I awoke early it was Monday 31st July 2001 and I was to start my new job today after two petrifying interviews by a lovely lady I would later refer to as “The Lady Who Must Be Obeyed”….
The first interview was almost a blur in my memory, but I do distinctly remember getting dressed up in my best suite which was covered in cat hairs and fleas from our dog, Mrs Boley and by the time I reached Hogwarts was covered in mud and grass stains after my walk up Quarry Lane which was the only approach to the strange building after trying to avoid numerous wagons which came hurtling towards me.
On the entrance to the reception I met my future councillor who provided me with a drink of water (which most of ended up on the floor due to my nervous demeanour) while she went to summon the Lady Who Must Be Obeyed who would later become my future boss.
The interview was a pretty standard affair however I had to give my usual well thought out answers, “Well Michael, where do you see yourself in 5 years time?”
“I don’t know probably dead the way things are going” I replied
“Do you think you will fit in well as part of our team?” she enquired further
“Well I have met your receptionist and she was very accommodating” I replied.
I left the interview fairly certain I wouldn’t be seeing Hogwarts Castle again and trudged back down the road to the bus stop – I hated interviews, bullsh*t baffles brains I think comes to mind.
I was most surprised when I was invited back for a second attempt to humiliate myself again and on this occasion I was to meet the person who I would soon be working with called “The Computer Cowboy”
“The Computer Cowboy”
My first immediate thoughts of him was that he seemed very computer literate and also very much under the command of “The Lady Who Must Be Obeyed” hence her name, he did not seem over keen to have me as his new assistant but did not appear to have any choice in the matter.
Needless to say I managed to somehow talk my way through the second interview which I claimed to be a champion crown green bowler and award winning cyclist which by some coincidence was what The Computer Cowboys hobbies were before he became a resistance leader against The Empire which had recently consumed Hogwarts along with another three Brick Manufacturing establishments.
So here I was on my first day on the local 202 bus which would take me from Bradley to the bottom of Quarry Road which led to Hogwarts, so apprehensive of my first day that I was trembling more and more as the bus approached the end of the hour long journey.
All I knew then about making bricks was by the way of a TV program I had watched once which said they were made by drying clay in moulds in the sun on the banks of the Nile but this was a few thousand years ago and I was most surprised when I found out later on my first and only tour of a brickworks that little had changed in the ensuing millennia
When I arrived at the vast sprawling castle that was Hogwarts I was quickly ushered in the back way into a small office that had no windows by The Computer Cowboy and introduced to the machine that would dominate the next few years of my life.
Coming from a Labouring background despite being a Graduate and having a HNC in computer programming I was well versed in the theory but had very little practice of using my brain I was also completely alien to office life.
I realise now that they had needed someone quiet but able to concentrate for long periods in order to learn the complex systems that The Computer Cowboy had developed using MS Access and MS Excel so that meaningful reports could be obtained from a newly installed computer system called BaaN.
I simply could not believe it, here was a golden opportunity for me to use all the knowledge I had developed and put it into practice at last a chance to use my brain with a patient and knowledgeable teacher like The Cowboy.
I silently thanked my Guardian Angel Dripping Tap for allowing me this opportunity and I promised him I would grasp it with both hands, previous to this I had been wasting away quite literally floating about. (See Diary Entry “My Guardian Angel”)
I also could not quite believe even in my naïve state of business knowledge that a company with a turnover in excess of 50 million credits per annum was relying on high street software packages to provide them with information!
As if this was all enough for me on my first day I was introduced to Hermanie who was my tour guide for Hogwarts and taken round the sales office, I cannot remember who everyone was since this was over three years ago and people , many people have come and gone since.
I do remember being introduced to a girl called John Herbert (aka Probocop) at least that is what I thought Hermanie had said but in my nervous state I don’t think it clicked that this was a boys name.
I was next introduced to a blond haired fortune teller looking girl called Boots who claimed she did not fit in since she was not a manufactured i-bot like the bricks produced at this establishment and she said she had gained her nickname from her reputation with her treatment of her rosebushes when she finally arrived home after another hard day being brainwashed.
Then there was Dita, “Ill be your mistress tonight she said seductively” she had long black hair and a lovely bum who along with Talula Bell were the most Madonna like characters of the sales team.
There was Ibot-Master Peaker, Ibot-Mistress Eastern and Ibot-Mistress Western the three team leaders of the respective parts of Great Britain which was they’re areas, the Peaker area has now been found to no longer exist hence its recent disappearance.
E-bot (Also known as Girders) was another i-bot but had a somewhat Scottish accent and Little Miss Nancy was very quiet and prim and proper sat in the corner on her neat little desk next to Tokyo Yoko
There were other sales i-bots but they have since left in the three years since I was introduced to them all by Hermanie.
Hermanie came across to me as a very confident girl, who would certainly speak her mind especially when she took me over to the corner the home of a very depressed looking chap who reminded me of Marti Pellow, “This is our Despatch area” she said introducing me to him and his partner.
I was taken then into the central admin to meet Hamster man our Purchase Manager and his assistant, two other females were also present in the office one had what I could only describe as a very aerodynamic hairstyle and the other looked like June off the soap opera about an very unfortunate police force.
Hermanie seemed very friendly and quite nice looking in fact after all the females I had seen today I felt a little faint I was quite looking forward to a bit of peace so I could go into one of my OBE states and see them all a little better.
Following this I was deposited back with the Computer Cowboy in the office that was like a prison cell, with very little initial work to do I was left to read magazines about bricks which came in all shapes and sizes.
The Computer Cowboy was looking a little angry after a visit from our Sales Director who I came to know as Del-Boy because he reminded me of someone you might find on a market stall.
Indeed I think so did the Computer Cowboy the way he was kicking the wall of his office repeatedly shouting at nobody in particular “Fackin Barrowboy, Apples and Pairs twenty pence a pound oranges 30 pence were practically giving them away ..”
Next Mr Boswell popped his head round the door to see if I was ready for the factory tour, he was the works manager and in charge of all the practical aspects of the bricks he also by the way wore odd shoes.
“there we have the extruder, where all the clay is brought in on little wheelbarrows and put in this gigantic mixer”
In front of us was a giant food mixer.
“All those little fellows over there get a handful of this lovely mixture and put it in them moulds over there and then they are put in a big oven on gas mark No 6 for several days”
Mr Boswell escorted me over to the de-hacker before continuing..
“Over here on the dehacker we have Magnum & Super strike who sample the bricks then go and talk about them for hours on end in the many meetings which take place around here”
Mr Boswell popped another of his Prozac tablets before continuing…
“This he said is the brick detective agency” signalling with his arm to small hut at the end of the line
“it is under the guidance of Inspector Clueso, Mr Crusoe’s job is to keep track of where the bricks have gone and this is not has easy as you might at first think considering our wonderful BaaN database would always try its best to make them disappear this itself is a job open to frustration”
“I put them down that oyle cock but they say they’ve gone off the yard – somerts wrong” he was saying looking concerned at a wide eyed headmaster (oh sorry he wasn’t here then)
This brought to end my first day at Hogwarts.
