Skylarks: For Myself, Lest I Forget, or Die Unsung

By F. A. Casemore

For myself, lest I forget, or die unsung.


This is not a travelogue, or a survival kit.

This is the Fable of the Wealthy Man.
A Dragon, with a Hoard of Treasures,
Hidden, High in the Mountains,
Far, Far away.


For me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 7, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469711928

F. A. Casemore

The author does not wish to be known

Book preview

Skylarks

For myself, lest I forget,

or die unsung

F. A. Casemore

Authors Choice Press

San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai

Skylarks

For myself, lest I forget, or die unsung

All Rights Reserved © 2001 by F. A. Casemore

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

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Skylarks

For myself, lest I forget, or die unsung.

This is not a travelogue, or a survival kit.

This is the Fable of the Wealthy Man. A Dragon, with a Hoard of Treasures, Hidden, High in the Mountains, Far, Far away.

For me.

Copyright, a novel entitled—Skylarks. By F. A. Casemore, 23 February, 2001. ©

People People are always asking me stupid questions.

What is your name? is a favourite. Then; Where are you from? How long have you been here? Are you busy? You look tired; are you OK? And; Are you going to be here for ever? Forever? Shit. Forever is a long, long time.

Well, they continue; don’t you ever think of going back? Going back? I think about it all the time.

Go back, give myself up, surrender, do my time, pay my dues, start all over again; is that what you mean? Why should I? Or go back in time? To when everything was so much easier, back to when I had only myself to take care of? I would, maybe.

If I could time-travel in fast-rewind, fast-forward, start and stop, pause, edit at will, mix it into better shape; Hey, toss me the remote control, and I’ll go right now. If I could go back to my homeland, as it was then, and as I was when I left it, nothing changed, I would leave right now and do it all over again. Why not? Are you confused about why you are here, now, and who you are?

I understand now. I know what happened, but would I be able to look in their faces, and not lose my own? They, we, myself, my family, parents and brothers, relatives, friends, teachers, neighbours, shopkeepers, priests and politicians, nobody, had any idea of what was happening. No consideration, no care, no love, or respect, no charity or mercy, or even any common sense.

Go back; shit. To that cold, cloudy, dark, drizzling, foggy, , , miserable place? The way things are now? Allow me, to paraphrase a quotation by Charlie Chaplin; I wouldn’t go back there even if Jesus Christ was Prime Minister.

Then It’s late in the evening, after ten o’clock.

I just got home, a two hour commute from Tokyo; we scoffed our Valentine’s chocolates watching a TV drama. It was cold walking back up the hill from the station, exhilarating; a clear, starry night, February the thirteenth, 1995. It was too late to eat dinner, soup, rice and fish, so I poured myself a large, straight, Polish vodka on the rocks, came downstairs, and continued writing, thinking; This, is on my mind. I have to get on with it. I have no choice, no more time to waste, no more excuses.

There is no going back. I have to continue; anyway, I’m enjoying it now. If I never return I won’t care. This is my story, somebody, some day, my wife, my son or daughters, a close friend or two, might need to read it, sometime in the future; I have enjoyed writing it.

Hopefully my kids will read it, if they ever get around to learning English. They might find out a little about me, what, and who, I was; why and how. They can make up their own minds about me then, and whether my story really needed to be told, and why I was, the way I was. Will they ever forgive me? I wonder. Can I ever forgive God? Perhaps. They will have histories of their own to tell one day. I hope.

Why am I doing this? Well, besides, every man should leave something behind—a history, a legacy, a charity. Will my simple tale, my explanation, suffice? I ask myself. Something, anything, that might help further our development of expression and understanding, anything, that might help us come closer to knowledge, of this dilemma, this disease, this quandary, or stigma; this virus we call humankind, with all our questions, defects and fixations, habits, imperfections, miseries and mysteries, obsessions and vices, might ease the pain of passed time, and bring peace.

Perhaps to help others to know and understand me, on one level; but most especially, to come to know themselves. This is my mantra, my self-psychotherapy, mine own healing, my breath, my bread, and wine. On a deeper level you will find knowledge.

This is my plank, my platform, my pulpit, rostrum, podium, and soapbox; my stand; my chance to have my uninterrupted say, to tell a few secrets, get even with the TV. You can read this time and again, or not, but I won’t have to repeat myself. I will get into the lyric-muse, the flow, remembrance, prescience, the stream of consciousness, omnipotence, and enjoy myself with words, images, impressions, feelings, assumptions and ideas, all leading to and from knowledge.

Memories of course will figure large. Some parts might, I hope, appear funny—even unbelievable, exciting and stimulating, or scary, ugly, even lascivious, libidinous, licentious, or distasteful; others, painful and extreme; more, merely pleasant or unpleasant: all of it—I think (?)—must be true. If I didn’t do it, I thought it. What difference does it make?

Here there should be no lies; the point is, to speak with genuineness, naturalness, as the petals unfold; not perfection. The writing and rewriting of it has been, and still is, a metamorphosis, a reawakening; now I can fly. Now I have a fairly good idea of who and what I am, and the importance of knowledge. Finally, it’s all beginning to make sense, and I’m satisfied. No regrets. No, I would not go back, not for anything. I hope my yarn, this tale, this manifesto, this disclosure, makes you, whoever you may be, laugh and nod your head, and search for knowledge in yourself. Some I hope will cry. Let none remain untouched. Welcome to my history.

