Our first car – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

He was very trusting. That’s not a bad thing to be, but it has a downside. You get taken for a ride, or not, as the case may be. If I had to choose I’d rather be trusting and taken for a ride than cynical and suspicious.

But that’s a point of view.

My father had been in a good job for a period of time now. It meant that we had security, we could pay the mortgage; we were not going to lose the house; we were not struggling to put food on the table; we could afford luxuries. We were the first house down the road to have a television. It was a little black and white job but it was a focal point for all the kids on the block. Saturday night was kids’ night. We had ‘The Buccaneers’ and ‘Planet X’. Planet X was so frightening that mum had to walk Ian and Jeff home, and sometimes even Clive. Clive was a big boy, he must have been about ten at the time and he had to be walked home. It was that scary. After all, you never knew what would rush at you out of the shadows! I had to go along with them because I was too frightened to stay in the house on my own.

My dad was now able to splash out a bit.

He decided to buy a car. This was quite an event. A car was a major purchase.

He bought a second hand Ford Oxford. I remember it as a sit up and beg black car. It had elegance. It looked refined.

The family joke was that he had bought it in the evening when it was dark. The guy had shown it to him with a torch. He had not even heard the engine running let alone been out for a drive in it. He made a snap decision.

Our first drive out was a bit of a disaster. The engine kept overheating and we had to keep stopping to let it cool down and top up the radiator. Dad kept stopping at horse troughs.

Fortunately, there were still a lot of stone water troughs scattered throughout the towns. I bet they are all kicking themselves that they got rid of them. They would have been a nice touch in ‘Heritage England’, to add to the quaint ‘olde worlde’ atmosphere of the place.

Finally, we stopped with steam pouring out from under the bonnet and the car wouldn’t go again. Something in the engine had broken and it was terminal.

The garage towed it away – the diagnosis was that the big-end had gone. There was all sort of talk about the guy putting sawdust in the oil to quieten the noise of the big-end knocking. Our new car had only lasted two weeks.

My dad never lived it down. I don’t know what happened to the car. I think he got rid of it by selling it for scrap. I do know that it was a regular in every row from there on in.

“Bought the stupid thing by torch-light! How stupid can you get!”

14.10.01

 

I guess I’ve bought a few things by the equivalent of torchlight in my lifetime!

26.10.01

The end always comes – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

I sat in the chair and held his hand. He was adrift on his morphine sea occasionally raising himself up from the depths of some deep warm waters to surface in our reality for a brief interlude. His eyes would flicker open and he would see the ward and me. He would look around. Who knew how much he took in? I squeezed his hand and the eyes shut.

I watched him as he cruised the oceans of Morpheus.

The eyes sometimes swivelled round deep in their black sunken sockets. Sometimes they were still. The hair on his head had become thin a frizzy. The skull underneath was evident beneath the waxy stretched yellow skin. The bones on his arms and body were etched out starkly beneath the slack thin skin. The flesh had dissolved completely away so that the veins bulged and throbbed, dark blue and clearly outlined beneath the transparent jaundiced cellophane that served as a boundary layer, that was once skin, now a transparent film. He had wasted completely away to the point where you had to wonder how it was that he was still capable of life. Only his will and strong heart were keeping him alive.

“Good night, Dad,” I said, rising to go.

“Night, God Bless,” he said clearly. It startled me. I had thought that he was completely out of it.

“See you in the morning.”

He did not answer. I walked out and looked back from the door. I didn’t see my father. I could see traces of my grandfather in that emaciated body. His nose, that had seemed so normal, now stuck out in profile like a huge beak. The skinny chest rose and fell.

I went home.

In the morning I got up and was in no rush.

The phone rung. He had passed away in his sleep. They estimated death as about three in the morning. No one had been with him.

It was a shock. We’d known it was imminent. It was still a shock.

We went into the hospital. The ordeal was over.

There was the same unreality. We were in our bubble. Nothing had changed.

