Alone on the Island with Professor Williams

By Michael TT Williams

This is an unusual mix by this quirky award winning author. Predominantly it comprises sequences that are auto-biograpical but also includes biographical facts that are often largely unknown because they have been tacity supressed. It also includes fictional examples of his writings that have constituted a major part of his life.  The book is predicated on the idea that Professor Williams is trapped on a small island and talks to himself in order to keep his memories refreshed and his mind  intact.

The reflections and the stories span the world. In one sense, this could be viewed as a travalogue with plenty of twists and turns. It will certainly take you on a journey. It's very funny in many parts but it's also disturbing in some measure, packaging as it does adult content including incites into mental illness and frank revelations about early sexual experiences.  

Most of all, it is an uplifting, entertaining and illuminating read packed with information very hard tor impossible to find anywhere else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael TT Williams
• Release date: Jan 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224799572

Book preview

Introduction

Ihave always liked stories. I like reading them, hearing them, telling them and writing them. Every one of us is both a living person and a unique story at the same time.  Really, what follows is a collection of partially joined up stories some true and some fictional.

The autobiographical extracts including about family are true as are those about the people whom I have met along the way. Many people’s lives and their stories have had extremes of ups and downs. Mine certainly has. If there is one advantage to that it is that it helps us to empathize with others. I think it’s much harder to do that if one’s life has been continuously happy. Sometimes I wonder if there ever has been a life like that,

I think it’s fair to say that I empathize easily.  I know people who have drug problems, both taking them and selling them in order to afford to buy them. Homeless, some of them and quite unable to just reach out and grab the lifelines that are thrown to them. It’s almost like they are determined not to be helped. Yet, I know that is a false reading. Not that I have or ever have had a drug problem. But drugs are from the only cause of a disturbed mind. In fact, Freudian and other analysis aside, some minds become unglued for no apparent reason or not one that can be explained anyway.  In some circumstances, people know why they became mentally unstable but it hurts too much to talk about it. As for me, during the middle of my life, I was drawn towards paranoid schizophrenia.  It’s much more common than most people think. One of my heroes, the author Philip K Dick suffered from it and, ironically, it infuses his writing with a perspective and originality that has helped make him a master of science fiction.

The London underground has a line running broadly north to south, the Northern Line.  It’s unusual in that between Kennington the south London and Euston in north London it splits into two lines, one covering stations on the West and one covering the left. It’s confusing for visitors and frequently catches out locals.  But the Northern line strikes me as a good way of describing the course of my life. It began moving along a single line representing normality. Then in my forties, a combination of things including bereavement unhinged me. The lines splintered. On the West side, life continued as normal, albeit with quirks galore. On the East line side, I was inhabiting a hostile and very dangerous world, and trying to behave normally.

I was a paranoid schizophrenic and yet I was so successful at covering it up that I never had it diagnosed nor treated not even when I was institutionalized in my early fifties. Then, nearly eight years later, having spent most of that time lying on my back, the two lines converged again and I realized that I had joined the sane world again. Except it isn’t sane is it?  So long as there are discussions about whether or not it can be justified to bomb women and children, including babies, who can claim to live in a sane world.

Yet another way of describing my life is that it has been very funny. Funny, diverse, unusual and dare I say entertaining. In fact, if I didn’t think that were the case, I wouldn’t bother setting it down. I’ll let you be the judge anyway. I should say that in setting down the story I have used a style that has a flavour of schizophrenia. On the other hand, I wanted it to be an easy read so I have not used confusing idiomatic language of the type to be found in A Clockwork Orange, nor of Fahrenheit 451. Neither have I used the extensive vocabulary to be found in books like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Let alone the complex narrative.

I’ve tried to make it as truthful and accurate as possible and the few omissions I have allowed to protect the feelings of others. Honesty is rightly cited as one of the best of human qualities yet we all learn to lie very early in life to save ourselves and others embarrassment. We haven’t always told our mothers the truth about what we have been doing in the bathroom. And they wouldn’t have thanked us if we had. If this sort of frankness disturbs you then read no further because this book is about the world the way it is, not the way that we pretend it is.

1

O’ let me not be mad , not mad, sweet heaven! 

Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

Shakespeare

I went to a Dickensian style preparatory school in Sussex that was closed down by HM’s Inspectorate of Schools in 1973 because it did not meet the required standards.  The headmaster was mad for a start.

My father was not rich. He was a London pub manager who paid what he could afford to give me the best education he could.  And it was a first rate education but I would not call it a soft and cozy experience.  I remember being caned for smoking.  The evidence against me was that I had a smoker's cough.  Matron’s diagnosis was law.  Cigarettes were in circulation and I suppose it all added up. I got six stokes for smoking and another six for lying and refusing to own up.  I got another six for it swearing out loud and being disrespectful. 

After those well aimed strokes through very thin pajamas I owned up to smoking.  I have never smoked. I wish I could tell you that I stood up defiantly and told him where to shove it.  But the truth is I broke down and cried and confessed to smoking.  I was nine and I could see no obstacle to Mr Magna beating me indefinitely. Actually, it was worth the pain to reap a benefit I could value in gold.  My peers got to hear that I had not ratted on them after eighteen strokes and after that, well, you can imagine. 

