Everything About me

...self-reflective time when I put everything in the past away from me and prepared to start afresh .
I can't say it was enjoyable , or easy , but I got through it.

When I was ready to re-join the human race , the natural progression was to start hanging out with the local bikers .
Their dress sense matched mine pretty well , and I had developed a fascination with the " Bad Boy " .
I decided that this was ...
...the time being .

My usual attire in those days was big boots and leather ….. shown to best advantage when worn with a skirt which was no wider than your average belt and a very tight t shirt .
I remember my favourite top was blindingly orange with a large cartoon pig on the front .
And let me tell you , that pig had magnificent ears …. a fact remarked on by anyone who saw me wearing it .

Dad hated that ... more

Some of you will have read my reviews about my childhood .. my Dad and our complex relationship and the probable link between that and the person who I am now .
Living with him forced me to learn a sense of humour .. it was a survival strategy I suppose .. laugh at something and it loses its power over you .. the power to hurt or damage

That doesn't mean that nothing touched me .. it did , and that will have been obvious from my previous ramblings .. but it meant that I could relegate those experiences to a separate part of my being . There they could become part of a history which felt as if it had been written about someone else , and although they remained sad or painful I could view them with detachment .

Possibly there are still things I haven't fully dealt with , and writing about them is a release .. a kind of acknowledgement of these past events and their relevance to me now .
So , as I am in a somewhat pensive mood today I have decided to release a few more of my demons

These events took place in my teenage years , the years which saw me rebel and kick back at all of the things that had restricted me .. that tied me to strict code of behaviour which was enforced by physical violence .

These were the dark years , not so much for me but for my family . The years when I discovered that I had become immune to the beatings and deaf to the threats .
When I found out that the threats were empty , and that the occasional beating was in fact the worst retribution that my father was capable of …

Bear in mind that I was a policeman's daughter , and that both his job and the house we lived in was in jeopardy should any member of his family be convicted of a criminal offence .
Also bear in mind that at the age of 14 I had just discovered that I indeed had no little power myself … a power more formidably held over my Father than he had ever held over me .

These are the years which he spent trying desperately to cover my tracks and keep me OUT of trouble rather than hoping to catch me doing something wrong so that he could have the pleasure of punishing me for it .

I freely admit that at the time this was a constant source of naive amusement to me , and I played my wild card to the max .

All stunts described in the following text were undertaken by a fully trained little bitch with a death wish .

Please don't try them at home .

Jane at 14 years old ……. that may ring a bell with those of you who read my piece about " The Great Drain Robbery " … I promise you , that was one of my much more sedate exploits .
I became far more adventurous as time went on ….

I should just also explain that nothing in this piece was undertaken with any kind of fear on my part … by now I had figured that if I died doing something stupid or risky , then so be it .
I really wasn't that fussed either way .

To this day I have no fear of anything … I would skydive or base jump in a heartbeat , and have already bungee jumped .
I love to drive at high speed and have driven our 1980 Corvette around Silverstone racecourse , nearly giving my husband a coronary when he saw his precious silver baby slide towards the verge as I almost lost it on the Priory bend .
I'm thinking maybe rally driving should be next …

Anyway , I digress … back to the point .

By the age of 15 I had reached an odd point in my life .. I became quite introverted and depressed , and took spending huge amounts of my free time alone .
Outside of school I was reclusive and unapproachable , and my friends didn't understand why let alone know how to deal with it .
The only time I enjoyed being out was in a thunderstorm .

At the first rumble of thunder or flash of lightning I would race downstairs , grab my coat and the dog's lead and go , whether it was 6 pm or 1 am it didn't matter to me .
All I knew was that I wanted to be out there in the wind , the darkness and the pouring rain
I don't know why , but the power of a storm was about the only thing that could rouse me from the soul deep numbness that I felt .

I refused all invitations from friends to meet up or go out , and gradually alienated myself completely .
I shed the uniform of jeans and t shirts in favour of long black skirts and coats ……. I suppose that I was an early form of Goth !

Looking back , I think this was a natural " adjustment " between my previous life and what I was to become . Deep thinking , self-reflective time when I put everything in the past away from me and prepared to start afresh .
I can't say it was enjoyable , or easy , but I got through it.

When I was ready to re-join the human race , the natural progression was to start hanging out with the local bikers .
Their dress sense matched mine pretty well , and I had developed a fascination with the " Bad Boy " .
I decided that this was the way of life for me … at least for the time being .

My usual attire in those days was big boots and leather ….. shown to best advantage when worn with a skirt which was no wider than your average belt and a very tight t shirt .
I remember my favourite top was blindingly orange with a large cartoon pig on the front .
And let me tell you , that pig had magnificent ears …. a fact remarked on by anyone who saw me wearing it .

Dad hated that T shirt with a passion , and forbade me ever to wear leather .
Bonus !
Twice he threw it in the bin , and twice I retrieved it , washed it and wore it again and again . Eventually he gave up .

I remember my first pillion ride on the back of an enormous Triumph bike , arms clamped firmly around an absolute hunk and the wind whistling at high speed around my nether regions .
Maybe jeans wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all .
But there was nothing on this earth to beat that buzz .
Well , nothing that I had discovered by then ….

After a few months in training I was a proficient pillion passenger , drinker and fighter …. a real favourite companion amongst the hard nuts .
In those days a smack in the mouth was the closest I came to greeting anyone . None of my friends from my previous years dared speak to me , let alone cross me , and I enjoyed my widely known and very bad reputation .

