People who tattooed my life - 16 - Darren a Paris

 Many years ago my friend Darren Cooper, who ran our west Region services operation invited me to go persuade him to change the way he was doing business.

He lived on the second floor of a stunning old townhouse in La Quartier Latin in Paris. The office was MILES away and full of busybody execs so we met at his house to discuss things through.

It was June and he had the huge windows thrown open to the city busyness. We stat at his huge, dark oak table, with a tatty guitar leaning against the opposite end, and an amplifier facing us blankly.

Every couple of hours the intensity of our debate would fade, and we would pop to the ground floor where there was a very old cafe. We would talk music, and joke and peoplewatch as he smoked and while sipped glorious cafe au lait.

By six we had knocked together a plan of action. Darren theatrically closed both our notebooks and said "Dave, I'm hungry, enough bullshit for one day !".

He led me down and through the bustling throng to a backstreet restaurant. Darren embraced the fat , sweaty chef like a long lost brother, as they chattered in colloquial French. I smiled, picking out about every third word ! Did he have any canard du pays et champignons today ? Qui ? Tres bien !

" Sit down Dave, lad, you're in for a treat".

I was going to eat wild duck with wild mushrooms cooked like only the French can cook.

Darren and I sipped wine and water while Mm Du Fage busied himself.

The meals arrived in due course: richly steaming, diamond berries in the jus, marvellous. The Canard was so gamey I almost retched to begin with: Darren held my arm " persevere my friend, this is a delight once you savour it". He was right. Two mouthfuls in the overwhelming flavours fell apart and the wild oregano, dill, saltfish, grass and everything else that defined the duck's wild life burst forth. I have rarely encountered such complex flavours.

Simply stunning. We ate in near silence as the cafe buzzed with cognoscenti. A carafe of earthy Pinot Noir washed this repast down, so young and fiery that it still carried a fine spritz.

A slow meal fully savoured, followed by chat over sipped digestifs and we clapped hugs around each other and the chef before wandering back. Dark now, the streets shone with a million clipped soles. We ducked into Darrens local pub "the Long Hop" for pints of cuba libres and a game of pool with locals.

Around ten thirty we got back to his apartment windows now gaping to the moon. Across the street , the mirror image house to this one had a roof garden. Someone was playing the harmonica on there, very well.

Darren picked up his old strat from against the table, and began playing a simple 12-bar. After a distant laugh the two of them syncopated across the street.

I was a better player than he, but by the time Darren gave me a go, the moment was dwindling. After a memorable few bars my accompanist shouted and waved and fled indoors. Only the breeze and the music of Paris' very heart beating remained as the amp hissed.

We chatted, sipped cognac. I crashed in his spare room, no way was I spoiling this night with a taxi ride and a sterile hotel.

I dozed off , the Paris night kissing my cheeks. A good day. 

 15 - Stroke episide 3 - Enter the torture queen !!

I'm guessing most folks know about some of the effects of Stroke: restricted movement and sensation, etc, but fewer know about Neurofatigue. I didnt. I do now !

The current medical thinking on this is that when the brain is damaged, the body immediately floods the brain with calcium compounds and dissolving enzymes to both clean up damage and prevent further damage.

A bit like swelling around a leg injury, designed to protect the injury by the repair system.

This causes two sysmptoms: first that the effects of the stroke appear WORSE for a while, as the brain chemicals have the effect of freezing areas of brain adjacent to the injury. Secondly an invisible ten ton lead cloak sinks upon you making the simplest activity into a climb up everest. Imagine the tiredest you have ever been : days without sleep, two marathons on the trot, whatever, and quadruple that.

The body feels ten times its real weight, and movements are ten times as laboured and slow.

I was just beginning to experience that, when I could get around well enough to join the Rehab class ! Andy Bright drove me to my first class. The head PT Deb assigned me to the tiny but formidable "Sue" to put me though my paces. I'd stated that I was willing to do anything needed to give myself the best chance of recovery. Sue was to push that to the edge of endurance.

Andy and I were introduced to Sue. She ran though a set of assessment exercises to see where my stroke had limited me. Yoga postures, weight bearing and transfer, stetches, right down to opening , relocating and closing pegs on a puzzle. Good news- I had a near 70% scope of voluntary movement. Bad news I had way less than 50% "electtive control" of my right side.

The neurofatigue had kicked in brutally after this half hours efforts, so I went to slip my trackie top back on.

"Where ya gooin' Daerve ?" Sue was very Black Country. "Thought you wanted to get betta?".

She stood me by the physio bed and had me bend at the knee as low as I could, and straighten again ten times. And again. Next set my right leg gave way at four and I crashed to the floor. This wiry sparrow elped me up , dusted me off , handed me a tissue for my tears and said "Six more".

I was in tears with frustration, fatigue and embarassment but I did them.

She wrote up an exercise routine for three sessions a week. Said "See you on Wednesday".

Andy took me home. I went to bed and slept for four hours. The ache and fatigue was just immense.

"How was hurting me supposed to help ? Was this tiny woman mental ? I dont think I can do this ! "

On Wednesday, Andy came for me again, and took me back to this torturer's clutches. She seemed to zoom in on exactly the actions I found hardest, and where I was weakest and we goddamn concentrated on them with manical intensity. I went home broken after this, and many subsequent sessions.

