Life in the Harsh Lane: The Nine Lives, Mishaps, and Adventures of a No-Body

By Thomas Appleby

This book is intended to make any reader, firstly laugh, then in no particular order, flinch, be jealous, feel sick, feel sorry, angry and disgusted or just plain sad.

This is the original story of nobodies, but the type of people a lot of people can relate to, to some degree. Events are sometimes in random order, due to the author's sometimes random memory.

The main dilemma in writing a 'warts n' all' book, is, whilst it's fine to do so if you are famous, on the other hand, when even your wife can barely remember who you are, it's a bit different! Basically, who gives a shit? But going with the old clich 'Everyone has a book in them' here's mine.

It is a book of many contrasts, wild and excessive and funny to some, but at some points it is balanced out with the tales of the complete opposite, about family, heartbreak and loss, and has some pretty morbid moments I must admit, but this is generally about the knowledge that you gain in this life, I can't say I have learned completely yet, who does? But I'm getting there, and if I don't, who really gives a toss anyway? I didn't invent Penicillin, or The Wheel, or even American Idol, I'm just a regular guy in some respects. There is a great quote out there which that wholeheartedly sums up my philosophy towards life, 'Live as if you'll die tomorrow. Dream as if you'll live forever.'

There is also a historical element to some of the recollections, relating to people and places, just to try to make me look a bit more clever if possible, well I need something! As for writing about real life, as a musician formerly, I now understand when a band says you have your have the first part of your life to write your first album, it's the same with writing about real life, all your own experiences are exhausted after that. As anyone who knows me, I'm one of the worst liars in the universe, imagination I'm crap at, I do prefer real life. So I won't be forging a career in Fiction anytime soon. Anyway, it's all academic, I'll probably get banned from writing books ever again, if anybody ever reads this.

Names have been changed to protect the slightly guilty, the guilty, and the really guilty, I hope I've not dropped anyone in this too much. There are certain stories which I cannot and will not write about, too sensitive for some people I know, and are frankly a bit too harsh for this book, and that's saying something.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477130339

Thomas Appleby

Thomas was born in West London, but spent his childhood in Kent, It was a wild time, drive by newspaper deliveries, gossip when someone had knitted a new sweater at No.20, the neighbourhood watch an keeping the peace, patrolling the mean streets on his rickety old bicycle, buses to civilisation turning up ten minutes late, which caused mass riots by all the pensioners. It was non stop action. He then moved back to London, tried to be a Rock Star, and failed.

Book preview

What someone will do for drugs

I have a mate, Paul, a respected and successful teacher, he and a few of us shared a house in Catford after university, and there are a few stories about him floating around. My favourite is, after a coke and drink binge, he was in this club, out of it, naturally wanting some more Coke. Getting desperate and out of money, he went to the toilets. By the way, he is straight, allegedly, and he asked this guy if he had any coke, he had. The next bit is almost too disgusting to repeat, but not exactly what you might be thinking though. The guy offered him 4 lines in return for an arsehole licking, the twist is, Paul wasn’t doing the licking, the guy wanted to do it to him, and did. (His wife knows.) It is also widely known by all of his friends, but hopefully not at the school he works at, I don’t think they would be too impressed. The strangest thing is that he doesn’t seem to be the slightest bit embarrassed about it, to this day, so did he actually secretly like it?! The truth is out there. One day I will find out, mark my words Paul.

Paul, by his own admission, is possibly the most obnoxious drunk you will ever meet, and there’s plenty out there including myself. On meeting his new girlfriend’s family for the first time, he got so pissed, he fell down the stairs ripping an expensive painting off the wall in the process, then standing up at the bottom, collapsed into a table, got up again, now in front of the whole family he then told them to all fuck off, and then collapsed again and passed out finally. Quite an impression was made. Wish I’d seen it. (Her dad was actually a stand up comedian, so could appreciate the humour, unlike my friend, he actually could stand up though.) To put it politely, Paul has ruined many a good party hilariously, not a real problem for me, just for the normal people, which there must be some of them out there somewhere? I’ve not met that many.

