, planned to coincide with the long bank holiday weekend. It turned out to be a glorious weekend. The same sunny weekend UK music fans were busy aligning themselves to either Oasis or Blur, but never to both. I have to admit I was rather excited at the prospect of seeing Pennie again, especially because I knew it would be without the morose and controlling presence of Gav Langham. Although she and I had travelled in the same circles for a while in my youth; I would never have guessed we’d stay in touch, let alone that I’d be inviting her over to The Industrial Garden Town for a barbie. Sometimes we had shared a knowing smile in Ilfracombe or had briefly mentioned individuals from years gone by; but could never claim that we were especially close. After the couple of unforgettable encounters at school, I’d always considered her just a little too shrewd, too knowing for me to ever feel completely relaxed around.

Mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day, she arrived.

Bloody hell… even though I thought I was prepared, I still needed to take stock and remind myself that here was Pennie Fenton; exotic friend of Lucy Drew and barmy Bronwen. Regaining a sense of sensibility, I deliberately held back from making a fool of myself by jumping straight in and instead kept my distance. I was the host and as such I’d mingle with others to demonstrate to Pennie just how popular I was these days.

Positioning myself at the bottom of the garden, I watched as Kirsty introduced Pennie to our friends. Working hard to remind myself to exercise caution, I mentally replayed all the distractions she'd ever caused. It was so bizarre having her visit my house, as a married man with two children, seeing her mix so freely with my friends. It didn’t take long to recognise that everyone was enjoying her company and as the afternoon progressed, I could see that more and more people were gravitating towards her. Pennie drifted elegantly around the group like a parliamentary candidate who was well ahead in the polls during a local election. I wondered how she managed to achieve this. How was she able to mix with people she’d never met before with such ease? What was it that allowed her to engage with others without self-conscious concern?

It was Pennie who finally broke the ice between us. Eight or nine years had passed since we’d last seen each other, and now away from her other nefarious influences, she appeared to be lighter and less demanding. Rather predictably, one of the first things on the agenda was the last time we met. We laughed about the condition of the Staff House, Ted Kingston and Gav Langham. Pennie reminded me about my fretting over the tarot card reading and then later, how shocked I was by its apparent accuracy. Imagine how excited the two of us became when I explained I was now working for a regional newspaper group. Could this have been what the clairvoyant was alluding to when she predicted my future ‘was in print’? The disclosure about my work seemed to be especially interesting to Pennie. Not because of the excellent career prospects or the regular income stream which my new job provided; but instead because it appeared to validate her strong belief that tarot cards could accurately foretell all of our futures. During the original reading I’d interpreted the ‘print’ reference quite differently, believing I was being told to look in the classified ads at the back of the paper for potential jobs. Now, with Pennie’s help and a couple more lagers inside me, I started to question whether the card reading had been more illuminating than I’d initially thought.

The barbeque itself was a triumph. Everyone stayed out in the sun far too long and teased each other about sunburnt faces. For once, the handful of small children present fell asleep long before any of the adults, who were all too busy drinking corked wine and tucking into the remains of a now cold-meat-festival. Pennie ended up being one of the last to go, leaving with my sister to a chorus of, “Really hope to see you again.”

Overall, I felt a tremendous sense of relief about the event when it was finally over. It was as if by inviting Pennie, I’d been expecting something truly awful would happen, something I’d live to regret. The reality was; it had all been rather pleasant. This new Pennie Fenton was different, she didn’t encourage any wild or abandoned behaviour, no one took their clothes off or ended up in a puddle of blood. Truth be told, she probably added value to the day by mixing so well with everyone. My only slight disappointment was with myself for not asking how I could keep in touch with her.

By the end of the summer, life returned to its usual routines and we happily balanced the responsibilities of home and work. Hattie and Toby were both increasingly inquisitive about the world around them and were learning new things every day. Annie and I enjoyed parenthood as much as we did marriage and worked well together building a family home. We constructed a porch, laid a new patio, updated the carpets and planted a beautiful tree at the bottom of the garden – which just happened to be the very same spot I’d been watching Pennie from as she arrived for the barbeque.

As a reward for completing one of our small domestic projects, the two of us went for a meal and then on to see illusionist Max Zelman, a popular psychic entertainer who we’d been unable to get tickets for when he once appeared at Nene College. The evening was billed as An Evening of Mind Reading and Paranormal Activity. Generally speaking, Annie and I approached these types of shows in the same way. We looked forward to being entertained, but always remained highly sceptical. I kept in mind articles from my old Unexplained magazines, which had highlighted the number of charlatans and con-men who worked in this field.

The main aim of the night out was to spend some quality time with my wife, although at the back of my mind, I also suspected this was just the sort of event Pennie Fenton would enjoy hearing about. I’m not saying I went with the deliberate intention of reciting aspects of the evening to Pennie, but I was aware that she was fascinated by this kind of hokum. Annie and I would certainly have a great night out AND who knows … it may also provide a useful conversation piece at some point in the future.

On arrival at the theatre we were all warned that if we wanted to participate in the show we needed to avoid drinking alcohol. Annie being the least flamboyant or showy person I’ve ever met, immediately bought herself a large glass of red wine to make doubly sure she wouldn’t have to get involved.  Showman Zelman looked the part as soon as he walked on stage. Smartly dressed in bow tie and tuxedo, he had an unnerving gaze combined with a hint of aloofness about him. Speaking in an Eastern European accent, he introduced himself and then launched into a number of illusions and psychic exercises which quickly impressed the packed theatre. Zelman accurately identified the forenames of relatives belonging to random members of the audience and pulled receipts out of people pockets’ which had previously been ripped up into tiny pieces. For one trick, the illusionist was rigorously blindfolded by two nonbelievers but still managed to correctly predict key details from driving licences and membership cards buried deeply inside their wallets. We were mesmerised - how did he do it?

After a short break, it was time for some audience participation. No need for Annie to worry about stage fright, as Zelman had no shortage of compliant volunteers eager to be hypnotised. I was quite surprised to discover I was responding to his suggestions and somehow ended up lurching forwards with sixteen other people, to appear on stage. Appreciating we were all now part of the performance and all our responses were visible to the on-looking audience, I seriously toyed with the idea of pretending to be hypnotised. This way, half way through the performance I could miraculously ‘wake up’ and prove it was all a sham. Unfortunately, this opportunity never materialised. Psychic entertainer Mr Zelman, sifted out a couple of people who were clearly up on stage for a laugh and then began a process of deep hypnosis with his remaining lab rats. First, we were made to relax and listen very carefully to what he had to tell us in his distinctively deep voice.

“There is a heavy white mist, rising around your feet, climbing up your legs, slowly... engulfing your body....”

“The mist is rising, getting higher and higher. The further it climbs, the more sleepy you feel…”

I tried to resist the symbolism and remain detached from the process; but by the time the imaginary mist had reached my shoulders I was gone and like everyone else, was ready to comply with his every suggestion. Next thing I knew, I was lifting two invisible oars at the side of my plastic chair, believing I was rowing out to some fantasy island which had been conveniently positioned in the centre of the theatre.

According to Annie, I emerged from the hypnotic trance at one point and looked around a bit bewildered, unsure as to what was going on. Zelman calmly strode over, snapped his hands together and, placing his index finger firmly on my forehead, commanded me to ‘sleep’. I dutifully obeyed and remained under his spell for the rest of the performance. Some of what followed I saw, other parts were later relayed to me. I recognised much of what happened was to do with autosuggestion and compliance, but it was highly entertaining and impossible to resist. One morally suspect, but very funny part of the show was where he took two strangers and convinced them to demonstrate their sudden infatuation for each other by kissing passionately. I am not sure what was more amusing, watching these two strangers sucking the faces off each other, or the sight of their respective partners trying just a little too hard to look relaxed about what was going on.

It was probably exactly the same set of tricks he'd presented to the audience at Nene; standard illusionist fare to be sure, yet somehow we were neither, able or willing to offer any sort of critique of what we were witnessing. Annie and I were equally impressed and I couldn’t help thinking that Pennie would have loved every minute. The lad sat on my right was hypnotised to believe a raw lemon was his favourite fruit and we all watched in disbelief as he devoured the whole thing including its bitter skin. Probably the most spectacular feat of all was where Zelman made a scrawny young woman believe her body was as stiff as a plank of wood. This final exercise was a real testimony to the notion of mind over matter. After hypnotising the woman, he asked audience members to lift her up and lay her between two inward-facing steel chairs which were positioned about four feet apart from each other. Only the back of her head and ends of her heels were elevating her from the floor, with nothing in between to support her backside. This was impressive enough. She really was as inflexible as an ironing board. I don’t think many people would have the strength in their spine to remain rigid in this position for very long. However, the real tour-de force came when he then asked a sizable bloke to go over and sit on top of her– slap bang in the centre of her tiny torso. It was amazing – once again she didn’t flinch and easily managed to support both of their weights across the backs of the chairs. I remain convinced to this day, that in a non-hypnotic state this stunt would be impossible.

At the end of the evening, one final laugh. Collectively, all of us on stage were made to believe we were petrified of rats and soon the theatre floor would be swarming with oversized rodents. When instructed we must run as if our lives depended on it, through the theatre stairwell, past the audience and up to the top the balcony area. Here we would all awake, remember everything that had taken place and feel refreshed and revived. More than a dozen hysterical adults screaming and yelling, pushing their way through an enchanted audience must really have been funny to watch and provided a great end to this unforgettable night.

After the performance was over, Annie and I rushed home to tell our friends about the evening. We were like two converts to the Kabala, gabbling to anyone who would listen, regardless of whether they were remotely interested or not. My own responses to the show were … unexpected. For example, I was really surprised by just how much I’d enjoyed ‘letting go’, allowing someone else to control my thoughts and actions. Instead of it being intrusive, I’d found ‘releasing the reins’ to be a strangely agreeable sensation. Secondly, I’d originally only volunteered to be hypnotised to validate my position that all of this nonsense was faked. I was determined to prove this form of bewitchment was a sham, made up of simple trickery and should never be taken seriously. However following my active participation I was slightly confused and at a loss to apply any sensible explanation to what had gone on. The only thing I could be sure about was that I’d acquired some cracking anecdotes to share with Pennie.

I was provided with a few opportunities to share my thoughts on the wonders of psychic showmanship toward the end of 1995 as Pennie turned up at our house a number of times, always without warning, but always welcome. Because of this unpredictability, I embraced her infrequent arrivals all the more - never knowing when we would be able to catch up again. The only thing I could ever anticipate about these visits was that she would usually come over with my sister. This meant the more we saw of Kirsty, the more we saw of Pennie. If Kirsty was unavailable, then it seemed so was Pennie. The only disruption to this familiar pattern happened just before Christmas. This was when Allan Hewitt made his annual pilgrimage from Scotland over to Scunthorpe to exchange gifts with his parents. Commencing this year and for many that followed, he would pick Pennie up on route and then stop over at our house. These late December gatherings were so much fun that I began to look forward to Allan and Pennie’s visits as much as Christmas itself.

Pennie continued to mix well with our friends, many of whom went on to invite her to their own social gatherings. Such affiliations developed organically in the close confines of our utility room, although it was widely acknowledged that she remained closest to Kirsty and Allan. If we were lucky enough to be graced by her presence, she would begin most evenings in an unassuming manner and then incrementally build up social capital as she gravitated around the utility room listening to conversations and adding her (sometimes insightful) take on things. Every now and then I’d find myself unable to take my eyes off her as she floated from person to person. Flirtatious Pennie had a knack for making you think about her all the time. Conscious that I enjoyed being with her too much, I even attempted to limit the number of exchanges between us during those early visits, taking it in turns with Annie to stay in the main house and look after the kids. This rationing was probably an expression of my lack of confidence – a strategy introduced to ensure she didn’t become bored with my company. I would force myself to encourage her to mix with others, but then manoeuvre the discussions to ensure I’d catch up with her by the end of her stay. Falling slowly under her spell, clock watching was never such fun.

I loved the way Pennie boosted everyone’s willingness to laugh at themselves and not take things too seriously. It was precisely because she was from outside our group that she seemed so vital, so refreshing and welcome. I thought of her as playfully insinuating. On top form, she had the capacity to generate a social energy which you could almost touch. Through her electrifying tales our group was introduced to people we’d otherwise never have met; provided with different ways of looking at things and given permission to laugh at unfamiliar jokes.

The only downside I could see to having Pennie around was that it meant I spent less time with Stuart. The two of them had never clicked in Ilfracombe and now a decade later, very little had changed. To be polite he would acknowledge her presence and maybe get involved with us for a few minutes, but I always suspect it was because he felt obliged to do so. Stuart just didn’t have the patience for Pennie, even when his girlfriend Faye was on good terms with her.

Faye was an inquisitive young woman who generally kept herself to herself. For a couple of years following the move to Scunthorpe she was very homesick and often returned to her Devon roots for a few weeks, prompting Annie and I to think that she might not settle long-term. Faye enjoyed the chance to talk about her old-life and Pennie made it easy for this to happen.

“I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but whenever Pennie comes calling, I find the whole atmosphere begins to change.” said Faye.

“In what way?” asked Annie, especially sensitive to atmosphere’s of any kind.

“Not in a bad way, I just find we all open up more. Pennie seems to be really good at putting everyone at ease. Well… most people anyway. Last time she was round I remember Stuart wasn’t too happy with me for talking about my parents’ divorce, but I wasn’t bothered – I was pleased to get it out in the open.”

“Oh Faye, I didn’t even know your parents were divorced – you never said – I must have been in the other room looking after Toby when this came up. I’m so sorry. How do you feel about it?” Annie asked.

“Don’t worry, it was years ago thanks Annie, when I was very, very young. I just thought it was strange that I hadn’t told anyone before until Pennie prompted the discussion.”

“I find she’s great at putting you right at the centre of things,” I said, eager to join in with this topic.

“Yes, it’s like she hones in on everything you’re saying,” added Faye.

“Is it the same as when I’m reading The Monster Cave book to the kids at bedtime?” asked Annie, aware that she’d missed out on a couple of recent social events.

“That’s exactly what it’s like,” said Faye enthusiastically, “It’s as if Pennie can identify the issues you want to raise and then somehow makes it easy for you to talk about them.”

She was absolutely right. Pennie did always know which buttons to push. She would often sit alongside Annie and myself and prod us into talking about our college days. With Kirsty and Allan she’d encourage discussions about athletics and competitive sports; with Allan and me, the conversations centred on our work or live music. She had quickly cottoned-on to the fact that the Bunnymen provided a pivotal link between the two of us and so mined this rich seam whenever we were together. In response to such positive attention Allan and I ended up playing all their albums to Pennie on a recurring basis, until we actually began to associate their sweeping heroic melodies with her.

Good in a group situation, great with two people, Pennie was at her most impressive on a one to one basis. She immersed herself in every aspect of the conversation so that you instantly felt understood. She never once disagreed with your opinions or challenged your views. A large part of her charm was that she almost always supported your take on things. Whatever you thought, whatever you said, Pennie was likely to agree, she would be the one who wanted to hear more. How could anyone resist such unconditional interest?

I wasn’t surprised therefore that Pennie had been enamoured with my Max Zelman stories. She regularly made me re-live the evening and would challenge me to provide rational explanations for what had taken place. While I’d been fascinated with the early part of the show (which I am sure involved good old fashioned sleight of hand and showmanship), Pennie was far more enthralled with what it felt like to be hypnotised, what it was like to be completely powerless. Just as she would talk a lot to Allan about his parents’ health, to my sister Kirsty about her latest ‘crusade’ and to Faye about her childhood; it was already clear - the subject of the paranormal would be ‘our topic’, a recurring theme which she’d frequently return to whenever we were alone together.

Indicative of this being ‘our 1-1 topic’, were the many discussions we had about the nature of ‘coincidence’. Pennie was quite sensitive about the use of this word and insisted we refer to any possible examples as, “The frequent occurrence of certain events, which by rights should remain incredibly infrequent.”

Drawing on her preference, I gingerly proposed that the frequency with which she’d appeared and re-appeared throughout my life, could be used by some people to illustrate how the two of us may be destined to be close. Much to my relief, Pennie wholeheartedly agreed, claiming the inexplicable number of encounters through our common acquaintances, “Stretched the idea of coincidence to the limits of credulity.”

She believed it proved beyond question that some form of cosmic intervention must be drawing us together. It was even possible that, “Divine powers may actually be at work, pulling us both closer until we understood a secret lesson which we were required to learn.”

Such drivel was totally at odds with everything I’d ever believed in, yet when Pennie said these things I did find myself wanting to agree.

Pennie was captivated by the idea of the inexorable nature of fate and even used a different word for it, Kismet. She hunted out inexplicable co-incidences, collecting them, like most people collect postage stamps. Once she’d gathered a few of them up, she knitted them together in order to reveal grotesque patterns which no one else was capable of noticing. Pennie tapped into my disregard for organised religion and begged me to keep an open mind about paranormal explanations for life’s many detours. She was obsessed with the notion of destiny deciding all our futures, and worked hard to persuade all my friends to share her belief in the importance of mystical forces. Like an obedient puppy, I soon found myself rolling over, looking for unexpected happenings which she would later account for in terms of some greater design.

It was Pennie who convinced me every job I’d ever been offered was the one I was meant to secure, every person I’d made friends with had happened for a reason. She reminded me how Billy Farrell had prophetically bought me a Joy Division record just before love really did tear us apart. This was my Kismet.

At such moments according to Pen, you were, “Swimming with the tide of life’s intentions.” She excelled at applying deeper meanings to everyday life and, after a while, it was difficult not to believe her compelling explanations.

11. Buried Treasures

Pennie continued to be a welcome, but relatively infrequent visitor to the house. In reality we must only have seen her for a few hours on four or five occasions between 1996 and 1997. Life at this point was far more dominated by our families, our careers and our everyday concerns than it ever was by Ms Fenton. However each of her visits did create a lasting impression. By cleverly facilitating discussions where we’d talk about ourselves on a deeper level than we normally would, she managed to turn the dullest encounter into something noteworthy. Personally, I adored the way she accepted, even celebrated our minor defects, helping us to appreciate there were occasions when we all experienced a slight sense of alienation. Unfortunately, none of us had any idea that before long she would use each and every one of those unguarded conversations against us.

Scunthorpe could be a tough place for an outsider, so a flourishing friendship with someone who offered reassurance, comfort and companionship proved irresistible. By complimenting me, I mistakenly believed she complemented me. This was a big mistake. Just like my juvenile crush on Lucy Drew, my interest in Pennie Fenton was inevitably an unhealthy one. I was infatuated with them both – but for very different reasons. As a teenage boy - hormonally charged, the powerful attraction to Lucy was of course mainly physiological. Years later, the pull towards Pennie, was primarily psychological. Playful Pen enjoyed mind games and boy was she good at them. She was the ultimate contradiction, making you feel great about yourself while at the same time eroding what was left of your self-esteem. She promised you companionship and support, but as soon as she’d gone you were always left feeling rather lonely.

All the gang enjoyed the way Pennie was able to circulate around the group and uncover aspects of our personalities we’d never previously been aware of. I suspect I may even have unconsciously adjusted my own sense of humour in her company. Keen to secure her approval, I was inclined to be far more self-effacing whenever she was around. I started to emphasise embarrassing incidents where I’d not quite lived up to my own intentions and focused on these as my principal source of banter. This form of gentle self-mockery became a trademark and was spurred on by positive feedback from Annie and anyone else who found the approach funny. I concluded that in order to make people laugh, I had to put myself down. Pennie would gently tease me about my growing list of inadequacies and the pay-off for me was the obvious amusement these brought to her. For a short while it almost seemed like my fragile esteem was finally working to my advantage.

Any situation which had previously been regarded as a little shameful was now capable of providing comedy gold. No more expensive trips to watch Max Zelman perform his amazing illusions, I thought. Instead all I needed to do in the intervening weeks between Pennie’s visits was to ponder on the many times I’d made a fool of myself and then be prepared to retell every embarrassing episode.

In Allan’s absence, Pennie would quietly applaud my lack of interest in organised sports. In particular, she found it hilarious I’d never been able to escape from the spectre of football, the one game I detested. Recognising this as an opportunity to introduce another pithy anecdote, I repositioned my inability to distance myself from the nation’s favourite game by explaining how it often felt as if was being plagued by a neighbours’ pet; one which I was intensely allergic to, but could never get rid of. I added that I understood the point of football, but just wasn’t able to get excited about it in the way I was supposed to. Here in front of Pennie, sat the only boy raised in the seventies who explicitly wrote down on his letter to Santa NOT to bring him a Subbuteo set.

Thrilled by her reaction to me being haunted by the shadow of the inflated sphere; I quickly moved onto stories about my erratic driving. These were some of Pennie’s favourites and she pleaded with me to repeat these tales of motoring embarrassments, more frequently than It’s a Wonderful Life is shown at Christmas. Never the most confident person in a car, I had gradually accepted the requirement to drive as a necessary part of life. The activity remained a functional one as opposed to pleasurable, but after years of reluctant practice I’d reconciled myself to the fact it provided freedom and choice. Sitting behind the wheel enabled me to earn a living and travel further afield. However this new found pragmatic slant wasn’t what Pennie wanted to hear and so she encouraged me to emphasise all the problems I’d ever experienced whilst in charge of a car. In doing so, night after night, Ms Fenton seared into the front of my brain, every humiliating driving test... every crash of the college minibus... every trip inside Miss Lincolnshire Echo’s car... every complaint from children of good friends who still to this day refuse to travel in a car with me because they’ve thrown up too many times … every single isolated incident behind the wheel I’d tried so hard to forget. The more I recalled, the more I was forced to agree with her damning assessment that she really was in the company of a truly lousy driver who should never be allowed behind the wheel by himself.

Pennie had an uncanny ability to catch you off guard. She appeared to ask nothing of you and reassuringly celebrated your insecurities and failings. This tolerance for imperfection was especially seductive for someone with so many idiosyncrasies. Before you knew it, you found yourself revealing the most intimate details of your life experiences. I told her secrets I’d never told anyone before. Ones I didn’t even know I’d been holding back. As we grew closer, her potential to extract ever more of what she called ‘buried treasures’ increased. I’d known her for almost twenty years, yet nothing had really changed between us since that legendary game of strip poker in Ripon. Clothes now covered my adult frame, but too many nights revealing my most hidden secrets made me feel equally exposed.

My wife enjoyed having Pennie around, although probably had less direct contact with her at this time than the rest of us. This may have been down to the fact that she was occupied elsewhere in the house, chasing around after the kids; but also because she found it very easy to talk about most things anyway. She was and remains, an incredibly straightforward person. What you see is what you get with Annie. This meant that for her, sitting with Pennie was never as much fun, because our occasional guest was never likely to reveal anything which Annie hadn’t already shared. From Annie’s perspective Pennie was just part of the gang – she hung around with my sister and also knew Allan. It was a convenient coincidence which bolstered the numbers during social events. My trusting partner always believed me when I told her that I didn’t fancy Pennie and that my interest in her was never amorous. Unfortunately, while she was correct in assuming the relationship with Pennie was unlikely to progress into being a sexual one; it was also true that there were occasions when I felt compelled to press my lips against her in order to demonstrate my commitment. Pennie demanded such gestures. It would take me a long time to fully understand her true nature and appreciate just how demanding, duplicitous and manipulative she could actually be.

Scanning for stories, Pennie trawled methodically through each of our histories and was especially interested in our childhoods. In the space of one night she had Faye talking about how devastated she’d been when her parents divorced; convinced Kirsty to reveal that she’d been bullied for showing an interest in girls and astonishingly even managed to get Allan to talk about his anger problems. Finally, she insisted the whole group listen as she persuaded me into divulging how distressed I became when reading aloud at school. Although reluctant to participate with her request, I was surprised to find that it was a release to share how my voice waivered and heart trembled whenever my turn to stand up and read to the class was approaching. Coming clean about a fear of being ridiculed by my classmates, actually felt invigorating. Previously, I’d always felt miserable about my early school days, but somehow sharing these thoughts with everyone was liberating.

It was because of Pennie, I opened up about many other events. I spoke for the first time without any embarrassment about my admiration for David Rappaport and Jimmy Clitheroe. While I’d always rationalised my interest in the two as being based on an attraction for the theatre, or at very least a curiosity relating to their brief time in the spotlight; Pennie mockingly suggested my interest was much less complicated.

“More like both of them were a bit of a short-arse – like you.”

I always enjoyed the banter, even when she took the mickey out of me for not standing up for myself when confronted by aggressive losers. Pennie especially liked the tales about my cowardly behaviour during those early drinking sessions with lads in The Ashby Star. In response to all the attention I was receiving, I proudly reminded her that in the event of a good fight I continued to adopt the role of a conscientious sprinter.

Sometimes I’d sense she was pushing me too far and would endeavour to regain some dignity by ‘bigging myself up’ about some minor achievement or other; but Pennie always found a way to playfully belittle these attempts.

“Pennie, did I tell you about the time I had an important part in the local production of Romeo and Juliet?” I once said.

“No, but I’d love to hear more – who did you play?” she’d replied.

“Err, I think he was called Peter.”

“Ah yes, I know the role. Peter, the Capulet servant, an illiterate messenger who didn’t give Juliet’s letter to Romeo explaining she had only faked her death. Romeo killed himself as a result of you not delivering the message and then in turn Juliet did the same. Ultimately the whole Shakespearean tragedy was down to you!“

The effervescent Pennie was often intrusive, but never appeared to be malicious. One of her favourite questions was, “What is your deepest, darkest secret?”

Inexplicably, most of us responded without resistance, sharing a host of hidden gems– usually in complete and graphic detail. Inevitably, she was intrigued by my earliest sexual encounter with Lucy Drew - fascinated to know how it felt to be ridiculed by my first real crush. Whenever I attempted to prise her away from such invasive discussions, Pennie pushed even harder until she uncovered far darker tales, like the one where Joe Morrit and I experimented with the dangerous ‘fainting game’. Up until Pennie, I’d never shared this with anyone.

During winter months we tended to see less of everyone. This year was no different. After Allan’s Christmas visit there were a couple of other low key gatherings, but increasingly I noticed that Stuart, Faye, Stacey and a few others regulars were sending spurious last minute excuses as to why they couldn’t attend. It wasn’t long before I began to suspect the real reason was to avoid Pennie. I could see that while one or two of us had been entertained by these ‘deep dark secrets’; others had grown intolerant of her questions.

In particular, Pennie had irritated people by asking for honest and uncensored opinions about specific members of the gang once they’d left the room. Without thinking, a few of us had freely expressed our thoughts on an endearing minor defect of an absent friend; only to hear parts of these observations being paraphrased back to everyone shortly afterwards. Pennie loved to skilfully weave small fragments of remarks made about friends into conversations with them on their return - just to see how far she could tease us. Such bedevilment was made even more fun for her if she included one or two of the actual words we’d used. Almost… but not quite, telling the other person what you had said. It was a speciality, a twisted version of Chinese water torture. She always pulled back from revealing the full comment to the whole room, but invariably skirted so close to revealing all that you remained in a state of panic for the rest of the evening – never knowing if your friends had rumbled the source of the betrayal from her many insinuations.

Elsewhere, my sister had become romantically involved with a lovely girl called Chloe; while Allan was spending most of his free time on the outside lane of the M74, travelling back and forth to see his parents who were both unwell. Given that Pennie only ever visited Scunthorpe when accompanied by one or the other; it looked like she could be out of the picture for quite some time. However, Ms Fenton was extremely enterprising and in response to these developments, actively sought new ways to consolidate her position within the group.

In our weaker moments, we are all more likely to reach out for support, friendship and companionship and Pennie was acutely aware of this inclination. If any of us were ever going through a difficult period, she was fantastic at dropping everything and channelling all her energies onto just this person. It was an impressive approach and one which was impossible to defend against. So when both of Allan’s parents unexpectedly passed away within a few days of each other, it wasn’t long before Pennie made her presence known.

Following the news of the two untimely deaths, everyone did what they could to help Allan, who was understandably devastated. In reality, we all struggled with what to say to him and how best to provide the support he so evidently needed. I muted the idea that there was something quite romantic about a double-loss. Scrambling around for a positive message from this difficult circumstance, I argued any couple who’d sadly passed away so soon after each other must have shared a love so deep it had made it impossible for the one to survive without their departed spouse. Those of us with children took it in turns to babysit for each other, so the rest of the group could stay over with Allan at his parents’ house. He really wanted to see Pennie, but needed to remain in the area to sort out funeral arrangements, so it was suggested I should travel to Yorkshire to collect her. In all of her visits to see us, I’d never once thought about her existence away from Scunthorpe, rarely considering her backstory beyond the confines of our utility room; so was inquisitive to find out about her domestic arrangements. Although keen for this to take place, Allan was decidedly cagey about how I could make contact with Pennie. Whenever her name was brought up in a conversation, he clumsily changed the subject. When I asked outright to give me the details of where she lived, he mutated into the Master of the Perfectly Opaque Response. Just what is he trying to hide, I wondered?

By the end of a very sombre week, it was eventually agreed that I should drive over to Leeds and visit his old poly (now the Metropolitan University). On arrival I was told to go to the union bar where I would meet up with Pennie at an appointed hour. Allan had meticulously planned every detail and I was given written information about where to go, what to do and when to do it. I was so naive, it never dawned on me this prescriptive way of meeting up with Pennie was very strange. If someone had added a requirement for a rolled up copy of The Telegraph and a red carnation, I could’ve been mistaken for a shady hit man lining up his next mark.

