Rimmer Shit (Childhood Memories)
Rimmer Shit for
Jan 2002; Sport,
First
Football Memories, The Sound of Music, Earliest Memory, Adverts, What’s on
the Telly, Toys,
Food, Cars, What
I did on my Holidays, Music, Pets, Pissing Contest, Mr
Jones, First Day at School, The Play Area, The Woods, Trespassers will be Prosecuted, The Pond, The River, The Pipe, The Valley, Why Rimmer
Shit?
Sport
I’ve loved sport
all my life. Watching and Participating.
So let’s see where it started.
Firstly it was
probably doing wheelies on two wheels of my tricycle with Claire Jones.
It progressed to
football in the Play Ground and the Play Area on our estate.
School sports and
sports day were a show case for my talents.
Sack Race, Egg and Spoon Race (which I hated, that’s not real sport) and
my particular speciality,
The Backwards
Race (this is not an IQ test) but that useful ability to be able to run
backwards. Always been a master at it
and only Bruce Sciple could beat me.
I can’t remember
when I first played cricket. I suppose I
had a bat from early on and played variation of French Cricket in the garden.
The biggest
sporting venue in my early sporting career was our garage door, which always
offered a kind of wall to hit, throw, or bounce something off.
The only problem
was our garage door had panels which sent any ball off at random directions,
which of course improved my sporting skills.
I honestly dreamt
of being a millionaire from a very early age just so that I could build a very
large and flat brick wall to play sports against.
Of course rackets
games have always been my thing.
Probably starting with badminton in the garden and progressing to Tennis
in the streets with Jeremy Reynolds.
And finally the
sporting stadium of Handforth, The Meriton Road Public Park, with its own
grouchy Tom (Scanlon) the Park Keeper.
Parkie.
“Oy, Get off your
bikes!” “Oy, “Get off that grass!” Tom
“Parkie” bears an uncanny resemblance to Parkie The Viz cartoon
And not just any
Parkie. Tom became a local councillor
and I am told Mayor of Macclesfield. Is
this true?
It sounds so much
better to know that we were getting yelled at by the future Mayor of
Macclesfield.
Golf Putting and
the Tennis Courts were the favourites.
The main course
for sport was and is football. Playing
in the street with jumpers for goal posts, kicking the ball against the garage
door, sending the ball through our back window several times, whilst playing in
the back garden, full games in The Play Area, kick around in the Play Ground. Football Football Football. Though quite good I never seemed to cut it
with the Handforth C of E school teams.
I dreamt of
wearing the Tangerine Shirt of Handforth C of E football teams but alas it was
never to be. Actually, come to think of
it maybe I did pull on the shirt for some games but the trauma of the big
losing scores have wiped my memory. How
do I know that Lacey Green school played in Green shirts with white sleeves,
how do I know that Ashdene played in all blue, or the Handforth Hall had
striped shirts (Black and
Yippee, my dreams
have come true. I did play for Handforth C of E and wear the Tangerine Shirt!
But alas I was
sent on a free transfer to
But we did play
them two years later whilst I was at Greenbank.
First Football Memories
“Mummy look,
there’s the Queen”
The greatest
football match in English history and all I can remember is the Queen.
World Cup final
1966. Black and White telly, I’m aged 5
and I spot the Queen. Damn it.
I think the first
game I remember watching on the Telly was
I didn’t
understand what he meant. Did players
have strong arms? Was this a
tactic? I learnt quickly that it was
George Armstrong the Arsenal player.
I think once I
started school in September 1966 aged 5, I really got into football quickly.
Playing in the
playground with Steven
I also started to
buy the football cards with bubble gum and do swaps back at Stephen Taylor’s
house.
I still have a
massive collection of Football Cards.
And of course a near photographic memory of details on the players. Never saw them play but it’s like I knew
them.
Later on I
collected the Football Packs to stick in the books. I never completed the years I collected but I
have most of the players.
Other highlights
are the 1970 Esso World Cup coin collection and the Esso F.A Cup winners
collection.
The first F.A Cup
final I remember was 1968,
I particularly
remember the F.A Cup semi final when Gordon West the Everton Goalie saved a
penalty by diving on the ball which hit the ground and bounced over the
crossbar. (Can someone please confirm
that this actually happened.)
I don’t know why
but my first football kit was a
However, my first
game I went to live, was Man Utd v Everton August 1968. And that’s been it ever since. A Red.
Mrs Bracken took us along with her son and Dave Long. We were in the scoreboard end with the
Everton skinheads. I was too small to
see most of the game and Dave Long and I got lost in the crowd. I cried.
I remember Dennis Law scoring just after the whistle had blown. Final Score 2-1 Man Utd. Prior to that I did watch on the telly, Man
Utd beat Benfica 4-1 at Wembley to win the European Cup Final. That game is etched in my memory, especially
George Best being fouled so much by the Benfica players. I also watched the semi-final at Real Madrid,
but I didn’t understand that Man Utd had played the first leg at Old Trafford
and by drawing at Real Madrid, they went through.
They seemed such
heady times as a kid with both Man Utd and
Second live game
I went to was even better. Man Utd v QPR
March ’69 a night game and floodlit. There’s nothing like Old Trafford floodlit,
that green colour, the players shirts. I
love night games. United won 8-1, but we
left at 6-1 to beat the crowd.
Welcome to
Football Anthony!
The Sound of Music
What film do I
remember best from my Childhood?
Of course, The
Sound of Music.
Why? Not sure.