In the school holidays I split my time between my mother in Streatham Hill and my father in his pub in Trafalgar Square. 

The Two Chairman pub was pretty much opposite the National Gallery.  Well it still is, but it has changed a lot. 

It used to look like the inside of an old clipper ship with faded astrological charts and a huge boom hanging across the bar, hollowed out and holding the glasses.  It was a Courage pub and my father was the manager and on a small percentage commission.  He took a lot of money there for several reasons, including a swathe of Irish builders who were constructing a multi storey car park next door.  But the obvious advantage was that the pub was immune to the licensing laws. 

The old police station, Canon Row, was a five minute walk and the Detective Chief Superintendent of the manor, Cyril, very much appreciated a drink. But since he was not in a nine to five job, he and his colleagues needed a safe environment for drink until four in the morning.  The Two Chairman was known in the Nick as Court 3 and Cyril and his Chief Inspector were in Court a lot.  Uncle Cyril and I got on well.  He had two daughters but wanted a son. The more he drank, the more like a son I seemed to him.  He used to organize trips on the police launches for me on the Thames. 

On one occasion there were no police boats available but he didn't like to break his word.  He summoned the Commissioner's launch for me from somewhere far up river. 

I had a lot of police around me as a child.  My maternal grandfather was a policeman most of his life who brought up eight children in the depression.  He had been a stretcher-bearer in the trenches in the First World War and gave me his medals when I was too young to appreciate them. I just lost them for heaven's sake! Then in the Second World War he was a bomb warden and the exposure to the carnage of both wars provides an explanation as to why he drank excessively.  Still, he lived until eighty four and died of throat cancer a few months

after he was beaten up for in his flat on New Park Road, Streatham Hill. And then there were the regulars from the mounted police in Hammersmith.  Bob Price and John Pony Moore were great friends of my Dad's from before I was born. They were always indulgent with me.  I remember going with all three of them when I was about twelve to an unofficial police function that was a transvestite cabaret.  I was bored.  But I very often was bored around drink and drunks and, to be honest, large men in dresses miming to Shirley Bassey seemed a less attractive prospect than Dad's buxom barmaids - especially Helen.  

I guess it was an interesting time and place to be a boy, although probably more in retrospect that in the event. I would walk up to Carnaby Street in the early afternoon, and observe the buskers, the bead sellers, and the bearded gurus.  The clichés of 1969 were an ordinary backdrop, the ladies in mini-skirts, the kaleidoscope of colours and the sounds of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones emanating from the record shops either side of the street. 

My bedroom balcony looked out over Nelson’s Column but I had to share it with the pigeons and they obviously thought it had been put there as a public convenience judging by the use they made of it.  I walked our dog, Roma, up The Mall every morning into Green Park, whatever the weather.  She was a fluffy Alsatian, as cuddly as a bear and an utterly loyal protector. 

I was not spoiled. I was put to work doing all manner of chores in the morning from applying Duraglit to the brasses in the toilets to bottling up and, having washed my hands, making up the French bread sticks with freshly cooked beef sausages, and doing the washing up.  We had one of those rope lifts and there seemed to be a never ending succession of plates with half eaten veal and ham pie and I grew to detest scraping the mustard and Branston Pickle from the plates. 

My father gave me no pocket money during school holidays but since material things. What bothered me was being forced to go to bed at 8pm when I was not tired. The logic was that I was lethargic in the mornings so an early night was needed.  I wanted to explain that I was lethargic because I could not sleep between eight and midnight.

I was too angry. But my opinion was not really considered seriously.  I remember stepping on to the balcony and leaning over the decayed railing, to commit suicide in protest.  What a thing to die for!  To die in order to stay up later!  Even then, aged nine, I was eccentric.

Another thing that really irritated me was the certification of films to prevent viewing by minors.  It seemed to me to be unutterably stupid that one had to be eighteen to watch Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. I was a fan of Bruce Lee even before I saw him fight. Just what I had read of him fired my imagination and there were things about him that I associated with including his non-conformity.  Here was a martial artist that refused to be forced into one style or another.  His maverick approach to combine styles, even Japanese and Chinese techniques made him enemies.  This fuelled the rumours after his death that he had been murdered by martial art masters who were jealous of their secrets and resented Bruce Lee’s portrayal of these serious arts for mass entertainment while mixing and matching from different disciplines as he saw fit.

2

Somebody started handing out cheese. 

So I tried a bit. 

That was when I realized that I was more comfortable when among other mice.

From the complete works of

Shakespeare and Monty Python

AROUND 2003 I WAS MELANCHOLIC and having some extended leave from work.  My father had recently died after eighteen years of mental disability and a short lived illness.  I adored him.  He was the funniest man in the galaxy and his extraordinary mental condition, one in which he had a memory span of only one minute, would have crushed any other man.  But he made it a vaudeville hit for everybody else. 