Then, Sue took me though the clinic to a walking treadmill. She set the machine to ten minutes. "Do what you can on there". She assessed my gait, posture and strength from every angle as I clomped, limped and drop-footed until the 'mill halted.

"Hmm. That was rubbish, but the seeds am theer" she said. This repeated at the start of every thrice weekly session for a couple of months. Then one day Sue said " Run to the mirror and back". I looked incredulous " Run? I cant hardly walk".

"You need strength and co-ordination. Try to run". So I did. Hopeless. Sue laughed. I tried again. Hopeless. Not offended by now, I knew Sue well and trusted her implicitly.

Sue put some device on me to make me more aware of my limb position. I tried again. Hopeless. Couple of weeks later, I ran to the mirror. Slowly, with a huge limp but recognisably a run. Then tried running backwards. Then running on the treadmill. Two months after Sue had laughed at my running efforts I jogged for ten minutes and did 1.2 KMs. on the treadmill. Sue announced to the clinic and the whole rehab staff applauded and cheered. Not sure I have been prouder of anything in my life. "That took bollocks Daerve".

Sue applied her uncompromising genius to every aspect of my rehab which by now was accelerating. Hard exercise, and complex tasks like assault courses, balance and stuff too. See, Deb taught me that the harder you work the burned out bits of your brain, the faster and harder your brain uses neuroplasticity to repair it. Deb and mostly Sue had helped me kick my brain repair into overdrive. Soon I was driving myself to rehab. Even travelled to see friends and a couple of gigs. Knackering though.

Kayla had helped me lose 4 stones at home, along with all the hard rehab. This in turn helped the exercise. The Neurofatigue was starting to dissipate a bit. I agreed a return to work strategy with my boss (who was himself a brain injury recoverer). Things were starting to normalise a bit. There were a few setbacks, but mostly Sue and Deb continued to drive my targeted recovery wonderfully until lockdown stopped my rehab in March this year. Its been tough without the gym but overall I am still moving forward. My most recent assessmetn said that I had "95% voluntary articulation" on my affected side. That is pretty brilliant given how broken I was a year or so before. I am barely affected by nerofatigue now, as long as I am careful at work, and rest up plenty.

I will never stop rehab, as keeping moving keeps me improving. A bit of a dull episode today soz, but it was important for me to get it in print. That journey was hard but incredible. I owe Sue and Deb so much.

 Number 15 - Stroke of luck part 2 - Coming Home 

Part 2 - coming home

In High Wycombe stroke centre, my ward time was busy and uncomfortable. Practiced medical hands flitted around me administering drugs, fitting electrodes, wheeling me about for MRI scans, and applying awareness and function tests. ("Can you swallow ?" A nurse asked me " I might struggle with a dick" I answered out of one side of my mouth with a smile! "That attitude will help a lot !" Said the nurse, laughing). I wandered in and out of consciousness, feeling a fatigue I had never known before. Way beyond "tired" this was to define the next year of my life.

Twilight day fed into twilight night, barely able to sleep because of the thirty electrodes fitted to me and the alarms triggered when they detected an anomaly.

When morning came the ward OT suggested that I shower to freshen myself up. I had close to no movement in my right arm, and little in my right leg. I cramped up trying to get out of bed then promptly fell to the tiled floor. I couldnt walk. I couldnt get up. I flailed and raged ending up crying like I havent in years. The OT helped me up and helped me to the shower room. I had been profoundly right handed all my life: very dominantly so, and now it was barely usable. I did what I could to get clean, but the effort of it all made me sweatier than before. I was helped back to the bed and crashed into sleep.

I was awakened my Mrs Tuna, my stroke consultant, and her entourage. There followed one of the pivotal discussions of my life. She asked me a few questions to gauge what I knew about what was happening to me. Then she began :

"David, you have been preparing a stroke for a long time. Your extra fat externally was mirrored internally. Your blood pressure was high. Very high. You suffered what is called a Lacunar stroke in the left Pons area of your brain stem. The width of a playing card either way and you could have died or been paraplegic. In fact it was contained, and early intervention seems to have cleared the clot already. You may not feel it, but you have been incredibly lucky. You have the chance to change your life and avoid a recurrence.

I cannot guarantee it, but in my long experience , if you invest fully in rehabilitation with diet, exercise and rest you will be able to make a very good recovery. Your brain will only repair what there is demand for, however. It will not waste neuroplastic effort.

I will have the OTs assess you, and if they are convinced you can thrive assisted at home I will discharge you ASAP. I will try to ensure all resources are available for you in your own health authority. This will be very hard work, and not instinctive, but you can make a good recovery. It is largely in your hands".

I almost wept at this motivation. Amazingly I had not been afraid though all of this, but the hope, supported by a trusted expert. made me break with joy and hope.

Overnight there had been two new admissions in my ward bay: One was Doreen - a sixty year old who had collapsed while gardening, and who had lain undiscovered for ten hours until her family returned from work. They sat at her bedside, she unconscious, on oxygen, immobile. A BAD stroke, left unattended for hours. The other was Ray, a man in his fifties who complained all day, despite being, to my witness, relatively lightly affected by his stroke. He was very , perhaps justifiably, sorry for himself. I could see what Mrs Tuna was saying : Doreen reminded me that I had been so lucky, Ray that I had nothing to lose by being positive.

