Paraddiddled
 

From the frying pan of education, I leapt into the fire of the military. Although the discipline was a shock to my system, I bore with it, to a point. I was probably the most reprimanded recruit in the barracks and spent many hours on extra duties. After a few months I became a little drummer boy, which I loved and for the first ten months of my military career life was pretty good, apart from my regular punishments. Then authority and I had a massive fall out, which resulted in several spells at Her Majesty’s Military Service. I played soldiers for 22 months, with six or seven of them behind bars. My last release from the glasshouse coincided with my 18th birthday and the following week I became a civilian again.

A fortnight later I was an office clerk at a tyre garage and from then on a normal life was lived. I flitted through a few jobs, partied, dated, and eventually married Debbie Cooper, my next door neighbour. By the mid eighties a fair bit of life had happened. Our first son was born, I had progressed to manager of a tyre depot and Margaret Thatcher gave us the right to purchase our council house on Shakespeare Street in Sinfin, which I decided to paint.