Simon Mark Smith’s
Autobiography
Chapter 21
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Sonnet 129:
Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
* * *
When Shakespeare, or whoever it was who wrote this, they were looking at lust from multiple perspectives. Namely, before, during and after experiencing it. Now I am doing the same, only from a far more distant vantage point.
My journey with lust became more intense as I hit ten years old. From then on though, it became a major influence in my life, permeating much of what I did and it’s only recently, in my fifties that it’s begun to subside.
There’s a line from one of my songs that goes, “If falling in love is a trick of the mind then why am I not laughing this time?” It’s not as eloquent as Shakespeare but does illustrate how much my lustful actions tended not to result in the best of outcomes.
Still, Shakespeare did try to warn us about lust when he wrote in Sonnet 147:
My love is as a fever, longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease
* * *
To me, falling in love is just as tied up with our psychological issues, as it is our biological instincts and the net result of this being a melange of madness. Near the end of this volume, I’ll be discussing love in far more detail, especially regarding how ancient societies saw Eros-type love, as something to be avoided given it would almost certainly result in pain. Hence Eros’s arrows.
As a joke, I sometimes compare how we feel when someone who’s acting strangely sits next to us on a bus, to being near someone who’s in love. In both situations, it’s not uncommon to get an overwhelming urge to move away.
Of course, if someone is in love with us and we don’t feel the same, we can’t help but want to get away from them. After all, we know they are a bit unstable, because let’s face it, we know from our own experience of being in love that we were a bit mad then too. If we are in love with them too, then that’s a whole different matter. In that case we no doubt feel both they and us are sane, although deep down we know we aren’t. If we find ourselves in that situation then all we need do is brace ourselves and enjoy the madness till the insanity wears off.
There is a difference between loving someone and being in love with them; again, we’ll look at that in more detail later, however, maybe we should be clearer about the words we use from the off. I guess though, we don’t have a word that means “I love you in an insane way”, for good reason, as it wouldn’t go down well. Likewise, we don’t write infatuation letters in which the words, “I’m so infatuated with you” are the main highlight. Instead, we use other, more acceptable labels, such as ‘love letters’, and being ‘in love’ and glibly tell people we love them with all our heart when we know it’s not truthful in the slightest. Still, it gets the insanity juices going.
Anyway, from ten years old my sexual urges grew stronger and my ability to be insane when it came to love and lust increased dramatically.
* * *
Motivation
It’s been a few years since I wrote the last chapter. The reason I started writing this book wasn’t to leave my mark, to help others or because I have something special to offer. It was simpler than that. I was facing emptiness and it was a way to fill the void. At the time I felt as if I was enveloped in a whole world of madness which I could barely cope with. That was 13 years ago, and now this project has gained a life of its own. As with many things in life, the reasons we start things are different to those which motivate us later.
* * *
23rd May 2017
I am not unconscious but all I can sense is darkness, and I am deep within it. It’s all around me and it feels like death. I can see intermittent flashes of purple light and hear my name being called. Then I am in darkness again. That beautiful purple light is almost blinding and then it is gone.
Once again, I hear the voice that called my name. It’s the anaesthetist who’d spoken to me earlier.
“We had to do the big cut. You asked me to tell you if we did, so I am just letting you know.”
To me it was as if he was telling me it was Wednesday, it held little significance, and I couldn’t feel anything. So, I nodded affirmatively. There were a few more moments after that, being wheeled on a trolley down a corridor and then dreamless sleep.
When I next regained consciousness, I was in intensive care. I wasn’t very aware of myself and couldn’t feel much, but as I started to see, I took in the scene. I was in a hospital bed at the end of a long desk-like nurses’ workstation. It was daylight, noisy, and there was lots of activity.
A young Filipino man with spiky black hair and thick-rimmed glasses says, “Hi Simon, I’m Leo, I’m your nurse. You’re in intensive care. We’re keeping an eye on you, as your heart is a bit fast and we want to help you heal after your appendectomy. We also want to keep an eye on you in case the infection comes back. If you need anything, just call me, I will be close by”.
I nod at him and ask, “Am I likely to have a heart attack?”
“Oh no, it’s just when it’s this fast we need to observe you. That way, if anything happens, we can react quickly.”
I’d like to say I felt reassured, but just being in intensive care is a sign that things are not quite right.
* * *
The day before this I had driven to the local hospital after feeling ill for three days with what I thought was a kidney stone. Eventually, it got so bad I thought it best to go to casualty. The day before that, I’d spoken to a doctor on the phone and said, “I’m in extreme pain.” They responded by saying, “Well, if it gets any worse, go to casualty”. I’m not sure how much worse it could have got but anyway, I delayed going to the hospital for another day longer than I should have because of that.
When I arrived at the Accident and Emergency department, I was half expecting to be sitting around for four hours waiting to be seen. However, once the nurse started assessing me, she said my heart was beating so fast I had to be put into the resuscitation section immediately.
Over the next few hours, I had an intravenous line put into my arm which hurt, just as one would expect, but then as the doctor pushed it in some more, and a little further for luck it hurt somewhat more still. And then a while later I had a CAT scan which showed I had a perforated appendix.
The doctor informed me I was going to, “need surgery at the hospital in Hastings”. “Shall I drive there now then?” I asked. “You’re not driving anywhere!” came the reply. So, an ambulance took me to another hospital in full-blue light emergency mode. But once we arrived, we were made to wait for over seven hours whilst space was “bulldozed” (as the doctor put it) for me to have surgery. Without which, she said, I would “die that night.”
