book 3

According to the church you technically had to be alive for them to be read but Father O’Donnell was more than happy to bend the rules and turn back the clock 300 years.

As he discussed his game plan, I watched an army parachutist presumably on practice drill, spiral down to the ground at the airbase near to the village. Although Dad had served in the Marines for 20 years and his grandfather had been a Rear Admiral, I had no interest following in their footsteps. In my eyes, the bloke falling through the sky, was no more than a pawn in the grand old scheme of things, controlled at the bequest of a higher order. To acquiesce would have been a dereliction of duty to my inner self and the path I had chosen to follow, which appeared to be one, not of order. I’d already sussed out that war was basically a folly in most cases and that it appeared to be a perpetual requirement of Governments to foster it. We were told on a regular basis that we faced nuclear annihilation by an unstoppable Warsaw Pact so we seemed to be endlessly tooling up and then we had the war or troubles in our back yard, that was Northern Ireland. That was well brutal and was also constantly on the news. At times for an English left footer it was also somewhat confusing. Much of the time it was brokered as a battle between the Catholics and the Protestants and whether I liked it
or not I was one of the former and this created a bit of an identity crisis. The sight of a fireman shoveling up charred body parts from the aftermath of a bomb in Belfast disgusted me and I wanted the perpetrators hunted down, but my chagrin was equally shared when it came to the Shankhill butchers murdering Catholics or the scenes from Bloody Sunday and the obvious unlawful killing of the innocent. Although I had some sympathy for the green recruits like the paratrooper about to land I had no intention of joining him and putting myself in the crosshairs of an IRA sniper fighting for his supposed freedom in an unwinnable war. As I lost sight of him, my mind refocused and started to think of Aziz and what he must have endured on the battlefield before his death. I felt good in myself that we were finally helping him and somewhat honour

bound to maintain a chivalrous outlook to life because of it. I’d always worn my heart on my sleeve and loved an underdog. Being part of a spiritual rescue team helped ensure it would always be part of my eternal make-up.
The wooden creocote painted gates were already open when we arrived home shortly after. We drove through them and parked up beside the salvaged semathore railway signal, stacked against an outhouse. It signalled the all clear, which mirrored our purpose, as we entered the house. My mother made Father O’Donnell a cup of tea who had been directed to the cub and was already unpacking his bag. I noticed he had his purple sash, a bible, a vial of holy water and his trusty dispenser – which he was soon filling. It was like watching Peter Cushing in a Hammer House Horror Movie, preparing to have it out with Dracula as he tightened the stopper on his holy mace, placing it back on the table as he sat back and collected his thoughts. In the end any concern he might have had, proved to be an anticlimax. After finishing his tea he draped his sash over his shoulders and followed my mum orating the last rites prayer, whilst holding his bible a loft as he anointed the cellar, hallway and spare room with holy water. In a movie the lights would have flickered or some supernatural activity would have occurred, but the house was still and the only sound apart from Father O’Donnell was the gentle buzz of a neighbour’s lawnmower as they readied their garden for the coming winter.

I didn’t know what solstice Aziz got from the ritual, but years later I’d sit with my dying mother in a hospital as a different priest uttered the same words.They seemingly appeared to calm her into a trance like state as she prepared for her own journey ahead. Hours after her death her spirit would return to me as would Aziz’s to visit Liz and my mother for one last time.