Is it the catchy tunes? Is it the
storyline? Am I gay?
Most likely it
was my Mum’s enthusiasm for the film that rubbed off on us.
Or maybe there’s
another reason!!!! Look what I found in
my first writing book dated probably 1967 when I was 5 going on 6 (not 16 going
on 17 ha ha ha)
Click on these to
learn to spell!
And for those
with hard of reading a 5 year olds writing here’s the translation;
“On Saturday I went to see The Sound of Music
And The Germans wanted the Goody to put The German Flag up
And he took the flag
One day Maria, one of the nuns, had to go and look after seven children.
And the man was a captain
And when he called his children he blew his whistle
They all said their names, except the youngest, she did not know what to say.
And when Maria went upstairs, a frog jumped out of her hat
And when she sat down, she sat on a cone
And when their daddy asked what they had done they started to cry
And the Captain said to Maria, he doesn’t want his children to be unchanged.
But Maria did unchange them
And she made their clothes out of old curtains, because she was going to have some new curtains
And she taught the children how to sing
And they had a puppet show
And because they had a party and she saw a boy and a girl dancing
And she was teaching them how to dance, when the father came to dance.”
Anthony Goodson aged 5
going on 6
I could spend
hours making meaning of this but I won’t.
Let’s just leave it at that.
Of course there’s
a whole book full of gems to release from my first school book.
Earliest Memory
Fascinating to
work out my earliest memory.
I think mine was
just when we moved into the new house, so I reckon I was 2˝ and my Mum was holding my sister, and we
were looking out from my Parent’s room upstairs on to the back garden, and my
Dad drove the White Mini round from the front of the house on to the back
garden which hadn’t had a lawn laid yet.
There you
go. Why would I remember that? Well it was fairly unusual having your Dad
drive a car on to your back garden.
My Mum neither
confirms nor denies this.
“It’s the kind of
thing he would do!”
Adverts
So while I’m on
the Telly theme for yesterday, what are the adverts I can remember? Not many right now, so I think I’ll cheat and
go to the Channel 4 Top 100 Adverts and see if there’s any from my childhood.
Ahhhh it’s coming
back to me now even before I go in.
- For Mash get Smash (Horrible Stuff)
- Hovis reet grrrate (Hated Brown Bread)
- OO with Typhoo (Drank it because of the Football
Cards)
- Shhhhhhhwepes cool Bill (Bitter Lemon)
- Hamlet Cigars Disasters (Never Smoked)
- PG Tips Monkeys (See above for Typhoo and PG Tips
had weird cards)
- Frosties They’re Grrrrrrrreat (Ok Ok I liked the
taste)
- Beanz Meanz Heinz (Just about)
- E for B and Georgie Best (No)
- Boom Boom Boom Boom Esso Blue (If we had a
paraffin lamp we would have bought some Esso Blue)
- They asked me how I knew it was Esso Blue (Ditto)
- Put a Tiger in your tank (Only because of the
free tumblers with every 4 gallons, and of course the Football
Collections)
- Milk Tray (For Christmas)
- Dulux Dog (We had the Painters and Decorators in)
- Homepride Men (Not for me)
- Tetley Bitter Men (Didn’t Drink)
- Whiskers Nine out Ten Cats (Didn’t Have a Cat)
- Fairy Liquid
Hands that do dishes (Never washed up)
- A Mars a Day helps you Work Rest and Play (Well
firstly it didn’t and secondly Mars Bars were about number 27 on the sweet
pecking order)
- Stork Margarine Tell the difference (Yes, it
tasted like shit)
- Colgate Ring of Confidence (Preferred Punch and
Judy toothpaste because it came in fruit flavours)
- Finger of Fudge is Just Enough (Enough Said!)
- Milky Way (The chocolate you can eat between
meals. No)
- Milky Bar Kid (If you ate it you looked like
him.
- Hot Chocolate, Drinking Chocolate (This one did
worked based upon repetitive hypnotic trances)
- Hai Karate AfterShave (Yes, but it didn’t do what
it said it would do with that busty woman)
- Daz for a Bluey White look (why would you want a
Bluey White look? Wouldn’t you want
plain white?)
You know I’m
really struggling, there’s lots of ads to remember in the mid 70s onwards, but
early 70s and 60s. I don’t think there’s
a thing I ever bought as a child from an advert, except a Tippy Tumbles (actually description in the link isn’t correct,
Tippy Tumbles flipped with the aid of a battery pack connect to her ass (or
something)) for my sister for 5 quid.
The best thing I
learnt from childhood ads was classical music, except I don’t know the names of
pieces just,
“The Hovis Ad”
“The Nescafe Ad”
“The British
Airways Ad”
“Hamlet Cigars”
You get the
drift. I’ll challenge anyone to a name
the advert competition, first on the Buzzer.
Never been beaten in my heyday.
Marks and Spencer
never advertised until the late 80s early 90s.
What’s on the Telly?
Probably the
biggest part of my childhood and the largest number of hours after sleeping was
the Telly.
And here is my
starter for 10 (Bamber Gascoigne-University Challenge), quick reminder of some
of the programmes whizzing through my head not always late 60s to early 70s,
but it feels that way.