The Computer Cowboy trained me how to create BaaN codes for the many millions of combinations of special bricks that could be sold and how to enter the production figures from each of the four sites which was a job in itself considering the fact that you had only one chance.
I realise now that Hogwarts totally depended on The Computer Cowboy at this time and it was my job to remember what he did and provide a backup service should he fall sick or go on holiday.
Even with my background of having a Physics degree and an HNC in computer programming I feel I had learned more from The Computer Cowboy than I have learned from anyone at any time in my life.
The coming months after I started I would spend hours with a huge 700+ page book on Access and Excel repeatedly practising queries and forms in order to relieve the pressure from The Computer Cowboy.
I also continued to enter the production figures every day with nearly 100% accuracy since like I said BaaN gave you only one chance, I even developed a database which would compensate for any errors which found there way through the system.
It was by now nearly Christmas 2002 and It was about this time when we started going on wild parties, The first being a memorable trip on the River Ouse at York by way of a canal barge.
The second was a drinking session around Wakefield in memory of one of the sales i-bots who was leaving and by now I had finally met my future wife “The Gregarious One” who had just started employment at Hogwarts along with another black haired individual called Shanghai Sue
It was the first time I had found my guardian angel since leaving Sellers and promising he would not interfere with my life but he did possess my body to a round of applause for dancing to “Reach” by S Club Seven.
I think that it was at this point “The Lady Who Must Be Obeyed” realised I was nuts and sent me to see the company psychiatrist who had his diary full until sometime in 2005 but agreed to fit me in imminently.
I told the psychiatrist of my love for the Gregarious One and this was the person who I would one day marry and live happily ever after but he seemed to think I was a little puddled.
It was just after Christmas in the year 2002 when I and the Computer Cowboy were joined by Hermanie who became a wizard at the new analysis tool developed by the empire called Proclarity.
Proclarity had a very limited ability to produce reports for Hogwarts due to it being too standardised for the Empire it was better described as a simplistic analysis tool for Sales Directors in fact it would take an infinite number of “cubes” to be on par with Microsoft Access but we were all forced to believe in it.
It was by now approaching the summer of 2003 and The Computer Cowboy was becoming incredibly stressed he was repeatedly interrogated late into the evening by Darth Vador who was The Emperors sidekick about Hogwarts non standard systems.
It was also around this time when Darth Vador chose Harry Potter to become the new FD of Hogwarts but it did not happen in real time for another year.
The Computer Cowboy would frequently lose his temper after having many sleepless nights when he would be pestered by phone calls from Harry who seemed to think he was doing dodgy deals.
In there own subtle way I think The Empire finally put the seeds of death into The Computer Cowboy when they advertised that our new Supply Chain Manager was starting
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Headmaster – SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGER
CLAY PRODUCTS DIVISION
I am pleased to advise that The Headmaster will be joining us on 7th April to take up the position of Supply Chain Manager within the Hogworts Division, reporting to the undersigned.
The Headmaster has over 20 years experience of Supply Chain Management within the FMCG and building materials sectors.
The primary purpose of The Headmaster’s role will be to review the Hogworts’ Supply Chain where we presently undertake a number of individual key processes (for example, Sales Forecasting, Production Planning, Purchasing, Inventory Control and Distribution) that, within themselves, each present considerable scope for efficiency improvements.
Moreover, many of these processes are currently largely undertaken independently by discrete functional or departmental areas without due consideration for the impacts they create in aligned aspects of our, and our customers’, businesses.
We believe that by removing both the horizontal and vertical departmental barriers between these processes, not only would we achieve the desired efficiency improvements more rapidly but also they will be multiplied beyond our expectations.
I am sure that you will join with me in congratulating The Headmaster on his appointment and providing him with your full support in his key and demanding position.
Before this however The Computer Cowboy was losing interest in his many Access Databases he had set up to keep track of things, It was by now Easter 2003 and we were all well aware that things were about to change.
Big Brother became our new MD with his mission along with The Headmaster to sort Hogwarts out and this resulted in the Computer Cowboy doing a runner and going on long term sick to leave poor Mad Mick in charge of all his crazy systems.
It was left up to myself and Hermanie to carry on however Hermanie had specialised her knowledge of Proclarity, I realised I had no backup with regards to the complex system of production entry I turned to the newly recruited Headmaster for help.
The Headmaster became a very good friend of mine and I found him very easy to talk to, he probably thought I was a little weird and he was also along with Big Brother an agent of the Empire…
Coming Soon “The Empire Strikes Back” starring Kev & Margaret Thatcher getting married
o add text.
It was Christmas 2003 and Hermanie was the next victim of the empires discrimate wrath, she was sent to drainage, another subsidiary of the huge organisation that we were to find employed beings that were not strictly human.
It was also around this time I found myself increasingly tempted to the dark side of the force due a incredible number of resentments building up in my psyche, I was being denied access to my son Luke and finding it nearly impossible to fund the £100 per hour solicitors fees in order to fight my weary corner on my mediocre salary.
The atmosphere of deep distrust, which was beginning to envelop the once happy hogwarts family was also decimating the Sales ibots numbers since now only money and profits had become the name of the game.
Dita once life and soul of any party left for pastures new and Talula Bell and the Gregarious one followed her the latter to become an airline hostess, a career move which was to become very short-lived.
During the course of the year a indescribable silence was found within Hogwarts castle walls when “The Lady Who Must Be Obeyed” left to have a baby girl, no more thundering footsteps could be heard echoing throughout the castle with the distinct welsh accent of her foghorn voice that left eardrums buzzing long after it had dissipated.
Mr Boswell the Prozac man also vanished along with the lady with the aerodynamic hairstyle, she once occupied the office that was about to become my new home.
It was early in the cold months of 2004 when my new boss The Headmaster following the scripts of his hidden agenda moved myself and my new long suffering friend The Dictator into Hamstermans cage the central admin office along with Hamstermans new found assistant Kev and June Akland off the ITV police soap the bill.
While Harry Potters new bean counters were moved into our old beloved office and the now homeless June was reaccommodated with them but not until myself and Kev both found ourselves with severe hernias relocating the office furniture in order to save a few beans for Harry’s Holiday Pot (Harry had found himself with a new top of the range nimbus 2003 company broom by this stage).
The Dictator was Hermanies dad and had found it difficult just recently being moved around like pawns on a chessboard his favourite hobby was to dictate continuing episodes of “The Adventures Of Hogwarts Bricks” into a tape recorder he always kept handy and sending us all into Booboo land in the process.
The sales Ibots were meanwhile starting to recover there numbers with new starters in fact I have not been able to keep track of the huge turnover, one established member seems to have found his place at Hogwarts that is recently appointed Jedi Master Obiwan Kenobie.
Boots particularly has very strong feelings for Obiwan in fact she once told me and Kev whilst we were enjoying a cig in the quarantine area that he along with her rosebushes dominate all her waking thoughts.
John Probocop was to become ibot master of the Western team with wee girders as her assistant and there servants in the team are now Little Miss Nancy, Obiwan Kenobi, Britney Spears and two new girls who Kev has not got a name for yet but enjoys their transit across the car park to and from there cars with eager anticipation.