The nights were drawing in when Liz came back to the house a couple of months later for a long weekend. Since Father O’Donnell’s visit the ghost had not reappeared. I felt with the saying of the mass and the sacrament readings, that Aziz’s spirit was finally at rest as the house felt different – like an edge had been removed from its atmosphere. It had been a usual Coke dinner that night with debate, alcohol and good food, before Liz had later retired to the spare room. She was awoken in the middle of the night. Seated on her bed was a figure of a man dressed in a knee length white vest. He was staring  towards the window, his body appeared free of trauma, a peaceful aura resonated from his presence. He turned towards her as she stirred – by the time she blinked, he was gone. She momentarily thought it was Micky D, before it dawned on her who had just visited. A few weeks later it was Halloween or All Hallows.In Pagan culture it was the night – When the souls of the dead, walked with those of the living and me and my mates had our annual jaunt round the church planned. I was upstairs in my bedroom counting my thunderclap bangers, thinking of vantage points to ambush them from – they know doubt were doing the same. Downstairs my mother was cooking dinner. She had wandered out to the larder, which was adjacent to the old hall. Immediately her eyes had been drawn to that space – a bright light had filled its vacuum. For a moment she shielded them from its intensity, before the silhouette of a figure in defined detail, emerged from the light. Dressed in a snug fitting doublet with a lace collar the vision oozed elegance.  She could see the contours of a chiseled face and pointed beard, under a wide brimmed hat decorated with ostrich feathers. He stood there for a moment before flamboyantly whipping the hat off his head and bowing courtesely to her as the locks of his long hair fell forward. Like Liz she must have blinked because a split second later the hall was empty and the spirit gone into the night. I came down the stairs a minute later, wrapped up against the cold, bangers and matches at the ready in my pocket. As I entered the hall my mum was still standing there. She appeared a little perplexed and  inquisitively asked whether I’d played a practical joke on her, before telling me what had just happened. I think I was as stunned as her pointing to the spot where he had been standing, saying – ‘What ‘ere…just ‘ere’ before she seared me with a ‘Yes…Right there!’ and returned to the kitchen. None of us ever saw or heard of Aziz again after that night.

Looking back his story was more than plausible. The name Aziz had been common in Medieval Mesopotamia and many Catholic Jesuits had travelled to the Middle East in the early 17th century to spread the word of Christianity. Converts were known to take pilgrimages back to Rome and throughout Europe and it’s likely some turned up on Britain’s shores. In the wake of the Tudor reformation and the emergence of Luthuranism, much of Europe had become polarised between Catholicism and Protestantism and as usual Britain was at the epicenter of the political and theological argument.The issues of Catholic Ireland; Presbyterian Scotland; Penurious Puritans; Landed gentry and a King accused of ‘Popery’, who was married to a catholic –  was destined to implode.The resulting war – a proxy religious affair in many ways, pitted countrymen against countrymen, but also attracted its fair share of soldiers of fortune, international brigades and crusaders, fighting for their own given cause and beliefs. I’m sure Aziz would have fitted somewhere within one of those groupings, most likely the later, as why the  else would he have been over here. If indeed he had been a holy warrior of sorts and devout with it, then dying without the blessing would have left him incomplete. I’ve no doubt the salutation to my mother and visit to my sister, was a righteous man’s spirit way of saying, Thank you for the redemption of his soul. For me the whole spiritual episode, had a big influence on my life. I was still not sold on the religious connotations of heaven and hell, but the experience certainly cemented a feeling in me that we all had an internal
combustion engine or soul if you want. From what I had witnessed that seemed beyond the control of others and at the bequest of the holder or the path they chose to take but no one could take life for granted – including my own family. The  Asis story was indeed enlightening but it coincided with much illness which checked the elysium somewhat. Maybe the roots of the old hostilery or house – as it was then were still diseased as a triple whammy of bastards soon came a knocking. Firstly Henry went down with Osteomyelitis and nearly lost his leg then Dad was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes before my mother contracted viral meningitis. My siblings and father protected me somewhat from the severity of mums illness as she had been close to death at times. Looking back the odds of all three of them getting afflicted in as many years was massive but no one seemed to question whether there was something in the water and just got on with it. Anyway, with all this spirituality bolstering my confidence and Aziz symbolically covering my flank it emboldened me to question the natural order of things and the rights and wrongs of society which got served up on a daily basis. My mum requested I didn’t tell my mates about Aziz but I was never great at holding secrets and was soon spooking them out with the story as soon as I went out. The subsequent dash round All Hallows church that night turned out to be a walk in the park. Bar the odd banger attack I felt comfortably numb with my new found knowledge. However in the coming years my rebellious take on life would have its comeuppance.