I’m coming in from the cold, blowing my cover, coming up for air; are you ready for this? I want to enjoy this while I still have the chance. None of that posthumous bullshit; find knowledge now.

No uncertainties or distortions, no lies, the full nine yards, while the yarn is on the loom. Only, one stipulation, to which you must agree; If you’re to continue reading after this point let there be no judgement—moral or ethical, logical or emotional, right or wrong, good, bad, or otherwise, until you reach the end, please. So, let’s pull the wool, spin the yarn, and weave the thread upon the loom.

Going back Would that I could go back again.

Maybe, if I could be sure of getting back to where I am now, after having saved some of that money that I so inconsiderately, recklessly, prodigiously and prodigally wasted along the way.

Let me take you back.

Back Sitting by my fireplace, tiled mantelpiece and small, black, cast-iron Victorian fire basket, my bedside hearth, one Winter, a long, long time ago.

The fire crackly warm, gently smouldering, deeply glowing; me, wondering about creation, destruction, and change, families, responsibilities, and love. Sometimes softly sparkling embers shoot out from the kindling; then, more popping, cracking, crackling, splitting and spitting. Two or three, not more, fist-sized glistening lumps of coal, darkly wealthy, oozing heavy, viscous, bubbling oils and hissing steams of grey and yellow

sulphurous gases that sometimes popped alight, caught and burned like Bunsen jets. A few fire blackened, zigzag ends of folded newspaper fire lighters sit smouldering in the grate.

I let my eyes drift back to the centre, the hollows and folds, between the burning sticks, where the fire is hottest, bright yellows, oranges, reds, magentas, even blues and greens, and black. Smell of burning pine. Sizzling manna.

In my room upstairs, a bedroom, of our tiny, two floor, upstairs-downstairs, back-to-back, red brick, slate roofed, terraced house, 30 Keddlestone Road, Highfields, Leicester, in 1970. Late Winter and very cold; February, or March.

I was smoking a joint of Jamaican weed, ‘Lamb’s Bread’, I’m sure, and studying for the coming college end of year examinations. Dinah, my graphic arts student lover was at her desk, painting, finishing off her design for a book cover. Crosby, Stills and Nash were on the radio, the John Peel Show, singing;

Our house, Is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy, ‘Cause of you.

I never knew just how hard it could get. Nor how long it would take to find You.

My life, looking back, was so easy then; so fresh and pure and simple. I was busy, strong, and young. I was ‘out there’, away, finally. I’d arrived at

my first station in life, and was so very happy to have finally escaped, the hell of my home. Free.

We didn’t have any of those fancy diagnostic terms then, like ‘dysfunctional’, or ‘post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome’. Or any other vague excuses for the dumb, thoughtless, careless, loveless, irrational, psychotic, stupid, battered and blinkered, blind and bigoted way we were treated; bludgeoned by cruel disorders; behavioural associated disturbances; tortured by our parents’ inability to come to terms with their new life; of peace, and quiet, and the ever-changing world around them.

No more, the night watch, No more the guns pounding, No more the bells tolling, Ships sinking, men drowning, Striking out, swimming for shore, then charging, Bayonets lunging, rushing, charging, Baying, flaying, slaying, Blood gouting, spouting, Screaming, screaming, shouting, Watching the dying, laughing, weeping, crying, fading, Loading, More ammunition, Screaming, For God, Country, and King Harry! More blood.

God forbid God forbid me to make the same mistakes.

Most older people then, the parents, of the fifties, had lived through the horrors of world war, their brothers, and fathers too, to arrive, beached and abandoned, after generations of senseless, thoughtless, dirty, bloody, painful fighting and killing. In the air, the trenches, the beaches and fields, and on the high seas, they were ordered, forced to fight, to go over the top, to kill, or be killed.

Then one day, suddenly, there was peace, and nobody knew what to do with it.

Without the benefits of science, knowledge that we take for granted,, medical, psychological, sociological, and advances in education, and understanding, through search and research, retrospect, introspect, spiritual advancement, care and development, it must have been very tough, severe. Chin up Charley. Stiff upper lip, things could be worse, good men died, temperance, and all that.

Men and women at that time, my mother and father, two of, and completely typical, of the many millions more, all realised sadly that for them, life in peace time was far more difficult than life at war, that it was easier to get by on rations than keep up with all the bills.

War was, my father told me, far more natural. Just follow orders: kill or be killed, fight, capture the next line, and march on. Mine was the first generation in centuries that had no war to go to, so we made our own. The enemy had not been destroyed. Our parents had learned nothing. Whoever, knowing what we know now, could not have predicted a Summer of Love for our coming of age, and the carnage that was sure to follow? We fight on, for one day, we know, peace will come.