I stood in the room and looked down at him. He looked the same as last night. It was just that his chest no longer moved, his eyes no longer moved. Nothing moved. I walked over and touched his face. It was cold. My eyes filled with tears.  He had died alone. I hadn’t been with him. I had thought I would be. I had wanted to be. It was like closure. But now he had gone. Slipped away.

I looked out through the window. The curtains were drawn. It was another bright day. The tears slipped down my face. A man walked past on the pavement the other side of the fence with his dog. He ambled along and looked around. If he had looked my way he could have seen a young man with tears in his eyes standing by the bedside of an old emaciated corpse. He would have seen death.

He did not look. For him, this day was the same as any other. He was out there in the world living in a place where death was a long way away.

I was still trapped in this place where time ran differently. I was still in a place where that reality was unreal. Death was real and the world would never be the same again.

7.10.01

We can!! – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’

Posted on by Opher

So where are all those Punk kids that came round my house that day? Are they all boring adults? Are they still out on the edge? Have they still got the passion? Did they burn out and drop in?

Is there any purpose to this youthful rebellion and angst? Is it inevitable that we grow up and become boring adults caught up in the rut of making a living?

Where’s the wonder?

Where’s the awe?

Where’s the drive to grab it by the ears and wrench life’s head off?

Where’s the fury?

Where’s the desire?

Where’s the spirit that says ‘Fuck It’ every time you see something wrong!

Where’s the will to believe that all us human beings are not fuck-ups, we can learn, we can get better, we can put it right!

We don’t have to be vicious, superstitious greedy bastards!

We can share!

We can learn to live with each other!

 

FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

WE CAN LIVE ON THIS PLANET WITHOUT DESTROYING IT, EVERY LIVING THING THAT BREATHES (AND OURSELVES IN THE PROCESS)!

WE CAN!

 

I KNOW WE CAN!

11.11.01

We never learn – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

I was a little boy running around in a playground and falling over and scraping my knees. She was the headmistress that made the new rule that we were no longer allowed to run around because we might hurt ourselves. We had to play games such as statues because it was deemed safe.

I was the little boy made to memorise and recite poetry, and who fucked up because he was out climbing trees and running around putting scabs on his knees, so he didn’t memorise his lines, consequently he was made to stay in while the others did P.E. I was the boy who sadly watched out of the classroom the window while the others threw a ball around in the sunshine. But I never learned. I always ended up enviously peering out of the window and not learning the fucking poetry.

I was the young boy made to wear a uniform and politely touch my cap, who instantly became the dirtiest, scruffiest, snotty-nosed kid going as soon as I got home.

I was the adult who never grew up.

3.11.01

 

Happiness is birth.

3.11.01

Life, Questions, Funerals and Blasphemy – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

The real question is – do we ever learn anything from the chaos of our lives?

I think not. Our lives seem so arbitrary. Leave a few seconds later, or earlier, on a journey and you might be killed or not killed. Ring a few seconds earlier and you have the job. Every decision is a gain and a loss and who is to say which would have been the better?

So what can I pass on to my kids? What advice can I ever give a friend? I don’t want them to die. I want them to be happy and fulfilled. Apart from the obvious – stay away from heroin, motorbikes and cigarettes – find a nice exciting, sensitive, compassionate, intelligent, girl or boy, have fun but don’t do anything daft – it all sounds so trite.

I can’t even tell you what shape a good life is.

I can’t explain how to be happy.

I want my children to be safe. But safety is boring. I want them to be adventurous and live. But adventure is dangerous. I wish them a billion experiences. I want them to taste the extremes but not too much. It’s about the right balance, the right degree of risk.

Maybe Bob was right when he was talking about heroin to me. He said it was like a big calm ocean. It was like a huge orgasm. You felt warm and safe. You left all your worries and concerns behind. Nothing mattered. You bobbed along and it was great. Of course, he didn’t mention the overdoses, red eyes and running nose or the short life and misery. But at the end of the day what really counts?

What do we want? Quiet desperation with manicured lawns in suburbia? A house, two children and the telly? Washing the flash new car on Sunday. Having enough money not to worry and enough possessions to keep up with the Jones’s?

