WHAT WE DID AS KIDS PART I

We had to survive back then by being primitive and self sufficient. We made a bonfire out of soaking wet wood whilst the wind and rain was pouring relentlessly, it was cold, the wood heavy and muddy, yet the struggle was the beauty, the craftsmanship required in such difficult conditions. It made it so worthwhile when we succeeded in lighting the fire, after using a huge of old newspapers that my Mum used to collect in a black bin bag. The sight was incredulous and people all around were jealous... well just the little kids who wanted to poke sticks in the flames addictively. We put sausages in the fire to cook, we loved the result - Charcoal... It had that nice burnt taste of well... rock hard charcoal. But they tasted good because we were eating them outdoors. I remember I had a packet of twenty rockets which I had purchased from Ismal at the Cheaper Market, they were awesome. Instead of soaring high into the sky like proper fireworks and screeching, they sort of took off in a random horizontal direction screaming like a gay man. Not that I have anything against gay people, just a factual observation. I thought, 'no wonder these fireworks cost me only £1' and thought 'fuck this', then I stuck them all on the Bonfire at once instead of lighting them individually. Nothing for about ten minutes, then all of a sudden it felt like we were being invaded. Fireworks shooting out of the fire in all directions, not only were we piss wet through, but we had to go back to our Scout days and play dodge. 'Akela we will do our best... ohh.. cringey'.

We used to do all sorts, put oil batteries on the fire, paint, aerosol cans and they all added to an awesome sense of danger. The type of danger that knocks you back about 30 metres because you've poured a petrol can on the flames. We were daredevils...... but mostly just little shits. Talking of little shits, we used to throw poo on the fire. Asking someone if they wanted a sausage when it was really a charcoal shit was one of the highlights of November 5th and I have you Guy Falkes to thank for this. You're a legend mate, I wish you were still alive so you could have been inflicted with one of my pound shop bottle rockets.