Thankfully, everything went according to (cryptic) plan. I did find Pennie and discovered her to be on fine form. We stayed in the bar for an hour or so with some of Allan’s old student buddies, before the two of us made the ninety minute journey back to Scunthorpe. As we arrived, the upbeat Miss Fenton swanned into Allan’s parents’ house looking like she was ready for an extremely long stay.

During the next week as many of us as possible continued to congregate over at Allan’s house. We would sit in the living room with the telly turned off, curtains closed, leaving little else to do but drink and talk. Right up to the day of the funeral, there was an indescribable atmosphere in the house, a kind of apprehensive energy. It was like an Irish-wake which had continued for days. Stacey, described this alcohol fuelled week as one of the funniest, most emotional and saddest times she had ever known. Allan called it his ‘worst and best’ of days. Pennie really surprised everyone by being both diverting and helpful. She offered support to the desolate Allan and his wider family, and was an invaluable brace during a time of immense grief. The whole group, without exception, was blown away by her altruism. She behaved like a true friend, providing a comforting shoulder for Allan to lean on. Stacey had initially challenged Allan as to why he’d invited her to stay and had told Annie she found her husband’s friend uncommonly irritating. However, during the course of this long week she too recognised how helpful Pennie had been and was first in line to express her thanks.

In the absence of any rugby matches to channel his hidden anger, Pennie made sure that Allan had little time to dwell on the seriousness of the situation. It sounds wildly inappropriate, but Pennie insisted we all play games, tell jokes and generally entertain each other. Laughter through grief was not something I‘d ever considered before and the marrying of the two sensations made quite an impression on me. Oddly in the days building up to the double funeral, we laughed together more than ever before or since. We were all respectful and sincere in our support for Allan, yet spent hours skirting verbally around the edges of acceptable taste. Charged with a melting pot of powerful emotions we welcomed the distractions we were busy creating. All the humour was black, very black, yet seemed to fit the events around us. We all talked about how we would like to die, how we would like to be buried and what we would each like to be remembered for.

“Come the day,” Annie said, “you know, when it’s … my time, I like to think that people will look back fondly, remember the good times and feel they can celebrate the things we’ve shared. I’d love it if my funeral were a warm hearted and positive memorial – one where everyone is wearing bright colours and is not afraid to smile.”

“That’s lovely,” said Stacey, “I totally agree with you.”

“I can’t imagine anything worse,” said Allan. “When it’s my turn to knock on those pearly gates, I want everyone who knows me to be in pieces, mortified and unable to function. The more devastated they are, the better. I want every single person to be paralysed and completely unable to see a way forwards…”

I didn’t feel it appropriate to voice it at the time, but intuitively I was more inclined to agree with Allan on this one.

* * *

Following a poignant double-funeral, Allan was given compassionate leave from work and stayed in the area to oversee management of the family estate and sell his parent’s house. Stacey travelled back to Scotland but, reassured by what she’d seen, gave her permission for Pennie to stay for a few days. These days became weeks and by the time two months had passed, Allan and Pennie were practically inseparable.

The unfettered Miss Fenton insisted that you value your own opinion above those of others and Annie and I watched with interest as she rebuilt Allan’s confidence by reinforcing this particular message. She stressed, in order to move forwards, it was critical for him to have confidence in his own insights and hunches, to trust his internal voice. Little did we know her encouragement to have faith in his own views was less about empowerment and more about subtly distancing him from the opinions of his friends and family as she deliberately undermined our influence over him. Looking back, it’s clear that Pennie was cashing–in on the good will she’d generated earlier in the month. I don’t think she was after the money or the house. In hindsight it was far more likely she saw this period as a chance to ingratiate herself with Allan before preparing to dominate, control and ultimately overpower her defenceless target.

Stacey did her best to maintain regular contact with Allan, but with the phone disconnected at his parents’ old house, she often resorted to calling us for an update on how the house sale was progressing. If Allan was around at the time, they’d talk for hours, which usually perked him up. If her husband wasn’t available, then Annie would act as a go-between, spending many hours placating her geographically remote friend. She appreciated how hard it must be for Stacey and made a conscious decision to avoid mentioning Pennie during any of their conversations. Annie didn’t mind Pennie Fenton. In fact the two of them got on rather well. She understood that when it came to her own husband, Ms Fenton was more interested in his (unremarkable) mind than his (unremarkable) body. She was however concerned that it was likely to take another month or two for Allan to sort out his parent’s estate and this would leave Stacey alone in Scotland to fret about the state of her marriage. Empathetic though she was, there was no way was she was about to mention to Stacey that Pennie had practically moved in with Allan.

Her concerns proved to be well founded. Stacey was alarmed by the way Allan had also stopped mentioning Pennie in conversation. She assumed there may be unspoken problems afoot and swiftly made arrangements to visit him. On arrival, the normally laid-back Stacey made her irritation at the amount of time Allan was spending with Pennie very clear. Although accommodating, his partner was no pushover and could be extremely forceful on matters important to her. Like Annie, she followed her own instincts but unlike my wife; Stacey’s intuition was telling her to put as much distance between her husband and Miss Fenton as possible. Exerting her authority on their relationship, Allan was told in no uncertain terms to return to Scotland and was actively discouraged from spending any more time with the magnetic Ms Fenton. Back home in West Lothian, he therefore had no option but to downplay his fondness for Pennie in order to appease Stacey. However, as I’d soon discover, this embargo only resulted in the formation of a deeper, more underground friendship developing between them. An alliance based on subterfuge, white lies and secret encounters – just the sort of thing Pennie excelled at.

With Allan out of the picture and no one else around for distraction, my thoughts turned to work. While seven years at the newspaper had flown by, there was no sight of promotional opportunities; the duties were becoming routine and there seemed to be little chance of ever upgrading that clapped out Miss Lincolnshire Echo car. Chasing an improved salary and greater career prospects, I applied in the autumn of 1997 for a training job with an affluent brewery based in North Yorkshire. It was a very demanding role which involved lots of travelling around the UK. Constantly on call to meet the needs of a customer base which hardly slept, it took me months to get used to the pace of the profit driven culture. With much less emphasis on team work than I’d been used to in newspapers, I discovered the most ruthless of my colleagues wore the smartest of suits. The shinier the silk tie, the more careful you needed to be around them.

It turned out I’d once again found myself inexplicably pulled towards a position where all my colleagues were fanatical about organised sports – especially bloody football. Pennie would have loved the irony of it all. The brewery was considered a legitimate career move for former professional players because it was well paid and inherently social. The company sponsored many high profile events across the UK and as part of my role I was required to attend football, rugby, cricket and golf tournaments. It was hell and involved regular trips to Castleford Rugby Club, Blackburn Rovers, Elwood Park, Wigan DW Stadium and The Fosters Oval to endure. Some idiot even went on to displace a competitor on the bars at Scunthorpe United and Grimsby Town Football Club. Living the closest to these two Humberside giants, meant that muggins was volunteered to represent the brewery at every one of their home games, so that invited customers could enjoy the taste of our lavish hospitality. This was one of my least favourite activities. The so-called benefit of being able to watch a match for free in the box, while plying greedy customers with free drink, made the tedious requirement even less attractive.

The language of sport had always proved to be a difficult one to master – especially without the motivation to recite it. However, an even more testing aspect to this new job was the amount of time I was expected to spend behind the wheel of my (rather opulent) company car. The majority of the working day seemed to be taken up driving to the head office in Tadcaster, or heading off to one of the many regional centres. As usual Kismet had conspired against me. Here I was locked into a new job which demanded I drive hundreds of miles each week on some of the country’s busiest motorways; just to fane interest in another boring sports meet.

The one saving grace was that Tadcaster was only about five miles away from my sister’s house and so at the end of a long day, I could usually pop over and see Kirsty for a cup of tea and a natter before making the journey home. The brewery was never a nine-to-five job. Since many of the customers were only available outside of normal office hours, it wasn’t uncommon for us to arrange our team meetings at unusual times. If these went on especially late, I would ring my sister and ask if it was alright to stop over. This saved going all the way back to Scunthorpe and meant that I was only a couple of minutes from the work next morning. Usually Kirsty would be downstairs watching telly when I arrived, sometimes she would be with new partner Chloe, sometimes they would be joined by Pennie.

More often than not Kirsty and Chloe would be first to bed. This meant that if Pennie was around, I’d have her undivided attention. While I was always thrilled to catch up with her, I did notice that when we were alone she tended to probe much deeper than before into my values and beliefs. Question by question, she would unveil larger vulnerabilities, clinically laying each of them out ready for the closest of inspections. I tried to suggest that some secrets were best left unspoken - but interloper Pen just pressed me to share more. No subject was ever taboo. The stories she insisted hearing about were always the most embarrassing, the uncommon, the awkward and the salacious. During some nights in York she would chastise me so much over the things I had revealed, that I felt quite overwhelmed by it all. Where was Annie when I needed her?

There was no way I could appreciate just how corrosive her psychological techniques actually were. The more I told her, the more reliant on her I became. By continually pushing for more information about my past, Pennie discovered aberrations I never even knew about. She claimed if we are all a product of the world into which we are born, then, I was in big trouble right from the start. This puzzled me because up to this point, I’d been rather smug about being born at the same time the James Bond franchise was launched; the same year the Rolling Stones were formed. Scanning my early history, Pennie reminded me of the date and time of my birth - right at the epicentre of the Cuban Missile Crisis, or what she called ‘The Moment of Optimum Global Tension’. She thought it significant that I’d appeared at the very point where the world was charging towards Armageddon; the same time the entire population was holding its breath in fear of mass devastation. Pennie argued the identical timing of these two disparate events probably contributed to my somewhat hesitant nature. She also claimed that it was inevitable that I would spend much of the next forty-odd years, trying to resist an overpowering inclination to define myself by the world I’d been born into; an environment overflowing with trepidation and uncertainty. This second observation struck an even bigger chord. If I hadn’t considered it before she pointed it out, I sure as hell did now.

Once she’d managed to persuade me I’d probably never be able to escape the sense of impending doom which had informed my arrival; her attention swiftly turned to the early lives of my other family members. Pennie was especially keen to discover what they were like as children. When were they born? What were their secrets? What were their shortcomings? These were all the topics I wanted to avoid, fearing there was far too much for Pennie to play with.

I desperately hoped she wasn’t going to try to undermine the love I had for my family. I recognised that in her presence I was like a little lapdog vying for attention and usually felt compelled to tell her about my life, but the thought of having to breach the confidences of others made me uneasy. What if she was intending to be really nasty and began to ridicule my dear old nan for her religious beliefs; my mum’s mother, for her battles with the bottle or wanted to know why my mum tolerated an arid relationship with her second husband? How would I react if she derided Kirsty for her sexuality? What on earth would I say if she started to pick on Annie or the kids?

No, instead Pennie went straight for the most provocative subject she could think of, the subject three generations had managed to avoid.

“What happened to your OTHER sister – the one who died?”

Christ almighty– where did that come from? No one had ever asked me this before. What had happened to her? Here was a question I found impossible to answer, because I actually didn’t know. It felt weird being asked about an event which had clearly affected me and my family, but which I was unable to remember anything about. Up until this point, I didn’t even realise I had been asking myself this same question for years, but was too afraid to express it.

12. The Pennie Drops

Pennie had for the first time, done me a gigantic favour. She’d managed to drag something out of me, I’d forgotten was in. Raising awareness of a dead sister I had no memories whatsoever of, was unexpected. I’d once asked my mum about rumours of ‘a third sister’ while studying at Nene College, but then watched as she struggled to respond, to the point where she became quite flustered. I decided not to push the matter, as I could see the subject was distressing her. This solitary discussion was over before it’d started and while it wasn’t especially helpful in terms of finding anything out, I did feel a little more energised once the stilted exchange was over. It was as if the simple act of raising this thorny topic had itself been therapeutic. The aborted conversation with my mother was the only discussion about my absent sister I’d ever had, the only tangible proof she’d ever existed.

As Pennie drilled down in an attempt to uncover every morbid detail, she inadvertently provided me with the courage to investigate what had actually happened all those years ago. I didn’t consider the prospect of researching into my sister’s life in any way depressing and instead became tremendously motivated to satisfy my appetite for a better understanding. I requested a copy of the death certificate and then in the summer of 1998 contacted elderly relatives still living in the Lancashire area. Travelling to the town where we grew up in the sixties, I visited the modest terraced property where my family had lived; all in the hope it would be possible to piece together a fuller appreciation of what had taken place.

Visiting aunties and uncles I’d not seen in decades, I was presented with a series of faded photographs of someone I didn’t know. I discovered the wistful blonde girl in all of the pictures was called Janet. Here at last, in my hand was proof of her existence, the big sister who had never been discussed. According to relatives, this pretty little girl was the reason my parents had married - to avoid the scandal of a teenage couple with a baby out of wedlock. Only eight years later, the same Janet Mary Mellor who would rip them both apart when she was brutally killed in a head-on collision with a car travelling at speed on the road immediately outside their first house.

The accident happened on Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, an important celebration for the Catholics. Janet was walking back alone from confession at the local church. On route, she spotted one of her school friends and darted across the road to say hello, but was knocked down before reaching the other side. It was late afternoon and Janet was just yards away from the security of her own front door. Both my parents were devastated, with Mum in particular struggling to get over the enormous guilt she felt.

Unravelling all the clues, I carefully pieced together fragments from the past. While all of it was brand new information, the emotions each element provoked seemed uncomfortably familiar. Every detail unearthed, fuelled my desire for greater knowledge. More determined than ever, I orchestrated a series of unnecessary work trips to Lancashire breweries to enable access to a specific microfiche reader at the Harris Museum in Preston. I spent days painstakingly reading archived copies of local newspapers from the late 1960s, until I eventually found a single article ominously titled Instantaneous death following impact with a Landrover. According to the dispassionate report, buried on page thirty-two of an evening paper:

An eight year old girl was killed in a road accident on Thursday March 23 The unnamed driver of the vehicle failed to stop immediately after the road traffic accident, but later handed himself over to the police. A police spokesman said the girl was killed instantly.

Shortly after securing a print of this distressing article, a copy of the original death certificate arrived in Scunthorpe. Describing the cause of death, this was more visceral in its description:

Transection of the brainstem and spinal cord due to crush injury to the skull sustained during incident with car.

For a couple of days, I did nothing but read this fierce injunction over and over again, transfixed by its graphic description. As the weeks passed, it was this single statement which brought the impact of the terrible accident into full focus. While the brutality of the language hit me hard, I suspect it also helped me to accept the finality of it all.

Conscious there was very little left to unearth, I decided to compose a short letter and travel to the gravestone to read it out loud. By taking time to craft all the things I wanted to say to my unsung sister, I forced myself to filter and sort a multitude of random thoughts and emotions which had probably been distracting me for years. The act of putting pen to paper somehow made her more concrete and in doing so made me feel a little more complete. Although standing in front of the weathered headstone was very sad; I didn’t feel the need to mourn, nor was there any urge to track down the driver of the vehicle involved and seek some kind of belated retribution. I accepted the tragedy was in the past. Thanks to Pennie Fenton, I had achieved what I’d set out to achieve and discovered precisely what had happened to my sister.

This whole process took no more than a month, but by the time I’d finished I felt lighter and more restful with myself.  Pennie had helped me. Somewhere in the depths of my subconscious this knowledge had always existed and now, assisted by her, was able to claw its way back to the surface.

As I considered the impact of Janet on the wider family unit, I began to appreciate the sense of isolation my sisters and I had felt and why I’d often thought something was ‘missing’. Mum and Dad had refused to ever talk about the accident, with each other or with the wider family and immediately following Janet’s funeral all reminders of her were removed from the family home. According to relatives after the burial, we all became like grieving apes, who following a death in their band, stop communicating with each other. This made sense to me and helped me understand the slightly pushed-down sensation which I’d always believed characterised the emotional climate in our house. The only other house where I’d felt the same atmosphere was at Joe Morrit’s. It was no surprise I was able to function so effectively over there – I knew the rules. No wonder Joe and I had connected so well.

Revisiting my family’s past, helped me to understand some of my responses in the present. Now in a more informed position, a number of childhood reactions started to make a little more sense to me. Perhaps the reason for the extreme response to being left with nuns on the first day at school wasn’t just about feeling abandoned. Maybe some of my expressed trepidation was because I’d witnessed that ‘out of sight’ really did mean out of mind for my parents. If I wasn’t around for any period of time, perhaps I too would be forgotten in the same way Janet had been.

Additionally, it was possible my years of dreadful driving may have been shaped by this ‘buried’ incident. The more I thought about it, the more I remembered how my mother had put the fear of God into me about cars, forcefully encouraging me to take great care when walking along the same pavements where Janet had been killed. The message I received as an impressionable toddler was clear and repetitive: Cars are dangerous, cars can kill. I am still able to hear this replayed tape as it loops over and over again inside my head. This adopted mantra makes every trip seem far more exhausting than it ever should, as I continue to overestimate the potential threat presented by the shortest journey in a modern-day Ford Focus.

Each new realisation which followed, regarding who I was and why I behaved as I did, made me a little happier about myself. I could almost feel a sense of strength emerging which up until this time I’d never thought existed. The most sobering association I made was in relation to the potential consequence of pushing down all those feelings about what had happened to my departed sister. Could it be, I wondered, that an imposed repression of this event had actually sent me on a trajectory towards unhealthy relationships as a teenager? Had a failure to deal with the loss made it inevitable I’d suffer with poor esteem and ... perhaps as a teenager, be drawn to girls like Lucy and Bronwen? This was a chilling thought because if I followed the unpalatable suggestion through to conclusion; it implied that Pennie Fenton’s twisted calling card may also have been sent on the very day Janet died, printed on beautifully embossed hand-crafted card and marked for my attention.

While Ms Fenton had certainly been the inspiration for my research, it was telling that she was nowhere to be seen during it. What was she afraid I might find? Her absence concerned me to start with but then the longer it continued, the more I was relieved she wasn’t about. I began to acknowledge that her company wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. Many friends had lost patience with her controlling ways and others were becoming annoyed by her increasingly spiteful asides. It was also undeniable that Pennie’s presence had contributed to Allan and me losing touch with many of our good mates. Given the choice of a pleasant meal with trusted friends or spending precious time with her, guess who won every single time. Therefore, I came to the easy conclusion that some distance between Miss Fenton might not be a bad thing. To achieve this aim I would need to resist her many charms and, crucially, admit to myself I had become almost as dependent on her company as a gambler is on that ‘one last flutter’.

The self-imposed break from Pennie helped me to see more clearly how our insular association had made me feel quite miserable. By probing into the most deeply buried aspects of my childhood, Pennie had inadvertently provided me with the fortitude I needed to extricate myself from her. It really surprised me just how quickly this detachment came about. One day I was as tightly wrapped around her little finger as Annie’s bra had once been wrapped around mine (straight after The Last Ilfracombe Punk had tried to sever it with shears); the next day I had cast her aside. I effortlessly replaced all the ruminating about Pennie with an overwhelming desire to look forwards, to be with Annie and the kids, to drive my career and complete the renovation of our slightly shabby house.

As soon as Pennie and I stopped seeing each other, everything positive in my life was accentuated. I felt happier and more alive than I’d been in years – like an elastic band which had been stretched further and further, had now been released. Relationships at home and at work immediately improved. With Pennie out of sight, no one could conquer the blue skies above. I felt clearer headed, more alive, less lethargic and mentally sharper.

Not only was I more vital, but I also felt more willing to take on new challenges and new responsibilities at work and at home. Within a matter of months, I was the husband father and friend I should always have been. At work I was sponsored to do a professional qualification in human resources and following exam success, was promoted twice in the space of six months. Most importantly I had time. Time for Annie, time for the children and time for myself - so much so, I wondered where it’d all come from. I seemed to have a never ending well of reserves to draw on and this meant progress was made in virtually every aspect of life.

Acutely aware of how much better I was feeling, I started to resent Miss Fenton and the way she had falsely positioned herself as ally and confidante to us all. She was always superb at subterfuge and, looking back, I could see she’d managed to deceive Allan, Kirsty and myself about the extent of our reliance on her. Perhaps we’d been kidding ourselves all along that we called the shots. Maybe Pennie had been pulling our strings for years, maintaining her stranglehold by ensuring those of us closest to her had neither the time nor the inclination to explore what she was really all about. My God, this was starting to make sense. By getting us to fixate on our many demons, we’d failed to consider the possibility that Pennie was our biggest vice, our one all-encompassing foible. It suddenly struck me with all the force of a cartoon anvil falling from a cliff, that the greatest of all our secrets may actually be the one about her. Pennie Fenton had become our leper messiah and we were her loyal disciples.

Finally, the Pennie drops, I thought to myself.

Pennie Fenton could never be the girl we all wanted her to be. Truth be told, Pennie Fenton wasn’t even her real name. Her full title was actually Miss Tetrahydrocannabinol, more commonly referred to as cannabis, also known to many as marijuana, spliff, hemp, ganja, weed, grass, gear, stash, hash, blow or pot. The term ‘Pennie Fenton’ was always intended to be a ruse - a way of concealing our dirty little secret. She was, after all, simply an alias – an invented name used by Allan and myself to allow us to talk more freely about our growing obsession – our engulfing dependency on this so-called soft drug.

Over a year without a single joint had at last brought me to my senses. I saw what Stacey and Stuart had seen, what everyone from outside our immediate smoking clique had been telling me for ages… Allan and I had gone to pot and cannabis was messing with our minds. All at once the sandstorm blowing in my head stopped spinning. Cannabis was not my friend, my confidante or my ally. Cannabis was my compulsive addiction, my drug. It was the ultimate expression of my many weaknesses. Acting as an ambassador for my failings, it undertook its duties with incredible zest. Gifts and talents were systematically undermined as increasingly strong joints seeped into my subconscious in search of hidden vulnerabilities. Preposterously, the more that was brought to light, the more I thanked cannabis for it, wrongly assuming its presence was in some way helpful. The more I praised it, the closer we became until eventually I was pretty much unable to function without it. Benefiting immensely from our recent unexplained break, I could see that I hadn’t simply become dependent on my old flame; I was addicted in every sense of the word.

As with many forms of slavish adherence, my unhealthy infatuation with cannabis had developed at a slow and insidious pace. I’d heard the terms pot, blow, and resin many times before my inaugural spliff, but naively thought these were all different drugs. I first saw a lump of cannabis resin on that fateful afternoon at Lucy’s house when a tiny bit had been left on the arm of the sofa. Studying it, I was hit by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It was like I was looking at something I recognised well, but couldn’t understand why. Perhaps I was witnessing an omen of great portent – a glimpse of an important future memory – sending a signal to myself about how familiar this substance would eventually become.

Cannabis intrigued me after hearing about its effects, as described to us by Andrew Hoare’s sister. She’d hung out with many of the local Ripon bands and enjoyed showing off just how cool she really was. Her many references to the drug were her way of letting her little brother’s friends know we were in the presence of a sophisticated girl about town.

Initially, I didn’t enjoy smoking it very much, as it made me feel a little nauseous. Witnessing the inebriating effect it had on others (who usually spent hours giggling and laughing about the most inane things); I’d put up with the queasiness and persevered. After a few smokes, I enjoyed how everyone became less reserved, less guarded and more inclined to share their true thoughts about things. I also loved the fact that smoking a joint was probably the most rebellious thing I’d ever done. Something a little subversive: an illegal activity.

The reason for calling cannabis ‘Pennie Fenton’ came long after those teenage adventures. The name ended up being an invention born out of necessity, a construction deliberately designed to mask the insatiable appetite which Allan, Kirsty and I had developed for getting stoned. To help understand how things descended into such a ludicrous situation, I need to rewind to what happened just after my school days.

Nene College was always much more about alcohol than cannabis and for those three carefree years, I was either, too loved-up, too drunk or too busy revising to need any additional forms of stimulation. It wasn’t until Gav Langham arrived in Ilfracombe that I reflected on how much I enjoyed smoking the stuff. If I’m honest, the real reason why Langham pissed me off so much back then was partly because he was a lazy bastard, but mainly because he would never share his stash of cannabis. Fast forward a decade, we were all in our thirties and suddenly access to cannabis became a whole lot easier... as a matter of fact, in the mid-nineties I knew more people who ‘spliffed-up’ than didn’t. While alcohol continued to be our main relaxant; the addition of a ‘bit of blow’ every so often provided an exotic accompaniment to any ensemble. The fact that smoking cannabis remained the wrong side of legal enhanced its appeal, in the same way it had done when I was a teenager.

I’d been especially surprised to discover my little sister smoked the stuff and then equally pleased to find out our new friend Allan Hewitt also partook. Egged on by such social approval; it was inevitable my intermittent flirtation with the intoxicating relaxant would evolve into heavy petting. This was long before cannabis became the narrow and tedious experience I grew to adore. I was pleased the drug wasn’t anything horrifying like heroin, cocaine or LSD. Cannabis was after all, made from simple plant leaves – the very same ingredients used for medicinal purposes in China for five thousand years we would tell ourselves. It was a few years before we heard how unscrupulous dealers mix the cannabis resin with all sorts of bulking agents - crap like henna, beeswax, milk powder and old engine oil.

In an attempt to manage my obvious enthusiasm for getting stoned, I’d decided to cadge joints off people rather than purchase any for myself. I was always happy to pay Kirsty and Allan for whatever I wangled off them, just reluctant to deal with outsiders. It wasn’t a money thing or being tight; I just felt the need to distance myself from the sharp end of this social lubricant. This way if someone else brought some ‘gear’, I would readily participate, but once they’d gone back home; the option for me to continue smoking had effectively been removed. I remember Stuart summarised my lack of control very succinctly one night after watching me get wasted at a party.

“I hate it when you smoke pot because you never know when to stop,” he said.

“As ever Stuart, you are probably right – I’ll try anything twice,” I glibly replied.

Even though I’d told myself that cannabis wasn’t addictive; some part of me was aware of an innate orientation towards dependency. Therefore, my own rule of engagement was never to have any left in the house after a social event. The only time I ever actually broke this regulatory measure was if one of my smoking partners came round for a big weekend session. On such occasions, I’d always ask them to leave me with a little piece of resin so I could roll one for myself on the Sunday night as a way of relaxing before returning to work.

Stoned, everything became a little lighter, brighter and more vivid. Jokes and anecdotes were more believable, music and films more absorbing. Verbal fluency was improved and it was easier to make associations between concepts and events. Back then, I particularly enjoyed the relaxation cannabis offered. It took the edge off things and made me feel very content. For someone with a tendency to be quite a worrier, perhaps a little tense, this was really beneficial.

Actor Anthony Hopkins once said he’d been attracted to alcohol because he’d lived with an enduring suspicion there was something else in life, something more. I could relate to this. In those early days, cannabis provided me with an opportunity to channel my own desire for ‘more’ of something. Like Hopkins, I felt incomplete at the time and thought that smoking (much more so than drinking alcohol) would help to fill this void. By getting stoned, I saw myself in search of enlightenment, on a voyage of discovery. I genuinely believed the ‘authentic spiritual self’ was more likely to emerge after a few spliffs. The intention was that one day, under the right conditions, if I smoked enough of the stuff, I would undergo some form of wonderful awakening - experiencing a revelation which would miraculously transform the way I viewed the world.

This passage to enlightenment turned out to be skippered for most of its turbulent journey by just one man.

13. Oh Captain, My Captain

Starting in the mid-nineties and for the three years which followed, Allan Hewitt knocked on our door, as regular as clockwork on the eve of Christmas Eve. Following a quick chat and a late meal, we’d grab a beer and then settle down for a long evening in the utility room. Those nights were tremendous, bonding times. Allan liked getting trashed more than anyone I’d ever met and our sessions together always resulted in a major assault on our brain cells. We labelled these festive get-togethers ‘war’.

Anticipating carnage, Allan would arrive armed with his ornate wooden ‘stash box’. It contained all the necessary supplies - three packs of Rizlas, two lighters, a box of Swan Vestas, some tobacco and enough cannabis resin to intoxicate a small village. Annie and others would join us for a toke or two from the battery of spliffs he produced, but this tended to be by exception, with no one else getting quite so dirty in the trenches as the two of us. We were relentless in our enthusiasm. Cannabis was our unifying foible and we celebrated the fact.

Back in those fledgling days, the term ‘foible’ was often bandied about because Allan and I liked the way it downplayed the extent of our fascination. As this word was usually applied to the slightest of flaws; the implication was that our mutual habit was simply an expression of a more unorthodox approach. We started to use the term after Allan had read a quote by the eccentric horticulturalist, Frank Crisp. His words became like a shield for us and were used to buffer any gibes about our blossoming captivation with cannabis.

“Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass. You know his faults, now let his foibles pass”.

“Let our foible pass,” we’d say.

The strategy seemed to work, with most friends finding it highly amusing how the two of us had a ‘special fondness’ for being stoned. Because of this, we were pretty much left to our own devices.

I am not sure why Allan and I had such a strong predilection for smoking joints, but it was unmistakable that the two of us got a bigger kick out of it than anyone else we knew. Fundamentally we really enjoyed it. I mean REALLY enjoyed it. Because of our competitive natures, we would egg each other on to see who could inhale most of the thick foggy fumes. Spliff after spliff, was lit until we were as high as two kites on one very windy day. Unlike getting pissed at the pub, we could smoke until late, laugh our heads off all night and still function effectively the next day at work. There appeared to be no dull hangover and no deterioration of mental sharpness from our herbal high – at least not in the short term.

