I Think I'm OK Read online

  It always felt good to me to be back in Bradford. I felt comfortable there, the smell of the place, the sounds, the people, the accent, it was home. If you happened to be in town during the late afternoon you could hear the unmistakable sounds of the paper sellers. A shout of, “Haaaaayyt Hellegayyyyv,” would reverberate around the City Centre. To strangers it was just a racket, to we Bradfordians it was perfect English and they were shouting, “Late Telegraph.”

  I made my way from Forster Square to a small café called the San Remo, a place where a few of my friends and I often frequented. It was a tiny place in the cellar of a larger building and was located up a small backstreet. There were a few people there whose faces I recognised but none I would call a friend, however I did feel comfortable there so I was more than happy to sit in a corner and tuck into a proper breakfast, I think I savoured every mouthful. I even ate the mushrooms and I don’t like mushrooms.

  I was aware the Fair was in town and as usual it was in Lister Park so I made my way up there, taking my time and trying to make the journey last, my friends wouldn’t be about until the evening. Once in the park I made my way to Cartwright Hall, a large house in the Park which housed a small museum where I had spent many a day walking around. Whenever it was cold or raining the museum had always been a good place to warm up, dry out and get on the outside of a cup of tea, on this day I just needed to waste some time.

  There was one exhibit which I always made a point of visiting. It was a stuffed Starling. The Starling had a beak which had overgrown and was almost the same length as its body. I don’t know why I was so fascinated by it but it was the first thing I went to see and I always went back to it before I left. I would stand looking at it for ages feeling sorry for it. There was a small label which told how the bird’s freakishly large beak had prevented it from eating properly and the poor thing had eventually starved to death.

  You are probably going to think I’m nuts now but I liked to say goodbye to it, quietly, after making sure nobody was around, I would touch the glass case the bird was kept in and say, “See ya mate.”

  The evening arrived and the park came to life. There is in my opinion something magical about the sights and sounds of the Fair Ground, the crowds of people shouting and laughing, the screams of the girls on the scariest of the rides. Set against the backdrop of the night sky the flashing and colourful lights seem far more intense. The smell of popcorn, toffee apples, candy floss and generator exhaust fumes filling the air, ooh lovely. I don’t know what it is with me and smells, is there such a thing as smellism? You know, like voyeurism? Even though I’m a biker I have to admit I used to love the smell of a two stroke scooter.

  Chuffing hell, I’m a pervert.

  Not because of the ‘Smellism,’ because of the scooter.

  It wasn’t long before I met up with some of my mates. Then around eight o’clock I bumped into Spanner, it was good to see him. I told him what had been happening with me and he offered to let me stay at his place, an offer I jumped at. His place was a bed sit on North Road not far from the Park. The majority of the four storey Victorian houses on North Road were owned by one family and they were locally known as Robinson’s flats. Flats was a misnomer, they were nearly all tiny bed sits, anything from six to ten in each house. I’m not complaining; Spanner’s place had two single beds, a settee and carpet on the floor, compared to my past couple of nights’ accommodation it was bloody luxury.

  That night I slept like a baby, I don’t mean I cried half the night and shit my pants, I mean I was out like a light. The next day was like a holiday. Spanner had woke up early and gone to work leaving me to just doss about all day, smoking, eating, opening up the sash window and sitting on the sill just watching the people walking by and getting on with their lives. With the bed sit being at the very top of the house I had an excellent view up and down the full length of the road.

  I was playing a game with myself trying to spot someone who I thought I might like to change places with, swap my life for theirs, no such person came along. That was in the morning and I followed the same routine in the afternoon.

  Have you ever had a holiday where it felt as though it was just a day or two too long? You just wanted to get back to your own home, your own bed and your own things? Well by the time Spanner was back from work that’s pretty much how I felt, the holiday was over and I was bored shitless.

  The evening found us once more back at the fair ground. Spanner introduced me to a number of his friends, all of whom seemed to me to be decent folk and I felt as though I fitted comfortably in with them. I got on particularly well with one lad by the name of Fred.