* * *
For a month or so before this happened, I’d been feeling a bit clammy, especially after eating. On top of that, there’d been a few times when I’d woken in the middle of the night out of breath with my heart racing. I knew something was up, but had I known I had an issue with my heart I wouldn’t have been peddling so hard on my exercise bike most evenings. I’d also thought a few times during that period I might be facing death shortly, partly because I knew something was up, even if it didn’t feel serious enough to do anything about.
I’ve often said I didn’t fear dying, but when I found myself lying in intensive care thinking I might suddenly have a heart attack, I realised I wasn’t ready to die after all and as I imagine most people do, I asked for “just a bit more time please”. There were things I wanted to do before I died. Essays to write, music albums to produce, this book to publish, artworks to put out there, and of course, I didn’t want to leave those I love and who love me. Thinking of them grieving made me even more upset. (OK, that might have been a little presumptuous of me.) Even leaving this autobiography in the air seemed like a betrayal to those who have spent the time and effort reading it over the years. And so, I bargained, just as most people do when facing death, “If you let me have some more time, I will focus on getting these things done.”
For now, I have given myself five years to finish a set of projects, getting this finished to an extent, was part of the deal. I may think agnostic, but I feel spiritual; I expect lots of people do so too, especially when they think they might be close to death.
* * *
2022
Five years have passed and I’m still at least a year away from getting this book out. I’ve released a couple of albums but there are at least three waiting in the wings, and I have so many other projects I’d like to finish too. But if there’s one thing facing death taught me, it’s how unimportant a lot of things that seemed important previously really are. But more about that later.
* * *
1976 – Wallington, Surrey
In the last chapter I briefly described the new place Mum and I moved into after living on Roundshaw, but I don’t think I mentioned it didn’t feel like home, in fact, it would be a long time before I found a place I’d call home. The place on Roundshaw didn’t feel safe, Gran’s place had felt like home, but I wasn’t allowed to be there continuously, and this place, Sycamore Manor, felt temporary.
I had already been delinquent for some time before moving off Roundshaw, and Mum probably hoped this would be a good move in terms of me being less so. However, during the next few years, I was to head even further downhill. Just before we moved from Roundshaw to Sycamore Manor something happened. What is strange though, is I don’t remember it properly. I know it did though, because about a year ago I found some people on Facebook who I’d known on Roundshaw then, a family who lived near me, so I sent them friend requests. The mother accepted my friend request and sent me a message asking how my mother and I were. The next day I went to reply but I couldn’t send the message. She’d blocked me and her daughters had stopped me from sending them friend requests too. It was clear I’d done something to upset them, so I thought back and remembered the mother calling down to me as I was playing, and when I looked up at her she said I had an expression that looked guilty. She then laughed and said I wasn’t in trouble. Even so, I recall doing something wrong, and it involved one of her daughters who was about a year younger than me. I am pretty sure it involved me asking her to take her clothes off, but I am certain it didn’t involve penetration because I would have remembered that. But, if something else happened, I don’t have any conscious memories of doing it. It could have been just getting her to undress was the actual misdeed, but I know she cried and that made me stop whatever it was I was doing.
I decided to write to her mother from another Facebook account to say that if I’d done something wrong then I would be more than willing to discuss it with them. After all, given their reaction I was worried I had traumatised her daughter and wanted to say sorry. Plus, I wanted to know what her daughter’s memory of it was. I also didn’t want a posse turning up to string me up for something I had done at age 11, about 42 years ago, which I could not even remember.
Although I didn’t have intercourse till I was 19, there was a moment at around 11 or 12 with a girl of my age, who I used to play around with, and by that, I mean I used to put my tongue inside her, which she liked. I had seen it done in a porn magazine story, so, I thought it would be a good thing to do. Sadly, it didn’t show me what a clitoris was so I imagine it must have been quite frustrating for her. On this occasion, she and I got into a position where my penis was pushing against her vagina but as I pushed, it hurt me. I didn’t realise till years later that I would have to have some surgery if sex was not going to hurt as the skin that attaches the foreskin to the penis was almost tearing. Even though penetration didn’t take place I felt an overwhelming feeling, one I hadn’t felt before, and without knowing what was going on I ejaculated over her stomach and groin. She was angry about the mess I’d made over her and from then on, besides a few more sessions of me kissing her between her legs, or rubbing my penis on her thigh, our sexploits came to an end.
* * *
2018 – Memory
I am currently on beta blockers and blood thinners. I’m not sure if they have a side effect on memory but for the last year, I’ve struggled to remember words. Also, sometimes people recall incidents that involved me too, but I have no memory of them. Maybe it’s the initial stages of dementia but it got me wondering if a person was to suddenly lose a lot of their memories would they essentially become a different person?
Even a word we might think of could have a different significance to us if memories relating to it disappeared. Memories may well define who we are but let’s say as we die we let go of all our memories and just the essence of who we are moves on into the hereafter, would our essence have changed because of the experiences we had, or would we be the same as we were when we first existed?
It is quite difficult for most of us to accept our memories will almost certainly disappear when we die, yet, if we think about it, we’ve forgotten most of our life already and what we don’t remember we don’t miss. So, maybe, it’s the thought of losing memories before they go that feels so devastating.
* * *
2017 – Dying to know
As I lay in intensive care, I felt I may suddenly pass away at any moment, especially given my heart was constantly beating at around 156 bpm. I have spent quite a bit of my life thinking about the moment of dying. Maybe it’s a way of subconsciously dealing with it because there’ll be no time to do so afterwards. But the problem with this attempt to pre-empt what might happen means having to deal with an almost infinite range of possibilities.