Another university mate, Edward, a real Northerner (he also shared our house in Catford, along with Paul, Paul’s girlfriend, her friend Abbi, and me) had a little secret which he had kept quiet all through Uni. We were alerted to this, when one day I was looking through his books for something to read, and at the bottom of the pile by his bed, was a book about a twenty something male, living in London after Uni, who was gay, but never had told anybody. Hmm . . . I showed the girls, who read a bit of it and came to the obvious conclusion. That night we were all out on the piss near Victoria station, I’d left the book on top of his bed, which he had of course noticed, so the atmosphere was a bit tense!! we’re getting pissed, and everyone’s looking at Edward, trying not to laugh, and he’s looking at us, in the end, someone broke the ice, probably me, and said ‘so, you got anything to tell us ?’ and he outed himself there and then, which despite the previous evidence, was still a bit of a shock. The next morning was funnier when he came into the lounge looking very hangover and sheepish, I just said, ‘down the pub then?’ and that was it. We were all talking there, asking him if he’d actually had sex with a man, and he said he thought it was a disgusting idea, and said he still fancied girls as well, and couldn’t even fathom thinking about a cock up his arse, (that changed eventually so we learned) but was as gay as Graham Norton on ecstasy, so work that one out for yourself! He really was only worried what his parents would think. Sadly his mum died a while back, but I think he has told his Dad by now.

My Dad actually went through a stage where he thought I might be gay, I didn’t have a regular girlfriend, was in my early thirties, what made it worse was one New Years Eve, I was staying at my dad’s, I fucked the barmaid from our local pub. Unfortunately she had quite short hair, and I was in bed with her when my dad burst in drunk, New Years Day morning. Most people normally say ‘hello, happy new year!’ I on the other hand got ‘Is that a boy?!’ bellowed at me in front of Sarah, the barmaid. Who cringed the most is debatable. But that’s my dad for you. I’m trying to think which is worse, that, or the time he chased me down the street, pissed out of his head, after my car, screaming ‘Thomas, have you eaten all the bananas? I had, as a matter of fact, but was it really suitable timing to accuse me of such a heinous crime, in front of all my mates and most of the street also? And I was twenty two years old. Haha.

I used to be a Tourist guide at Tower Bridge in London, twice actually, in 2000 and then again in 2003/4.

If you are a fan of simplified history, a few facts for you, Tower Bridge is an amazing place, the views themselves from the walkways are proof enough, overlooking the old London Docks and what was called the London Pool. Built between 1886-1894, it was a suspension bridge to allow ships and boats in and out of what was then a huge commercial area of the East End.

Not to bore you with too many details, the upper part of the bridge, was originally a pedestrian walkway, for people to cross the Thames. They eventually had to close the walkways down as people being kept getting robbed, raped and even murdered, in no particular order, and it was full of hookers. Nowadays, since 1984, it has become the ‘Tower Bridge Experience’ you go up the left tower, by lift nowadays, you don’t want to walk up those bloody stairs, there are shows on each level, about the history of the bridge and surrounding areas, (or at least there were in my day,) then cross over the walkways at your leisure, (unless it was near closing time, then you are told to get out, and not in a polite way,) look at the views, take pictures etc, look at loads of old blown up black and white photos from the Docks era and if you are lucky, find a guide who isn’t pissed, to ask questions if you want. One question when I was there that was regularly asked was ‘where are the Crown Jewels?’, with tourists pointing around, of course usually by Americans and the Japanese. ‘They are where they always are, in the Tower of London!’ ‘Gee, this is not the Tower of London then?’ ‘No, this is a bridge.’ Easy mistake to make though I guess. They both have ‘tower’ in their names.

Still, not as bad as the American company, McCulloch Oil back in 1968 who were sold what they thought was ‘Tower Bridge’ for a shitload of money (just over $1,000,000 ) by one of the best con artists ever, Ivan F. Luckin. (his real name, lucky about the ‘L’) They unfortunately ended up with the old London Bridge, which is not quite the same really to be fair. It had been due to be scrapped, and a new one built, but Luckin as a prominent member of the London Council, reckoned he could sell the old one to America. He was laughed out of the building, but then he actually managed to actually do it. It was shipped over, in blocks, to America where it now sits proudly over Lake Havasu City (a strange name for a lake!) in Arizona. Mr Luckin even had the cheek to contact the Guinness Book of Records to claim it was the biggest antique ever sold. Norris Mcwhirter, the editor, and erstwhile Blue Peter contributor, apparently wasn’t too impressed, but the entry went in the famous book in 1972. (Phew! history lesson over.)