  We tended not to go on too many of the rides though the Waltzers were always good for a laugh. We were there more for the atmosphere and to meet friends, especially girls, though at that time Spanner and his mates had a damn sight more luck than I did. I hadn’t yet acquired the same confidence as they when it came to chatting to the lasses but I was a bit younger so I guess that was to be expected. If any of you are thinking, ‘It was now’t to do with you being an ugly get then eh?’ I shall hunt you down and slap you.

  As I said, I got on very well with Fred. He was eighteen or nineteen and he always seemed to be smiling. Even when somebody made a remark which most people would probably take offence at, he just smiled. I did see Spanner on one such occasion pull a friend of his to one side and have a word with him. Though I never saw Spanner be violent I did get the impression that he was capable of it should the need arise. His friend then went to Fred and apologised.

  “Oh that’s OK mate,” said Fred, ‘‘I don’t take any notice.”

  He was as soft as a mop.

  I never did find out what Fred’s surname was but I know what it should have been, it should have been Sodslaw. If we were doing anything and Fred was involved it would invariably go wrong and Fred would always be on the receiving end. Here are a couple of examples.

  Fred had turned up at Spanner’s place one Friday night around eleven thirty pissed as a fart and with nowhere to sleep, so he was offered the couch. As grateful as he was for the couch he started moaning about there not being much to eat in the cupboard. Spanner told him he was a cheeky bastard and Fred just offered up a drunken smile, laid back on the couch and fell asleep. It was between two and three in the morning when I was being shaken awake by Fred. As soon as I awoke I began wafting my hand in front of my face. Fred’s beer breath seemed to hang around my head like a swarm of bees as he was whispering, “Chris, Chris, wake up Chris.”

  It turned out he was still hungry and he knew where we could get something to eat even at that hour and would I like to go with him. Well I obviously wasn’t going to get any sleep and in a tiny bed-sit there was bugger all else to do at half two in the morning so I figured why not. We ended up once more back at the Park. As we walked I kept asking Fred where the hell we were heading, he just said, “A café.” It turned out he was telling the truth, however what he forgot to mention was that the café was in the Lido, the open air swimming baths and at that time in the morning it was obviously shut. We broke in.

  The only food we could find was in tins, lots of tins, not your normal family sized tins either, oh no, they were those bloody great big catering tins. The choice of tinned food was amazing, we could have baked beans, we could have hot dog sausages, or baked beans and some more hot dog sausages, so we decided on the beans and sausages. Between us we managed to get about twenty tins out of the café over the wall and under a bush. The idea was to take a few back to the bed-sit and come back for the rest at a later time.

  That idea was going swimmingly, excuse the pun, as we carried four tins each back to Spanner’s. As it was still dark we decided to go back for some more, this was the first time I witnessed ‘Fred Sodslaw.’

  We were deep into the park when we spotted a police car, I guess it was just doing a routine patrol, if they had known about the break in there would have been more than one car. Fred and I were not thinking like that th
ough, our mind set was, police equals leg it, so we dropped the tins and ran. Fred was a few yards in front of me when I saw something that David Blaine would have been proud of.

  In front of Fred was a line of large roundish stones, probably a couple of feet in diameter and painted white, as he approached them he didn’t slow down, in fact I’m sure he upped his pace before jumping over them. Then, at the very highest point of his leap, he stopped mid-air, just for a second he seemed to be frozen. To my amazement he then shot backwards clearing the line of stones he had just vaulted and landing on his back on the grass with an almighty thud. I promise you I heard every bit of air he had left in his lungs burst out through his mouth into the night air. My first reaction was to run to his side, worried that he was seriously injured. After a couple of seconds he took in a gasp of air and started groaning. As I tried to help him to his feet he shrugged me off and said in a pitiful voice, “It’s OK Chris, leave me here, you save yourself.”