The OT signed me off, and my bezzy Andy came later that day to take me home. I was a broken mess in the car. At home I was helped to bed and I slept the clock round.

Trisha, the OT, visited next day. With practiced efficiency she assessed what I was able to do, and what I needed to do. I was genuinely positive with her. Kayla, a stroke nurse a while back, conspired with Trish to ensure I was rehabilitated to death ! A Stroke nutritionist arrived the same day, and Kayla worked out what I need to eat and drink for rehabiliation AND ongoing health (I.e lose some lard). So many folks who suffer strokes report awful support from their local NHS, which I think is sad. The support I received from the second the ambulance arrived right up to my GP has been first class and comprehensive - a massive reason why I have recovered so well so far.

Trisha continued the wonderful practice of explaining the reason for things, and what was happening to me. She bought me a book on Neuroplasticity on her second biweekly visit which explained that TRYING to perform a movement restricted by area damaged by the stroke actually triggers the brain to try new neural paths across the burned bit, and eventually to the creation of new neurosets being created. TRYING HARD to pick up pieces of pasta from one cup to another made my brain build a nerveway to allow it over time. Same with every other task. Trish and Kayla set me hours of rehab every day, which I didnt miss. I could feel and see the progress weekly. Frustrating as hell, but I read all I could about neuroplasticity so that I could understand properly what I was doing.

Kaylas wonderful care, Andy and my Kids' ongoing positivity really felt like I was being carried through my early recovery.

I had a few nasty falls, and couldnt get up, and the ever-present neurofatigue was a real beast to fight through, but after a month's OT progress, Trisha procured a stroke physiotherapist to assess me for the rehab centre. Debbie came and duffed me up. and claimed I was ready if I was prepared to work hard. I could perceive genuine improvements in only a month, and already lost 7 kgs, so I was fired up ! I was booked for Corbett Hospital Stroke Rehabilitation unit for the following week, and Andy Bright was to take me. I was scared and thrilled in equal measure.

In Pt 3 I will discuss my extended rehabilitation journey, and lift up the amazing team there.

 Number 14 - Mister Lacunar Stroke ! (stroke journey part 1) 

A stroke of luck - Part 1

Sat here now, 27 months on from having a stroke and looking at this photo taken some 8 hours before I had a stroke, , I see now that I had been preparing for mine for several years. Who knew that being overweight and stressed on and off for twenty years was unhealthy? No-one ever told me!

Looking back I’d had a stressful decade at least: work, personal relationships, and other stresses were self-medicated by food and alcohol. A big, indestructible fella, just kept on making people laugh while criminally neglecting my own physical and mental health.

The best thing in AGES happened to me when I got a job role at Blue Prism – my first practitioner role in 20 years, sexy new technology space, no impossible budget to carry, nor the personal futures of dozens of good people in a fading giant business. I’d dabbled in readying a few startups for acquisition in the recent

years , but I was aching to retire early. The BP role was a breath of fresh air.

Had a wonderful team around me, a great mentor (cheers Em!) and I got contributory quickly. Unfortunately I had already done the damage. After a very busy three months, and just a day after celebrating my probation period being passed during an hilarious and beery evening with Olly and Jacob at a residential sales course,

I went to bed very happily.

I woke for the loo around five in my dormitory room… and I could neither move nor feel my right side properly. Looking back, incredibly, I knew what it was and I was never scared. I just though " Ohh SHIT ! Here we go"...I just treated it like any critical problem I’d encountered during my 20 years as an executive troubleshooter. I knew innately that panic is a useless response to a crisis.

I had the presence of mind to throw on clean sportswear as I KNEW I’d be messed around by medics later,and I tried to make my way to reception. Remember when the landlines in hotels used to be connected?

Me too! Bouncing off the walls I got to reception. My speech was going as my stroke was ongoing and worsening.

A US colleague,Rich Salerno, saw me in reception and he kept me company until the ambulance arrived. I will never forget that kindness.

I was lucky in so many ways: the National Stroke Centre in High Wycombe was only a half hours ride away.

I was MRI’d, cannulated and clotbusted in double quick time. I’d suffered whats called a Lacunar stroke in my left brain stem. A couple of desperately uncomfortable nights connected to a dozen electrodes, drips and whirring machines ensued while the stroke consultant, the wonderful Mrs Tuna, explained very clearly exactly what had occurred and what the best plan of action was. It was gonna get worse before it got better. She explained that my blood pressure had been 227/140 on admission, and that at 20 stone (126 kgs) I was on a collision course with another stroke. Nature has this gentle way of telling a person his body has been abused enough. A photograph taken during the previous day’s course tells an awful story. I look like I’d given up. Thats the one accompanying this post.

The day after I got home the Occupational Therapist visited my home and my rehabilitation started immediately. Kayla , my clever missus had worked as a stroke nurse in the eighties. She locked in step with the OT to resolve my diet and repetitive flexibility exercises. I cannot praise Kayla and the many NHS folks involved in my recovery enough. Hard work physically and emotionally.

In the next part I'll cover my slow crawl out of the hole the stroke had left.

People who Tattooed my life : 13. Brightey

 “I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

― Samwise Gamgee

Thirty six years ago I wandered into sixth form English Lit class and there was only one seat left at the back, next to a scuffy moustachioed geezer with a tasselled leather jacket on.

