NATIONALISING SAUSAGES

Navy gunboats defending our fish from the French.

An army of Sikhs feeding European lorry drivers caught up in Kent.

Shortages of broccoli and lettuce.

Nationalising sausages doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea, now, does it?

HIGH TRAFFIC NEIGHBOURHOOD

Took me an hour (as opposed to 10 minutes) to drive my lad home from school this afternoon, thanks in part to the High Traffic Neighbourhood (‘Improving access for HGVs’) in Southall ‘Green’.

Like a rat, I tried the side streets and back roads option and found those to be jammed, too, and Scotts Road - although confusingly still two-way throughout - is now No Entry from the eastern end.

I would have abandoned my car and got out and walked/scooted home, but there was nowhere to leave it - all the pavements (and even the double yellow lines) were parked on, or being used by, er, pedestrians.

The more virtuous brothers and sisters amongst us may righteously question why me and my lad weren’t scooting/walking anyway? Why are we driving when Southall is known for its traffic gridlock?

We have done it a couple of times. It takes us 40 minutes each way in fine weather. My lad would love to do it every day, I’m sure, although not in the wind, cold and rain. I don’t believe my dodgy feet/knees/hips/back would manage it daily, either.

And why are we going to a school so far away from where we live?

Well, it’s the best (and happiest) school in Southall. And it’s the one that is furthest away from the gasworks stink and toxic air. We wanted to give our little asthmatic boy some clean air five days a week, if we could. (Of course, we since found out the school is under the Heathrow flight path, and next to the smoky narrowboats moored on the canal….).

(In case you are wondering, the ambulance somehow squeezed down the middle of Western Road, fortunately no well-intentioned bollards or planters in the way.)

A SUCCESSFUL HOME DELIVERY AND THE LOCKDOWN/LOCK-IN.

My second son was born late Saturday night (what would normally have been my beer night) two weeks ago, after a short, but intense, labour.

He was delivered at home by two brilliant midwives, who were fully protected courtesy of customised #tinap bin bag aprons, unused clean air protest dust masks, and disposable gloves my wife stocked up on back in February when – without any scientific advice whatsoever – she somehow accurately foresaw the current coronavirus global pandemic somehow reaching the UK's shores (and airports). Practising prudent use of valuable PPE supplies, the midwives wore their own prescription spectacles to protect from splashes to the eyes. (This is, of course, not true. They had NHS supplied aprons, surgical masks, and gloves.)

Home delivery

Now, we've had our groceries, pizza and most other household and personal items delivered to our home, rather than dealing with the stress of actually going out and having to interact with other people, for years, so a home delivery of our new son might have seemed like an obvious choice.

But a home birth was definitely Plan B, and only came to be Plan A due to coronavirus related issues with hospital birth and childcare arrangements for our nearly six year old, which now favoured delivery at home.

Preparing for birth

My boss had told me a few days prior that 'home births are great, because you can make a cup of tea'.

So, I stocked up on tea bags, and prepared myself mentally and physically for the big day by repeatedly ignoring my wife's pleas to listen to her hypnobirthing mp3s on the expected role of the 'birthing partner' (whatever that is), and getting through the last of my beer stockpile in anticipation of several years of enforced sobriety (in order to deal with nighttime and next morning emergencies).

I'm just thankful we never got around to implementing my boss's idea for a work appraisal, because his multi-tasking expectations are clearly way beyond my capabilities.

Labour of birth

While I fully accept that I had the easiest job on the night (bar my nearly six year old, who thankfully slept through it all in the adjacent bedroom), I was very pleased the main bit was over relatively quickly (three hours) as my right arm and hand were getting tired.

To ease the pain of contractions, and in the absence of any pain relief other than 'gas and air', my wife insisted (on pain of death) that I massage her lower back for two minutes every three minutes.

In between massages/contractions, I had to top up her glass of filtered water and hold it to her lips for her to drink.

Birth

When the baby's head came out, slowly, I remember thinking it was weirdly like watching a picture coming out of a printer.

When he was out, I immediately noticed his testicles seemed abnormally large, the size of giant tea bags. (Turns out they were swollen with fluid.)

'He's a boy, he's definitely a boy!' I said.

I could have done with some gas and air myself at this point.

After birth

My wife has been pretty amazing through it all. I don't know how she copes with the lack of sleep, although I'm doing my best to make sure she gets a couple of hours whenever she can when she's not busy feeding baby.

I have done a few nappy changes. Son no. 1 is always delighted whenever his little brother pees all over me, which was really his main reason for wanting a little brother in the first place.

Lockdown/Lock-in

We're mainly homebirds, so the lockdown/lock-in has not been too bad for us. And we're lucky to have had everything we needed, including toilet paper, flour, use of our communal garden and area where we live for exercise, sunshine, unusually fresh air, and seeing red kites and egrets flying over, among other lesser spotted wildlife.