It was hilarious working at Tower Bridge, with some of the biggest characters you’ll ever meet. All total pissheads. The lunchtime rota paired 2 guides off at the same time, so by then, you would know who with and who was getting the first beer in. The Weatherspoons pub just down from the bridge on the junction with Tooley street, had some pretty dodgy clientele, we were alright because we worked in the bridge, there were ‘faces’, retired getaway drivers, old bank robbers and a notorious Gypsy family for starters. I would meet them, without knowing who they were, only after lunch the other guides, they’d all been there years, would tell me, ‘you know who you were just talking to?’ Lunch by the way was 4 pints of Stella, you could just about fit it in within an hour. Everyone would go there every lunchtime, so tourists going up and through the bridge in the afternoons had a complete crew of half pissed guides, including the managers. We were so rude to the tourists, fuck knows how we got away with it. They sometimes had business dinner functions in the evenings on the walkways, and one or two of us got overtime for manning the lifts. The Corporation of London tended to use the same Catering firms, so we always got the waitresses to sneak us wine, so by the end of the evening we were drunker than the guests.

Some people there fully exploited their age old contracts with the Corporation, and were taking up to a year off, fully paid, due to ‘injury at work.’ You’d see them down the pub everyday. Ridiculous! haha, and there was nothing the Corporation of London could do, the contracts were set in stone, they realised their mistakes by the late Nineties, and then only took on temps such as myself. It was the best job I’ve ever had.

Another part of that job was to be the guide at the Monument, London’s original highest stone building designed by Christopher Wren. It was built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Fire Of London. It’s exactly 202 feet high, and is exactly 202 feet away from where the main fire started on the second of September 1666, in Pudding street. It was built on the site of the first building to burn down, a church.

It’s still impressive, but not when you had to climb the steps, 311 of the bastards, up a narrow spiral staircase, to check everything was okay at the top. There is a cage at the top to stop suicides, and it has been there since the 19th century. You’d have to sit up there, having a rest, looking down over London, until you could breathe again, then have a fag. After 311 steps, you wanted to commit suicide as well.

The local tramps would sit outside the ground entrance on a sunny day, and ask us to store their super strength cider behind the desk just inside the front. It had been an ongoing thing for years with other guides, and it was best to keep on their good side, otherwise they could cause problems naturally, but we weren’t so far behind them in drinking terms (and we also weren’t adverse to sneaking our own booze in either.) I guess they were trying to look respectable amongst all the city folk milling around. As I discovered, these winos were actually generally nice guys, I seem to have an affinity with tramps, can’t think why. The best thing about the Monument was that there was another Weatherspoons pub just behind it, so extended lunches were had by all. We even invited one of the tramps in there once. Bought him a pint of Stella, he didn’t seem too impressed with it. Sorry mate, they don’t do ‘Stella Super’ to the best of my knowledge.

Back to the bridge, there are many lasting memories of Tower Bridge road, one was that it seemed to be a very popular place to try and commit suicide, by jumping in the Thames. The currents are pretty strong, and you wouldn’t fancy your chances much. We all had walkie talkies, and when a ‘jumper’ was spotted, we found out in seconds, and rushed to the windows of wherever we were. Usually the Bridge security managed to talk them down off the concrete ledges that run along each side of the road.

One woman, when I was on front desk duty, checking bags, had climbed onto the wall next to the ticket office, so was in full view, wearing a rucksack, and was preparing to jump. You don’t sit up there unless you are planning to. The bridge security approached her, and she grabbed a hypodermic needle out of her bag and threatened to give them Aids. She was a junkie, and just had her kids taken away from her, as it turned out. My mate Dave in security, massive guy, was understandably a bit wary of the needle, and was doing his negotiator bit, the river police were already hovering around in a boat underneath, and in a split second when she got distracted, he rushed her and pulled her back, sending her crashing back to the pavement, by then the land police had arrived but kept their distance, they seemed to prefer to let our security deal with it, in these type of cases. can’t think why. She was dragged off, It was just another normal day, it was better than TV though.