The most likely experience of death most of us will have is a non-experience. The majority of people pass away in an unconscious state and even getting to that state is often via a process where there won’t be a moment of, “This is it, here I come”. Conversely, a lot of people who survive close calls often say they thought they were about to die, and obviously, lots of us will be conscious when we take our last breath. I kind of hope my dying thoughts will be along the lines of, “Thank you for letting me exist, what a miraculous opportunity it was.” But I get the feeling it’ll be more like, “Fuck!”
It’s only natural to worry about suffering, pain, and panic and to believe that what will kill us will be more painful than the pain we may have already felt in our lives. However, in a way, it’s being alive that scares us, not death. There are plenty of ways to die that are painless, people who nearly died from breathing in only nitrogen say they didn’t even notice losing consciousness, and of course a lot of the time when we’re first injured, we don’t feel the pain. However, for all this reassurance, dying, and the process of dying, take up a lot of mental space for many of us, especially as we get older.
When I was young, I was preoccupied with sex, and when I became much older, I started to spend a lot of time thinking about dying. There’s a connection, of course, procreation is nature’s way of dealing with death too, and meditating on death is a way of coming to terms with it. Death, in many ways, is at the heart of most of our endeavours.
During my hospital stay, I ended up watching loads of films and TV programmes on my iPad. One program I watched a lot was the new version of “Cosmos”, a series about Science, Space, and the Universe. A message it kept on about related to humans possibly, in time, moving out to other planets. It kind of struck a chord with me, that whilst religious beliefs are a matter of faith, the idea that humans may go on for thousands, if not tens, or even hundreds of thousands of years, searching for truth was a highly possible and meaningful aspiration. I mean, just mucking up one planet is a bit of a limited ambition when it comes to the human race.
I was also struck by the kindness, not only of the staff in the hospital but friends and family. Even my dentist came to help me with a problem with my tooth, and can you believe it, for free! So, to brush up against this world of kindness, a world that permeates many walks of life, drove its importance deep inside me and became a world I wanted to be a part of.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m hardly a part-time saint, so don’t worry I’m not going to go all “goody-goody” on you, but being touched by kindness had a profound effect on me. That’s not to say I haven’t come across genuine kindness many times in my life before, but up till this moment, I had never been on morphine at the same time.
* * *
2016 – The Care Act
British society is, relatively speaking, quite generous to people with disabilities. Over the years though, a lot of people took advantage and claimed benefits even though they were not as disabled as they made out. People involved in the politics of this would argue that the numbers misclaiming were not significant, and they may well be right. However, even if the public perception was incorrect, the result was the government overly tightened the criteria for claiming benefits, especially around people’s inability to move around.
After Mum died and her house sold, I received an inheritance. It wasn’t enough to pay off my mortgage, but it helped make my home more habitable. Not only did I use it all up doing the work on the house, but I ended up in even more debt than I’d started with.
I told the authorities about the inheritance, and they wanted evidence of what it had been spent on, otherwise, I would be losing my benefits for a considerable amount of time. Given I work, my disability-related benefits are not much, but I get money for carers, and it was that which was mainly under threat. I was very worried about losing this so spent a month collating the evidence, which consisted of two large files full of spreadsheets, receipts, and explanations relating to the Care Act 2014.
When I met the officer dealing with the case, I asked them if they had read The Care Act. They told me they hadn’t and with a rather perturbed look on their face went off with all 750 pages of information I provided for them to assess my case.
I’m telling you about this because there is a belief that if you look after people then they will feel an allegiance and in turn help others in society too. A bit like what I described in terms of my reaction to being cared for. But this doesn’t happen as much as it should, partly because of what I call “relative poverty”. For instance, a person living in the Third World might well look at a very poor person in the UK and think, “Wow, they live like royalty. They get health care, opportunities for education, money to buy clothes and food, shelter, clean water, electricity, television, fridges and so on.” However, people in the UK will say, “Well, we’re not that well off really, not compared to the rich people who live here.” Again, that’s right too but because we have a tendency to only compare ourselves to those who are better off than ourselves. The downside of this is we naturally veer towards feeling resentful because we see ourselves as being “relatively poor”. Even a millionaire may feel resentful when faced with a billionaire’s fortune. Not everyone feels this way, of course. Many people are thankful for what they have. But if you were to set a bar that represented a level of comfort, some people would be happy with that while some would still feel resentful. So, it’s not just about being touched with kindness, it’s also the personality of the subject and their reaction to others’ good fortune that will determine if they’ll appreciate their lot.
* * *
Thesis
I did my thesis for my degree on “Beauty and Evil”, and what stuck in my mind after writing it was how, when St Augustine was watching babies suckle, he believed he could see that even at that early an age, some babies were greedier than others. If parts of our personality are already positioned before our first few weeks of life, then it’s probably always going to be an issue that some will appreciate what they have and some will not, no matter what they do or don’t have.
There’s a reason I’m pointing this out: it’s because I believe that when you’re dealing with humans you should never forget that some of them are very fucked up and will not hesitate to treat others awfully. So, if you want to argue against any political system, just add real humans to the mix and watch it disintegrate. Greedy bankers, corrupt politicians, big companies that don’t care about anything but making money, and people claiming money when they shouldn’t, all come to mind. I think you get the picture.
When I got ill, it was by no means the first time I came in contact with genuine kindness, but when one is that ill, possibly facing death, then what becomes important is connection, love, and goodness. It is a way of thinking that comes from an emotional position set within an interdependent network. I had thought it before, but I hadn’t felt it so intimately until then.
* * *
2016 – The Decision
A few weeks after I submitted my 750-page argument the decision came back. They accepted my points and my care package remained intact.
