Enola Gay………

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I am gay, I have always been gay, it’s just that the body, mind and soul don’t tell you that’s what you are, you have to figure it out and anyway, I was nine I wasn’t really thinking about sex or sexuality then, but the “bigger boys” were and they could tell, and they told me often “queer” is a name I have been called more times than I can remember, to be honest if someone shouted out “QUEER” I turned round, habit I guess, not for one minute that I wanted the attention of the person shouting it out, it was reflex or fear flex! If the word “queer” was shouted I was going to get punched or I needed to get running, either way I had to respond to it! Forest Gump ran because he wanted to, I ran cause I had to. Being corned for the umpteenth time is what I was used to so, when I was I played dead, you know stand there let them get it over with, then when the opportunity came, RUN, AGAIN! During this time, of living in hell, I met a boy, he lived on the caravan site too, he wasn’t much bigger than me and he steered clear of the “bigger boys”, so we gravitated together, his tactic for “staying alive”, was to get up before the others (bigger boys), leave the site and not return until it was nearly dark, so he and I did this most days. Back then in the 70’s you had to keep out of sight of the school truancy officer, so we left the site early, 8:00am and walked around doing nothing being invisible. What we didn’t have was money to alleviate the boredom, so we watched what the others did and they all collected “scrap”, so what is scrap, well it’s anything you can collect that once you have it, you take along to a “dealer” who will give you money for it, so we wanted “scrap”. The way to get scrap is to get yourself a pram; you know the old type four big wheels and a “cot” type body to fill with baby and blankets, well we got one of these, to be honest I think he got it and it just became ours, we had the pram and we would walk the streets with a purpose, the purpose was to find “scrap” to take to the dealer. Now two boys not at school and trying to keep out of sight but still find “treasure/scrap”, was a problem because, people don’t just give you scrap, you have to find it, but where do you look? Well suffice it to say “scrap” isn’t always how the owner of the “scrap” sees it, so we would take whatever from whoever we could as long as we thought we could sell it. A dealer buys most things, but metal was the prize, copper and brass was the biggest prize, and copper nor brass grow on trees, so you have to know where to get it from, and the boy, his name does escape me, but he knew where to get it. Firstly plumbers refitting a kitchen had copper and brass, but they knew its value too, so we would offer to help clear up at jobs, all the while watching where the copper and brass was being kept, then when the time was right, and I’m not condoning this behaviour now, we would steal whatever we could and run, sometimes the brand new copper for the plumbing would finds its way into our pram.

Caravan of love……….

A f*@king caravan, who wants to live like this, is one of the first memories I have of the great big adventure I was being taken on? We had driven for what seemed like ages and had arrived at the caravan site, now I don’t want you getting any ideas that this was by the sea or in a park of trees and fields, no this was off a dirt track behind proper houses, where people didn’t want us, a travellers site! Our “home” was a caravan that could sleep six but shouldn’t, just near the entrance to the site and was fenced off somehow. Our “plot” was adjacent to other plots where strange people lived and tomorrow I was going to meet them! My first morning was exciting, you see one big part of the move that hadn’t quite dawned on me until morning was that living here meant no school, NO SCHOOL, I didn’t have to worry about lunch times again or the kids that called me names, I was free this was going to be great, how idyllic it all seemed then, and how awful it was going to turn out. Running water is a blessing and shouldn’t be taken for granted, a flushing toilet is luxury its self, I had just left those behind. “He” was known to the people on the site so we were allowed to be there, mother assured us this was for the best and we should thank our lucky stars “he” had brought us here. Well I don’t I didn’t and quite frankly what the fuck she was thinking is a mystery, but I was there now so I’ll find out where I fit in. I don’t think it is gonna take a genius to figure it out, I didn’t , you see I had weakness written all over me and the “bigger boys” on the site could sense the fear in me, so I had gone from the frying pan into HELL, a fire would have been a blessing!

Moonlighting……….

My mother had lovers, this was something I didn’t enjoy, mainly because they wanted to “make me a man” they always seemed to see my love for my mother as a weakness never a sons love always weak, I guess I was a bit of a weakling, my weight wasn’t an issue when I was 9 years old. There were issues though, these men who had my mother’s affection always knew what was best for me, “ he needs to toughen up”, “he cries too much” and guess what they always had the cure all, teach him to fight, stop him from sitting on your lap, my mother listened and coerced me into trying out their remedies. I hated them all every last one of them but the one who I hated the most was “him”, “he” always knew how to wound, to take my mother’s glance from me and this he relished in. He even got his brother to join in when he visited so I had no one I could turn to for relief; I hadn’t thought of food as a friend yet but only a few years to go before I used that crutch.