The Eastern team has just recently lost Ibot Mistress who has been poached by a competitor despite having worked for hogwarts since she left school and her post has been nicely filled by Shanghai Sue who is also the person who administers first aid, in fact Kev often tells me that if he is going to faint anywhere it will be over by the powwow water cooler.
Boots is Sues assistant and along with her strong feelings for Obiwan and her mesmeristion of his epic tales of Jedi battles back in the days of the Clone Wars as well as her obsession with her rosebushes she also has a strong affinity for Cottage Buff Pavers one of Hogwarts very popular by-products of all the chaos.
The Gregarious one it seems having returned from her short career as an airline hostess cannot quite decide which team she is in often sits opposite Talula Bell who has also returned from a new career which never quite got off the ground.
Accompanying them both in the far corner of the Eastern domain is Burty who has got a very extroverted hairstyle and is obiwans padawan and is making his first tentative steps into a much bigger world.
With the disappearance of “The lady who must be obeyed”, The NorthWest Ibot mistress has took over her role and is now in charge of the sales team under the rather majestic title of “The Supreme Ibot”.
Hogwarts sales team functions like a perfect example of synergy, where the collective output far exceeds the sum of the individuals and has so far survived very well despite the huge dark cloud that hovers over us all.
Back In Hamstermans cage back in early 2004 things were very different from the happy clappers whom I have just described, the office was at times resembling a Monday Market and it was incredibly difficult for me to concentrate having been used to the quiet studious atmosphere of an earlier existence.
I was also involved in a long straining court battle with Acid Tongue over contact with my son Luke as well has drinking ever-increasing quantities of alcohol in order to escape from reality.
The Production Entry process had been changed under the supervision of the headmaster so that vital cost analysis reports could be produced and analysed and despite all my past endeavours at keeping the huge array of “non standard” databases functioning correctly they were being seen as menace by the new regime.
The atmosphere in the cage between Hamsterman and The Headmaster was inhospitable with myself and Kev stuck in the middle however I was on a fraction of the salary of the rest of my team, despite all my past efforts, I had never received any promised appraisal and this left me feeling angry and disillusioned.
My anger and gradual bidding of the dark side continued when I was sent on a “Proclarity” training course by the Headmaster with one of the aging fossils far up in the elite of the IT department who came to the foregone conclusion that I had created all these “foreign” systems just to keep myself in a job!
I was also repeatedly criticised for adjusting the stock in the wonderful BaaN database in order to allow for all the errors in the system so that that the sales Ibots did not sell bricks, which did not exist.
Being placid and eager to please I rarely voiced my opinion but dark thoughts were beginning to grow and combined with the alcohol, antidepressants and sleeping tablets, which I thought I used to calm myself down I was becoming drawn further into the dark side.
I found myself around spring 2004 having repeated chronic migraines and viscous panic attacks to such an extent that on frequent occasions I was unable to drive my car home in a safe manner due to me shaking so much.
It was about this time when our headmaster was busy interviewing likely candidates for what I suspected was a “Production Planner” who I reasoned would become my replacement due my lack of political demeanour.
It seemed to me and indeed a lot of the few remaining employees that remained from the days before all the restructuring that we were all somehow tarred with the same brush and we had all become badly complacent and incompetent.
In my desperate state I felt I had fully cooperated with all the restructuring and tried my best to move forward with the new regime but had not only not been rewarded I felt I had been indeed punished for all my efforts.
It was Monday 17th May when I first cracked up and was taken home after being chased round a nearby field by the sales director Del-boy and the acting works manager Magnum.
I was visited by two crisis councillors and placed on a different form of antidepressants which I was told were much stronger and also told to keep away from Hogwarts for the next 14 days.
With all the stress I had been under both on the domestic front as well as at work it was hardly surprising that my brain had simply crashed out and I spent the next 2 weeks taking my dog for long walks and talking to Magic Pixies in the local woods.
I returned to work at the beginning of June after a few visits to the HR people, one of them a dark haired girl was very kind and considerate, in fact I looked forward to the many “back to work interviews” so that I could see her again I will refer to her henceforth as Princess Amidala.
Princess Amidala told me at the very first meeting we had at the Emporers Palace in Birkby that Big Brother, Harry Potter and the Headmaster were in fact Aliens from a planet many light-years from earth called Zool.
I must admit at this point I was on rather strong tablets at the time and cannot be 100% certain of the accuracy of my account of our conversation with the princess but I do remember her saying something about silicon based life forms and fuel cells and they were disguised as humans but no disguise could cover there lack of human empathy.
When I returned to work I found that Hamstermans cage had been cleaned out and Hamsterman had been the next victim of Hogwart’s huge black hole and a large part of my job was now taken over by my new assistant Marti Pellow, the once depressed despatch guy who spent his time trying to supervise customer deliveries of bricks out of the BaaN database.
The secret interviews which had been taking place with The Headmaster were in fact to find a replacement for Hamsterman and with just 1 week after my nervous breakdown me, Kev and The Dictator were introduced to this bossy young woman who had previously worked at Debenhams (and so was well qualified to work at a brick manufacturers you night say).
Kev found his new boss more pleasing to his eye but soon realised she was in fact another occupant of planet Zool and was quick to label her “The Headmistress” whilst others found her character was more akin to the first female British Prime Minister.
Further a field than our office or indeed the Castle Of Hogwarts were another 3 brick making establishments who were subordinate to Hogwarts, there was Stairfoot near Barnsley which was under the guidance of the Teletubbies with Laalaa as there stock controller and Tinky Winky as there works manager.
There was Accrington near Manchester, which was a very automated, and modern brick manufacturing site and with its first Works Manager a casualty of the dreaded black hole
After nearly two weeks off “sick” from my wonderful place of work my poor dog Rosie, her poor pads on her paws are worn out and she has lost lots of weight, her appetite has increased significantly to compensate for these huge walking marathons when I would contemplate my life and career so far.
Its nearly two weeks ago since Del-boy our sales director dropped me off at my house with the accompanying statement “don’t fackin come back till you have seen your fackin GP!” I wasn’t capable of driving my Ford Focus after getting a little lost and disorientated following one of my frequent panic attacks.
As I wonder along my favourite stretch of canal for the thousandth time after being prescribed a dose of anti-depressants and told to stay well clear of any alcohol for the rest of my life I turn into witches wood where I met The Magic Pixie long ago with my insane friends.
I sit on my little hill and stare into space – thoughts run through my head like the misty clouds rolling across the blue sky, in the distance the motorway assures me that life goes on regardless of my existence on this planet.
“Tragic”, as a word is the best we have to describe our lives but, I do not think it is good enough to describe mine. It does not effectively convey the futility of any event or the meaninglessness of life itself, what kind of being thought up a universe like this? Is God a tyrant or is he a sadist or was God Almighty a Dumb-wit?
We toil, we struggle and we hope to make life good, but we are always defeated and we cannot hope to win. Ultimately we come to nothing, we are destroyed and so we die.
Depression seems the only appropriate response to life- that is anger at God who has given it to us. I come to work every day because I feel I have to however I cannot seem to ever escape these dark thoughts maybe the dark side is beginning to consume me.
Every so often I feel I have to tell God what I think of him and many would think my prayers were blasphemous but at least I am honest with him.
