a dog the equivalent of a selection box down the poor creature’s throat. The dog must have been good with the old expectant-eyes trick because when I did them to Dad (usually mid-cross-country run, pleading with him to stop) he just ignored me and made me touch another tree, while I was gagging for a Milky Way.
* * *
It’s typical, really, that although I was hearing whispers at school that I was not like the other boys – and I don’t think it was because of my birdwatching – the penny never dropped. A few times I had wondered what they meant by the catcalls, and of course now I know, oh yes, I know now very well what they meant. These cringeworthy moments hover in my memory glowing bright pink in neon shouting, ‘Yoo hoo, over here – remember us.’ Sometimes I was guilty of turning the most mundane tasks into ammunition for the bullies.
Every child loves ice cream, and I was no exception. Whenever the hypnotic melody of the ice-cream van would be heard in our cul-de-sac, time would freeze as every child would first run to their mum and dad and shout, ‘Mum, ice-cream van – can we have one?’ and then run to get their shoes. On one occasion, I couldn’t find my shoes and blind panic set in, because I really wanted a 99. All I could find were Mum’s knee-length zip-up leather boots. I thought, ‘Sod it, I’ll wear those.’
By the time I’d put them on the right feet, zipped them up and found a handbag to match (joke), I could hear the ice-cream van’s engine starting up. I ran straight out of the front door to find my fears were confirmed – he was pulling away! As fast as I could, I chased the ice-cream van through my whole estate in high-heeled boots, shouting, ‘Stop! Stop! I want a 99!’
It was only when I sat down on the kerb, slowly unzipped the boots and coquettishly sucked the flake, that I thought, ‘God, you’re sexy!’ – no, I thought how ridiculous I must look. This was confirmed by the number of neighbours staring and kids giggling.
I knew they were thinking, ‘That’s Graham’s son.’
* * *
Times changed, and when I was eight we stopped going to the freezing wasteland of Great Yarmouth for our holidays and started going on five-hour car journeys behind a string of caravans to Beverley Park in Torquay. That five-hour journey would sometimes take six if my violent car sickness kicked in and I had to vomit on the hard shoulder.
You can imagine the relief when we finally pulled up at Torquay and saw the sun and the crisp blue sky.
‘They call this the English Riviera,’ Mum said, turning round in her seat and smiling at me.
I was amazed. Unlike Great Yarmouth, it really did look like it did in the brochure. (In Great Yarmouth I think they’d superimposed a sun and toilet facilities afterwards.)
Now we were holidaying down south we were joined by an extra person – Nanny Tot. She should have been called Nanny Carr, but my Granddad Wilf was so tall he was nicknamed Tot and it stuck. Nanny Tot didn’t come to Great Yarmouth with us, as she lived in Newcastle, so if she had wanted to get blown around and pissed on, she could just have gone to Whitley Bay, which was cheaper and nearer. When Nanny found out that we would be going to Devon and it would be free, she decided to tag along.
Nanny Tot was a lovely lady, but frugal to say the least. If she could get out of spending money she would do it. One mention of pocket money would have her diving for her panic button. Once, when I was a baby, she bought me a dress because it was cheaper than a pair of trousers. Gary insists that’s where my ‘trouble’ started.
Every kid is excited when their Nan comes to stay, and we were no exception, but the excitement was doubled because we were going on holiday with ours – yeah! We would collect Nan from the National Express coach station ready for our journey onwards to sunny Devon. She would get off the coach and reach into her bag.
‘Here you are, love. Here’s something for you.’
It would be half a packet of Opal Fruits each – if we were lucky. Sometimes we didn’t get them at all, because if Nanny Tot ever saw a disabled person or someone with learning difficulties, she would put her hand in her bag and whip out our sweets. I remember once in a café Nan going to give a paraplegic my uneaten chips. And if this wasn’t embarrassing enough, Mum then told her off loudly, saying, ‘They want to be treated as equal. They’ve got rights now.’
Nan’s generosity with our sweets to less able-bodied people had a sliding scale of its own – a brain tumour: a whole box of Rowntree’s pastilles; limb missing: Fry’s chocolate cream; retarded: Bounty; while a stutter would equate to two segments of a Terry’s chocolate orange.
Sadly, Nan’s tightness actually affected her hearing.
‘Can I have 50p to have a ride on the donkeys?’ I begged.
She smiled sweetly and carried on with her crossword.
‘Please, Nan!’
It was no good. She couldn’t hear a thing. If Dad was buying us a fish and chip supper, though, her hearing would become so acute she would have put a bat to shame.
Despite the penny pinching, we did have a lovely time together. Mum and Dad would hit the campsite club and me, Nan and Gary would all sit and try and listen to the television over the noise of the rain pelting down the corrugated-iron roof.
If you were in an even-numbered caravan you were a royal and if you were in an odd-numbered caravan you were a rebel. Whenever you walked around the campsite and came across a redcoat he’d ask, ‘What are you?’
‘Rebel!’ we’d all shout the first year, because we were in caravan 181.
The next year we found ourselves royals. ‘What are you?’
‘Royal!’
Honestly, who needs Disneyland when you can have this much fun?
Those holidays in Devon and eventually Cornwall were so idyllic. The sun always seemed to be shining and there was a lovely sense of peace about the place. Gary was getting older and becoming more fun and we were able to do things together.
For all the picture-perfect innocence, it soon became clear that something ominous was shifting inside me, as I discovered one afternoon whilst walking along the beach with my parents.
‘Alan! Stop that. Stop doing that!’ shouted my mother, pointing at me.
‘What?’
I was subconsciously mincing along with my bucket in the crook of my arm like a handbag and twirling the spade around my fingers like a majorette.
‘Hold it properly!’ she insisted.
I personally thought I looked fabulous but I relented and held it ‘properly’. Boring!
I often wonder whether my parents took it as an omen or whether it even registered, but looking back now I realise it was the thin end of the wedge.
The only argument I remember between my parents took place on holiday, though. It was quite serious. Dad had used Mum’s really expensive shampoo and she was horrified.
‘It’s a waste on your head,’ she retorted. ‘You’re bloody bald!’
It seems it was all right for Mohammed Ali to take the piss out of my father’s lack of hair, but not my mother. He opened the caravan door and flung Mum’s shampoo out so far that it cleared the enormous conifers adjacent to our caravan.
Mum cried out, ‘Alan! Alan! Go and find my shampoo!’
Like a sniffer dog I was released onto the campsite in my pyjamas and slippers, searching for this bloody shampoo. I eventually found it outside the camp shop. It was lying in the car park next to two pensioners staring up at the sky, hoping that God would deliver them some expensive hair products too.
* * *
Dad’s star was on the rise again. After keeping Nuneaton top of the League for a couple of seasons, he was spotted by Northampton