Watch With Mother
Andy Pandy,
Wooden Tops, Bill and Ben Camberwick Green, Trumpton, Chigley, The Herbs
Weird
Pinky and Perky,
Tales of the Riverbank (Hammy Hamster!), The Clangers, Basil Brush and David
Nixon,
Titch and
Quackers, Tingha and Tucker, Tuffty ,Sooty and Sweep
Hartley Hare,
Rainbow, Banana Splits, Felix the Cat
Dr Who, The
Prisoner, UFO, Tomorrow People
Herges Adventures
of Tin Tin, Mr Magoo
The Magic
Boomerang, Double Deckers, Catweazle, Robin Hood
Marty Feldman,
Ken Dodd and the Diddey Men (from Knotty Ash)
Hong Kong Phooey
(This was a bit later but worth a mention)
Home from School and it’s..
Play School
Jackanory, Blue Peter, CrackerJack, Skippy, Vision On, Hatty Town, Daktari
Casey Jones
Gilligan’s
Crossroads (but
not
Mummy I’ve got a headache and my tummy
hurts
Poggles Wood, Mr
Benn
Crown Court
Pebble Mill at
One (almost worth getting well again)
FAB and Thank you Gerry Anderson
SuperCar,
Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet
That bit just before the news
Magic
Roundabout, Hector’s House, The Wombles,
Captain Pugwash
Cartoon Heaven
Whacky Races,
Scooby Doo, Top Cat, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Roadrunner, Marine Boy
Spiderman, The Hair Bear Bunch
Deputy Dawg,
Speedy Gonzalez, Pink Panther Show, Stop the Pigeon (Dastardly and Muttley in
their Flying Machines),
Yogi Bear (My
Mum’s pet name for my Dad was Boo Boo!), Pixie and
Weird Americans
Mr Ed,
Things your sister watched
FollyFoot Farm,
ShangaLang, Black Beauty, Mary Mungo and Midge
Sit Com Heaven
Likely Lads, The
Lovers, Porridge, The Good Life, Dad’s Army, Are You Being Served, Bless This
House, Liver Birds, And Mother makes Three,
Please Sir, On
the Buses, Man About the House, Nearest and Dearest, Steptoe and Son, Sykes,
Rising Damp, Some
Up
Family round the fireside (Did we really
look forward to all this?)
Morecambe and
Wise, Mike Yarwood, Mike and Bernie Winters,
It’s a Knockout,
Opportunity Knocks, New Faces, Call My Bluff, Ask the Family
The Champions,
The Persuaders, The Saint, The Avengers, Department S/Jason King, Randal and
Hopkirk Deceased
Generation Game,
Golden Shot
Dick Emery Show,
Two Ronnies, Benny Hill
Cilla Black,
Lulu, Sandie Shaw
Val Doonican, Des
O’Connor
This is Your Life
Parkinson
Racist Shit that wasn’t racist then
Black and White
Minstrel Show, The Comedians, It Aint Half Hot Mum, Mind Your Language, Till
Death Us Do Part, Love Thy Neighbour
Child Porn
Miss
Sport Sport Sport
Grandstand, World
of Sport, Match of the Day, The Big Match, Wednesday Sportsnight with Coleman
The Americans are Coming
Batman, Man from
Uncle
The Virginian,
High Chaparral (actually a lie, it was on BBC2 and we didn’t have BBC2), The
Big Valley, Alias Smith and Jones
Star Trek, Voyage
to the Bottom of the Sea
Ironside,
Columbo, McMillan and Wife, Canon etc etc
The Waltons
Rebellion
Top of the Pops,
The Goodies (Monty Python was a bit later in my teens), Jim’ll Fix It, The
Monkees, Old Grey Whistle Test, The Sweeney
Weird Foreign Crap with Catchy Tunes
Belle and
Sebastian, White Horses, Robinson Crusoe, Weirdly dubbed Eastern European
Dramas, Champion the Wonder Horse, Heidi
Education Education Education
How, Tomorrow’s
World, Magpie, Animal Magic, Rolf Harris, John Craven’s Newsround, Horizon,
Arena, Screen Test
Let’s Fill a Saturday Morning in
Tarzan (Lots of
them),
Have I missed
any?
Toys
A quick reminder
of some of my toys through my childhood.
In no particular order.
- Scalectrix
- Subbuteo
- Secret Sam (always wanted a Johnny Seven) (Holy
shit the power of the Internet I’ve put a link in to Secret Sam!)
- Mattel Hot Wheels
- Corgi Cars and later Track
- Yellow Jensen Interceptor Corgi Car
- James Bond Car
- Bat
- Mouse Trap
- Airfix Models
- Monopoly, Cluedo, Popping Hoppits, Pick Up Sticks
- Chess
- A Doll! A Black Doll! Teddy. Leo the Lion. Sooty.
Mickey
- Roller Skates
- Small Tricycle, Big Tricycle, Small Bike, Big
Bike,
- Bow and Arrows with Target (the real thing)
- Dart Board and Darts
- Sport Equipment too numerous to discuss here and
now
- Casey Football (Lace Up)
- Leather Football Non-Lace Up
- Kites, especially my yellow and red rotating wing
plane
- Blow Football
- Pea Shooter, Cap Gun, Spud Gun, Rocket Caps
- Catapult Planes, Wind-Up Balsa Planes, Helicopter
Band launched thing!
- Bilofix (Wooden Version of Mecanno)
- Plasticene and Play-Doh
What I didn’t
have but envied
- Johnny Seven
- Air Rifle
- Heel Springs!
- George Best Football boots that tied up on the
sides
- Ker Plunk
- Chemistry Set
- Microscope Set
I must put some
links in to some of these toys. It’s
amazing how many are on the Internet! I
could write a whole book on Secret Sam or Scalectrix.