Far behind me now are the days when I would escape from reality using alcohol, I am no longer going to experience the world in the black and white of compulsion, but in the Technicolor of truth. I have allowed all that was in me to respond to what I touched around me. I will let the God-in-me be
As I sat on my hill the depression in me lingered, in the suffocating darkness there was always the temptation to run away from the gruesome reality, a part of me wanted to shut out the alcoholic had died. It wanted to hide in the recesses of my mind and pretend it had never happened. It wanted to drink and return to the warm security of my drunken world – but somehow someway I am determined not to do this.
Yes I can probably forget the alcoholic or at the very least get to the point where the circumstances of his death no longer filled me with such horror. I can grow numb to it. I could deceive myself and live a lie.
For in the end death was death, and death, in a manner of speaking, was an unavoidable fact of life. For this reason I had to confront it. I had to come to terms with life that ended in death and if that was impossible the depressed I would remain.
I set off back out of the woods and on towards Brighouse, leaving the canal and joining the River Calder with Rosie following me panting away like she was smiling her tail wagging incessantly.
As I plodded along it was starting to get dark, warm blotches were permeating from the fireball that was rolling down the sky unable to contain itself.
The last man was walking home, his dog too laughing beside him, trotting along with his tongue hanging out. With a buzz and a whirl the last fisherman wound up his rod and silhouetted away. The last mower was humming on a lawn in the distance; the last boat was rippling by. The river was finally still, the sun was set and there was peace.
Tenderness was making itself known from somewhere deep inside. It had not been extinguished in the smothering depression. I finally sat down somewhere on the stretch of canal which connects Brighouse and Elland, I sat very still and imbibed the beauty of the evening, and I let the tenderness be, and from tenderness, very gently, very softly God-in-me became. I rolled over, lay on my stomach and once again wept like I did in Del-boys car.
Somewhere beneath all the shock and anger, was the recognition that God was not all macho he was not all glorious above without being all suffering below. He was not a mighty king sitting back complacently on his soft cushioned throne, exhaling slowly from his fat cigar, preparing a small thunderbolt on account of my two fingertips which I had thrust for his sake heavenwards.
I wept about everything. Getting Burnt, Luke my son, Acid Tongue, Marshalls, Running off into the field and playing hide and seek with Del-boy and Magnum, My poor dad wobbling around, My nutty brother and all those unfortunate souls who had the pleasure of meeting me during my daily activities..
As I took time to feel the pain, a most surprising thing happened. I was overwhelmed by wonder and thankfulness. I felt a sense of ultimate wellbeing gently seeping through from within, deeper than pain, deeper than wrongness, permeating into my innermost aching there was a fluid, irrepressible peace. It was a sense that at the end of the day, no matter how awful this nervous breakdown had been all would be well.
It was gut knowledge that the evil and the wrongness did not have the last word.
From my tenderness there was a faith that, in ways ranging from the ordinary to the mysterious, all would be transformed.
God displayed in my mind that all pain, no matter how deep and brutal, could be recreated into life, more whole, vibrant and complete than if the pain had never occurred in the first place.
So that is why God did not annihilate suffering from this earth. That is why he did not scrap human beings and say, “Well, that little universe was a bit of a dead loss. Let’s scrub it and start all again”.
He had something better up his sleeve. He acted within the problems we already had. He used, as his raw material, pain; he took what was broken, what was hurting, what was wrong, and transformed it into something beautiful, lovely and good. Life out of death, good out of bad was the meaning of redemption.
It was now dark and Rosie was laid beside me looking at me very strange with he long droopy ears – I patted her head affectionately and she responded with a wag of her tail – there is a fine line between genius and insanity I thought to myself.
I set off with Rosie in pursuit for the long walk back and as I stumbled through the dark I realised that my pain was being transformed and redeemed. The sense of human fragility and vulnerability engendered by the past few months no longer trapped me in fear.
It liberated me. The knowledge that I could die at any moment enabled me to live richly in the present. It freed me into grateful acceptance of what each day brings si I could live deeply and yet lightly. Looking at death squarely in the face, I was less afraid of going back to Marshalls, sitting in that office and feeling paranoid, I was going to die anyway. I could say yes to ‘now’.
God redeems – I grasped it in my guts and that was what made it possible for me to confront the pain I encountered then and the future pains to come. It gave me courage to go back to being a tiny pawn in a huge empire.
As I rounded a corner I could see emerging in the distance the streetlamps of Brighouse I could also see in my minds eye how uncreative it was to cut myself off from all that I found frightening and strange within.
Every time I came home from work and drank compulsively, wrapping a blanket around myself, I was running away from another connection to the force that would later prove invaluable.
I was missing out on the transformation of what I and the world had suffered. I did not want to do that anymore. That is what I have done for years. I have been refusing the responsibility of being my own person. I had been shielding myself from the pain of my idiotic existence that was a laugh to the world and refusing to enter the aches of other people.
In some ways my compulsive drinking days were a waste. What a shame to spend years in fear of cuddling and open friendship, what a waste to be so unhappy during my teens and my twenties – how stupid to have believed so many media lies.
But from now on I will have the courage to face those years head on and heart on, I do not look at them with regret. I believe nothing has gone to waste; it has all been transformed. I am glad my compulsive drinking days are behind me, but I am more glad they have happened.
I am not on par with those who have never had the struggle that I have had to get there. For there is something even better than never having had a drink problem and that is having a drink problem redeemed. Now that I have emerged from the compulsive drinker’s tunnel and a can of beer and I can share a room together, now that I no longer respond to every situation by walking to the fridge, I can see that my disorder has saved me.
Who would I have been if I hadn’t had a brush with alcoholism?
The experience is now so much a part of me that the answer can only be speculative, but I do not think I would have been the kind of person I would like to know.
Opening my heart to receive the love which has been poured in means holding it open so that love might flow out. I no longer listen to an alcoholic with baffled incomprehension, but in understanding that he and I can stand before God. I am better able to see myself and others in terms of our vulnerable tender insides rather than our ‘failing’ blundering outsides.
I am now approaching Bradley with my best friend Rosie a black and white Labrador cross, the night is clear and the moon is bright, the stars some billions of miles away flicker, nearby in the woods a owl calls and my depression has gone since if it was here I would hear the owl calling but I would not here the song.
I am ready now to go back to my place of work and become once again consumed by the isolated world of computers and surrounded by a battle between those who acknowledge that things must change and those who say it has always been done this way – The new regime versus the old.
Life itself is always in a state of transition and where it becomes stagnant there is death, it is like the joy of learning however those who feel they have reached the pinnacle of their field and know it all become closed in their minds to new ideas.
Your mind it seems is like a parachute – it works best when its open!
God these new green antidepressants are great!!
LIFE AFTER DEATH
Following my accident when I was severely burnt, my last memory was being injected morphine at Staincliffe Hospital, Dewsbury, the place I was born and nearly died; following this I was rushed to Pinderfields Hospital at Wakefield where I was to spend the most painful 13 weeks of my life.
My next memory was awakening and finding me stood in a darkened room and in the far corner was a bed, to which all sorts of electronic equipment were attached beeping away and in the bed seemed to be a person but I just wanted to get away from the place.