I was a tall and skinny kid, bony, lanky, fair-haired and blue-eyed, handsome, some said; part Saxon, part Viking, part Spanish, some Norman, and Gael or Celt, I guess. A mongrel at the end of the road; from out of the valley, long ago with ancient kings, and their hordes, from middle earth, Eden, the garden, we came, from the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Then north, and west, and north, and west; Persia, Africa, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, Caledonia, Britain, or by Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, or Macedonia, Greece, Rome, the Baltics, Saxony, and Scandinavia, Celt, Pict, Alan, Hun, Goth, and more; what warring, conquering and whoring, pillaging, raping, deadly brutality; what monsters had my blood borne; what saints?

My hair was growing down past my shoulders, and my clothes were ‘weird’; so they said; me too. I loved to play guitar and sing and shout along with Dylan, The Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe and The Fish, Love, Doors, Steppenwolf, Jefferson Airplane, and other loud, electric, psychedelic west-coast bands, while I was getting ready for college, in the mornings.

I smoked grass, or hash, whenever I could; and dropped acid on the weekends. Having no idea what to do with myself, fed up with school, and the world. No advice, no friendly fireside chats, sick to death of my life already, at fifteen, I accepted an apprenticeship to a master printer; it was the best I could do at the time.

I was yelled at constantly. Despised, and ashamed; but never guided, or assisted. You’d tell me to my face that you were ashamed to see me walking down the street. Finally, you gave up on me altogether.

I was so in dire need of help. Yes, of course I was, you knew that; but love was more important, love, and security. Help, I needed too, in understanding my role, in the greater scheme of things; peace, not surrender.

Love and understanding, though, were at the top of the list; a reason to live, to feel that I was a part, a piece, a portion, of the whole; a member. I was just a kid. And I was alone, abandoned, and forgotten.

I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Were you really pleased with yourselves when I left? I didn’t think so. Tragic. Failure. You really pissed me off.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. Philip Larkin (1922–1985), British poet

We use to say; We didn’t ask to come here. I didn’t ask to be born. Now that I’m here, I need your help, your love, your acceptance, and recognition. We were your sons and daughters, your children. Preparing for the world, life, astral flight, knowledge, and reincarnation.

Little wing, Riding with the wind, A thousand smiles, She gives to me, Take anything you want from me, Anything; You want, Fly on, Little wing.

Jimi Hendrix.

So what? I was only eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and knew nothing about mortgages, bills, life insurance, house repairs, aching backs, tired feet and overtime, housework and shopping, the car, the garden, and so on. Parents, don’t they just piss you off. Was life really so hard? Did it really need to be so hard?

You didn’t need all of those things; I thought that they were supposed to be pleasures. Was talking, explaining, enjoying together, really so difficult? Did they really have to make it all so tough? Did you really need to shout and scream so much? What good did it do?

There’s very little point in playing a game, and inviting others to play, without telling them the rules first; nobody told us the rules, nobody sat down and explained, nobody cared, more fool they.

I have always seen life as a game; even before I knew what ‘a game’ meant. Dogs love games; they sit and wait for their masters to make up rules. Look at a stick. Look from the stick to the dog; smile. Pick up the stick, feel the weight of it in your hand, heft it, toss it, and lightly catch it, looking back and forth from the stick to your dog and back again. Smile, wink at your dog, rub the stick on your skin and waggle it under your dogs nose. Set up a relationship between the three of you, pet the stick, cuddle it, see your dog become jealous of it, then throw it hard, looking quickly now at your dog and the trajectory of the stick as it arcs through the air. Shout; Go on, boy, fetch! Pat him and stroke him when he returns with your stick; show him how pleased you’re, and do it again. You have made a game, taught your dog the rules, and reward him for succeeding. It’s a simple and complete love.

Hitler and Stalin made up rules as they went along, telling no one, and punished those who failed. Playing a game without rules is not a lot of fun. Knowing the rules allows you to become a master, or at least to play the game.

Life has few rules, knowing them does not mean being bound to them, or by them; knowing them just helps you to live and enjoy living, getting the most out of life. They allow you to be good or bad, naughty or nice, and know. It’s not impossible to find them out for yourself, it would be different, if, like Hobbits we took fifty years or so to grow up. They’re not logical and don’t contain much, original, common sense; don’t ever think that life is fair.

In the beginning, the first round, the rules are the same for everyone. I will write a few of them down here for you; so that you can see just how simple they are.

Don’t forget to tell them to your children; explain them carefully, and with love, and care, reinforce them: These are the rules of certain success.

Believe in God, and love yourself. He is inside of you. Love others; He’s inside them too. Never allow doubt to enter your mind. Have faith that the path laid down for you, since your birth, is the right path for you. Trust your teachers, until you have left school. It’s no big deal. Remember, they’re only working; going through a set curriculum for examinations that you must pass. Ninety percent of what we need to know should come from our parents, five percent from friends and the world around us, only five percent of useful knowledge comes from our teachers at school. Work hard to succeed. Take notes, you just won’t remember, no matter how unforgettable it may seem at the time. The more that you do in the beginning, the less you will have to do at the end. Listen, look, feel; search for the truth. When you find good friends, stay with them, until you part. Don’t be afraid of parting. Write letters. Don’t expect any replies. Timing, is most important. When it gets hot, people fight. When you want something, either: call a professional, or, do it yourself. Remember. You can go anytime. You can’t come back. Fear not. We will all have to move on eventually. Let good manners dictate your actions. When you’re old enough, make your own rules. Have fun. Make time. First things first. Make money. Have fun. What goes around, comes back around. Go for the heart. Find yourself. Know yourself.