Within five minutes we were weeping with laughter together. Our brotherhood was sealed within a day. Its a rare thing to find a friend who demands nothing of you but gives everything. A person with whom you can be completely authentic.

Andy, for he was that moustachioed oik, is such a person. He has a childlike ability to consider anything pleasant to be an adventure, whether that is an unexpected pint of Bathams, with a glorious salad cob, or a days snorkelling from a catamaran off a private island in the caribbean. He has a truly infectious gratitude.

We enjoyed so many adventures in the last 36 years: some great, some small, all wonderful. Becoming husbands, becoming fathers, competing at sports. In sickness and in health. Our visits to Amsterdam, and Florida are burned upon my spirit.

It was wonderful sharing one of the best days brothers ever had with Brightey: when we spent the day on a private island off Puerto Rico in Mariah Carey's holiday home, then at night to have the Beach Boys fly in just to play for us... just wow. Andy was just as unfazed, yet grateful for this as he was by an empty movie theatre when I sneaked in G&Ts for us to sip in the dark.

Andy has been a high water mark spirit in my life: I can measure my own attitudes and behaviours against his and know how much I am wanting. He is a wonderful dad and grampa,and has often offered me a working example when I have gone astray.

Eleven years ago he found himself unexpectedly but definitely out of breath when climbing the terrace stairs at Villa Park. He knew something was up. There started a research campaign soon after that resulted in his eventual diagnosis with IPF - Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. This means that his immune system decided to take offence at his lungs and turn them into scar tissue over time. This has meant that by degree, every day Andy died a little, and his life got a degree harder.

But I learned another lesson from him: you never, EVER, give up. Andy did not just take ownership of his disease: researching the best doctors and treatments and how to get them arranged for him, he continued LIVING. Holiday, gigs, footie matches, gin nights, deep laughs, even when they hurt really badly. He did not stop living for a single day while he was dying.

After nine years the disease had taken such a toll that his consultant deemed the only hope he had for a better life was a double lung transplant. Andy carried the "batphone" in hope for almost two years while he continued dying a little every day. By now he needed oxygen all day and night. Could only walk a few paces. We would research restaurants with plug sockets near the tables, and cinemas with plug sockets reachable from the seats so that he could charge his oxygen concentrator while we enjoyed a meal or a movie. But Andy was getting very ill. Like a ringbearer he was becoming very spectral - fading from life.

When I took him for his regular tests in Nottingham, I liked us to stop overnight or at least go for a meal to make the journey as much about living as it was about illness, but there was no disguising the results from August - Andy was approaching the end of his journey. Our meal afterwards in Nottingham was filled with laughter and tears, but we both knew his season had changed.

I'd planned to take Andy to Scotland for a short break - he'd never been in all his life. Kind of a bucket list thing I guess. I would book it as soon as I returned from Florida on holiday...however a week into my trip I got the call that Andy's batphone had sounded, and he'd got the green light for a lung transplant !

Some poor bastard had to die to give Andy a chance of life, but WHAT a chance it was ! I was literally taking my family to a theme park while he was under the knife at home... seldom has less fun been had there ! The news from the hospital was varied on our daily calls for the next week: the lungs were working well, but he needed an oscillator vent; the numbers were stabilising, but he had not regained consciousness after a week....

As soon as I got home from the airport I visited him in ITU: machines and drains, wires and tubes everywhere - but alive. He was barely awake. He whispered "Lovely to see you bro, but I'm absolutely knackered. F*ck off and come back tomorrow will ya?" I laughed and cried, content he was doing well.

Every one of the next 27 days saw Andy improve and come back to life. A surprise visit by his grandchildren broke him into a pool of bubbles and tears, no longer ill, just convalescing from a giant surgery. We laughed, and cried and talked and planned.

Last Monday I bought him home. Yesterday we went shopping and Andy enjoyed his first pint of Bathams. It is an amazing thing: this transplant has given him an incredible second bite of the cherry of life. I can already barely remember the shadow of a man from six weeks ago.

When I feel troubled and can't sleep I often run through some of our " club" adventures in my mind and I am contented: playing pool on Ocean drive, Miami; Driving our convertible out of Orlando airport while Just Like Living In Paradise played on the radio; sipping cans of Tennants on the lakeside at Centreparcs; sharing pints and laughs with our dads, George and Jack, who were friends when alive, and surely still in heaven.

Brightey I love you man, my heart just has a piece of you in it. You have seasoned all my adult life and I am thankful to God that he put you in it. Like Samwise, I couldn't carry your burden but I have tried to carry you whenever I could. My privilege.

You are our Frodo, Brightey, with love and respect for all that means. I hope to God there's a heaven because I don't want to spend just this life with you brother. I am sure "club thirty" in White Shores will be a doozie

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People who tatooed my life 12: Kim

My time with IBM ended badly but , but I had some amazing adventures, many that I could not even have drawn a picture of back as a nipper growing up in Smethwick.

One such adventure was my first trip to South Africa back in '01.

The chap who had asked me to visit a client in Jo'burg, Jake, was a notorious bon-viveur. He had a girlfriend who danced at the "Ranch" girlie bar, outside Jo'burg and because he was driving me around in Za I would visit her with him out of hours after our work, but before the club opened.