  Well I just cracked up laughing. I was laughing so much I was having more trouble breathing than him. I pulled myself together and walked over to the stones, straining my eyes to see if I could figure out what the hell had just happened. I started laughing again.

  On the other side of the stones was a drop of about two feet and at the bottom of the drop was a narrow path. The path went all the way around a fenced off tennis court, it was this fence that Fred had jumped into and it had catapulted him back over the stones. We eventually made it back to the bed-sit, though we would have got there much quicker if I hadn’t had to stop every now and then to get over my giggles. Fred just held his ribs, smiled and shook his head.

  The next time I saw Fred make a mess of it was when we broke into a pub. Just up the road from Spanner’s flat was a pub with a snooker/function room. The wall of the building which ran parallel to the road had no doors or windows and, as it was his idea, I asked Fred how he figured we were going to get in. He pointed to the roof. Sat on top of the roof there was another structure, it was about three feet square with slatted wood on all four sides and its own little tiled roof. It looked something like a dove cote but turned out to be some sort of air ventilation.

  So, to set the scene for you, it was around two or three O’clock in the morning, there were four of us, Fred, my mate Mick, my younger brother Paul and I. Paul had been having his own troubles at home and had started to hang around with me as much as possible. The three of us were across the road from the building hidden amongst some trees whilst Fred was on the roof removing the slats of wood from the air vent. He called us to join him once he had cleared a way in. Paul stayed where he was keeping an eye out as Mick and I climbed up onto the roof.

  Climbing through the vent we found ourselves in a small attic space and the only thing separating us from the bar below were a few beams and some plasterwork. Without telling us what he was about to do, Fred kicked a man sized hole in the plasterwork and lowered himself through it.

  The next thing we know he disappeared and the silence that we had been trying to keep was shattered by a noise that I can only describe as deafening. Fred had made the hole over a snooker table, but above the snooker table was one of those fluorescent lights that was surrounded by a sheet metal shade. The light was ripped from the ceiling and crashed onto the snooker table just a fraction of a second before Fred landed flat on his back on top of them both. I can honestly say I have been in quieter car crashes. It was obvious that someone must have heard the commotion so Mick and I, after calling into the dark asking Fred if he was OK, started shouting at him to, “get the fuck out of there.” Now at this point you would be forgiven for thinking I’m making this shit up, I promise you I’m not and it got worse.

  In a blind panic to get out, Fred dragged the large lamp shade from the snooker table and put a circular pub table in its place. Standing on top of the round table he stretched his arms up to the hole in the ceiling and Mick and I leaned into the hole as far as we could, it wasn’t far enough, we couldn’t reach him.

  “Hang on,” shouted Fred and he jumped down before returning with a stool which he placed on top of the table that was on top of the snooker table. Mick and I could now reach him and we took hold of one arm each then hauled him up. As his torso was half way through the hole he said, “OK, you can let go now.”

  I assumed he was talking to me, sadly for Fred, Mick assumed he was talking to him. All we heard was, “Aaaarh.”

  Bang.

  “Fuck.”

  Crash.

  “Ooooooh.”

  How Fred walked out of there with no broken bones I have no idea but he managed it. Mick and I were scrambling our way off the roof, our Paul was shouting, “What the fuck has happened?” Then the burglar alarm went off as Fred, unbeknown to us, had kicked open the fire door on the other side of the building.

  The three of us were now over the road poised like athletes at the start of a long distance race. The starting pistol would either be Fred making an appearance or someone disturbed by the racket we had created. We were desperate to bugger off but we couldn’t go without Fred, though as far as we knew he could have been lying on the snooker table seriously injured. Then he showed up. Half way down the road he just appeared from nowhere, waving his arms in a gesture for us to catch him up. As petty thieves, whenever Fred was around, we were absolutely shite.