My eldest lad has suffered the most, as he misses his school routine and friends, which is compounded by his not realising that he would no longer be the centre of attention now his little brother is here.

RETURN TO WORK

I returned to work last week after my extended absence due to respiratory illness, which may or may not be related to three years of breathing the poisonous gasworks' air.

I find I now have to literally climb over two rough sleepers camped outside the door of my workplace in order to get in. There is no more space in the nearby doorway, and the doorway around the side entrance is similarly occupied.

By my reckoning, we have five more rough sleepers than we did two months ago, or two years ago, or four years ago.

Meanwhile, Southall’s skyline is rapidly changing from terraced family houses to much-needed ‘genuinely affordable’ skyscraper studio flats, while ‘parklets’ are opening up in the posher parts of Ealing.

To be fair, I did see that the Bell regime have cut a deal with Compton’s foldaway bikes so that residents on the Copley estate can hire them without having to pay a membership fee, and improve air quality at the same time.

TRIGGER VOTE FOR SHARMA

In July 2019, I attended a public meeting with Public Health England to discuss air pollution problems created by the development of the old gasworks site.

At this meeting, I asked Public Health England if it is true that people with Asian and African heritage are genetically more at risk from poisoning from naphthalene – one of the main causes of the stink coming from the gasworks site.

Do you know what they said?

Yes.

Yes, Asian and African people are genetically more at risk from poisoning from naphthalene – one of the main causes of the stink from the gasworks site.

Our MP, Mr Sharma, who had been publicly supporting the need for this meeting, arrived ten minutes after it started. He sneaked in, sat at the back mostly unseen by anyone there, and then left early.

A bit like his time as an MP!

So, at this meeting.

We discovered that Asian and African people, the majority of people in Southall, are genetically more at risk from poisoning from naphthalene.

What did Mr Sharma have to say about that?

Nothing.

For two years or more, Southallians have complained to Mr Sharma about the oppressive stink, and poison air, coming from the old gasworks site. I have suffered numerous chest infections, my wife had serious and severe health problems, and my young son has been hospitalised with asthma and now has to take steroids every day of his life so that he can breathe. I know neighbours whose loved ones have now got cancer, and some who have died from cancer. All, we believe, caused by the poison air.

What has Mr Sharma done to help us?

Nothing.

A year ago, a group of us presented Mr Sharma with a petition signed by 900 Southallians and their families and friends begging Mr Sharma to do something to get Berkeley Group, the developer of the old gasworks site, to stop poisoning Southall.

What did Mr Sharma do?

Nothing.

Finally, throughout the last couple of years, while his constituents in Southall Green have been poisoned by the toxic air from the old gasworks site, and getting ill with breathing problems, and cancer, the developer Berkeley Group has sponsored numerous local events, mainly to 'clean up' Southall.

What did Mr Sharma do?

He attended every one and was photographed smiling broadly wearing his hi-viz jacket with the Berkeley Group logo emblazoned across it.

So tonight, I'm voting in favour of the trigger ballot for Mr Sharma, so that we have the opportunity to have a new Labour MP for Ealing Southall, one who will stand up for local people rather than help those who oppress them.

And I ask all of you to do the same.

Solidarity!

UPDATE: Sharma was triggered for reselection, but survived without having to stand again thanks to his old pal Boris Johnson, who called a general election shortly after.

SOUTHALL UNDER SIEGE: THE NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL

‘A lack of scrutiny,’ says John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer at Ealing Council.

He’s talking about lessons to be learned from the council’s response to the new asphalt plant built in neighbouring Hillingdon borough in 2014.

‘We didn’t expect there to be so much odour from a new building, or so many complaints.’

Moving swiftly on.

Oppressive odour

The highly contaminated old gasworks site in Southall has been kicking up a stink, too.

Carcinogenic benzene and naphthalene, among a cocktail of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals and particulates large and small, are in the air.

‘The odour is oppressive,’ says Damian Leydon.

There are twenty or thirty people in the room.

No one bats an eyelid.

Upset residents

Damian is the Operations Director at 'Southall Waterside', as the gasworks site is being marketed.

It's wedged between the grand union canal, Yeading Brook and Minet Park to the north-west of the site, and two of the twenty percent most economically deprived council wards in England. Southall Green to the south, and Southall Broadway to the north and north-east.

‘The last thing we want to do is upset residents,’ says Damian.

It’s a bit late for that.

Please stop

Damian previously worked as the Construction Manager on Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, and the Athletes Village at the 2012 London Olympics.

Presumably, there were no carcinogenic leaks, oppressed, or upset residents there.

Three times I ask Damian, ‘How many residents are you prepared to upset before you will stop?’

No answers

As for almost every question that night, at Ealing Council’s Air Quality Scrutiny Panel meeting in September 2018, there is no answer.