It was very interesting for me to see a lapdancing club during the day: in daylight the major security precautions could be more easily seen, and there was an air of tattiness and decay on the decor.  Once inside Jake met with his girlfriend and left the dance hall for a while. I was left in the main room with the girls who had arrived early to stretch and warm up or whatever for their shift in a couple of hours time.

A few of the girls came over to say hello - Jake was very well known here ! One girl, Kim, came over to me and just started a conversation. She was a statuesque and impossibly beautiful coffee-skinned girl, made more lovely by the modest baggy gym clothing she was wearing instead of her dancers uniform. All the girls were pleasant, pretty and vulnerable away from the make-up,lights and pumping music.

So Kim stated : I'm a friend of Jakes? Sort of. Would I be coming by later ?  Not sure - if local team wants to then yes. Do I come to dance clubs often ?  Oddly enough I had to admit - I had been to quite a few. Lots of colleagues, and clients liked to spend their downtime having a beer, and ending up a a "gentlens club".  So when i was travelling Id'take the local team out for a beer, and I'd step in with anything they wanted to do. This was just hanging out , nothing "Corporate". if they wanted to end the evening at a lap-dancing bar, we'd tag along.

Kim explained: " we get a lot of sad suits in here. You don't strike me as a sad suit. You married ?".

I showed her pics of my family. She was entranced;asking about school; my kids' loves and pets. friends, adventures. What about her family ?  All back home in another unnamed country. She only had her boyfriend / manager here in Za.  She didn't mind dancing but didn't really like the extras that made her boyfriend / manager the real money.

I said that it must be horrible doing a job you don't like, what else would she like to do ? "I wanted to teach" she said.  " I started doing this to pay for my degree...but it sort of took over years ago".

I said I thought she'd make a lovely teacher and she got a bit upset.  "My Boyfriend doesn't want me to be a teacher yet" she explained.

We talked about stuff for another fifteen minutes or so until Jake emerged from another room with his girlfriend.  I stood up to go and offered Kim my hand.  She declined it and gave me a hug instead saying: "You can have a free one after work tonight if you like".  I told her I was flattered but that I am sure my wife wouldn't be very appreciative of it !

I took Kims hand and said: " I hope you get to be a teacher one day. It was lovely to meet you Kim".

Off she went.  I never returned to the Ranch, as the client chose a meal at the word's best steak restaurant instead of a dancing evening.

I often thought about the girls and Kim expecially after I returned home.  I had built a picture for myself of the "kind of girl" who would work as a lap dancer, or even a call-girl but none of the girls I met at the Ranch were anything LIKE that stereotype.  Smart, vulnerable, sexy, yet even homely when freed of make-up and lights. Just father's daughters like my own who found themselves on a path in life they did not expect in many cases.

I bumped into Jake three months later in the coffee bar at our Heathrow location. Hands shaken, backs slapped. Thanks for my help.

Jake wasn't with his dancer girlfriend any more. By the way, did I know Kim took her own life soon after we met? I was shocked and horrified.

What a waste. All those kids who never got to receive Kim's enthusiasm and care through teaching...Rest in peace beautiful one. I will never forget you.

People who tattooed my life #11 David Jackson, and the Jackson family.

Try though I might I can't actually remember how Dave and I met. I *think* we were thee only two white kids in our infants school class at infants school when we started, but all I know is from as far back as I can remember Dave and I were fast friends. 

David Jackson and his family ( Brother Kevin, Sister Lynn) lived MILES away in Wansbeck court ( about 500 yards now but its a trek to a six year old !) and his mom Rita used to stop off at our house on the way to school to collect my mom and I. Our moms were fast friends considering the generation gap and canted away all the walk along Oldbury road. Mom was almost fifty by then, as I was a LATE surprise baby ! Rita Jackson was slim, 15-20 years younger and angularly beautiful, and always wore fashionable clothes. When I was little she always crouched down to my level to talk to me. I never forgot that. Its something I've always done with kids too because of her example, and how good it made me feel...

Anyway during those walks to school, Dave and I would chase ahead in the race to the underpass where our moms would leave us to cross in safety. All along the walk Dave and I would run and skip and talk rubbish until we were crying with laughter. Every day. We'd pick up some other kids on the way: Alan Brace, David Horrocks... man...Andrew Cooper... 

An example of the nonsense we'd talk I still recall: in about year four when we would have been around 9 or ten, Dave and I were trying to decipher some of the strange graffiti on the underpass wall. Dave asked me " Dave... whats a fook ?" Clueless ( I never heard an adult cuss like that until I was sixteen and that was not in my house!) I answered " I think its foreign" .... Innocent times.

We were an odd couple: a bit like Laurel and Hardy: David was a slender lad whose school uniform hung about him like Just William, and his pockets were full of SUCH stuff: acorns, a catapult, some blu-tack, miniature darts...you name it. I was a foot taller and a yard wider ! It didn't matter. Humans only learn to care about our differences when we get much older.... 

Every day at school lunchtime we'd re-enact a castle invasion using invisible swords. It seemed everybody in the school would join in !

When I discovered music, and we started at Holly Lodge secondary school together Dave and I diverted paths a little: I started to hang with music fans, and Dave being a lover of Abba rather more than Led Zeppelin, flocked with birds of his own kind. We still walked to school together each day and still laughed though. 

There came a time when one of the streets we walked along to school was being demolished. Dave always had a FASCINATION with finding useful things amongst tat and we spent at least an hour per day crawling over the demolition site. We found old money, some tools... some wartime documents and one day.... a vibrator.