In her wisdom my mother listened to “him” and one night when I was about 9 my sisters and I were woken up to go on an adventure, I mean in the dead of night we were piled into a van with all our belongings and told that we were moving to a very special place, where we could live free and safe!

We had done what is known in the trade as a ‘moonlight flit’!

Me and Mrs Jones……….

My father was having an affair, with a woman who lived not far from us in Ockendon Essex. I hated her and to some extent still do, she has always been there at the worst times in my life, and she has never been remorseful for her part in the pain of my life and was to a great extent complicit with it. My mother was struggling to make ends meet, if my father was giving her any money to help I am not aware of it, we certainly didn’t live well on what my mother earned. Somehow my father convinced or bullied, he was quite the bully so I am sure it was with bullying that he forced my mother into giving us to him, to live with him and “her”. I have very strong and fairly mixed memories of this but I intend to recount my version, so I will.

I recall having a bag of my clothes with me and 2 of my sisters and we arrived at “her” house, it was small and smelled different to my own and I didn’t want to be there, but I remember it being an adventure, from my perspective it was, we packed up and were going to live in a strange place with different rules and different things and I wanted to go but felt pulled away from my mother, but I went, I even think I was excited about the change.

My father was different he didn’t shout he seemed softer there was no violence and “her” children seemed to like him!

I don’t recall how long we stayed there but I know one of my sisters didn’t want to be there and made it known, she cried all the time and repeated I want my mum, I want to go home. My other 2 sisters and I were not pleased to be there but were I think happy to be anywhere that wasn’t at the house with my mother, I don’t know why? All I do know is as soon as we were there we were back at home with mother, this however didn’t last long!

ChChChCh Changes…….

When I was about 7 or 8 my parents separated, my mother my sisters and I remained in the house I remember most from those early years, it was in South Ockendon, Essex. My father had moved in with his mistress, a fact I learned of late in my eighth year. The house was on a council estate, so everyone knew each other’s business and close neighbours rallied round when times were tough. My mother was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital and I remember her smelling of urine and bleach, she found some solace in the fact that the universe had given her a talent for singing, which she used to alleviate some of her pain, by singing at the local “social club”, council estates in the seventies had these at their heart, where the good the bad and the ugly whiled away their wages and lives each weekend.

By now my memories are of wanting to be free, because I was the odd kid at school, were starting to take shape, we had free school meals, because of my parents breakup, and the other kids knew and made us feel dirty and poor because of it, this is where I think my relationship with food started its unhealthy demise, I didn’t like to line up for my food because I had to have a special ticket that said “I come from a broken home, and we are poor can you give me some food please”, the ticket had to be given to the dinner lady before I could get my lunch, so I opted to wait until last so no one could observe this, which meant having cold food that I would eat as fast as possible or worse I would skip lunch all together just to forgo the humiliation of it all, this meant that I was starving by home time and eat as much as I could when I got there. Living here with my mother was OK, a lot of the motherly duties were heaped on my oldest sisters shoulders, the rest of us disliked her for bring the “boss of us”, something she didn’t want or ask for but was made to do, she didn’t do a great job, why should she, she was 12 years old. I played out a lot; near to where we lived was a youth club, a large hut in a concreted area where the kids hung out during school holidays and most weekends. I was an awkward kid didn’t fit in, not because I didn’t want to I just felt different from the others, the boys played football or rounders or anything with a ball and the need to run about, I didn’t, because in the hut was an upright piano, a few of the keys were missing and some of the others stuck down when you played them so you had to lift them back up so you could play them again, which to any buddy Bach just won’t do. I think all of us kids, my sisters and I, I mean, get our love of music from our mother, her being a singer and all. I sat at that piano, not wanting to join in with the “sports” as this usually meant me getting my head bashed in by the other kids, for hours and hours, I taught myself to play by ear, picking out the tunes of the day on it key by key, note by note.

When the day was over it was back to our house to listen to more music and wait for the return of my mother, she was out working or in the evening singing at the social. She usually brought back people with her on a Saturday night and the party would go on. Here is where I think my first feelings of not liking my body started, men and women who were drunk would dance and strip and be overtly sexual and we (my sisters and I) would see all of this. I thought I don’t want to be doing this when I’m older so I would stay upstairs out of the way, hiding myself from the display down there.