For many years I had attempted to write an autobiography; a life that was little in diverse to a lot of boys-come-men. I played various innocent infant games with friends at school, like collecting ants from their colony by the teacher’s bicycle shed at Dixon Road Infant School with my best friend, Brian Hill, and then placing them in Judy Marshall’s hair just so we could hear her scream, which would naturally satisfy our amusement. And once we had been punished for our crimes and school was out for the day I would kick a ball over the wreck and then return home for tea. But each time I put pen to paper I froze. It also occurred to me that when you propose to tell people your story in words you feel obliged to open up your heart and empty the locker of the personal secrets that you have kept hidden away for so many years. So why is it that when you confabulate with someone in something rather personal, like, let's say, your first experience in masturbation, it is mostly regarded with a little embarrassment from the listening ear. But if you write your previously hidden secrets down in a book, then it becomes okay - everyone can accept it.
For example; imagine being on a bus and someone you know shouts out, “Hey Geoff, I loved your book, especially the part when you had your first wank”.
That would probably get a few laughs, and maybe before you alight at your stop you may become treated as some kind of a celebrity and even end up signing a few autographs. But if you were not a published author of autobiographical work and a conversation took place about your first experience of self sexual abuse, then a few peeks of disgust would unify in your direction. But this book is not concerned with my ungodly antics behind closed doors because it is embarrassing, and I can tell you that I have been embarrassed quite a number of times.
The basis for why I am jotting down my life story is for more the curious reason. I have always wondered what my forefathers did during their time on this planet. But unless they would have written a diary of some sorts it disappears into a pointless history. And apart from maybe finding out where we ourselves had come from of origin, we know very little or nothing of their personal background. So the reasoning for my own personal background to be put down in words is not necessarily for people to read immediately, it is for the likes of my grandchildren and thereafter to read beyond my passing, and therefore they can witness the niceties and the hardships that I had to endure before they were even considered for a life.
No matter what class of upbringing one may have entailed during their infancy, the eventual path in life is decided by themselves. Whether the path’s finishing line is the one in which you intended to find, those final steps await you. I have walked many a hopeful path during my lifetime but they all seem to end up at a pointless junction. I am 51 years old at the time of writing these lines and have accepted that there is no way forward, and regretfully, no way back. I will never fulfill the dreams that I had envisaged for half a century. Youthful dreams of maybe becoming a famous sportsman, or now that those dreams have dilapidated thanks to ageing time, an author perhaps. But I have accepted and believe that I am now closer to writing my obituary, rather than a classic. Granted, my grammar may not be that of the distinguished and more respected of writer’s, but I will continue to print black onto white regardless of my incapabilities.
I look back at my childhood and see a small boy who played relatively little with others of my age, and therefore I mainly kept myself to myself, just as I do today. When I was in my early teens I was never asked as to where I had been by my mother when I came strolling in at ungodly times. I guess she was happy to free the house of nuisances and human obstacles. My mother found the time to give birth to eight children, most of whom developed into reasonably honest adults. But with so many children, there is always the chance that a loose nut will appear of which the head spanner fails to tighten. But I am glad to say that my mother took every blow on the chin through all of what was placed in front of her and went on to live a contentedly happy life.
A few years ago while I was out of work and washed with boredom I decided to reminisce the day away by visiting the big white house at the top of Poplar Road in the town of Oldbury, deep in the heart of the Black Country where I lived with my grandmother for five years. After alighting the train at Sandwell it felt as though I had stepped out of a time machine, because apart from a few obvious changes due to modern development, everything was just how it was 37 years ago. But has I exited Bromford Road and turned to ascend the low gradient cul-de-sac of Poplar Road, the big white house had gone; demolished as collateral damage to introduce a new housing estate. Nevertheless, I walked up the hill to see this now extended cul-de-sac, only to discover that the fields from the derelict factories, where I had had so many lonely but happy times as a child had also made way for further homes. I stood for a while feeling a little disappointed at this unexpected find. But I had to respect today's technology and so I made the descent back down the road and passed the house where my late aunt Pearl used to live, and where my eldest sister Dawn also resided before she was shipped off to Belfast.
I made good use with the rest of the day, visiting my old schools and finding that they were no different from when I had left them all those many years ago. I slowly sipped a pint of Guinness in 'The Railway pub where my uncle Pete used to drink, and I then downed another before boarding the train back to Birmingham. It was whilst travelling home that day on the train that I thought it would be a good idea to write a few memories down for someone else’s future reading. Besides, I was out of work and had very little else to do. So after several attempts at becoming some sort of an author, and several hundred torn pages discarded into the bin due to my inept spelling and woeful grammar, Microsoft Word and a little practice (a lot actually) had finally convinced me that I should just write down my darned history and throw caution to the wind, hiding very little in the way of secrets and truth.
It is said that you have little in the way of memories during your infancy. But I remember once being terrified whilst out playing with my sister Dawn, screaming for her to take me away from a stampede of approaching monsters. I used to think that that story was just a dream, but the detail of the event were pinpoint to perfect accuracy when explaining that moment to my mother some time back. She told me that the monsters that were stampeding way back then were, in fact, horses from a nearby farm, and regularly ran wild through the estate where we lived in Bartley Green. The remarkable thing about this incident was the fact that I was only eighteen months old. But apart from that one incident I was generally oblivious and ignorant to anything of interest from the age of four until my move to the Black Country five years later. Those five years that I did spend in Oldbury and its environs were possibly the best days of my natural infancy and I still get an emotional lump even now each time I pass through the old town. What is most hurtful in life, is that you can never physically revisit your past - one can only reminisce about it. This is probably why I decided to write my memoirs, just to take one more stroll down memory lane.