A new school and the inner circle

The comprehensive I’d gone too was one of two in the Town. It was brand new so our year always held the roost. I enjoyed my experience there. I was well aware that I was never going to reach the levels of Albert Einstein in terms of academic achievement as I was always up for a laugh and could be a disruptive influence but I applied myself to given subjects which had a Social Science element to them and Chemistry for some reason, which was facinating. However although i was enraptured by the growing political and social disruption in the country and the burgeoning punk/new wave scene, I didn’t really have a clue as to what my role would be in the grand scheme of things and which career path to follow. Although the school had a big wood & metal work department, I quickly acknowledged to myself that on a practical level they were beyond me. Anything to technically related to engineering or building just confounded me. I’d never managed to complete a Meccano set and certainly didn’t want to work in a factory. The thought of slaving on a lathe or chiselling out tongue and groove joints in a cold windy barn just did not appeal but when it came to cooking and food, I was totally the opposite. Britain was hardly awash with swanky restaurants in the seventies and TV cooking shows were still in their relative infancy. I’d seen Fanny Cradock – an early female version of Keith Floyd and Deila Smith offer some culinary diversity to the national backdrop of Wimpy grills, greasy spoons, fish and chip, Birds Eye Beef burgers and the obligatory Satsumas at Christmas, but
overall there was little on the country table to inspire the gastric juices. Thankfully my mum after seven kids, was a really good cook. Her soups mostly crafted from the vegetables in the garden were top quality, warming the heart and then there were her Pies! Well they were just full of flavour and oozed richness, the pastry melting in your mouth. She had to be creative with her cooking though. Dad disliked garlic – so it was expertly used in moderation and she turned a blind eye to the origins of some of the Trout in the freezer. The sweet Almond sauce she served with them was exquisite. It always went down a treat with the local Conservative club, whom they often hosted dinners for – the members oblivious to the plunder under their noses. There were also the trips to London to stay with Liz or Charlie which opened your eyes to a different world and culinary experience. I loved the Hard Rock Cafe which became our de facto restaurant of choice when we visited. The razzamatazz of the place made you think the restaurant managers were rock stars and the sexy waitresses in their white outfits were like angels from another planet and then there was the food – the char grill flavour of the burgers was like an out of body experience. Even the complimentary peppermints dolled out as you were leaving, were like scented pennies from heaven. What I sussed out early from visits to the Hard Rock and Mums cooking was that meal times in our family were in general a moment of celebration, learning, engagement, debate and a chance to come together. I liked that interaction which became institutionalised in me. We always ate at eight – the bar always opened at six thirty after the news and Dad always cooked Turkey curry on Boxing day. That and the infatuation and the glamour of the Hard Rock certainly affected me. I was soon dreaming of running my own similar establishment and calling it Coke’s Corner adorning it with Clash memorabilia and taking over the world – so I signed up for Home Economics to learn the basics of cooking. I knew it would be an important life skill and would allow me to learn a trade of sorts. We were also constantly getting bombarded about our career paths so it helped take the heat of a bit. However the reality of the catering industry was soon laid bare. A brutal work placement in a local hotel working ungodly hours and getting irradiated by a Salamander grill whilst making toast – was indeed a Dickensian baptism of fire, but I went with the flow to see where it would take me, as I blended into my place at school.