* * *
2018 – Ablation
A few weeks ago, I had some surgery on my heart where they performed an ablation. This involved a very small hole being made in my upper thigh/groin area, and special cables and cameras being passed through the arteries to my heart where some nerves were destroyed that had been causing arrhythmia. Afterwards, they stopped my heart and luckily, for me, started it again.
During this process, I was sedated, which means that I should have been semi-conscious, but at one point I woke up, to find a load of nurses around me stopping my leg from bleeding out. I was oblivious to how serious it was and just thought, “I’m sure you’ll sort it out” and went back to sleep. This would have all been fine if the nurse looking after me in the theatre hadn’t asked after I woke up if I remembered what happened. I replied, “No, what happened?” He laughed and said, “It’s probably better that I don’t tell you”.
Yet again, another moment of my life where my behaviour was memorable to others but not to me.
* * *
1977 – Shower
My mother tells me to get into the shower with her so she can help me wash. For the first time, I noticed her breasts. I’m curious about the veins that seem to map them, and about how big they are. I’m not getting aroused, but I notice them.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she says sharply.
“I’m not.”
That was the last shower we took together.
* * *
1977 – Comedy and Horror
When I think about this era the majority of memories I have are pretty much all delinquent ones. I shall list a few for your entertainment below but don’t forget, there’s a thin line between comedy and horror.
Soon after we moved from Roundshaw, I started to get into the practice of playing truant. I had an electric typewriter so, finally got around to using it to write a letter supposedly from my mother, forge her signature and get out of school for the day. In the morning, I would wait till my mum got off to work then come back home, watch TV, listen to music and have snacks till Mum returned. But one morning I saw Mum drive towards my school, so at top speed, I took all the shortcuts I knew to get there before she did but just as I arrived, she was walking out.
She looked annoyed. “Why aren’t you in school?” She shouted.
“I had a puncture,” I replied exasperatedly as only those caught in the act can.
I got away with it, but it scared me enough to not do it again.
* * *
After school, and during the holidays, I would get friends from Roundshaw to come over to our new place. Franny was a bit younger than me; we’d once had a few secret cuddles in the park and on one occasion she mimed the whole of, “Hopelessly Devoted to You” to me at the youth club disco. The problem was, whilst she was very pretty, the age gap between 10 and 13 proved too much, even for me. When the difference was 9 and 12, though, I thought I might get away with it. So, she’d come over sometimes and I’d want to have a kiss and cuddle with her, and that’s all it ever was, much to my disappointment. The only thing was, she’d want to chat and try on my mother’s jewellery, which was in the dressing table in my room. Maybe Mum was hoping I’d turn into a drag queen. It was the beginning of my learning that girls and boys are very different in many ways.
* * *
During the holidays, a couple of friends would come around to play on the telephone with me when my mum wasn’t there. We’d ring people up, tell them we were a DJ on Capital Radio and they were live on air. At that point, they’d get very excited. We’d then play them a song from the record player, which was nearly always, Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley, which they’d have to guess the title of. Of course, they’d always get it right, and we’d promise to send them a Capital Radio T-Shirt, which we didn’t, especially as we didn’t wait around to ask them for their address.
* * *
Sometimes we’d be a bit cruel and ask people if they had a cat, and when they’d say yes, we’d ask what colour it was. When they replied, we’d say it was now very, very red, and dead. At which point they would start screaming at us. Back then, there was no caller ID, thankfully.
* * *
We would also run around the flats with air pistols firing at each other, and though we’d wear goggles to protect our eyes, we’d think it very clever to play dead when someone came in. To add realism, we found sucking on red aniseed balls allowed us to make it look as if blood was coming out our mouths. Unfortunately, one day a pregnant woman pushing a pram, came in and, unsurprisingly, was rather concerned and asked, “Are you alright?” In a much calmer manner than one would normally expect. At which point I jumped up, because even I knew this wasn’t that funny after all, and said, “Yes, we’re just playing”. I’m sure she grumbled something at me as she parked her pram under the stairs. From then on, we thought it best to forget that prank too. Nowadays, it’d end with a police gun team getting involved but back then in the 70s, guns were rarely touted by criminals or the police.
* * *
I also saw myself as a bit of a Robin Hood. Well, the stealing from the middle classes bit at least, and decided on a couple of occasions to steal orange juice cartons from outside other people’s flats and give them to my mother as a present. I really should have joined the Mafia with that kind of moral code.
* * *
For a short while, I thought it would be worth a shot at looking through people’s letterboxes as I knew their bedrooms faced the front door and was hoping to see a woman naked. This came to an abrupt halt when I opened the letterbox only to see two eyes looking back at me. I shot back startled and shouted sorry. Nothing happened, the door didn’t swing open, just silence. So, I backed off and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. I realised later it was a reflection I’d seen, but it did the trick, and I didn’t do that again.
* * *
I would still hang out my window at night, just as I had done on Roundshaw, looking out to see if any women were going to get undressed at their window. Hope obviously does spring eternal because I never saw anything except in the last weeks of living there after two years.
* * *
.
Then there was the woman upstairs who was married to a man who had no hands and wore artificial arms. He would often give me a bit of a look of disdain which I thought might be to do with me not covering my stumps as he had, but it was probably more likely because most days I would knock on their door to ask her to take my keys out of my trouser pocket. I would then use this act of kindness as an opportunity to look down her top as she never wore a bra. She would often take quite a while to find my keys and sometimes push herself against me. Maybe it was nothing, maybe I was just imagining it, but every day we’d do this little dance till eventually, I would get a key put on a piece of string around my neck. From then on, I would have to get her to do my shoelace up for me instead, which I couldn’t ask to have done every day, so our dancing days just petered out.