Terrorism was a real threat, obviously after 9/11, and of course had been previously, in the seventies and eighties with more local based terrorism, so the older guides were very used to it. I wasn’t. They didn’t have suicide bombers in Margate, just suicide drinkers.

Every morning at our usual briefing before we opened at 9.30 am, we were told, if it was necessary, by a member of the London Anti-Terrorist squad, of any threats or activity that we should be on the lookout for. Bear in mind, Tower Bridge is one of the most recognisable landmarks in London, and thus prone to terrorist threats and plots. When I was working there, for the second time in 2003-4, one morning we were briefed by an Anti-Terrorist squad official that two highly suspected wanna be suicide bombers who had been under surveillance, but had slipped the net, and were now wandering around London somewhere. Nice. The Police and Army were put on high alert, but secretly, to avoid alarming the public, it was kept under wraps, apart from to the places likely to be targeted. i.e. places like us. Police snipers were placed on city roof tops, and from the top of the bridge, you could see some of them. It was like a bloody film, but not something that we could watch from the safety of a cinema unfortunately.

We were also advised that Al Qaeda were now prone to using children as the ‘bombs’ and could possibly be of Algerian or Russian descent. The next big question, was ‘who is going to mann the front security desk, and vet people and bags?’ Guess who drew the short straw for the first shift? yep, of course, I forget sometimes that God just laughs at me. That was a fun few hours, trouble is I could have let in Osama Bin Laden and wouldn’t be able to tell, (if he’d cut his beard off and wore a baseball cap.)

Later we then had our only real scare of that day, when in the left walkway of the bridge, a bag had been left, and no body had claimed it. Not one guide would go across either walkway, we just hid in our respective positions sometimes peering gingerly from behind the huge stone foundations of the two towers, all of us, and argued who was going to go and get it. The conversation went something like this;

‘Go and pick it up, it’s only a bag.’

‘Fuck off you cunt, you do it’

‘You’re fucking joking, I’ve got a family’

‘You’re younger’

‘you’re more stupid’

‘you’re more of a cunt, no one will miss you’

and the bickering continued on and on, until the Bomb Squad turned up and discovered it was harmless, just a bag full of tourist shopping. Still, you could never be too careful. The person who left it there will never know how many heart attacks he/she nearly caused that day. The funny thing is, that whilst us guides were hiding, protecting our cowardly hides, we didn’t give a second thought to the tourists who were still going to and fro, admiring the views along the walkways. Still what do you expect, we needed cannon fodder. Nothing less that the World War One generals did at the Somme, although I can’t really compare the two, one was a mindless bloodbath resulting in the loss of thousands of lives, the other, a carrier bag and a bunch of scaredy cat half drunk tourist guides, doesn’t really have the same ring to it does it?!

Back in the Debt collection days, our main job was phone tracing, not something I’m particularly proud of, most of the people we were trying to find were professional fraudsters. We would be pretending to be from the Inland Revenue, saying we got a Tax rebate for so and so, or we would trace them from the DVLA., in those days you could phone up, give ‘your’ name and date of birth, and they would ask you to confirm where you lived. You would give the last known address for them, and usually they would say ‘no we have ‘blahblah’ address’ They got wise to that one eventually. This also worked with the Gas and Electricity boards, you would simply phone up and ask why you hadn’t received your bill. Looking back, it seems a bit ridiculous, why would you phone up and ASK for a bill.? Another was going through the house registry records, Equifax back in the 90’s, and you could speak to the parents or neighbours, if their number was listed, saying you were an old friend, wanting to invite so & so to our wedding.

Another type of job we would do, was to repossess credit cards, particularly for the Royal Bank of Scotland. It seems weird looking back, you’d think they would simply block the card, but back then it wasn’t that simple to stop someone using them still. I guess because of the old style machines still in use then.

We were sent out to Chigley, the ‘Birds of a Feather’ TV show place, to get the credit cards off this guy. He somehow had got wind of this, probably from the bank, and when he saw us turn up, he took off in his car. Car chase tactic. We had his number, our manager, Lee had a mobile phone, relatively new at the time, and so did this guy. So I’m driving, chasing this fucker whilst Lee was phoning him up, saying ‘look, we don’t want any problems mate, just need your cards’ He should have just not answered his fucking phone, but he did continuously, ‘fuck off, you’re going to do me’ etc. Sounded like a bad Guy Ritchie film, ‘just give us the cards’ ‘no, fuck off.’ He wouldn’t stop, he had a flash sports car, can’t remember which type, and this went on for about thirty minutes, bombing it around country roads, and the bastard lost us. He knew Essex a lot more than we did.