Running wild with the girls, dope, fast cars and loud music? Up all night rapping. Some craziness. Good friends, laughs and hope you don’t fuck yourself up too quickly.

Creating something worthwhile?

Doing some good?

A middle way?

A bit of all of them?

I’ve tried most of it. Some of it I can’t abide. Some of it you can’t control. I would never want anything that controlled me. I avoid that as if it was plutonium.

I watched my Dad live his life. It appeared to be a boring life of quiet desperation, but I could see evidence of some vestiges of fun and enjoyment. I wanted my life to be full of so much more. I’ve done so much more in some ways, but has my life been better? Who can say?

I’m looking back. They say you should never do that, but how else can you judge which direction to head off in if you don’t have a clear picture of where you’ve been?

I’ve told Liz what to sort out at my funeral. Something raucous, like Little Richard’s Rip It Up and a poem, maybe Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, and Roy Harper’s Cricketer, and one of Rich’s poems. Then something that Liz or the kids wants to put in. Then, they could play Tim’s ‘Crazy Zen Beat Hipsters.

I want it to either be a humanist ceremony followed by burial in unconsecrated ground, returned to nature, or I’m leaving my body to medical science where it can be used to teach people one last time.

If I had the biggest shock of my life and died, and unbelievably came face to face with God, and he was that Abrahamic version, I’d tell him to fuck off for being such an evil bastard.

But that’s not something I’d be expecting to happen and if it did I doubt it would piss him off too much.

I’m not sure you can upset a nuclear energy vibration, can you?

I’d like to listen to my obituary to see what other people thought about my life. Maybe that would give a clue? But I know that it would be lopsided. I doubt too many people would say anything too nasty. Still, it would be nice to hear some of the good things, wouldn’t it?

At the end we usually get our life summed up, in two minutes, by someone that never knew you. That’s ultimately all it’s worth.

I’ve done a lot, explored many avenues, had many interests, enjoyed much good company, travelled the world and created a few things on the way. I’ve brought up a family and maintained a relationship over decades. I wonder if my dad would have been proud of me? I didn’t always make the most of things, I have to admit. I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

I suppose the biggest test is if you had the chance to live it all again which bits would you change?

Wow! If you change a bit you miss out on all the friends and experiences that come later down that road. And what’s the unknown road like? – The road untrod? What unmade friends and weird experiences lie down that route? Could you see one of your precious kids unborn?

I’d most probably not have moved to Hull. But not give up Barny, Hester and Henry. Not anything to put that at risk!

Maybe it’s all a Science Fiction story and we are the products of a bored mind floating in infinite space. This is a dream. We will while away the new millennium mulling it over in the dark and breaking up the boredom of forever. We will smile and laugh at the things we’ve done and cry in all the right places and at the end of the day, it will have been better than nothing.

Maybe all time, and all possibilities, really exist in one moment – as the astrophysicists tell us?

I like to think so. Then there would be no road untrod.

3.11.01

 

Happiness is discovery and wonder with liberal dashes of awe.

3.11.01

Just insane – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

“We’ve checked everything out,” the consultant explained with a hint of exasperation, scanning through my notes. “We have found nothing untoward.”

I couldn’t fault them. They had taken me seriously and given me every test they could. I felt a fraud. They’d spent thousands on me and come up with nothing.

Yet I still felt that there had to be something. I still had this nagging pain. It was similar to how my Dad had first reported his illness. Part of me accepted that it was an illusion, created by tension, exactly as the consultant had explained it. My mind was responding to my Father’s illness. I knew that but I couldn’t help thinking that there was something they’d missed. This pain was nagging at my mind, dragging me down. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus on anything. It was always there. Could that really be imaginary?

The consultant certainly thought so. They’d carried out all the tests and there was nothing to see. Yet he was not angry. He didn’t seem annoyed or at all short with me.

“I think you’ve got a stress-related pain. I think you have tensed up and created a cramp. Then you’ve worried about it and tensed up more and your stress has maintained it.”

It made sense to me.