Food
Of course this is
a very big subject. Food, we eat it most
days and I must have been eating most days in my childhood, in fact we never
stopped eating.
Our Fridge and
its contents would attract kids and teenagers from a 100 mile radius of 25,
I don’t have that
many early memories of food. Of course
sweet shops, chocolate, Jelly Tots, Tuttie Fruitys, Sherbet, Liquorice, Flying
Saucers, Gob Stoppers, Pear Drops, Snakes, Wine Gums, Black Jacks, Fruit
Salads, Fruit Gums, Opal Fruits (non of this Starburst shit), Fruit Pastels,
Cherry Lips. Ugggghhh, I’m feeling sick.
Chocolate of course is still there, always was. Cadbury or Galaxy, milk or plain, T-Rex or
Slade, you were always one or the other.
Maltesers,
The sweet shop by
the school was called Yates. The owner
who served us was Mrs Yates. Mrs E.
Yates. But we called it and her
Mrseeeeyates. Didn’t know the
difference. The competition on the next
corner was Jimmys but mrseeeeyates was nearer to school so was always declared
the better sweet shop. Lots of jars,
very dark. Mrseeeeeeyates retired a few years later, the shop was closed down,
the building on the corner was knocked down for some strange reason and Jimmys
then had a sweetshop monopoly so was declared the best sweetshop.
Amazing isn’t it,
I started with food and I’m on sweets
Meanwhile back at
home, my Mum was stocking up the fridge and cupboards. Bandit Biscuits, Golf Biscuits, Kit Kats,
Mini-Rolls,
We went much
posher later on with Alpen.
And as for the
fridge, well, yoghurt, chocolate yoghurt type things, milk, orange juice
(although this was a later addition because for a while we had frozen orange
juice which was some kind of concentrate with bits in that you broke out of a
rapper and diluted into fresh orange juice.
Mmmmm). And of course a meat
selection to feed the rest of the country.
I’m not doing it justice here, I wish I’d taken a photograph at the
time. I was too busy eating to think of
photography.
.
Clearly on the
Eat to Live or Live to Eat scale I am on the far right, waiting desperately for
my next snack.
I’m off for a
snack now!
Cars
Of course Cars
played a big part in my childhood. You
could measure time passing by which cars we had. These are the ones I remember.
- Blue Jag
- Mini Coopers
- Grey Mini Van
- White Mini
- Red Mini
- White Vauxhall Estate
(Shooting Brake as my Dad called them)
- Green Vauxhall Estate
- Bronze Ford
- Yellow Ford
- Red Ford
- Orange Fiat 124 Sport
- Bronze Ford Cortina Estate
- Orange VW Pick-Up truck which
Dad brought home from work occasionally.
Buying a new car
was always a big occasion for the Goodsons.
Some of the best memories are Dad going off to buy yet another Mini for
my Mum and coming back with a new fangled Bronze 1600 Ford Capri. The height of luxury at the time!
This was followed
by the best looking of the cars (i.e. The Worst) the 2.0 Litre Ford
The cars got
better and better as we went on, culminating in the final three, an orange Fiat
124 Sport which my Dad crashed and nearly killed himself in. A 3.0 Litre V6 Red Capri and of course the
family estate, a 2.0 Litre Bronze Ford Cortina Ghia Estate.
The Goodsons were
bull’s-eye when it came to middle of middle class and a Dream Ford Marketing
demographic. They could see my Dad
coming.
What I did on my Holidays
That was always
the first thing you did when you got back from Summer holidays.
Wrote a crappy
essay about your holidays.
Well I’ve just
been to
It does remind me
of some of my famous holidays as a child;
St Ives
That was our car
as well, 3 Ford Capris. Of course the
best one was the yellow one with the black vinyl roof which my mum drove. Wow!
Must find some
pictures of all this.
Music - Aunt Music
So what music was
playing in the background during my childhood?
Well firstly, my
parents didn’t play music. Sure we had a
big radiogram/record player on stilts, but I can’t ever remember them playing a
record. There was a Dean Martin, a Frank
Sinatra, a Nat King Cole, a Caruso, but they never played them.
The radio seemed
to be on in the kitchen in my early childhood, but is was music drifting over
us in the background. Beatles. They were
there somewhere. I remember my childhood
friend and playmate Claire Jones being in love with Paul McCartney. She was only 5. And as someone pointed out recently which
confirms my own view, The Beatles in the 60s consisted off Paul McCartney,
Ringo Starr and the rest. This adulation
of John Lennon I’m sure came after his death.
As a kid anything
that was catchy. “Jennifer Eccles”
seemed to be the one Stephen Taylor was always singing. My Mum did buy a few singles, and very weird
they were. Val Doonican What Would I
Be/Gentle Mary, Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong, she bought us Lily the Pink
by The Scaffold and those crappy MFP (Music for Pleasure) LPs of chart songs
but recorded by groups that to a kid sounded like the real thing. And of course my first real scrape with real
women were the models on the album covers of those records.
Eddison
Lighthouse – Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes (Shouldn’t be Love Goes Where My
Rosemary Grows!). I’m trying to stick to
the 60s here because the 70s for me really opened out but I’ll write about that
later.
Of course the
other big influence on my musical taste were my Auntie’s records. And when I say Auntie’s records I mean the
records she recorded. Oh yes. Vonny Berger, Auntie Yvonne was a recording
star. At least she was on the
continent. So we had all her recordings
in French and German. My Mum always
assured us that she’d been No 1 in Germany with “Lulu Cherry” Having listened to “Lulu Cherry” I have my
doubts.