We cut our losses and went back to Chigwell to a local pub, Sharon and Tracey weren’t in there though, thank God.

Someone who was after our kind however, doing a story on the tracing firms, was Panorama, the BBC One investigative program. They stormed in to a local firm’s offices where as I saw on TV, my friend Rachel looking completely gobsmacked as they starting poking microphones and film camera’s at everyone, barking out questions! Haha, your 15 minutes of fame babe.! I’d been there the day before for an interview, after this shit I thought I’d find another job. The guy in charge, was arrested, let out but banned from running a company, or something, I can’t remember the legal jargon. He simply set up another company in another name. Normal procedure.

The funniest moments that I remember from all these experiences, (probably not so funny to people who weren’t there) are firstly the Manager of one place, as Cockney as you can get, pretending to be a Cornish farmer phoning the DVLA, saying he needed a new driving licence as it was in his tractor which had just been stolen, and a with accent that should have won him an Oscar, when asked his address, he said ‘I been drinking cider all day with me friend Hadn’t I? Me can’t remember where I live.! where’s me tractor?!!! They told him his address and actually apologised for not knowing where his tractor was. Fucking unbelievable. He got a round of applause from us lot. Robert De Niro couldn’t have pulled that one off.

Another brilliant one was, for some newspaper that we should not mention, we were asked to find out Terry Wogan’s phone number. The story behind this was one of his business partners had been doing some dodgy deals, so Mr Wogan was linked by association, which was bollocks, but that’s the tabloids for you.

So his number was duly found, and the Manager decided to treat us to another one of his impressions, and this one was spot on perfect, Spitting Image couldn’t have done better.

Phone call to Terry:

‘Hi Terry it’s Lloyd Grossman, from Master chef’

‘Ah, how are you Lloyd?’

‘I’m good Terry, I want to ask if you would like to come on the show?’

‘Ah Lloyd, I’m a bit busy at the moment’

‘Oh Terry, don’t be a complete wanker, c’mon you tosser’

‘Lloyd, is that you?! Lloyd? Ah, fuck off you idjit.’

Not many people can say that’s happened to them, being told to fuck off by Terry Wogan, I never heard him say that on telly.

Back to phone tracing, mentioning a tax rebate, or the like, it was amazing that suddenly the person on the phone would miraculously remember where the person was, and so on. Yep our firm were cunts, but everyone has to earn a living, and last time I checked I’m not related to the Royal family, Donald Trump or Bill Gates, so money is money and people make it in far worse ways than doing this sort of shit.

Another place I worked at in Wimbledon, was with a guy who’d set up a business by himself, I’d known him from a while back, and apart from the usual phone tracing we ventured into private investigating. This got a bit weird, when we got asked by a well known local gangster, to trace a certain phone number. Initially no questions were asked, you don’t in that line of work, but we found out after I’d got the name and address. It was this Brain of Britain burglar, who had broken in to this Face’s house, robbed what he could, but decided to use the phone there to call his girlfriend before he left. So this guy got caught by simply this Face dialling the newly installed BT ‘1471’ or whatever it was. After the number was passed to us, it’s easy to find the address, I wouldn’t like to think what happened to burglar guy after that, but I would bet he didn’t make any more calls from houses he had broken into.!

We had a few investigative visits to houses, for various jobs, usually in North London, but one job which went spectacularly crap was when I was doing a surveillance job on a dentist in Old Street, East London. It was your typical film like story, wife thought her husband was having an affair, so I was posted to follow him after he left his practice. I was there early in my mate’s car, but that part of Old Street it is pretty difficult to look inconspicuous. What I also hadn’t taken into account, was I had no idea what transport he was going to use. When he finally left, on foot, he headed towards Liverpool Street station, so I followed, and having not followed any private investigator’s guide, if there is one, he went into the station and down to the underground. ‘Fuck’ there was only one of us with a travelcard and it