3048

I left school the day The Yorkshire Ripper was sentenced. I mention that as it is something I remember, after leaving school for the last time, my whole life in front of me. It was an important news story, and it occurred on such an important day for me.

It was May 1982, I had just finished one year in 6th Form, planned because I was expected to flunk all my exams in the 5th year. The whole 5th year had done the English O Level mock, and only two passed, or I seem to remember Anyway, one of the two to pass was me. Little old lazy me. So my English teach, Mr Boor, wrote in my final report card that they would let me do O Level English, as I had passed the mock. In fact I had discovered a latent love for the language, lapping up comprehension tests on the usage and meanings. Much to everyone's surprise, including my own, I passed O level English, but only got a CSE 3 in maths, about the best I could hope. So I was down to retake English, Maths and German and Physics.

In the end all I had to show for 12 extra months in schools as an increase in my grade in Maths from CSE 3 to 2. I was the only person wanting to do German in the 6th form, so that didn't happen, meaning I had only half my week taken with lessons, Wednesday and Thursday only having PE and a single period of Maths. I wasn't motivated, but the outside world with unemployment, riots, strikes scared me. MY Dad could have got me an apprenticeship at the shipyard, doing just about anything. But my skills at metalwork and woodwork just about matched my skills in Physics.

That bad.

Years later, on my fitters course in the RAF I found I could do things, rivet, solder, look, file and the rest of things I could have done and be paid very well for thanks to Dad.

So, I had left school, and was free to do whatever I wanted, just as long as any potential employer was looking for a workshy skiver who liked staring out of windows. At first it was an overlong summer holiday from school, one that just didn't stop. In September would could register for work, and get something like seventeen pounds in benefit. I gave Mum a fiver and so had twelve pounds a week to fitter on records and on Tuesdays, when my friend Simon and I used to sign on, an afternoon spent in the South Pier playing pool until our two pounds of 20p s ran out.

That took us out of 1982 and into 1983. I was offered what was called a YOP, Youth Opportunity Scheme, placement at an electrical shop in town. A 40 hour week for a £25 pound pay, so an seven quid increase on the dole, but as I was told on the first day there was no chance of a job at the end, no matter how hard I worked. An old schoolfriend of mine, Kieth, had taken the only permanent position when he had been on the same scheme the year before. He lorded it over me, he got all the commission of everything I sold, taking over the sale to log it in the sales book, topping up his wages that already dwarfed mine. I went out on deliveries, installing washing machines, TVs, fideos and the such, and generally enjoying being out of the shop two days a week, out from under the eyes of Kieth and the branch manager, Thelma.

Come the end of August, exactly 6 months after I started, it came to an end and was told not to come in any more. So, back to square one.

And then I gets a call to work in Boots for three months, part of which was manning the record counter. It seems hard to believe that back in the 80s, Boots was one of the biggest record sellers in the country, and for me, it was a dream job. I also got to sell TVs and record players and the rest of the stuff. Those three months were brilliant, but again turned out there was no full time job at the end, so come Christmas Eve and the four pints over lunchtime in the Hearts of Oak, I was back on the dole again.

I did put my wages through the year towards something useful; driving lessons. No one in the family could drive, and so really I was the only one who could. I struggled through the year, failed a test, but at the beginning of 1984, I did manage to pass, so all we needed now was a car. And as the suggestion was a family car, we went to an isolated farm on Halvergate Marshes to pick up a mk 1 Fiesta for me to turn into the family car. So went from someone who either walked or biked everywhere to someone who drove, even round to the corner shop to pick up my copy of the NME.

I was more into music than I ever was. I was spending huge amounts on vinyl, considering how little I earned, but that wasn't going to stop me. My music centre was getting lots of use, but it was clear it had its limitations. And then James next door had an idea: interrailing. Interfail was something the young of Europe did, for a hundred pounds or so, get a month's pass and travel from Ireland to Turkey, Denmark to Spain, camping where you could, washing in station toilets, and generally having the time of your life.

Mum got to hear about this and baulked: how could she not have her little darling under her wing for a whole month, maybe longer? So she hatched a plan, buy me the hifi system of my dreams, if I promised not to go interrailing.

Looking back, it wasn't nice of mum to do that, interrailing would have made for a lifetime of experiences. And as it happened, I could have paid her back within a couple of weeks had I wanted to. See, there used to be a weekly raffle in aid of the local Labour party, and from the start of 1984 Mum paid for me to enter, some weeks I even paid for my ticket. Anyway, second week, I win a prize. The top prize of £325 as it turned out, enough to pay Mum back for the hifi and for the JOy Division back catalogue on top. I had barely enough money to keep me in Smiths singles, let alone save up for a summer of bumming round Europe. That dream died.

And I spent the year in a series of ever more desperate jobs in order to find something I was good at: behind the cooked meats counter at a corner shop; a dogsbody at the local Talbot garage. Mainly cleaning the cars on the forecourt or cleaning the transportation xaz off the new cars, or whatever they could find for me. I wasn't motivated to be honest. nAnd I was glad they let me go, probably after I maxed "Smithy is a wanker" into the bonnet of a new car.

Well, he was.

I was on the dole again.

Dad despaired at what I was going to do.

But weekends I would take us up to the football or the family out to Cromer, Wroxham or Bressingham in the car, throwing it round the bends, while my latest mix tape played at full volume.

