Chapter Nine - Out on the Street
While working as manager of the Newsagents I had various paperboys and papergirls working under me. Two of these were a brother and sister, Barry and Anjali. They were a little more reliable than some and also happy to take on extra duties and along with some of the other kids we got quite friendly.
The kids even did a few little party tricks, like when one of them moved my car (with the help of my wife Kay) and then told me it had been towed and I had to make my way to Barking Police Station to recover it. When I got there the little dears were all there to wish me a happy April Fool's day. My car was actually just around the back of the shop! Oh I did laugh....and they could all run faster than me anyway!
Anyway, over the following months Kay hated the job more and more and I got closer and closer to Anjali. And before anyway picks up the phone to call the police, she was 16, going on 17 at this point, although I was now approaching 32.
To cut a long story short Kay and I sat down one day and decided it was over. We didn't hate each other, we had just grown out of love. But, this course of action had knock on affects as we had taken on the shop as a couple and the split meant I was now out of a job and out of a place to live. Worse was to come.
Anj and I went through a few ups and downs. But she did know someone with a room to let in Ilford and both Kay and I lived there for a few weeks, even sleeping in the same bed but leading totally separate lives. Kay was often out with a guy who seemed to have become a sort of sex/live guru for her. While I visited Anj in her flat and later in the house her mother and new stepfather had purchased quite close to my old shop in Dagenham.
Kay found new employment and so did I in the form of another newsagents in Farr Avenue Barking, where |I worked for Martins. Eventually Kay moved away and I let the room in Ilford go because it seemed OK for me to stay in Anj’s bedroom. How wrong I was!
Anj was adopted, as was her brother. In Anj’s case it turned out her mother was part Indian and part European, while her father was Japanese. Apparently he was in Indian (where Anj was born) and had an affair then buggered off back to his wife and sons in Japan. As luck would have it Anj’s mum worked for a Japanese bank where her boss had a thing for her. Bigger surprise was that he knew Anj’s dad. And it even turned out that he had confessed all to his wife who was happy for him to bring a daughter in to the house (as they had several boys but no daughter). Her father was quite well off too and he was looking for her. But Anj didn’t want to meet him, so the guy never realized how close he was to finding his long lost child.
Barry was apparently part English and part Indian, probably Seek. But no one came looking for him. Both of them had been brought up in Calcutta until they were about eleven or twelve. At this point their adopted mother left their adopted father and brought them back to England. It was a bit of a culture shock, to say the least.
While in India they had been in the lap of luxury. Dad was a top lawyer and mixed with the cream of society. He was Anj’s mum’s second husband, the first one being a Indian medical students who had run off with her best friend and a large amount of her money. And Anj’s dad was also a huge Anglophile. Although pure Indian he spoke with a more clipped and posh British accent than most upper class Englishmen!
Anj and her brother were brought up in a large villa with several servants. And people of high social rank often visited, embassy staff, local diplomats, visiting doctors, lawyers and businessmen. They were taught the local culture, religion and language. At age ten Anj could talk two Indian languages, but she couldn’t talk English. And it was only when they came to this country to stay that they learned English properly. Although when I met them they had no accent at all and their English was pretty much spot on.
So coming to London and living in a high rise and attending an English school was something of a come down for them. And going back to work for their mother was something of a culture shock too. But in the case of her mother she did keep true to form, meeting and eventually marrying someone from outside her own culture and ethnicity. In this case a very ugly and disagreeable Jamaican.
Up to the point they were married nothing was said about me staying. I didn’t force myself on anyone and kept mainly to Anj’s room. But as soon as they were married I was told I couldn’t stay. Something of a problem as I had no where to go and no money to put down as a deposit on a flat anyway! And so started three months of me being homeless.
In just over a year I had gone from having a three bedroom house with a hundred foot garden, my own apple and pear trees, cats, etc. To, well, nothing! All I had was some clothes and my Volkswagen Passat, with a dented boot that didn’t close properly where some twit had gone up my arse the day I bought it. And it was at the coldest time of the year.
I would wake up in the night, my back aching, freezing cold, rain banging down on the roof like tintacks and wonder who I had offended to end up like this? In the morning I would drag myself to the shop and wash and shave before anyone got there.
So passed a pleasant few months of me eating take away in my car and freezing to death in my sleeping bag. Anj visited me as often as she could, but her mother, who, disliked me intensely, did everything to split us up, even though we had become engaged.
The only thing that made life bearable was my new job and my assistant manager Mandy. Mandy was the exact opposite of Anj. Anj was short, dark, artistic, intelligent, shy and sexually backward. Mandy was tall, fair, earthy, sexy and outgoing, she was also engaged. However that did not stop us from having a long and passionate affair.
Mandy brightened my day by being there for me and because we could lock the office and have some fun too. But she would let me use the shower at her parents place, fetch me meals and wash my clothes for me too.
Eventually I found a bedsit near Barking Station. And with some help from my mum (again) I got a mortgage for it and moved in. It was meant to be temporary but I lived there with Anj for five years.