We both accepted that there were a couple of minor inconveniences linked to our favourite pastime. Firstly it was clear that a few spliffs didn’t mix well with lots of alcohol, since combining the two usually made you feel nauseous. Secondly, big smoking sessions always brought about a serious bout of the munchies, where you felt compelled to eat as much of the stodgiest kind of high carb food as you could fit into your mouth. Cheese and ham on toast, cheese on crumpets, buttery toast, any type of chocolate - all hit the spot. ‘Whiteys’ could also occur, which would stop you in your tracks. These usually followed straight after you’d attempted to satisfy your craving for crap food. They were characterised by the rapid disappearance of any colour from your face, followed by a feeling of queasiness which lasted for a few minutes. I was famous for ‘greenies’ – a house speciality which was thought to be a more extreme version of the ‘whitey’. The ‘greenie’ term was used to describe the distinctive olive coloured complexion which let onlookers know I was about to chuck-up masses of partially digested high carb cuisine into the nearest loo. Christmas time, mistletoe and wine... Following a short break, I’d roll up another ‘cheeky number’ and start all over again. Out of bad comes good.

Allan and I bounced off each other so well because we were very different people. What I wanted from smoking pot for example, was completely at odds with what he was after, yet whenever we rolled spliffs together, we had more fun than with anyone else. For me, smoking brought about the same kind of mellow euphoria I had experienced while experimenting with the ‘feinting game’ as a teenager. I especially liked the way a good spliff helped me to think a little more imaginatively, to consider other possibilities and to perhaps … become a little more creative . I was naive, impressionable and a little romantic about the benefits of getting high. Allan on the other hand, would never have dreamed about smoking to elevate his artistic temperament. Instead, he enjoyed smoking spliffs because marijuana helped him to burn away his frustrations and manage his formidable temper. For him, getting stoned was a functional activity which brought about demonstrable results, plain and simple.

It was Allan who taught me everything I needed to know about smoking gear. He was my captain, my sensei. His principal role was to educate me in the Ways of the Spliff and like any good induction programme, his first couple of instructive sessions back in 1995 highlighted the behavioural standards he expected from his new apprentice.

“In terms of etiquette, there are norms which you’ll need to adhere to,” Allan said. “The lighting of each new joint is always granted to the person who has rolled it. It’s a very special moment”.

“I can see that a Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind[4],” I flippantly replied, unable to resist injecting a little humour into the proceedings.

“It’s essential that a virgin spliff must always be lit using a single match Charlie, never with a vulgar high-tech lighter. One match is all you get. I do always bring a lighter or two with me, but these are used to soften the resin block – never for lighting the joint.”

“Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if we used a lighter – especially if you’ve got one in your box of tricks?” I asked.

“Years of research in this field, has revealed there is something unique about that first toke. Being forced to strike the spliff from a single crackling match means you invariably inhale a little bit of sulphur during the first drag and this makes the whole joint especially sweet.”

“Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope[4],” I said, bowing my head a little. “It is clear I have much to learn.”

“What are you going on about? I’m trying to share my knowledge here. If you’re taking the piss, I’m not going to bother.”

“Sorry mate, I’m not having a go, I just have loads of images of Star Wars running through my mind – you know when Luke was being trained to be a Jedi – It’s like you are the master and I’m the pupil.”

“Never seen Star Wars,” he said, before continuing with his orderly tuition. “When passing joints around, it is best to take three of four draws from an average sized spliff before giving it to others in the group. Always do this in a clockwise direction.”

“I see, three or four… in a clockwise direction,” I repeated, just to confirm I was on board and taking the whole thing seriously.

“The only exception to this rule is when more than five people are smoking at the same time. On these occasions, to make sure everyone gets their fair share; it’s good practice to have two or three spliffs on the go at the same time. This way there is no dilution of available drags.”

Mr Hewitt had thought about everything.

After he’d covered the basics, Allan’s next lesson was on the fine art of rolling a perfect joint. As any stoner knows, this in itself is something to cherish, an activity to enjoy. The finished product becomes a testimony to your skill and experience as a ‘master roller’. Determined to improve my competence in this area, I volunteered to roll every single spliff during that inaugural Christmas session. Given that it was Allan’s gear, he would always provide cues as to when I should commence with the next one.

“You should knock your next number up.”

“It’s time to put a cheeky little one together.”

“Are you ready to chillax Charlie?”

Through his patient mentoring my skills gradually developed and before long I progressed from an amateurish ‘three paper blanket’ spliff to a more mature ‘single kinger’ technique. I was amazed to discover that the king sized Rizla – aka the joint- makers best friend, came in all sorts of varieties and flavours (liquorice anyone?). My personal favourite at the time was the medium weight, green coloured pack. These contained papers which weren’t quite as thin as ones inside the blue or silver versions preferred by many. Instead for me and my clumsy disposition, they offered a relatively unbreakable housing for the mixture of dried tobacco and crumbled resin block. The more I used them, the more proficient I became. Before I knew it, each carefully constructed spliff was a robust, ravishing little beauty. The only problem I ever encountered was sourcing some of the building materials since it was blatantly obvious what these king sized Rizlas were being used for. No one ever smoked rolled up cigarettes using extended length papers, so sheepishly asking to buy them at a shop, took me back to when I was a teenager going into a chemist to ask for a pack of condoms.

Rolling all these spliffs, even in the relative safety of the utility room was not without its hazards.

“You have to remember to soften the resin before you try to crumble it. Get this right and it will fall apart like an Oxo cube,” Allan explained.

“Any tips?” I asked, knowing that more advice would surely follow.

“Sure. The best way is to apply an even heat to one corner of the block, for just the right amount of time. Too long and you’ll waste my resin as it burns away into the air; not long enough and you’ll find it virtually impossible to work with.”

It was indeed a difficult balance and one which depended on the type and quality of the raw materials.

“How long is too long?” I asked.

“No more than five or ten seconds. Oily blocks always get hotter and soften sooner – so never let these burn for very long. Be warned, if you misjudge how hot the block has become, you could end up really burning yourself,” he said.

This was valuable advice. I learned that it was always the thumb which came off worst. Overheating invariably led to one or two pieces of red hot resin breaking from the block and welding themselves to the fleshiest part of your hand, creating little white blisters which lasted for weeks. The pain was excruciating. Additionally hot cannabis sometimes jumped from the tip of the burning spliff, like sparks from a crackling fire. These wayward chunks could singe holes in your clothing or fall to the floor and burn the carpet. It was a dangerous business.

Allan’s responsible reference to all things ‘health and safety’ turned out to be the last item on the agenda that Christmas. In honour of completing level one of what would become a very long programme, he rolled up a celebratory monster spliff. I can still picture that joint, it was a masterpiece.

“Ah, I am sure the fumes are strong in this, the most elegant of weapons my master,” I said, powerless to resist one final joke.

Puffing away on that bad boy, passing it between ourselves (every four tokes) like two giddy girls, we joked about how completing this final lesson on fire safety meant that I was officially au-fait with the awful dangers of this subversive drug. How little we knew.

Most of Allan’s mentoring and the majority of our smoking took place inside the safety of the utility room. Off and on we were allowed to smoke a joint at a friend’s house, but only if they had understanding partners. Once in a while we dared to take a ready-rolled spliff or two out with us to the pub. We always enjoyed the thrill of sneaking outside to find less visible parts of random pub car parks. While most of our friends were pretty cool about the whole thing, it didn’t take long for us to realise that many of the other pub regulars had a very different take on such shenanigans. Indeed, we’d heard that if anyone was found with drugs on them, the landlord of the Ashby Star would bypass his, “This is the last time I am telling you using my voice,” line in favour of a much more emphatic (wooden) instrument to highlight his inflexible stance on the matter. Allan and I therefore needed to be very discreet whenever we fancied a furtive spliff. We accepted that many drinkers in the pub believed smoking the demon weed was a gateway to harder drugs. Rather than confirm their existing prejudices about ‘layabout student-types’, we were sensible enough to see that we needed to be careful about who we involved and what we communicated. As a rouse to camouflage the true nature of any references to cannabis, the two of us therefore discussed the need to have some kind of code word which could be used whenever we fancied a quick spliff outside.

Allan had suggested we use a male name (Billy) which I rejected, in favour of female reference - believing this would enable us to discuss our obvious enthusiasm for her with far more candour. Pennie, was the name of a friend of my sister’s – a playful and indulgent young woman who was also a little left of centre. We’d thought it ironic that in literature, this name was synonymous with ‘faithfulness’. Funny because there was no way ‘our Pen’ ever limited her attentions to just one person at a time. The name Pennie also implied something disposable or low cost, which rang true. According to Allan the cost of a quarter of an ounce of resin had been about twenty-five pounds for as long as he could remember. Considering just how many spliffs you could get from one oily block, this always seemed to be rather cost effective – especially when compared to the escalating price of alcohol. We were therefore both in agreement - the name Pennie was perfect.

We’d struggled though, to identify a suitable surname. All our ideas were too deliberately bohemian, or too ordinary – making Pennie sound either like a spaced-out hippy or someone’s old school friend. Eventually we settled with Pennie Fenton. The two names went well together and resonated like a euphemism. The Fenton name came from a leaflet we’d seen for an omnipresent local solicitors which specialised in criminal representation. Perfect: Pennie and Fenton – joined together the name implied a promise of ‘cautious exuberance’.

The impromptu naming ceremony was followed by lashings of fizzy lager; after which Pennie’s name was passed around more frequently than all the spliffs she had been created to represent. With a name agreed, a legend was born and a new language established. By humanising our secret dealings, creating a female identity for our simple roll-ups; we’d immediately transformed an inanimate object into a daring little minx – our very own Femme Fatale.

Name, quickly adopted by the gang, everyone had found it terribly amusing to stand at the bar in front of the staff and start conversations about Pennie. We soon learned to abandon some of the more obvious phrases like, “I’m going to spend a Pennie – do you wanna come?” simply because it sounded a bit of an odd invitation. Slightly more successful was the use of, “Our Pen Friend,” – this worked better and was easy to include in discussions, although thinking back, it probably made us sound like a bunch of thirteen year olds discussing correspondence we’d received by air mail from someone who lived on the outskirts of Marseille.

Our original intention had been to create a way to navigate through potentially difficult conversations in public. However, it soon became clear that the personalisation of our little pastime was also helpful when making phone calls; sending letters to friends and even (for the more progressive networker) drafting surreptitious emails. We didn’t expect the phrase to snowball so quickly. From the second we had Miss Fenton’s name agreed, everyone was eager to demonstrate they were ‘in the know’ about her. I’d totally forgotten what happened at college when everyone loved the name Flash so much that no-one ever made reference to my actual name again. People like nicknames, especially if they know the story behind them and such was the appetite for this code name, it never went out of fashion. By assigning an innocuous name to our guilty pleasure, we’d created a verbal currency which was embraced by anyone who was aware of the back-story to it. The birth of a secret language which only the initiated understood.

“See you on Friday – find out if Pennie will be coming will you?”

“Kirsty and Allan will catch us up – they bumped into Pennie on the way here.”

“Would Miss Fenton care to come outside with us for a little while?”

This ready acceptance raised Pennie’s profile and consolidated her position across the group. This would be our undoing. Her name was in the air. It was like a well thought out marketing plan, by getting people to talk about her, interest in the product had increased. Just as the ancient Egyptians believed no one really dies as long as you speak their name, we had effectively brought Pennie to life.

Our collective enthusiasm had accidently created what social anthropologists call a meme - a parasitic code which could be passed between us; one which was especially contagious to the impressionable amongst us. Memes rely on imitation to survive and even those who didn’t smoke (precious few at this point) had become far more accommodating about this thing called ‘Pennie’. By exposing them to our shared language, they too had joined our little culture and in doing so became slightly complicit. By creating this meme, the beast had been unchained, allowing the evil Lady Fenton to swoop down and gather up all the impressionable souls she could tempt. Anyone susceptible to her charms for a sustained period had unknowingly just taken a small step towards a world filled with regret. It must have been as easy as collecting conkers on a windy autumn day. Allan and I should’ve taken J.K. Rowling’s advice and only used the proper name for things, since according to the author ‘fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself[5]’. All we were doing was creating a Voldemort character for ourselves. By not actually having the courage to call cannabis, ‘cannabis’ we were hiding from the real issue of our growing addiction, while at the same time inadvertently making ourselves even more wary of it.

14. My Own Worst Enemy

Eighteen months had passed since I’d rolled my last joint and I continued to see significant improvements in every aspect of life. Just like my parents had done with my sister Janet, I’d fastidiously removed all traces of Pennie from around the house and banned the use of her name. Supported by a terrific boss, my career had finally taken off and I was settling well into a challenging new role as personnel manager for the brewery. With fewer hospitality events to oversee, it meant that the kids saw more of their father. I had time to read, to play with them, to take them swimming and attend school plays. Annie and I talked more than we had done in ages and reminded each other of the people we’d fallen in love with. It was as if all the good things which had been withheld while stoned were suddenly released and had come flooding back into the house. The icing on this rich and flavoursome cake was discovering that Annie was expecting our third baby. This news provided us with the impetus to complete the refurbishment of the property, put it on the market and buy somewhere large enough to accommodate a family of five. In preparation for the move we were forced to confront the very last undecorated room – our old smoker’s corner, the utility room. Farewell I thought to the last vestige of our hedonistic partying lifestyle. Things really did seem to be ‘on the up’.

For our final party before the move, celebrations were transferred from the utility into the lounge. It was new year’s eve 1999, the cusp of the much hyped new millennium. With Pennie Fenton out of the picture, everyone accepted our invitation to attend and the house was packed. A few smokers popped through for a cigarette every so often, but the focus of the night was much more on the growing number of small children present and on catching up with old friends. It almost felt like a weight had been lifted. I bought one of those enormous fireworks you often see for sale at this time of year and think, who on earth would pay so much for a single rocket? It was a monster. The intention was to launch the missile from the bottom of the garden at the stroke of midnight and then watch in wonder as it shimmied towards the stars signalling the start of a new century. During the evening I asked guests to write down one personal wish for the future on a small piece of paper and, without revealing it to anyone else, fasten it to the side of the rocket. Everyone was really excited at the prospect of simultaneously launching their hopes and dreams at this unique moment in history when time itself took centre stage.

Unfortunately, the extra weight and various bits of tape, interfered with the trajectory of the missile and instead of heading upwards; it toppled over and careered off at a low angle. It only just cleared a neighbour’s three foot fence before scuttling along the grass and scorching their otherwise perfect lawn. Eventually, it collided with a garage wall and split into a number of pieces, all of which exploded across another two other gardens. Naturally I interpreted this disaster as being pregnant with implication. Would this now mean that our wishes wouldn’t come true? Would the following year be a difficult and arduous one for all?

It was the morning after the party before, when I realised that I wasn’t completely convinced I’d stopped smoking for good. Up early, out picking up the scattered remains of imploded rocket debris from neighbouring lawns; I collected a number of the blackened, but still legible wishes for the year ahead. Sneaking a look, it was clear that my wife wanted to take a part time teaching course; Faye hoped Stuart would propose to her: my son Toby needed a Red Power Ranger. Celebrations over and now feeling more sober, I dared to revisit my own charred message to remind myself what my greatest hope for the future was. In the cold light of day I was really disappointed with what I’d scrawled. All it said was: ‘I don’t want to see Pennie Fenton next Year’.

Out of all the aspirational things I could’ve wished for, all I could come up with was this pathetic plea to avoid temptation. Clearly cannabis still had some kind of hold on me and the longer I tried to exercise restraint, the harder it became to distance myself. Soon, the renewed energy I’d discovered during the previous eighteen months wasn’t enough to overcome years of emotional unsophistication. By simply parking my enormous attraction for ‘a bit of blow’ instead of really confronting it, I foolishly allowed it to creep back in. What you resist persists.

There was little doubt researching into Janet’s accident had been rejuvenating. It was like finding a missing part of a puzzle you hadn’t realised you needed. With this pivotal piece inserted, the rest of the puzzle made more sense. My mind had started to reassemble itself providing a salutary reminder of how much easier life had been before I’d ever got involved with cannabis. Problem was, although I felt more focused and had made progress at home and work without any assistance from cannabis, I remained strongly attracted to the habit I had forged for myself. Allan and Kirsty were both still heavy users and the temptation to cadge a crafty ‘toke’ was present whenever I saw them. Simply knowing that I was better off not smoking dope was insufficient to eradicate the mental reliance, particularly during times of duress. In many ways pressure was synonymous with cannabis and the more pressure I felt I was under, the sharper my desire to get stoned. By reinforcing this message to myself over the long period of time prior to stopping smoking, I’d conditioned myself into thinking the way to handle stress was to ‘knock a cheeky little number together’. So when a series of events conspired to test my resilience levels over the next few months, it was inevitable I’d seek assistance from my old support mechanism.

Looking for reasons to start again, which I could place outside my circle of influence, wasn’t taxing. Years of convincing myself I wasn’t responsible for anything which happened to me had made it easy to reject the notion of personal accountability. Potential external contributors were everywhere, if you looked hard enough for them.

In the end, it turned out to be sixties’ icon Marianne Faithfull who finally got me back into drugs. Growing up, every rebellious schoolboy’s dream was to be corrupted by her and somehow I ended up actually achieving this ambition. The week I crumbled (even easier than the blocks of resin I was looking forward to re-acquainting myself with) was mainly spent sitting on East Coast rail lines going back and forth to London with work. These were long boring journeys and I deliberately occupied myself by reading non-work material. Faithfull’s intelligent biography may have terrified some readers with its recollections of decadent excess, but I was consumed by the descriptions of her hedonistic drug fuelled lifestyle. I’d started to read the book because of the references to The Rolling Stones, but by the end of a week of monotonous meetings in the City, I was re-reading various chapters to discover more about the author.

I was interested in how someone from aristocratic roots, who had enjoyed a high profile singing career and was girlfriend to one of the most successful vocalists of his generation; could be reduced to living on the streets of London as a destitute heroin addict. Despite the subject matter I found the book entertaining and ultimately uplifting as it told how Faithfull went on to rebuild her life and career. It demonstrated that, even in such extreme circumstances, out of bad comes good. Many people may have interpreted the story to be a cautionary tale. Bizarrely for me it had the opposite effect. It reminded me of all the fun I used to have and suggested even users of the hardest drugs could turn their life around. Unfortunately the subliminal message I sent to myself was that a little smoke of marijuana now and again was nothing by comparison and could easily be controlled. The book therefore made quite an impression on my somewhat distorted imagination and by the end of a tiring week, I was dusting down my copy of her Broken English LP and preparing to contact my sister, excited to discover what a few drags of a joint would do to my head following such an extended break. Once the decision to call Kirsty had been made; the anticipation of that first flavoursome toke, was as pleasurable as all those memories I had of getting stoned.

Every high expectation I held was fully realised on Wednesday 16 February 2000 when Kirsty called round. Although I’d joyfully accepted that I was on the brink of partaking, I held back for almost an hour in a feeble attempt to parade my so-called willpower to her. Unhelpfully all my patience was duly rewarded. The first few smokes after any period of abstinence were always the best. The active chemical in the spliff, the THC, is particularly potent and the effect on your brain seems much more recognisable. This meant if ever you did manage to stop for a while, the temptation to start again actually increases with time rather than decreases, because you are guaranteed to achieve a delirious high from your decision to defer.

By the time we’d burnt just one magnificent spiff right back to its cardboard roach; the much needed ‘reality check’ from the year before had well and truly bounced. The build-up to this backslide was a far cry from when I was thinking about trying cannabis in the seventies. In those days, I didn’t know what to expect, but suspected I’d like whatever it turned out to be. This time, twenty years later it felt more like defeated resignation, since I knew precisely what was ahead of me. The decision to allow Pennie back was marginally less sensible than inviting an anaemic vampire into your life, the very same bloodsucker who you were aware had been stalking you for years. Like a fool, I propped the front door open and told her to make herself at home. Pennie duly obliged.

The UK press did little to curb my renewed enthusiasm. I reassured myself by reading a growing number of articles, which inferred there were no long term effects from a surfeit of this mild and ‘natural’ plant. Reports about the proliferation of its use were rife. Back in 1995, it seemed like Howard Marks’s release from jail after serving only seven years of a twenty-five year sentence for trafficking cannabis, had received the same sort of positive coverage afforded to Nelson Mandela! Two years later The Independent on Sunday launched its own legalise cannabis campaign. Famously cautious pop star Gary Barlow admitted to partaking in the odd spliff; even former labour cabinet minister Mo Mowlam publically revealed she’d inhaled! To make matters worse, the government seemed to be endorsing its use when the Home Secretary went on to announce cannabis was to be reclassified, moving it down to class C drug, effectively removing any threat of arrest for possession.

The return of Pennie Fenton coincided with a marked change in my own fortunes. In 2000 progress at work and at home faltered. Everything became more arduous. This was the same year the brewery was bought out by an international leisure group. As soon as the takeover was agreed, the threat of ‘significant redundancies’ across the human resources team was being muted. Uncertainty about what would happen to my department left me feeling restless and somewhat apprehensive. My old boss was first to go. He was replaced by an ambitious outsider called Jack Wallace, who bitterly resented his enforced move to the Yorkshire brewery. Within days of this unwarranted appointment Wallace made it clear he had his sights set firmly on wider promotional opportunities and wouldn’t be around for long in what he regarded as a parochial little job. In order to move on though, he knew he had to make his mark. It didn’t take long to work out that this could best be achieved through a generous application of secrecy, influence, power and authority. Wallace was no visionary leader, the only way this man could ever see further was by standing on the toes of anyone smaller than him.

Employees in commercial functions at the brewery were an odd bunch. They tended to congregate in defined groups. Many were ruthless bastards, some laid back former professional sports players, others hard working careerists. The largest collective were middle aged men who’d fought their way up from rougher backgrounds and who would do anything to maintain the comfortable lifestyle the brewery was able to provide. Such individuals tended to keep each other’s company and secrets. My new boss and his disingenuous right-hand man fitted neatly into this category. Team nights out fuelled by loads of free booze, had led to a number of stories being circulated about them. The one which stained their expensive suits the longest was a recurring report which suggested these two married men had simultaneously hopped into bed with a not very bright young woman who worked as an apprentice in the staff canteen. This much mythologised feat, which allegedly took place only weeks after they’d started in role, was openly referred to by the rest of the team as ‘The corned beef sandwich’. Classy.

Wallace had a sergeant major type of approach to management, his emails were written in capital letters and always demanded a speedy response to any enquiry. I suspect Allan Hewitt would have loved the lack of ambiguity he provided as a boss. Wallace firmly believed people needed lots of applied pressure to perform at their full level and insisted that, “A kick up the arse is always a better motivator than a pat on the back.”

The man was a prick.

On Wallace’s watch, the brewery went through a series of complicated and time-consuming reorganisations. All of HR’s attention was devoted to how we could streamline our ever-evolving support structures. It was like walking on quicksand, no one ever felt fully settled because within a few months priorities changed and you would find yourself either working in a different territory or for a new trading company. The new senior management group seemed to revel in the drama of it all, providing them with an excellent excuse for being even more clandestine than usual. A series of announcements were shrouded in secrecy. Weekends and holidays were regularly interrupted by urgent calls at 06:00 a.m. to come straight over to the Head Office for yet another shock announcement.

At home there was no let up from these mounting tensions. Not only was the whole family frustrated by the lack of progress on the house sale; but as soon as the contracts were about to be exchanged, we discovered major structural problems with our new property. These issues led to protracted negotiations with the vendors about mortar erosion which further delayed the move. So, while Pennie Fenton had returned and cemented her position in my life, it felt like everything else was crumbling.

A couple of months after eventually settling into the new house we realised we weren’t using the integral garage and so while Annie nursed baby Travis; I set about converting the back half of this poorly heated space into a playroom for him and his two siblings. With Pennie back in the fray it was hard not to make comparisons with our old smoker’s room. Just like the utility room, this latest conversion felt like an add-on, connected to the main house but also outside of it. Since all the old chairs from the utility had been thrown out during the move, the only seating available was a well-worn blue futon cushion which was slung across the floor. This padded mattress transformed the otherwise functional room into something resembling a student flat. The perfect environment for a sneaky ‘single sheeter’ or two after a stressful day.

With pressures at work mounting, I was dropping in to see my sister more regularly at the end of the day to cadge a few tokes, before driving back to Scunthorpe. At home Annie turned a blind eye as one shared spliff became a few joints, a weekend blast with some borrowed gear became a frequent midweek treat. Overlay a few more redundancies in the team and it wasn’t long before I was back into smoking resin on a regular basis – not colossal amounts, but much more frequently at home than I’d ever done before.

Lubricated by the disappointment I felt for letting myself and my family down, I slid effortlessly into excessive enthusiasm. Dependent on something I despised, I was rapidly becoming Pennie’s bitch. According to a Spanish proverb, habits begin as cobwebs which over time, bind to form giant cables. The conversion from gossamer strands to steel rods in terms of my Pennie Fenton habit probably happened around this point, as our time together morphed from a social experience into a more solitary activity. Apparently misery loves company, yet here I was spending most of my time on my own. Friendships invariably took second place to Pennie and by this stage many of the more fragile relationships with old mates had already been broken.

My friendship with Stuart wasn’t far off breaking point. I blamed him for being distant and remote, for never coming round to see us after we’d moved. Unable to reflect on my own contributions to this situation, I decided that the next time I saw him I was going to confront him about his dilatory attitude. Straight talker Stuart wasn’t having any of it.

“Why the hell should I come round to see you when you have nothing to say? You’re away with the fairies, smoking too much of that stuff. It’s not good for you. I’ve been telling you for months, but you never stop to listen,” Stuart said, clearly seething.

“I thought we had a laugh whenever you come round,” I said.

“Well you thought wrong – recently, very wrong. What is the point in me making an effort to come round just to watch you sitting there getting trashed, repeating the same nonsense over and over again. To be honest, it saddens me to see what’s happened to you – especially in the last year or so since you went back on that stuff. I actually think it’s changed your personality.”

“I think you’re being a bit dramatic.”

“Not at all, you’ve stopped joining in with things, you don’t socialise, you’re not interested in mixing with other people. You have nothing to say. I’ve tried to talk to Annie about it – reminding her how you’d be invited to a party just to brighten it up…”

“What? You spoke to Annie – about me?”

“Yes, I did – only because I’m worried. I said to her that these days you hardly have enough get up and go about you to flick a fucking light switch on.”

“You went behind my back?” I said, sticking on the same point

“This is another example of what I’m talking about. You’re totally paranoid about everything. Straighten yourself out or lose the few mates you’ve got left Charlie,” Stuart said, now getting his car keys out of his coat pocket.

“OK then, what did she say?” I said, unable to get this discussion out of my mind.

“What?”

“Annie, my wife, the one you’ve been talking to - what did she say?

“Well, she listened to me. I could tell that… well, that I had her complete attention.“

“And?”

“And nothing…” pausing for a second, “She’s maybe too close. You have a very easy going wife there Charlie. She isn’t alarmed by what she thinks is a simple relaxant, because she doesn’t see any differences in the way you are with her. But don’t you think it’s strange that everyone else who knows you does recognise … you’ve changed.”

“Ha, everyone except the person who knows me best. See, I told you I’m fine.”

“This is going no-where, I need to leave. We’ll draw a line in the sand on this one – you are on that side of it, I am on this. End of story,” he said sighing. “I don’t want to fall out with you, but…. Look, a few of us from the Star are going to see our lad racing at the weekend. If you want to come, you’re welcome. Up to you. Phone me if you’re interested.”

I never did call. While my wife remained conveniently blinkered to the detrimental effects Pennie was causing, I was all too aware that Stuart was right. I was stepping back from others, but was too paralysed by my own inactivity at this point to do anything about it. Wilting on the shabby futon night after night, I’d plummet into gormless stagnation, waiting for some kind of intervention which might change the situation I was in. I failed to appreciate that the change I desired, was the one I had to make. Without the companionship of others to temper those introspective tendencies, to challenge my faulty thinking and lift my spirits; it was all too easy for those giant Spanish cables to get knitted together and pull me out of shape. Habits shape character. Character determines destiny. My destiny was slowly being warped.

The Marianne Faithfull book, work pressures, shady bosses, and hassles with the house had all nudged me back to Pennie, but it was the next couple of terrible events which guaranteed I would maintain my asphyxiating affair with her.

15. Fate, Against Your Will

Stuart and I didn’t speak to each other for ages after the row about Pennie. We were both too proud to back down and make the first move. I did hear on the grapevine that he’d changed jobs and had started working for a sandblasting company which provided specialist machinery to remove road surfaces. Months passed and then in March 2001, came news that he’d been involved in a serious industrial accident at the end of one of his shifts. With no one around to assist him, he had decided to try and jostle one of the sizable sandblasting machines back onto a wagon by himself using a temporary ramp. Leaving the machine switched on to make it easier to move, Stuart almost got to the top of the makeshift slope before slipping backwards, pulling the machine with him. Although he’d fallen into a soft ditch, the blaster - which was about the weight of a small car – landed directly on top of his body, carving deep wounds into his arm and the side of his face.

Visiting Stuart as he convalesced, I was staggered by the seriousness of his injuries and overwhelmed by just how lucky he was to still be alive. Standing inside the intensive care unit and at a loss for words, I became very angry with myself for not knowing how to react.  I felt numb and emotionally impotent. Stuart was far too traumatised to talk about the accident and I lacked the social skills to be able pretend that nothing had happened. Half an hour of awkward conversational cul-de-sacs, brought home just how far we had drifted apart. For two people once so close, I was upset to find we were in this situation, with so little to say to each other.

