The who, what, where, when, and the how.
The who: I was Born 1956 when the industrial midlands was in full manufacturing mode large motorvehivle manufacturing plants Austin, British Leyland, Land Rover, and Jaguar, and the small artisan workshops providing hand made parts to a global consumer. My father worked in an office, an accountant while mom worked harder building my brother and I a home.
No early memories until I was about eight or nine, then life came into focus. I remember losing the nail on my right thumb after a playground accident. It had received such a clout it had swollen to almost twice its normal size. I was rushed by public bus screaming and howling to the local hospital, where a nurse used a straightened paper clip heated over a small burner of some sort until it glowed red, and pushed into the nail burning a hole to relive the growing pressure in my thumb. With tears and snot running down my face, blood all over the nurse’s apron bandage after bandage applied until my thumb was the size of my younger brother’s foot. No anaesthetic, no pain relief, not even a sticker to tell the world how brave I had been. I did get the promise of a bag of sweets if I stopped howling. They never materialised; it was back to school for the afternoon.
I like most kids growing up in the 60’s there was not a lot of money but an awful lot of love. Mom had made her mind up that my brother and I would not grow up with a Birmingham accent so words like ‘ain’t’, and ‘gonna’, and the multitude of verbs and adjectives bastardised by the Birmingham accent were forbidden, at home.
Non school days were outside by eight thirty, rain or shine, we patrolled the streets like feral gang’s, short trousers fair isle jumpers, and wellington boots that would cut a bright red wheal around the leg. Pockets would be full of string, sweets, a matchbox with something that had legs, a sheath knife if you had one could be worn on the belt, without several armed police officers flopping on you in the middle of the street. Mine had a bone handle and blunt like a butter knife. How I got it or where it went, I do not know.
My early education began well enough Bishop Ryder school, Gosta Green, a suburb of Birmingham that has been swallowed up by the university of Aston in Birmingham. For anyone that remembers 
it was opposite the big fire station see the picture. The family moved there when I was seven or eight, can’t be sure. The school itself was good but unremarkable, failed my eleven plus exam and was pushed of to a secondary school at the same time the family moved from the tenement we were living in to a council house in Perry Common, Capillano road (it doesn’t exist anymore) Warren Farm secondary school, this is where corporal punishment and I got acquainted, other subjects such as French were introduced. After my first year the family moved yet again to the salubrious suburb of Four Oaks in Sutton Coldfield. And this is where my education fell off a cliff, after completing my first year at Warren Farm l was moved to Arthur Terry comprehensive. First day of the new year, new shoes, new tie and blazer. Smart as a pin however despite my mother’s best efforts my Birmingham accent prevailed. To compound maters bureaucracy took a hand and lost all my school records.
With nothing of my school record to refer to they decided I should go to the bottom forms to asses my academic status. In other words. ‘he’s from Birmingham so he must be thick’ the housemaster I later discovered was an alcoholic, decided that he would tell the entire class I was (ESN) not knowing what that meant I asked. It means you are Educationally Sub Normal.
And that was probably the most destructive thing any one has ever said, because I can still remember how worthless it made me feel more than half a century later. Many years later I understood the impact of those words on a thirteen year old boy when I studied psychology as part of my training as a clinical therapist.
So school was absolute purgatory for me. Teachers trying to teach and me stoically refusing to learn, after all why should I? I had been branded according to their template. So I left with nothing.
Arguments with my father about my future were a constant. But I had a plan. He told me I had to have a career so I was enrolled into the Birmingham college of food and domestic arts and began training as a chef. I hated it but it was useful knowledge. I have continued to enjoy the process of cooking for myself and friends. It was also a good fallback and came in useful on two or three occasions. However the clock continued to tick.
I think it was the March or April of 1973 I joined the army. The troubles as they were called were in full flow. Being under eighteen years of age I needed at least one parent to agree to my being trained as a high visibility target. So with my Enlistment forms in hand and in need of a signature, I had already passed the medical and academic test without telling anyone. I took control of my life.
A ferocious argument with my father and much pleading by my mother were not enough to shift my desire to join. It would get me away from an unhappy home life and begin something I had always wanted to do. Eventually my mother capitulated and signed the form.
As was normal my father told me I had made another wrong or bad choice. This was his default setting for all of my childhood. Many years later I was to discover why. My father is now 93 years old and we have been able to rebuild a relationship.
The army: All documentation in place, my first port of call it was a Monday morning St Georges barracks, Sutton Coldfield. So enthusiastic about my choices, dad went off to work mom cried, I caught the train, two stops, and a bus.
Induction was a mixture of kit issue, boots etc some lectures, a little marching and PT in the gym for the next three days. Then Thursday morning train warrant in hand, a group of us were packed off with a packed lunch to Aldershot. I had enlisted in the parachute regiment So on arival we were met by a corporal Denison smock with wings and DZ flashes, scrim net scarf, horseshoe moustache, topped off with a maroon beret with the silver parachute regiment badge. Lots of please and thank you gentlemen, on the bus to Browning baracks where we were met by those who would be our training team.
get settled in lads tommorow we will get together after breakfast have a look round and show you whats what.
The next six days was some gentle PT some running and climbing over things learning to march around the barracks as a group, and some regimental history. Then a return warrant home a months wages and told to be back here in three weeks while they build up the full platoon.
Mom got a bag of washing, while my father told me it wasnt the same bloody army he joined in 1952 “I got six weeks training and was sent to Egypt to live in a tent for two years.” I pointed out that I had volentered and he was conscripted. Maybe the army had changed. No he was right and I was wrong, and that was the first time i ever swore in front of my mother when I told him to “just fuck off “
To be continued…