“You need to be reassured. You’ve had all the tests and they are all negative. We haven’t missed anything. You need to relax. You’re alright. The pain will gradually go away. It’s muscular!”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I murmured. I could still feel the pain but I knew I had to put it to one side.

I did.

Over the next couple of months, it gradually faded and I stopped worrying about it. I wasn’t going to die.

I still get that same pain occasionally but now that I don’t think it’s going to kill me it fades away.

The strange thing about it, looking back, was that nobody thought to send me to a psychiatrist. That’s probably what I needed. I was merely reacting to my Dad’s death all along. It would have saved a lot of other expensive tests.

There again, that might not have been such a good idea. Who knows what a psychiatrist might have uncovered?

28.10.01

 

Happiness is writing, when that writing is flowing out of what is in your head there is a state of total focussed satisfaction.

3.11.01

Falling down a cliff – extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

Happiness is when you are completely crazy and don’t know what the fuck is going on.

3.11.01

 

You have probably seen a film with the guy hanging off the cliff facing death and the whole of his life goes before his eyes. It is a recurring theme.

I’ve hung off a cliff.

Liz and I went on holiday illicitly, camping in Devon. Wow. I have a photo of her in our campsite. We pitched the tent between three dry stone wall of an old derelict barn. A most convenient campsite – sheltered and private. I was taking a photo and she was looking sexy and peeling her bikini top down. Incredibly, just as I was about to take the shot, a middle-aged couple walked past the front and Liz jerked the top up with an indignant look. That’s what I shot. It is a wonderful photo of her looking indignant.

Later we walked along the beach at Lyme Regis and there were fossils to be found. I’ve always loved fossils. I went back for a trowel and hammer and started digging in the blue lias shale, hoping to uncover a plesiosaur or an ichthyosaurus or two. At very least I wanted to find a nice full pyrites ammonite for Liz as a memento. In my usual manner, I became quite obsessive, particularly when I could not find what I wanted. All I was able to uncover were lousy flattened imprints. I wanted a good solid bronzed ammonite. I knew there was one in there. It had to be remarkable enough to impress Liz.

Liz sat on the beach in the sun. I became engrossed in digging in the shale and bashing open rocks. I had this notion that the best ones were higher up the layers in the cliff so I began working my way up the cliff face. The shale was very crumbly but I managed to secure footholds and handholds. I was hammering the trowel into the shale with the hammer so I could use the trowel as a piton for a handhold. Before long, without realising it, I had worked my way up to near the top.

I had just hammered the trowel in, when one foothold crumbled. I scrambled around with my foot to find another without success. Blue lias is like dried mud, layers of dried mud. It is very flaky. As I was feeling around with my foot the other foothold crumbled away. I was now high up the cliff clinging on to an embedded trowel and a handhold. I didn’t panic. It was all right. I had to get a new purchase in the lias, that’s all. It was OK. I looked down and it seemed a long way down to the rocks on the beach. Liz was not looking. I scrambled around with my feet but could not seem to find a crevice to get my toes into. The cliff was sheer and my arms were tiring. Then my handhold gave way and I knew I was in trouble. I was left hanging by two hands from the handle of the trowel and no matter how much I scrambled around I could not find a foothold. It was a matter of time. The trowel started slowly slipping out. I have to report that my life did not go through my mind, only a sense of foreboding accompanied by an exclamation or two.

The trowel finally came out and I went downwards.

Somehow I leaned into the cliff and clawed at the face with my nails and toes like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I crashed down the cliff and hit the bottom along in the midst of an avalanche of debris. Liz screamed.

When the dust had settled I stood up virtually unharmed.

I have a photo of two long gouge marks down the cliff, made by my feet and clawed hands as I clawed at the cliff on the way to the beach. I escaped with ripped nails and multiple lacerations and bruises over arms, hands, belly and legs. Nothing too spectacular.

I laughed it off. It could easily have been a lot worse.

3.11.01

 

Happiness is the feeling you get when you survive something unscathed that could have come out a lot different.

3.11.01

Facing death – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

Happiness is cheating death.