That was on the outskirts of town. Although the playing fields kissed the edge of a housing estate linked by a disused railwayline, it was basically slap bang in the middle of the country, miles from nowhere and meaning most of us were bussed in and out of it and cocooned on site.The headmaster looked like a short Christopher Lee and was a bit of thespian too – so a lot of the school resources went into creative art. He always seemed to take a leading part in most of the theatrical ensembles the school produced and had an air and grace about his persona. I got involved on the fringes so to speak – helping produce and act in one play on employment prospects and organising a wheelchair push to help the aged but was thankfully overlooked as a potential leading light for the schools theatrical productions. Although I knew the importance of my education and the foundation it could provide there were to many distractions to become fully focused and I would go onto under achieve whilst there. What with the growing winters of discontent, the threat of Thermo nuclear war on our doorstep – GCHQ in Cheltenham was a big target for the Soviets most of us were sullied with a feeling of uncertainty. If anything though against that backdrop of Armageddon, it was a period of innocence to saunter away my early youth as I readied myself for the game ahead. I quickly became mates with Grant and for most of the time there we were as thick as thieves. He was the only Brown kid in the school (his mum was Malaysian) and hadn’t had it easy in his early years. His Dad had dragged him and his brother off to live in  Wales after divorcing from his mum. He’d been borderline useless as a father, mentally abusing his children and subsequently the boys were pretty much left to fend for themselves; often reliant on neighbours to feed them. Grant described it as a working class Lord of the flies where the law of the jungle held sway with his peers and the mosh pit of the school yard, where casual racism and violent confrontation were common occurrences. His father soon accepted his lack of parenting skills and returned them back to Cirencester to live with their mum. We quickly hit it off and he soon became the first of my inner circle – we’ve remained close friends ever since. We shared similar interests like music and football and both had a creative streak. He could play a guitar by the time I got to know him which was pretty impressive as I never had the patience to learn and could handle himself pretty well in the fighting department after his chastisement in Wales. His prowess and exotic looks meant he was also a bit of a magnet with the girls and being his best mate garnered its advantages. My confidence in that department grew as I fumbled my way through my first dalliances with the opposite sex. When Jane came to stay I’d read her my love letters to my first girlfriends, which were always sealed with a kiss and big up to my mates, like I was an early version of J from the Inbetweeners as to how far I had got. Having a girlfriend was like a status symbol in those days but boy did I and society have a lot to learn. Grant and I in the meantime continued on our errant ways nearly getting expelled. One day when skiving Physics we located a vent in the gym storeroom behind some paneling – it looked directly into the girls showers.We later shared the news with a few other lads and congregated there one lunchtime after the senior girls returned from their weekly cross country run. As the finders of this window of opportunity Grant and I were the first up on the pommel horse, gently prising the panelling down to view through the vent. The view was largely shrouded in steam before a couple of naked girls emerged and took their towels to dry off. I gave a running commentary for about 10 seconds to the lads below about what they were missing, before my legs were swept from beneath me as the previous orderly line clambered for their place on the pommel horse. The resulting melee brought the whole panelling system crashing down and the game was soon up. Although Grant and I had legged it leaving the others to get caught red handed we were soon grassed up as the instigators and forced to face the music. Even though we only saw it as laugh at the time, looking back now it was a serious invasion of someone’s privacy. The consequences of our actions would have been far more severe nowadays but back then only GBH on a teacher rendered expulsion. Instead to maintain order the teachers were happy to hand it out and gave as good as they got – but that was life in a comprehensive in the late seventies. Grant and I would later be marched in front of Keith the headmaster who would lecture us about our lechery like he was conducting a Shakespeare tragedy before gleefully caning us as though admonishing a dog. In his defence I got away with a lot more than what he caught me for and was always a mischievous student. A case in point was a lift had been installed for a kid who was confined to a wheelchair, a couple of years below us. It was one of those Stannah ones with a greased rail for the chair to ride on. It