Strangely all the pain I had previously suffered was gone like one big nightmare, I remember in my disorientated state somehow leaving the room, into a long deserted corridor, illuminated sparsely with a few night lights.
As I approached the end of the corridor a nurse came out of a nearby staff room, laughing merrily at some joke her and the rest of the staff must have been sharing, as she turned and walked towards me I just froze, however, her eyes showed no acknowledgement of my physical presence as she passed by me.
I called out to her when she was about 15 feet past me but she showed no signs of either seeing me or hearing me, I thought this was a little weird by now, but my instincts told me to find an outside door and get away from this strange place.
After a while travelling through the maze of corridors I found a locked exit, upon trying the door to my amazement I found my hand just passed right through it and to my utter bewilderment I found I could walk right through it, I could feel no warmth or cold, I seemed to myself what I can only describe as a physical point in space that could see and hear but could not interact.
With further astonishment I now found myself perhaps 150 foot up in the air and heading through the night, below I could see the tops of the street lamps and a few cars wondering around, I distinctly remember flying over a railway viaduct and towards the city of Wakefield.
The neon sign over the nightclub called Rooftop Gardens drew me like a magnet being familiar with the place during my many nights out with my friends The Gangster and The Savage One, I must of thought in retrospect that a familiar place would relieve me of all this craziness but I was flying for Gods sake.
I came down to land near the entrance to the club in front of two of the bouncers I remembered from yesteryear I had on many occasions in the past greeted these two individuals however on this occasion they just continued their small talk oblivious to my sudden appearance from the night sky.
I paused to think and reached out with my hand to touch a nearby wall that was adjacent to the clubs entrance but my hand appeared to have no physical substance and just passed into the fabric of the wall.
It was now that the awful truth finally dawned on me… The people unable to see or hear me, The wall, The doors to the hospital, just suppose they were perfectly normal? Just suppose that it was me who had changed? What if for example I had somehow lost my ‘hardness’, my ability to grasp things, even, to make contact with the world – even to be seen?
I mean what is the point in going anywhere if as the final shreds of my rational mind pointed out if you cannot be seen, and what was that mound in that bed in the little hospital room I had left could that have been my physical body?
I didn’t like this line of thought a human being is not separated from his body unless he is dead, then what state was I in now.
It can go through doors without opening them, it can fly like a bird, it does not feel cold or warmth and remarkable these qualities are, they are no good if one cannot be seen. I decided at this point to go back to Pinderfields and see if I could reacquaint myself with my body, surely pain is better than this.
No sooner had this thought occurred to me I found myself moving at incredible speed through the night back to the doors of Pinderfields, it seems in this strange state you travel by thought alone, handy this may be but the novelty soon wears off rapidly.
Now Pinderfields is a big hospital and in my rush to get out of there I had forgotten just where I had left my body (or indeed what was left of it by now)
I just didn’t have a clue which room it was in. I rationalised that it must be somewhere in the burns unit but it was no use asking the doctors or nurses because they couldn’t see me or hear me.
After an extensive search I managed to find the burns unit and by wondering from room to room I finally found the room I had left earlier and there I was lying unconscious, wired up to an whole variety of strange gadgets.
At this point out of pure desperation for something to do, I decided to recite the lord’s prayer something I had learnt many years ago at school.
The very next moment the absolute impossible happened; a tiny pinprick of light at the side of the bed began to grow brighter and brighter, at first not noticing the pin prick of light I thought it was a tiny night light that was the rooms only illumination that was getting brighter.
But then I saw it was coming from beside the white bedside table at the head of the bed, it continued to brighten as I watched, it brightened to such an extent that had it been any ordinary light I would most certainly of been blinded.
The next moment there flooded directly into my mind the words “Stand Up… you are now in the presence of the Son of God”, whereupon out of the light stepped what I could only describe as the most magnificent being I have ever known.
Thankful at last for a little company in this strange situation I joked “That’s it! Just like that… I am with the Son of God… Isn’t there a reception area or something before we meet?”
I felt a presence of Power and pure love that was older than time but yet more modern than anyone I have ever met.
In the first stage of my experience, what I can only refer to as the earthbound state I had lost three of my senses; smell, taste and touch, however in this further stage in the light, time disappeared completely, a bit like in a dream and I was aware of all my thoughts and actions in my life up to the present day as on big whole.
Every moment in my life was recurring before me at one and the same instant as part of some enormous four dimensional sight and sound mural.
I guessed this was my life review.
But emanating from the being projected pure love, up to that point in my life I had come across much laid back always blaming anyone and everyone for the results of my actions
I also saw from a further dimension an observation of my interactions with others from the other persons point.. I also saw parts of the future which was hazy however I distinctly remember being told that a girl I had met but would never marry had an important role in the creation of my son who was very special. I saw all of my educational achievements so far were purely superfluous but it was the way I treated others that was important and I could see the consequence of my lack of interactions with my fellow students at York University (which I had luckily just graduated a month before).
I could see how the other students saw me as weird and very anti social and they tried to avoid me where possible so that they could avoid the negative effect I had on them hence leading to a deeper feeling of depression thus increasing my isolation.
An endless viscous circle that had dominated my life.
I even could see the hurt on my best friend – The Gangsters emotions when he pulled a bird called Cherelle at Rooftop Gardens, but, I had done my best to split them up by pouring a pint of lager on her head and being very rude.
The tapestry of life was in front of me and I could see how my decisions now would effect the future all of my ambitions of being wealthy and having many material possessions was regarded by the being of light with has much distaste as was my lack of enthusiasm for interacting with my fellow men.
I could see how my life would change and where I had once sought money and possessions I now treasured simply making other peoples lives more pleasurable at the expense of my own wellbeing.
The being of light then turned to me and said via thought dynamics “Michael, What have you done with your life so far?” I replied using my mind “Why didn’t someone tell me this was what life is about?” the being replied “Somebody did nearly 2000 years ago in your linear time – me!”
I suddenly found myself on the move again, this time we didn’t bother about doors it was straight up through the hospital roof, then we flew at incredible speeds across the surface of the earth however there was no wind to slow us and just a few moments later I found myself approaching a city beside a huge expanse of water.
In the city all the streets and offices were unbelievably crowded, and I could see people passing through other people like they wasn’t there.
We walked into a factory and I saw assembly line workers who were putting together lawnmowers enjoying a coffee break while behind them a woman was pleading for a drag of their cigarette as through she wanted it more than anything in the world.
When one of the workers clearly blind and deaf to the women behind him actually took a cigarette out of his packet and began to smoke it, the woman repeatedly snatched at it but, it was as if she was clawing at thin air.
I came to the conclusion that those people must be ghosts, even though they were dead, they remained chained to the material world by the very things they had deemed most important during their lifetimes their jobs, their cigarette smoking their material possessions.
Myself and the being of light moved from city to city visiting endless places he had to show to me, in one house I remember a younger man followed an older man from room to room “I am sorry dad!” he kept saying repeatedly “I did not know it would do this to my mum – I just didn’t understand!”
The older man was carrying a tray filled with tea and toast into a room where a clearly unwell elderly lady was sat up in bed “I AM SORRY” the younger man cried in frustration over and over again but, clearly his agony fell on deaf ears.