3.11.01

 

I went to the mass X-ray unit. I wasn’t sleeping. The pain was worse and I kept breaking out in sweats. I wasn’t feeling good. Something was definitely wrong. I wanted to know what it was.

It was a simple procedure, they took a few snapshots and it was over in five minutes flat. The worst thing was the wait. It took over a week for the results to come through.

I had to pick them up from the doctor’s surgery.

I waited in the waiting room in a cold sweat. I was convinced that it was going to be bad news. I could feel the pain continuously now. Sometimes it was really painful. I was convinced I could feel it in the shape of a round tumour. There was no doubt. I tensed myself for the bad news. There was Liz to consider and the kids. I had to fight it. Who knows whether that was possible? Maybe something could be done! I was trying to be philosophical, but I did not want to die. I was too young! I DID NOT WANT TO DIE!!

I was eaten up with anxiety.

The results were clear. There was no tumour. There was nothing untoward.

The diagnosis was that my symptoms were psychosomatic caused by the death of my father the previous year. I had bottled it up. Although, there was a chance that it could be a gastric or bowel problem.

26.10.01

 

Happiness is fulfilment, satiation and love. Ah, to be in love!

3.11.01

 

The diagnosis did not allay my fears. It merely meant that my lungs were clear. There were other organs that a tumour could be gestating in.

The pain did not go away. I went back in for further consultation. The doctor could see I was suffering. He booked an appointment with a specialist.

The consultant examined me. He thought that it was probably psychosomatic but there was a chance that it could be a gastrointestinal problem and talked about displacement pain. He explained that such problems often manifested in the lower chest region. Maybe I had an ulcer. He arranged an endoscopic examination.

I was still convinced that I had cancer. Perhaps the tumour was in my stomach. I thought it was more likely in the liver where my father’s had been. The liver was situated under the rib cage. I reasoned that I would very likely feel it there – just where I was experiencing it.

I arrived at the hospital and undressed. I sat in the waiting room with a sorry bunch of individuals all waiting for the same procedure. We all wore those silly gowns that go on backwards and do not do up at the back so that your arse hangs out of them. What is that all about? I really could not see the practical reason. It certainly did nothing to ease your anxiety.

They wanted to give me an anaesthetic. An anaesthetic? I was quite shocked. I had thought that it was only a little tube down the throat. I didn’t want an anaesthetic. I asked if I could do it without needing a general anaesthetic. That was fine with the doctor.

It was also fine with me, up until I saw the size of the massive tube they were after shoving down my throat. Too late by then!

They sprayed the back of my throat with some local anaesthetic to stop the gagging process, and shoved the gigantic tube down my throat. They prodded and probed as I gasped and gagged. It was uncomfortable, it hurt and it made you feel panicky, but I began to relax and I could watch it on the TV screen which was fascinating and almost made it worthwhile. Once I had become used to it I was OK and the surgeon talked me through what he was looking for and what he was finding. My submucosa was healthy. Even I could not see any sign of a tumour. Neither could the doctor. There was no ulceration, no lumps or abnormalities.

“Looks healthy enough”, he said breezily, “no sign of problems.”

I was back to square one. I suppose I had been hoping for an ulcer. That would explain the pain but was treatable. Now I still had the pain but no explanation. Lungs and stomach/duodenum had been ruled out.

I still worried.

26.10.01

 

We are the biggest disaster that has ever hit this planet! By the time we have run our course we will have killed off a greater percentage of life here than any comet or natural disaster since the beginning of time.

Our priority is to ensure that we change and become less destructive; to ensure that my prophesy of our terrible effect on the rest of life does not come true; to ensure that the destruction we are wreaking is halted and we learn to live in harmony with each other and the world.

There’s nothing daft or soppy about that!

If we don’t learn how to do that we are, along with every other living thing, completely screwed!

11.11.01

 

The major problem is that we are too greedy. We are consuming too much of the world’s resources.

Try telling that to a meathead hell bent on owning the world and consuming it all. “Hey, look how important I am, yah! I own a castle, twenty Rolls Royces and a fleet of Lear Jets!”

But then we are all guilty.

How many tellies do you have?

Crazy isn’t it?