* * *
1976 – Nosedive
My first two years at Wilson’s continued to take a nosedive, that lack of basic skills kept tripping me up along with me trying to be tough when I wasn’t. Any fight I got into around this time, I nearly always lost and with it my confidence. In every class, I mucked around, even in Art, which I had a flair for. I was more interested in seeing what would happen if I poured powder paint into a fan heater than actually painting or drawing. Although, in a way, I was ahead of my time, as no doubt a fan heater blowing paint onto a canvas would probably have got into the Tate Modern at some point pre-post-Modernism. Unfortunately, I used the teacher’s back rather than a canvas to project it onto.
I was also a slow reader and still am, hence me not reading my previous chapters to check what I’ve already covered. Yes, there is a plan… Somewhere. So, reading books for school was a trial, even though I liked it. Nowadays I get my Amazon Alexa to read me my Kindle or Audible books when I get up in the morning, or my iPhone to read them if I’m driving far. Technically speaking, I’m no bookworm.
Evenings could be rather dull. After tea, I’d watch a bit of TV, have a bath, play around with my hairstyle in front of the mirror, occasionally write a letter and maybe listen to an album of music in my room alone. For all our attempts to fill the empty spaces, for both me and my mother there was something of an aloneness and that meant a change was coming. So, when one of Mum’s friends thought it would be a good idea for Mum to go on a blind date, she did, and that’s when she met John.
* * *
1977 – John
Before I bring John into the story in more detail, I’m going tell you what I thought of him. When he first appeared, I wanted him to be the father I never had, but even so, I probably set him up to fail. As time went on, we clashed a lot. But later on, once I left home, I started to feel for him. I recognised a lack of confidence in him, which I felt too, so whilst at times he was infuriating for me, (I think we all know he must have felt the same about me.) I did learn to have some empathy for him, eventually.
* * *
1977 – Blind Date
When Mum came back from the blind date, I asked her how it went.
“Well, he’s not my type, he’s not very tall, although he’s very polite and courteous. But I’ll see him again if he wants. Anyway, your mother’s getting on a bit, I have to take what I can get.” She laughed and so it began, they started to date and within a few months he proposed to her, and a wedding day was set.
“Oh, I can’t wait till we get married,” Mum said, then half laughing added, “he won’t have sex till then.” Mum, as you probably know by now, was not great on boundaries.
John, Mum and I did a few things together as “a family”, like going to watch Star Wars at the local cinema or having a meal out. It was exciting to think I might have a new father figure but there was an unease between us from the start.
John was about 5 foot 6 inches tall, slightly built, always wore a suit, spoke with a posh accent and came over as very well-to-do. His father had been the local mayor, as well as being active in politics and business. His brother was a priest, his sister, who was very down-to-earth and friendly, had a large family, and his mother was a powerhouse. In later years, I’d come to the opinion that having such strong people so close to him would’ve caused a sense of self-doubt for John. It was safer to speak in terms of clichés or to repeat the lines he’d heard his family speak than to ever contradict them. So, when push came to shove, he couldn’t logically argue with people. Faced with a delinquent child of 11 going on 12 he had no chance.
Things didn’t go well between us when they found the first photograph they’d taken together had had the eyes pierced out with a compass needle.
“Why did you do that?” Mum said, shaking the photo at me
“I didn’t!” I exclaimed as only a lying 11-year-old could.
“Of course you did,” Mum shouted.
“That was our first photo together,” John added with a touch of dramatic sadness. Going for the guilt card was a good strategy as I probably felt like crying when he said that.
“Why did you do it, eh, why?” Mum said, throwing the photo at me.
Had I had a few years of training in psychology, I might have been able to come up with some victim-riddled reason, but as it was, I didn’t know why I’d done it at the time. There was a photo in front of me and I thought it would look better with eyes you could see light through. I didn’t consciously do it as an act of violence towards them, but obviously, I didn’t think it through either.
During this courting stage, I turned 12 years old, which as anyone who has 13-year-old kids will know means the intensity of irrationality goes up a notch on a dial of ten, to, well, twelve. The disagreements became more regular and the arguments all the more intense. But when John tried to put his foot down, Mum would take my side, which put a wedge between them.
To a child, there might be a sense of power that comes from that dynamic, but at the same time, possibly a measure of guilt too. Even if I thought I was doing the right thing by showing her John might not be right for her or me, deep down I must have known that I was making her unhappy, and although I may have wanted that on some subconscious level, there would have been a price to pay, and that price may have been me feeling even more isolated.
Possibly in a desperate attempt to get some time alone with John, Mum booked me on a load of holidays, including another school trip abroad. This time it was to be in Italy, and interestingly, possibly because the price of chocolate had skyrocketed, the school endeavoured to find a way for me to be included. But maybe, maybe it was because Mum, out of kind, loving feelings, wanted me to experience something she thought might stay with me all my life.
* * *
1977 – Changes
The night before the wedding John came around and they had an argument during which John looked at Mum and said, “There’s going to be some changes around here after we’re married”.
“Well in that case maybe we shouldn’t bother.” She shouted back at him.
But they did, and there was.
* * *
1977 – The Wedding
Mum, who was extremely proud that I had got into Wilson’s School, thought me wearing my school uniform for their wedding would be somewhat sophisticated, possibly even trend-setting. She’d bought me some new trousers but didn’t get time to alter them, so, in all the wedding photographs I appear in from that day I looked like I had elephant’s feet. Flares were still all the rage back then, but this was taking it literally one step further.
On the journey to the church, the chauffeur decided it was imperative he show me he had a finger missing, which, I admit, did create an immediate allegiance between us. This meant we chatted quite a bit, probably because I didn’t want to be there. Not so much because it was Mum and John’s wedding, but I disliked being on display. Outside of saying hello to the cousins, it was the same questions from the adult relatives as always, who probably didn’t want to ask them either.