“Why is he so sorry?” I enquired to the being of light, referring to the younger mans pleas “He committed the ultimate selfish act” said the being touching his long beard “suicide” he continued with tears welling in the corner of his eyes “and chained to every consequence of their act of cowardice they are well and truly earthbound” he finished but I knew the answer before I asked.
My next visit was back to the night club in Wakefield called Rooftop Gardens where I had visited earlier in my disorientated state, but, without the concept of time earlier and later were meaningless it is a bit like telling someone bind from birth what is like to see.
Inside the nightclub was an impossibly crowded place where I watched ghost alcoholics mingling with living drunks and whenever a drunk lapsed into a drunken stupor a desperately thirsty ghost sprang inside his body so that the two became one.
The living could be distinguished from the ghosts by a faint cocoon of light around him, however when any living being became inebriated their light cocoon faded, enabling one of the many hovering ghosts to take over their body and literally possess the person.
S horrific was the scene that the only words in my mind that could describe this was “hell”
The mingling ghosts with their eyes so set on alcohol desperately clutching at real life beer glasses had blinded themselves to the magnificent being that accompanied me – Indeed the being told me to keep my eyes firmly on him – probably he was aware of my past record.
In this world of thought far beyond space and time (Thought is a more fundamental principle than the illusion of space or time which pale into mere shadows) it can seemingly be either heaven or hell of your own making.
Earthbound ghosts destroyed by hatred, lust and destructive thought patterns find that whatever they think however fleetingly or unwittingly became instantly apparent to all those who was around him and more completely than words could of expressed it and much faster than sound waves could of carried it.
The thought most commonly communicated amongst earthbound spirits was usually selfish thoughts and this by its very act kept the being earthbound, the being it seemed felt only compassion for these unfortunate souls but he knew it was their will not his that kept them there.
I felt like scrooge in The Christmas Carol having this wise being accompany me back to the hospital for the final time, I wanted to start my life again a fresh when I would care far more about other people and not myself.
No longer would money and possessions be my supreme objective but I would live my life with a desire to make other people happy – the old Mad Mick was truly dead and the new one ready for a reincarnation.
We entered the hospital room for the final time and the image of the being and the bed before me faded – the walls that surrounded my little room at Pinderfields became solid again it was early morning and I was informed by a nurse who had come into open the curtains that it was two days since my accident.
The pain was still there but somewhat dulled by the drugs I had been given, It was to be another thirteen weeks before I was released and I had many more strange experiences in there but nothing that could be compared to the one I have shared with you all.
After subsequent research into my favourite subject Physics I have found that with the merging of two theories of the universe Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity it appears that the 3 dimensions of space and one dimension of time is in fact an illusion created by the world of thought.
Spirits who remain earthbound do eventually find that the hatred and envy are the very emotions that keep them there but wouldn’t it be easier to help our fellow human beings while we are alive.
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth” Jesus…
MY GUARDIAN ANGEL
For a long time I have had what are commonly referred to in the latest “New Age Thinking” as Out Of Body Experiences (OBEs) where I could leave my physical body and wonder around in my astral body.
These experiences first started when I found myself in Pinderfields hospital after I was severely burnt after an accident on my motorcycle in July 1990 and my first experience was covered in my diary under the title “Life After Death”.
During my stay in hospital I had many such experiences similar to this one and I remember during an operation for skin grafts I floated above my body and noticed on top of the operating theatre light was written “You are now having a Near Death Experience OP1” which afterwards I explained to a nurse what I had seen and she replied that I was only the second patient they had ever had who could confirm this, she had said to me that these experiences were unexplained but she had her own personal beliefs in this matter.
Following this I became a bit of a celebrity in the ward and I came to believe that many of the nurses who had first hand experiences of people who were on the borderline between the veil of life and what lies in the great beyond had encountered many strange phenomena during there work and hence they had put the sign above the operating theatre light just recently to confirm their suspicions.
After I finally left hospital after some 11 weeks in there I found I could still have these experiences and they no longer had to be sparked off by any sort of trauma, they started to occur on their own volition when I was near to sleep and my mind and body completely relaxed.
At first they happened maybe once or twice per month but then I began to control them – at least I tried to control them.
I would lie in bed alone and concentrate on a point on the ceiling and will my mind to venture to that point however nothing transpired in those first clumsy attempts either because I wasn’t relaxed enough or I was trying too hard.
I learned that OBE’s are not something that can be controlled entirely at will.
The first really big milestone was when I was at Huddersfield University completing a day release course for a HNC in computer programming whilst employed by Sellers Engineers in Huddersfield.
It was daytime and the sun was shining gloriously through the window maybe the sun was enhancing my drowsy feeling certainly nothing physical had jolted me, no trauma and certainly no accident.
One moment I was sitting in front of my 386 computer (remember them well this was back in 94) trying to write a program in Pascal to sort a list of names into alphabetical order; the next, I felt a kind of shifting in me as if I was gently hovering out of my skin and the next second I was floating above my own head.
I distinctly remember thinking that my nose looked huge and I didn’t know I looked like this from the back of my head, but, I decided on this occasion I was going to examine the experience rather than just live it like I had on previous occasions.
Other than the initial surprise their was no apprehensive shock, no alarm and no concern that I might not be able to re-enter my body or any panicky thoughts that I was about to die.
I could see myself with exquisite clarity, my figure and everything finely defined, I noticed the tip of my finger was poised about one centimetre above the letter “S” on the keyboard as if frozen there.
Other people in the computer room were moving; the girl student next to me called Gillian was typing away and occasionally glancing at the screen looking perplexed.
While on another table a friend of mine was trying to find out what was wrong with his program which appeared to be showing a long list of errors, meanwhile our tutor, a tall dandified Canadian chap with a huge head and slicked back hair was turning the pages of a book opened before him on the desktop and unconsciously tucking into an Ice Cream.
A round clock with a large wood frame ticked away on the wall.
Someone Sneezed. Someone else said “Bless You”
A plastic ruler fell off a table with a clatter and a student bent to retrieve it.
All was normal, no one was taking any notice of me, I wasn’t scared – I guess I was more curious, I just felt cool about the whole situation and because of this was able to examine my situation calmly.
I decided to see if I could move about and instantly I could.
Just by willing myself I floated to the other side of the computer room observing the heads and the hunched shoulders of my fellow students hard at work as I did so.
I half expected some of them to look up as I passed over, perhaps disturbed by the breeze I must be creating skimming along like that.
I thought my tutor would bark “You there, Schofield, will you please come down from the ceiling immediately and return to your place, but, he continued to study his book while at the same time sucking the ice cream from the base of his cornet through a hole he had bitten at the bottom.
I could see myself – I had stretched out my hands in front of me like some ethereal superman and they were plainly visible – so why couldn’t the other students see me? (At that time of course I hadn’t yet come to understand that it was my mind filling in what it expected to see).
Hovering over a bright window, I turned back to the class. The notion of passing through the window glass had occurred to me, but, while remaining perfectly level headed I was a little anxious about wondering too far from my natural body – I really did not want to lose sight of it, I think that was quite reasonable, what if I got lost outside? What if there was a point where the spirit (or whatever it was up there hovering inches away from the ceiling) became too separated from the physical body and some invisible connection snapped making re-entry impossible.