And we got
lucky. She started recording in
English. Her first single on Polydor was
World Through a
Tear/I Need Your Hand in Mine.
If you search on
Google you can see they’re genuine goodish charting songs. But I can’t find her singles other than lots
of French people trying to sell off their Vonny Berger collections on the
Internet.
Now the other
English single is err how can I say it.
The worst single I’ve ever heard!
I defy anyone to find a worst single.
Problem is I can’t find it, although it looks like it was a hit for
another artist in the early 60s. Listen
to my Auntie crucifying an already bad song in her French accent is something
else.
“Jose He
Say” That’s what it’s called, good luck
with your Google searches.
No wonder my
musical taste is somewhat weird and very MOR/AOR. I blame my Auntie for this one.
Pets
We didn’t have
much luck with our pets. Our first pet
was Twitcher the Rabbit, white and grey.
First pet is
important because it gives you your porn star stage name, First Pet + Mother’s
Maiden Name = Twitcher Berger. Fair
Enough.
Twitcher was
allegedly killed by a fox that broke into it’s cage.
A succession of
gold fish from the Fair didn’t last long.
Notable highlights was a goldfish that appeared to have a black
moustache, and me accidentally killing on of the goldfish by bouncing a Bouncy
Ball which hit the ceiling and bounced into the goldfish ball killing poor
goldfish stone dead.
Later on and for
some obscure reason we had 3 disgusting Guinea pigs which did nothing but
screech. Gus, Guess, and I can’t
remember the third’s name MHDSRIP (my sister just told me he was called
Smokie).
Finally in our
teens, Mum let us have the dog we dreamed of.
We bought him from a commercial kennel, which was a bit of a mistake
because he came home so ill. Diarrhoea
everywhere for the first few weeks.
Piss, Poo and Newspapers; that’s all I remember. My Mum bought us the dog whilst my Dad was in
hospital for 3 months having broken his neck in a car crash. She hadn’t told my Dad. I hope he didn’t feel we’d replaced him with
a dog.
The dog was a
golden Cocker Spaniel – Charlie. A
wonderful and beautiful dog, but crazy.
Good natured except if you tried to hug him, and then he let out a
warning growl. Charlie being a pedigree
dog had been docked, so when he was keen to greet you his wagged his whole body
because he didn’t have a tail. He used
to knock down kids with excitement, by wagging his body. But so mad.
He liked to bark. At anything.
He’d bark at nothing.
“Of course Mum
we’ll walk him and feed him, pleeeeeeease let us have a dog.” Of course, after a few weeks, no-one walked
him and Mum fed him. We just used to let
him out into the back garden and then he could go on the rampage in The Valley
behind our garden. Generally he would
stay in the garden and bark. Mainly at
flying birds. He’d chase flying
birds. He’d fly if he could.
Eventually my Mum
“gave him away to a women in
Every year since,
I interrogate my mother about this woman in Whalley Bridge, and every year for
over 20 years she assures me this was the case, Charlie saw out the remainder
of his life for many a doggie year in Whalley Bridge. I used to get the train from school in
“No he’s not he’s
called Biffy!” she replied snottily, as she got on the train to
I hope Charlie
enjoys his barks and walks in Doggie Heaven (
My funniest
memory of Charlie was him coming back from the Kennel where he’d had a haircut,
more a No 1 than a haircut.
I laughed when I
saw him, and like all teenagers of his age he went and hid in a cupboard and
wouldn’t come out.
Rules of Pet
ownership learnt from childhood experience
- Don’t get a pet unless you as
a parent are prepared to look it after no matter what the pleading and
promise of offspring.
- Pleasure Pain, Pleasure Pain,
Pleasure Pain. Weigh up carefully
the pleasure of pet ownership with the pain.
- Think of the pet in 5 years
time, and not the cuddly fluffy whimpering thing that causes a reflexive
purchase and rescue of poor baby.
- Pets die. Think about that for a moment.
- Going on holiday. Pets don’t normally come with.
- Going to work. Pets don’t normally come with.
That’s all from
Pet Watch for the time being.
Pissing Contest
When you’re a kid
life is one big competition.
The best thing I
ever saw in competition was who could piss the highest in the boys toilets, and
Carl Pickford could hit the roof consistently.
Enough said.
I’m thinking of
other more minor competitions in my early years.
.
- Gob (spit) the farthest.
- Most burps. Nigel Davies was the best at this. He could burp at will and to any desired
length. In fact he could burp
Steven Van Russelt’s name.
- Most
- Football cards of course
- Stone skimming
- Largest Bubble Gum
bubble. The most dangerous of
consequences with your hair if you got it wrong.
- Conkers. This happened later when Imad Kabbani
had a conker that was reduced to a bit of flesh on a piece of string but
seemed indestructible.
I’ve since heard
of fathers filling their sons’ horse chestnuts with concrete to ensure many
long term victories.
I must think of
some more.
Mr Jones was a Vicious Bastard
Mr Jones was a
vicious bastard, he was the second headmaster I had at Handforth C of E: my
first when I started was Mr Hulley.
The only thing I
can remember about Mr Hulley was his head was shaped like his Rover car!
Back to Mr
Jones. When I look back on my life so
far he is one of the people I most hate. 2 reasons.
