Chapter Ten - Third Time Lucky
The job wasn't overly exciting but certainly seemed a bit more interesting than spending day after day in a shop wishing the time would pass more quickly. And it did mean I got a company car. Although it also meant I had to pass a manual test ( I had had an automatic licence for years). The job was working as a relief manager, standing in for shop managers while they were on holiday, off sick, etc and included a vehicle and meant working within the M25 area. Pay was OK and so were the prospects. I applied and was accepted almost immediately.
I said goodbye to Clintons and arrived at Martins HQ in Brentwood Essex one Monday morning 1995. I turned up and got shown to a waiting area where, like all new employees, I sat a little nervously wondering what the day would hold. What I didn't expect was that it would hold my next wife!
A guy turned up, another relief manager like myself. And then two women arrived. One of them was quite tall and slim, with long fair hair. She wore glasses so might not have attracted all men, but she had a great pair of legs and figure and a winning smile and her name turned out to be Trish.
The training was partly done local to London and part done in Wolverhampton. And the first week saw me paired with another guy in North London. But I much preferred the training in Wolves as it gave me a chance to steal glances at Trish as we sat in the classroom.
I couldn't believe my luck when Trish and I were paired up to be trained in a shop in Corringham for two weeks. We got on like a house on fire too! Although it transpired she was living with a guy she had left her husband for. So my prospects of anything happening seemed some what remote.
Anyway, the course moved back to Wolves and also towards it's end. On our last night we all got suitably pissed and played pool. And Trish and I seemed to spend a fair part of the evening together.
And when it came time to hit the sack Trish, another guy and myself just couldn't quite switch off and spent the reminder of the evening playing cards in my room.
Trish fell asleep on my bed and after a bit of a discussion it was decided to leave her there. The other guy went back to his room and I snuggled down next to Trish to sleep. Later I awoke as did Trish and one thing lead to another....Well I wont paint a picture. Although a little later it turned out that Trish had never been to sleep at all and it was all part of the plan.
We travelled back from Wolverhampton together the next day. Holding hands most of the way. Trish had parked her car outside my flat in Barking and it was with a real sinking feeling that I watched her drive away, even though we had arranged to meet the next day in Romford.
The next few days were some of the most up and down ones I can remember having. Within a short time I confessed what had happened to Ang, who, initially, did not take it well. But within a few days we had sorted out that I would be leaving. Fortunately I still had the little bed sit but for the first few days I just slept in one of the spare rooms.
I met Trish in Romford as arranged and it quickly transpired that both of us wanted out of our relationships and she told me she was moving out of her boyfriends and back to her mum’s. It would have been nice to report on a fairytale romance from this point, but you know what life is like and this was no different!
Firstly her now ex boyfriend turned out to be a pain in the arse. He tried stirring things up more than once. And he made the mistake of threatening me as well, although he did only ever do that from the other end of a phone line and never in person. Secondly I was not flavour of the month with Trish's mum, an iceberg that was very slow to melt as it turned out.
Having passed our training Trish was posted to a branch in Oxford, while I took over one in Cricklewood or little Ireland as it should be called. As part of her conditions of service Trish was able to rent a company paid for room in a house on the edge of Sommertown and, I unofficially moved in with her. And while she did a short trip to work everyday I commuted down the M40 and A40 to West London. And although not ideal it did allow for a few nice evenings out at the local pubs and a chance to get to know each other better.
It came as something of a shock to find that in the not too distant future I would become a father for the first time, when Trish revealed she was pregnant very early on in our relationship! But it also meant that we needed to secure somewhere a bit more permanent than the dingy bed sit I still had or the rented room Trish had. So we approached our employer, who, as luck would have it, owned more than a few premises it was willing to rent out. And before long we moved in to our first proper home together above a Martin's at Martins Corner Dagenham.
Joshua John Lancaster arrived bright and early one morning in October 1995, and, as any parent will tell you, life was never quiet the same again! And it wasn't long before Trish and I were strolling arm in arm behind a pram.
It also wasn't long before Josh was sitting there watching me teach aikido. I still had a few faithful follower's at this point although the class had shrunk and many of my older pupils had fallen by the wayside.
Many people probably think of martial arts clubs as a place you just do fighting. But many take on a much more familiar feel with people becoming good friends and staying so over many years. Some of my pupils had trained with me for more than ten years.
But I had to admit the one class a week was more than enough at that stage. It was a grind travelling to the centre of London every week even by car, when the traffic was at it's lightest. And although I often had Trish and Josh for company this wasn't always the case and it could be boring making it back alone. And to be honest I felt stale and in need of a new challenge.
The new challenge arrived in more ways than one! In 1996 I started a new job with Total oil as a manager, but it was not that that provided the challenge or the surprise. Trish had been having 'woman's problems' for a while and we went to the doctor and later the hospital. I was with Trish when she came out from some tests with a sheepish look on her face to be told one of the problems was due to her being pregnant again.
Another challenge arrived by way of our former employer Martin's who wanted us out of their flat ASAP, I don't think me taking them to an industrial tribunal and giving them a bloody nose helped. But we had to move in to a little one bedroom affair in Dagenham in a road called White Barn Lane. And it was here that Luke Adam Lancaster arrived very suddenly one evening in June 1997. He was even quicker than Josh who had arrived in just an hour and half , but Luke took about half that time and took both Trish, myself and the midwife by surprise.
However with two boys to look after and accommodate we needed to get out of the small flat we had and we managed this by getting a shared ownership property in Baden Powell Close Dagenham. This allowed us the opportunity to get a pet rabbit as well as we had a huge garden, and later still our first dog a rescue Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Cassie. And Trish was soon back out to work too and things were going ok. But the big challenge still had not arrived yet.
It did arrive later that year in the form of a small Chinese gentleman called Lu Jun Hai. Trish was at that time working for a flooring company and had got friendly with a customer called Ed. Trish obviously discussed me and the boys and when Ed heard I was in to martial arts suggested that Trish bring me down to the Havering Town show where he was going to be involved in a kung fu demonstration. He was at pains to stress he and the other members of the team were quite new to it and had only been training for a couple of months, but the instructor was a Chinese master with bags of experience.
So one nice August day we had a wander down to the show in Hornchurch and watched the demonstration. It was pretty basic, but when the Chinese master showed off some moves I was more than impressed, little did I know he was already in his late fifties at that point.
The master or Sifu was Lu Jun Hai a 6th generation practioner of Shaolin Mizong kung fu. I later discovered he was a Grand master in not only kung fu but also a rare Chinese sword form as well as Tai Chi. I didn’t know it then but I had stumbled across a true treasure!
I started training under Sifu Lu a few weeks later and within only a couple of months was hooked. But not only that I also realised this was the challenge I had been looking for. I had little idea of how much it would change me then, but one thing was plain enough, my time with aikido was over.
Eric and Graham, two of my black belts were handed the keys to the kingdom and told to run the club for themselves. It was my intention to pop down and oversee things from a distance for a while but within a few weeks my focus had shifted to kung fu only and I left them to their own devices. For me it was an end of an era, but new adventures awaited.