Anyway, during that time in the computer room I was as mentioned pretty cool about the situation, even if I was reluctant to let my material self out of sight.
I looked around, took notice of things, considered how I felt about my condition then only after several minutes, became eager to get back in my body (It was like resisting one last beer after having too many).
And at that moment I felt that I was back – I don’t recall anything of the journey across the room or dipping myself back into my natural form.
I was just in an instant there looking at the world once again through my physical eyes. Only then did I feel some panic but, it was mild – I think I was too stunned to experience overwhelming anxiety.
Soon I was plain curious as well as elated – I had gone through something rare.
As time went on my abilities to induce OBE’s became more proficient and at this time I was working at Sellers Engineers distributing items for processing around the works which would become on assembly carpet finishing machines and other bespoke machines to one off designs.
I would lock myself in a cubicle in the toilets and relax my mind until I could feel the sensation of leaving my body; I could then go on all sorts of adventures, I would frequent the board meetings becoming a “fly on the wall” and find out all sorts of interesting gossip which I would capture in words and distribute in a very popular newsletter which started life as a report for our Crown Green Bowling Team.
I would find out what people really thought of me by eavesdropping on conversations, I would find myself frequently visiting the women’s toilets where I would lose track of time and only the sound of the tanoy requesting my presence in physical form would bring me back to my body.
The problem is when you develop a gift like this your natural tendency is to abuse it and it was to be direct intervention by the spirit world that would bring me back down to earth.
It was one late September evening when I was pedalling home from Sellers along the Ramsden Canal which connects Huddersfield to the Calder & Hebble Navigation and also provided a route for me to get back to my home in Bradley.
In the distance at the other side of the canal I saw a figure beneath an old oak tree whose thick leafless branches still managed to cast him in a shadow.
As I approached closer I noticed his eyes were watching me intently and to my surprise I became aware of the fact that his lower legs and and feet were invisible indicating to me this was some form of disembodied spirit (which I had become familiar with since my first traumatic adventures into this realm in 1990)
Out of curiosity and also due to me approaching the bench I regularly took a break on my way home I dismounted my aging wreck of a mountain bike and sat down on my the old bench that was by coincidence approximately adjacent to this figure across the canal and opened a can of beer.
After a short period of time the figure approached me by floating across the canal, with the sun behind him, his white hair and a halo round his head it was difficult to make out his features.
“Hello Michael” he said in a pleasantly gruff but quiet voice. “I am your guardian angel – Dripping Tap – can I sit with you for a while”
His skin looked bronze and his face weathered but kind, I had felt Dripping Taps presence countless times before in my life and seen him in vivid dreams but it was the first encounter in broad daylight.
He had existed as a Native American during the Fifteenth Century and lived a life I could only envy, so simple with strong beliefs in the afterlife far away from the modern chaos we all experience today, he very often had communicated to me in the past that modern man had lost touch with his natural origins.
I shifted my butt towards one arm of the bench making enough room for him to which he sat next to me looking as real to me as any other physical person.
“You are abusing the power we have given you” said Dripping Tap simply not wasting his words
“What do you think others think of you boasting about your abilities to sneak around invisibly and using your abilities to go on wild excursions” He continued looking me in the eye, his image faded and immediately reappeared like the flickering of lights in a thunderstorm
I pondered the question then replied honestly “Everybody thinks I am totally crazy anyway – people up to an extent make you what you are by how they treat you”
I had been given the label of “Mad Mick” by most of the occupants of Bradley where I had lived all my life and almost unanimously by my workmates at Sellers however some times especially just lately I did see in there eyes a look of fear – even in the so called hard cases.
Dripping Tap looked down at his buffalo skinned jacket as if reading my very thoughts he the said “Michael, how do you think people feel when you claim you can spy on them – that you could be watching them in their most private moments and a lot of the letters you have written contain information that you could not possibly have known – people do not trust you, I mean everyone needs their privacy, their own space that’s what makes them civilised”
Dripping Tap went on to explain that very soon my life was about to change once more, he seemed to be able to see the future and told me that very soon I would be made redundant from Sellers and that I should never again use OBEs to pry on people but only to gain knowledge and for ultimate good.
“Your departure will be sudden but It will finally give you chance to use your brain which you sadly put to sleep following graduating in 1990 – in the meantime you have the opportunity to use your gift to learn more about the world”
“Lucky me” I replied somewhat sarcastically
“Everything happens for a reason, you may not know the bigger picture” he said wisely
“Accept the bad things in life?” I enquired
He nodded “Go back, be impartial and learn” with this the spirit flickered then disappeared and I was left alone.
It was November 2000 when I was made redundant from Sellers I was called into the Finance Directors office and he said that they were giving me chance to use my brain upon which I was given my P45 and left to walk home – even with my guardian angels warnings it hit me very hard.
I lost everything, my entire social life evaporated, only my son, Luke and a close friend The Gangster stood by me through these difficult times I felt that at Sellers I had become part of something for the first time in my life.
I did feel a higher source was guiding me and with my unusual abilities I was been given the chance to learn about myself and about the very fundamentals of life.
I suspect many other souls get given the same chance when they die but of course the living wouldn’t know it.
My physical self spent a lot of time sat alone in my isolated flat with occasional visits from my 5 year old son at weekends and I would occasionally visit my parents or my close friend the Gangster but other than this I spent most of my time in my incorporeal form, my astral state, without flesh and blood and all the hang-ups that go with it.
My physical body became more and more neglected sat frozen in a scruffy council flat suffering malnutrition and the life force slowly ebbing away
In my astral form though I began to understand and appreciate a lot more about life on this planet…
I won’t bother you with “love is all cliché” although it plays a big part in understanding and an even bigger part in our next stop.
I am assured by my mentor Dripping Tap that its going to be something wonderful but he wouldn’t elaborate further.
We are here on this earth to learn acceptance, yes, that’s right acceptance
Acceptance of everything life throws at you – all the good all the bad.
Doesn’t mean you don’t work – or fight – to defeat it or make bad things good, but sometimes we have no control at all over it.
That’s when you have to accept you have no other choice.
My spirit guide during these times told me acceptance leads to forgiveness which is vital for progression, but I don’t believe its quite that simple for us anyway.
During these desolate times I visited in my nebulous state famous old buildings and some spectacular new ones, museums too gaining insight into other times and other civilisations
I went to the palace to see the queen again, she wasn’t in the first time and I feel the royal way of life in these modern times is very tedious – not the kind of life you or I would like.
I have sat in parliament and believe me most MPs are just as lazy and self important as we think they are.
One dark and beautiful night I tried to reach the stars, but, I never got even as far as an helicopter might fly. Something pulled me back and I knew it wasn’t gravity, it was as if I had reached the limits of my own will and it would not take me further.
Graduating with a physics degree in 1990 gave me a scientists view of the world comprising of some 92 naturally occurring atoms each combined in a huge variety of combinations giving us all the multitude of materials including ourselves that we encounter.
These atoms are further composed of a nucleus of protons and neutrons the number of which defines the type of atom surrounded by a cloud of electrons which are bound by electricity.