When I was 5 or
6, the kids were all eating lunch in the school canteen (that’s what it was
called then). One of the standard
puddings (that’s what it was called then) was Rice Pudding or Semolina with a
dollop of jam in the middle which you either mixed into a pink creation or used
it to cool down the burning white heat of goo.
When I think of
it now Yuk.
Anyway back to Mr
Jones. The rice pudding was too hot to
eat and the kids were blowing their spoons filled with rice pudding to cool it
down.
It got silly
because some kids started blowing deliberately hard and spraying the rice
pudding off their spoons and on to the tables.
Mr Jones yelled,
“Stop Blowing”
and I blowed, not to spray the rice pudding but to cool it down.
He saw me
“I wasn’t…….
He slapped me
across my face, quite hard. More the
shock than the pain.
Mr Jones, I was a
5 year old kid. I was blowing the rice
pudding to cool it down, you didn’t even let me explain.
You hit me. You never apologised, I find it very
difficult to forgive you.
2 year
later. Mr Jones was teaching two
classes, the two classrooms were combined into one room by folding the wall
back. I was at the back listening.
Suddenly a piece of
chalk flew at me and hit my desk. It was
clearly meant to hit me.
“That’s for
daydreaming, wake up Goodson.”
Now Mr Jones, I
want you to know something. I didn’t
know what daydreaming was because in all my time at school until I was about 16
or 17 I never daydreamed.
I didn’t
understand the concept.
When programmes
like Billy Liar were on the TV I didn’t really understand it totally, this idea
of drifting off.
Actually I was
quite gifted as a kid. I was doing maths
4 years ahead of my age at 8, I was probably a chess prodigy. At aged 10 I beat the
A couple of times
when playing for Stockport Grammar against Manchester Grammar, we’d lose 5˝ to ˝, guess who got the drawn game whilst the others lost?
By then though I
was not that good at chess. I’d lost a bit of interest.
Mind you I was
also dyslexic and really struggled with my English and handwriting. Now the combination of being good at Maths
and struggling with English meant there was no time to think of anything
else. I never got bored at school, in
the classroom, well not until about aged 14, I’ve never fallen asleep in a
lesson though I have come close in latter years.
So Mr Jones, I
was gifted at Maths at aged 7 and 8, I became very good at Chess and I really
struggled with my handwriting and English.
I didn’t daydream.
What did you ever
do for me Mr Jones except frighten me and teach me about injustice? Hey maybe that’s what it was about, arsehole.
I realise that I
had I golden passage through education.
I liked every school I was at. I
was never bullied, and on the scale of some people’s treatment at school this
was nothing.
But it’s my story
and I’m sticking to it.
And you know what
was ironic (my favourite word by the way).
My parents loved Mr Jones, thought he was a great headmaster and
teacher. They didn’t know what went on,
he must have talked a great story.
I’ve changed my
mind because I’m dyslexic Mr Jones was a Viscous Bastard!
Handforth C of E - First Day at School
Cute eh? But of course there’s a twist.
Handforth C of E didn’t have
school caps, so what the hell was my Mum doing photographing me in a cap before
I went to school on my first day?
The brick wall which I’m
lined up against like a war refugee has probably lasted better than me, and the
legs haven’t changed much.
Handforth C of E
was my first school. Well first proper
school. I had been to nursery school you
know, but this was the real thing.
Aged 5, September
1966.
In fact the only
thing I remember about the 1966 World Cup is my Mum sitting me down in front
the telly and me saying,
“Look Mummy,
there’s The Queen.” That was it!
I digress. First day at school was one of the most
memorable things of my life. It’s
effected my psychologically ever since.
Shock. Frozen Shock.
Firstly, one boy
cried his eyes out the whole day. I
think it was Stephen Taylor who became my best friend. He cried so much he was sick on the front
step of the school and we had to walk around the chair placed over Stephen’s
dislike of first day at Handforth C of E.
First day wasn’t that bad Stephen.
Never seen him since he moved to
I was once on a
course and they asked everyone in the audience to go back to their early years
and remember something which shaped them later in life.
My biggest memory of first day at Handforth C of E, scared shitless, we were in Mrs Tyrer’s class. She was a great teacher. Set me up for life.
Mrs Tyrer’s class was a mix of
two years, which meant that the 6 year olds were old lags. They’d seen and done it all before. Consequently they ruled the roost.
Melvyn Ingham and Robert Hargreaves, two old lags aged 6 were playing at being robots, picking the new starters up, and putting them in a hinged, folding vertical library of books, and shutting them in.
Shit (I didn’t use the term shit at the time but I learnt real quick), I hope they don’t chose me. .
My thoughts about
this were. Please don’t pick me. Play invisible Anthony and they won’t notice
you. And I’ve been playing invisible
ever since for the rest of my life.
I blame Melvyn
Ingham and Robert Hargreaves.
Bloody Robots.
That was it for
first day at school. Stephen Taylor
crying a puking all day, and avoiding the Robots.
Time at Handforth
C of E got better quickly.
Happy Days.
The Play Area and F.A Cup Dreams come true
In the centre of
our estate was “The Play Area”, the gladiatorial coliseum to play out
life. Football, Cricket, Flirting,
Snogging, Hay Fever, Meeting Point, Fighting Point, and child learning area for
things to do with rumour piss and poo.
Also foreigners
would travel to The Play Area, sometimes from far and wide, from other estates.
It was the
happening place.
I learnt my
football there. I had my only fight
there. I watched Jeremy snogging Jane.
And for a while,
The Play Area was the centre of the world.
I mean it literally.
Living on the
estate and by the entrance of The Play Area was Neil Young, the
Think about it.
