Just About Me 7

I made some really good friends at Elliott, namely Paul Stevens, Eugene King, John Hicks, Barry Stock and Michael Arnott. We used to all hang around together and I found myself experiencing lots of firsts with some of them. My First Cigarette, My First Chippy Loaf, My First go at Shoplifting and Bunking Off School. My First Cigarette was nothing special but in my mind I looked tough, pretty stupid really, My
First Chippy Loaf was fantastic, a loaf of uncut bread cut in half and hollowed out, filled with chips and soaked in vinegar and laced with salt. My First go at Shoplifting was ridiculous, in an off license on the Ashburton Estate, Putney SW15, I decided to nick some chocolate bars and a tin of coke, I stuffed them in various pockets, and the shopkeeper was not too happy about it, he grabbed me round the throat whilst I totally shit myself, he took me to the housemaster John Taylor who caned my arse, I was more worried my dad would find out than anything else, but I don't think he did, Sorry Dad you have now. Bunking Off School became a habit, I visited all the local parks and deserted buildings in Putney, namely a disused brewery in Lacy Rd, SW15, it was great fun in there, we found loads of empties which we returned to the local off license for the deposit back, the first time round the guy paid us out, the next time he shouted to us to F Off, I guess he had been kind the first time and knew what we were up to, but never again.

At home my Paternal Grandmother came to live with us, at first this was quite exciting but after time became a bit fragile, two women into one kitchen does not work, Fact, every night my Nan would jump up to clear the dinner table and wash up, this sort of thing frustrated the life out of my mum who saw it as her kitchen. I don't want you to think that it was all terrible because it really wasn't, we lived in a happy home, only thing was it became overcrowded as we grew bigger.

 One day in1968 I was returning home from school, sitting on the top deck of a 220 bus, gazing aimlessly out of the window, when as we reached Shepherds Bush Green, a convertible Cadillac pulled up sharply outside the old Essoldo cinema, emerging from it at speed were four large Gorillas with machine guns. They ran inside the cinema firing round after round. Well as you can imagine, this came as a bit of a shock to this twelve year old boy, I remember ducking down as the bus pulled away. I told my mum about it, and she probably thought I had gone mad, it was a couple of days later I realised it was all a publicity stunt to promote the latest film Planet Of The Apes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063442/