In The Words of Geoffrey Boycott:
He’s Out
It’s the 21st of September 1991, Armenia has just been granted independence, American track and field athlete Jordan Hasay was born (according to Wikipedia) and it’s the international day of piece. Also There was a James Bond movie on the telly, I know that because that’s the reason my dad was 5 minutes late for my birth. And In The words of Geoffrey Boycott, He was out!. I imagine my birth to be like something out of Casualty, with blood and lots of sweating doctors runners around using big Latin words . However it turns out the images in my head are wrong and the only thing remotely interesting was some rather strong language from my mum (for some bizarre reason).
My full name is James Nigel (don’t say anything) Martin named after the famous Formula 1 driver Nigel James Mansell (My dads idea) if my dad had his way my first name would be Nigel but my mum put her foot down (Thank God).
No doubt over the following few months I was being passed from relative to relative like some parcel at a child’s birthday party. No doubt I was bought enough clothes to stock every Oxfam shop this side of Watford. However this also meant a few boring months not containing much excitment.
Untill one day......
The Severance
The story of why my right thumb is bigger than my left.
My dad is a fan of DIY, now being a fan of DIY is very different to being good at DIY, for example Brunel was good at DIY because most of his work never killed or seriously injured someone. However my dad is not Brunel so when he decided that he was going to re do the hallway it was met with an air of sceptisism. But for a few days all was going well, The walls were stripped, Doors sanded etc. But a construction site no matter how small is very dangerous for a one and a half year old as a result i had always been kept well away. However this particular day I decided to go exploring (Even Ranulph Fiennes had to start somewhere) So off I walked into the hallway. My mum (who was making bolgnese sauce at the time) said she was first alerted to a problem when she heard loud screams and screeches coming from the hallway. She rushed into the hall to find I'd pulled a loose radiator off the wall and onto my thumb and it was hanging on by a thread (my thumb not the radiator). So my mum in what she describes as "caring mother mode" (otherwise know as a blind panic) wrapped my thumb tightly in a tea towel ( I know what your thinking and no Florence Nightingale). At that moment my dads boss came round to drop off my dad's wages, So he did his good samaritan role and rushed us up to the hospital, Where my dad arrived shortly later.
In the hospital (and at this point I would like to add that despite being a toddler with half of his thumb missing and a blood stained tea towel wrapped around my hand we still had to wait a good three hours, But I suppose that's Blairs Britain for you) Now where was I?...Oh yes In the hospital the Nurses were quite shocked at just how well a tea towel from the Shetland Isles can absob so much blood. Never the less they managed to stitch my thumb back up (I dont want to sound harsh but it does look like Abu Hamza had stitched it up with his hook!).But the Important thing is my thumb was back together, Later my gran rushed round with chocolate and sweets becaus they had run out of Morphine and Paracetamol at the Spa.
Burlington and the dreaded Blue playground
There I was stood bolt upright, chest out. My bright green jumper glistened (sort of), my black trousers didn't, My shiny new shoes were polished up like a mirror, and my hair was neat. My mum adjusted my collar and waved me goodbye as I joined the other kids as we all lined up outside Burlington Infants School ready for our first step on the path to success. I knew a few of the people their; Matt , Jordan and Wayne so I wasn't a complete stranger. We were greeted by a tall thin man called Mr Lee who was the headteacher at the time, I'll always remember him not only because he was a nice guy but also because of the Roald Dahl book The Vicar Of Nibbleswicke where a tall thin vicar called Robert Lee is diagnosed as being dyslexic which leads to various mishaps and capers over the prununciation of the words 'god' and 'sip'. But i dont suppose that's important. Mr Lee took us all to our classroom where we met our fellow classmates and teachers. Our teacher was Mrs Simpson who looked more like a rugby player than a teacher-Think Lawrence Dallaglio meets Dame Edna. Mrs Simpson was a nice teacher (until Rachel had the infamous chair wetting incident, Now known as The Wetter Gate scandal!)
One of the features of Burlington was blue playground which was a small area of blue stuff which was meant to be softer than concrete so if any of the first years fell over they wouldn't end up seriously injured. But we were only allowed to use it on our first and last breaks so at lunchtime we had to use the BIG playground (ooooooooohhhh). It was on the BIG playground where I met Ashley S, And Matthew W, -I didn't know it then but these two would get me into big trouble many years later.
Burlington was alright really, It was there someone realised how crap my eyesight is and that meant I had to have visit's from Mrs Pecora (Mother of former Aston Villa goalkeeper Antoni who now play's for North Ferriby) She would give me eye test's which meant I got to miss a few lessons and I got to go in the staffroom. Now when your young you think that the staffroom will be a grotto filled with mood ligting, bottles of champagne and exotic dancing ladies........It wasn't far off that ok there was no Mood lighting or dancing ladies but there was a few half empty bottles of Jack Daniels.
Tights, Skirts I wore them all
Soon though came the time where I had to make the move from Burlington Infants to Burlington Primary, This mean't a different set of buildings, different teachers, proper lesson's like science and maths and not just playing in a sand pit and reading Bif and Chip. It also meant we had to do swimming with Mrs Williams, now I dont swim well i'm more of a depth swimmer than a legnth swimmer. But it gave me a chance to be a bit creative with my excuses (apparently Saturday night fever wont stop you swimming especially first thing on a Wednesday). Also at Burlington Primary we had proper school dinners they weren't very good in fact they were so bad they put me off for life and I have never eaten school dinners since. However there was a plus side Mrs Bradley who was one of the nice dinner ladies and she didn't force you to sit and eat if you didn't want to. (The funny thing is this summer I ended up working with Mrs Bradley husband who's a joiner -It's a small world but you wouldn't want to paint it)
At Burlington they also had a weird fixation with theme days (like a pub) The first of which was a Tudor day we had to come dressed up as Tudors and prat around for the day. I dont know which Tudor I came dressed as but I know he wore tights and a large stupid collar. We had a huge Tudor banquet,Our headteacher Mr O Rielly was Henry VIII (the resemblance is uncanny) But that was where any similarities with the Tudor's ended as I very much doubt the reason Anne Boylen was killed was becauseshe would't pass Henry the plate of crisps, i'm also pretty sure the Tudors didn't have sausages on sticks and lumps of cheese on sticks.
They also liked performing plays at Burlington and after getting thrown off the nativity on the first night for saying there wasroom at the inn, And not getting a part in Bugsey Malone I was determined to land a place in the Twelth Night (at least I think it was that one, The one were the guy says "if music be the food of love") Anyway I wanted to play Malvolio but teachers pet Ben got that role. But the good news is they must have realised my cosiderable acting talent as I got a part
I was delighted, Until I got the script that is, Would you like to guess how many lines I got? 20? 50? 300? NO I got 1 line 1 BLOODY LINE!. But it was my line and I was determined to make it my own. My role was the vicar and my line was, wait for it.......(drum role please) "I pronounce you man and wife". I did toy with the idea of improving my line and maybe delivering it through the medium of interprative dance or going through the whole wedding vow procedings (But i'm sure Bill Shakespeare doesn't need my help). I was even more annoyed when I saw my costume, It was a huge white T-Shirt, a black skirt and a sparkly head dress that was unfolded and draped over my shoulders. But i'm convinced I got the biggest laugh of the night when I came on sporting a Freddy Mercury style fake moustache that Callum had dared me to wear. Oddly enough I was never asked to do anymore shows after that but I did have to mime a song during a production of Joseph.