It was Faye who finally cracked the wall of ice between her boyfriend and his unworthy mate. Ushering me into the hospital corridor, she explained that the two of them had decided to tie the knot. It was the only thing they’d been able to talk about since he’d regained consciousness. Following a courtship which had spanned three decades, Faye wasn’t hanging about and had already started to make preliminary arrangements for a simple summer wedding in the hope it would give them both something concrete to look forward to. This fantastic news was made even more meaningful by her unexpected request for me to be their best man. It was the first positive thing that had happened in ages.

Pennie Fenton worked especially hard during the build-up to the impending nuptials to minimise my involvement with any of the wedding arrangements. This lack of visibility probably accounted for why Stuart’s work colleagues ended up making most of the plans for his stag night, which they decided should take place in Whitley Bay a week before the September wedding. As a dormitory town for Newcastle, this was a favoured destination for boozy stag do’s and hen parties. Although apprehensive about the outing, because I’d never met any of Stuart’s workmates before, I cast my mind back to all the mayhem we’d created back in Ilfracombe. If this Whitley Bay adventure turned out to be half as much fun, then the weekend away could be an ideal time to revive some of those memories and form some new ones.

On the day of the stag-do we agreed to meet in the familiar surroundings of the Ashby Star. On arrival, Stuart and I exchanged a friendly, knowing glance with each other. I interpreted this unspoken acknowledgement to be a good sign – one which made me think the weekend could provide a platform for us to bond again. Building up to the event, Kirsty had been on holiday in New York which meant I’d not seen Pennie for a few days. Abstinence had made me a little tense; but based on this single flicker of friendliness from The Stag, I decided that Ms Fenton’s absence may not be a bad thing.

Stuart introduced everyone over a drink. First impressions were one or two of his workmates seemed OK, while the rest looked like total psychos. Really rough lads you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of. The last person I met was Faye’s brother Clive. He had travelled over from Devon for the event and appeared to be more reserved than the others, but was at least willing to engage in everyday conversation. Most of us, including the driver of our rented minibus, sank three or four swift pints in quick succession, before leaving the pub. Just as we were boarding ready for our weekend playtime, an unexpected treat – forget what I’d thought about a Pennie-free weekend, a couple of lads mentioned they’d brought a decent sized lump of resin with them.

“Don’t know if you two girlies are up to any of this…” one of them said, quickly showing Clive and myself a small piece of resin wrapped in tin-foil. “But most of us are gonna get shit-faced this afternoon.”

“I’ve tried it before,” I said, delighted by what I’d seen, but not wanting to sound too needy.

“Not for me,” said Clive.

“Ditch the wuss and come and sit at the back of the bus with us instead mate, stick with us and you’ll have a great time.”

Before I knew it, I’d jettisoned my original intention of sitting with our groom-to-be at the front and was repositioning myself where all the action was.

Under his breath I heard Stuart mutter, “For fuck’s sake!”

Prior to the engine being struck up, the back seat boys were busy passing round the spliffs. The smoke was so heavy at the rear of the unventilated minibus, that by the time we’d travelled the one and a half miles to the motorway junction, we were forced to pull over and allow one over-indulgent smoker to spew at the side of the road. All the indications were this was going to be a long and difficult trip.

Stuart’s workmates behaved like rabid animals. He’d warned me they were ‘up for anything’, but I was still surprised at just how debase they actually were. In the minibus, Faye’s introverted brother was immediately ostracised for (rather sensibly) fastening his seatbelt. They took the piss out of his accent and christened him ‘Clunk’, after the old ‘clunk-click every trip’ safety campaign. Full cans of lager were thrown at the back of his head to get his attention on route.

“Oi, Clunk, catch this one.” He did really well to ignore the incessant jibes which continued for the whole trip.

I covertly unfastened my own seatbelt seconds after yet another can of Fosters was lobbed across the minibus – hoping no-one had noticed my own faux pas. Elsewhere, our driver was taking full advantage of the free in-transit entertainment; enjoying the various spliffs and beers being passed around. Echoes of the clapped out old Nene College minibus flashed before me as he then tested the performance of the vehicle; veering between lanes in an attempt to dislodge his rowdy passengers from their seats. I knew only too well, how sluggish these things were to drive and how unresponsive the steering was at high speed. At one stage our fully medicated driver was forced to drive completely blindly, as a couple of mates piled into the front and lay flat across the dashboard to obscure the windscreen while he continued to accelerate along the congested motorway. It was terrifying. Internal light fittings were ripped out and lobbed at motorcyclists. Passing lorries were taunted and mooned at. I was amazed the police weren’t alerted. Rather than having to stop for loo breaks, the old rusting back doors were periodically flung open while we were rumbling along the busy motorway. Each lad would take it in turn to stand up, holding onto to the door frame and literally piss all over the cars behind us. What had I got myself into? I loved a good laugh – but any of these drunken idiots could easily fall out of the rattling bus onto the road behind us. That would be it, end of story.

I was so relieved to get to the hotel at Whitley Bay and happy to find out we’d been booked into a famous topless bar called Idols in the heart of the busy club circuit. None of us wasted any time inspecting the capabilities of the complimentary tea and coffee making facilities and instead headed straight out to visit as many of the bustling bars as we could. I’d originally toyed with the idea of putting a bit of free beer from the brewery into a few pubs and clubs as a ‘Welcome to Whitley Bay’ gift for Stuart, however good old Jack Wallace had predictably rejected the proposal. Wandering around the town turned out to be as scary as the journey to get there had been. No need for freebies as everyone got completely legless.

Inebriation was as much a coping strategy for Clunk and me as anything else. We had no option but to spend the night mixing alcohol with the unnaturally high levels of adrenaline saturating our bloodstream, caused by our association with these lunatics. In turn, many of Stuart’s colleagues did a fine job of mixing alcohol with various amphetamines; while the remainder of the party mixed their alcohol with an uncontrollable desire to create as much aggravation as they possibly could. It was a torrid melting pot.

There was an atmosphere of repressed violence everywhere we went. Before long, arguments broke out about which bars we should go to next. One Neanderthal thought I was ‘too posh’ and tried to start a fight with me in a nightclub while the rest of his inarticulate mates were distracted by every scantily clad Geordie lass who tottered by. It was therefore very easy to lose track of what happened to Stuart in all the madness. There were teams of people milling around – various gangs of drunken people wearing ridiculous outfits, trampling over puddles of vomit at every turn. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

To avoid agitating anyone else I spent most of the time with Clunk, who I decided was the most balanced person around. As more trouble erupted around the club and my anxiety levels peaked, I spotted a potential release in the form of half a dozen ready rolled spliffs being brandished about by one of the group. Seeing these, I was transformed from disgruntled bystander into ingratiating funny-man. The next half hour, I’m embarrassed to say, was spent trying to be being as likable as I could to my prospective supplier. Pennie Fenton detector re-activated, I disregarded all the unpleasantness around me and concentrated all my efforts on badgering him to share as much of his gear as possible. While all this was going on Stuart, who I suspected just wanted to sit around, catch up with a few mates and maybe ogle the odd girl; was being incited by his workmates to drink stupid-sized measures from as many of the optics as he could.

According to Clunk, the groom-to-be was enjoying himself at the start of the night, but had turned a little melancholy after his seventeenth double. Clunk was concerned that his future brother-in-law had drunk way too much and was becoming agitated. None of his workmates had the sense to pick up on any of this and were continuing to ply him with more ethanol. No one appreciated that Stuart was incredibly sensitive about how he looked following his accident. Self-conscious about the sizable scar on his head, he’d deliberately avoided socialising until this weekend, to prevent having to explain what had happened. Now legless in a strange town, with heaps of strangers staring at him, it all came crashing back and with no one around to listen to his concerns, he broke down in a flood of tears.

I’d totally missed the point of the weekend and had been so busy chasing the Pennie Fenton trail that I’d not uttered a word to him all night. Inexplicably, I decided the best way to rectify this omission, was to wait for one more little number to be ‘sparked-up’, grab a few good tokes and then with calm fully restored, get round to checking that he was okay. After all I owed it to him – I was his best man. So, after what turned out in the end to be a rather lengthy period of cannabis inhalation; I raised my anesthetised frame and saddled over to talk to him, blissfully unaware of his state of mind.

If ever you saw a person who was a mixture of indignant, angry, upset and disappointed; here he was. Bravely putting aside the state he was in and all the tears streaming down his blotchy face; Stuart still managed to harness all his non-verbal communication to send out a deafening and unambiguous message which said he was about to explode with anger. Foolishly, my insensitive response was to ignore all these signals and, instead, swan over in a way which suggested we were still the close mates we had been in Ilfracombe.

Grinning a little too much, I opened my arms wide as if ready to embrace him, while at the same time shouting his nickname, “Jackooooooooooo!” in flamboyant fashion over the sound of the music. Stuart looked over at me – with an expression which said it all. There may as well have been subtitles printed-out below his chilling stare... ’Even on my own stag night, it’s always about Pennie-Fucking-Fenton with you’.

For the first time in sixteen years, we looked blankly at each other as if we were strangers. During this un-retractable moment, I realised this was what we had indeed become. I suspected Stuart was still waiting for me to say something, but once again, I was lost for words.

While all this stoney faced inactivity was taking place, my new drinking buddies had started a heated argument with the door staff. This tiff soon escalated into a violent brawl. The grit blasters from Scunny ended up knocking one security guard unconscious. As a result of the carnage which followed, all those suspected to be from the Industrial Garden Town were herded together like cattle and slung out. We were warned to watch our backs and avoid trying to get into other any local clubs who had been provided with our detailed descriptions. It wasn’t even midnight and we were already banned from every Whitley Bay bar, with nothing to do except look over our shoulders for hostile bouncers in search of retribution. What a fabulous conclusion to the night.

Waking up the next day, the memories of the blood, sweat and tears returned as I opened the functional hotel curtains to reveal the sorry sight of numerous half-naked men stripped down to their boxers and handcuffed to the promenade railings. Each of the inebriated specimens no doubt regretted their decision to come here just as much as I did.

Visions of that deplorable trip haunted me as I half-heartedly prepared for my best man duties. With just three days to go until the wedding, I was asked to present the new HR Internal Communications Plan to a group of regional sales managers at their monthly meeting. During a review of area trading conditions, two managers from the North East stood up to describe a ‘horrific incident’ which had taken place on their patch at the weekend. Apparently, a large group of ‘meat-heads’ from Scunthorpe had descended on their accounts, causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage to the interiors of their pubs. The unwelcome gang created havoc everywhere they went as they abused locals, threatened bar staff and knocked out a well-respected doorman who was believed to have been the unwitting victim of an unprovoked attack. Head down, I kept schtum, asked no questions about the incident and remained silent until the end of the meeting.

By the time the wedding came around, I never wanted to hear about Whitley Bay again. However, being wedged tightly between a dozen of Stuart’s boastful workmates at the jam-packed reception, meant this was never going to happen. I fulfilled all the assigned role requirements to the letter, but did feel like I was going through the motions - satisfying some old long-standing obligation. Stuart and I hardly spoke at all on the day and on increasingly few occasions after it.

The next terrible event during this incredibly draining year was the shocking news my mother had unexpectedly passed away. She’d recently separated from her curmudgeonly second husband, moved into her own flat and had hit her head after slipping on the kitchen floor. It was an awful image, one made worse because we’d just taken the kids to see her new place the week before the accident. The day I heard the news was the day Pennie finally crushed my willpower. It signalled a change in the nature of my relationship with the eponymous Miss Fenton. She instantly became the dominant player in our relationship. The servant became the mistress. My dominant foible grew exponentially as a playful indulgence was distorted into an insatiable craving.  In the space of a few of months I’d lost both Stuart and Mum, two of the people I thought I would always be able to rely on.

Learning from what happened with Janet, I did allow myself to grieve and welcomed the support of everyone around me. Annie as ever, was superb. She was really considerate and gave me all the space I needed. She never pushed the issue, but always let me know she was there to talk about things whenever I wanted to. Her approach reinforced just how much I loved her and how hopeless I would be without her. She simply allowed me to take stock and this was precisely what I needed. Hattie and Toby who were only nine and seven years old, seemed to pick up on what was happening and were both great. Even little baby Travis slept right through the night for most of that month. Stuart came over a number of times and although he told Annie he felt he wasn’t much help, his presence was especially welcome.

Allan Hewitt made the long trip from Scotland to offer his condolences. I suspected he was feeling uncomfortable. Standing a good sixteen feet from us all at the other side of the lounge, he clung onto his heavy coat and holdall like his life depended on it.

“Very busy with work this month. Opening a regional distribution centre in Dundee in early 2002. Intention is three of our smaller Northern depots will be absorbed into it. Had to travel from there today. Taken me over six and a half hours. Over Friarton Bridge in Perth along the M90, short break for a strong coffee near Stirling which cost over three quid. Continued onto to the M74. You never feel like you’re on the home strait until you hit the A1. Roadworks by the A64 junction near York shafted me. The congestion added another forty-two minutes to the journey,” he said, rattling out his entire route at a speed faster than his car must have travelled.

“You must be exhausted,” Annie said.

“No, not in the slightest. All part of what I do. You get used to it. Anyway … how are you guys? I mean, how are… things?” Then, as if suddenly conscious of the need to be more empathetic, he dropped all his gear, strode across the living room, put his sizable arms around me and said, “From now you and I are going to be like brothers - orphans of the world together.”

“It’s good to see you Mr Hewitt,” I replied.

United by our common status, we opened up to each other, talking about our parents and how much we missed them. Allan, useful as ever, spoke about the practical aspects of what needed to be done, offering hints and tips as to how to get through the legal aspects of probate with the minimum of fuss. Later as we reflected on the sale of his parents’ own house, I admitted to him that the week they had passed away was the first time I’d ever purchased cannabis. All right, it was Allan’s money, but it was my risk - me who had to make the deal, travelled to his old poly, met up with ‘the man’ and handed over all the cash to an unknown stranger. We joked about my rampant paranoia; how I’d been convinced every person in the pub was watching me as I clumsily passed an envelope containing one hundred pounds under the table in exchange for the biggest block of resin I’d seen in my life. Allan was surprised I’d never bought from a dealer before and reminded me what a useful bereavement pillow Pennie had been to him after his parents had passed away.

“I remember Pennie was fantastic, she really helped me to cope. By taking my mind off all the hassles I was facing, she allowed me to work through the pain,” he said.

“I just want to stop feeling so bad, so empty,” I replied.

“You will - the most important thing Pennie taught me was… and I know this sounds strange – but to enjoy your grief. Take it from me, you’ll miss it when it’s gone.”

Of course Pennie jumped at this golden opportunity to endear herself to me and insisted she’d do all she could to help me come to terms with the awful news about mum. She pleaded with me not to undertake any new projects for at least a couple of months. Her message stripped bare was we should set some time aside for me - to take stock of things; forget about the future and ruminate on the past for as long as I could.

Ms Fenton did a brilliant job of masking the pain, but gradually as the mourning continued, she left me feeling nothing – no pain, no joy, no hope and no happiness. It was barely noticeable in the beginning, but as I persisted with the binging, it felt like small parts of my essence were being chipped away and cast aside. After a few monster sessions a new emotion replaced the grief, as a state of suffocating anxiety became the new order. Relying on Pennie was like putting a thin plastic lid over a burning chip pan fire. Initially, it appears to provide respite; but after this short cosmetic improvement, the lid also becomes engulfed in the flame, feeds the fire and then begins to choke you.

According to Bob Marley, “When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.” Pennie revealed plenty, but I didn’t like any of what I saw. For me, she unmasked a disfigured version of myself by flaunting fears I’d tucked away in order to function more effectively. Up until the watershed discoveries about Janet, I thought Pennie had helped with my journey of discovery. However after I’d joined all the pieces of my sister’s accident together; I realised I was no longer equipped to handle her insatiable questions about loss, guilt, religion, spiritualism and the afterlife. Pennie made me re-live the build-up to my mother’s death over and over again. She was like a broken record, tormenting me about the circumstances of the fall; trying as hard as she could to sully my final memories of my mother. The taunting was very tiring and I found it impossible to shake her off this one subject, as her persistent questions invaded my mind. Was it me who was responsible? Could I have done more to help? The more guilt I laid on myself, the greater my self-loathing became. I should have noticed the clear warning signs about my mother’s health, and, I ought to have recognised that her life was spiralling out of control...

Pennie reminded me about my mother’s second unhappy marriage and how she had developed a fondness for alcohol, just as my grandmother and her mother before her had. Dutiful Pennie took great delight in helping me consider the possibility that a hereditary pattern may be emerging. If her insinuations were correct, then perhaps built-in to my DNA was some kind of inclination towards dependency? I battled hard to stop myself dwelling on the most unthinkable consequence of such a suggestion; namely that if such a hereditary tendency did exist, there could be serious consequences for my own children; before regrouping and rejecting this, the most terrifying of legacies.

As Pennie continued to whisper into the ear of my tattered resolve, I became concerned about what kind of future lay ahead for myself and my family. Feeling increasingly pessimistic, I gradually accepted her suggestion that unseen forces may well be at work, determining the choices we were all able to make. Detecting my impressionability, the way a horse picks up on fear, Pennie recommended that I explore whether supernatural explanations for life’s many tribulations might be able to put my mind at rest. With little confidence left in my ability to construct a future for myself, I followed this advice and decided to visit a couple of mediums to gain a glimpse of what fate had in store for us all.

Playing it safe for my first paying visit to a spiritualist, I asked a friend’s dad to read my tarot cards. He was a giant of a man with a stocky build and a deep, booming voice who scared the hell out of anyone who didn’t know him. On the day of the reading, I went to the back door of his bungalow and was told to wait in the kitchen. It was very dark throughout the house and smelt a little musty. Recognising the whiff of dog hair triggered an involuntary allergic sneezing response. This was immediately picked up by my host who hollered from an adjoining room to ask if I took anything for my allergies. Fortunately I’d been fore-warned about the presence of pets and so shouted back, in a directionless manner, that I’d taken a precautionary antihistamine tablet.

Next, I was told to make myself comfortable in the living room, situated at the front of the house and so began walking down the long, narrow hallway. Just before I entered the ‘reading room’, a heavy hand fell firmly on my left shoulder, while at the same time another hand covered in a cloth was pressed tightly over my nose and mouth. I was terrified and had no idea what on earth was going on. Had I misjudged this man, was he a secret disciple of Dennis Neilson (recently convicted for killing numerous young men after luring them back to his flat)? I attempted to shriek in terror through the cotton muzzle. I honestly thought this was it – my number was up - I was being forced to inhale chloroform and would wake up two days later, bound up inside an uncomfortably small, sealed tea-chest, peering out of a couple of holes drilled in it to keep me alive.

It turned out that what had happened was my host had put some menthol vapour onto a hanky, believing it would help with my allergies. Great start to an intimidating experience.

Eventually calming down from my unprompted, unannounced and somewhat enforced medication, we sat and talked about expectations. He suggested that I may have some latent psychic abilities; a potential to see into the future and asked if I’d I like to be trained in the art of tarot cards. This was not going to happen. Pennie Fenton provided all the guidance I needed right now. Furthermore, the first ten minutes inside his house had hardly been the best introduction to a potential tutor.

During the tarot reading which followed, the only distinctive card I remember being dealt was the Tower Card. According to practitioners, no card scares more than the Tower. It is however one of the easiest cards to understand when it comes to interpretation: false structures, false beliefs, false institutions, false realities which are going to crumble, abruptly, violently and all at once. None of this sounded good, and rattled by the prospect of my crumbling realities, I handed over payment and quickly scuttled back along his unlit corridor in search of the exit, un-sure whether any of the experience had been helpful.

I wondered what a card which said, ‘everything you believe to be true is false’ was referring to. Could it be to do with progress at work, was Jack Wallace trying to get rid of me? This seemed very plausible. Could it be the move to our expensive new house was a bad idea, maybe it wouldn’t provide the loving home for our family we’d hoped? Could it be some of the people I’d always thought of as good friends were in reality just stringing me along, taking me for a ride? Visiting this so-called medium had given rise to far more unanswered questions than answered ones. I never thought for a minute the false beliefs and false realities he’d spoken about could possibly be about my pernicious playroom partner Pennie Fenton; or just how easily I was getting suckered into believing all this spiritualistic garbage.

Recognising I was frustrated by the ambiguity of the only message to come out of this reading, Pennie suggested I visit a professional clairvoyant. She believed someone from outside, who I had no connections with would be able to provide a more objective viewpoint. Mrs Faye Jackson, sometimes visited a psychic called Rubie Deramore and was really impressed with her - believing she had foreseen aspects of Stuarts’ accident. Ms Deramore had built up quite a following because of the accuracy of her predictions and was taking bookings for her next visit to Scunthorpe. After the vagueness of the Tower Card, I was particularly drawn to her reputation for being uncommonly specific. Although embarrassed, I turned up at the appointed time and handed over payment, this time in advance. It felt a bit like I was on another pick-up for Allan and half expected her to hand over a half ounce bag of weed for the forty pounds. The clairvoyant was an older woman who looked like she’d had a hard life. She asked me to shuffle the deck and then began to interpret the cards. I approached this session the same way I had with Max Zelman, sitting opposite, her with arms folded as if to say I’m not convinced, so prove me wrong. Best poker face on, I tried to reveal nothing and worked hard to give her no insight into how I was feeling.

Unfortunately, the reading was eerily accurate. Ms Deramore talked about the past, present and future. I was confounded by the references she made to events which involved my late parents - cherished times which were impossible for her to know about. I was pleased when she said Annie and I were soul mates, but was then confused by her statement, “There will be lots of arguments ahead with much shouting and falling out as you move into a very troubled relationship with a female who is close to you.”

Right at the end of the session, she mentioned Kirsty, saying that the one dark cloud which had followed her around had recently lifted following an announcement about her ‘true nature’. If this related to my sister’s decision to tell friends and work colleagues about her sexuality, it made perfect sense. Deramore also mentioned that someone very close to Kirsty was trying to get in touch with her from the ‘other side’ because they needed to know what Kirsty had done with the ring. This time, I hadn’t got a clue what she could be referring to.

Deramore was insistent about this point and pressed me to ask my sister what had happened to, “The ring which she’d recently inherited.”

What a weird request. Until this point, I was unaware Kirsty had been bequeathed anything from anyone. I hadn’t come to the reading in any attempt to make contact with the dead, but here I was being provided with messages from beyond the grave. What would we do next I wondered – play with an Ouija board?  Her story however, was too specific not to examine further, so as soon as I got home I phoned my sister to ask about its authenticity. Kirsty was gobsmacked. She explained she had recently lost an antique wedding ring which Mum had given to her just before she died. Concerned what our sister Erin and I might think, she’d not told a soul about it. According to Kirsty, she’d gone on a shopping trip to London, on a bitterly cold winter’s day. On her return home, she was gutted to discover the gold ring was missing and presumed it must have slipped off her finger while walking around the capital. We were both speechless. How could anyone else possibly know this? It validated the whole reading for me and, being the gullible fool I am, convinced me once and for all that Pennie Fenton was right - we all have far less control over what happens to us than we care to admit.

Concerned about how I should cope with the tirade of bad luck that life was throwing at me and fearful of what else might lay ahead; I had no hesitation in booking a second visit to see the same psychic. Encouraged by what I’d heard six months earlier, I decided to go for the more expensive ‘belt and braces’ crystal ball reading. What her poster called ‘A prescient glimpse into a future still to unfold’. Specifically, I was curious to find out if Annie and I (both approaching our fortieth birthdays) would have another baby and also what direction my career might take in the year ahead. On reflection, neither of these were matters you’d really want to entrust to a total stranger.

Overall this second reading was far less impressive. Deramore seemed to struggle to latch onto anything like she had before, although she did state that Annie and I might become parents again but would have to wait for quite some time for this to happen. One definite prediction was however made. She could clearly see me at some point in the future stood on a podium, in front of lots of people under the glare of bright lights. I had no reference points for this and suggested that, in my role at the brewery, I was sometimes required to talk at various conferences. She was unconvinced by this interpretation, adding this future event would signal an important turning point.

The clairvoyant also encouraged me to consider running my own business, which she said would be the making of me. I was intrigued with this idea, having often toyed with the idea of launching a training business and so asked her for more details. She was (conveniently?) unable to see what the business would be about, claiming that it was something she had never encountered before. Her final prophecy was that I would one day be required to save a neighbour from choking using the Heimlich maneuver. This worried me more than anything – me, tasked with saving someone’s life. It felt like a mammoth responsibility. Once home, I downloaded reams of information from the web on how to apply abdominal thrusts, in case I was ever called into action. To date I am pleased to confirm I’ve not been required to use any of these much studied techniques.

Looking back at this dark time, I think the most dangerous thing about listening to these random spiritualists was for every statement which rang true, it further diminished my capacity to create a future for myself. The more of these ‘cold readings’ which inexplicably turned into reality, the less I felt in command of my own direction. By acquiescing to their indistinct premonitions, I lost what remaining faith I had in myself and ended up feeling even more helpless than usual.

16. In the Grip

Back at work, the one thing the loathsome Jack Wallace had been unable to block was the arrival of my shiny new company car. The vehicle was a necessary perk, required for the large number of perfunctory journeys to various brewing sites across the UK. Typically, any elation I’d begun to feel about receipt of this well-appointed motor were short lived as self-doubt once again took over. I believed I didn’t deserve an ‘executive car’ and felt awkward whenever I sat in any of the twenty-four optional positions of its resplendent heated blue leather seats. Half the time I drove it, I was stoned. Probably more so, since I was invariably travelling home trashed each night after calling in to see my sister. Similarly, first thing in the morning, I’d jump in the car still high - the aftermath of another heavy smoking session from the night before. With Pennie Fenton as co-driver, my limited driving capabilities were constantly compromised.

I had plenty of evidence from an already-chequered driving career to remind me what an appalling driver I was. Awareness of this did little to improve my performance behind the wheel. To compensate, I all too readily accepted Pennie’s easy offer to help soothe my nerves. Her solution for driver-anxiety was of course to spend more time with her. Her unique approach to ‘personal relaxation’ just prior to a difficult journey did provide short term relief, but invariably contributed to me being all the more hazardous on the road.

The longer the journey, the more of her ‘special assistance’ was required. On some trips, this meant I became so outrageously chilled, that long journeys appeared to last only a few minutes. Most of the time I was unable to concentrate on anything other than the hypnotic beat of the bass line booming from the stereo. With Pennie whispering in my ear and distracting me from the concentrated effort required, it was as if I was willing myself to cause some kind of serious road accident – just the sort I had been running away from for so long.

The more reliant I became on a spliff to ‘take the edge off’ a journey, the more anxious I became about getting pulled-over by an unmarked police car. I was convinced every car spotted in the rear-view mirror was a surveillance vehicle. Officers of the law would surely recognise my overly careful steering; my disinclination to overtake, my Christopher Lee bloodshot eyes and pull me over for questioning. Catastrophising further, this would inevitably lead to losing my licence, my job, my income, the house and of course my family. Seatbelt secure, stereo thumping and paranoia running wild, every journey sent me into an apoplectic state. By the time I arrived home in the evening, I was usually so stoked that I needed … yet more spliffs to help me unwind. Pennie begets Pennie. And so the cycle continued. The situation soon became intolerable. Living on my frayed nerves, I was as exhausted by the time I arrived at work, as I was when I got back from it. I longed for my office to be situated closer to home, or to not have travel to it so often. I believed fewer car journeys would also improve my personal life by allowing me to see more of Annie and the kids.

This reasoning led at the end of 2002, to my next questionable decision – one which may also have been influenced by visits to clairvoyant Rubie Deramore. Sick to death of all the driving, the office politics and the never ending reorganisations, I handed in my notice from a well-paid, secure job and launched a small consultancy which specialised in providing learning and development services to local businesses.

Initially, this was a time of great optimism. While I was concerned about money and where clients would come from; I had a real sense of purpose. Relying on our limited family savings, I worked tirelessly on this new project. With an empty diary and no bookings in sight, I woke early each morning and planned how to promote my services, how to package the programmes and how to attract potential customers. I was determined to give this my best shot and while I might not make a fortune; I’d at least have the satisfaction of knowing any achievement or failure was of my own making.

As anyone who’s started their own business knows, self-employment provides a lot of freedom, but is at least as demanding as being employed by others. Year one, setting up the venture was therefore really full-on and while Pennie was never far from my mind, I was forced to ration the time I was spending with her. This was in part due to the conspicuous absence of her two foot-soldiers. Working from a Humberside base had made it much tougher to see Kirsty, who was no longer only a few miles from the office. Similarly impending fatherhood had convinced Allan of the need to stay closer to home so that Stacey could keep both of her big brown eyes on him.

One full year into the business and I was confident I’d built a credible brand. The majority of the training courses were written, a website was built and the marketing literature designed. The only thing missing was a sufficient number of contracts to keep me gainfully employed for a full working week. I’d been warned this early period of self-employment was all about adjusting to a feast and famine cycle, but was beginning to wonder if the feasting would ever materialise. The excitement generated by this new enterprise had kept me focused for most of the year, but now with far too much free time on my hands and concerns about our depleted savings, it wasn’t long before my thoughts drifted back to my favourite obsession. Miss Fenton always loved an inactive mind.

