Uncle Barry and Me
The manager/trainers, Robin
Horten and Trevor Cooper would train us (run around a bit, press-ups then back
to the bar) once a week. As I was almost
fully fit, I tended to separate myself and Bradley, along with Barry Holdsworth
as goalies and we’d train apart, (sit on the slopes of the park, smoke and
chat). I have to say that the club
welcomed me in and I was soon firm friends with the guys and we started going
to nightclubs and pubs together. The
boys were seasoned clubbers, having been to Ibiza that year, they returned
ready to sweep into Norwich like a marauding army me tagging along.
Tim had a little flat in town and
once a week, we’d meet there to watch some terrible German porn films. What inspired 5 blokes to sit together,
watching that crap defies imagination but at the time, it seemed normal, and
anyway, it was no worse than sitting in the red-light district of Hannover,
watching Porn in a bar? See http://jw-alifeofsurprises.blogspot.com/2011/03/women-pool-porn-and-beer.html.
The main clubs in Norwich were
Ricks Place, Tudor Hall and Ritzy’s.
There were a number of pubs all located within stumbling distance, but
the Hole in the Wall was my venue of choice as it was small, niche and
attracted women I was attracted to. I
was signing on the dole within a few months, borrowing money from mum and
struggling to find work. Adrian Murphy,
a friend of my brother Mark, offered me work with his firm of decorators and
floor layers. I worked with a number of
his guys, but never got on well with any of them, except for Mike Hayward.
He was an Essex boy and a
charmer, if ever there was one. As we
drove through small villages and towns, Mike would roll down his window and
insult ugly people walking along, usually calling them a “dyed in the wool ugly
bastard”! He’d sound his horn at women
and constantly told jokes. Adrian sent me
to work with Mike on the floors and Mike would collect me in the van and off
we’d go. I was to work at a plastic
bottling factory and was given a pneumatic hammer and told to chase out the
steel floor runners, bolted to the floor, which had once held machinery in
place. Mike left me to it and said he’d
be back later that day. Keen to impress I went at it in the same way I did sex. Shirt off, tool in hand, banging away like there was no tomorrow and not finishing until I managed to get the job done to everyone’s satisfaction. Mike pitched up with Adrian at lunchtime, to find me sitting on a box, eating my lunch, finished with the floor work. Adrian and Mike inspected the work, came back out and said I had fucked it up as the preparation had been planned to last at least two days. Mike would have to start laying the new floor that day and the job would be over too soon.
I was told to slow down “a
lot”. We completed that job and moved
onto a few others, Mike leading the way.
He was married to Sue and he’d take me home to meet her and feed me up
sometimes, a genuinely decent guy.
Before long we were sent to work at a chemical factory in Norwich called
Rhone Poulenc. The job entailed laying a
two part Epoxy Resin floor in a mixing room.
We cleaned up the floor and I proceeded to mix the flooring together in
buckets. Mike came in, took one look at
me and cracked up. My head was swelling
fast, had turned bright red and my eyes were bulging. I was allergic to Epoxy Resins!
He called Adrian and the Rhone
Poulenc health and safety rep. I was
told to go home and not return there.
The factory was a mile or so from home and Mike said I had to walk home
as he had to get on. I trudged off, head
swollen like a football and got in the bath, but I stayed red and bloated for a
few days after and Adrian had to switch me back to painting again.
I also went to see if my infant
school friend Richard Holmes who still lived at the same house, near the junior
school we both attended. I knocked on
his door, his mum Francis answered, Radio 3 blaring classical music out into
the street as she opened the door, her hair in curlers, “is Rick home?” I
asked. Ricks mum had a high pitched
voice and she called out to him “Richard, there’s someone at the door, I think
he’s from a charity”, before I could explain who I was. She invited me into the living room, which
given they lived in a terrace house, was one step inside the door. Rick came down stairs and looked at me and
said “Jonathan Weaver”. We were 22 and
had not seen each other for eleven years; we sat, had a cup of tea and caught
up.
The first job I worked on was the
new stand at Norwich City Football Club, the City Stand. Meeting the clubs then lofty aspirations (!),
it was a single tier, held about 4,000, and included the Directors boxes and
team changing rooms. Under the seats are
long corridors where match-day pies are sold to the fans once they’d entered
through the turnstiles. My job was to
emulsion the Breeze Block corridors a nice shade of magnolia and armed with my
brush and roller off I went and was party to a conversation between then club
chairman, Robert Chase and the defender Dave Watson, who wanted away from
Norwich to Everton FC. Chase was almost
pleading with Watson to stay, but Watson was having none of it and went at the
end of the season.
