Secrets And Styes

Chapter 1: New beginnings

One week after my First Confession and Communion, I finally relaxed into being seven. Everything in my world was changing, becoming new. Our money had changed, something the adults were fretful about. But I loved this new money called decimal: golden, shiny new coins that glistened like a King's Ransom.

The house where we lived, a small Victorian Terrace in Salford, Manchester, was to be demolished. So: Mam, Dad, my brother, sister, and I were moving to a spanking new house, on a Council Estate called Paddock Field.

Of course, it was neither a paddock nor a field. Instead, it was a scattering of swiftly built breezeblock boxes, all finished off with a splattering of dazzling white pebbledash. But to me, the place looked positively palatial.

Mam and Dad brought us for the inaugural viewing of our new house on a grey summer's day. Dad opened the door, and we three kids ran in. The rapturous whoops and fevered excitement from my brother and sister instantly lit up the sterile, empty space.

Me, I stood silently open-mouthed in the oblong living room, overwhelmed by its modernity. Dad stooped to my level, "What do you think, Son?" I scanned the place, searching for the right words, "Dad, it's like a Space-Age-House." He chuckled and stood up, shaking his head, "You're right there, Son, sher I'd say it was built on another planet," he said, thumping a hollow, plaster-board wall.

"What do you mean?" I asked, thrilled by the thought that our new house may have been built on Mars.

Dad, a passionate Irish builder who was proud of his brick-laying prowess, explained, "There's no skill in their making; they're mostly made somewhere else, trucked in and assembled, they're not built." He looked at me, "You'd build a better house with your Lego."

I lowered my head to hide a sudden onset of shame. I hated Lego; my playing with it was a sham – to please Dad.

......

1972 was also the year that colour came into my life – via television.

I sprinted home from school, thrust by my thirst to watch Blue Peter drenched in colour. I dived through the door to see my brother, Dermot (five years older and fearless), lying on the floor, fiddling with a knob on the telly, "What are you doing?" I asked, slightly panicked.

"Calm it, I'm getting the colour right."

"But what if you break it? Please leave it alone," I pleaded.

Dermot was accustomed to my angst-ridden histrionics and carried on with his colour correcting while I wrung my hands and paced the room, worried he'd inadvertently botch my first coloured Blue Peter.

But he pulled back just as the opening peels of the nautical theme tune began.

I dropped to my knees, transfixed.

Then I saw them in glorious full colour: my beloved triumvirate of presenters and their pets. But something wasn't quite right. My face must have dropped because Dermot asked, "What's up? Is the colour too strong?"

My focus remained on the telly, "Look at Shep," I said, incredulous. "I am. What's up with him?"

"He's black and white!"

"Yep, there aren't no multi-coloured dogs for colour telly, our kid."

My disappointment was profound, and I made a mental note to write to producer Biddy Baxter, questioning her decision to choose a black and white dog when everybody was getting colour tellies.

......

Now, at this time, I had two passions: Beauty Pageants and Horror Films. I would watch both with equal awe and fascination.