I was frightened of failure and scared by the possible humiliation of having invested in something which there may be little demand for. I was worried about letting Annie and our three children down; concerned that my actions had threatened all our financial security. Most of all, I was petrified by the overwhelming silence that not having a regular job presented. I’d walked away from ‘proper’ work, the social interaction, defined responsibilities and tangible rewards. All of a sudden I found myself in a situation, where if I didn’t keep really busy … I might end up hearing my own thoughts and be forced to address all those memories I’d buried so deeply. Without all the other distractions to occupy my mind, I might have to face myself. Confronted by a seemingly unsurpassable mountain of doubts, the siren’s call became much more compelling.

My response to her call was to turn swiftly towards the nearest person I knew who could satisfy my insatiable cravings.

The pattern was always the same. Middle of the day I would abandon my half-hearted attempts to look for new clients, turn the answer phone on and then travel all the way over to York. Arriving at Kirsty’s front door, ready to greet her as she arrived back from work, I’d half-listen to the stories about her day at work, as she set about rolling a cheeky spliff. After we’d smoked this first one, I would begin an unremitting campaign to convince my sister to give me a freebie or two for later. Then, triumphantly clutching a couple of ready-rolled for the evening ahead, I’d spin the car around and travel all the way back to Scunthorpe – head still buzzing. Each of these discretionary trips back over to Yorkshire took the best part of half a day and a quarter tank of fuel. It was ninety minutes there, an hour for a smoke or two and then another ninety minute drive home. On the return leg, I continued with old routines, staring anxiously in my rear mirror just in case I was being followed by the police. All for the love of Pennie.

I shielded Annie and the kids from the fact that I had only one client who was providing me with any regular work, because it meant I had the freedom to replicate these trips to see my sister as many as five times a week. It wasn’t the most rewarding period of my life, but at least this groundhog-day existence did stop me having to think about just how little work I was managing to secure. Most morning-afters would start in the same way: feeling weary and unable to concentrate, promising myself I wouldn’t go over again. Unable to purify my misfit ways, I’d complete a bit of work in a feckless manner during the morning, but by lunchtime would be climbing the walls again. Inevitably, by early afternoon, I’d engineer some novel way to scrape enough money together for some fuel and then start sending a series of repetitive texts to Kirsty – pleading with her to let me travel the one hundred and fifty mile round trip, in order to scrounge a couple of spliffs. By mid-afternoon I was completely unable to concentrate, transfixed on my phone, hoping and praying for a reply to the series of begging messages I’d sent. I had no pride, no dignity.

This went on for months. I was totally unable to build my business because I was never around. Kirsty was getting pissed off with me hassling her all the time and Annie was becoming concerned that our family savings were running out. She’d tolerated me smoking a couple of spliffs in an evening so long as the kids were upstairs asleep, because she knew all the gear I was smoking was free gratis. However when we started to look at devising a household budget it became clear that the biggest drain on our financial reserves was now the cost of all the fuel being used for trips to York. No longer in receipt of a company car, I hadn’t appreciated the ongoing running costs associated with owning your own vehicle. Brilliant – I’d successfully turned my back on a developing career because I was spending too much time on the road, only to put myself in a poorly-paid, unstable position where I was choosing to throw all of my meagre income away on petrol, travelling right back to the very place I was once based.

It was Allan who suggested it would be much more sensible for me to buy small quantities of resin to keep at home for whenever I needed it.

“I always have a little bit of blow put away these days – it’s so much easier than scrabbling around trying to scrounge it from other people. My advice would be to find yourself a reliable source so you never have to worry about where your next spliff is coming from.” he said.

“It’s a great idea – a bit like ‘a Pennie for a rainy day’,” I said laughing, “I know buying my own would save hours going back and forth to see Kirsty, but I’m not sure how I’d cope having such easy access to all that gear,” I replied.

“Just do what I do mate, ration yourself to a couple of spliffs on a week night, then treat yourself to a massive blow-out at the weekend if you fancy it.”

“That’s great if you have the will-power you do Allan, I just reckon I’d end up shit-faced every single night.”

“Mmm, I can see where you’re coming from. What about if you got Annie to hide it for you – she’s is pretty cool about these things, so if you asked her to limit what you were allowed each night, you’d never be able to overindulge. That way everybody would be happy.”

“How do you work that out?” I asked.

“Well, Annie and your kids would see more of you, because you wouldn’t be over in York all the time; you would be more chilled because you wouldn’t ever have to go without again; your mates wouldn’t get pissed off with you for always cadging off them...”

“But… it would mean that I’d have to start paying for it though.”

“So what Charlie, gear is much cheaper than alcohol. Anyway with what you’ve told me about all the petrol you’re using going to see your sister, you’d probably end up making money.”

“What?”

“Think of it in commercial terms. I reckon the cost of supply is going to be much less than the amount you’re spending on fuel each week. Listen, buy the gear, stop wasting your time on the road, and then put Annie in charge of it. Everyone wins.” he emphatically concluded.

It was a convincing argument.

When I met Flick she was in the process of building a conservatory onto her already sizable property. The divorced mother of two didn’t match any of the stereotypical images I had of an average drug dealer. While she lived on benefits and as far as I knew had never actually worked, she managed to maintain a very comfortable existence for herself and her two daughters. Looking more like an affluent footballer’s wife ‘who likes to lunch’, rather than an unemployed pusher, she was both personable and eloquent. Best of all, she had no problem getting her well-manicured hands on copious amounts of gear. More often than not this would be high concentration, freshly harvested weed.

For a few months I bought masses of the stuff. Her produce provided a very different smoking experience to the resin I’d been used to. No oily blocks to crumble, instead all you had to do was make sure the little pointy leaves were sufficiently dried-out prior to rolling and that you stored them in an airtight container. The right storage unit was critical, because these recently matured plants were extremely pungent. This meant that instead of using an empty matchbox to conceal one little nugget of borrowed resin, I now needed to find a large airtight Tupperware container to store all my booty.

My dealings with Flick weren’t exactly akin to the French Connection, but I was aware of the need to be discreet about our transactions. As I saw more of her, Flick introduced me to the various small-time suppliers she was working with. All unpleasant little toe-rags on the make, usually wayward youths who probably regarded me as some kind of cash machine. A couple of times I was asked where I lived and what time I went to work.

“To make it easier to get a bag of weed over to you mate.” But I always avoided divulging details, to prevent what I thought was a strong possibility of being robbed by these untrustworthy little tossers.

With such a bountiful supply from Flick and her nefarious associates, I began smoking more and more frequently. I was drained and emotionally flat, but persevered with all the zeal of Fortinbras’ army. The impact of losing the support of Mum and Stuart, two of the most important people in my life had of course worked to Miss Fenton’s advantage. Without their guidance, I was increasingly dependent on my controlling desire, the one thing which was preventing me from coming to terms with losing them both.

Annie resigned herself to letting things run their course, believing that ultimately they would right themselves. She recognised I had little else to rely on other than herself and Pennie and was prepared to bide her time for as long as was necessary. It is incredible she put up with so much for so long. Somehow the three of us found a way to make it work. Looking back I can see that the two of them were actually complete opposites. One appealed to the good in me, the other the bad. While my wife was open and warm by nature, Pennie turned out to be cryptic and cold. Annie was about as poisonous as a new born baby, while Pennie on the other hand...  Because of these variations, Pennie and Annie never became best buddies, but neither were they outright adversaries. Instead they remained as they always had, carefully tolerant of each other – perhaps both a little intrigued by my fascination with the other.

Because Annie hadn’t smoked cigarettes for years I’d invariably leave her to her own devices while I retreated into the playroom with Madame Fenton for most of the night. A married couple sitting in different parts of the house every evening didn’t make sense. We therefore agreed to make an effort to spend time together midweek, watch some telly and enjoy a little wine once the kids were in bed. I’d pop into the playroom a couple of times for a crafty smoke, then come back and join Annie. Everyone was happy. It worked remarkably well for almost a year with both of us having tremendous fun, laughing and joking as we enjoyed each other’s company. It was like our own private party. The only problem was these trips into the playroom picked up from once or twice a night, to five or six times; sloshed down with as many glasses of vino. As Annie was matching me drink for drink; we were both totally knackered by the end of the week. This roller coaster ride went on for over a year, by which time Annie needed just that little more wine, I needed just that little bit more time with Pennie, until eventually the effects of both depressants were increasingly fleeting.

By this stage it was practically impossible to estimate just how much spliff I was able to consume. Given the resources available to me, I was capable of making famous stoner Howard Marks look like a beginner. No one could keep up. Okay, it wasn’t the same kind of drugs hell as Keith Richards ‘speedballing’ on a blend of heroin and cocaine; but the mental dependency Pennie peddled was just as real, just as overwhelming. I abandoned all else in favour of it, rejecting the needs of others and myself because of this obsession.

As with any addiction, I needed to increase my intake to chase the same kind of high I’d once achieved. This meant I was spending a spectacular amount of money on my habit. Visits to see Flick were costing between eighty and one hundred pounds a time. Even though I had somehow managed to attract a few more regular clients of late, this was still a lot of cash. My little stash of ‘rainy day supplies’ which would once have lasted me three to four weeks was now being smoked within a week and a half. At one point I calculated I was spending more on Pennie than on our mortgage. She really was an expensive model to run. On the rare occasions where I felt I had plenty of stash hidden in the cupboard, I’d sometimes treat myself by removing any tobacco from the spliff and instead pack as many of the elephantine leaves that could possibly be squeezed into one giant sized Rizla. Maybe elephantine was the best way of describing these soporific spliffs, as they probably contained enough THC inside them to tranquilise a large animal.

After a full week of smoking increasingly strong joints, my brain was so addled I would begrudgingly be forced to take a night off. When this happened, my mind actually felt like it caught up with itself, however my body, still craving all the chemistry it was accustomed to, screamed from within to get some more inhaled as soon as it could. Pennie’s few remaining followers in the area would all complain about the strength of my bulbous roll-ups, yet I soldiered on, falsely believing the stronger they were, the greater the high. My goal was always to get so totally annihilated that I’d achieve some kind of epiphany where everything would finally make sense and I would at last be at peace with myself. This was the promise Pennie whispered in my ear each night before I either collapsed on the sofa or crawled my way up to bed. Of course this apocalyptic discovery was never realised – it was just another justification made by a long-term stoner struggling to account for his long-term cravings. Out of all the mind altering substances available in the world, here I was, drowning in the shallowest end of available highs.

The variant of weed I was smoking at this time was manufactured in local lofts, chemically manipulated to increase the active THC levels in the plant. It was an accelerated method known to significantly increase the risk of psychosis and paranoia among users. Before long I began to suffer minor mood swings on days I smoked less and became increasingly anxious if there was the slightest possibility I wouldn’t be able to get hold of Pennie. Possessed by my overpowering desire, I behaved like a crack-addict, sacrificing almost anything for one more decent spliff. Physically and mentally fixated, I’d purchase whatever paltry amounts I was offered, at whatever inflated price, just to keep me going.

Smoking had become a chore, an unpleasant shabby secret which brought me into contact with a number of toe-rags for whom I had no regard whatsoever. Many deals fell through, others were delayed and both these situations would create an inner tension which filled my days. If I received a text saying Flick had picked up even the tiniest amount, I’d interrupt the delivery of a training course, make my excuses and dart round to pick up whatever morsels she could offer. To be frank driving all the way over to Yorkshire to see Kirsty, cadging two or three splits and then driving all the way back home was probably preferential to the position I now found myself in.

I won’t go into all the down-sides and indignities of my dependency, but needless to say there were plenty of times I was a mess. Since Annie usually went to bed before me, I’d often conclude a heavy solitary smoking session collapsed on a downstairs floor, unable to move as the rest of the family slept upstairs. Abusers efficiently construct defences like the Germans build cars and, like all addicts, I lied to myself and others to achieve my own aims. One of the biggest lies adopted by many addicts is the one they tell themselves about creativity. This was a personal favourite. It was linked to the ‘my habit helps me make a living and provide for my wife and kids’ line. Without the (supposed) innovative thinking which dope facilitated, I told myself, I’d be unable to think laterally enough to generate the astonishingly inventive training courses I needed, to run my business. Self-serving crap. It made EVERYTHING harder. In a few short years I’d become acutely un-curious and was no longer capable of looking beyond the solution which required least effort.

At the end of a monster session in the playroom, I’d trade-in some finely distilled self-pity for a more potent cocktail of remorse and undiluted guilt. Every night ended the same with me vowing never to smoke again. Conscious of my diminishing will power, I’d sometimes take the remains of my stash and either sprinkle it into the kitchen waste bin or, in the case of resin, flush it down the toilet. Although these pathetic rituals were designed to demonstrate ‘I mean business’ by preventing me from spliffing-up the following day, I always regretted my actions. Other nights I was so wasted, I was unable to summon up the energy required to crawl into the bathroom and flush the stash away before falling unconscious. During these episodes, it was more likely I’d wake up hours later, shivering on the floor and filled with contempt. Half asleep and feeling grim, I’d open the back door and recklessly throw the remaining bits of gear over the back fence into the field behind, away from temptation. True to form, by late afternoon the next day, I’d once again be in a frenetic state, regretting my impulsive decision. I had no qualms about scrambling around outside on my hands and knees, scouring the muddy garden beds, in a deplorable attempt to distinguish between lumps of mud and the bits of cannabis which might not have made it over the fence.

There was no room for shame where Pennie was involved.

Following one extended Saturday night session, I decided not to risk flushing an especially large lump of resin down the loo, in case it got trapped in the U-bend (I had retrieved resin from there before). Instead, eager to do the job properly, I stumbled outside at three in the morning, shuffling along the poorly lit road to find a public drain where I could chuck the sizable lump through the smelly roadside grill. What a relief, I could sleep soundly knowing there was no way I’d be able change my mind or hunt outside for any remaining amounts the following day. Imagine my sense of pride on the Sunday, when through desperation I created a flimsy reason to walk past the same grill. Seeing the lump of gear embedded half way down, lodged in some unthinkable rancid matter positioned inside the drain; I wasted no time lifting the heavy metal grill to get hold of the damp lump of cannabis, so I could dry it out in the oven and get out of my brain that night.

Not only was I buying more of the stuff, but now I was doing my best to throw masses of it away through these ‘guilt appeasement exercises’. The only person who benefitted from any of this was Flick, but as things spiralled further out of control, even she was getting irritated by all the calls - so much so, I am sure she started to ignore many of them.

Perfect, I wasn’t even able to give my money away to the local pusher!

I tried so many times to quit. I looked for all the easy ways out and kidded myself time after time that tomorrow would be my last day with Miss Fenton. Ultimately, the benefits of having Indelible Pen around to craftily highlight all my inadequacies must have been slightly more appealing to me than not having her there, because I was clearly incapable of leaving her. Stopping smoking was never the problem. Like Mark Twain famously said, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.” The issue was always how to remain stopped. There was always a reason not to, always a pressing event or minor crisis to navigate through. Any tiny stressor would provide me with a suitable reason to defer my decision to quit.

Entering my third year ‘riding the exhilarating wave of self-employment’, I was forced to adjust the few remaining career ambitions I had to enable me to spend as much time as possible off my face. By increasing my fees, to the limits of what was reasonable, I calculated I could keep the business afloat by delivering just a single day’s training a week. A revised hourly rate would, on paper, provide sufficient income to cover my overheads, commercial premises, the mortgage and of course; Flick – just as long as she’d take my friggin calls. However there were down-sides to this unambitious one-day-working business model. While I dutifully got out of bed early each morning and went to the office on all five days, my seditious mind remained dormant. Unchallenged, the ability to concentrate diminished and I found myself actively encouraging my few loyal clients to take less-profitable half-day assignments so they wouldn’t pick-up on my limited attention span. Any desire to achieve had evaporated and instead of concentrating on the possibilities I was drawn towards the problems, the difficulties and the downsides of self-employment. By the middle of year three, my sparkling career adventure had turned into a gigantic albatross, one which by this point, probably needed shooting.

17. Alarm Bells

One of the few things I did get right during the ‘wilderness years’ was to set aside two weeks for our annual blue-sky holiday. These treasured foreign breaks were usually the only time I felt resilient enough to cope without Pennie Fenton. Somehow the combination of a fortnight devoted to Annie and the kids while relaxing under the hot sun next to a pool, thousands of miles from home, was inherently calming. During the summer of 2005, in an attempt to build bridges with Stuart and Faye, we invited them and their two young children to join us on the remote Greek island of Tilos. Our travel agent had recommended the destination, describing it as ‘the Jewel of the Aegean Sea’ – the perfect place for a secluded break.

It was terrific travelling with another family and the long journey provided all our kids with a brilliant opportunity get to know each other better. En route we excitedly read all about the ‘unique and friendly island of breath-taking natural beauty’; not quite appreciating this was also one of the hardest places in Europe to reach. Following an arduous fourteen hour trip (most of which was devoted to placating five cranky children over rail, air, boat and road), we reached our destination.

On arrival we settled into our rather basic adjoining apartments, unpacked and then went straight out for a meal. On reflection, I may have been suffering with a bit of jetlag, because just after falling out with a waiter I remember blathering on to Stuart about what a tough fortnight it was going to be, not having Pennie around. I reassured him though that I’d never make the same mistake as I had on his stag night and was 100% committed to having an enjoyable time. Subject parked, we moved on to less thorny topics, with both of us deliberately introducing subjects we thought the other would want to talk about.

“So, how’s your brother doing these days – does he still take the car to Buxton Raceway?” I asked.

“Yeh, he’s doing OK, costing him a fortune to keep up with it though. I’ve just helped him put a new two litre Pinto engine in his car. He’s competing with it at the semi-finals on the next bank holiday,” he said, before changing tack.

“Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask, how’s the business going? Did I hear you say to Annie that you were putting up your hourly rate again? – Things must be going well. Ever since I got back to my job, after what went on… after the accident... I mean as soon as I returned to work a couple of lads were laid off and we’re having to discount left, right and centre just to stay afloat. You must be doing all right if you can increase your charges at the moment – good on you mate,” he said, having already formed his own conclusions.

“Ha, I wish. Actually it’s just the opposite - I’m charging more to cover my costs and pay the rent,” I said, noticing that Stuart looked a little confused by a pricing strategy which was clearly counter-intuitive.

“Right, I suppose it’s worth a go. You can always change your mind later, can’t you? What about your sisters mate, are they both well?” he asked.

And so our game of verbal ping-pong continued. Nothing contentious was ever muted, nothing that was likely to cause friction was ever said. Nothing with the slightest chance of creating a proper conversation was ever proposed.

At least it’s a start, I thought to myself.

Little did I know that Stuart had already sensed my growing tension during the journey and assumed it was because of Pennie. Totally out of character, he had set aside his own strong feelings on the subject and secretly planned to try and find some cannabis for me – here on what looked like the quietest little island in the world - what a fella. Unbeknown to the rest of us, the next morning, the enterprising Stuart ventured over to the sleepy port of Livadia, identified a couple of swarthy blokes outside a back street taverna who ‘knew an anthropos, who knew an anthropos’, as they say in Greece. Then, defying all laws of probability, negotiated a deal to buy a single bag of Agean grass from them at the same location on the following day. Normally this news would have been all the temptation I needed to spend the rest of the week ‘missing in action’, however when we turned up at the back of the restaurant on the next day to ‘do the deal’; the initially jovial middlemen turned more serious. Standing in a passageway used for tipping unwanted food, the stockier of the two, ushered us around a pile of overfilled rubbish bags and began talking at us in perfect English,

“Do not worry about the flies. This is the least of your concerns.”

“Hey, no problem – we’ve both worked in restaurants, we know the score,” Stuart said.

“Not this score, you don’t. I know there are places in Europe where young people take lots of drugs, “he said, before continuing with, “The island of Tilos is not one of these places.”

Shit what’s going on? I thought

“We are helping you today as a very special favour,” he continued

“The Greek authorities take these matters very seriously. If you were caught you would be deported. If we were thought to be involved, we would face many, many years in prison.”

Recognising they were keen for us to defer to their wisdom, I said, “Oh absolutely, there is no way we’d ever let you down. We’re only here a few days. Hey, we don’t even know either of your names or what this place is called. By the time I’ve woken tomorrow, I’m not sure I’ll even remember how we got here,” I said, 50-50 about whether to casually tap him on the side of his arm in a reassuring way.

“I am Georgios and this is Yannis. You are stood outside the Katerina Nemea Tavern. Repeat it now.”

“You are George and he’s…” I mumbled, unsure if I’d heard him properly.

“No – I am Georgios, this is Yannis. This time both of you repeat.”

“Georgois and Yannis,” we said very quickly. Then, reading from the illuminated sign to our left added, “At The Katerina Nemea Tavern.”

“Good. Let me be very clear my two English friends, if after we finish our business, you ever speak any of these names again, then my partner will shoot you both in the face.”

To underline this threat Mr Yannis paraded the actual handgun which would be used to inflict this retribution. I’d never seen a real firearm before and thought it incredibly helpful of him not just to threaten us, but also take the trouble to build believability.

Although now compelled to buy the illicit stash on offer, I ended up not actually smoking any of it. Not because I was worried about getting trashed on holiday; but instead because there was always a minute possibility our misdemeanour may eventually be discovered. If this happened, it could lead investigators back to these two cheeky rascals. If that happened, I knew they would keep good on their promise to show us the handgun again.

On the up-side, at least our run-in with the Greek dealers had inadvertently provided me with clues as to how I might finally release myself from my addiction. Sat around the pool in the days that followed, I mulled over what had happened. It was apparent the threat of having my face blown off had unexpectedly reduced my appetite for getting trashed. Maybe, in order to give up permanently, I’d require another such provocation, one so petrifying it would literally shock me into finding the courage to break up with Pennie on a permanent basis. Attempting to anticipate the nature of what this monumental event might actually be, was in itself intimidating. If it had taken the threat of a loaded gun to dissuade me from tucking into a twenty Euro bag of weed, then what on earth would be required to eradicate my enduring obsession? Maybe I would need to fight Pennie on her own terms. Overpower the fear of being without her, by introducing an even greater fear which related to the consequences of remaining with her...

We all returned to the UK with our faces intact. It was great that Stuart and I had started to bounce off each other again; this time paradoxically, because of my relationship with Pennie. Our tales of adventures with the Greek underworld were of course greatly exaggerated to anyone who would listen. The person who loved the ‘Shoot you both in the face’ story the most was a lad from Margate called Nigel Flitton. He was the boyfriend of Natasha Harmon, one of Annie’s closest school friends who’d moved away from Scunthorpe after university. Natasha was the daughter of a local police inspector and had been to many of our old parties. She was always good company. Over the years, we’d met a procession of her male friends, but noticed very few of these ever developed into anything more serious. Nigel was the only one we’d heard of who’d actually lasted longer than a couple of months, so when he accompanied her back to Scunthorpe three times in a row, we became a little more interested in him. Most of us warmed to his unorthodox wit, with the exception of Allan who was always suspicious of new people.

From a distance Nigel, a lifetime member of the Hong Kong Phooey Fan Club, did appear to be a rather odd fella. Even in close proximity many found him to be left of centre. Dry as cracked wheat, he’d arrive with Natasha and sit quietly on his own as the rest of the group introduced new friends to each other and shared a spliff. I was perplexed by him because while he appeared totally uninterested in other people and their interpersonal concerns, he’d become very animated when overhearing anything linked to fame and celebrity. It amazed me how someone who was obviously intelligent, was more interested in news reports relating to glamour model Katie Prices’ expanding bust size, than what was happening in the contracting world. Phlegmatic in the extreme, Nigel was capable of unintentionally upsetting everyone he was introduced to. If he didn’t like the way a particular show had been presented on TV, he’d research the names of all the production team involved and then harass them by email, telling them in no uncertain terms, precisely where they’d gone wrong.

The very first time Annie and I met him, was a typical example of how he created a rather poor impression. Following an enjoyable evening where he’d been introduced to all his girlfriend’s buddies in a local bar, he was asked what he thought of Natasha’s friends – to which he replied with a blank expression, “I don’t know because…” Here, he deliberately paused to look with contempt at each of us in turn, before adding “I haven’t met any yet.”

The dispassionate remark had led to a cavernous silence and instantly altered the mood for the rest of the night. It was going to be a slow uphill process before any of us would understand his deadpan humour and begin to warm to him.

Nigel and Natasha had originally met after he moved into the same building as her. Keen to impress his attractive new flatmate (who at this point was still dating someone else), he’d taken her out her for a meal at a plush restaurant in Margate. At the end of the evening when she popped to the ladies room, Nigel had paid the bill in full on the QT.

On her return to the table, he’d leant over and pretending to have insufficient money to pay the bill, whispered, “Natasha, I seem to be caught in a rather tricky predicament.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s rather embarrassing, but I realise I’ve nowhere near enough money to pay for the meal.”

“I’ve got a few pounds with me – how much do you need?” she asked.

“Forty-four pounds and seventy five pence – plus any discretionary tip you care to include.”

“How much?” she exclaimed. ”What on earth did the total bill come to?”

“Forty-four pounds and seventy five pence – plus any discretionary tip we care to include,” Nigel replied, looking surprised by the need for this additional question.

“So you’re saying that you didn’t bring ANY money out with you?” Natasha said.

“No, I can’t afford to eat in a place like this. I only booked it thinking you’d be impressed.”

“Well, let me tell you, I’m not. In fact I’m really embarrassed. I can’t afford it either. We’ll have to talk to the manager, provide some form of identification. Perhaps they’ll accept a signed IOU from us.”

“Don’t be daft Natasha, a place like this? They’re far more likely to call the police. Look, if you follow my lead, we’ll be fine. I’ve done it loads – I think I’ve even done it in here a couple of years ago,” he said

“Done what?” said Natasha, getting quite indignant.

“A runner. We’ll do a runner. We used to leg-it all the time as students. Restaurants get used to it. They even budget for three or four runners a week.” While Natasha was wondering where these ridiculous statistics came from, Nigel was verbally overlaying all the reasons why they should proceed with his idea, over the top of her more rational thinking.

“We’re near to the door, there’s no staff in sight, we don’t have any coats to collect… come on, let’s do it…”

Before Natasha had time to bolster her argument, Nigel had leapt up, raced through the exit and started to pelt down the road. And they say romance is dead. There was nothing she could do but to follow him – hobbling along the busy pavement in her high heels and fancy frock in an attempt to catch up with her gallant suitor. This I have since learned is typical of his unconventional humour which obviously works since amazingly, just after this memorable event, Natasha ditched her boyfriend and announced she was going to marry Mr Flitton.

In order to get to know Nigel a little better before the wedding we decided to invite them both to a weekend away, to watch a concert in Sheffield along with Allan and Stacey. By August 2005, Pennie’s control over Allan and myself meant that it was rare for either of us to venture far from the safety of our own homes. If we ever did go out, it tended to be to visit each other’s houses – particularly if Pennie had decided to park herself there for a few days. The only deviation from this pattern was whenever The Bunnymen had a new album to promote. The promise of seeing an unfamiliar live set by rock royalty usually provided us with sufficient motivation to leave the kids with relatives and venture out into the big wide world. Without exception, Pennie accompanied us to these concerts.

Rather than deal with all the hassle of rolling joints in an unknown town, Allan usually brought a stack of ready-rolled smokes which had been cut down in length and hidden inside a conventional cigarette box. This way as soon as we’d landed, we could share a few beers in a hotel room; open the window for ventilation and spliff-up while the girls were getting changed.

Natasha managed to convince a reticent Nigel to come along to the gig and we all checked in together at a generic hotel in the city centre. With the six of us arriving without an advance booking, the hotel insisted we accept three non-smoking rooms situated on the third floor of an annex at the rear of the building. Allan was never the most skilled at hiding his emotions and the receptionist, picking up on his obvious frustration about the rooms we’d been allocated, warned us smoking would not be tolerated. She emphasised a new high tech smoke detection system had recently been installed in this part of the hotel at considerable cost.

Once we’d all dumped our stuff in our respective melamine drawers we met in Allan’s room, perching precariously on the bed while we cracked open a few cans of lager. Ignoring Nigel’s lone voice of concern about the hotel‘s smoking policy on this floor; we wasted no time investigating how we could introduce Pennie to the limited charms of the dated little room. Because of the air conditioning system, all windows were sealed, which prevented us from expelling our malodorous fumes out towards the uninspiring car park. The only reasonable solution was therefore, to try to disassemble the smoke alarm. Tampering with the device immediately set off a trip-switch in the hotel reception area which itself resulted in us receiving a brusque phone call from one of their vigilant staff. The thing you need most after an agitated discussion with a surly hotel receptionist, is of course, a little time being caressed by the velveteen Miss Fenton, so by now Allan and I were determined to strike up as many of our pre-packed little beauties as we possibly could. Stupidly, we decided to try and seal the vent holes of the hastily reconstructed alarm mounting, by stuffing masses of dampened Rizla papers into the housing. Two enjoyable spliffs after initiating this idiotic plan, a second terse phone call was received – this time from the hotel shift-manager who was kindly calling to announce he was on his way up to Room 383 to find out exactly what was going on. Our Rizla defence barrier had failed, the central smoke alarm had been activated and he was duty-bound to identify the responsible party. Nigel and the girls went apeshit.