Dave picked it up and waved at at me laughing : this shiny blonde plastic member ! Unfortunately just as were were hitting each other with it and giggling Harold Collins ( Mash!) and his mates were passing and saw us ! We endured a hail of stones and abuse, but we couldn't stop laughing !

Dave hurled the dildo away and it arced like a swallow before bouncing right off the head of Phillip Foster, one of our persecutors ! I am weeping with laughter as I replay that movie in my head ! 

Christmases were always lovely at the Jacksons' especially when Dave and I were old enough to sample a drop of alcohol ! Jon and Rita would lead the laughter, John's booming chortle making everybody else laugh too. We weren't laughing next day after our first alcoholic party at Dave's though aged about 14: a bottle of rum and black made us very ill indeed !

Later we would accompany John into the Spon Croft for a pint. In those days it was still thronging with Chances glassworkers slaking their thirst after a shift. I felt so grown up !

By then Dave and I were seeing less of each other: we were seventeen or so. I'd just got a car and Dave had an apprenticeship at a local auctioneers. Oh and little Lynn Jackson overnight had become absolutely gorgeous by the way ! But alas she had a boyfriend :( 

I'd always stop and chat with Jon and Rita and Dave or Kevin as we bumped into one another but work and stuff made it less frequent. By the time I married and moved out aged 22, we rarely saw each other. Never fell out though we were just living our lives.

Years later I was drinking in the Barleycorn in Bearwood with my mate Andy and who should be in there but John and Dave Jackson with Kevin, and also John Mortimer ! So lovely to catch up : Dave and Kevin were successful antiques dealers and still as funny as anything ! We promised to meet up etc etc....and of course we never did.

When I joined Facebook a few years later the first thing I did was try to seek out the Jacksons but had no success. When Lynne found me much later and I heard the desperate tragedies that had struck down dear John and Rita and also my mucker Dave I wept. Properly wept. Nobody deserves to suffer and die young, but they in no way merited the devastation that visited them. John and Rita suffered terribly from brutal cancers and died close after one another. Dear David died at forty leaving a wife and kids. What a shocking waste of everything they all were and the potential they still had unfulfilled. 

While I still sting in the heart when I think of their loss I am also grateful for the part they played in my young life and for the way we laughed. 

And of course it is wonderful to be in touch once again with Lynn - still as lovely as when I took her to the Walsall arboretum lights one year in a failed attempt to woo her ! 

Thank God for the Jacksons and may He bless and keep then until we meet again. And Rita I still always bend down to speak to children.

People who tattooed my life #10: Jim Bodley

My uncle Jim was born as the armistice bells were ringing out at the end of World War 1.  He started as an apprentice glassmaker at Chance Bros in Smethwick in 1932 following in the footsteps of his dad and grandad.  His granddad made lighthouse lenses, there's an example of his work in the Thinktank museum on Birmingham.

He was conscripted into the Army once war broke out aged 22. His mechanical ability found him placed in the REME - Royal Engineers - in the British Expeditionary Force.  Jim was evacuated from Dunkirk which terrified him.  He told me once " I was the bravest man in the whole war, because I was shitting myself every second I was there but I got on with it".

Jim was redeployed back to Europe in 1941 to fight. He never spoke much about his experiences in the war. They hurt him too profoundly, but he did tell me of two life-affecting experiences.

In 1945 the Royal Engineers were seconded to assist a Canadian outfit that was to liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp. Ostensibly there to keep the vehicles going , Jim ended up digging graves and burying victims. Bearing in mind this was a gentle glassmaking apprentice who knew his way around a machine not some heard-skinned warrior , we will never know just how manifestly this affected Jim.

The second incident seems tiny, but Jim had tears in his eyes when he related it.  When Jim's unit was engaged in mopping up just before VE day, he was tasked with obtaining drinking water from a German civilian home. He knocked the door of an old woman who scowled then wandered indoors to fill containers.

She bought them out. Jim thanked her, and she looked him in the eyes and spat in his face before slamming the door.

I don't know why that was particularly affecting to Jim but it was.

Upon returning home, Jim was a changed man. His confidence was shot.  "Bad nerves" is what medics called it back in the forties and fifties. Jim went back to Chance Bros to work, but no way could he live on his own, or make a success of a relationship.  He moved in with my Mom ( his sister) and dad.  Looking back, this might have been hard for Dad, but there was never obvious tension in our home. Jim was just , well JIM.  He had his own bedroom, and a chair in front of the TV in the kitchen diner and pretty much kept out of everyone's way.

He had a very brusque manner, and absolutely no tact. He knew this so tended to sneak up to his room if we had visitors.  He used to stay and chat to his brothers if they came for a cup of tea to or from work,and I recall with a smile the great guffawing laughs the used to raise together.  When his Sister  in law would visit he'd speedily withdraw however. Jim looked very much like his late brother George - Gerties husband - and she would weep uncontrollably every time she saw him !  Mind you, as I recall Aunt Gert used to weep uncontrollably at everything, all the time. "A good job people can't cry themselves to death" my mom would say !

My earliest Christmas memory, and the reason for this piece,  involves Uncle Jim.  In our Great Arthur Street house in the late sixties, uncle Jim would sit me on his knee in front of the fire and would help me wrote a letter to Santa.  He would spend hours patiently documenting my message to Santa with my wants and desires, ALWAYS in blue ink.