The longer the roach, the shorter the joint.

And that’s about it, nothing more, nothing less, but most important of all—Be Nice.

Believe in God, and love yourself.

I love you. Shit. Whoever put those three words together should have been crucified.

Brothers I had two brothers; Roger Brian, and David Peter.

Due to some biological fluke, or twist of fate, they were born ten and twelve, approximately, years before me. Unfortunately we had no fights, that I can remember; I have very few memories now to look back on, concerning my family, and home-life; they were more like uncles to me. When I was five and just discovering myself they were fifteen and seventeen and inhabiting another world to the one that I lived in, mostly outside, where I could not go. The few early memories I have of them consist mostly of being strictly ordered not to touch anything in their room, and, to get out of their room. There are still images, like fading snapshots, worn at the edges, ripped, distorted by time and distance and whatever happened in between.

They were good and kind brothers to me though. In their turn, I guess, they were just as wild and eccentric, and definitely as messed up, then, as I was to become. Our parents were tough on them; screamed at them, took the belt to them, though it did no good.

Roger was a Rocker, a Teddy Boy, with his slicked back hair, d.a., goatee beard, black jeans, sharp toed shoes, paisley patterned waistcoats, and Royal Enfield motorcycle. David was more imaginative, more sensitive, and wanted to become an artist. While Roger was burning up the road in his goggles and leathers, David would be out roaming in slacks and sandals, sketching in the fields, probably writing poetry too.

I thought that David was a Beatnik; though he denies it now; he was just that way, he said, naturally. Roger got involved with gangs, girls, and violence, and one night, was stabbed with a knife in a fight. It was all too much for our folks. Roger was ordered to get rid of his bike, and his image, straighten himself out, and get a job. David was in due turn, ordered to wake up, etc, etc, and get a job. Our father opened up the local evening newspaper, The Mercury, bringer of bad news, on the kitchen table, stood there, chest out, proud conqueror, crossed his arms, puffed out his chest, and ordered them to find work, immediately. Roger ended up at the Town Hall, working as a clerk, for a while, and David went to the local public hospital, as a lab technician.

It wasn’t as easy as that, those years, sometimes, usually, seemed to drag by so hideously slowly and painfully. Maybe some of my alter egos were born then; my self, safe, in other bodies, other worlds, other times, into which I would slip, to escape the cries, shouts, screams, tears, wretchings, wailings and beatings.

I remember my mother, having captured the two of them, she had them in a corner of the living room, from which they could not escape, laying into them with a wide and heavy leather belt, lashing down blows on their heads, screaming at them; Take down your hands, your arms, don’t try to cover yourselves.

They had apparently piled all their school books on the carpet in the middle of the sitting room floor, (the front room, the best room), and had proceeded to set them ablaze. They were too funny, too smart, too ahead of their time; and too much for their parents. Not at all blameless; but who needs a beating? David could have gone to University at fifteen having passed enough A levels already. He stayed at his job, worked hard, too hard. He knows that his work became an obsession to shield him from his pain. Now he has a PhD, but he’s tired, worn, and I feel that he has a lot of suffering to do yet.

When he was very young, three or four, our mother took Roger to our father’s navy base in Scotland, and left David with her family in Plymouth, our uncles and aunts. She said that she was too weak to carry them both; food was very short then, her most nutritious meal was a bowl of bananas and custard, made with dried milk and dried eggs, and she was indeed quite sick. What a mistake; what a shame.

David used to run away. He just could not take the stress. It did not matter what he was wearing, jeans and tee-shirt or barefoot in pyjamas, he would just run. Our old house backed on to the local school playing-fields, sports fields, and after that there was nothing but twenty miles by fifty of open country; first, after jumping over the hedge at the bottom of our garden, were the high school playing-fields, then sewerage treatment dikes, more fields, a few farms, Stocking Farm and Beaumont Manor, and after that a wilderness of national park land, full of fox and deer.

Here I have two jumbled images in my mind. There was also a mental hospital hidden out there somewhere and as often as David would go off on the run, with my poor Dad in chase, there would be some emaciated, white-faced, wild-eyed and slobbering patient, also barefoot and in pyjamas, running off with flocks of white coated doctors and nurses in chase. Stethoscopes flying, straight-jacket and loaded syringes at the ready.

My mother would be screaming; He’s done it again Dad, (she always called him Dad when any of us were around). You’ll have to get him, bring him back. I’m not having him running away; I won’t put up with it. So my old Dad would go off in the car, a long, shiny black, Austin A40 with running boards and walnut dashboard, that we often used to have to hand-crank, and try to circle around to intercept him somewhere between the farms and the national park, and I would go upstairs, to watch him running off, out of my parent’s bedroom window.

I wanted to root for him; Go on David, don’t let them catch you this time. But that conflicted with my desire to see him again and I ended up just wishing that my father would not beat him too hard.

Eventually our parents wore us down completely; there was no hope of university, or art school, they were too busy, and already too burdened with debt, and David moved away. Once he started to work. He found a new life, friends he could trust, and moved on, to be with his girlfriend, whose mother had offered him a room in her house.