11.11.01

 

Happiness is when your endorphins flood your brain and tingle all your synapses.

3.11.01

The start of the wild life – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

Happiness is freedom to do what you want!

3.11.01

 

Looking back I can see that my wild life started when I was fifteen. That was the year I hitch-hiked in France with my mate Foss. We spent the entire summer camping out the back of a Youth Hostel. It was an eye-opener – different food, culture, experiences and freedom. We had to cook, shop and clean up after ourselves. There were girls, wine, cheese and bread. I was adopted by some older Hungarian girls, had a Scottish girlfriend and was befriended by an enormous German guy who adored the Stones album I had brought with me. I made friends with the French guys, discovered yoghurt, and had a

It was also the year that Foss also took me to the local Walton Hop for my first taste of live Rock Music.

The Walton Hop was a notorious dive. It was the haunt of the Walton and Hersham Teddy Boys. There was a knife-fight in the carpark outside the gig that first night. We edged around a baying mob (mainly girls) who were wanting blood as two teds with flick-knives circled and slashed at each other.

The first band I saw was the British Birds who had Ron Wood on guitar. They had the hair, waist-coats and Chelsea boots. I just had to have some of those Chelsea boots. They were loud and raucous with synchronised beat and guitars. They even had someone turn the lights on and off in time to the music like some primitive light show. It was incredible.

Even more incredible were the audience. It was a bit of a time-warp to the fifties. Bottles and glasses flew through the air. Groups of Teds stood around the dance floor looking hard, with their greased hair, siddies, drape jackets with fur trim and brothel creepers. The girls grouped together with their beehive hairdo’s, full skirts, petty-coats and ankle socks. Some couples danced wildly, mainly jiving, spinning and throwing the girls around so that their skirts billowed out showing their knickers. One of them noisily screwed a very blousy looking girl against the wall on the landing of the stairs up to the gallery while a group of his friends stood around them shouting and clapping and egging them on. She looked completely disinterested throughout, chewing gum and looking bored while he thrust away under her lifted skirts. All quite a incredible to a fifteen-year-old lad. Some might have been put off by the experience but for me, it was incredibly exciting.

The next band I saw was Them with Van Morrison. They didn’t jump about quite so much and I remember being a bit disappointed at that. But they did stay behind at the end and sign postcard pictures. I had two of them. I later gave one to Phil at work, who was a big fan, and lost the other. I think my Mum threw it away when I was away at college.

Maybe it was the fighting that was the final straw that broke that camel’s back? The council closed it down, but I’d already got the taste. Live Rock Music set the heart thumping like nothing else.

I wonder what my parents were thinking, letting me go to a place like that at that age? I think they wanted me to live life and enjoy myself. They probably had no idea what it was really like. I’d always been pretty free and wild and they trusted Foss to look after me.

Perhaps they managed it about right. I’m not so sure I would have been happy letting my kids loose in France at fifteen years of age or to go to a dive with mad violent Teddy Boys!

3.11.01

 

Happiness. What the hell is happiness? A chemical rush? A hormonal surge? A state of euphoria? A sense of fulfilment?

3.11.01

My most pleasurable meal.

Posted on by Opher

Every morning at six-thirty my dad would get me up. He would change my nappy and dress me and then take me through to the kitchen and put me in the high chair. He would then turn his mind to making porridge. He was good at all of this. He made the porridge with milk and sprinkled sugar on it. When it was cool enough he gave me a big bowl of it and left me to it.

How do I know this? Because my mother told me.

The object of the exercise was to transfer the porridge from the bowl to the stomach via the mouth. But for me, that was too boring. It would appear that my idea of fun was to eat half the porridge and distribute the other half anywhere that I could reach. The favourite place for this seemed to be in my long curly blond hair.

By the time my mum appeared I was usually sitting there with a bowl on my head and a drying coating of oats over my face, surrounded with a smeared gooey mess.

I enjoyed having breakfast with my father. Few meals since have ever been so enjoyable.

I wonder if he were to come back and we did it all over again if it would be half as much fun?

13.10.01