All very well but it seems to me that a scientist by breaking down matter to the fundamentals to study it loses track of the synchronousity in nature, the synergetic way all things inter exist.
If there was a single electron in the whole universe it would be meaningless, it would cease to exist – it is only all the other matter which makes it all become real.
Physics it seems is a bit like Chinese whispers, each teacher tells his students how to simulate reality with equations and models and this in turn is taught by the student when he becomes a graduate to more students, but in all of this the process loses sight of its objective.
My spirit guide was showing me what was beyond the veil of the material world into the huge coliseum of energy but also in the end he brought me back to my physical self a much wiser but more patient person.
My physical body had for months been neglected started to come back to life and what’s more it started enjoying being alive.
I began to take my son Luke and my niece, Squeaky on long adventures when there child like minds were receptive to everything I told them, their eyes once again sparkled with life.
I think in retrospect you must beware of OBE’s they can consume you and most important of all never journey too far!
Eventually some 3 months after leaving Sellers I felt able to make my first tentative steps back into the real world of interactions with my fellow men, I enrolled on a government backed training scheme in Huddersfield called S & S Training.
Initially starting from being a shaking wreck I managed to pass my European Computer Driving Licence which gave me knowledge of the latest PCs and Software, I also applied for numerous jobs and upon only my second interview I managed to obtain a job at Hogwarts at Howley Park.
Here a new adventure in my life started, initially shacked up in a tiny office with the computer Cowboy I went on to work along side a whole multitude of diverse characters…
FLY FROM THE ASHES LIKE A PHOENIX
A Great Philosopher once wrote.. into everyone’s life must pour a little rain.. here is a story of one poor sod who got caught in a monsoon….
In November 2000 my time at Sellers finally came to an end, I was sent into the office to have a “word” with the Managing director only to be told that I was to be made redundant…
With a cheque for £3904 and Craig David’s song “Walking Away” playing in my head I for the final time walked through those gates and into the unknown a free man from the Society of Thespians that had dominated the last 9 years of my life.
Thinking back in retrospect Sellers had made me sociable, before I was employed there I didn’t talk to anyone and lived in a world of my own but now I had a chance to use my brain and not my hands.
Shaking more than my dad who has Parkinson’s Disease and incidentally was made redundant as well from the same place I managed to make it to the bank then to the nearest off-license to purchase a lot of alcohol before continuing to my lonely undecorated flat situated in Bradley.
Luckily before I could hibernate away in my sanctuary and drink myself into oblivion I was met by a close friend who invited me to his house so at least we could drink ourselves into oblivion together.
The next few weeks just fragments of memory surface since I was permanently intoxicated and extremely depressed and lonely, I remember vaguely my first visit to see my Personal Advisor who seemed oblivious to the fact that I was shaking like a sh*ting dog and pouring with sweat.
I was signed on to Job Seekers Allowance but I would get nothing for 9 weeks then nothing still until my bank balance fell below £2500 after which I would be paid a paltry £53 per week however I would get free rent and council tax from immediate effect.. so I thought I had better get busy spending money.
Until Christmas I had absolutely no problem with that and the alcohol continued to be consumed at an ever increasing rate until about 1 week before Christmas when I was severely beaten up and robbed of £350 then delivered to the Royal Infirmary in a state of extreme anxiety.
This was my lowest point, I had reached rock bottom..
However as the saying goes, “Its not how low you go, its how hard you bounce back that counts”.
It is a lot easier going down hill though, the climb back up was very tough and by now I had also lost access rights to my sons visits due to my constant incoherent state and his mother throwing wild accusations at me.
When you are down people in general seem to want to kick you.
After my visit to the infirmary and near referral to Saint Luke’s Psychiatric Unit I was placed on Librium medication, told to attend an Alcohol Group at The Brian Jackson Centre and also attend a Redundancy Councillor for counselling.
I also stopped drinking for the two weeks over the Christmas period, it was the most miserable Christmas in my entire 32 year lifespan and I moved back temporally back to my Parents house
Attendance of the Redundancy Councillor did help me enormously after Christmas however The Brian Jackson Centre meetings introduced me to meths drinkers, drug addicts and even such desperate alcoholics who would bubble methane gas through milk for a quick fix who made me feel like a saint in comparison.
I realised that in order to give up drinking I needed something to fill in the vacancy that abstinence produced, I needed to attend some sort of daytime activity that would keep me away from Bradley’s equivalent of Skid Row.
On one of my many visits to the Job Centre to collect the magic ticket and sign on I enquired about an IT course in order to both build up my shattered confidence and allow me access to a computer to produce a CV and apply for Jobs.
I was told by the unemotional and cold hearted Job Centre personnel that I would have to be unemployed for a minimum of 6 months before I would be eligible for one of their courses but judging by my appearance I could sign on the sick now and receive more money to send me further into the abyss.
“You mean to say I have to vegetate for six months before I can get the help I need, by then I might be dead!”, I said to which she replied, “That is the rules I am afraid, we don’t make them but we just obey them”
So my life in Bradley continued, by now my brother (Forest) would look after his daughter every Monday night at my flat and it was one Monday when Jedess Beck answered the door to four men masked in balaclavas and carrying what appeared to be a gun…
As she ran upstairs screaming they followed her into my room where we were playing on a computer game, we were all ordered to lie on the floor while one of them guarded us with the apparent weapon and the other three ransacked my flat to see what was worth taking.
After a traumatic half hour they left with my mobile phone, my stereo and my faithful pedal cycle while my brother and me were left to calm down a hysterical Rebecca.
Reading between the lines of Bradley Gossip it appeared that a gang of lads had got wind of my recent redundancy payout and decided that they wished to share my good fortune with me.
When we returned to my parents and phoned the police we were asked by the two uniformed offices why we had left the scene of the crime and why we had not phoned them immediately however since my phone had been stolen this was a little difficult.
My brother and me were questioned on every detail well into the night about the incident and I was repeatedly accused of making it all up in order to claim an insurance payout.
Needless to say the very next day The Examiner had been informed and on the front-page read “Girl Seven terrorised by masked intruders”.
Another stressful incident took its toll on my now beleaguered mental health but it did not end there because as the month of February began I was arrested by the CID for some unknown reason and thrown into a cell.
I was questioned in the presence of my solicitor and a social worker and a whole variety of accusations were thrown at me, they then bailed me to appear at the end of the month and I was left to walk home in a state of pure hysteria.
By now I was getting used to one punishing event after another, the only good point I had found so far about life on the dole was I had finally got rid of years of toothache with the free dental treatment I was receiving.
It was early March when terrible dreams started about being re-employed by Sellers where I would wake up screaming after encounters with the dream figure of Captain Beaky and his merry men.
March however did also begin with a bit of a break; I received a letter from the CID saying they had dropped all charges and I would not have to reappear at the Police Station and I was ‘invited’ for another meeting with my personal advisor in order to provide proof of what I had been doing to find work.
I explained to her that I wanted to attend a course but I had been told by the Job Centre personnel that I had to waste away for six months before being eligible and the way things were going I might be dead by then.
My redundancy councillor who I had been regularly seeing had also promised to pull some strings and maybe this had finally influenced her to help me to help myself by building back up some frame