“How’s school?”
“Shit” – I thought. “Good” is what came out.
“What’s your favourite subject?”
“Fucking about” – okay, what I actually said was, “Art”.
To which they’d say something like, “Well it’s worth doing well in other subjects too, then you can become a lawyer or doctor and be very rich.”
At which point I’d be tempted to reply, “Thank you for your insightful career advice but I’d rather rob a bank, it’s quicker” – Okay, you’re getting the hang of this now… The reality was more like, “Oh, I don’t think I could be that clever.”
There’d then be a pause while we all agreed that was probably very true.
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” and off they’d wonder, probably thinking, “No chance”.
But at least that day I had the all-unimportant job of being a page boy. This meant standing around feeling embarrassed and doing nothing useful.
After the ceremony, we went to the Cavalier Pub, which was situated next to the shopping centre car park in Wallington. The best bit of the proceedings for me was getting the barman to give me a couple of cherry brandies. Initially, he refused to serve them to me, but then I told him I was the child of the woman getting married. He obviously took pity because he gave me two double shots.
Mum and John were driven off to the cheers of the well-wishers, whilst I went to stay with Mum’s sister, Yvonne, for the duration of Mum and John’s honeymoon.
* * *
7th September 2018 – Tragedy
Last night I wanted to find a photo from the wedding to show you just how bad my trousers were. Once I found the wedding photos, I put a load of them on Facebook for family members to see. Quite a few of the comments on the photos were about those relatives who’d passed away, and how now, it is just us standing first in line on that conveyor belt to who knows where.
For the last few days, my heart rate has been very arrhythmic. One of the main dangers this poses is having a stroke because the top and bottom parts of the heart are likely to be beating at different speeds which means some blood might not pass through the heart and, if it pools, it may coagulate thus causing a clot. Hence, I now take blood thinners daily.
When I first got ill and thought I might die, I did think if I was to do so now, aged 53, I had had a good run and should be thankful for all I have experienced, and it would not be a tragedy compared to those who die at a young age. Somewhere between 40 and 50, there is a point where dying is less tragic. Of course, that depends on other factors, for instance, if you still have young children.
A few years ago, a friend of mine called Valerie, who’s about the same age, sent me a few messages which were a bit flirtatious. My reaction was to not engage, so I didn’t continue messaging her after that. About a year later I found out she’d committed suicide by breathing in exhaust fumes from her car. I have no idea why she killed herself, one can only assume that she was feeling very mentally unbalanced at that moment, especially as she left behind a ten-year-old son. But, still, I felt a twinge of responsibility. Had I made more of an effort to engage with her when she sent those photos, then maybe she’d have turned to me for support. Anyway, it hit me hard and still does, as I think it was a big loss to lose her at such an early age.
At 53 I can think of quite a few people I’ve met who died young, (nothing to do with me). So, whilst I don’t want to pop my clogs just yet, I am still grateful for the time I’ve had and any time I may have left feels like extra time.
* * *
August 2018 – Spiritualist Church
My brother suggested we go to the Spiritualist church where Mum collapsed. It wasn’t far from where she lived, and it was more about getting an idea of the setting where it happened than trying out a session of spiritualism. In both our minds, when we described to each other how we imagined it, we agreed we thought it would be quite church-like. Dark with wooden benches. When we got there it was a house that had had its back room and front room knocked into one and then had the front window blocked in leaving just three thin upward windows of stained glass. With its yellow walls, fluorescent light and plastic chairs it had more of a feeling of a waiting room from the 1980s, than a church.
Being new visitors, we sat at the back, but sure enough, we were the speaker’s initial prime target. What she said to us didn’t seem to apply though. Three of us had sat together and what we thought afterwards was that had her messages been switched around between us, then they would have been more apt. The closest match being a person who was murdered and another who committed suicide. That would have fitted with Theo, the guy I mentioned a few chapters back who killed his drug-dealing mate and then killed himself. But it’s easy to find connections with hindsight, so we went away a little disappointed but glad to have got a more accurate vision of the place.
* * *
Psychic Matters – Ian Fletcher
It’s very easy to dismiss psychic phenomena, likewise, it’s also easy to accept them unquestioningly. A few years ago, I got in contact with one of my old medical doctors from Roehampton Hospital, his name was Ian Fletcher. When I met up with him, he was 92, so I picked him up in Trafalgar Square, just near Admiralty Arch, and from there we drove to The Chelsea Arts Club for a meal. At one point, we got on to the subject of telepathy and ESP and whilst I’m paraphrasing somewhat, this is very close to what he said to me.
“I spent many years debunking so-called psychics. I was in the magic circle for 70 years and knew many techniques that were used, but after all that time looking into this subject, I concluded that what most of us would describe as telepathy does exist. James Randi had offered a million-pound reward for hard evidence of psychic abilities, and while I realise that for now there is no consistently provable evidence, I do believe that one day we will be able to understand this phenomenon more fully.”
He then told me of a few examples he’d experienced. But still, he accepted that to anyone with a scientific leaning, there is no hard evidence. Yet often in our lives, we come across situations that seem so improbable that we can’t help but wonder if there are other factors at work beyond coincidence and for me, this happens a lot of the time.
I will give you a couple of examples that stick in my mind. A few weeks ago, I went to see some friends in Cornwall. At one point, we spoke about someone called Pino who lives in Italy. I haven’t heard from him in years. Within an hour of that conversation, I noticed a message from him on my WhatsApp messenger saying, “I bet you don’t know who this is?”. Well, my app kind of gave it away because his name was on it as his number was in my phone book already. He’s not on Facebook or other social networks, he just thought about contacting us at almost the same time the three of us in England were thinking about him.
