The Story of Me. I

Born to two working class parents from Rawmarsh, Rotherham, South Yorkshire in Bishops Stortford on the second of February 1972. My father was a company chauffeur and my mother a housewife and dental technician. I remember nothing of my first two years in Saffron Walden. We moved to Easington, near Whitby where my father bought his own fish and chip shop and my mother had my sister. We had a dog called Sam. He got run over. I played behind the garage, pebble dashed prefab, and got ill. This might have been a first migraine or a fuller episode of the sensor and visual disturbance I used to have regularly. I remember being sick. I didn't eat any dirt, but I did dig deep. My father built a bed with planks, we had bunks in my room. Bright blue curtains. I used to put turquoise felt from a blanket up my nose. our toilet was near the front of the house on the ground floor.I used to think the rust on the screws holding the wooden seat was dried on excrement. I had a teddy bear that had a white foot. he'd been dropped in gloss paint. it dried and I used to try to pick it off. The bears feet and hands were square-ish. I used to like being washed in the sink. the post office in the village sold novelty bags. I hated milk. I remember being forced at infant school to drink milk. I can't have been more than 4 or 5. small bottle short narrow stiff straw. the taste I hated it. there was a ride in Whitby that was boats like geese/swans going round and round; I think we went on that ride once and it was always there spring, summer, autumn and winter. I stepped in a muddy pond. my shoes smelled of rotten mud. I wouldn't wear them because of the rich tar-like smell. they had buckles and a crepe sole. like Clark's. I dribbled constantly. I always wore bib; I always gawped. I hadn't learnt to swallow or close my mouth. Dad couldn't earn enough money from the chip shop so he worked nights at the steel workings at Skinningrove. My dad had a vasectomy and I kicked him in the balls not long after. I think it really must have hurt. We moved when I had just started school to Wetherby. I was in the first class for a short time. mum got a job in the coop, I used to help her when there was no school. we had two rabbits, some canaries that were killed by being baked in the conservatory; my mum thought she could revive them by running cold water on them: Bonny and Clyde. I once dropped a breeze-block on my foot. I got a blood blister on my little toe: this little piggy. my father shouted at me. he was blocking up the side door. the bricks were a different colour to the ones used to build the house. I was 5 he never asked me to help him again, even when he hand painted a car he bought. It was blue and you could see the bristle impressions all over the car. it was a Hillman Avenger. it had plastic seats and always broke down. I got lost when we first moved to Wetherby and had to find my own way home. it was the first time I walked past the council estates. I was scared, but it was sunny. Uncle Alan was over; he worked on Leeds Gallery: Henry Moore extension. I was Joseph in lower school. I had a brown dressing gown and a tea towel on my head. I think I made a silver star. cardboard, foil and glue. At Christmas we used to go to a Coop party in Harrogate. I won a camera. We visited some people in Saffron Walden and I bought a deflated rough leather ball from a jumble sale at a fair it had traditional stitching. Dad got me a bladder and mum stitched it up. it was misshapen, but I loved it. it was soft and felt-like when dry. it was heavy as lead once wet. I needed the toilet in class three, but there was no locks on the doors. the children wouldn't let me go so I couldn't. I ended up poohing my pants and walking home alone. I can't remember if the teachers sent me or I just ran home. I was 6? I remember that being the first time I had gone to the toilet at school or gone home on my own from school. we used to go to school with Jason Hobson and his mum. We always waited for them coming from Law Close. When it used to rain we all huddled in a shelter. I hated it raining because we couldn't play football and i was picked on in that shelter. I didn't like Miss Jamgotchin she had a moustache, I liked Mrs Bellamy she was kind, I disliked Mrs Dyson as I got punished with lines everyday and I liked Mrs Corrie as I did well in her class. I cheated a little at maths as I knew where the answer book was; but this was only after I managed the green and orange workbooks on my own. when I was working on the purple one Mrs Corrie let me work at my own speed, I couldn't resist cheating as she left the answer book available to check my own answers. I scored two goals for St James in my first game, I was tall and lanky, but had to be substituted when I broke my glasses. I started wearing glasses in Mrs Corrie's class: black national health frames. I was buck teethed and specky four eyes. I hated ready all the books were boring, dark or sombre  I read some Roahl Dahl, Moomin ones, Dr Seuss. Dr Seuss gave me extra distortions when I got my sensory sound pain. I could feel prickly fingers like the fingers of the characters in the book. I think I read half of the Hobbit: it was boringly slow. I had this feeling that would get more intense. I used to close my eyes and visualize tendrils spikey and pully. I dreamt I flew once. I ran fast enough to take off and stay suspended from the air. I won the egg and spoon in class 7. my house won and I won my event. Windsor. I remember a trophy and I felt really important. My mother was there, but my father never saw me compete ever. I used to walk over a mile in the snow and ice to Lime Kiln Lane. I was in KDR first team at 11, but I wore glasses so only played sub or when no one else could play. I always got dropped because I'd play a game and break my glasses and have to be substituted. Mr Rushworth called me his supersub because I used to come on and score, but I would never be picked to start because of my glasses. The one time my father took me to football he didn't see me score the two goals as he'd gone somewhere. I came on as a sub. I remember finding a yellow leather wallet up near the Engine Shed and Dee's. It only had a tenner in it and a couple of receipts.