secondary school, capter 1

This might turn out to be a small chapter as i didn't really do much. I was a small quiet lad, in a big loud school. I came from a school of about 100 people to about 1,400 pupils and again i was one of the smallest and youngest. i didnt smoke or drink, or take drugs so i wasn't in their crew, i didn't steal so i wern't in that one but the main thing was that i was from the 'jock'. and bedworth and the jock was in constant war with each other....

many times we made the front page for being in 'gang welfare' and it wasn't nice because now i had to go to school with them at nicholas chamberlaine! i wanted to go where my friends were at ashgreen, but my mum had moved house and the ashgreen school was too far away.

this got me off to a bad start, being in small fights or being bullyed by the older lads which was hard at times. not really talking to any one was a routine in my average day. as time went by i started to stand up for myself a little more and began to 'lose it' in little scraps. the thing was that when someone trys to bully you, all they want is a reaction and i could never give that as like before, i had been hit by a bigger and harder man than them so i was used to it and it never bothered me but i would bottle it up so WHEN i did explode i would blank out and just do things that wern't normal for a school boy to do...
the main events that i remember is once when some kid had started on me and i didn't retaliate so he kept on hitting, till i turned round and punched him in the throut and tried choking him.
that got me a detention and a letter home.
then once a lad tryed winding me up in technology by throwing small bits of wood at me, bout the size of a dice. Till i picked up the biggest block of wood i could find and smashed him over the head with it.... that got me susspended.
then there was a lad who (as i smoked by this time) tried to steal my fags and kept punching me till i gave in and gave them to him, but in the end as a final resort i put his head through a classroom window in the maths corridor and split his face in half . I was lucky not to get kicked out for that..

the thing was, that i had a lot of anger inside me which i didn't show but i was kind, and people take kindness as a weakness and didn't realise that the people around me were on 'thin ice'.

i still wasn't classed as hard(and i didn't want to be) but people would treat me differently. i was always honest though, and i kept my word. it reminds me as when a couple of lads in sixth form, ie: the oldest in the school were kicking the football at me when i was having a smoke round the back of the sports hall , so i turned round and said,

''if you do that again then i'l pop it''

so they laughed and kicked it at me, so i grabed the ball and took my compass from my pencil case and popped the fucking ball, then put it in the bin and walked off...

going back to my anger isuse's, i had questions i wanted to ask my dad about my past but i couldnt, as he died of heart desease in 1992(when i was just 12years old) an this is what channeled my anger in some degree because thats when i fell apart. but to add to that i had a new stepdad that even though he never touched my mum, he used to beat on me and he was bigger than my real father..(his storys will follow)

through out secondary school i just kept on getting into more trouble and i just couldn't wait to leave. i was out of control, swearing at teachers, smashing windows, throwing tables and chairs during lesson because i found questions hard to answer. you name it ? i had done it. but when the besst day of my life came, (the last day of school) i was nowhere to be seen...

last day of school

the last day off school is always something to remember, and belive me i did.
i was in hospital!!!
it started the night before and a guy i know as steave was having trouble with his ex-girlfriend as her new partner would not let him see his daughter and on the last occasion of him going round his baby mothers house,in percil avenue(nuneaton) the lad was waiting for him in the ally leading to the back entrance of the house with a knife...

he grabbed steave and put the blade to his throut and warned him 'never to come round again'

well, as soon as we heard this then that was it. we got some boys together and two cars drove to nuneaton in search of these lads. we knew roughly where they would be so just drove round a couple of times till we found them. we left the cars in the middle of the road,(still running) and charged down to the park area where they were hanging out.there was quite a few,more than us but many of them fled like rabbits into bushes and over fence's and the one that stayed, including the one we wanted got one hell of a kicking..

like i said, i wasn't hard but i was honest and loyal. and steave was our boy.

on the way back to the ticking cars we noticed groups of men coming out of random houses, so we paced harder, then they ran, so did we.

the first car was a pergeot GTI , that was off! the second was a XR3i and my mate jumped in first and i had to sit on his lap as there was no time to click the seat foward again..

but as i closed the door and shouted ''GO, GO, GO''

the seat belt got caught in the door so it would not close properly. so i held it shut.

as we were in full wheel-spin action with smoke coming from both wheel arches,

'BOOM'

the back windows go through!!!

then we get grip and 'BOOM' there goes my side, hiting me over the head.

the door wich i was holding flung open and i fall out holding onto the front seat with my legs dragging on the concrete..

i'm shouting ''Keep Going, Keep Going''

then the final hit..................'BOOOOM'.

the drivers side goes through and the already, unsteady car swerves a glass goes in his face and we colide with a parked Green Montego( i only know this from the police report)

an the door slams on me crushing my legs and i'm sent flyin over two parked cars an left for dead in the middle of the road.

i remember wakeing up and trying to stand to my feet saying i was ok, with people surrounding me. but i just fall back down. i remember wakeing up again, but this time i'm in hospital....