In 1996 I felt very depressed and decided to try out a free psychic healing offer. During the process of the session, I was put in a darkened room whilst a woman passed her hands over me. As this went on, I went into a kind of trance-like state. The first thing that happened was I felt as if I shot up into the sky and was suddenly looking down over London. I then felt myself move to where I lived. I could see my girlfriend, Eileen, so said hello to her, then moved off again. A few other things happened after that: firstly, I went to where a house, road, and woods were, and then I had a vision, almost like a film where frames of a comic are shown in fast sequence. In this series of frames, I saw a plane crashing into a bay as the sun set.
Afterwards, I went home and the first thing Eileen said was, “Did you come back earlier and call me? I came down to see where you were, but I couldn’t find you.”
I spoke to her about the other bits of my trance and this could be more a case of her making tenuous connections but when I drew out the layout of the woods, the roads and the house she said it matched exactly where she had lived before she came to London, and of the comic strip imagery she said she had been to a bay where there was a monument to a pilot whose plane had crashed there. As I say, they may be coincidences, but Eileen hearing me call her, which she still remembers to this day, 28 years later, was less tenuous.
What was interesting about all this though, was later when I decided to study a bit about parapsychology, I realised there was a parallel between the process I went through and the development of the Spiritualist movement and Mesmerism. The mesmerists believed they could heal people by passing their hands over them without touching them and, by putting them into a trance, could transfer energy to them. Something akin to modern-day Reiki or Chinese medicine involving Chi and Chakras. Sometimes during this process, people would go into a trance and supernatural powers, precognitive visions and instances of telepathy seemingly occurred. It was so popular at the time that a leading medic, Professor John Elliotson, was sacked from his post at University College Hospital for daring to suggest there may be something in it. In fact, Charles Dickens, who saw himself as an authority on Mesmerism was one of Elliotson’s biggest defenders. From these “supernatural” episodes the seeds of the Spiritualist movement were sown.
I’ll give you one more example. I was sitting at the bar in The Chelsea Arts Club eating some supper one evening. A woman I had spoken to before came up and started talking to me, as she did, she began to tell me something about her son and I said, “You’ve told me this before, he fell out the window and landed in the bushes but was still seriously injured.” She looked at me aghast. I thought, “Shit I’ve said something wrong now.” As she went pale and started to shake a little, she said: “I couldn’t have told you that, I haven’t been here since it happened.” But to me, there was a real memory of her telling me about this.
I don’t conclude anything from these kinds of things, but it does make me wonder if there are other dimensions in which consciousness can exist without the mechanics of the body and mind, or at the very least some telepathic abilities might be real.
* * *
Many people reading this will have a complete belief that there is life after death, conversely, many others will believe that we simply switch off and are no more. I am agnostic on this subject. I accept it is entirely possible that before us was an eternity, in which we did not exist, and beyond us is another in which we won’t exist either. If that is true, then given one’s life is not full of suffering, then, within a caring community, one can find a piece of heaven on earth. Amos Oz wrote something along the lines of, a little evil and people are hell to each other, but with a little compassion and generosity, people may find paradise in each other. It’s like the Chinese version of Heaven and Hell where both places are the same, everyone has arms that are chopsticks. In Hell, everyone starves, but in Heaven, everyone feeds each other.
I also accept that there may well be consciousness after life. Indeed, given I can barely remember a lot of my life and have complete black spots in my memory, as well as watching the memory of dreams disappear before my eyes, I can accept it’s possible I existed before this life but have no memory of it. But then I would say that, given I don’t have any memories of it.
Even if we say this is it, this is our one shot at existence, then, for those of us who do not live in continual pain or extreme deprivation and suffering, then for us, to have existed in this universe, on this planet and especially during such a magical time of technology, communication, and interactivity, what a gift our lives have been.
To be able to sense the world, to feel so many things, to have connected on so many levels with others. What a blessing that is. When doing the simplest of things, for instance breathing in fresh air or eating, one can take a moment to savour being alive. I am not advocating hedonism, in fact, the opposite. Service to one another, whether there is a God or not, and wanting to serve others is what it is about, but it should come from a feeling, not a thought.
* * *
The first day after the surgery was not so bad. I wasn’t in much pain considering my stomach had been cut open from just above my groin to just under my solar plexus. A few months down the line after the swelling had died down the scar was not as long as it had first appeared. Even so, I wasn’t in that great a shape, I could hardly move and felt like I had a big metal plate attached to my stomach, which was probably apt given 70 staples were holding my stomach together. I had 5 tubes coming out the right side of my neck, a drainage tube coming out a hole in my side, and a catheter attached to a bag at the end of the bed, which when moved gave me the feeling that my penis was going to be torn off at any moment.
I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink or anything, so my mouth was very dry. Occasionally, the nurse, who was a very flamboyant man from the Philippines, would dab a small sponge filled with water on my lips as he danced and spun gracefully around my bed. In the evening, a few friends popped in, which at first made me feel a bit tearful as it was a reminder that in many ways, I was a long way from home and normality. Then at one point, someone on the ward started to be sick which made one of my friends turn pale and look quite ill. As they looked towards the person being sick and shook their head in disapproval I started to laugh, “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts,” I said. Of course, this made them laugh too and for a moment, there was normality.
After they went, it was back to the process of healing, but as the evening became night I started to vomit constantly and was unable to sleep. Not that I would have got much sleep anyway as the Intensive Care ward was constantly noisy. The next day, the doctor explained that because my intestines had slowed down so much, the liquid in my stomach, which is created as a by-product of digestion, had nowhere to go. They were scared that it might start filling up so much that it would enter my lungs which in turn would cause further complications. The solution they suggested was to put a pipe up through my nose and then down into my stomach to act as a drain. I agreed to this and soon after a nurse came over to fit it.