  Over the next couple of weeks I began going out on my nightly escapades either alone or with Mick and my brother Paul. It was around this time that I discovered how easy it was to steal cars, especially Fords. I had a key that I had taken from a Ford Transit, if my memory serves me right it was numbered FT218 and to my surprise it opened and started just about every Ford I tried, Transits, Escorts and my personal favourite the Capri. Now with transport we were not limited to committing crimes in and around the area where we lived, we could steal a vehicle, have a drive out for the day and at the same time have a look around for a likely place to turn over.

  It was on one of these trips out that we ended up in Selby, which is about thirty five maybe forty miles from Bradford. We had stopped for something to eat and Spanner had pointed out a dry cleaners. I had no idea what the hell use a dry cleaners was to us until I noticed that it also sold coats, lots of them, mostly leather and suede. I asked Spanner if he would be able get rid of them and he assured me he would, he didn’t say, “Yes I can,” I think it was probably more like, “Piece o’ piss.” I had a flashback of a warehouse full of friggin sweets but I kept my gob shut.

  Two days later in the very early hours I was reversing a transit van with the back doors open, up to the front door of the dry cleaners. Spanner was in the back and he shouted, “That’ll do ya,” as he banged on the side of the van.

  The day before we had nicked a wooden table from a pub beer garden and cut down the full length of it; thereby reducing the width. It was now slightly narrower than the full length pane of glass which was in the dry cleaners door.

  No sooner had I put the handbrake on than Spanner had smashed one end of the table top through the very top of the shop door window. Gravity did the rest as Spanner held on to the other end. The racket was bloody frightening and I was sat in the driver’s seat shaking like Salman Rushdie when the doorbell rings and desperate for a pee. The table top was now a ramp running from the back of the van to the floor inside the shop. The plan had been for us to rush in to the shop, grab what we could and get the hell out of there. By the time I had climbed into the back of the van Spanner had noticed that all the rails of coats were on wheels and he was already pushing one rail up the ramp. I grabbed hold of the other end and pulled it into the van as Spanner went back for the next one. It seemed to take forever to get all the rails in and after about six of them I was urging Spanner to leave the rest and let’s bugger off sharpish. He was having none of it.

  I guess it took no more than about two minutes or so but it seemed a damn sight longer to me. Once the last one was in I jumped back into the driver’s seat, drove the van forward slightly a
nd Spanner slammed the back doors shut. I could see him via the wing mirror strolling as calmly as you like alongside the van, digging into his pockets for his fags and then climbing into the passenger seat.

  “Let’s go Chris,” he said, as he lit up two cigarettes, “and there’s no rush, just take your time, save the Stirling Moss routine until the coppers chase us.”

  He passed me one of the cigs and I have to say I had real trouble taking hold of it I was shaking that much. His comment about the coppers chasing us made me even worse. Up to that point I had never been in a car chase, I didn’t want to be in a car chase and I was pretty sure I could get us both fucking killed in a car chase. Luckily for the pair of us, there was no car chase.

  The drive back to Bradford was uneventful and we managed to get the gear into Spanner’s place without anyone taking any interest in us. True to his word, Spanner managed to off load all the coats. It only took him about a week to shift the lot and we split the money between us. I was hoping there was going to be something funny in my relating of that event, I’m quite disappointed now, maybe we should have taken Fred with us.

  With part of my share I put down a month’s deposit on a bed sit of my own. I didn’t get any argument from the woman in the office when I told her I was sixteen, she showed me the bed-sit, I showed her the cash and she gave me the rent book and key. As much fun as it was living at Spanner’s and as grateful as I was to him for putting me up, I really wanted my own place. Though I didn’t have much furniture I remember standing in the middle of the room and looking around with a big grin on my face. I was fourteen, I had my own place, albeit a dingy bed sit and I had cash in my pocket. I was on my way, I could do this. I was sure I could do it, I was wrong, again.

  Within two days of getting the bed-sit I was arrested at a bus stop. An unmarked car pulled up about ten feet from the stop and two men walked calmly towards me. At first I took no real notice of them but by the time I had realised they were coppers it was too late to run. With each copper holding one of my arms they asked me my name.