Aware we were already a little rowdy, the next rather perverse decision taken in response to this ‘two minute warning’ was to find the most boring programme on TV we could and then crank the volume up really loud. Our hope was this would somehow confirm our status as reliable, sensible citizens. Flicking through the various channels the girls found a mindless show which, according to Natasha, was a big hit with students everywhere. Half stoned, the notion that six adults would of course willingly cram themselves into the middle of a hot airless room (not much bigger than the bed it contained) in order to watch daytime television seemed to be a splendid smokescreen. Even more so, when it turned out the programme in question was a game show featuring middle aged housewives running around a fake superstore with a large trolley, grabbing as much produce as they could.  Absolutely ideal!

Conscious the hotel’s officious manager could still rumble precisely what we’d been smoking and evict us, it was decided ‘Garrulous Charlie’ should wait outside and intercept him before he was able to enter the airless room. This would buy us a bit more time and, with the room door firmly closed, make it harder for him to differentiate between the screams of the television game show contestants and the muffled giggling of his half-stoned guests.

Accepting my fate, I stood in the corridor, apprehensively awaiting his arrival. By now I was feeling the full effects of those potent early afternoon joints as my heart pounded, palms sweated and pupils shrunk to the size of two grains of sand. I started to get a little paranoid, thinking he would undoubtedly have informed the police, who were naturally going to arrest me (and inform both the local press and my clients at work about the incident). With seconds to spare I concocted an unconvincing alibi about not receiving the smoking rooms we’d emphatically been promised and then braced myself for our high octane showdown. To my amazement, the shift manager hadn’t come to eject us. Instead he sheepishly informed me they’d managed to isolate our smoke alarm and as a one-off would temporarily deactivate the unit to prevent any further problems. He seemed more resigned than annoyed and had even brought a branded ashtray with him for our use. What a top bloke! Relieved by this unexpected result, I shook his hand, slapped the side of his forearm, bowed my head a little and then bid him farewell in a far too gushing way, before re-entering the rented room where I was greeted like a returning war hero. Clutching my victory cigarette ash receptacle, I was in no mind to tell everyone about how conciliatory he’d actually been. After all, it was me who’d put the trumped-up jobs-worth in his place, me who’d made him eat humble pie and then cower to every single one of my inflexible demands.

Slipping into a more relaxed mode, everyone except Nigel got really drunk that afternoon, distracted only by the endless episodes of the dodgy game show. We ended up having such a laugh taking the piss out of the programme that we didn’t manage to get to any of the Sheffield pubs we’d arranged to go to before the concert started. Free to inhale whatever we wanted in our non-smoking room, Allan and I considered ourselves subversives. We were pushing against the system – just like in the old days and this made our unseen drug taking even more entertaining. Recently, the two of us had been so used to lighting-up spliffs whenever we fancied one, that our habit had become almost normalised. Mainly smoking in the safety of our own houses, had removed some of the magic because we never had to think about the possibility of getting caught. This trip away brought it all flooding back and instead of making smoking less attractive; the thrill of the illicit reminded us of all the fun we’d once had.

That afternoon, behaving like Holiday Inn vigilantes, was the last time I can remember having fun with Pennie Fenton.

18. Sins of the Father

There was little doubt, the use of what I had once regarded a ‘harmless natural drug’ was making me increasingly impulsive, more drawn towards instantaneous rewards and much less likely to focus on longer term goals. It was as if a reliance on cannabis had swelled the pleasure zone in my brain to such an extent, that it now needed regular pampering. Just before we bought our first house, Annie and I had decided that whenever possible we would think long-term in an attempt to dismiss instant satisfaction in favour of deferred benefits. These days I seemed far more inclined to seek immediate gratification in virtually every aspect of life and was much less willing to take the longer, more difficult route.

Thinking about this turnabout reminded me of an experiment we studied as students. In The Marshmallow Test, a number of children were left in a room with only a bell and a marshmallow for company. Each of them was told that if they decided to ring the bell they’d be allowed to eat the marshmallow in front of them. Alternatively, if they delayed ringing the bell and waited for a researcher to return to the room; then they would receive a second marshmallow. By deferring gratification, the more patient children were provided with a substantially greater reward. The experiment has been repeated numerous times over the years, always with the same results. Every time it has been run, the impulsive children who rang the bell early, enjoyed their one marshmallow, but also tended to be the ones, who in later life struggled in stressful situations, were less hardy as grown-ups, had fewer friends and performed less well in academic tests. Conversely, those who exhibited greater self-control in the simple test were invariably the same ones who became more socially engaged and went on to accomplish more as adults.

Damn, was I becoming someone who was inclined to open their sweets too early on a long car journey? Was I undermining my own chances of success in life by turning into a single marshmallow man?

Ignoring the benefits of deferred gratification had been a relatively recent adjustment. As far as I could calculate, the origins of this particular change in behaviour coincided with the spectacular display of bad judgement which led to Pennie moving in. Acknowledging this fact made me wonder just how many other issues relating to my physical and psychological well-being I could attribute to her.

As my forty-third birthday came and went, I dismissed friends’ light-hearted, but derisory references to being the oldest codger in the group. Yet, deep inside I knew there was no disputing that I was now approaching middle age. Looking at my older self even more closely, it was clear that years of hedonistic indulgence had taken its toll. I looked spent and felt the same. Conscious that by mid-life ‘every man has the face he deserves’, I wondered what proportion of my deterioration was down to Pennie and how much of it was simply because of my age. Maybe I had already left it too late to start thinking about looking after myself.

In an attempt to define the effects Pennie Fenton was having on my body and mind, I decided to compose a list of the down-sides to having her around. I filled over three A4 pages scribbling down this ‘list of inconveniences’ which I’d always accepted but never questioned. I started with general clumsiness and muddled thinking. Then, how easily distracted I was and the frustration I felt when undertaking the simplest of tasks. I wrote how I hated having to throw away so many of my clothes because of small resin burns. Underneath this, how I was sick of the sweet musty smell of lingering smoke which filled the house and stained the playroom curtains and wallpaper. Similarly, the painful blisters on my index finger and thumbs caused by crumbling the hot resin too quickly onto the Rizla papers were now beyond a joke. I jotted down how friends had commented about the inevitable weight gain caused by the onset of the munchies four or five nights a week; how conscious I was becoming about the ache in my lower back where my kidneys were situated. The more I recorded, the easier it became. I noted how my pulse ran faster after a few smokes, how my hair had turned lank, my skin much greasier and my general verve diminished.

Energy level was a big one. It was hard to feel especially perky, lying under the weight of the multi-layered eiderdown of cannabis leaves I’d so carefully sewn. Also, it was impossible to ignore the fact that when I was really trashed, I could hardly move a muscle. Apparently vibrant physical activity is capable of improving your self-esteem. Unfortunately a few brief encounters with Miss Fenton and you were fooled into thinking that lifelessness was actually an enjoyable way to be. Pennie therefore perpetuated the very physiological conditions you needed to avoid. Living with her was like being forced to drive a small underpowered car on the busiest of motorways, sandwiched between two herculean articulated lorries. You constantly wanted to overtake the one in front, but were aware you didn’t have the acceleration to do so.

Stuart, who had a knack of distilling any complicated idea into its essential points, helped me appreciate the effect that cannabis was having on my energy. After our infamous Greek holiday he’d mentioned he could always tell when I’d been distracted by Pennie, because of the way I moved.

“Whatever you think you get from smoking that stuff, it isn’t doing you any good mate,” he said

“Many reports say it’s less harmful to you than alcohol or tobacco, and you smoke cigarettes all the time,” I replied, defensively

“Maybe, but at least I can function afterwards. I walk into a room and can tell immediately if you’ve been on the weed. Don’t even need to see your glassy eyes. It’s as if you’re moving in slow motion, like some really old fella, just before he pops his clogs.”

“Hey, there’s life in the old dog yet!”

“Well from what I see, there’s not much of it. What’s good about being lazy -slouching around, doing nothing except laughing at things that aren’t funny? You need to get out, see people, enjoy life by getting involved. It’s like all your energy is being robbed and you’re helping to make it happen.”

Once again, I knew he was right, Pennie was enervating and my personal vigour did diminish after a few smokes.

It wasn’t just my outward energy which was affected. For a number of years Annie and I had been trying for another baby. We’d always wanted four kids, but hadn’t had any success conceiving after Travis was born in 2000. I didn’t know it at the time, but a recognised side effect of the THC in the spliffs is that it disrupts the way the sperm swim, making them much less able to fertilise an egg. All those mini-me’s were effectively, like their host, burnt out before they even had chance to get started.

Writing down all the adverse effects was easy. I liked the way the document provided visible evidence of the detrimental effects of my epic infatuation and was shocked to see just how many of them there were. It was like a balance sheet: I already knew all the so-called benefits of smoking dope, but now here in front of me, was the flipside for due consideration. The exercise sensitised me to the multitude of issues I was prepared to tolerate, but seeing just how far I’d fallen ended up making me more petrified I’d never be able to give up.

Instead of doing something about this list of negative consequences; I tried in vain to mask the warning signs I’d recently defined, terrified others may discover my guilty (dis)pleasures. I became more self-conscious and less inclined to go out into town at weekends – just in case colleagues and customers might bump into me and realise I was worse for wear. If I was ever lured away from the reassuring surroundings of home, I would inevitably encounter people I’d not seen for ages and convince myself there was a flicker of concern in their eyes as we exchanged false pleasantries. Whether it was there or not, I could see their look of disbelief at the extent I’d let myself go since we last met.

A couple of times out shopping I recognised I wasn’t being afforded the same respect by shop assistants which others were. Over in Hull looking at a new suite in a furniture store renowned for its customer service, I was practically ignored by their staff. When I did manage to attract someone’s attention, I received the most functional of responses to questions which any junior apprentice would have known were strong buying signals. Similarly a few months later, willing and able to purchase a top of the range digital projector at an electrical store in York, I was treated with contempt by a sales assistant when asking for assistance to purchase kit worth over a thousand pounds. In my mind, in both situations the fault lay with them, the diabolical service standards, the lack of insight by their staff, the downright rudeness of these retail assistants with no more than a handful of GCSEs between them. Or so I told myself. The truth (which I knew deep down, but would never admit to the shamefulness of it) was on both occasions I’d got well and truly walloped the night before, felt grotty and probably looked like shit. Their responses to what they thought was ‘a sickly looking waster with a fallen face who probably didn’t have twenty pence to his name and was doubtlessly eyeing up what he could nick from their stores’, I’m sure made perfect sense to them.

Desperate to mask any symptoms of physical deterioration, I started to shower twice a day and became fastidious about my dental health after reading how smoking can cause gum disease. Stoned one evening, I tried to save time combining both personal hygiene tasks by flossing my teeth while simultaneously taking a shower (like you do). Taking a long piece of dental string, I threaded it across both sets of my back molars and began to pull back and forth in a furious fashion. As the water from the shower head thundered down on my head, I tugged faster and faster on the thin dental floss until it actually sliced into both sides of my mouth, widening it by at least a centimetre. Still buzzed-up from my recent spliffs I had no idea that I could now pass as a doppelganger for Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman. Worse still, since these two matching wounds took ages to heal, bits of food were invariably attracted to the cuts which became infected, making it look like I’d contracted some super strain of oral herpes. Other foolish attempts to obscure the damage Pennie was causing to my physical appearance yielded similar results. For example, after I discovered the benefits of using eye drops to alleviate bloodshot eyes, I became so reliant on the various brands of eye-whiteners that I ended up developing weeping sores on the insides of my eye lids.

Physically and mentally I was deteriorating and the situation was becoming intolerable.

Hanging around with Allan and Kirsty had always stopped me dwelling on the downsides of life with Pennie. As far as I was aware, neither of my fellow disciples had suffered any noticeable damage as a result of prolonged exposure to Miss Fenton. Take my mentor, Allan who’d probably known Pennie the longest and who remained utterly loyal to her. He always had things sussed and was healthy and happy. I’d never once known him to question his obsessive compulsion or mention any negative effects - other than the odd ‘whitey’, so why should I worry?  Surely, if our Fenton Foible was causing any long term problems he’d have told me by now.

The real picture was very different to the one I was conveniently painting for myself. For a start I was completely ignoring the fact Allan was nearly twice my size, had a stronger constitution and still played competitive sports. I was also kidding myself he was mentally durable; that he had coped well after his parents’ death and was in control of his habit. The unfortunate reality was that he was beginning to display an alarming number of the same behavioural traits that I was determined to ignore. What changed my mind about his levels of self-discipline was an impromptu visit when he showed me a monstrous block of resin he’d just bought. I was sworn to secrecy before he would reveal it to me and then immediately understood why he’d asked for my silence on the matter. The block he’d hidden in the back of his car under the spare wheel wasn’t much smaller than a household brick. At least ten times the size of the lump I’d collected from Leeds Poly for him. Leaning over the inside of his boot, it took all that remained of my self-control to stop myself shouting out, “Witness the power of this fully operational battle station[6],” at the top of my voice. Star Wars quotes aside, I’d never seen anything like it before or since. There must have been enough there to keep a small planet of enthusiastic pot-smokers going a year.

We talked for ages about the sheer volume he’d purchased and after a few pathetic attempts to convince me he’d invested hundreds of pounds in order to save a little bit of money through bulk buying; he finally admitted that he too was having major problems coping.

“This year has been crap. Had a new baby to cope with… which is great, but as you’ll know it’s also bloody hard work. Stacey and me have had some problems. Not getting on as well as we used to. Changing jobs twice in a year hasn’t helped matters. All in all, it’s been a rotten year,” adding, “plus, I’ve had a few health issues.”

“Is everything all right?” I said

“This is between us. I went to see the doctor about stomach cramps and she reckoned I was suffering with stress. Couldn’t believe it – me, stressed. Anyway she signed me off work for two months – which only made me more worried about what my new boss was going to think. It’s all been a fucking nightmare. Spliff has been the only thing that’s got me through it. Then again, I’m not sure…” he paused

“Not sure of what?” I asked, sensing he was about to say something really important.

“How can I put this? Mmmm, recently I’ve started to…”

“Go on,” keen for him to continue

“Well like now, recently I’ve been struggling to… think clearly. I’m finding it a lot harder to… concentrate. I can’t even remember the main points of a distribution report, half an hour after reading it.”

Allan was a very proud man and wasn’t one for talking about these things, so this candid conversation was both unexpected and intriguing.

“Is it the stress?” I asked

“Maybe, but also – and I know this sounds stupid – I think it’s to do with what I’ve just shown you in the boot.”

“Pennie Fenton?” I said

“Ever since I started smoking the spliff every day, things have got tougher. It may be a coincidence, but I’ve noticed that when Pennie is about I get agitated with others a lot easier. I’ve no patience. I know I’m doing it, but can’t stop myself getting ratty with everyone – small petty details seem really important. I’m unable to let them go.”

“Well, you are a perfectionist,” I said trying, to reassure him.

“It’s more than that. I’ve fallen out with my last two bosses – ‘personality clashes’ – it’s why I’ve ended up having to change jobs so often. Stacey reckons I’m a difficult person to be with.”

“It’s probably a combination of things Allan, you sound stressed, plus maybe smoking a bit too much.”

“It’s Pennie Fenton – I’m sure of it,“ he said, while incongruously taking his wooden stash box out of his bag as he prepared to roll a joint.

The longer Allan talked (while continuing to chisel small bits off a lump of Moroccan resin), the more I recognised similarities between us. I estimated he was perhaps just a few stages ahead of where I was. Every revelation shared raised alarm bells as I heard how his pathological preoccupation had bled into every aspect of his life.

“The truth is, I can’t function without a spliff. It’s like an obsession which fills my every thought. I’m an addict. I know it’s not helping, but I can’t stop myself from wanting more. Even now talking to you about this, all I can think about is getting this little number lit.”

“You strike it up, I’m just going to get a list of things to do with smoking which I think you’ll be interested in reading…” I said

In the weeks which followed Allan’s sobering visit, I spent a lot of time thinking about the possibility that those ‘cultivated years of indifference’ may have lowered both of our potential to see what was happening to us. I could only deduce the reason we hadn’t noticed any of these things before was because our deterioration had been so gradual, like an evolving shoreline shaped by the effects of gently lapping waves.

I was particularly concerned that our brain functioning may have been compromised as a result of our commitment to cannabis. Just like Allan, my ability to concentrate was shockingly poor and short-term memory abysmal. A quick Google search confirmed my worst suspicions. The two areas of the brain most commonly affected by prolonged exposure to THC appeared to be, the hippocampus, which deals with memory and the amygdala, which is responsible for the processing of emotions.

Flicking through the various websites, I learned that in addition to playing an important role in the creation of new memories; the hippocampus identifies which pieces of everyday information are worth keeping and which ones can be thrown away. Discovering this fact made me even more worried that we may have unknowingly affected this area. As a fledgling smoker I’d always loved the way a good spliff enabled you to think about one thing in incredible detail; but over the last few years had found it increasingly difficult to focus on anything at all. I’d noticed how inconsequential details flooded my traitorous mind, preventing me from differentiating between important and trivial items. Unable to siphon off unnecessary distractions, every email, every letter and every request seemed equally pressing. All were urgent and all demanded my instant attention. It was totally paralyzing. No longer able to trust my intuition, creativity or instincts; I was inclined to organize, confine and regiment things in order to make them more predictable and easier to accommodate. It was as if all the things I used to like about the odd joint, such as spontaneity and free thinking had been flipped over and were conspiring against me. Even my last bastion of defence – my sense of humour was evaporating. These days I seemed to be the only one laughing at my jokes and this was only because I was trashed all the time.

Reading up on the role of the amygdala, I learned that this was responsible for alerting our bodies to potential threats, which could explain my growing tendency to overestimate the impact of both real and imaginary threats. Recently, I was able to inflate the smallest problem into a full blown crisis; able to ‘sweat the small stuff’ better than anyone I knew. I fretted about everything and like Allan, was inclined to treat any new ideas, people and places with suspicion.

Perhaps a ‘faulty internal alarm system’ was also the reason why I’d started to experience waves of terrifying panic attacks, whenever I attempted to mask how fragile I’d become. My heart would start to race uncontrollably, getting faster and faster until it reached the point where I’d be overwhelmed by a sense of impending danger. The first few times, I wasn’t sure if they were palpitations or if I was encountering some form of seizure. All I could feel was my thundering heart trying to push its way through my rib-cage. The more regular the attacks, the more time Annie had to spend calming me down, reassuring me that I wasn’t going to die.

Strangely up until this point I’d never once considered that any of these incidents could be linked to my predilection for Pennie Fenton.

Trying hard to stop smoking, but never believing I could, I was aware that something had to give. I wasn’t just burning the candle at both ends; I’d set fire to it along the body as well. Truth be known, that poor little candle had endured such a roasting, for such a long time; all that remained was an old, charred little wick which was barely able to stay alight. I may not have been top on a list of admissions to The Priory, (reserved for affluent deep water swimmers only) but I was definitely in need of the same fortitude as its patients, the same strength of character to lift myself out of this sorry situation. I thought back to my night with Mr Funny at the Nene College Comedy Festival and realised his pragmatic description of life on the road, applied equally well to drugs – “First it is fun, then it isn’t fun, then it is fuckin shite.” Pennie’s plan to reduce me to the sum of my neurosis had worked and I was finally at stage three.

For the first time since I’d started smoking spliffs I was seriously worried about my health and the compounded effects of all those ‘cheeky little numbers’. I took the bold decision to seek external assistance. Not wanting to talk to anyone about cannabis per se, I visited my local GP at the end of 2005 to explore what support was available to help me stop smoking. I found myself talking about the problems I was having connecting with others, about my inflexibility and how emotionally flat I’d become. Following a consultation where I’d described the symptoms but not the cause of my malaise, the doctor concluded I was depressed. He explained that depression often arises when a patient is trying too hard to press down on an internalised problem which was fighting to be expressed. I could relate to this. His solution was to prescribe the antidepressant Prozac - a medicine which did everything he said it would. Straight away I could tell it removed the extremes of emotions which I’d been feeling. It helped with stretches of prolonged unhappiness and mental isolation - but also took away any real joy of living, those fleeting sensations of elation. Taking this powerful medication left me feeling like I was watching an old widescreen movie which had been converted for television using large black panels at the top and bottom of the screen. All the action remained in the centre, but felt more distant and was a lot harder to concentrate on. Additionally the two thick panels (provided by the Prozac), didn’t half get on your nerves after a while.

I acknowledged taking the tablets was helpful and they certainly increased my energy levels, but found the overall effect a little unsettling – as if I was no longer feeling any real emotions, simply going through an approximation of real life. Therefore within a very short period of time I was looking for ways to cheat the negative aspects of the medication. I continued with my prescription, as it helped me feel less ‘blue’, but additionally wanted to engineer more of the euphoria, the laughter and the happiness. So, although I was beginning to recognise some positive effects, I went straight back onto the spliffs. ‘Double dosing’ on Prozac and THC, removed much of the melancholy which often followed a big smoke so the net effect of self-medicating on both meant that I ended up smoking even more than I had done before.

Mixing my meds instantly negated any positive effects of the antidepressant and with it any opportunity for long term recovery. The two combined actually made for an even more dangerous cocktail. I became what Annie called, “Irrepressibly upbeat and wildly insensitive,” as the coupling resulted in me being decidedly clumsy in my interactions with others. When I took the two together, it was as if the wire between my brain and mouth had been shortened. This meant I verbalised all my thoughts as they appeared in my mind. Previously, I’d been quite effective at judging where to pitch inflammatory remarks –positioning things in a cheeky and contentious way, but still able to pull back from hurting people’s feelings. However the buzz from this new combination of medications totally prevented me from reading the impact of my comments and I invariably misjudged situations and upset many people. The only meaningful advantage to this new state of self-inflicted frenzy was that it also perked up many of my sluggish sperm, who rather like the rest of my physiology, became far more animated. One of the little fella’s even managed to fulfil the very purpose for which he’d been created, fused with an egg and in doing so brought about the welcome news that despite our advancing years, Annie’s fourth gestation period was underway.

Little Holly Jayne Mellor was born in 2006. She was a beautiful baby who brought a sense of completeness to our family unit. Annie and I had always hoped for four children and felt very lucky to be now blessed with four healthy children; but realisation of this dream did mean that much of my wife’s time was now spent caring for our latest addition. As a result, fourteen year old Hattie, twelve year old Toby and six year old Travis received just a little less of their mother’s attention than usual and I was left pretty much to Pennie’s own devices. I didn’t consider myself a bad father to our children, unkind or cruel, but was aware I wasn’t spending as much time with them as they deserved. I told myself, maybe at the weekend things would improve, maybe in the holidays we would spend more time together, maybe one day when I finally frog-marched Pennie Fenton back through the front door and out of our lives for good. Maybe...

19. Never Falls Far

It always fascinates me how children brought up in the same environment and from the same biological parents, can be so dissimilar in their natures. Our children were no different. Even little Holly, who was still in nappies, appeared to be developing in a way which was distinctive when compared to her sister and two brothers. Toby was always the self-sufficient dreamer, Travis his easy going, but orderly little brother; while big sister Hattie was capable of dominating all three of them with her forceful personality. As a family we always celebrated such differences and enjoyed watching how each of the children had grown in confidence with whatever attributes they had either inherited from us or fashioned for themselves. Hattie for example, now a teenager in the ‘gifted and talented’ group at school, was, we were sure, destined to be a high achiever due to her assertive nature and unstoppable drive.

It was probably because of our tolerance for their diversity, combined with the fact that both Annie and I were separately distracted, that neither of us fully picked-up on the extent of Hattie’s deteriorating behaviour. Since she’d always been unusually outspoken, even as a toddler, we tended to interpret her increasingly argumentative nature as a form of wilfulness or teenage rebellion. Unfortunately the older she got, the more fractious and aggressive she became. Hattie upset family members; fell out with all her old friends; was in trouble for not submitting her homework at school and ended up in detention most weeks for rule breaking and disruptive behaviour. Twice, I received calls from local shopkeepers who’d seen Hattie with gangs of lads outside their shop, so drunk on alcopops that she was unable to stand. At home we were never able to predict what sort of mood she would be in. Some days Hattie seemed sullen and withdrawn, others she’d prowl around the house hunting for an argument. Meal times were often a flashpoint when our capricious daughter would appear to deliberately taunt and provoke others until she achieved the conflict she was after.

My wife was heartbroken by these developments – she’d always enjoyed a terrific relationship with our eldest daughter, almost sisterly, but had recently noticed this closeness was slipping through her fingers.

Still pumped up by a combination of Pennie and Prozac; I usually charged straight into the fray, providing Hattie with the heated battle she was gunning for. Without exception every one of these decisions to engage in conflict was a mistake. I always wondered what had caused her to become so antagonistic towards the people who cared about her most. It couldn’t be her behaviour was some kind of karmic payback for not providing her with enough attention could it? Retribution for the lack of guidance I had offered? Surely none of this was because I was failing in my stated parental goal to ‘serve and protect’ her? Was it?

On December 11 2006, while earnestly twiddling my thumbs at work, I received a call from Annie. She was clearly distraught and had rung to warn me that Hattie had discovered my supply of Pennie Fenton. I was mortified. Hearing the news was like being hit with a kidney punch, delivered by a big leather boxing glove with very little padding. I’m sure Hattie may have suspected I smoked for a while, but this phone call made it impossible to deny. I couldn’t get it out of my mind - my daughter knew I smoked pot. Fuck, was I pissed off with my own stupidity.

Flick had been programmed on speed-dial for many months and at times I’d been able to purchase truckloads of home-grown weed. This meant I needed be quite inventive in finding suitable places to conceal these sizable supplies. As a precautionary measure I rotated the hiding places every few days and tried to make sure my supply was always out of easy reach. On the day my gimlet-eyed girl uncovered the stash, I had been so trashed the night before that I’d left the box inside our low level cleaning cupboard where we usually stored the ashtrays. Schoolboy error. My increasingly mistrustful daughter must have been looking around, chasing her own suspicions when she found the remains of the most recent consignment from Flick. She’d immediately tipped the contents of the (uncharacteristically modest sized) Tupperware box onto the kitchen table and yelled out for her mother to come downstairs.

“Mum, come down here now - what the hell was all THIS doing inside our cupboard?” said Hattie.

“I beg your pardon?” Annie replied.

“I said what is this box of weed doing in our cleaning cupboard - Mother?”

“I th-th-ink you’re mistaken Hattie, I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, but can assure you...”

“For once, don’t treat me like a bloody child, I know exactly what it is. It is called cannabis. You stick it in a joint and get off your face. Just be fucking honest with me will you AND TELL ME WHAT ITS DOING HERE.”

Annie has always hated conflict and now, face to face with her worst nightmare, bravely attempted to convince our seething daughter the pile of dried leaves strewn across the kitchen table, were emphatically not derived from a cannabis plant.

“Please don’t talk to me like that, I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever it is, if only you’d give me chance to explain,” she said stretching out her sentence, to build in some thinking time.

“Go on then, let’s hear it. How did you find yourself with heap of illegal soft drugs in your house? Come on, tell me, I’m looking forward to hearing this…”

Annie stuttering away for only the second time since college, attempted to pull-off the tricky non-verbal coupling of a sympathetic smile combined with a gently dismissive shake of the head; before proposing Hattie had actually discovered a harmless box of lesser-known organic herbs.

“I think it was erm, Natasha Harmon who recommended it to us… about a year ago… it adds flavour when… cooking.”

Even as Annie stumbled to assemble her piecemeal explanation, she knew it wasn’t washing with Hattie who was becoming even more angry.

“Don’t you dare patronise me, I’m not an idiot. Either you tell me the truth or I’ll take the contents of this box and knock on the door of every dull house, down this boring little road and shove it in your precious neighbours’ faces to see if they know why my parents have all this fucking weed stashed inside their house.”

It was clear from this ugly confrontation that our daughter was well aware of what she’d discovered and my dirty secret was exposed. Humiliated and ashamed, I sank further below the subterranean level I was already operating at. Perhaps it was always inevitable this would come about. Every morning the playroom must have stunk of weed, following all of those unventilated smoking sessions. I’d kidded myself I was being careful, on one hand meticulously picking up tiny bits of tobacco off the playroom floor each night to avoid suspicion, while at the same time barricading myself behind the insubstantial playroom door refusing to let the kids inside while I recklessly constructed another funny fag.

The knowledge that Hattie knew about my habit stabbed my conscience and the wound it created exposed a world driven by secrets, one which required me to constantly lie to the people closest to me about where I was going and what I was doing. All those surreptitious crafty smokes and belly laughs from years gone by had long been replaced with subterfuge, deceit and guilt. Looking through my daughter’s eyes I could see that she resented me for turning my back on her in favour of Pennie Fenton. What a bastard she had for a dad, a stranger who continued night after night to shut himself away in the playroom as soon as he returned from work. A man, who demanded his own kids should never dare to disturb him because he was busy ‘on the computer’ while in reality he was secretly rolling yet another miserable joint.

This episode more than any before, brought it home to me that I had failed to keep the promise I had made to myself on the day Hattie was born. I hadn’t served her well and had failed to protect her properly. It was impossible for me to rationalise my actions. The bubble was burst. Half of me felt like a prisoner of war on the cusp of spilling the beans to my captors; the other half wanted to build a gigantic brick wall around the situation: one so tall, no one would ever be able to scale it. What I should have done was come clean. I should have treated my daughter with some respect and sat down and talked to her the way two adults do. Instead, I immediately picked up my bricklaying trowel and turned defensive, angrily questioning my wife as to why she’d told Hattie it was ‘herbal flavouring’, knowing full well our worldly wise daughter would see through this featherweight explanation. I demanded to know why she hadn’t, for example, suggested it was Allan Hewitt’s gear we were looking after as a favour to ensure Stacey didn’t find out he smoked. Such an approach would, after all, have helped tremendously – by allowing me to totally extricate myself from the dilemma.

