Hi Guys. Firstly, apologies on my behalf, as it's been quite a while since I last posted. The COVID-19 situation has hit us all in some way or another and has shunted everyone's routines out of sync to a certain degree. After almost 3 months on furlough, I have returned to work, and while this has taken some getting used to, I'm now back on track and raring to proceed with the next stage of The Girl, the sequel to Lonely Ballerina. (More news on this later on). Secondly, I'd like to welcome and thank all you lovely subscribers, new and old, for taking the time and effort to subscribe. All this stuff is relatively new to me, so any comments, suggestions, feedback, debate or banter is more than appreciated. So thank you all once again.
We're now smack bang in the middle of the holiday season, and with the tourist industry being amongst the most severely hit by the virus pandemic we've just arrived back home from a week on the East Coast of Yorkshire. A no-expense-spared caravan holiday at Thornwick & Sea Farm at Flamborough, just outside Bridlington. You can't beat the East Coast. It's the place where you hang your washing out to dry on the balcony and it's always wetter when you bring it back in due to the intermittent showers occasionally encountered in this part of the world. The place where you can experience hot sun, torrential rain, gale-force winds, and thick sea mist all within an hour! Ok, perhaps I'm being a little kind here, a little defensive due to my love of the area. I'll cut to the chase; it absolutely twatting pissed it down! The barbeque never got a chance, the cricket set stayed put, and the sun cream remained unused. At times the caravan was rocking like a tin can up a dark alley due to the gale-force winds high up on the cliff tops, and the sneaky sea smog curled and swirled around the van looking for weak points through which to percolate inside and murder us by suffocation. But we loved it (although not the murdering by suffocation part)! For some reason, I love caravans: the concept of being snuggled up inside a tin box, protected against the harshest weather Yorkshire has to offer, has always appealed to me. We'll be back there sooner or later!
It hasn't always been beer and skittles holidays though. My first venture onto the continent came as a 17-year-old with three pals to the lively resort of Arenal on the Spanish island of Majorca. What an eye-opener! Just 12 months previous, I'd been caravanning in Mablethorpe (on the Lincolnshire Riviera!), playing in the sand with my cousins, licking ice creams, and bugging me mother for loose change to spend in the amusement arcades. Now, here I was, let loose on the European continent with three mates, no parental supervision, on the ale and with a wad of cash in my back pocket. Wow! I left quite a few trails of destruction over the resort that year in 1980. I'm not renowned within my friend nor family circles for having a particularly strong stomach or constitution. The exotic cocktails and rich concoctions of spirits on offer during the holiday were some way from the dour pints of Tetley's Bitter I'd been conditioning myself with to build up a resistance, to some degree, against the dreaded involuntary regurgitation, (Ok then, to just a very small degree!). The result was that remnants of my stomach ordained many a bar, street corner, gutter, and beach at various locations throughout the resort--perhaps like the tomcat who drops his scent, staking out his territory wherever he thinks fit? ... Maybe not, but you get my drift, I was out of my depth with the alcohol and was loving it. Some of the other trails left throughout that first holiday abroad by us four young lads will be left for the pages my third book, Auntie June's Dead!, a collection of autobiographical memoirs currently in the embryonic stages of development, and which I'm looking forward to getting stuck into.
As a young kid in Leeds 9 and of single-parent status we didn't really have proper holidays as such. As a 4-year-old I have vague memories of a guest house holiday in Bridlington with the extended family and grandparents, but we then hit a barren spell. As a 7- or 8-year old I remember asking Mam about our holiday:
'Where we going for us 'olidays, Mam?' I asked in all innocence.
She looked down at me and scornfully replied, 'Shut the f*ck up and keep rowing!' (I know .. I know .. the old 'uns are the best!) But that was the essence of our holidays in those days, we just didn't have them. But then my stepfather stepped up to the task and booked a caravan in Reighton Gap near Filey on the East Coast for the three of us kids, himself and his mate and drinking partner Tommy. The year was 1973. Myself, Arkid and Arlass loved it. (There were four of us kids at home, two lads and two lasses. We always referred to each other as Arkid or Arlass with no reference needed to differentiate which Arkid or which Arlass we were referring to!). The caravan was the proverbial tin-box! No water, no electricity, no toilet and a fold-down bed! Tommy, RIP, had the only separate bedroom, Gerry had the fold-down bed and us kids kipped on the wrap-around seating. It smelled of damp but it was never a problem for me. I loved it, the sense of adventure to an impressionable 9-year-old was what dreams were made of! What was a problem for me was the fact that because I was the eldest it was my duty to empty the piss bucket every morning! If it wasn't bad enough having to look at the strong-smelling, noxious liquid sloshing about in the bucket--to this day I think that was the cause of my weak stomach during my later-in-life boozing career--I had to deal with the toilet block where the bucket had to be emptied. It was September and the block was swarming, full to brimming, with daddy long legs--the horrible little b*stards!! I fine-tuned the skill of throwing the contents down the toilet from a distance, rather than fully entering the cubicle and pouring them down at close quarters. The prospect of 'splashback' from the bucket being a more attractive proposition than coming face-to-face with the legions of long-legged, ugly, Martian-faced b*stards who have absolutely no right whatsoever to stalk my earth and breath my air, never mind frequent the twatting toilet blocks at Reighton Gap!!! Gerry always asked if I'd swilled the bucket out clean and I always lied and said that I had! That apart, we absolutely loved it in those little tin boxes at Reighton Gap and I'm still loving the concept even now, though some of the units available today are often more luxurious than any hotel suite in Arenal!!
My second book The Girl has now been completed and is in the Author's editing stages. Following on from her disastrous time in East Moor Park, the book charts the fortunes of Zoe, who, after a spell in a psychiatric hospital, retreats to the family home in Seacroft, Leeds, in order regain some semblance of a life. The book also touches upon the crisis of homelessness on the streets of Leeds City centre. It is here, on the streets of Leeds, where a chance sighting turns Zoe's life upside down:
... The sight that was now playing out thirty yards away on the other side of the road made her feel sick. She could hardly believe it. She didn't want to believe it, but there it was in clear view. She began to shake and tremble ...
The book should be available on kindle and paperback by November/December 2020.
Stay safe guys.
The wild and rugged beauty of the East Yorkshire Coast at Flamborough in God's own
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