For the first time in my life I was untouchable , constantly and protectively surrounded by a pack of the biggest , toughest , meanest people on the streets . Oddly enough , they were some of the most unquestioningly loyal people I had ever met .

Any one of them would give or take a punch for you , and it was an unspoken pact that demanded absolute unity between us .
Had the need arisen , any one would sacrifice themselves to save the others whether from a rival gang or the authorities .

I was resentful and dangerous , and begun to take an unhealthy interest in the dangerous world of biker games .

As we live in a county with huge amounts of open space and lots of tiny winding country roads out in the backend of beyond , we were never hard up for a place to stage our exploits .
One of our favourite games was for half a dozen or so bikes , all with pillion passengers , to ride a stretch of one of these roads at night .. the narrower , darker , more remote and more winding the better .

We would ride it slowly at first , all together , taking our time and memorising as many of the bends as possible …. sharp left ……. loose right , tight Z bend , right then left ….. long straight then sharp left with a crossroads .

Once we were satisfied that we had a pretty good idea of the layout of the road , we would all return to the starting point and turn the lights off on the bikes .

One at a time each pair of riders would take the road as fast as possible in the pitch darkness , against the clock .
The winner was the last bike standing .

Some riders would be in the ditches having not recalled quite in time which way the road veered next , some would have simply lost control and skidded into the fields .
Others would leave in an ambulance .

All that the police knew was that this was a stretch of road infamous for the many accidents that happened there , mostly involving motor bikes .

After the inevitable quick repairs to both bikes and bodies the uninjured amongst us would release the adrenalin rush by leaping off a nearby bridge into the dark river below .
The stones at the shallow left hand side inevitably caused a few more bruises and even the occasional broken bone , but the pain was quickly forgotten courtesy of the ever present hip flasks and plentiful supply of smoking materials .

The trouble with this kind of thrill seeking is that it becomes addictive .. the more you survive the risks you take the more blasé you become , and you are always looking for the next challenge .. the next adrenalin rush .

Obviously , in the end people find alternatives to this natural high in chemical substitutes , but these present their own unique set of disasters as impaired judgement and slow responses are not ideal companions to situations demanding split second timing and lightning reflexes .
During an eighteen month period I lost 5 friends .

In no way am I recommending or condoning this lifestyle to anyone who may be reading .

After this extended journey into the world of sex , drugs and rock and roll I met up with a group of what can only be described as adventurous , but harmless , nutters .

I was almost 17 by now , and had managed to leave school with a surprisingly good assortment of G C E grades to my credit .
Despite Dad's constant insistence that I find a job and start being responsible , I knew that if I let this time pass me by I would never have the chance to be completely free again .
So once again I stood my ground in open defiance , determined I was going to live my life to the full .

However , this would not have been possible without the support of my Mum who kept me supplied with as much money as she could spare .

The 5 of us would set out at the drop of a hat and hitchhike to any music festival in the country … it sometimes took us three days sharing a small tent and a couple of sleeping bags between us to get to where we were going , but we always made it in time for the main event .
Once there we were experts at finding a remote and unmanned section of perimeter fence to bunk over , and would happily mingle with the crowd who were , by their very Bohemian nature , always willing to share food and resources with a few friendly newcomers .

These were some of the best times of my life .. total freedom and not a worry in my mind .
Of course , this was before the days of mobile phones , so I was totally unreachable by my family who must have occasionally been worried sick when I vanished for up to a week at a time , but the dramas lessened as they became used to my leaving and then re-appearing out of the blue , usually filthy and dishevelled , and without any explanations as to where I had been .

Mum admitted that she grudgingly admired my total change of persona .. after all , until I was 14 all she had been able to do was wait around and mop up the tears or administer hugs once Dad had left the house .
Now she saw that I had become a strong , determined individual , and despite her natural concern for my well being she both understood and supported my need to find my own way , and I thank her for that .

I recall one time I was out with my friends .. it was a particularly boring night in May and we were sitting in the park wondering what the hell we could do to break the monotony .
One of the lads piped up " Amsterdam is supposed to be fun . "
And it was !

Apart from our drinking competition with some French kids we met on the boat who challenged us to drink as much strawberry milkshake mixed with lemonade as possible .
Well I recall retching over the handrails at midnight , a stiff Channel breeze blowing my efforts back at me amid much hilarity as the Frenchies beat us hollow .
To this day I cannot stand the smell of strawberry milkshake .

We found a little B & B where the lady owner let us stay in return for some daily chores , and our evenings were free to explore and soak up the atmosphere of this lively cosmopolitan town .
The year was 1972 … beer and Beatles , youth and freedom .. the heyday of the sexual revolution and chemical experimentation .
They say if you remember the 70's then you probably weren't there , but I was , and I do … mostly !

Eventually the two lads had to get temporary bar work for long enough to cover our ferry fares home , and after almost a month we set off back to Blighty with a head full of memories and our wanderlust sated .

There were a couple more , less remarkable road trips after this , but one by one we settled down with steady partners and became what we are today … sedate older people whom the younger generation assume have led staid , ordinary lives …. thoroughly respectable and a little predictable .

Please … feel free to continue with that thought , but I promise you that my road to here and now wasn't as simple or as boring as you may assume .

Jane xx

 

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