The meeting concludes, and later the ‘minutes’ are published, but such minutiae do not make the cut.

Was I at a different meeting?

The final report of the ‘scrutiny’ panel, six months later, reads as if the problem is in the past, finished, with yet more ‘lessons to be learned’ (and immediately forgotten).

Friends with benefits

As I leave the meeting, I see Damian having a cosy-looking chat in the corridor (of power) outside the meeting room with Julian Bell, Ealing Council's Leader.

Councillor Bell sat through the two hour meeting in silence.

I ask Julian if he’s booking his holiday in Cannes?

The south of France resort hosts the annual MIPIM property developers’ ‘booze and hookerfest’ (as Private Eye magazine calls it).

Julian is a regular attendee, all expenses paid for by Damian’s employer Berkeley Group, despite claiming to be teetotal. Peter Mason, my ward councillor, is a new attendee. He is not teetotal.

‘If my son gets cancer because of this, you better not stand so close to me,’ I say to Leydon.

He rolls his eyes.

‘David, don’t let’s make this personal,’ says Bell.

We can't breathe!

For two and a half years, my family, my neighbours and friends, have been harassed, attacked, and gassed in our own homes and gardens.

Our children have been forced to breathe ‘stinky’, poisonous air in their school playgrounds, and in our public parks.

We have been laid under siege through three hot summers, including last year’s extended heatwave.

Despite many repeated requests to stop, Damian’s uncovered, unenclosed cesspit of decontamination of a hundred years of toxic waste continues unabated.

Good neighbours

‘Be a good and respectful neighbour,’ says Councillor Mason, at the ward forum.

‘It’s unpleasant’ we are told. ‘It will clear in days, and it’s not harmful to health,’ Ealing Council namelessly tweeted. In June 2017.

Round and round we go.

Is this corrupt?

‘It’s the wrong kind of wind,’ claims Bell.

‘It’s not our responsibility, it’s the Environment Agency.’

‘It’s not us, it’s Public Health England.’

‘I’ll phone Julian and get him to put a councillor on it for you,’ Tony Pidgley, founder and chair of Berkeley Group tells us.

“Cash. Always cash.” (Tony Pidgley)

We started a campaign. Clean Air for Southall and Hayes. CASH for short.

‘I DO NOT TAKE CASH! I DO NOT TAKE CASH!’ is our MP Virendra Sharma’s frankly bizarre opening statement, shouted at us when we go to meet him.

What’s going on?

When is remediation NOT remediation?

Back to the future with John Freeman.

I email John to ask him when remediation of the soil (the cleaning of the contaminated land) is due to be completed. It’s the excavation, the turning, the moving of the toxic waste that has laid at rest for fifty years or more that we’re told is likely to be the main source of the odour nuisance and air pollution.

‘March 2019. It’s finished already.’

‘But it still stinks.’

‘Did you leave the cooker on?’

‘But I’ve seen the planning documents where it says remediation is scheduled to be completed in 2038.’

John consults his colleague, James Potter, Ealing’s Contaminated Land Officer, whose post was initially funded by none other than Berkeley Group.

A very simple explanation as it turns out.

‘The remediation for the next nineteen years is, in a sense, NOT remediation.’

Berkeley bribes?

Then there is the fact, confirmed (and denied) by Public Health England, that the majority Asian and African population of Southall, due to genetic factors, have an increased risk from exposure to naphthalene.

And then there’s Berkeley Group's track record of paying off their former finance director to keep quiet about allegations of bribery and corruption at the top of the company.

Understandably, we doubt the veracity of their own reports of the air quality monitoring data recorded by their business partner, data which they refuse to share with us.

Enough is enough.

Stop the work at the gasworks site while it is made safe.

Stop poisoning Southall.

Please donate to our legal campaign for justice: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/cleanairforsouthallandhayes/

TAKING THE PISS

Last night I arranged to meet a beautiful young woman and we spent an hour together alone in a dingy bedsit.

Two weeks ago, I reported a crime. A broken window in an empty first floor flat, a couple of empty cans of Stella Artois in a small black plastic carrier bag, and a toilet bowlful of urine – the water tank had been drained and capped weeks ago, so there was no running water with which to flush away the evidence, or remove the stench. I know this because I work for the landlord.

Yesterday, after several answerphone messages, crossed wires and missed opportunities in the previous fortnight, Sam from forensics called me and asked me to meet her at the scene in ten minutes.

Half an hour later, in the freezing cold, she arrived, alone, in a small van and armed only with a large suitcase. I wondered about offering to carry it for her, as she was quite small, but thought better of it.

I took Sam up the flight of steps to the disused bedsit, and apologised for the diligence and speed with which our Caretaking and Repairs teams had disturbed the scene of the crime and replaced the broken window without telling me. I had deliberately not reported the broken window to avoid such a scenario.