You’re 8 years old, and the scorer of the winning goal in one of the world’s
biggest sporting events lives 100 yards away from you and literally lives
almost on the playing surface of your football sporting dreams. How validating is that. And of course; Knock Knock
“Will Neil come
out to play?”
Yes we used to
call on The Young’s house to see if Neil (The F.A Cup winning goal scorer)
would come out to play in our F.A cup final in the play area. And sometimes he did. All credit to him. Actually my vague recollection is that he was
injured for most of the time he lived on the estate, and couldn’t come out to
play as much as other mothers would let their kids. Of course it was his wife that we had to seek
permission from, not his mother in this case.
Mind you, Neil
Young didn’t seem much better than anyone else having their ankles and Achilles
kicked each night on our pitch. I can’t
remember if this is true, but the winners of the F.A Cup parade the cup through
the town. In the case of
On the scale of
things, Neil Young sounds spectacular but when I look back it was just a minor
event.
More important
was my one and only fight, with Ian Taylor.
My side of the
story is, and I’m writing this, is that he was bullying a younger kid and I
stepped in so he wanted to fight with me.
So we did. Fists.
Wrestling. And for the first few
times I kept ending up on top of him but didn’t want to beat the living shit
out of him, so I walked away and he kept jumping on me. So we’d fight again and I ended up on
top. By the fourth or fifth time he
ended up on top and was flailing wildly it wasn’t really having much of an
effect.
Now in the middle
of this a neighbour overlooking The Play Area, comes out and separates us, not
to stop us fighting but to make sure we’re punching each other rather than
wrestling on the ground!
Want to hear Ian
Taylor’s side of things. Contact him!
I learnt so much
of life in The Play Area. Football. Nut-Megs. Fair Play (courtesy of Dave Long).
Negotiation (with neighbours to get our football back). Negotiation (with Jonna Crosley so that even
though he had to go home we could still play with football). Picking sides for football, the cunning mix
of team. Jeremy Reynolds showing me how
to snog girls with a live demonstration, more for his convenience than for my
knowledge. He did offer me a go with his
gal. I declined and had to wait many more
years for my first snog. How to disguise
piss as lemonade. Yes I saw that trick played once (some would say this is a
The Play Area was
like a social experiment with rats in a very large cage with 2 entrances home
after an evening’s social experimentation
And by the way,
Neil Young wasn’t our only star celebrity. Aged 8 or 9 Lee Dixon a tubby, kid
wearing a Man Utd No9 shirt used to play with us; a foreign outsider from off
the estate We were big teenagers by then
and key team pickers. I have to say
you’d always choose Tommy Wolmersley way ahead of Lee Dixon who now plays even
today for Arsenal. “Show me the child at 7 and I’ll show you the man.” did not
apply to Lee Dixon. He was
crap.
The Woods
Continuing to lay
out the geography of my childhood. We
have The Woods.
The Woods lay
along The River and The Valley about a mile from home.
They were up on
same side of the hill as my house.
When we followed
The River, along the bank, we’d come to The Woods, that’s as far as we could
follow The River, before it flowed along what seemed people’s gardens and very
private property! We weren’t Land Rights
reformers as kids. We knew our limits.
So the choice was
turn back and do something else, or go into the Dark Woods.
(Jesus, I’ve just
had a look again at the maps on the Internet, and there’s a full aerial view
of it with my house (red circle) and The Valley and The River (which doesn’t
show up so well). The fisheye lens has
distorted the perspective but it’s still amazing, to see your childhood in
aerial view. I’m not imaging it, it was
very green.)
Back to The
Woods. Dark, Mysterious, Un-Charted, but
never frightening. Under appreciated,
because a half mile walk put you on to Sagars Rd, and a mile walk back home
with a slight sprint past the Knowle Park Council estate just in case of any
trouble. The banks were steep in the
woods and there was a high path and a low path.
The Woods were a passage back to the real world. Civilisation.
I preferred The Woods and The Valley.
It was more of a known quantity.
The weirdest
thing about The Woods is that in my fantasies, even as a five year old boy, I
thought and dreamt about bringing the girls I fancied, to The Woods. I didn’t know what to do with them when I got
them there! But there you go. A romantic wood walker, even as a five year
old.
Trespassers will be Prosecuted
What does that
mean to a kid of 6 or 7?
I often wondered
when I read the old sign having crossed The River, by walking or crawling along
The Pipe.
I took it to mean
shot. So I was always waiting the
gunshot sounds when I crossed to the other side of The River.
Never felt
comfortable crossing to the other side.
Mind you, what
did the people living on the other side think about crossing to my side?
It reminds me of
my first few days at school, when a group of us were sent to wait outside the
Headmaster’s Office.
I caught a
glimpse of Mr Hulley, the headmaster on the phone.
I thought he was
calling the police. Now that would have
been discipline to a 5 year old!
The Pond
Once on the other
side of The River, there was only one place to head for and that was The Pond.
A murky deep
small pond on the top of the hill, surrounded by trees. Over looking The River
from the other side
It looked like an
oasis in a desert.
Where did the
pond come from? Being on top of a hill,
how did water feed into it?
We went fishing
for stickleback and frog’s spawn to bring back to Mum in jars.
We used the
latest technology, a blue (or pink) mesh net on a bamboo stick.
How deep was The
Pond? Well when I plonked stones in my
guess was the stones dropped to the centre of the earth and were recycled for
another life.