was quite a steep stairwell with a couple of interesting cambers to deal with so one day I decided to climb it. It was an arduous challenge as I put myself into Chris Bonnington mode, persevering and making it to the top. The trouble was in the aftermath the fawn coloured carpets that adorned the first floor were covered with the greasy footprints of my trainers. Keith went fucking apeshit, determined to find the culprit. Everyone knew it was me. The assembly the following morning was excruciating as Keith lambasted the person responsible, demanding to know who it was, as five hundred sets of eyes including many of the teachers, bore down upon me as I cowered behind a sniggering Grant. In hindsight I probably used up my one of my life’s scaling the kids disabled lift as Karma never forgets but juvenile folly above buckling down was the general order of the day. Overall though I didn’t burn too many bridges with the staff and that made the trip easier. Most of them were alright and on top of their game but no one was immune from a good curve ball as the stand in Chemistry teacher would find out one day. The whole subject had taken on a new dimension for me a few weeks before after Henry had returned one weekend to the house with a lump of hashish and a copy of the book ‘Operation Julie’ telling the story of a huge LSD bust in Wales. I’d never smoked dope before but found it was immediately to my liking as my brain teleported itself to another plain as I laughed uncontrollably at a darts match on TV. Later on I settled down with the book which I read in about ten days. I was aware of the story because The Clash had done a song about it on their second album. It was an engrossing read and I would go on to experiment with a fair few hallucinatics but any thought of filling the vacuum created by the bust and opening up my own laboratory in the garden shed were quicky tempered by Nobby and his attempt at self immobilisation. There were certain subjects I didn’t mess around in and Chemistry was definitely one of those. Warning signs were dotted all around the room about hazardous chemicals and the names of the concentrated acids we used, were etched into the glass bottles to remind us of their highly corrosive nature. Nobby who I’d teamed up with that day were experimenting with some of the concentrated sulphuric stuff, testing for hydrogen when it was combined with magnesium strips in a test tube. It was pretty standard stuff. At the end of the lesson the stand in teacher told us to return all the equipment to their storage places and clear up. The acid lived on a shelf above a sink. Nobby looked a bit glazed in the eyes as he picked up the bottle and shuffled across the room. He was a bit of an enigma that lad, one of those loners who was quite detached from the rest of the pack. A sixth sense was ringing inside me that all was not right as I bent down putting the Bunsen burner in its compartment within the high lab table. As I looked up butter fingers Nobby was dropping the bottle. It smashed against the sink, its contents appearing to saturate his trousers. He didn’t seem to worried as be wandered of round the room with the concerned teacher chasing him shouting : ‘Nobby, Nobby was that Concentrated Sulphuric Acid’?
I certainly knew it was and so did Nobby, judging by his grimacing. As his bottom half came back into view his navy corduroys were in shreds melted by the acid and he was frantically yanking what remained of them from his legs as things heated up. Miraculously Nobby avoided any serious injury apart from a bashing to his dignity. I had to get him some shorts from the gym storeroom but could only find a white pair far to small for him. It looked like he had hot pants on as he cycled off. His fat legs a glowing pink from the scalding taking a further battering from a bitter winter squall which seemed to follow him home.
Back home things had changed a bit after Aziz’s departure and my parents respective illnesses. Although Dad had a good job with Burmah/Castrol in Swindon the up keep of the house was proving expensive especially with inflation going through the roof, which irked him no end.

For a while they rented a couple of bedrooms to some students from the local agricultural college to help pay the bills, but that sort of killed the vibe in the house. Grant and other mates would come over and stay but we’d moved on from subbuteo and rampaging round the garden. A good kick around was still in order but we spent most of the time listening to records. He was well into Queen and would drum into me the beat to ‘We will rock you’ whilst I forced onto him ‘White riot’ by The Clash. It was a sort of a battle of the generes and the days of innocence before I walked head first into the storm. By the summer of ’79 my parents had sold up. For much of the preceeding year the house had been a staging post for the local Conservative party and the re-election of Nicholas Ridley. He would become one of Margaret Thatchers staunchest allies. He was quite a congenial guy and I played backgammon against him oblivious to the fact he’d become one of her chief wrecking balls.
