Days Without Alcohol - 90. I never thought I'd get through the 80s, but here I am. Still not drinking seems to make your teeth fall out, so my advice is to carry on getting pissed.
I was gigging in Taunton tonight and so popped in to see the folks on the way. It was also an opportunity to pick up all my teenage possessions from the loft and look for a photo for the poster of my new Edinburgh show.
Soon I had my mum and sister looking through photo albums with me, though we didn't find too much stuff from my teenage years. I really wanted a good school portrait or a photo of the whole school that I could focus in on me and the people around me (like they always do with that picture of Tony Blairs wearing a boater). But though there were lots of good ones of my brother, there seemed to be none of me. That's the problem with being third, your parents have got bored of all that crap by the time you've come along.
Soon enough though my 71 year old dad was crawling around in the loft pulling out boxes and bags of old school books and folders trying to work out which ones belonged to me.
There was tons of stuff up there and I left the home with a massive box and five black bin liners full of memorabilia from my childhood.
Even a cursory glance of the piles of crap on offer showed there was going to be some gold dust in here. Though there was a slight uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that I might have opened up Pandora's Attic and be in danger of discovering some uncomfortable truths and unearthing hidden memories. I thought writing this show would he a chance to take a gentle and charming look back at my teenage years, but the few things I looked at as I placed them in bags made me realise there was going to be a whole lot more to this. Letters from first loves could still twang at my heart strings and books of terrible teenage poetry and thoughts revealed a world of pain and self-indulgence. I looked at so little but could already see what a sensitive, yet arrogant young man I was, obsessed with death and sex (even though at the time I was convincing myself that I was not interested in having anything to do with it). I could be working through this for months and be destroyed by the psychological revelations. But I have set out on the journey now and there's no going back.
As if to really send me spiraling back in time, like some kind of Sam Beckett or Sam Tyler, as I looked at the most poignant folder of reports and letters every light and piece of electrical equipment in the house went off. It was evening and we were plunged into darkness. A quick look outside revealed the whole street was without electricity. It was that most 70s of things - a power cut. I can't remember the last time this happened. Not since my childhood And here I was reliving my childhood and it was happening again. Had my strange magnetic ability to destroy all computers been magnified by the emotions within me to take everything out. A few minutes later, after my dad had quickly located some torches, everything came back on again.
If the few things I found are anything to go by there are going to be some surprises awaiting me. I seem to have kept absolutely everything, perhaps in the belief that one day I would be massively and historically important and the museum of me would, of course, want to have my Subbuteo Club card and the piece of paper informing me of the dates of my O level papers.
Amazingly I found
the Mr Cheeky Award which I had presumed was lost. Standing on the stool had in fact not won me the award. On the 25th April, 1983 I had apparently said "I hope I get Mr Cicotti, no Mr Dodd". These were the two Physics teachers in the the school and I guess I was in Dodd's lesson, in front of Mr Dodd, saying that I hoped I got his colleague for Physics next year. Must have been a slow day.
Other immediate highlights from chipping away at this mountain of memory was something that I have no recollection of at all. A contract written in red ink on the back of a torn piece of paper (dated Spring 1982 on the other side and listing courses for some college or other). It is in my hand-writing and reads
"The Duck/Dog Alliance
1) The Duck will not tell the King who the Dog is.
2) The Dog will not tell the King who the Dog is
3) We all hate the king eergh pooh
signed
The Dog
The Duck"
The Duck has signed in a different hand, so clearly I was the Dog, but I don't know who the Duck was, who the King was or what any of that is about. I hope the King isn't reading this or I have broken the contract.
Also in amongst this crap was an aborted copy of "The Fishian" a 4 page paper I used to type and draw for my grandad (and then apparently sell to him for 7pence). I think I was about 28 years old when I did this. No, maybe 8 or 9. Hope you enjoy some of the earliest Herring based comedy around.
I have, as you can see, put a few of the bits and pieces on here. There's me in Dazzle, the surprisingly racist musical that we put on in 1983 based on Star Trek. And of course there were loads of reports, many of which talked about me trying to be funny in class and all advising that I try to get that side of myself under control. Which was bad or good advice depending on your point of view.
So anal was I in collecting stuff together I even found a piece of card signed by Mr May giving me permission to have early lunch on Tuesday and Thursday because of my band commitments.
But I am glad I kept so much cos nearly all of it has some kind of meaning to me. I was moved and perturbed and happy and faintly scared by the whole thing. As usual it puts the whole aging process into context. But despite youthful concerns that I would die before I had lived I am still here to read it all and laugh at myself and wonder whether I was actually better then than I was now, when I was idealistic and untainted.
I wonder what else I shall discover.