Ann and he got married soon after and now have three, at times troublesome, but really very good boys; Andrew, Jonathan and Matthew. I love David, even though I cannot remember ever having had a conversation with him; though recently we have gotten to know one another by letter.

Roger is the one that is most mysterious to me. David and I look quite a lot alike, but Roger, he’s different. Oddly, I can remember having conversations with Roger. One time he took me to the corner shop to buy me some sweets. This was after all the troubles, when he was safely working as a clerk at the city hall, and David had disappeared, for a couple of years. We had a brief interlude of peace, while Roger ruled the roost, and I was too young to know better. On the way back from the sweet shop, while we were walking down a narrow alley, I can remember it all so clearly, he told me, that; God had called him.

I was so utterly shocked, and embarrassed. Roger continued on, explaining that God had summoned him, and that he was to become a priest. There I was, candy bag in hand, mouth full, a huge and hard multicoloured gobstopper, dribbling sweet, sticky, lurid colours down my grinning aching chops, and the sky suddenly turning black, and cold, on a bright mid-summers’ day.

He confuses me still; he never did wear the cloth. We never talked about it again either. He instead turned to social work, went to college, to study, what? Law, psychology, sociology, at Swansea University, and then to run various youth clubs in London. He became a counsellor, a Sociologist, which now, to David and me, is even more astonishing.

I’ll never forgive him for having practised his counselling on me. He used to get me to tell him things, in confidence. Promised, never to repeat them. Things like; what I really felt about my mother and father, close, intimate stuff like that, then he’d go off and tell my mother everything, and possibly more.

My mother used to come to me, downfallen, sobbing, and say; Alan, what have you been telling Roger? I was devastated. We don’t talk anymore. Our mother asked us to try to write to one another but it’s hopeless. He’s a fool. A snitch. A spoilt wimpy mummy’s-boy. Whispering grass. More. Never forgive him? Sure, of course I would, I’d love to, if he could apologise; but he wouldn’t know what to apologise for.

My suspicions were all finally laid to rest, a few years ago when we happened to meet by chance, at mother’s house. I had grown by then, larger than he. Roger was sat on the sofa in our living room, drinking tea with mother when I appeared. I was feeling pretty good, having just come from Japan, via Hong Kong, India and Pakistan, with extended stays all round. I had heard that he referred to me as ‘Little Brother’, as in; Oh, I hear little brother’s around: and I just didn’t like it; for some reason it offended me. I have a name. Use it. What was I expected to call you? Big brother?

Anyway, we were sitting chatting, mother had fetched me a cup of tea, saying; I suppose I had better get you one now you’re here; that was finished, I said to Roger something like; Come on out in the garden awhile big brother; show me how big you really are; lets talk.

I guess that I was feeling quite feisty. But then the unspeakable happened. My mother, tearing herself away from the TV, flung her arms around Roger and started screaming at me, about how she couldn’t help loving Roger more than David or me. Couldn’t I understand? He was her first-born.

Knowing that much I don’t care if I never see either of them again. Roger ran, like a rabbit, out of the door, fumbling the lock on his little Japanese car, setting off the alarm, then gunning and stalling and gunning again, down the road like a mad man. It was all so pathetic, so embarrassing, so poor and pretentious. Running away like that. Shame on you. I wouldn’t have hurt you, not then, that last, moment. I would now.

It was discovering my mother’s secret lover; my eldest brother. My revulsion for him was outrageous. I wanted to kill him, but I felt too stunned, too shocked, and sick enough to vomit. He had treated me strangely all along, too generously; when we had been alone, after David left. He bought me things that I wanted, an ebony-handled hunting knife, a diver’s watch, he gave me his old bicycle, even took me horse riding, and on holiday to Italy; all the things that my father should have done, but didn’t, couldn’t.

Now, when I cast my mind back in search of a comforting memory, or some inspiration to guide me in my duty as a father, his face appears; where my father’s face should be, there is nothing. My father took me camping and fishing, of course, many times, and on many holidays, but not in my teens, never in those numbingly important, soul searching, gathering, deducing, polishing, reducing, exacting, extracting and redacting, growing-up times. I think, can’t say for sure, the last holiday I had with my parents was when I was ten. After that I was on my own.

So, mostly it felt as though I was an only child, born into a strange country where I did not fit in. Strange land, strange times, strange people. Our family moved up to Leicester from Plymouth, lock, stock and barrel, in the Winter of 1955 when I was two-and-a-half-years old. The old man had retired after thirty years in the Navy, and, as he said, he never wanted to see the sea again. He said he would walk, with a pair of oars over his shoulder; walk until he reached a place, where someone might ask him, what he was carrying, and why.

I had friends, I made friends, of course; I was young. I spent a lot of time playing at other kids’ houses, but I also had a lot of time to myself, for myself, alone. I escaped, when I could.

I never got bored, I was always scuttling around, some scheme in my mind. Quietly, open the back gate, tip-toe out, and run. Run for my life, away to safety, cookies and milk, with a friend. Those days, those terribly dark days, when both my brothers and myself were at home, and the fights, screams, tears, and shock, overwhelmed me.