Introduction- abit about me.

i was just a normal kid growing up, never over populer but always liked. i started my life in longford,coventry on a street named Jackers road with my mother and farther (dianne and steve). i dont remember much but i know times were hard epsecialy with my dads drinking,
but we carried on. it was then that we moved to a housing estate called Bedworth heath but know as the Jock estate, this was because there was a pit where before my time the scotish came to work. our house was on school lane (the nice part) and i went to Newdigate first shool at the top of the estate (the rough part). it was there that i remember my dad drinking rather heverly and i remember the violence getting worse towards my mother and myself. this carried on for quite some time and got worse and worse. some off the things i remember i really dont want to talk about but maybe you get the picture of how bad it really was....
finally enough was enough and my parents split and my dad moved out,(we'l get back to him later) eventually my mother and i had to move out as the bills were too high for a single parent so we moved closer to my school on newdigate road. this was like boarder line to the rough area, as soon as you got on the corner of mavor drive and walked up abit, each step you took you could see more and more boards over the windows and broken glass. cars that were burnt out and just left there or a couple of kids smashing it up abit more with bricks and sticks, bikes left in the middle of the road all bent up, not wanted, just left there. i was in middle school by now and just the usual, getting in to trouble with teachers and having detentions. all kids go through it just maybe more than others but at that age life is like a game of football, you win some games and you lose some. You get detention, you don't , you smash the window that yr aiming for with the football or you dont, you get caught or you don't its all the same. the same goes for fighting i surpose as in you win or lose and even at a young age i had seen some fights and had a couple myself but it wasnt like today where you just run up and smack someone, oh no this was planed to the finest detail , who was fighting who and wot time and where. and if your mum was picking you up from school then we would arange for the next day and so on. we would always meet half hay down mavor drive at an alley we called The jitty' we would have watchers at either end and some over the bigger lads ontop of the garages keeping an eye out incase anyone was going to join in, then they would jump down warn them off.
i had been down there a few times. i lost once to this lad and i dont know why, i just bottled out because he was bigger than me and he was the oldest in the school, i think that blew my confidence. he just hit me a few times then walked off with his mates laughing because my nose started to bleed..
i walked back home with my best mate Paul and was asking me why i didnt fight back and that age wasn't everything an size didn't mean a thing either. so when i got home i told my mum that i would walk home again the next day as Paul mum had invited me for some tea. And so be it!!!
the next day this lad came up to me and asked me if i enjoyed my beating an i replyed
''it was ok, but i've had better'' well i had (my dad) he may have been the oldest in the school and bigger than me but he wasn't a 5'11'' 13stone alcoholic.... and because of my cheeky remark he asked if i wanted to tell my mum not to pick me up so we could fight and i turned round and said that i had already done it.... you should have seen his face. it was like david and galierth, and the fight was on.
at 3:30 when the bell went we all got ready fast and the whole school ran down to the jitty and lined up for the rematch, watchers at each end and older boys on the roofs ready to pounce,.
and that it , he grabbed me by the jumper and pulled it over my head so i couldnt see and began punching, even at a young age we were dirty fighters. so i took my jumper off and charged at him and practicaly close-lined him to the floor and started kicking in the face to keep him down and once he was completely on his back i couldn't stop , i had to be pulled off by my friend Paul because i was stamping on his face,. and that was that , he never hit me again infact i dont think i saw him for about a month at school.
then it was time to leave that school, and go to secondary school..
Nicholas Chamberlaine and we moved house to Exhall. but thats another story...................

Prologue.

It was a late night in Nuneaton town center and myself and close friend 'Shane' were leaveing a pub/club in the heart of the night spot. It had been a busy night going to different bars and clubs, chatting to every nice bird we could see. But as always, it came to an end.
So me and shane left towards the taxi rank and stopped at the same old bus stop to shade ourselfs from the rain and to perform the same old ''do a joint and wait for cab'' routein when shane decided he wanted a burger.. I tried to put him of the idea as i did not want to walk and get wet but he insisted, and i insisted to wait in the dry..
i watched him stagger up the road bumping into things and just thought to myself, 'why bother' and smiled.. just as he got to the burger bar, and still in view i noticed two lads who were once behind him on his staggering mission to the burger van had caught up with him and one was in front(person1) of shane with the other behind(person2)...
i thought to myself 'here we go!' and slowly started to walk up. I wasn't in any great rush as i new shane could handle himself even in that state.
buy the time i got there person2 had moved away a little in my direction, but didn't see me and person1 was still infront using theatening jestures with his hands. that was it! I was ready...
I walked straight past person2 and placed my hand on person1's chest to get my distance and as soon as he looked at me, 'BOOM' he took of in the air like Superman flying backwards and hit the deck hard and that sound of his head hitting the ground i will never forget.
then, turning quickly i grabbed with my right hand person2 who had come behind and 'BOOM' with my left. He also hit the deck but was not knocked out, but as he got on to his first knee slowly trying to get up i took one step back and again 'BOOM' i got him straight in the jaw with a size nine Rockport boot and that was it 'game over' i remember shane looking at me smiling and then both of us looking at two unconcious heaps on the floor...
That was the first time i had ever knocked someone out and i done it twice in the same night..
i felt good, it felt good! to have that control over someones state of mind, but that was just one occasion in my life where things got tuff and i had to make a dession, maybe not always 'right' or 'wrong' but just a way of life.. My life in the eyes of crime.