My fathers reaction to Jim Callaghan’s defeat in the vote of no confidence – signalling the end of the encumbent Labour government was priceless, as he cavorted round the living room punching the air. I’d never seen him express such emotion, apart from when he’d won on the Grand National once in Ealing. As I sat there, my mouth a gape at his reaction, I thought of the Army with their Green Goddesses fighting a fire in town I had witnessed earlier in the year. Much of the country had ground to a halt because of the strikes and there was no denying the winter of discontent had caused a lot of upheaval and political change was very much in the air. Even I appreciated aspects of the economy needed addressing, but my mind was a jar to the world of politics and I had already fermented misgivings about the Conservatives. Of course I was probably rebelling against my parents and my perception of the established order which the punk scene had obviously helped feed. New bands were breaking out like Stiff Little Fingers who were Northern Irelands version of The Clash and I was drawn to the rock against racism movement which engendered solidarity and equality within society, which the Tories seemed to frown upon. When both bands played in Bristol at the Colston Hall me and a few mates from school travelled up to the gigs. It felt like a different world surrounded by like minded punks emptying my lungs out to the lyrics that had become such an important anthem to me. The Clash gig was even more memorable as we missed the train home and had to get a taxi back. It was an odd journey as somewhere round half way into it we had to pull over because of all these abnormal lights flashing about in the sky. We must have stared at them for about 10 minutes all stood there in a lay-by, none of us had an explanation for what they were. I never forgot them as after Aziz it was one of the strangest thing to have happened in my life. The event only further opened my eyes to the possibility that there was definitely more to life than we were being fed and that one’s destiny and direction was yours alone to choose. I was also blessed with an excellent Humanities teacher called George. He was a very tall, eloquent man, who taught history from outside the box. He’d once revealed to me that he been a child evacuee in the war, which he had hated and that his father had stood against Oswald Mosleys Black shirts in the Battle of Cable Street. Subsequently his lessons weren’t some jingoistic crap about Agincourt or Waterloo and sticking two fingers up at the French and glorifying war, but more about the human cost of history. He centered a lot on the Industrial Revolution and its offshoots in the Labour movement and the Suffragettes. His father had sadly ended up being killed in the Normandy landings; so he was well aware of the folly of wars; but equally of the need to fight, if the cause was right. I found his approach facinating and enjoyed dissecting subjects like the Vietnam war or discussing political ideologies, where he insisted all voices or opinions should be heard. He certainly didn’t radicalise me but definitely broadened my horizons. I learnt to better understand the challenges the dispossessed faced and that the quality of life in Britain was often dependent on what side of the tracks you were born on. It was therefore no surprise when within months of the Tory victory that the crown jewels were up for sale and that we were realigning ourselves to the service and financial sectors. The greenshoots of Globalization had already began to draw us in. I could see that it would only benefit the few at the expense of the many as the former would be writing the rule book. Ultimately investment for future generations would be squeezed as people avariciously cashed in on a quick buck. Whether it was utility shares or council houses, people were blinded by the spiel – oblivious to the consequences ahead.
We’d moved to the other side of town and a village called Baunton which was just off the Cheltenham road. Its claim to fame was that it had been mentioned in the Domesday book, but it was a far cry from South Cerney. It had no local amenities or places to hang out and the house was pokey, lacking the character of the previous place. My mum would later say she’d sensed a bad vibe about it, after we’d moved in – later finding out the previous owners marriage had broken down with the wife dying of cancer. I thought that was a bit rich after all the going ons in Silver Street but she might have had a point as I soon contracted this skin condition Urticaria. By then I was an uncle five times over and would play fight with Tim, Charlie’s eldest. I’d play the Ali rope-a-dope with him until he’d run out of steam but the exertion would leave my face covered in hives. It was quite freaky for the six weeks I was infected by it before it suddenly disappeared. Again if I’d known what I know now about MS it would have been raised as red flag as it wasn’t the first autoimmune flare up after the asthma and warts but in those days you just seemed to move on.