The Pond really
was a dark deep frightening place, very little light because of the trees
surrounding it.
But enough life
in it, to make the risks worth while.
Of course there
were always rumours of a man eating pike lurking in The Pond. But I wasn’t sure what a man eating Pike was.
It sounded like a
bad thing, but sticklebacks for Mum were a higher priority at the time.
The River
At the back of
the house, down in The Valley, flowed The River, the River Dean.
More a big stream
than a river, but on a bad year it could flood part of The Valley.
Kids and
Water. A natural attraction. So many attractions about The River.
If The Pipe was
the focal point, then The River was where everything else flowed from.
It wasn’t exactly
a clean
Not the type to
jump into on an ideal summer’s day.
You were never
sure if you were going to get poisoned and die or not. It just wasn’t clear cut. No foaming, no floating dead fish, in fact
very few fish!
The River
meandered through The Valley giving us an adventure on every bend. Some places you could wade across the river,
other places you could jump to a bank in the middle of The River, and hope that
you could jump the rest of the way to the other side. If you missed you got wet! With a bank in the middle the channels were deeper
on either side of these islands of temporary safety.
Skimming. Stone Skimming. I learnt my stone skimming skills at The
Pipe, throwing up stream. Lots of flat
heavy perfect stones. I’m the stone
skimming hunter king. Give me a beach
and I’ll find the best stones if they’re there.
Of course there’s
“Poo Sticks” type games which usually involved a log, leaf, blade of grass,
stick, person, clothing, being flung in the river and followed along the bank.
Not much wildlife
along the banks, once in a blue moon something looking like a water rat may be
in or around, a few sticklebacks and that was about it.
The Pipe
The pipe ran
across The Valley. It came out of the
hill on one side, crossed The River and buried itself into the hill on the
other side.
Why?
Nobody
knows. It never sounded like there was
anything in the pipe. It was only ever
painted once, in the 1960s, the graffiti is still fresh from then, and it’s
painted in the most lurid lime Green, a colour I have never seen anywhere
else. Is it special pipe paint for
pipes?
And of course you
want to know the size of the pipe, its circumference (2pr as they taught us), well, it was just
big enough so that if you lost your footing when walking the pipe across the
river, you couldn’t hold on to stop yourself falling in!
And yet this ugly
man-made monster was the main theme of the Valley, the focal point, the thing
which drew us kids in. When you looked
onto The Valley it was the pipe crossing the River that first catches one’s
eye.
You could kick
it, climb on it, hit it with a stick, graffiti on it, jump from it. It was indestructible. Always there.
Even as nature changed the shape and growth of The Valley over time and
40 years that I’ve know it, The Pipe remains constant.
That’s kind of reassuring
to a kid.
Also the mystery
of the pipe. It ran into a small brick
building part of the way along the valley floor, I don’t remember this brick
structure having any doors or access, it never made a noise. We kind of ignored the brick building. Too much of a mystery even for our childish
curiosity.
The Valley
Behind my house
was The Valley. We lived on
The Valley
overlooked the River Dean which was more a very large stream than a river as
most would think of.
It was my
childhood world where I played out the events in it. Throwing, Nettle Thrashing, Cows, Horses,
Barbed Wire, Grass, Foxgloves, Trees, Water, Floods, Air Rifles, Danger, Bogs,
Frogs, Tadpoles, Stone skimming, Cow Pats, Experiments, Bullying, Hideaways,
Races, The Pipe, Strange Smells, Friends, Snogging, Unrequited Love, Falling in
The River, Water Rats, Wild Primroses, Wild Roses, Sunshine, Snow, Sledging and
Tobogganing, Dock Leaves, Fences, Trespassing, Pissing, No Grown Ups, Conkers,
Acorns, Sticks, Graffiti, Dens, Fantasies.
If I write the
book I may call it “Into The Valley” or “The Pipe” everything in that wondrous
place represents childhood and growing up.
I was once asked
about “Anger” a few years ago
“What about my
feelings in childhood?”
“What did I do
with my anger?”
I didn’t really
understand the question, until I realised that I played out my feelings in The
Valley.
Nothing like
thrashing nettles with a bamboo stick and trying to kill all those stinging
aliens with only a dock leaf (which never seemed to work) for protection. A bit of “Anger Work” as they call it in
Gestalt Therapy.
I knew every inch
of The Valley like a Native Indian Tracker on a reserve.
Why Rimmer Shit?
Rimmer Shit is
about my childhood, and the crazy things we think and do as children.
This one maybe
only amuses me but it sums up the fun and games of my childhood.
At the back of
our house where we grew up was The Valley.
The Valley ran along the back of the houses on
Hey, I wonder if
I can link to a map here? Yes I can.
We could go into The Valley to play and it took us along the back of the
other houses on our road. Because the
road sloped, there must have been a problem with drainage of the houses at the
bottom of the slope of
And here’s the
twist. We worked out that the pipe ran
directly into one of the houses, and hence we could, or so we thought inspect
the smelly brown liquid that seemed to be trickling out of this house, and prod
it with sticks and proudly declare (something along the lines of) that this was
“Rimmer Shit” since the Rimmers lived in the identified house.
We took such
great pleasure in seeing the Rimmers in our street knowing full well that we
had identified their shit in The Valley behind their house.
Ahh
Childhood. Fond Memories. And lots more to come!!!!
Of course, the
character in Red Dwarf is called Rimmer, with a big “H” on his head and lots of
talk of “smegging this” and “smegging that” which is doubly amusing to me.