Just About Me 25

We had been back a while, when one Friday I was about to go on my lunch break, I became startled by a lot of shouting and yelling that someone had jumped out of one of the 22 story blocks to commit suicide, this is a bit of an inconvenience to a caretaker as he has to clean up behind them. I arrived at the scene to be greeted by a man who was obviously dead, I tried his pulse and vital signs and was amazed at how cold he was, the police arrived and moved on all the sightseers, you would not believe how some people react, one guy got down on his hands and knees for a better look, and one woman actually erected a deckchair for extra comfort, now I realise the next bit sounds a bit callous but if you did not keep your sense of humour you would go off the edge, a policeman asked me how long he had been there, I replied " He was not there Monday" the copper looked at me in an old fashioned way and moved on to someone else. It turned out that the dead guy had had a row with his boyfriend who had then killed him, he then about 4 days later picked him up and threw him out of his 12th floor flat window. I experienced a few more jumpers but one that sticks out for me was a woman who had had enough of her alcoholic gambler of a husband, when she jumped her husband had to be dragged out from a betting shop and he then proceeded to go through her pockets for any money she may have had and returned to the betting shop, whilst the emergency services removed his dead wife.

Guy Fawkes night 1988 was an amazing experience, Myself, Mandy and Brian Palmer stood on the roof of one of the tower blocks watching fireworks exploding across London's skyline, it was amazing as rockets would spring into action around us, it was truly a wonderful spectacle.

At the end of November a vacancy had arisen at an estate in Fulham, it was called Fulham Court, people thought we were mad as it had a terrible name, but we both wanted to move back to Fulham so we took a 3 bedroom flat at 138 Fulham Court, SW6. At the time the estate was having a major refurbishment and at least half of it was closed off. I worked with 3 other guys Alex Reid, Tony Housling and my friend Simon Hierons.
Among the empty flats was a number of squats, we were tasked on occasions to attempt the removal of some, Simon also had a Rottweiler named Ryker, his Rottie and my Rottie frankly hated each other, so we would take the dogs to some of the squats and allow them to have a little growl and bark, it was quite funny to see the squatters leave in a hurry, once believe it or not they were Colombian diplomats who had left so quickly they had forgotten there hand gun. It was whilst we lived at Fulham Court that I received some awful news, one Sunday morning the phone rang and my Sister in Law Lynn Allen broke the news that my Dads brother Wally had died, my Uncle Wal was a real character and people will tell you that I am a bit like him, which is funny because they also say that my cousin Barry is like my dad, I miss Wally to this day and he is the guy who if I could have 5 more minutes with, it would be Wally.

Just About Me 24

One of our wedding presents was the loan of a villa on the Costa Blanca in Spain by our friends Simon and Karen Hierons, Denia a coastal city that for me was in 1987 unspoilt by tourism,  Denia Link we arrived in the middle of the night and neither of us had been abroad before, customs completed we went to find a taxi, it had not occurred to me that in Spain they speak Spanish and it took a while to find the hire car. I may not say this too often but I was proud of my new wife for driving for two hours from Alicante to Denia in the pitch darkness and on the opposite side of the road and found the front door of a villa in what to us was the middle of nowhere. We had a fantastic week, the highlight of which was the night we met 2 Dutch guys in a bar we had found, I started a conversation about Holland and the chat eventually came round to football, they asked me what team I supported, I told them " The mighty Chelsea ", to be honest in 1987 they were not so mighty, anyway, one of them was straight up the bar shouting "Drinks for Chelsea" and bought us a drink each Mandy's was a soft drink whilst mine was a vodka and orange juice, it only seemed right that I should reciprocate and shouted a round of drinks in for "Ajax", now I am sure that you the reader's are familiar with Spanish measures of drinks, if not they consist of a high ball tumbler, at least half filled with spirit and topped with a mixer, a lot different from the thimble full of spirit on offer in English bars. 26 drinks later I was to put it mildly, pissed out of my brains, the two dutchmen wanted to go on to a nightclub which I declined to do, but did offer my wife's services as a cab driver, it is at this point worth pointing out that Mandy is 10 years younger than me and frankly if the dutch guys had leapt on her I could not and would not have been able to do much about it, luckily they were both gentlemen and we bid them good night, the journey back to the villa was traumatic for me as we hurtled along towards all these blinding lights and oncoming bouts of nausea. I ended up curled around the big white telephone moaning like a 2 year old whilst Mandy stood over me crying and yelling at me for being slightly tipsy.

The biggest regret that I have from our honeymoon, was that somebody on the complex was selling there 2 bedroom villa for just £30,000, we viewed it and made up our minds to purchase it as we had no mortgage or rent obligations, the estate agent visited us and told us that we had to own property in England to be able to buy abroad, this is totally wrong and to this day I am convinced that the cow bought it herself, it would today be worth approx £200,000 but that about sums my life up.