That night we had burn marks, singed hair, ripped muddy clothes, wet trainers, and I wouldn't change it for the world, getting messy and struggling is part of growing up. We were nuts, I challenge anybody who says they had a better childhood than we did. I would just laugh in their faces. We could write best selling autobiographies on our childhood and it would stun and amaze people. The 700 Browns, getting dropkicked over the fence, the piledriver on concrete, getting my toilet window broke with a football, trading Yokozuna wrestling figure for a bag of crisps. Damn! The Island Fart near the Infant school gates, the Real McCoy twig, excalibur in the rock on the fields, the chin in the water, cardboard mountain, catching frogs and newts on the island, jumping down Daddy Mountain on bikes, The Def Ste era, the new pitch being opened for the first time, building dens, Tombstone Tackle, Batman belt stuck in the keyhole, (nothing homo bout those last two honest) writing, drawing and reading our own comic strips, camping out and stealing people's milk off their doorsteps in the early mornings, being egged and generally tormented by Tony, as well as being called Flids and he also had some really long impressive quote which started 'bakedbeansandcabbage...' Told us how he hitchhiked to an away football match and did a streak on the pitch. Riding around the cul-de-sac on bikes, thinking father Christmas was real because one of my relatives lived on her own and got presents, 1, 2, 3 you're out wrestling thingy, bike rides along the canal, stealing father Brian's firewood and he said 'I thought you were my friends', the fart in front of Def Ste which he could only smell, obsessive films were Rita Sue and Bob Too and UFO with Chubby Brown, always being called Rangers and the manager as Brian Laudrup on Keegan's Player Manager just coz Will said so, if Will wasn't there, the manager was Andyandryan, the Ryan v Kev fight in the cul-de-sac which resulted in a draw, Maudwatch, being threatened by the police for drinking White Lightning behind Roman Road school with size 10's, Def Ste selling my games ewwww, Def Ste not pissing off when we got Royal Rumble, getting the Amiga off smelly Elliot (he was a scruff, probably can only afford one t on Elliot) we took his Amiga back broke but I still somehow blagged my SNES back, not being able to get stung when wearing magic gloves, eating nettles and pretending they had tastes, Sally the awesomely obedient German Shepherd dog, Shaun Burke's Dad asking me where his radio had gone and I said 'I know where it is, but its just a piece of charcoal now' because it had been burnt in the great den fire, which I was accused of throwing a frog on, even though it leaped out of my hands, the World Cup bet that I won, but ultimately lost, 'YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHICH WRESTLING FIGURES! DUR DUR DUR DUR!!!!, the thinking tree which helped us to think what to do when we didn't know what to do, Shauny Watson feeling sick after eating something and Billy McMullan said to him 'do you want this kitkat'... lol, 'DISASTER after conceding yet another goal to Blackburn Eagles in the equivalent of the Champions League Cup, beating Knuzden in the cup final 3-2, even though my Dad (when he was alive) said that we wouldnt, the Indiana Jones whip, fake wine glass, invisible ink, elbowing Wayne Pearson into the hedges, bullying him into giving us Brannigans crisps, my crazy way of tieing my shoelaces around my ankes, turtle mouth, getting that roof slate dropped on my head and all that blood that leaked out was awesome, playing hide and seek or Alex the Kidd in Peter Kay's house, this is my mug, getting bit by Cassie the dog, Anthony Kay getting his finger severed by that grate, us putting a frog in a grate and it made a funny back twist, climbing on the church and infant school roofs, that psycho who fell off the motorbike on Our Ladies School and his bone was sticking out of his leg, he was called Glen and lived on Formby Close, selling a Super Nintendo with a dodgy power pack, going to Blackpool in a caravan and buying a book of the body which was disappointing, water pistol fights in the summer, wearing anti-climb paint as camouflage, colouring our entire bodies in with green felt tips to look like Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, the ooze picture, the really impressive drawing of the beach that Andy did/didn't draw, collecting all the manager game data in notebooks and storing it in the attic, watching Ghostbusters in Andy's shed, going Halloweening and Alan Holden did something really nasty but forgot what it was, the Millionhair man who owned the video games shop and he always used to be fast asleep when we went in, his geeky assistant who claimed to have won every trophy on CM in one season, even all the European trophies ewwww, me dying my hair blonde to do an Eminem and it came out orange, the Kerry Rigby 1cm mouth snogs, playing Atmosphere in Peter Kay's house, the one with the GATEKEEPER!!!, watching all the WWF events through Peter Kay's window and never really been able to make anything out, the ulitmate game of longshots that we had on the small island when me and Andy both had keeper tops, and the score finished something like 20-19, using the two lamposts as goalnets, mad Glen who lived on our street who used to drive like a maniac and chase us into Burkey's garden, pioneering the Saturday/Sunday Father Brian Football Tournaments, trying to chip my PS1 myself and fucking it up argh, Daddy Skimore and MumWinner, laughing when we heard that Mark Dunn had hung himself and just making pun jokes like 'he's dunn himself in', that piece of wood that I threw up that nearly took Mark Hughes's eye out, smelly Eggy, Kamran's limp wrist and also his crazy foot goal, playing cricket with Burkey even though we hated it, calling Burkey a German, climbing through my house window when I had been locked out, The Garry Holden 'noo noo' cry, the Graham Holden 'wahhhh' cry, Carol laughing when we were running from the badi's, not baddies, sorry any outsiders if you don't get this inside joke, Will forcing us to walk his dog, Will putting orange peels in when giving me back my computer, Wayne Pearson selling crap on his jumble sales and us just laughing at it, me completing Victory Boxing by absolutely blagging a win against the final boxer, 5 pound tradebacks, Saturday morning cartoons such as Batman, Samurai Pizza Cats and Thundercats, bloating that dead rat and melting candle wax on it (no cruelty I promise, the rat was dead), never completing Zelda, wearing a kit with no name or number for Roman Road, drinking Damon Pils beer in the Blackamoor Cemetery, Fat Dickinson, Wembley singles when Will would refuse to accept getting beaten, the turtle sewers, Andy being kicked by a priest, the itchy scratchies, Demo saying Euro 96 was the best game in the world, when it was really just an Actua Soccer rip off, Oliver Bierhoff on Sensi, Demo kept saying 'Djorkaeff and skying the ball over all the time', always getting beat off the psychic Moss twins, being really intimidated by the geeky little shit Ryan Otobo, tryna get a transfer to Witton school but my parents wouldn't allow it, putting that stick in Anthony Kay's bike wheel and being lynched like a thug, climbing onto the hedges and crawling all the way around the neighbourhood on top of the hedges, doing all the stuff from the rainy day survival book like wear all the clothes you own all at once, pissed in Peter Kay's tent in the middle of the night and did a runner, also broke their torch, spending all my birthday money on WWE stickers for my album, watching Friday the 13th's or Nightmare On Elm Street in Peter Kay's house, tryna get hold of LMA Manager on Bonfire Night, getting terrorised by that schizophrenic behind my house who used to chase us into my shed, until I chased him back one night and it worked, he left us alone, watching Will balance on the railway bridge and thinking he was gonna die, breaking into the school grounds to get our football back with wirecutters, Andy throwing a brick over a fence near the canal and it smashed a car windscreen through, bike rides to Children's world, playing indoor football in JJB's, playing Golf on our Lady's school with Burkey's clubs, the Guiness World Records made up stuff we did in a sketchbook, like a man lived in a pit with the boiling hot sun shining down for 30 days without any food or water and survived, me and Andy stealing my brother's spliff.

That's only about 10% of 100% of stuff we did, this list will grow. Its crazy!