The initial feeling of it going up my nostril was quite uncomfortable, but as soon as it hit the back of my throat, I started to be sick and retch violently. “Just try to relax and swallow,” the nurse instructed in a typical exercise class manner. Somehow it seemed to go into position. It was uncomfortable but at least we got there. The nurse looked at me, nodded her head from side to side and said, “I don’t think it’s in properly.”
“Really?” I croaked. I wanted to ask if she had X-ray vision.
“I am sure it’s not in the right position, we will have to try again.”
She pulled it out, which wasn’t the most joyous of experiences either.
The second attempt was far worse, I was so sick that she had no chance.
The doctor who’d done my surgery came in, gave me a verbal warning, and said they would try again tomorrow.
So, another sleepless night, full of being sick and then came the third attempt. This time a young male doctor came over with a tray of equipment including anaesthetic gel. “This should make it a lot less difficult,” he said. He covered the tube in anaesthetic and started pushing it up my nose and down my throat. Again, I started retching violently and loudly, at this point a large blonde woman opened the curtains and said, “It’s very important to relax and swallow”, Fortunately, I was in a choking not joking mood.
“There we are, all done.” the doctor said.
I tried to speak but I couldn’t as my mouth was full of the pipe which had wrapped itself around into a mess in there. I looked at him and opened my mouth. He looked a bit surprised and started to pull it out again. I had had enough.
“I’m sorry doctor, but I would rather take the risk of getting sick in my lungs than continue trying this.”
“Okay, we will leave it for a day and re-assess things then.”
I could see in his eyes both a look of sorrow and failure.
At this point I hit a low, and in a rare move posted on Facebook that I was feeling bad and that in some ways it had been one of the worst times in my life. I think when the blonde woman stuck her oar in it took me back to being in institutions where I had no control and had felt completely at the mercy of people who didn’t care, so, as a way to get some balance, I wanted to connect with people for some support.
Maybe my retching was disturbing others or maybe I was recovered enough to be taken off the Intensive Care Unit, either way, I was moved to The High Dependency Unit, which was about ten metres away and this time there was one nurse for two patients.
I didn’t get to sleep till about 4 a.m. and at one point I had to ask the nurse to move one of the square syringe bins because, I said, it looked like a “Robotic Fertility Earth Mother”. A bit later security had to be called when one of the patients became aggressive. He couldn’t talk, I think he had something like a tracheotomy and was very emotional and restless. On top of all of this, a temporary filling was disintegrating in my mouth and felt like fine hairs touching the back of my throat.
When I finally did get to sleep between bouts of vomiting, I had a couple of dreams which seemed to signal to me that I was going to turn a corner in my recovery. They felt almost magical and even now I feel like I can’t reveal them to others as it might negate their healing properties, which sounds mad, I know, but I don’t even want to take the risk of betraying those dreams, even now, a year and a half afterwards.
Sure enough, the next day I stopped feeling sick and was able to start eating. After a few more days, I was put into a room of my own in another ward. I kept myself to myself, and in time yearned to go home. Throughout that week they pulled the tube out of my side and left it to heal. The catheter had failed on the High-Dependency Unit so they didn’t bother replacing it, which was a relief when I saw them pull about half a metre of tube out. No, I’m not trying to make up for having a big car.
My legs had become so weak I could barely stand, so over the last few days, the physios prepared me to return home. On the final day, they took out my staples, which didn’t hurt much but felt strange, and I half expected my stomach to split open and an alien to pop out. The last thing was to have IV lines pulled out of my neck; again, I worried it would hurt, or suddenly I’d pass out as blood gushed from the wound, but I didn’t feel anything and there was very little bleeding. I was free to go. A porter wheeled me and my bags to the ambulance at which point I said: “I’ve just had Munchausen, what am I saying, I’ve just had an appendectomy”. I could almost hear him think, “Mentally and physically disabled.”
Just like a horror movie, there was more to come. The ambulance driver was obviously on his last run and drove like a maniac which was quite hard to stomach. Once home it was a while before there was any semblance of normality, with nurses coming in to re-dress the wounds and check my vitals. Even so, being back home felt wonderful.
After a week or so my medication came to an end, but about a week later I ended up back in casualty with a very fast heart rate. They put me on beta blockers and blood thinners which have quite an impact in terms of side effects. I won’t go there though.
I waited a while for an appointment to see a coronary consultant and after some waiting, I called the hospital who informed me that I was correct an appointment should have been made, however, they had forgotten to make one but eventually, I got one.
The healthcare we have in the UK is a miracle. In most other countries if you get ill, you die, especially if you are not financially well off. One of the nurses said to me that in a staff meeting, they had said how I was so easy to look after that they wanted to put me in their pocket and take me home. As a child, I had been very difficult to look after, but now, touched by kindness, I wanted to think about their needs too. Even when I needed help in the toilet, (I could barely move so I really did need help), if a young nurse came in, I would say, “Look I wouldn’t normally do this on a first date, but could you just wipe my arse… and please, could you use those expensive wipes if you don’t mind?” See, I was ‘consideration’, personified.
* * *
Before I got ill, as I mentioned earlier, I thought I might die soon, I had been feeling off-colour for a while. In a way, I was right because, after ending up in hospital, my life would never be the same again. In fact, even now it feels like a race against time to finish some important things in case my time runs out.
Sometimes, you wake up and find it wasn’t a dream, but at least you woke up.
* * *