Anj and I also got married at Barking Registry office. Her brother was best man and Mandy was a bridesmaid, albeit a very unhappy one, she had asked me more than once to choose her over Anj and in later years I really wished I had. What’s worse, is looking back on it now, I really can’t see why I didn’t!?
I left Martins and Mandy and moved on to work for Woolworths in Romford as a section manager. It was an education in several ways. I was in charge of more staff, it was far busier than anything I had known before and I had the biggest pratt on Earth as my General Manager and we hated each other.
I awoke one morning to go to work to find devastation everywhere, trees down, roofs off, walls fallen over. It was 1987 and both Anj and I had managed to sleep through one of the biggest and most destructive storms the country had known!
Woolworths came and went as I was made redundant, having pissed the General Manager off once too often. However, he didn’t get it all his own way, after 30 years with the company I helped put the final nail in his coffin and he was blocked from any chance of a promotion, several months later he left the company. I always warned people not to mess me with me, and he just didn’t listen.
Within a short time I had found a new job with a company called Weider Health and Fitness. In this country only people in to bodybuilding or keep fit would have known them. But in the States they were well known and were responsible for the rise of people like Arnold Schwarzenegger who competed in their Mr Olympia contest. I was taken on as assistant manager and had a great time and saw a few stars too and not only of the bodybuilding field. Visitors to our store in Charring Cross included pop starts Limal and Marc Almond, boxer Barry McGuigan, athlete Collin Jackson, celeb Koo Stark, to name but a few. We also had Donna Hartley and Berry De Mey give seminars and got a visit from all time great Dorian Yates.
During all this I had moved my aikido class from the evening class to a private venue in Judd Street where Sensie Suzuki ( a well known karate instructor taught). I still had a small but thriving class going on a Sunday, just after the hapkido class. However I had changed. Gone was the 11 stone wiry and lightening fast youth. Now, approaching my mid thirties I was in to weight training and I had blown up to over 14 stone (at one time at the height of my interest in bodybuilding I went 15 1/2 stone and had ideas of competing). These days I was slower but more powerful and more likely to take someone to the floor for a wrestle.
Eventually, despite some good times I left Weider to join Tandy. Back then a thriving British offshoot of the American electronics store. I joined as a trainee manager and worked my way through assistant manager to manger of my own store in Tottenham. And I made some good friends on the way.
It was while I was working in the Bishopsgate branch that I had a close encounter with a IRA bomb. While out for a drink one night with a couple of friends there was a loud bang (more a deep rumble) and the whole pub shook. Only about a quarter of a mile away a huge bomb had just ripped through the Natwest building and knocked out windows as far down as Liverpool Street, which is where we drinking. Within seconds we raced back to our shop, opposite the station, only to find everything already cordoned off. Funny that, as the police said they had no prior warning?
The place looked like the Blitz! Glass blown out everywhere, car alarms going off, smoke. And then a long trek as we were forced to leave the area by the police and walk to the next nearest station.
Too be honest my time as a manager in Tottenham was boring and the journey tiresome. Although we did have a laugh on match days. Everyone in the shop were Arsenal supporters, while we were on the main route to hated rivals Tottenham Hotspur. And oh we did laugh when the disgruntled fans wandered back passed us having lost at home. And being caring citizens we gave them a friendly wave and pissed our selves laughing. How we never got our windows put through is beyond me
At about this time I gave up on the ju jutsu. It was more because I just couldn’t give it the time it required at the time, plus I never did get on as well with the Dagenham end of the club. But I had got my assistant instructors certificate by then and I had my certificate in kobudo.
By the time I was heading for black belt in ju jutsu Terry had moved the goalposts a little and it was a requirement not only to learn ju jutsu it’s self but also to become proficient with several weapons, namely nunchuka, sai, stick, tonfa and katana. Terry had spent quite a lot of his own time and money (possibly not wisely) learning a kata in each weapon from Mike Finn. Mike, an ex police officer, was at the time the man with the most black belts in the world, something like 35 dans in about ten different disciplines. Only thing is, according to various sources he wasn’t too good at any of them. But, that said, the forms were ok.
I spent more and more of my time in the gym trying to get bigger. I belonged to one of those spit and sawdust gyms were grunting was also a form of communication. And it was while I was doing an incredibly stupid weight on the incline leg press I decided to put my back out in a big way!
There I was with 600lbs on the bar, one rep, big breath, two, few stars, three, go for a fourth and...silly sod, don’t lean forward as you press up and snap. Cut a long story short I was on my back for a week. Not funny when you need a pee and it takes you 20 minutes to crawl to the toilet.
I was however in the best place already, laying on the floor. The bedsit was so small we couldn’t afford to have much furniture and so we slept on the floor. I did that for five years.
Around about now exit a couple of characters from my past. It’s OK dont panic, they just left but didn’t die. Number one Loch McPhee. Great guy and friend, but last time I saw him was when he came to fix a new door for me after I got burgled. Ummm, quick diversion burglars lowest of the low and bain of my life!