Running with the yids

It didn’t take me long to make new mates in the village. One of whoms family had moved down from London. Bolce was a bit older than me an and engaging person, who moved with a bit of swagger and was a printer in town. He was a big Spurs fan and we’d hang out down the local pub playing Space Invaders – which he was annoyingly good at. We soon started running with a few other lads who frequented there and would go into town most weekends. Prior to that I’d had the odd fight at school but most of my new mates seemed primed for a tear up most Saturday nights. It was kind of intoxicating being part of a gang, robbing shit out of cars, picking fights with Greasers and expecially the Agricultural college students, who seemed just as much up for it as we were. Deep down I knew it was a slippery slope. My perceived conflict with society and the fight for justice had  become confused with all the youth violence in it. All the fighting and hooliganism would never be a force for change apart from turning me into a bit of an asshole. Jane and I had had a nasty altercation and I’d exchanged blows with the woodwork teacher at school over my refusal to clean up the remains of a Cake I’d made. It had been hijacked by my mates, eaten and dropped on the concourse floor. On both occasions I’d been a bit of a cunt and later regretted my actions. I was lucky to not to face repercussions at school. The teacher probably felt in the same predicament as me. He had landed a couple of lovely punches and could have been sacked but we both chose an uneasy peace for closure. Jane did send me to Coventry for a few months, but we soon enough made up. Meanwhile my parents must have been tearing their hair out. I’d fallen out with the next door neighbour. He had been a gunner on a Lancaster but we never saw eye to eye. After one run in over me vaulting his fence to retrieve a football he started screaming he’d killed better Germans than me in the war. This soon started an argument on the merits of fire bombing Dresden and baby killing – which sent him apoplectic, but I didn’t give a fuck.

Bolce and I would often jump on a train to go and watch Spurs which was always a buzz. Despite Andy King sinking Liverpool in the Derby and Charlie taking me to see Everton a few times in London, I’d grown somewhat bored and detached from their drudgery week in week out and Liverpool seemed a long way away from where I wanted to be.The North of the country from where we were, was painted as a grey, cold, dark and forsaken place, where the sun rarely shined. The bloody ripples washing over its cobbled streets from the Yorkshire ripper murders, had bored deep into the psyche of the nation which contrasted to the beautiful South, where everything supposedly was cultured and refined.The North would later become part of my spiritual journey – a haven on the game board to forever cherish, but back then it’s bleak industrial backdrop had little appeal. Don’t get me wrong if there was a big game Everton were in I’d be pinned to Peter Jones commentary willing them on, but Spurs seemed to offer something more sexy and with it that London connection which allured me in. I’d never find the same satisfaction watching them though. It felt like I was having an illicit affair standing there on the Shelf in my punk leather jacket with the skins and other groupings, but it was never really anything about the football when it came to Spurs. Bolce knew quite a few useful lads who were part of the Yid army, who we would meet at Seven Sisters. Inevitably it would end in running fights with other fans as I pretended to be a big fish hanging behind the nutters. The biggest gang though were always the police. We’d gone to see the North London Derby against Arsenal. There had been the normal shenanigans in the Park Lane end as groups of fans fought it out. I’d watched them from what was called the Cage on the shelf, squeezed up against an exit but with an excellent view. The match had an added intensity as it was soon after the Bristol riots in St Paul’s. Chants of ‘Bristol, Bristol’ resonated around the Shelf which led to rabid responses by squads of truncheon weilding policeman charging into the fans and smashing heads. Quite a few of their quarry were black who got special attention. At some stage in the middle of the second half when there was a lull in the game I remember looking around me. The exit and its surround were full of cops as though they waiting for the next round of chanting and fighting. One of them was huge with a ginger beard and was glugging a can of Carlsberg Special Brew. I was a bit shocked to see a police officer openly drinking on duty. He soon dropped the half full can watching it fall to the concrete below, where it exploded in a fountain of froth. The sound echoed up through the exit before it was met with the rebellious chant of ‘Bristol, Bristol’, from somewhere behind my shoulder. The police moved in slowly at first