It would have been a burden looking after him if he hadn't been so much damn fun.  I am going to tell you some more about him later on but to whet your appetite, he was irresistible to women.  A navy man, as handsome as Bond but with many more off-the-cuff jokes and, as if that were not enough for any one man, he was endowed like a prize winning donkey.  Incredibly, he was a man's man too, a boxer, a drinker, and beloved of the Irish for his yarns. 

I guess we all understand that decisions we make at a given moment can have lifelong effects.  Like the choice of a school or a job application.  My best friend Hugh was killed on a motor cycle fetching a loaf of crusty bread.  I miss him but, for the most part, we spot those big decisions a mile away and we stop at the crossroads and gaze down each path in turn. At other times, fate sneaks up and clobbers us from behind while we are distracted by the reassuring sound of distant church bells. Hugh had recently given up smoking with his health in mind and this increased his appetite. I can’t help thinking that if he hadn’t given up, he wouldn’t have been out looking for a loaf. Who knows?   He used to say that he was just popping out to meet Mr Nick O’Teen.  He had a take on the health issue. I remember him saying.

"You know, people say all sorts of things about smoking. They say it’s unhealthy, that it’s unsociable and that it’s expensive. What they don’t say is that it’s fucking lovely!"

I am not a smoker but I love the smell of joints.  They remind me of Pink Floyd concerts and the Floyd, for my money, is the best show on earth.  I once heard their shows described as electronic wankery which I thought was fair enough.  Each to their own.  Electronic wankery - musical orgasm.  Fine by me.  More about the Floyd later. 

3

Hello, and when did you get here snail?

Japanese haiku

I was eight when my parents sent me to Manor Boarding School.  I remember boarding the train on platform 16 at Victoria, next to the cartoon cinema, and waving goodbye to my father and mother.  Since they were separated by that time it was one of the few times I ever saw them together.  They came together just long enough for me to see them disappear from the window of a train accelerating to God knew where. 

My mother didn't want me to go but my father was convinced that a good education was worth its weight, and my academic achievements at Brockwell primary school had confirmed him in his belief that my low IQ needed supplementing and he was right. 

IQ tests along the lines designed by Eysenck have always defeated me. The moment somebody asks me to demonstrate mental dexterity with a time limit, I panic and my brain freezes. Tell you what though, while we are chatting, the food at that school was dreadful.  Lunch was a punishment and that fish based margarine shoved into what looked like a soap dish was to be avoided like a dose of the clap. I found some crushed glass in my rice pudding once and the only reaction from the staff was to instruct me to replace it and pass the jam.  The jam was more like sweetened tar. 

Masters had a dinner on Saturday night in the dining room which was always roast lamb or beef.  After they had repaired to their rooms leaving the remains to be cleared away by the domestic staff the following morning, we boys would raid it.  I know we were hungry because I remember picking up the half eaten sliced beef, dripping with cold gravy, from the masters’ plates.  A real treat was the left over baked potatoes that would fit into pajama pockets so could be taken back to the dormitories without the need to scoff them down.  

The flavour could be savoured. The punishment for being caught stealing from the dining room was a caning but that was not invariably the case. Whatever the offence might have been, when a caning was in prospect we would be made to wait outside the headmaster’s study late into the night.  On most occasions we were made to touch our toes for five or six strokes but sometimes the headmaster would just send us to bed. We always had hope of a reprieve so the suspense was more poignant.

In daylight hours, lessons were conducted in a climate of fear with the headmaster, bursting into random violence during History and English while Mr Dan supplied the carefully controlled violence during Latin and maths.  A double period or any combination of those subjects side by side inspired fear and a sense of dread.  We would wake up on a Wednesday morning with a tightening in the stomach;  double maths with Mr Dan followed by history with the Head. 

It was a game of wits to try to get through study periods without getting hurt but the lesson we learned, in the manner of Pavlov’s dogs, was that the most important thing to do was keep the people in authority as calm as possible. Laughing enthusiastically at jokes whatever their quality was a good bet. 

Obviously, with that kind of example, there was institutionalized violence on the part of the prefects who had a licence to slipper younger boys, or use Gym shoes. That was at least controlled whereas to fall foul of the likes of Pepra or Langdon meant getting punched and kicked in the stomach up against the wall of the Old Gym.  Prefects were afforded all sorts of privileges such as real butter on toast while the rest got the choice of inedible margarine or dry bread  The most extraordinary punishment was not, I think designed as one.  Starved as we were of radio and TV, we looked forward with relish to the showing of cine-films in the Old Gym on Saturday night.  I remember there were some great films: Goldfinger,  Dr No, The Time Machine, The Yellow Rolls Royce, The Railway Children......

The thing of it was, we had to go to bed at certain times according to our ages which meant, in practice, only the prefects ever got to see the end.  One could measure one’s progress through the school by how much of the film one could see.  In the first year we would see barely twenty minutes but as we moved along the conveyer belt we got to the point at which we had invested enough time in the plot to