Sometimes, I thought, that if I did not move, or do anything, nothing would happen. I would stand, in one place, not moving, hardly breathing, not even an eyelash flickering, not daring to think, in one place, in the middle of the room, for hours, in silent fear and protest. My parents thought that I was lonely; David gone, his name no longer mentioned, Roger away at university, just me, and them, they scared me.

I had a foster-brother, Steven, for a while, but he was just too tough. We played a game once, one that they had played at the foster home. We went into the next room, then, with a length of rope, he told me to tie him up; Make it good and tight, he said. Then I had to pile all of the cushions from the chairs and sofa on top of him, turn off the lights, draw the curtains, close the door, and time how long it takes for him to get free.

He was pretty good at it; it seemed only a few minutes before he came bounding into the room and plopped down on the settee next to me. Next it was my turn, but he tied those ropes so tight that I just could not get free, I couldn’t even move, and he left me there to struggle. My mother found me later, almost asphyxiated, hands and feet turning black, and blue from the ropes, and she freed me.

My mother used to take me to the barbers once a fortnight. He, the barber, was inevitably and invariably busy, and I would have to wait at least twenty minutes for my trim. I’d long since read all of his table-top-graveyard of old, dog-eared-dirty, spotty magazines—then I discovered the public library just up the road.

I was supposed to make my own way home after my haircut. Months went by when I’d stay in the library until it closed. Unable to leave to go back to the barber’s. Too absorbed in books, and that, I usually discovered, too late, was at least a half-hour after the barber’s shop had closed. My hair got so long and my parents and teachers got so mad that my mother had to sit with me until after my hair was done. Then I was free to spend an hour in the library, mostly in the adult section. Wild, dangerous and romantic stories, occupied the deeper corners of my days, from then on, and still.

They know where you are, but they don’t know what you’re thinking; do they care? As long as they can see you they don’t worry; but do they really care, about you, your parents? Do they care about what, or how, you might be thinking, wondering, planning? Hah. I doubt it; they don’t have the time, or the inclination.

I usually got shooed away from the adult section by one of the librarians, and was made to go over to the children’s book shelves. But when her back was turned I’d sneak to the rear, looking, reading, marvelling over hardboiled tales of sex, violence, injustice, imprisonment, drugs, perversion, and lust.

I had no time for children’s stories. I almost achieved the distinction, the honour, of being banned from the library, if I could not stay out of the adult section. A warning; imagine that. Then I discovered the secondhand book stores and acquired my first copy of Last Exit to Brooklyn, then other, juicy, true-life criminal junkie tales; Miller, Genet, Satre, and so on, among them, titles, authors, I no longer remember. Though the images, ever remain.

My mother, I used to think she was so lovely; so innocent, so fair; hard-pressed, uncomplaining, all-suffering, ever-giving, hardworking; she slaved to save us all. Trust, absolute, unquestioning; I loved her more than God. The faith we have as children, in our parents, our dear mothers and fathers, in our home, in our friends, and school, Queen and country; and

ourselves. Growing up, was watching that faith crumble, and seeing the truth. Still, though mine might not be the best of all possible worlds, it was mine. I thought. It was mine to live and work as I thought best.

The fifties—they seem to have taken place on a sunny afternoon that asked nothing of you except a drifting belief in the moment and its power to satisfy. Elizabeth Hardwick (b. 1916), U.S. critic, author. Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays, Domestic Manners (1983).

The Sixties, of course, was the worst time in the world to try and bring up a child. They were exposed to all these crazy things going on. Nancy Reagan (b. 1923), U.S. First Lady. Quoted in: Parade (New York, 8 Nov. 1981).

During the feminist seventies men were caught between a rock and a hard-on. Florence King (b. 1936), U.S. author. Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye, From Captain Marvel to Captain Valium (1989).

I wouldn’t wish the eighties on anyone, it was the time when all that was rotten bubbled to the surface. If you were not at the receiving end of this mayhem you could be unaware of it. It was possible to live through the decade preoccupied by the mortgage and the pence you saved on your income tax. It was also possible for those of us who saw what was happening to turn our eyes in a different direction; but what, in another decade, had been a trip to the clap clinic was now a trip to the mortuary. Derek Jarman (b. 1942), British filmmaker, artist, author. At Your Own Risk: A Saint’s Testament, 1980’s (1992).

The nineties……………………….What did the nineties………………………?

Young Men I had many good friends at junior high school, who had it all worked out, before they were fifteen.

They were going to work as soon as they could, live at home with mum and dad, and just save all of their pay for the next five years, then buy a house. They’d live in that house for five more years, repair it, renovate it, renew and refurbish it, then sell it, and buy another, which, they had calculated, by then, they should have enough cash to buy outright, or at least a short term mortgage. Buy a car, get married, have kids, and, well, that was as far as they could imagine. They had it all worked out, they thought.

I could never even begin to understand why they wanted to have it all, so well planned, predetermined and predelineated, down cold and hard like that. Maybe they had happy home lives, who knows; perhaps these plans were other escape routes, or brownie strategies, I never knew, I never asked.

I knew one thing, I believed that if my parents couldn’t make it work, and that, if I wanted a happy-home-and-family of my own, I would have to try a different way. I didn’t wish to emulate them; from what I could see, it just did not work: all I wanted to do was to get out and try something different.

