A cup of sugar story fantasy feeder7/4/2023 ![]() I wasn’t quite a skinhead, but couldn’t afford the smarter ‘mod’ look. I wore coloured or stripy socks, doc Martin boots with a capped sleeve tee shirt and a bomber jacket. I started to grow what sideburns I wore my old flared jeans with big turn-ups so that they say mid calf. I thought moving into Ken’s house was great! I could wear whatever I liked and not be told off! I could stay up as long as I liked, I could sleep in in the morning and be late for school! Freedom!Īfter a month at Ken’s I had started smoking and had my hair cut very short into a ‘suede head’ cut. I could go to sixth form college down there for my ‘A’ levels. It was only for a year or so, then I could join my family in their new house in Weymouth. The adults discussed the details amongst themselves, but it seemed like the ideal solution until I finished my exams. I could see my parents in Dorset in the holidays. I thought I was going to have to move to Dorset, but Ken’s mum said I could stay at her house in term time. ![]() He got sick of all the toing and froing after six months. He left for work very early on a Monday morning, then came home on a Friday night. So we stayed in Exeter and my dad commuted. I had not long started studying for my ‘O’ level exams and they thought that it was too disruptive to my schoolwork for me to move again. This time he was going to be an assistant governor at HMP Portland in Dorset. When I was fourteen, my dad got news of another promotion. It didn’t matter if Ken didn’t make his bed in the morning. ![]() There was no such worries at Ken’s house! You didn’t get told off for having your feet up on the sofa when watching the telly. I was always getting into trouble for not keeping my room tidy. My dad was a strict disciplinarian and my mum hated mess. I could relax in his house in a way that I couldn’t at home. He lived on the same estate, but higher up the hill. Ken was my age, but his mother and father had a more relaxed attitude about parenting. I think he got sick of me hanging around all the time anyway, because we fell out and I made friends with Ken. On those evenings, I would take myself off to the park and amuse myself on the swings, or have a walk along the canal until it got dark and I could go home. On other evenings, we would sit and do our homework together, or play football in the garden.īut then on a Tuesday evening, he would go to visit his grandparents in Mortenhampstead. On some of those evenings, I was lucky to have a neighbour-friend, who’s mother would take me in and we would sit and watch the telly together. It was pointless trying to converse with them, so I’d just go to bed. By the time I came home, they were all drunk and very loud. I had time to have something to eat and get changed, then I had to vacate the house for three hours while they had their dinner party. Some days, I would come home from school and be told to make myself scarce until nine o’clock. This coincided with my dad having to entertain his senior work colleagues at home as he tried to butter his way into a new promotion. When I was thirteen the hormones started to kick in and I started to rebel a bit. I settled in all right, I made friends, I got good marks for my schoolwork. We had all gone from being the biggest in school to being the smallest. They still knew each other from their junior school days, but our uniforms were all crisp and new. It was my first year in comprehensive, so we were all starting the big school’ together. One good thing was though that I was not the only new starter at this school. I found it difficult to understand my fellow pupils’ accents at school and they found it difficult to understand my East Yorkshire one. We got financial help to move and resettle, but it didn’t help me much. Then we had to move down to Devon, because my dad got a job in HMP Exeter. Until that point we had stayed in the north. The most difficult move was when I was eleven. As an only child, it was not easy settling in, in a new school, in a new area, having to make friends all over again. He had been picked out as having the potential to rise to governor level, so he had to move where the promotions were available. My dad’s job I’m the prison service saw to that. ![]() My family moved around a lot when I was a child. I’m not exactly sure how my life became so different! I used to have ambitions of being an airline pilot, walking through the airport in a suave suit with people looking admiringly in my direction. ![]()
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