As always, behind the anger was fear. I was worried about being shown up as the cowardly creature I’d become, terrified of losing the love and respect of our first born child. Most of all I was petrified that my darkest worry may now be realised – that this wider awareness might be the next downwards step, to me ending up like my mother, grandmother and great grandmother before me; an unhappy lonely addict with nothing and no-one to protect me from the self-destructive behaviours I had established. The apple after all, never falls far. Fearful of the fear, I decided never to talk about the incident and instead promised myself that one day I would actually pack it all in for good.

As I lay in bed over the next few nights, some of them I have to confess still trashed out of my brain (just using up the last of the discovered bounty I kidded myself) a new, far more consuming terror began to emerge. One, which no amount of spliffs could drive to the back of my woolly mind. What message had I sent out to my impressionable teenage daughter, who was already displaying a mutinous streak? What if Hattie’s discovery would encourage her to use soft drugs? Was I reinforcing the next step in the long line of family members with an orientation towards dependency? This new concern towered over all my other misgivings. The notion that I could be culpable, contributing to the one thing I so desperately wanted to avoid.

Looking at some of the odious ‘pondlife’ Hattie was hanging about with, I’d guess she may have already had some limited exposure to the attractions of the odd smoke, but this wasn’t the point. It didn’t detract from the shame I now felt and the recognition that the discovery of her own father participating would surely act as some kind of endorsement for her.

With a newly erected invisible wall between us, I found it more difficult than ever to freely communicate with Hattie and was acutely aware her respect for me must be virtually non-existent. I could also see that Annie, who normally bobbed along with life like a cork on the ocean, was finally beginning to tire of my mesmerisation with Pennie. Recently enrolled on a course to train as a nursery teacher, she was less willing and less able to continue carrying the burden which I all too readily passed to her. But in spite of these developments; their collective impact still wasn’t (quite) enough for me to convert my genuine desire to put things right into any sort of plan. Even the shame of letting every single person I cared about down wasn’t the catalyst I badly needed. Perhaps this would never come.

Put off by my own blameworthiness, it probably took all of about a fortnight (!) for me to get round to buying my pre-Christmas bag of weed. Although I still coveted its contents and had once again surrendered to my cravings, something had changed. Although I continued to smoke, all the enjoyment had gone. Tangible proof that the belated emergence of a conscience doesn’t actually stop you doing something, it only prevents you from gaining pleasure from it. Then, another deep wound. Stuart, who was famed for his ability to ‘tell it as it was’, made a deliberately pointed remark, by stating he believed I was hooked for life and would never be able give up smoking spliffs. It really rattled me to think that he regarded me as an inveterate stoner. Particularly because I knew he had a tendency to be right about these things. Just this once, I thought to myself, I would love, absolutely love… to prove him wrong.

Being caught out by my daughter, created a flicker of determination; Stuart’s assessment of my inner resolve, strengthened this with oxygen; but the ignition of what would become an enormous fireball was still to follow. Without this explosion, the emphatic conclusion to my comatose condition, I would probably be promising myself that I’d give up for years to come – perhaps even confirming Stuart’s belief that I’d never pack it in. The incendiary device itself would arrive just a few days later and would come from the most unexpected source…

20. The Magic of Television

With my career in limbo, health undermined and a sense of growing dissatisfaction with my parenting skills; I had very little faith things could possibly improve. Despondent and unable to see a way forwards, I reflected on the Prairie Home Companion debate Joe Morrit and I had been involved with at school and knew with certainty the shores of Lake Wobegon were never further away. I badly needed some kind of break, a smattering of good fortune. Pennie had long convinced me of the importance of luck and I felt it was about time that I received some of it. Given that none of the big prize competitions I was entering or the multitude of lottery tickets I was wasting my money on seemed likely to improve the situation; I started to look for other get rich quick schemes to transform the sorry mess I was in.

Although I’d never been bewitched by fame or celebrity status in the way my new mate Nigel Flitton was, I’d always been interested in the performing arts. While I wasn’t happy taking centre stage, I had in recent years developed a growing level of confidence by presenting training courses. So, totally out of character, I trawled through the internet, in search of cerebral TV quiz shows which offered contestants the potential to win a large cash prize. Pokerface was one such show. This was a new programme where contestants were judged on their ability to keep their cool and bluff others into thinking they were telling the truth. I enjoyed watching the pilot show and really fancied my chances.  If I retained my composure, I could win one million pounds, the largest sum available on British TV. Perhaps this would be my Andy Warhol Moment – my fifteen minutes of fame. This could be the perfect vehicle to help me deliver the dormant dream still nestled inside following my boyhood encounter with little Jimmy Clitheroe. Here may be my opportunity to capture a fraction of the admiration and applause which the entertainer had once been given. I failed to appreciate, that ambitions propelled by a dwarf in a caravan who died of an overdose of sleeping pills on the day of his mothers’ funeral, were unlikely to yield the best results.

Casting aside the remains of my final Prozac bottle, I settled down to complete the application form with all the conviction of a man who had less than nothing to lose. Unfortunately, when filling it in, I probably tried a bit too hard to be quirky – when asked ‘Does anything frighten you?’ instead of putting ‘No’, I responded with – ‘Yes – old claustrophobic black and white movies about submarines’. Similarly, in response to a question about unusual talents, I answered ‘I am a proficient ear wiggler and have finely tuned listening skills (nb these are unrelated)’.

Miraculously, one month later I received a call from a production company called Talkback Thames TV,

“Mr Mellor? Charlie Mellor? Good afternoon. I’m calling you from Talkback,” the voice said in a crisp southern accent.

“The makers of Pokerface?” I asked

“That’s right – it’s to do with the application you kindly submitted. Do you have a minute?”

“Of course – however long you need, as you know from my application; I’m ‘all ears’,” I said.

“Ha, yes absolutely. The thing is, we really liked your application Mr Mellor, but when positioned next to other potential candidates for Pokerface; we felt that yours was … well, more suited to another show currently in production.

“If you’re interested in participating in this alternative show, you would need to find a friend or partner who was prepared to appear alongside you. Do you think this is something you’d be able to do Mr Mellor?”

“Yes, yes – definitely. I’m blown away you’ve contacted me. Whatever it is I’ll do it – and don’t worry I know lots of people who’d be interested in taking part in a television show,” I said

Wow, positive feedback. I was pleased I’d captured their imagination with my application, and intrigued about what precisely had catapulted my submission to the top of the pile for this other exciting programme.

“I’m delighted you feel this way. Any potential partner would have to apply in the same way you did, so I can’t guarantee you will be on the show until we have assessed their suitability, however subject to the usual checks, I see no reason why this should be a problem.”

“Thank so much. One quick question before you go, what’s the name of the actual show?” I asked.

“We’re re-launching the much-loved Supermarket Sweep and I’m delighted to say you’ve been recommended to be one of the first contestants to appear on an updated version of this iconic show,” she said with genuine pride, before adding, “So do I take it, you would like me to progress with your application Mr Mellor…”

It turned out I’d been shortlisted to appear as a contestant on one of the UK’s most awful cheesy programmes (dictionary definition: – cheap, unpleasant or blatantly inauthentic). The news was a real let down. This show didn’t have quite the same prestige as a Saturday night slot hosted by Ant and Dec. Originally created in the States, Sweep was about as low brow as you could possibly get – nestled comfortably alongside other daytime lovelies like The Jeremy Kyle Show and Loose Women. The only people interested in it were fans of kitsch TV, students, bored housewives and devotees of its rather affected host Dale Winton. The more I thought about it, the more I realised the game show sounded uncannily like the one we’d all ridiculed that afternoon stuck in a non-smoking hotel room in Sheffield. This wasn’t the twist of fate I had been expecting.

During each edition, three pairs of seemingly mentally challenged contestants attempt to earn as much time on their clocks as possible by answering astonishingly easy questions about food products and general knowledge. Time accrued in the earlier rounds can later be used for the big supermarket sweep, where one member of each team goes ‘wild in the aisles[7]’ trying to ram as many supermarket goodies as they can into their trolleys. The value of the goods in the trolley ultimately decides who wins the show and will later be allowed to play for a ‘big money’ bonus prize. Now I wasn’t sure exactly how much cash this was, but imagined it would be slightly less than the one million pounds up for grabs on Pokerface.

Pressed for a decision about whether I’d like to proceed, I paused for a minute to wonder what had made them think, ...ahh, nice application, but he’s clearly much more suited to outrageously camp, mindless daytime slush aimed at people with too much time on their hands. However, still seduced by the possibility of a ‘big money prize’, I easily justified my potential involvement by telling myself I would present a kind of anarchic parody of a contestant. My intention was to outsmart the producers. If I made it onto the programme I would be the antithesis of their typical game show participant. Notwithstanding, I was approaching my mid-forties, the whole experience would be like being a student again, an exercise drenched in irony and black humour.

This was exciting! There was a strong possibility I was actually going to be on the telly. All I needed was one person to appear with me. I wasn’t at all surprised when my wife said a flat and immovable, “NEVER!” to the whole idea. I should have listened, but manacled to my own madness, I then phoned Nigel in Margate who I knew was enthralled by celebrity culture. Before I’d finished explaining what the show was about, Nigel was fully on board and emailing me his most PR friendly photograph, to submit for approval to the production team. Box ticked.

The week between Christmas and New Year in 2006, we received written notification that we’d been booked to appear on Supermarket Sweep and would be required for one day’s filming during the second week in January. Although we were pleased to have been selected, we were surprised at just how soon they needed us. Conscious of how washed out I looked, I decided to take an enforced break from Pennie, at least until after we’d been on the show. I still hadn’t found a compelling enough reason to give up smoking, but somehow managed to convince myself I needed to resist my strongest temptation in order to maximise my performance on the impending show. For some reason this crummy production seemed important.

The next two spliff-free weeks, anxiously waiting to travel to the studios, were hell. Stressed beyond belief, I saw flaws in everything and was grouchy with the whole family. Ironically, by struggling so hard to manage my own temperament, I hardly had time to think about what we would actually need to do once we’d arrived on set. In fact with only eight days to go it was difficult to consider very much without first addressing the years of accumulated detritus which filled my mind.

To make matters worse, it was impossible to avoid all the media coverage devoted to the programme. While the original show had been axed years ago, old episodes were still being repeated and so it remained something of a cult-hit. ITV had therefore taken a gamble and brought it back, along with its original super-tanned ‘gay icon’ presenter Dale Winton. The new ‘high profile’ version was heavily advertised and had been upgraded from its old daytime wilderness scheduling to a primetime 5:30 p.m. slot. On the week before Nigel and I were due to take part, Chris Moyles, Tony Blackburn, Bonnie Langford, Vic Reeves and Vanessa Feltz were all booked to launch the new format through a week of celebrity based shows. I should’ve read the warning signs.

Dale Winton, explaining why this new incarnation of his beloved show was back, said to the Metro newspaper “I love doing this show because it’s ever so slightly, almost on the verge, of being conspicuously camp. In fact, come to think of it the only truly butch thing in the show is me!”

On the face of it, what happens next begins like the introduction to a Danny Boyle movie; except that my own date with destiny would have no happy ending, contain no morality tale and definitely wouldn’t feature any romantic sub-plots. Instead of lifting me up, fortifying my soul and providing a platform for long term happiness; this particular production would, by contrast, turn out to be one of the most depressing days I’d ever encounter.

On Monday January 10 2007, Nigel and I arrived at Maidstone Studios in Kent. We were both a little apprehensive about what lay ahead. Following a whirlwind tour of its impressive studios the two of us sat around drinking as many varieties of caffeinated products as we could get our trembling hands on. After what seemed like hours waiting around, we were provided with a brief glimpse of the mock Supermarket set, where an epic contest of gladiatorial proportions would soon be played out. It was at this point I realised I was in big trouble. I knew nothing about supermarkets or about shopping for food. I didn’t know the price of groceries and certainly wouldn’t know where to begin looking for specific products. For over forty years I’d managed to skilfully evade the responsibility of purchasing my own food and instead had relied on the kindness of others to perform this most basic of functions. Now, here I was, about to be judged on my ability to provide insights and observations on a range of everyday grocery items, the very subject I knew nothing whatsoever about.

To make matters worse, there were no rehearsals prior to the filming of the show. Instead Nigel, me and four other reluctant contestants were told to huddle together in silence, out of sight of the cameras. When signalled, we were expected to bolt from behind the scenery onto the set, waving our arms madly above our heads, navigating past the fake breakfast cereal boxes while carefully avoiding the labyrinth of power cables underfoot. Then, under the glare of the blinding studio lights we were to make our way over to the dominating central podium located in the middle of the studio. There was a lot to take on board and by now I was absolutely bricking it. Just what had I got myself involved with?

Although it was Pennie who’d encouraged me to take part, it had been a couple of weeks since we’d been in touch and as a result, I was craving her companionship. Just one bloody good toke from a chunky spliff would I thought, be enough to get me through this unbearable afternoon. As more and more prescriptive instructions followed from an overbearing production team, any residual common sense I had left, welled up inside to alert me to the humongous error I was making by participating in the show, drug-free. Regret is usually experienced after something has happened, but on this day, it happened simultaneously with the event itself. The easiest way of explaining this feeling is to think about the sensation you go through when you’re driving a brand new car and make a move to overtake a random lorry up ahead. You pull out and begin to accelerate, only to discover the lorry is gritting the road and you are now being pelted with small sharp stones which are busy bouncing off your bonnet and windscreen. With vehicles speeding behind you, it is too late to decelerate, so wishing you had never initiated the move, you clench your teeth, fix your eyes ahead and plough on as quickly as you can.

Buddhists believe ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will always appear’. I’d imagined if I was ever fortunate enough to encounter such a sage, my guru would be some bearded old man, full of profound wisdom which could bring about personal enlightenment – someone a bit like Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid films. Little did I know this was the day I’d discover just how accurate that Buddhist saying was. Such individuals DID materialise when you were ready to hear their messages; however the mysterious stranger who would lead me to a higher level of awareness, turned out to be as diametrically opposed to my idealised image of a mentor as I could ever imagine.

Host Dale Winton flamboyantly arrived on set, flanked by a posse of nodding assistants. Although he was personable enough, he appeared to be a little distracted, so star-struck Nigel bravely attempted to break the ice with an innocuous comment.

“You will be gentle with us Dale, won’t you?”

To which our host countered in the campest voice imaginable, “Only if you two handsome fellas are going to be really ROUGH with me.”

Oh… my… God.

The speed of Dale’s amplified response was enough to send the sizable studio audience into fits of laughter, which in turn made me long for Pennie even more. For the briefest moment (before the next tsunami of paralyzing fear engulfed me), I was conscious that Nigel and I may be perceived as some kind of aging camp couple, taking part on the show just to spend time with our hero Dale. This worry was like being consumed by an unexpected eruption of homophobia which took over for a (small-minded) nanosecond and felt shamefully unpleasant. Hell, I had a gay sister and gay friends but was now all of a sudden concerned about how my sexuality was being perceived. Before I had time to reaffirm my respect for all sexual preferences; a natty young production assistant waltzed over clutching two rather fetching baby pink matching sweatshirts for us to change into.

Next thing I knew the signal was given to run onto the set wearing our snappy clothing along with our best sugary smile. Cue gaudy music and the announcement to, “Fill those trolleys because shopping has never been so much fun”. We all ran over to the contestants’ podium, jostling for position like real life shoppers during the opening hour of the Next sale. My mind began to whirr... podium... podium, hold on wasn’t this linked to one of the Rubie Deramore  predictions

“I can clearly see you stood on a podium, in front of lots of people under the glare of bright lights.” Was this the pivotal day foretold?

I just about managed to flash a few mechanical grimaces across to our wrinkle-free anchor-man before the next landslide realisation, that many of the viewers watching this primetime programme would be my friends, my family as well as the remains of a rapidly diminishing customer base. Every one of them would soon be able to witness me running around the studio looking for fake tins of baked beans and evaporated milk. What would they think? What had possessed me to get involved? Why on earth was I putting myself through this? What does a tin of evaporated milk look like?

As soon as we’d settled into our designated places, Camera 1 glided along its well-oiled trolley track scanning the assembled row of contestants, before stopping right in front of me, no more than an arm’s length from my fretful face. Under the critical gaze of this camera, I was powerless to adjust a thing. Experiencing the greatest pressure I had ever known, there was nowhere in the world I wanted to be less.

Then, at this almost unbearable moment, something happened. I was overcome by a palpable sensation. It was as if some kind of internal recalibration was suddenly taking place. At this tipping point, the chaos around me started to fade away – the sense of exposure, the manic production team and the hysterical audience. Every single distraction was pushed into the background as I focused solely on the sizable camera which was obscuring my vision. Hypnotised by this monument to Japanese optical engineering, I looked straight at its gleaming convex lens and unexpectedly caught a glimpse of my own reflection.

This was the closest my well-worn eyes had ever been to seeing the person I had become. Shocked by the barely recognisable face looking back at me, I was presented with a razor sharp picture of the lifeless, lonely little man I had evolved into. This wasn’t easy viewing. Without the distracting presence of my unreliable companion, I was forced to consider how others might perceive me. For the first time since Pennie had ensnared me, I dared to recognise the compound effect of having her around. During this moribund moment of unpalatable clarity; I had no option but to accept the inescapable conclusion:  that I was in too deep and my life had become unmanageable.

I was therefore still in a daze when the expressionless Mr Winton asked his opening question. I’d been expecting us all to introduce ourselves at the beginning of the show and so was totally shocked by this requirement to use our brains. Unfortunately for me, bright spark Nigel immediately stepped up, pressed his buzzer and got the answer right. This meant before I had time to collect any of my levelling thoughts, I had to run what was called the Mini Sweep[7]. To secure cherished bonus seconds, I was expected to dart around the studio flanked by a roaming cameraman while the easy-to-please audience watched me frantically search for a mystery object which had been hidden on one of the shelves. Contestant savvy Dale, picking up on my vacuous expression reminded me of what was expected:

“Charlie, are you ready to go wild in the aisles to find the... hairdryer?”

Huh?  I thought.

On the televised edition you can literally see the remaining colour draining away from my skin and my eyes blinking rapidly in an involuntary manner. Now I really was in trouble. The look of total dread which covered my face revealed I hadn’t got a clue what our host was talking about. Dale gave it one more go, his voice becoming audibly more impatient with me.

“Charlie if you get this in the next thirty seconds not only will I give you ten seconds extra but I will also give you £50 – now, are you ready?”

I was barely audible as I hesitantly mumbled, “Re-e-dddiee.”

Next thing I knew a piercing siren was activated and I was sprinting in a directionless manner down one of the pretend supermarket isles, while Dale and the other contestants screamed a confusing mixture of instruction and laughter at me. What was I supposed to be doing? All I could think about was how tight the brand new trainers were on my feet and for a good ten seconds actually forgot what I was looking for. Fortunately many of the studio audience were more clued-up and behind Dale’s back helpful onlookers gestured the best way for me to find the bloody thing. Replica hairdryer now proudly clutched in hand, I rushed back with seconds to spare and obediently handed to him. I must have looked like a nine-year-old boy who’d just passed his cycling proficiency test, chomping at the bit to show his parents the certificate.

Stood by his side, more humiliations followed as Dale looked straight at the camera and with one eyebrow arched, wryly said, “ I’m not surprised he didn’t know where it was – I don’t suppose he uses one of these very often these days, do you viewer?”

I was then given the right to reply, as the camera was turned towards me hoping to capture a humorous response to Dale’s quip. However still breathless, I was unable to summon up a single word and simply acquiesced by dipping my head and rubbing my receding hairline. This was no place for flamboyant gestures, for making fun of my own failings or for parading all the peculiar peccadilloes which the unscrupulous Pennie Fenton had encouraged me to share. No this was serious.

Following this whirlwind of an opening, Dale slowed things down a bit and returned to the podium to find out a little bit more about each of his contestants. Although charming, his memory was only marginally more effective than my own, regularly mixing up key details about each of the individuals in front of him. Nigel and I were inaccurately described as best friends - both born and bred in Scunthorpe – a place which, according to Dale, “Gets lots of stick but isn’t as bad as everyone makes out.”

I’m sure a massive sense of relief swept over the town’s population on hearing this magnanimous assessment. Other abasements came thick and fast, “Charlie, I understand you are a trainee manager...” he said.

Now, still conscious that many of my clients may one day see this program, I felt I had to interject at this misrepresentation. I’d let the ‘born and bred in Scunthorpe’ and the ‘best friends with Nigel’ bits go without a murmur, but thought there was no way I could appear on national TV show and position myself as some kind of youth apprentice.

So I interrupted our host, practically shouting, “TRAINING–ING Dale, TRAININ-ING …ING… ING, NOT TRAINEE!” at him.

In response to my brusque correction, Dale looked rather unsettled. Giving me the cold shoulder, he shuffled his prompt cards and moved swiftly towards the next contestant.

Tedious introductions finally over, it was onto a number of high pressure quick-fire buzzer rounds. Here we were each asked a series of tasking questions such as, “Contestants, the main ingredient of hollandaise sauce is cheese - true or false?” or, “I’m now looking for a French word which begins with the letter ‘S’  and means all puffed up.”

Parking our acute embarrassment, Nigel and I bumbled our way through these rounds answering most of the banal questions correctly. By the half-way mark, we’d even crept into pole position. Motivated by a forty second advantage which we’d gained over the other contestants, Nigel volunteered to represent us in the Trolley Dash[7]. This was effectively the knockout round, where only one team could progress into the ‘big finale’. Fortunately for us, Nigel was like a gazelle that afternoon and skated around the studio set like Christopher Dean at the Nottingham ice rink. In the three minutes, forty seconds we were allowed, he filled a total of four shopping trollies, all brimming with high value items.

As the commentator observed, “It’s Nigel we’re panning to now, who’s comfortably in front as he piles into those nappies with a fine sense of purpose.”

With all the extra time he had to play with and with such dedication to the cause, it was virtually impossible for the other contestants to catch up with him and, as a result, a hollow victory was ours.

Applauded as Dale’s champions we were then offered the opportunity to go for the final Big Money Super Sweep[7] with the possibility of winning £5000.  Here was the only point in the show when we could have emerged with any dignity. Unsurprisingly we totally blew it. Away from the protection of the podium and forced back in front of that single probing camera lens, we crumbled. For me, that bastard of a camera had defeated me the instant it moved into position at the start of the show; so being called up to be measured by it again made me impossibly tense. As we were approaching the end of a knackering four hours filming Nigel and I were all too easily mesmerised by the (not too cryptic) cryptic clues. Replicating all the behaviours of every contestant we’d ever ridiculed for appearing on daytime TV, we spent far too long over-interpreting what each of the easy-peasy messages meant.

To compensate for the agonising silences which followed, our lugubrious commentator summed it up by interjecting with, “Charlie did the Mini Sweep and Nigel a fine job with the Trolley Dash – so they should know their way around, but all of a sudden they both seem to be at a total loss...” We were.

Failing the task, Dale provided his perfunctory commiserations, as the studio audience half-heartedly slow-clapped in the same sympathetic way parents do when watching the very last child cross the 100 metre finishing line on sports day.

Before we left the studios, as defeated champions, we were presented with a cheque for half of the amount of the shopping accumulated in our shopping trollies. While we’d effortlessly imploded during our attempts to win the ‘big money prize’, we were still entitled to take home the value of the goods collected during filming. We were each paid a paltry £132. It was a fraction of the money I could have earned by working that day, just less than the cost of the new trainers and return rail ticket to Maidstone and much, much less than the Pokerface prize I’d originally been attracted to. £132, not quite enough to transform my fortunes or regain any of my self-respect.

21. Past Tense

Supermarket Sweep was a watershed in so many ways. Slouched in my saver-return economy rail seat the next morning, was the first time I remember being pleased to see signs for Scunthorpe, the first occasion I truly felt almost home. Something had changed, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what. All I knew was that I wasn’t the same person who’d travelled down to Kent the day before. It was as if by admitting my inability to cope, I had released myself from the need to demonstrate I could.

I felt very low for at least a week after my return and found it uncomfortable to talk about the experience with my family, who were all desperate to hear about every aspect of the trip.

“Please don’t ask about it, just thinking about it makes me feel ashamed and humiliated,” I’d say.

“But why, what happened?” asked Annie.

“Let’s just say I would put the day near the very top of my all-time worst experiences.”

In my mind, I had been flattened by a giant metaphorical shopping trolley pushed by a ludicrously camp television presenter with a penchant for sunbeds.

Still, it was fascinating to acknowledge the contrast in Nigel’s reactions to filming the show. On his return Nigel told Natasha, “It was one of the best days of my life, one which I’d gladly repeat over and over again.”

Nigel had revelled in the experience and was thrilled to have been provided with a rich collection of anecdotes which could be liberally shared with others. He was eagerly awaiting the screening of the programme, while I prayed to God it would never be broadcast.

Fundamentally, I believed I’d let myself down. It was something I should never have elected to do. Nerves had got the better of me and more than ever before, I felt overwhelmed by the world around me. This sorry episode represented the loss of self-respect, the death of dignity, the shameful experience I’d much rather forget. The problem was - no one would let me. Everyone I bumped into was captivated by news of the trip.

“What exactly happened?”

“What was Dale like?”

“Do you get to keep the shopping?”

“Did they pay for the hotel?”

Parents at the school gate wanted to know how much I had won. Faye called to say her nan was a big fan of the show and asked if I would phone her to talk about it. Clients had heard about my appearance and were planning to record the show. Please make it all stop.

A small proportion of episodes were screened almost immediately, but as we weren’t informed when our particular edition would be broadcast, Nigel and I were constantly reorganising our days to make sure we didn’t miss an episode. Never knowing if or when we would be on the telly was like waiting in purgatory. Then, just as it was becoming increasingly likely our show was about to be aired; the series was unexpectedly taken off the air and replaced with a cookery programme. While this news brought some temporary relief, the uncertainty surrounding whether it was ever coming back left me even more in a state of limbo. With no future screening date determined, I was unable to put the programme behind me or move on. Hanging in the balance, I was forced me to examine why it was I’d felt so unnatural the day.

It didn’t take long to conclude the reason for my poor performance was because of my fixation with Pennie. This alone was to blame. This was the cause of my disappointment, the sole reason I looked like death-cooled-down in front of the cameras. Sensing I’d arrived at a conclusion which every fibre of my being knew to be true, I decided this was the perfect time to stand up to my addiction. One small promise made to myself and I knew with unswerving certainty that while it wouldn’t be easy, I would never smoke again.

Then, the disturbing realisation, that after countless attempts, clever strategies and broken commitments; the shatterproof heart of the matter was it had taken a chance encounter with the positively luminous Dale Winton to give me the impetus I needed to finally put an end my relationship with Pennie. Supermarket Sweep had revealed just how little I was capable of and highlighted the shallowness of the water I was splashing in. I had definitely been shaken when Hattie had discovered my filthy little secret, but in the end, all it took to overcome my fully loaded juggernaut of genetic disposition towards dependency was, it turns out, the cheesiest of daytime television shows.

Funny that history is littered with horror stories about wannabe celebrities whose lives are destroyed by their longing to be under the spotlight of fame. I was certainly no Icarus in the making. My own fifteen minutes of shame was transformational, but mainly because it provided me with a pivotal experience. It helped to halt my harmful habit by giving me the emphatic line in the sand I needed. Right up until the trip to Maidstone Studios I’d tended to feel a little helpless about my inability to make a permanent and irreversible decision to stop smoking. For years I hid behind the old Mark Twain adage. Stopping smoking temporarily was indeed very easy. The difficulty was making the temporary cessation permanent. I’m sure this is what all addicts struggle with. I’d tried many times to stop, using every possible mechanism to assist – acupuncture, cold turkey, garden fences, roadside grills, but would always fold. What was really needed was actually quite simple. None of the questionable techniques would ever help without it. Basically for anyone to stop anything, the desire to stop must be greater than the desire to continue.

In the past I’d encountered the odd spell, when the scales were balanced in favour of wanting to stop and so I would manage to do so for a few days. Inevitably the variation between wanting and not wanting was usually so minimal that I always went back to smoking, especially during times of duress. What the cringe-worthy Sweep had provided me with, was a really strong and permanent reminder of how I never wanted to feel again. Instead of winning a big cash prize, I had taken home a single notorious memory, one which would resonate so deeply, it would be impossible to ignore. From that point onwards, my desire to stop would forever exceed the powerful inclination to get trashed and a knowingness of this provided me with immense relief. In the words of recovering alcoholic Anthony Hopkins, “When I look back I think I was so lucky to get out of that one. It was all about fear and horror. Definitely the horror - going down the plughole[8].”

Hopkins exit from ‘the plughole’ sounded splendid; apparently he enjoyed an epiphany, a ‘golden voice’ calling from his subconscious which made it clear he must stop drinking. According to the actor, he heard the voice from within and that was it, within one day it was all over. “The best part of myself, my subconscious, came to rescue me[8].” Lucky old Sir Anthony! My own visionary voice came from well outside of me and instead of it being golden in colour, it was more of a dayglo orange to match the perma-tanned Mr Winton.

Sadly, there was no Hollywood style ending for me. Supermarket Sweep wasn’t so much an epiphany, as a circus mirror, raised by an over-the-top host in order to reveal my own disfigured reflection. While the show provided the impetus to improve myself; all the hard work required to achieve this was still very much in front of me. Occupying the back room for so long had squeezed the juice out of me. My eagerly anticipated journey to Temperance Alley was therefore never going to be the easy ride I’d hoped for. Instead, it proved to be an incredibly bumpy passage, an arduous trip which seemed to last forever.