I must look around me carefully, absorb, adapt and adopt, ask, beg, carefully choose, categorise, colonise and concentrate, conclude then crawl off, decide to define or depart, drive on or earmark, examine and explore, externalising, feel the fly, focus and go on, looking, listening, hunting, internalise, go, investigate, journey or judge, learn or leave, listen, look, love and master, or then to migrate, move, move on and occupy other places, make pilgrimages, plead for practice, then practice and pray, redact, reduce, redefine, then ride, fly, glide and cruise, or run with it, or sail off in search of more, see and select by sense of taste, tone and smell, study more, take notes, think deeply, connect, touch base, tramp and travel on, trying always to understand, to wait, walk, watch and know, somehow, someway, anyhow, anyway, for me, things would have to change. Rap it up.

The thought of spending another five years with my parents was unbearable. The thought of having to save all of my money, was also unbearable. The thought of losing my youth, or the next ten or twenty years of my life, unbearable.

Looking back I smile in relief; the thought of work, and a uniform, overalls, or suit, shirt, and tie, briefcase, cheese and tomato sandwiches, tits in The Sun, time clocks, managers, time sheets, schedules, progress reports, estimations, two weeks every Summer on the beach at Cornwall, ten times a week riding the double-decker bus, old ladies downstairs, upstairs thick with tobacco smoke, kids running riot, and, I remember, last time I rode it, a young Jamaican Rasta rude boy, about fourteen years old, with oiled and plaited locks flowing down his back and shoulders looking like a lion of Babylon, standing at the front of the bus, upstairs, smoking a huge spliff of weed, and trying to blow the smoke out of the front windows, standing with his back to everyone, head almost out of the window like a figurine on the prow of a ship, the smoke swirling, flying, streaming back in around his head and filling the air all around us, and everybody laughing. Rap it up.

I wanted to be young, to stay young, for a long, long time; for ever, if possible, at least until I died. The thought of working staggered, horrified and distressed me. If it was a matter of just getting money, ok, but, I knew what work did to people, what it had done to my father. From Sunday night to Friday night it took him away, exhausting him, ruining our weekends, making him too tired to play. Often he’d work Saturday mornings too, stopping off at the pub on his way home, coming home drunk, eat his dinner, and sleep.

The money he made, his wages, drove them, he and my mother, crazy. Money obsessed them then; the car, the mortgage, the bills, the house, its gas, water, electricity, accessories and decorations; new clothes, new shoes, new hats, new boots and panties, baby-sitters and nights out dancing, wild parties; where would it end?

As soon as she could, as soon as I was safely at pre-school, mother started to work. She got a job at the school, cooking school dinners, and she hated it; but it was a job, and they needed the money. My goodness, what would we have done without the money? I was happy in our old house, and preferred things to go on unchanged, it was small, but it was close to school, and there were endless miles of open countryside right behind it. Roger and David would soon be gone anyway. I was confused.

I had been to my dad’s factory a few times when he worked overtime on Saturday mornings, and it didn’t attract me. I just never believed that my life and my father’s life would ever be similar in any respect. The factory was were he worked. I didn’t despise or hate it, nothing as passionate as that, I just did not feel a part of it, at all; one kind thought that I have of my father is that he purposely did not encourage me to follow him. It was just not worth giving everything for, surrendering my freedom, sacrificing my time, my life, and my future; if it only bought and paid for more of the same nightmarish endless bullshit. Saturday evening at the pub again, Sunday lunchtime drunk, and Sunday night drunk too; when he felt too weak he’d sit at home with a bottle of rum, smoke a cigar, and cry.

His body was broad, smooth and hard, curved, ridged with muscle, rigid, and wide; high wide forehead, jet black oiled hair always swept back and cut short, handsome, and manly, like Hercules. Now I think about it I might not wish that we’d had a chance to fight so easily; he might have beat the shit out of me, I’m sure he could have, on a good day; but often he was exhausted, and in pain. Malaria infections he had caught, several times, in China, India and Asia, came back every year, putting him out for a week or more; his back would seize up and my mother would hold my hand and walk with me as I stood on him, face down on the floor, and walked up and down his back, while he groaned in pain and relief. His feet were in bad shape too, his toenails were so thick he had to use garden secateurs to trim them, and he painted his feet in gentian violet, a vivid purple, to control his foot infestations caught from living for months in wet boots, at sea in the tropics, and there were oh so many and various large and small scars all over him, but not a lot of stories to tell; he needed to forget all of that.

He was an electrical engineer, I knew, but, I did not really understand why, or what he did for a living, for interest, for belief, substance and sustenance. I guess he never explained well enough what he did to me, which was strange; perhaps I just was not listening. I thought, I imagined, that he liked his work, and that he loved me; I could see how sad and sorry he was most of the time, tired, bored, powerless, pointless, a fish out of water. He would sit me down on his high stool, by a corner of his workbench, give me box of ‘bits and pieces’ as we called them—nuts and bolts and screws and washers, bits of wire, old transistors and capacitors, fuses, and so on, and leave me to amuse myself while he worked.