I was told to paint the doors and
frames that lead onto the pitch from the changing rooms, Green and Yellow,
(Norwich colours). Being a lazy arse, I painted
the brass hinges as I could not be bothered to paint around them. The foreman came up and moaned about that, so
I had to strip of the paint and start again, fussy twat.
I had to catch a ride to work
each day with a grumpy old shit, who stank of paint thinners and roll up
cigarettes and who drove a 3 wheeled Reliant Robin. This contradicted strongly with my desire to
appear cool, smart and Jonny on the spot, but having no ready cash and not
wishing to cycle, had to accept the lift.
I made him stop the car about quarter of a mile away and walked the last
part of journey, least I be seen getting out of the three wheeler. We named this bloke “Snooker Set”, as each of
his teeth was a different colour, Green, Yellow, Brown, Black, with a few Red
ones, where his gums bled constantly. He
was bent up, saggy skinned and odious and I believed he was probably near fifty
five years old (he was 35), gnarled up from years of washing his hands with
white spirit, inhaling paint fumes and absorbing the lead from paint that had
since been banned. There was no way I was
going to end up like that and started to wish my way out of there fast.
I started seeing a girl (no names
here) and we spent most evenings attempting to break records for coitus
continuity (shagging), either in my bedroom or her parent’s living room. They had a large house and our muffled shouts
and moans were not heard across the hallway.
My Mum was obviously aware, when we availed ourselves of my room, but
generally turned a blind eye if she was not disturbed, and was made a cup of coffee
afterwards. I was generally a good lad, loved being mildly annoying and a comic and would wind Mum up and embarrass her sometimes, if her friends came round.
Mum and I
After a few months, I was
unceremoniously dumped, only to find her best friend chatting me up. One of my problems has been that I fall in
lust too easily. I would find someone I liked,
get their attention, start going out with them, become really “into” them and then
after a period of time, in which as much sex as was physically possible took
place, would finish it, least they finished it first, as happened on occasion. I had become a specialist in cunnilingus and
would spend hours down there, often refusing to come up for air for long
periods and continuing past the point of delivery, intent on achieving the
fabled “multiple”! It turned out that
they had “chatted” as girls do and I was “recommended” for the job, as I was
then dumped by girl No 2 for her friend.
Me!
Meanwhile on the football front,
things were looking up. Bradley had
injured himself and as I had been playing well for the B Team, Robin
recommended to Trevor that I be given a chance in Goal for the A Team. The next game was against Anglian Windows, a
rival for the league title, a hard team to play against and moreover this was a
Cup game and they were at home. My back (my
other opponent in life) had given me an odd twinge here and here but nothing
too bad.
We went a goal up fairly quickly
and the outfield team played really well, I had made a few comfortable saves
and as the second half commenced we were more and more convinced we’d win. Anglian threw everything at us and I got
busier and busier as the half progressed.
I made a couple of extremely good save, improving my team’s faith in me
and we entered the last fifteen minutes, still one up, but under real pressure,
defending at our 18 yard line. One of
our guys then committed a foul, right on the edge and to the right of the area
looking toward my goal.I shouted for five players to form a wall and moved them to cover the left hand side of my goal and I covered the right. Kevin Eagleton, an adversary from my schooldays and a handy striker, took the kick and bent the ball around the wall and in towards my left. I was stranded on the right, but launched myself across the goal; my body totally extended and with the tips of my fingers pushed the ball around the post for a corner. I landed flat on my stomach and felt a spasm of pain run from my lower back down my legs and let out a cry.
My teammates ran to me as I lay there in great pain, pins and needles running up and down the backs of my legs. “No one touched him” shouted one of the opposition, “he has a bad back you twat” said one of our team. I tried to get up but couldn’t, and they had a corner but I could barely get to my knees. Our sub came on in my place and I was carried around to the back of the goal, tears in my eyes. The team played out the last remaining minutes and I was carried back to the changing rooms for tea and sympathy. That night we had a disco in the club and I was hoisted onto a few shoulders, like “Tiny Tim” and lauded for my save of the century.
Meanwhile, in Portsmouth, plans were afoot. Mark Cameron was working as a bouncer and general dogsbody at a nightclub. He hated it and was scheming plans and ideas, so I went down to see him and stayed with him and his mum. The club he worked at was Ritzy’s and were went there and to another more dubious club on the seafront, where I succeeded in chatting up and shagging a barmaid, staying at her place, not wanting to upset his mum.
I travelled back to Norwich satisfied
with my weekends work while Mark ruminated on his plans to leave England for
distant shores. Soon he would call and
make the offer. Soon he would call and make the offer I could not resist.
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