So instead of Sweep being a conclusion to the hero’s journey, a courageous tale where our protagonist struggles, fights and then defeats all adversaries; things got much worse for quite some time. Restitution was a long way off. Rather than being elated with my new found freedom, I was filled with an overwhelming sense that I’d been left with a whopping debt, one which would be impossible to ever repay. I’d assumed sending Poison Pen packing would miraculously lift my spirits, transform my mental dexterity and improve my health and sociability. Instead, I found the twelve months after Supermarket Sweep to be much more testing than all the years in which I’d succumbed to her charms. Ignoring the sirens call during 2007 was gruelling and not the instant panacea I’d hoped for. While I relentlessly reminded myself about the dangers of relapsing; the niggling potential to do so always unnerved me. February to May was especially tough. All I knew for certain was that I was determined not to return to the wretched situation of the last few years, no matter what sacrifices needed to be made. Maybe it would take years before I would become more relaxed, more at ease, more in charge of the demands I placed on myself.

I’d known Pennie for the best part of thirty years and spent the worst part of ten of them obsessing about nothing but her. After Sweep, I substituted my former monomaniacal dedication to her with a monomaniacal insistence that I should never think about her. Both were approached with equal vigour, each one as exhausting as the other. I was very hard on myself and others during this time. I was scared to drink alcohol in case it lowered my resolve, so I pulled away from socialising of any kind to avoid temptation. Filled with self-loathing, I despised who I’d been and resented all the time and opportunities I had wasted. In order to shake off the legacy of my narcissistic ways, it was evident I needed to distract myself - with anything other than the enormous nothingness I’d been trying to fill using cannabis.

Inflexibility became my new failing. Perhaps my latest defining habit, as I learned to replace one set of repetitive thought patterns with another. While one of the main motivators for cleaning up my act was to be a better father to my children; my emerging stubbornness made me rattier and more controlling with them than I’d ever been before. In particular, my intractable approach infuriated Hattie, who’d always enjoyed challenging the boundaries others attempted to impose.

By 2008, Hattie’s behaviour had deteriorated to the point where she was practically unrecognisable from the loving and lovable young girl we had raised. While much of her hostility was pointed at me, other family members and school friends encountered the full force of her rage against the machine. Her final year of school was turning out to be a complete disaster. In the most important year of her education, Annie and I were summoned back and forth on a weekly basis to see her teachers and headmaster. At these meetings we would hear how the school was at a loss to find any effective sanctions to combat Hattie’s rude and aggressive behaviour. We were shown evidence of unauthorised absences, coursework not completed and dilatory attempts at important examination papers. The headmaster confirmed in all his years in teaching he had never seen anyone so deliberately intent on pressing the self-destruct button. Listening to the school’s concerns, I remember just feeling tremendously sorry for Hattie. How had she become so detached and isolated from everyone that cared for her? Despite her recklessness, it was unequivocal our daughter desperately needed help. The problem was that we were starting to feel as impotent as her school as Hattie continued to reject every attempt to understand what was going on. Annie and I remained united in our efforts, but Hattie pushed every button in her efforts to fracture our joint resolve. This real life situation was scarier than all the fantasised emotions I’d ever created for myself.

One teatime, notable because all six of us were sitting down together without conflict, the family reminisced about the annual summer holidays we’d shared. We reflected on a game we enjoyed playing while lazing around the poolside, where we would each take turns to ask questions about each other’s preferences.

“If you could be one animal, what would it be and why?’ or ‘What is the tastiest meal you’ve ever had?”

On this particular mealtime Toby suggested we should play the game again, but proposed a slightly more intrusive enquiry

“On a scale of 1-10 where would you put yourself in terms of how nice a person you think you are?”

Most of us rated ourselves a 7 or 8. Annie modestly put herself as a 7, while I insisted she should rate herself much higher. When it came round to Hattie’s turn, she thought long and hard about her answer and then without a hint of self-depreciation stated that she saw herself as a 2, adding, “You know and I know that I’m just not a very nice person”.

She was incredibly resolute about her evaluation and quite matter of fact about the reasons why. She didn’t appear to be saying this for attention or for sympathy, but instead because she really thought she wasn’t a good person. It was bad enough that others may have disapproved of some of her more destructive behaviours, but for Hattie to think so little of herself was agonising.

Just before the start of her GCSE exams in 2009, a pattern had emerged where she would come home from school, start an argument with someone and then disappear for the night without explanation. Occasionally we would get a call from her, but usually we had no idea where she was staying. I spent endless nights driving round dodgy Scunthorpe streets searching in vain for my unruly daughter. I would scour unlit parks, trawl street corners and end up knocking on her former friend’s doors in the hope that I could track Hattie down and bring her home. During these awful nights I would occasionally pick up rumours that she was staying up all night getting drunk with various unsavoury lads.

Sometimes if Hattie did return home to pick up some clothes, I would race up to her bedroom while she was downstairs, pinch her phone and then sneak a look at her text messages in an attempt to find out what was going on. Every time I wished I hadn’t. As a father, these grubby communications were usually so unsavoury, so vile that I’d be compelled to delete them all, knowing that this intrusion would only further incense my daughter. Worried about her wellbeing, I also hunted around her room in search of her treasured diary in a desperate bid to discover the cause of her unhappiness.

Unfortunately when I did find the diary, the contents verified things I didn’t want to consider. Although it was less debase than those sordid texts, it did reveal the thoughts of a lonely girl with a high level of self-awareness:

‘I hate school and being teased for hanging around with lads.’

‘ ...when I was little I used to get so upset if a teacher was to tell me off...but now it doesn’t bother me. I almost wish that it did so that I don’t get into as much trouble.’

‘This is a really difficult time for me... so I skip lessons and get shit-faced as often as I can. Even I can see that my school work has suffered because of all the drinking...’

Reading her handwritten notes took me back to my own teenage adventures with Lucy Drew and her wayward friend Bronwen. It hadn’t been a surprise to hear that Bronwen had been expelled from school, only months before she was due to take her A-levels. I wondered what she would be like now and if she had continued with her rebellious ways. Would she, for example be pleased to discover she had unknowingly provided me with a future-glimpse of the horrors I would one day face with my own teenage daughter? Back in ’79, I always thought Bron put the ‘fun’ into dysfunctional. All I witnessed was an arm’s length observation into one of the schools most troubled souls. If I’m honest, I’d always enjoyed her company and had a laugh watching her attempts to get wasted. It was funny that she was never without a bottle of vodka in her schoolbag.

Thirty jaded years later and freed from Pennie’s clutches, I had become far more sensitised to such ruinous behaviours. Observed through the lens of a middle aged parent, I was now able to reinterpret Bronwen’s actions as a muffled call for help – the same cry being made by my own teenage daughter who was demonstrating identical destructive tendencies. The more similarities I found, the more I began to appreciate my greatest fear wasn’t actually life without Pennie, instead it was a fear my children might be deprived of the future they deserved because of my past.

Saying nothing to Hattie about my old school days, I began to question the judgements I’d been making about her lifestyle and tried as hard as I could to be more encouraging and understanding. Annie, intuitive as ever, sensed a slight change in my mind-set and suggested that Hattie and I should spend some time together away from the familiar battleground of the house. Hattie reluctantly agreed to a meal at her favourite childhood restaurant and for a couple of hours we sat at ease in each other’s company. It was the most relaxed we’d been in years. On the way home, detecting a greater receptivity, I admitted there were many times when I’d been too hard on her, too vigilant and too ready to pounce. I recognised we were very similar and that I was inclined to be rather heavy handed with her and clumsy with my advice. I went on to explain about my concerns for her and talked without reservation about the dangers of addiction. I openly discussed losing my mother, her personal struggles with guilt and the role that alcohol had played in her decline. I was very candid about her last days living in sheltered accommodation, alone and disconnected. As we talked, I pointed out it was possible to inherit conditions from relatives which could put you at risk of dependency. To my astonishment Hattie listened carefully and seemed very keen to hear what I was saying. Discussing someone she knew seemed to make it easier for her to digest. That night I went to bed and mulled over how well it had all gone. Early days, but I could swear we’d shared a moment in the conversation, when we both recognised that she didn’t actually enjoy the chaotic life she had created for herself.

The next morning Hattie joined Annie and I for breakfast and calmly delivered the thunderbolt that she was three months pregnant and was going to keep the baby. This one short sentence was impossible to take in. Our sixteen year old girl pregnant with an unplanned child. Apparently the father wasn’t even her boyfriend, just some older Turkish bloke with a dubious reputation who took her out drinking every so often. This truly was every parent’s worst nightmare. While Annie cried the tears of a traumatised mother; I steamrollered my way through the entire emotional spectrum feeling angry, annoyed, worried, disappointed, hurt, concerned, helpless and most of all tremendously sad. So much for me thinking life without Pennie Fenton was going to be an easier ride.

Hattie continued to be a little temperamental in the months that followed, although impending motherhood did have a significant dampening effect on her vitriol as she was forced to stop drinking and spent most of her time at home. As a result all the family devoted most of the next six months trying to rebuild her confidence. It was clear that she had lost a lot of faith in herself and was questioning her ability to be a good parent. I explained to her that everyone needed to talk, to communicate and share their doubts in order to move forwards.

Hattie confessed to Annie that she sometimes felt worthless. She was scared of the responsibilities of adulthood and she saw no point in planning for a future which she believed she had little influence over. As she revealed more of her concerns I picked up she’d become exceedingly fatalistic, branding herself one of life’s ‘unlucky people’. The more I heard, the more I recognised parallels with some of my old responses. This alarmed me greatly because I knew that the Pennie Fenton’s of this world loved a bit of melancholy and were especially attracted to an attitude of abdication. While I’d never overtly mentioned my dependency to Hattie, I emphasised the importance of accepting personal responsibility for what happens to you in life. I spoke with all the conviction of someone who finally knew this to be true. I suggested to Hattie that her late great-nan may have been right all along when she said “In the colossal battle between fate and freewill you have to invest more heavily in freewill for any chance of happiness”.

22. As I See It Now

Early 2010, I received an call from Kirsty telling me she was sitting at home watching me on... Supermarket Sweep. She’d been secretly reviewing every edition of the show which had been transferred to Sky TV. For eighteen months she’d patiently recorded every daily broadcast and checked to see who was on, before wiping it from her hard-drive. All in the hope she would see her brother and his mate disgracing themselves on national telly. It turns out she wasn’t disappointed. On this particular afternoon, she’d nestled down as she always did with a cup of sweet tea in one hand, freshly rolled spliff in the other, flicked through the recorded episode to see if she recognised any of the contestants, before preparing to erase yet another superfluous thirty minutes of space on her Sky+ box. Holding the remote she was habitually positioned ready to press the delete button with her elevated thumb, when she was unexpectedly greeted by the two familiar faces she’d spent so long waiting to see.

Receipt of her call was like hearing your wife has gone into labour seven months into a difficult pregnancy. Everything stopped and almost before our conversation had finished, I was inside the car revving the engine, ready to drive to Yorkshire. Within an hour I was sitting at my sister’s side head in hands, jaw hanging, as we watched the show in stunned silence. It was like observing a low budget slasher film played out in slow motion. Each gruesome frame providing physical evidence of my near-lifelessness.

In retrospect, I’m pleased the programme took so long to be aired. I probably wasn’t up to reliving the emotional intensity of the day any sooner. It was obvious to anyone who had the misfortune to see the show that I was weary and uninterested. My eyes lacked any life in the same way my responses to the questions lacked any humour. It was not easy viewing.

Later, Annie admitted she’d struggled to recognise me. “It was like watching someone else’s husband on the screen,” she said.

If ever anyone needed reminding of the dangers of indulgence – here it was. A prudent warning to those who think they can get away with burning the proverbial resin block at both ends.

Witnessing my Warhol Moment helped me to reflect on progress made. The weeks immediately following the filming of this debacle had felt cold and grey, as if I was grieving for an imaginary playmate. After a month or so, I had been in denial and seriously wished I’d never been introduced to cannabis; then I’d started to blame myself for being too easily led. Next came an overwhelming sense of anger and hostility directed towards anything to do with the drug and this was later followed by a long period where I’d felt absolutely nothing at all. It wasn’t until at least twelve months had passed, that I’d started to feel any sense of relief. Finally getting to see the programme, three long years after it was filmed helped me to recognise that I had moved on a little since that landmark adventure; that I’d begun to let go and get on with living.

Fast forward to the present day and you could mistakenly think I’ve been very fortunate – after all I seem to have got away with making all those withdrawals from the Bank of Fenton plc, relatively unscathed. Looking down to inspect the fleshy part of my thumbs there are no scars, no evidence of the many blisters once there. I don’t slur my words or have the jitters. There is no erratic behaviour or impaired motor functioning. I’m not undernourished like someone on the mend from an all-consuming narcotic addiction. Nor have I experienced financial devastation or homelessness as a result of letting myself slip. Work has even picked up again. At first glance, I appear to be the little lad who stole toys from the village store and never got caught.

However closer inspection reveals there have been consequences.

The onset of middle age means you inevitably slow down, but I suspect my appetite for indulgence has contributed to a far steeper decline- both in energy levels and willingness to grab life by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. It remains harder to focus on anything for long periods of time and, as a result, ambitions for the future have become considerably less stretching. While it is true many of these impairments have improved since I stopped smoking, there is a lasting impression which loiters. It is as if the enduring toll on my body and mind, the blocking of my natural emotional responses combined with the isolation which cannabis fostered, ultimately all needed accounting for.

The most damaging physiological effect of the cannabis years has been on my short term memory, which is now about as effective as a multi-punctured balloon. It is not unknown, for example, for something mentioned in an important conversation to evaporate from my addled mind within minutes. Annie and the kids make light-hearted jokes about my inability to remember the simplest instruction. Facts and figures, words and phrases, melt away like butter on a toasted crumpet. Sometimes it seems that while the rest of the world searches earnestly for a cure for Alzheimer’s, I alone have uncovered a guaranteed method to speed up the effects of this degenerative disease. ‘A Pennie for your thoughts’ turns out to be a very apt expression. How could something so worthless have been so willingly exchanged for something so valuable?

It isn’t all bad news though. I’d always hoped by getting trashed out of my mind I would eventually stumble upon some gigantic discovery which would bring about an entirely new way of looking at the world. Of course this never happened. While I continue to struggle with my memory, I do see that cannabis has provided me with a few little nuggets of wisdom along the way. I’ve learned you have to accept who you are and to be grateful for what you have. It’s apparent I’ll never become an instructor for the Advanced School of British Motor Drivers, nor will I ever be transformed into a leading authority on the lure and appeal of Premier League football clubs. Essentially cannabis has taught me people don’t change that much, even if some of my aspirations have been adjusted.

My original concerns about living in Scunthorpe have completely evaporated. Like Annie, I love the place and its people and now find myself defending the region with the same steely resolve which I was confronted with on my arrival in the eighties. The plethora of the bad publicity levied at the town has created a kind of survival ethic in its people which I respect. The local residents are uncommonly proud of their roots and once they take you in to their beating hearts (which I admit does take a while), you have their loyalty and they have your back - for a lifetime. I wasn’t born here but I have bred aplenty and as a result I am now proud to be an ambassador for the place where ‘the heavens reflect our labours’. A rich vein of humour runs through almost every aspect of life in the town. Where else but in Scunthorpe would the evening papers’ front page lead with a headline like ‘Psychic was unable to foresee her own own downfall’. I laughed for ages at this (less than) sensational tale about a woman who’d falsely claimed tens of thousands of pounds in benefits. The big news story of the day went on to explain how she had claimed benefit payments while duping unsuspecting fools out their cash, masquerading as a psychic at a local hotel. The so-called psychic had been disgraced and branded a charlatan. At the bottom of the article I was flabbergasted to find out the clairvoyant in question was actually the same one I’d visited twice and paid far too much attention to. Hearing how she’d been discredited was strangely pleasing. It was like reading one of Pennie’s foot soldiers had been shot down while on duty.

These days, removed from the pressure of having to avoid temptation, I’ve even begun to feel a sense of compassion towards Miss Fenton. Soon after watching Supermarket Sweep, it dawned on me I’d spent far too many years blaming her for my unhappiness. As soon as I accepted that it was of course only me who was responsible for the position I was in, all of my anger towards her evaporated. Today, I am actually indebted to my cruel and addictive shadow for showing me that rock bottom can sometimes offer a solid foundation from which to move forwards. However diabolical things may appear, it is always possible to turn your life around - sometimes literally at the press of a (gigantic red) button. I accept that cannabis brought out the worst of me and probably represented all the repressed feelings and insecurities which I was too cowardly to square up to. However, I am no longer fearful of it. Instead I thank cannabis, for helping me see that while my own foibles are a natural part of who I am, they are not all of it. I’ve grown to understand this drug, in all its many forms, can be extremely dangerous and regardless of numerous national campaigns suggesting otherwise, it remains – for me at least, remarkably addictive. Similarly, I can now understand the dangers associated with an obsessive vice of any kind and suspect most of my own inclinations towards dependency were brought about by a combination of genetics and an inability to grieve effectively.

More significantly, I’m now able to celebrate the fact that despite undermining myself by giving in to this destructive desire; I did still somehow manage to retain my relationships with the most important people in my life - my incredible wife and our four little apples. By keeping them at a distance for so many years, Pennie Fenton has only served to remind me of the importance of being there for my family and has made sure I never forget that my primary function as a parent is to set an example to my children and teach them well. Fundamentally, I realise that Annie, Hattie, Toby, Travis and Holly mean the world to me. I am thankful for time we now spend together, entertained by the simplest of pleasures. All of this represents a maturity I wouldn’t change for anything.

Hattie went on to experience her own ‘red button’ moment shortly after Sweep was broadcast. As soon as she’d given birth to a healthy baby girl, her attitude and temperament changed. The lightening turnaround from defiant and embittered youth into a delighted and loving mother was literally transformational. In the months that followed little baby Freya’s arrival, Hattie was more selective about who she was hanging around with, saved her money, put down a deposit on a flat and enrolled on a part-time A levels course at the local college. Determined that she didn’t want the lifestyle she’d previously created for her own daughter, she reinvented herself. This change didn’t come about as a result of horoscopes, tarot readings or even divine intervention; it was simply an outcome of her own decision to make positive choices and commit to being the best possible mother she could be. Thank heavens for little girls.

No longer wasting energy either running towards or away from Pennie, progress is also being made with long-term friends Stuart and Faye. We’ve begun to spend much more time together, rebuilding our relationships - reacquainting ourselves with our own shared histories. Many other relationships have been rekindled in the last couple of years. I have even managed to track down old school friend Joe Morrit through the wonders of a popular social networking site. We still see a lot of Kirsty, who recently married her long-term partner in a rather moving civil ceremony. On the day of the service, I was delighted to hear that her ‘secret’ wedding gift to her new spouse was an agreement to pack in cannabis for good.

We also continue to spend time with Natasha and Nigel. Interestingly, Nigel has in the last couple of years done a complete U-turn regarding his appearance on Supermarket Sweep. His initial sweetness for our glimmer of fame gradually turned sour. While I have begrudgingly made peace with my many regrets about appearing on the show; Nigel has begun to distance himself from it, worried prospective employers may take a dim view of such trivial entertainment. These concerns ended up being well founded. In 2012, the same year Annie realised her own career ambitions to become a nursery teacher, Nigel accepted a job working as promotions officer for one of the most celebrated professional rugby clubs in the country. Following a long period of unemployment, this looked like the ideal role for him, combining his love of sports with an opportunity to rub shoulders with well-connected media types. Imagine the uproar one day during his probationary period, when some of the First Team stumbled across a re-run of our Supermarket Sweep episode in the clubhouse after training. The verbal abuse he received from his new colleagues was merciless. The gibes made a tough job virtually impossible for him and within a month Nigel had handed in his notice, stating it had become ‘too difficult for him to feel sufficiently safe’ in the new role. It turns out our decision to go on Supermarket Sweep was pivotal for both of us.

Unfortunately, not all relationships have improved since I extinguished the burning bush. The majority of the people I came into contact with because of my illicit affair with cannabis drifted away soon after Supermarket Sweep. This was partly down to me choosing to distance myself from them in an attempt to prevent temptation; but also because I could see I had less in common with them than I originally thought. For the majority of Pennie’s more enduring fans, the only bond we actually shared was a hedonistic thrill of getting absolutely battered each night.

Out of all my former smoking buddies, only Allan Hewitt continues to puff on the demon weed. Not to the extent he used to; but my old sensei is nonetheless still rolling, still taking the tokes, still keeping it a secret from others as he approaches his half century. These days he is far more discreet and conscious of the need to manage the middle-aged message he sends out.  Tell-tale signs of his involvement do, however, still linger. The lifeless eyes immediately after a session, the discomfort with the topic if it is raised even in jest, the general mistrust of other’s motives and just every so often… the sight of the odd little blister on one of his thumbs. Ahh, how it all comes flooding back. In some ways his commitment to the cause is quite an achievement – a raised index finger (never the thumb) to the people who think you should behave in a particular way by this age. In another way, it is a little sad that Allan continues to search for that elusive midnight kiss.

I am disappointed the long friendship with Allan has faltered. Maybe it reflects the fact that beyond all the smokey-joes, we too had less in common than we first imagined. A relationship supported only by the wafer thin king sized Rizlas which we fastidiously fastened all those joints together with. The unholy alliance between Allan and myself was originally propped up by our shared passion for indie veterans Echo & the Bunnymen. While the two of us have retained a nostalgic regard for the band, there is an unspoken recognition between us that the musical landscape they once dominated, has forever changed. Together, we’d bought into the bands promise of untouchable possibilities; both equally excited about stretching for something we couldn’t quite grasp. Unfortunately, too long getting stoned and neither of us were in the slightest bit bothered about what was right in front of us, never mind in the stars above.

Don’t get me wrong, my old buddy could never be regarded as a bad bloke, far from it and I will always cherish the fantastic times we spent off our faces together. However, today he reminds me too much about those unrealised opportunities, the un-grasped potential which was once within our reach. Nowadays, I find his cynical asides rather irritating, his belligerent retorts somewhat hostile and his tainted observations increasingly judgemental. I feel uncomfortable as I watch him jumping too quickly to conclusions, defining people based on the smallest of insights. While it was once very funny to hear him constructing a social stereotype about someone based on the flimsiest of evidence; it now grates. Now and again there are still glimpses of the Allan of old, the charming, affable chap who balances his assertive style with an ability to engage everyone in a room, but invariably these aspects of his personality are being progressively eclipsed by what appears to be a repressed bitterness eating away inside him.

I am sure he is equally frustrated with my own unwillingness to ‘chillax’ with him once in a while. Allan no doubt feels I’ve sold-out and become more conservative in my ways.

Perhaps our new found intolerance for each other goes even deeper and represents unresolved parts of ourselves. More legacies from the Fenton fascination. Maybe when he’s around I am too worried about being haunted by the memories of what I was becoming up until my ‘Date with Dale’. Maybe Allan too has concerns of his own. Previously, with me at his side as his trusty first officer, he was never required to question his own inclinations. These days as a solo flyer, wing commander Hewitt has become the solo-stoner and as a result may feel more scrutinised. I’m convinced he unknowingly resents my newfound freedom and while he still proclaims a zealous enthusiasm for cannabis, I sometimes catch a look of regret in his glazed eyes. While he may be too proud to admit it, my instinct tells me Allan is frustrated he hasn’t encountered his own Supermarket Sweep moment. I do hope this is actually the case and his tipping point arrives soon.

Piecing it all back together I can understand why I took so long to overcome the diabolical situation I was in.  It would take a sister I had no recollection of to reveal the truth about Pennie Fenton; Stuart Jackson to instil a desire to leave her; Hattie to provide the spark to do so and Dale Winton to give me the courage to part-company with my greatest failing. Climbing out from the slippery pool I’d fallen into wasn’t easy. To succeed and reach the side, I needed Annie to resuscitate my parental instinct to protect and safeguard our children. Armed with the gift of 20-20 hindsight, it is clear to me the thing which eventually galvanised me into action was the frozen spike of panic that they too may one day slip into a similar, unmarked hazard with no one around to help them. That history would once again repeat itself as it had done so often in my own past and they would end up as unhappy as I had been. This would be unthinkable.

By revealing all the places where I got it horribly wrong, I hope to highlight some of the lessons learned from a life less lived. Ideally, these will provide an injunction against fate, so that no-one close ever has to suffer the same (self-imposed) ordeal as I did. A safety-net for those who follow, designed to stop others tripping and falling into the same shallow waters. Each confessional paragraph expressed, is intended to nudge readers of this book towards my only tangible conclusion: we are all architects of our own destiny. Whatever devices we use to avoid facing up to reality, to avoid those unsavoury truths, it is evident that sooner or later they all catch up with us. Out of breath and too tired to tread water any longer I have decided to turn around and face up to what happened by constructing a long overdue account of cannabis’s influence on my life.

It is clear to me we all have a potential to encounter versions of Pennie Fenton. Maybe she will be dressed in a different guise, but be warned, she is always just around the corner. Hell in high heels. For some she may appear as alcohol, for others crack cocaine or even compulsive gambling. I guarantee she will be just as alluring to you, just as fun to be around in the early stages of your infatuation. She is invariably invited in by the dark recesses which your own unexpressed emotions occupy. The two go together; magnetic poles, each one unstoppably attracted to the other.

For decades I wondered what name could be applied to a community where everyone is predisposed to underplay their strengths and capabilities. Here in conclusion, I am able to confirm the name of this fictional town.  It is a settlement I’ve been residing in for far too long, a place where the inhabitants are all prone to pessimism about their personal potential. The name of this desolate town is of course Fentonville. A neglected little place situated well off the beaten track, where admission is free but you pay dearly to get out. Your version of this town may have a different name, but all its characteristics will be the same. Most people never even think to look for this place, but for some it presents a curious appeal. If you are among this unfortunate minority, I urge you to face forwards and walk swiftly by.

I’ve travelled some distance since my final stay there, and while I don’t think I’ll ever be wanting to spend my days looking wistfully through a rose tinted visor towards the imaginary shores of Lake Wobegon; I do dare to consider the possibility I have simply been suffering with delusions of inadequacy. Bless Pennie Fenton, for her intervention has taught me so much. Dwelling for the very last time on all those wasted years, I can truthfully say I’m pleased I spent them with her, but at the same time I’m incredibly thankful this relationship is over. It has taken right up until these closing words to recognise I am stronger than my past and am able to conquer all the imagined portents which have haunted me for so long. Secrets weigh us down. It is only by nearly drowning, that I see I am in fact able to swim. Armed with this new sense of perspective, means I know the idolatry is over and I’m finally ready to say farewell to my unhealthy infatuation.

Hallelujah.

Acknowledgements

[1] Kay Gornick (contracts and permissions), at Prairie House Companion for permission to quote from the show.

[2] Musician and artist Will Sergeant, for sharing his memories about touring with Echo and the Bunnymen.

[3] Filmmaker Woody Allen, for kindly providing his permission to quote from Annie Hall (1977, United Artists).

[4], [6], Lucasfilm Ltd, for providing non-exclusive use of three quotes from the Star Wars motion pictures. © and TM  Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

[5] The Blair Partnership, for their approved use of the unabridged text from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Copyright © J.K. Rowling 1998.

[7] Note: the expressions ‘Fill those trolleys because shopping has never been so much fun’, ‘Mini Sweep’, ‘Trolley Dash’ and ‘Big Money SuperSweep’ are all associated with the Talkback Thames UK production of Supermarket Sweep.

[8] Lloyd Beiny, CEO at World Entertainment News Network (WENN) for permission to include elements from a syndicated news story.

Special thanks to photographer Luis Garvan for use of the cover image

Copyright

Charlie Mellor has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Copyright © Charlie Mellor 2014.

About the Author

Charlie Mellor was born in Lancashire in the UK, loves spicy fajitas, stand-up comedy and vinyl. He now lives in Lincolnshire with his wife and four children. Prior to his current job in training and development, he worked in the publishing industry for a while, designing headlines for regional newspapers.

He would like it known that he no longer sees Pennie Fenton. She is not welcome at his house or in the general proximity of anyone he cares about. Because of her legacy, he has reluctantly been forced to change the names of many people in this book – in order to place them outside Pennie Fenton’s circle of influence. While it has taken Charlie until now to build up sufficient courage to admit to others that he knew her well; he can appreciate that many of his friends remain incredibly uncomfortable with such a declaration. He understands that for some, the cost of such a disclosure, would, even in these enlightened times, be far too great.

Contact Charlie: eastviewpublishing@gmail.com

Table of Contents

About the Book

Dedication

Epigraph

1. The End Has a Start

2. Here’s the Church and Here’s the Steeple

3. The Shores of Lake Wobegon

4. Indelible Pen

5. Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

6. The Primacy Effect

7. Cold Iron

8. A Blast From the Past

9. The Bosom of Suburbia

10. Dancing at the Edge of the Precipice

11. Buried Treasures

12. The Pennie Drops

13. Oh Captain, My Captain

14. My Own Worst Enemy

15. Fate, Against Your Will

16. In the Grip

17. Alarm Bells

18. Sins of the Father

19. Never Falls Far

20. The Magic of Television

21. Past Tense

22. As I See It Now

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Author