When I was about 15 the ex caretaker of our flats sold the master key on to some burglars, I walked in to find the place ransacked, not nice, worse when they may still have been there with knifes being carried around the house. When Kay and I broke up we stored some of our stuff (including my entire record collection) in our shop garage. Kids broke in and stole most of it.
So, two down and at that time I didn’t know I had another three to go, but I did. Three times we got broken in to. First time someone took a sledgehammer to out double glazing, second they kicked the front door in and third time they took a chainsaw to it.
The little that we had disappeared quite quickly. It included the one and only thing I had from my dad, his service medal and a samurai dagger I had bought years earlier, that belonged to the Togukawa family (rulers of Japan).
Interesting little story here, on the second theft I was called by the police to say they had recovered some of my property. Turned out the detective involved was someone I knew and he managed to leave the evidence tags on with the accused name on it. Of course it was all an ’accident’, but it did give me someone to look for, unfortunatelyfor me I didn’t find him, despite some effort.
Any way, as I was saying that was the last time I saw Loch. Dave Murphy was the next to go. Over the years I had bailed him out on a few occasions. But unbeknown to me he had borrowed money off of Anj and then failed to pay it back. It wasn't the fact he coerced money out of her, it was the fact he had gone behind my back to do it. I told him to sling his hook and never saw him again. We had been friends for over 20 years.
Like I said Anj and I spent five years in our dismal little bedsit. The only let off we had was when we visited her mum and brother. Her mum had moved to Peckham with her Jamaican husband. Barry had met a girl and spent much of his time at her place or in the company of her brother. And when we visited we would all go to a local pub for a few games of pool. My step father in law was a pratt and I tried to avoid him when ever I could.
An example of what a pillock this guy was can be drawn from a trip we made to Anj’s aunt in Fleet. He drove us there and back. And on the return journey we got pulled over by the police, and ...get this....he got told to drive faster!
At about this time I made a startling discovery, as you grow older your hair falls out! Yes, I was going bald. It was one of those little revelations that indicate you are getting older after all.
At first I didn’t take much notice as, in my case, it was just a matter of a higher hairline. But then I also noticed that I could see more or my head through the middle of my hair than round the sides. And so my first move towards emulating my hero Yul Brunner was put in place and I went for a number four crop. The number four didn’t last long and I got myself some clippers and saved a fortune in hairdresser fees while giving myself a number one crop.
As our marriage moved on two things became evident, one was that Anj’s ability in the bedroom was not going to improve, which was a pity as she was next to useless and also that the slim girl I married was rapidly being replaced by a somewhat overweight one! Further more she was addicted to one arm bandits! Very few nights went by that, on the way home from the bank she worked at, she didn’t stop off to gamble her money in the arcades, or if I was with her a pub.
Her art started to take a backseat and she really didn’t have much interest in anything, and certainly not me. But we still had the occasional interesting chat in the middle of the nightand played a few games of cards, so it wasn’t a total loss, was it?
Sharing the bedsit with three cats wasn’t so easy either. Especially when one of them decided to get the squirts one night. I can tell you now it is not a comfortable feeling laying there on the floor and in the dark and wondering what the nasty smell is. It gets worse when there is the sound of a very wet fart followed by a startled meow! And it hits rock bottom (pardon the pun) when this appears to be repeated all around the room as if there wasn’t one cat at it, but about five or six! The clear up afterwards is even worse!!
Eventually we bought a three bedroom flat on the Gasgoigne Estate in Barking. Not the greatest place in the world but the flat was pretty big. And we didn’t pay over the odds as we bought it off her cousin. I retained the bedsit with the idea of renting it out.
What should have been a great new start quickly declined in to a mediocre existence. We had a vast flat for just the two of us, I made one room my weights room and another a library with 1500 books in it. We got sky too and I spent hours watching and listening to the latest music especially the rock/grunge channels. We should have had the time of our life, but it just didn’t happen.
To top it off my cat Blackie got ill and we had to have her put down. She was rarely a nice cat and was in fact more feral than domesticated, but I cried my eyes out when I left the vet. Yes I know big softie, but I always have been when it comes to animals.
Just when things had got as bad as they could I made an unexpected discovery. Mandy was working in Romford. And suddenly I found an excuse to pop and see her on my days off.
It wasn’t long before our affair was back on, despite the fact she was married too. At least the bedroom saw some action, even if it was fairly brief and clandestine. But it wasn’t meant to last and I found myself back in a rut again.
I left Tandy as the writing was on the wall. And not long after I went the company collapsed.
I moved in a totally new direction both geographically and product wise and joined Clinton Cards as a manager at their Surrey Keys branch. It paid the bills but was hardly riveting. But I did have nice staff and some helpful and friendly co managers. I stayed with them for about two and a half years.
Then I spotted a job with my old employer Martins. I had no idea it would change everything.