Then when it was ready he would steady my hand and help me feed the letter safely into the fire's flames.

"Watch for the blue flames", he'd tell me "..thats the words going to Santa !". Every time I saw them and was thrilled !

Jim was a fierce critic of mine as a teenager.  I was everything he felt uncomfortable with I think: leather jacketed noisy, long haired gobshite.  Any HINT of disrespect towards my Mom or Dad and Jim would tear a strip off me.  I never hated him for it though. He was usally right.

When my planned apprenticeship at Chance Bros came to nothing (the year I left school was the year manufacturing started to die in the UK) I went to sixth form college.  I HATED it, and quit six months early meaning I got worse A level grades than I should have. There was no work or opportunities around in 1981. Nothing.

Then one day Jim had found an advert in the evening paper "Aptitude tests for an elite computer course, Dudley college".  He said " Yow'm supposed to be clever, why don't you try for this ? ".
 I'd never heard of computers but went anyway. I passed with flying colours and was on an interesting course while being paid £23.50 a week. Thanks Jim !

I met Kayla on that course. For some reason Jim was absolutely delightful with her, making her laugh and doing daft stuff.  After a couple of years of dating , Jim had make Kayla cry with laughter as he made our dog Pete pull a cap off his head, Jim said to her " I'm only being nice to you so you'll marry him".
We were gobsmacked !

He really loved our dog Pete.  Jim dozed off once afternoon, and when he awoke, Pete had nipped through his socks so he could bite Jims toenails!  This was the funniest thing Jim had ever seen, and had laughing cramps for hours off that !

My course led to a great job as a computer operator at GKN. This heralded a new relationship for Uncle Jim and I. I'd finish shift at midnight, and by a miracle there was always a fresh pot of tea made when I arrived home, and some biscuits.

  He was always interested to hear about my day and my job.  One weekend when I was on overtime I took him into work to show him around. He was enraptured, and particularly loved the printroom with its mass laser printer. He loved that I paid fair housekeeping to my Mom despite my meagre wage without being asked ( it was my privilege). He would open up and tell me about his work life. He redesigned an assembly line to be faster, more frugal and have 50% less breakage than before. He did not have the confidence to accept the award Chances wanted to give him so he credited a work colleague instead.

  Out of the blue Jim said he would lend me the money to buy a car on the huge condition that I would always drive mom anywhere she wanted to go at any time.  Would I ! THANKS JIM ! It was my pleasure to drive my folsk around, and indeed my Uncle Jim to his caravan in Bridgnorth that he loved so very much.

Jim was diagnosed with cancer soon after I asked Kayla to marry me. He was pleased, but never made it to the wedding. I still remember the last time I drove him home from his caravan, knowing he was dying. He looked around and said " Its bloody lovely here though ay it?".

 Jim died soon after never having married, and unmourned by many who found him grumpy or strange. I still miss him to this day.

After his funeral I found that Jim had taken all my car loan repayments and saved them for Kayla and I to use as a deposit on our first house. He never spent a penny of it and left Mom with strict instructions. We bought a lovely house with the help of that deposit.

I write this looking at Jim's Chance Brothers' fishing Championship trophy from 1974 which is on my work desk, with tears dripping off my chin and a smile on my face.  I really miss the grumpy old bugger. Happy Christmas Uncle Jim. And thanks.

People who tattooed my life #9: Pat MacLennan

 I was never a fan of children as a child.  Or as a young man in fact. As seedling ambitions for my life emerged in my mind, kids didn't play a part.  I wanted my own place to live. Near a Banks's pub naturally, and, I hoped, somebody to love. A “Good job”.   A “nice” car. Nothing beyond that.

When we were horribly young Kayla and I met and fell in love and decided to share our dreams and lives together.  Wonderful times as our simple dreams came true: we got “good jobs” that allowed us to save, and made our folks proud.   In turn we were able to buy a house together, and we fixed it up in the year before we got married in 1986, but it never occurred to either of us to start a family.

By the age of 27,  things were going pretty well for us. Kayla had travelled a bit, myself not at all, so we bit the bullet and went on an overseas holiday. It was like Mars to me…but I loved it.  Our house was modernised and decorated within a inch of its life. A new job bought me nice company cars. We had a few once-in-a-lifetime holidays : Florida, Egypt, Rural Greece ... we were and remain staggeringly grateful.

By 1991 there was an imperceptible “air” in our life. Neither of us knew what it was but we knew there was "something". We were very much in love, but there was “something”.

As some know, Kayla’s Mom chose to not be a part of her life from when she was a young child. That perhaps is for another story another day, but Kayla told me then that she was tired of carrying hurt about  it.  She found out where he Mom lived and contacted her, planning to visit and restore some semblance of a relationship between them. I was more than happy to support Kayla in this, and so I planned us a long weekend in Easter 1992 to visit my mother-in-law and her family in Nairn, Scotland. I’d not visited Scotland in my life, and I thought it might help de-stress the mother and child reunion.

We duly packed my sporty little Clio with shellsuits and shoulder pads ( this was 1992!) and set off for Nairn.  It’s a long old drive, but even after seven hours, we were so gobsmacked by the scenery around Loch Ness we stopped in a layby just to watch with our mouths open.  Incredible. I’m sure Nessie wouldn’t have minded that I weed in a corner of her Loch either… it was a very long drive !