Into 1985, and I talked myself into a job selling replacement windows. I say a job, it was a training course, 5 days in a local hotel with lunch thrown in. Somehow I had found my voice, and instead of being so shy I couldn't speak, or blurting out random stuff in interviews, I was actually likeable. They made it sound so easy, as they did selling other items of home improvements like fireplaces which we were expected to draw in such a way their team of installers could build something close to what the customer wanted.

So after a week we were let out onto the streets and with our pack of samples and the gift of the gab, we, a local guy on the course, and me, went up Claydon Drive knocking on door, ringing bells.

It was after about ten minutes that I realised it wasn't the job for me. Most houses didn't bother to answer, those that did gave us short thrift.

There was an ad for process workers at a chicken factory the other side of Bungay. Fixed hours, OK pay, and all the chicken you could eat. I took it and jacked in the window lark after ten minutes of door knocking, almost beating my time as a short order chef, which was four hours.

I started at Buxted on the 18th March 1985, six days before Norwich won the Milk Cup at Wembley. I spent that first week and all of the second, sat on a stool as chicken came by me, and I had to tuck theu wings unger their "armpit" in preparation for them being trussed. I did this eight hours a day, five days a week. I got RSI very quickly, and was as tired as I have ever been. But I was working, and at the end of the second week I got a load of cash and it made it all the worthwhile.

That weekend, Dad an I travelled to London to see Norwich try to win a trophy. He had been there twice to see City play and lose both times. Granddad refused point blank to come as he too. But we went and saw Norwich scrape a 1-0 win thanks to a deflected shot. Which would also see us play in Europe the next season. Or would have done until Heysel, and all English teams got banned.

I carried on working at the chicken factory, and was now earning £4.20 a week more as I worked in the chiller, sorting the birds out and hanging the chilled birds onto the line. Months passed.

What makes it bearable, in what was a pretty shit job, was what makes all jobs beable; the people. We listened to radio 1 on the crappy tannoy, played along with Simon Bates guess the year, sang along to records we liked, made up pop quizzes, played jokes on each other. Anything to make the time go by quickly and life bearable.

In time I joined the quality team, and all unknown to my friends and boss. So one day in 1987 I left work and hung up my blue boiler suit, the next day I collected a white coat, a collection of pens and a notebook, and began my life in quality.

Truth is, it was perfect for me I could work as hard as I wanted, or not, talk to friends, make up checks, and no one would know. Which I did sometimes. But most of the time I took it very seriously, having to tell my previous boss, Jenny Nobbs, that her work wasn't good enough and they would have to sort through two hours of production as I had rejected it. Took some time to get used to that. And as I have learned, if you have had a good day, rejecting all sort of shit stuff, production thinks you have just been a pain in the arse Many time I sat alone on the bus going home with no one talking to me, only I know what a good day as work I had done.

The months turned into years, and I soon found myself having been there four years. I was doing well, but is this what I wanted to do with my life? I had a friend, James, and he had a friend, Jon (who lived up the road from me, who had joined the RAF and made it sound like it was the biggest skive of all time. James applied to join too, and one hot August day in 1989, we stood at the bottom of Normanston Park ready to run round the outskirts of the park to find out how long it would take us to run a mile and a half, as this would have to be done during basic training. I did better than James, but even had lost a whole load of weight the previous year, we were hopelessly unfit.

Bad new for James as he joined the RAF the next week. I had begin the process of joining too.I had gone up and done my aptitude test when my parents were on holiday, and so kept them in the dark as I waited for a slot in my chosen field as a driver became free.

It never did. And the call came where the RAF told me it was time to forget joining up, or choose a new trade. My friend James had joined as an armourer, could I do that? We shall schedule you in for an interview I was told.

All this time I was running most nights. I had measured out a course of a mile and a half, and began to run. I can still remember the day when I broke the 11 minute barrier. Such joy, and I had done it on my own. I carried on, even running on Christmas Day when I had a stinking hangover. There was no hiding it from my parents, and Mum was even more horrified. Dad didn't think I would go through with it, but each day I rn a little faster, then a little further until I would run an hour each night, and even get off the bus early so I could walk extra distances.

I received a letter saying I had been accepted as an armourer, even though they had missed out the interview bit. I had no idea what an armourer was, all that James told me was that it was sitting around after the jets had flown, as he passed out after taking 3 months to get fit enough to do his mile and a half.

How bad could it be? I asked myself.

I was even given a date to join; July 4th 1990, I hadn't told work as I only needed to give them a week's notice.

Anyway, just as well I didn't, because in the early hours of JUne 20th, driving back from London after seeing Prince in concert at Wembley, I drove off the road at Capel St Mary near Ipswich, launching my Ford Corina into 5 tons of hard core.

Bang.

Someone called the AA and they pulled the car out. It was bent, but nothing broken. Drive it back home they said, but take it easy. As I drove, half a tone of stones dropped out of the subframe, and my thumb began to ache.

By morning it was really hurting, so I was taken to hospital: nothing broken, but we'll put a cast on just to be safe. So, I didn't tell the RAF about the accident, and I went o sick leave just as the World Cup began.

I had a right old good two weeks, sitting in the pub, drinking beer watching every game until I had to go to hospital to have the cast off. I was in good spirits, I was joining the RAF next week, the next day i would resign from the factory and my new life, sans chicken, would begin.

As soon as the cast was off, my hand was agony. I had broken a bone so small I had not heard of it, and I had to have a cast on for six weeks at least, and there was no way I could join the RAF. I was heartbroken.

A life of chickens awaited. I had been offered promotion, but my life in a blue suit had been taken away from me.