The factory made elevators; he worked on the stopping and starting and floor level mechanisms, and small computer programs that would empty a building in the shortest time in an emergency, that much I knew, but, I can’t remember him talking about his work at all, except to say how much he hated it, and how much he despised transistors. He never inspired me to follow him, that is for sure. He did not seem to have any idea what I might become, or have any ambitions for me. He did not push me at all and I still don’t know what to make of that.

Then, later, when he worked for Marconi, he was not allowed to talk about what he did. I know that he was some kind of genius with RADAR and he worked on weapons guidance systems for the government. Secrets; governments, weapons, and secrets. He had marks painted on his hands with secret ink—different fingers on different days, and had to remember passwords.

He did enjoy that job, more than any other; he got to go to secret places, and do field tests. He would go off to some clandestine government weapons testing place, a firing range, and come back beaming and laughing to himself. I have no delight in imagining what his feelings were, when he was there. Weapons of destruction, a spiral descending into madness, chaos, and finally servitude or total destruction, shit; they don’t want peace, only surrender. But these were happy days for him; a well paid job, position, status, money, distraction, a return to old powers; but we, his sons, had long since abandoned ship and swam for shore, in search of warmer climes, and a little common sense.

Once, being about twelve, saddened by all the wars in the world that I had no part in, lacking a cause, a fix, or a course, unable to plot or set my sails as the wind always blew against me, tacking, to catch a glimpse of horizon over the waves, find the sun, or moon, or star, I sent off to the Chinese Embassy for Mr. Mao’s ‘little red book’; what was that line he used? True political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.… If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

Mao Zedong (1893–1976), Founder of the People’s Republic of China. Speech, July 1937, Yenan, China.

I hadn’t learned how to read until it was almost too late. I was almost eight. Those school teachers had gotten pretty mad at me, and at my parents who had no time for me. I supposed that if, I thought, reading told you that water had no smell, then I didn’t need to read, didn’t want to. I could trust my senses better.

My mother and father were always too busy working to pay the mortgage and the bills, and taking care of the house, arguing, screaming and shouting. Working and sleeping, cooking and cleaning, dusting and polishing the furniture, washing the dishes, the car, the allotment and gardens where we grew all our own vegetables, working, cooking, and cleaning, shouting and screaming, and looking after themselves in preparation for their old age, sickness and so on.

I wondered, if they realised, that they might have lived a lot longer together if they hadn’t worked so hard; slaving, saving for money for a time that they would not be together to enjoy? My father did a lot of shouting, raving and raging. He suffered what we term now as a syndrome, of stress, and the trauma of war, a post traumatic stress disorder; all of the nightmares he’d been through during the war, combat fatigue, starvation and exhaustion, hah. Excuses.

My mother too. I realise only now that it was she who drove him to his excesses, his rage and his rum. All he really wanted was a quiet night at the pub with the boys, his mates, or just a chance to sit, quietly, for a while with the newspaper, or watch a little TV, which he well deserved. But she, she drove him against us and away from us all, now I know. He had no choice but to drive us out.

He was thirty years in the Navy. Chief Petty Officer in charge of a couple of thousand recruits on board a destroyer, several destroyers. He was Chief Engineer, and gunner, electrician and torpedo specialist. He’d loved those big guns, the shells, torpedoes, grenades and depth-charges. He’d lied about his age, joined up at fourteen, travelled the world and must have done an awful lot of killing. He was full of wild tales. First man up the mast of a German U boat captured at sea, ripping off with the Swastika flag.

He’d lost a tooth to a hand grenade pin; he was stood at the ship’s side, with a box of grenades, charging and dropping them into the water whenever they saw strange shadows in the deeps. He’d been one of only three survivors out of several thousand dead men to escape a sinking ship. Had chased the Japanese through China. Had travelled the world, lived in Alexandria, Shanghai, Nagasaki.

He’d been an official witness for the British Royal Navy in the executions of Japanese war criminals in China. Had laughed when the executioner had missed and merely severed an arm and or a shoulder. Those executions were beheadings done by sword. The first words of Chinese that I knew were the orders to commit an execution. He’d been waiting offshore at Japan, to go in after the bombs and help with the recovery. He’d begun the Scout movement in China, he was Brown Owl of the Orient, and took care of thousands of homeless children there.

He was full of doomy stories; his favourite expression was; ‘Oh, the boredom; the horrors of peacetime’.

We never got along very well together, his world so cold, hard, full of misery, and suffering, though I really did love him; his crystal clear ice-blue eyes, with their ten-thousand meter stare, broad shoulders, rough, tough hands, hairy, salty, muscular arms, and commanding ways. He still walked with a swagger, and kept his Boson’s whistle on a hook by the fireplace, next to his fathers’ silver topped, ebony staff.

His father, Joseph Fred, was a vicious Staff Sergeant in the British Army, he used to drink too much and beat his kids with that silver-topped staff. My father, Fred, had a brother and a sister, Freda and Bill. I guess they were dysfunctional too, Freda, I knew, had been beaten badly as a child, and had to be taken care of. Bill, I think, ran off to Australia. He came back to England to settle down; we visited him once, just once.

He was always the boss, the Boson, and our house, and garden, was always spotless, shining, shipshape. There was a place for everything, and everything, was