Just before dusk we arrived outside the modest but pleasant looking house where Mrs MacLennan lived.  A very fat man in a dirty white vest greeted us effusively. This was Sandy, Kayla’s mom’s husband of ten years. He had obviously been drinking, but his personality shone through. A lovely man whose genuine bonhomie compensated for Kayla’s mom not being at home when we arrived.

Sandy showed us to the spare room where we would spend our time at the Maclennan’s house.  Sandy and Pat had great jobs attending Nairn Golf Course, keeping it at championship quality.

We enjoyed about an hour of Sandy’s embarrassed apologies for his wife’s absence and well intentioned golfing anecdotes when Pat Maclennan arrived.  I never knowingly met a witch, but I suspect that would be a warmer engagement than we received from Pat. No eye contact, no offered hand to shake. “Hello, you made it then?”.

“I’ll go and put the dinner on” she said and wandered into the kitchen. It was now 9 PM and we were starved.  I said “ Please don’t worry on our part Mrs Maclennan , why don’t I go and fetch a Chinese takeaway or something to save you the trouble ?”

A menu was duly bought and handed to me. I gathered everyone’s orders  and I set off to the restaurant. When I returned with food an hour later there were still no great conversations going on, but Kayla was looking at what appeared to be a needlework project that her Mom was showing her.  Everybody ate, in near silence with the TV blaring away. Sandy was hitting cheap scotch hard by now and was slurring. Once we ate Kayla and I cleared away the cartons and washed up plates.  “We’re really tired, so if you don’t mind we’ll get to bed – Night”.

“Night”. Nothing;

When we got to bed Kayla was very upset. Seems Mrs Maclennan had been showing Kayla the wedding dress she was hand making for Kayla’s half sister Jane that she’d had with another man after abandoning Kayla and her sisters as a babies.  She was so effusive about the wedding, and all of her second family, and this really hurt Kayla. She’d wanted to ask her “why did you abandon us?” but  she couldn’t bring herself to.  Kayla told me that while I was collecting dinner, Mrs Maclennan had said to her “ You may see Jane’s family tomorrow, if so please don’t call me “Mom” in front of them. “Pat” is far less confusing.”

I held Kayla.  “Do you want to get the f*** out of here as soon as possible baby ?”

“Yes”

I woke at dawn, and roused Kayla.  We packed silently and left before Sandy or Pat were awake. We had no idea where we were going so I pointed my car “north”.  The road up Scotland’s east coast cannot easily be described. “beautiful” just fails miserably to convey the profoundly affecting vibrancy of the hugely varied scenery.  The sun rose above rain clouds as we passed Dornoch and we had a cadence of rainbows all the way down a mountain pass. Stunning. We had lunch at John O’Groats ( well you have to ! – Oh BTW its a fly blown crap hole!) and pointed south to drive….nowhere in particular.

By evening we had reached Loch ness again and we drove gratuitously along her beautiful  shores , then on to Loch Lochy and finally Loch Linnhe.  It was getting dark and I’d had enough of driving so really didn’t want to press on to Fort William. Kayla spotted a sign in front of a grand Georgian manor house “ Cuilcheanna House – accommodation”.   I pulled onto the drive, we got out and knocked.

A small Scottish lady opened the huge creaky door and smiled widely  – Yes they DID have a room, would we like dinner as the chef hasn’t gone home yet ?  What a famous welcome, wholly unlike the one we had received yesterday !

Dinner was gorgeous – we sat alone at a huge oak dining table before a log fireplace. We ate local wild mushrooms stuffed with crab to start, followed by chicken and bell peppers in whiskey cream sauce…. Washed down with a bottle of Entre Deux Mers .  Any malaise we had felt had gone, Kayla was on good funny form once more and we laughed and loved as we warmed ourselves striped by dancing flames glow. We were liking Scotland very much !

Full and happy we retreated to the bar: a large and friendly room with gamekeepers and colourful locals telling tall tales in the warmth of an inglenook fireplace that occupied an entire end wall.  We nursed large , lovely previously-unknown whiskies and listened.

I had to speak and said “ Baby, you know we’ve had so many adventures but I can’t help feeling we have a big one left to do.  NO pressure but what do you feel about starting a family? After all I couldn’t do a worse job of it than that witch !”.  I said this very clumsily.  Kayla grinned and wept and hugged me. “I have been feeling exactly that way for a while , but I didn’t want to say anything that might upset our life”.

It was scary but liberating for this boy who never knew how to treat kids to articulate this primeval instinct I had felt to start a family. Somehow the dreadful example of Pat Maclennan had inspired to me to make a better fist of parenting than she did. Our excited banter continued late into the night, with more whisky sipped.

We slipped to our lovely room in the wee small hours and fell warmly into each others arms.

 Something woke me just as dawn broke.  I got out of bed to get some water and pulled one of the huge drapes back. The lawn between our hotel and Loche Linnhe was dotted with deer feeding on the fresh morning grass: does and kids. Yes, I think we made the right choice.

Katie was born the following year J

Mrs Maclennan never saw or heard from Kayla again. She eventually abandoned even her second family to drink and live unencumbered by responsibilities. She died alone, having lost limbs through helpless alcoholism in 2007.   Her choices caught up with her eventually.