searching for targets. One of them soon cottoned onto a black geezer shouting ‘Come here you black bastard’. The guy remonstrated his innocence before thinking better of it and decking the arresting officer. With that all hell broke out. It was the only time I’d strike a policeman as I rabbit punched one in the back of his head sending him and his cap flying forward, before disappearing into the crowd. The mayhem lasted for a couple of minutes before some battered fans were marched out and a semblance of calm occurred. This didn’t last long. As I stared down into the empty terrace to separate the opposing fans, I saw what I thought was an orange arching through the air before it disappeared and exploded in a ball of flame – the fire bomb warmed everyone in its vicinity. How someone smuggled petrol into the ground was beyond me but it certainly incensed the Cage. Minutes later Alan Sunderland would score Arsenal’s second and it would exit on mass to await the jubilant gooners, celebrating below. Thankfully being a wannabee hooligan I had a train back to Swindon to catch, so I missed any afters. However a few weeks later ironically on a trip to Liverpool, it was a different story when it was me on the receiving end. We had travelled up to a game at Anfield. On this occasion we’d been joined by this guy called Watty who really fancied himself as a hard guy but was really quite diminutive when you looked at him. Arriving sometime around twelve o’clock at Lime Street the three of us trooped out. I didn’t sense any trouble but within minutes this guy dressed in casual clobber with a Spandau Ballet haircut came up and asked me ‘Youse up for the match la’? He didn’t look anything special so I stood my ground and said ‘Yeh, What of it’? At that moment I saw Boylce on my left go down, poleaxed by a numbing kick between his legs from another casual. As I looked around there seemed to be loads of them milling about. One of them got in close and layed the rock on me sending me falling back. I took a couple more punches before the whole area was swamped by police with these big Billy sticks whacking everyone. The Liverpool lads quickly dispersed bar one who was nicked along with a grounded Boylce still clutching his bruised testicles. After I had watched them both bundled into the back of a Black Maria I wandered back to the station to find Watty who had run off after it had  kicked off. Clearly the event has scared the shit out of him as he wanted to go home on the next train, but I persuaded him to wait for the Spurs special telling him we would be safe in numbers. Sure enough that soon turned up and we joined hundreds of rowdy North Londoners. Again it was a right buzz getting marched to the ground and back again and spending an afternoon verbally abusing the jobless scousers, missile throwing and watching an obligatory Tottenham defeat. The problem was once we were back at the station all the Spurs fans departed on their special back to London, leaving me and an uneasy Watty, standing out like sore thumbs to wait for our train. We clocked a couple of lads in the same predicament. They were travelling to Birmingham too, so we all hooked up and went into the canteen. After finding a table we settled down to read The Pink. Published every Saturday evening it was like the bible listing all the results and reports from the days games. Despite being interrupted by this irritating eleven year old scallie, who kept asking what the score was – he’d clearly sussed us out, I settled down to read the feed on Everton’s two all draw at Stoke. I’d barely finished the report before I heard a train arriving, doors opening and then the chant of ‘Ev-er-ton, Ev-er-ton, Ev-er-ton’ In all my life that sound had meant something special but at that time it was the last thing I wanted to hear. We all looked up at each other fearing the worse. I hoped the little scallie had gone home for his tea and hadn’t squealed on us but those hopes were dashed as the chant got louder and about twenty lads moved into the canteen surrounding our table. It was a bit of a Deja vu moment as the first punch connected with my still bruised cheek from earlier and watching Watty bolting it in the direction of the kitchen. I suppose he acted as a pathfinder as we all followed him. I got whacked from behind as we slipped and slid on the lino, before falling through the kitchen doorway. Watty was there to greet us armed with a soup ladle, before courageously closing the stainless Steel door. Like our attackers earlier the Everton fans disappeared quickly, before a piss taking copper turned up and escorted us to our train. It was quite humiliating been beaten up by Everton fans as I nursed my swollen cheek and head as the train trundled south. I offered the ghost of Dixie Dean my penance, promising never to forsake the Toffees again even though they were shit and accepted my punishment. I never did go and see Spurs after that with Boylce or run with the Yid