Sam opened her case and spread out on the floor her clipboard, forms, torch, evidence bags, swabs and other items of detection. She began writing and soon filled up half a page of notes. I apologised for generating so much paperwork for her and joked that she appeared to have even more to do than me. Finally, Sam got down to the nitty gritty. She put on her gloves and took the two empty cans of Stella Artois from the small, black plastic carrier bag and placed them strategically on the floor, several inches apart. She took out a carefully wrapped cotton bud swab, squeezed out some special liquid from a small bottle on to the bud and began rubbing the bud all around the top of the can, paying special attention to the opening and inside the hole. She then placed the swab inside a fresh evidence bag, sealed and signed it. More note taking. I wanted to ask what she was doing, just to break the intense silence, but thought better of it.

Sam wrote another page of notes before examining the now repaired window. She asked me to hold the net curtains up as she couldn't reach, while she dusted the pane for prints. 'Just rub a little bit of washing up liquid on to it to get it off,' she said.

'Thanks. I think I'll leave the washing up until later, though. So what are the chances of finding whodunnit?'

'We'll probably find out who it was. But whether they'll be charged with anything is another matter. They've not done any damage. Probably just looking for somewhere to sleep.'

'Yes. I was kind of hoping you wouldn't find anyone. I feel quite sorry for them. Only two cans of Stella. Although it's premium beer. Quality over quantity, I suppose. It's a shame there are so many empty properties here.'

'Yes, that's the real crime. It makes me really angry. I just wish we had some politicians who listened and did something. But I don't have much hope that anything will ever change.'

Sam gathered up her things and put them back into her suitcase, which she'd been using as a small bench to sit on.' Right, I'm done,' she said, and switched off her torch.

In the gloom, I noticed a square of material on the dirty floor. 'Is this yours?' I turned it over. It was some kind of advertising leaflet. 'Candlelit Dinner For Two,' I heard myself say out loud.

As we left, I thought about asking Sam why she didn't take a sample of the urine, but thought better of it.

INCONSIDERATE CONSTRUCTOR

Lorry driver on his phone while leaving ‘Southall Village’ building site, right next to school entrance during school run.

Got a load more verbals from the driver and his colleagues on site - ‘Did he hit anyone?’, ‘He doesn’t work for us!’

All part of the Considerate Constructors Scheme, aka Couldn’t Care Less Scam.

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND

Or, why I became a soccer manager.

Not Top 100, SM or even football-related. Three years out of date. Depending on this last stab at pop stardom, I will be resigning from my post as Hamburg boss in the New Year, to focus - Pablo/Dani Osvaldo-style - on my musical career.

SAME OLD ENGLAND

I've been writing (if that's the right word) about the England football team elsewhere since 2006, and this is basically the theme: (even when we win) England are shit.

If that's not depressing enough in itself, and you are curious for more, here's a little summary of what to expect should you enter the rabbit hole:

The best place to start is my preview of England's ill-fated plan to get to the final of the 2012 World Cup in South Africa under the guidance of disciplinarian Italian capo Fabio Capello.

That post links to all my previous writings on England's proud tradition and long history of international failure, humiliation, and general, all-round shittiness on the football pitch. But in case you prefer a handy list, here you are, in chronological order:

2006: A new Scotland? Why England's football team will soon be as shit as Scotland's

2007: Why we're crap: the problem with English football

2010: Why England don't have a hope in hell of winning the football World Cup in 2010

2010: No future in England's dreaming? Inside the mind of Fabio Capello

2010: The World Cup on drugs: pure-grade heroin cut with shavings of Clive Tyldesley

2012: Why England don't have a hope in hell of winning Euro 2012

By 2014, I got sick of all this, and so turned to music, with my adaptation of Billy Bragg's classic song: A New Ingerland

While I'm at it (self-promotion, that is), and in case you're still with me and wondering what the Jimmy Carter thing is all about (and you have the stomach for more football-related musical adaptations):

2011 (There's Only One) Jimmy Carter (the footballer, not the peanut farmer)

2014: Whatever happened to... Jimmy Carter?

HOW TO BE A TOP FOOTBALL MANAGER

Leaked documents and video reveal the FA’s shortlist and assessment interview questions for the England manager’s job.

Stuart ‘Psycho’ Pearce, who presided over some of the least attacking and creative Manchester City and England U21 sides in living memory, was asked to give some expert coaching advice on how to play more attacking and creative football in line with England’s DNA blueprint. In a rambling and incoherent response, he finished off by reminiscing about how he used to psych out opponents. 2/5

‘I used to be’ Alex McLeish was asked how he would motivate England’s players to perform at the highest level. The dour Scot explained how he reduced all the players he managed to quivering wrecks unable to perform under pressure. All except fellow Scot Barry Ferguson. 1/5

“Mum, passing me a small parcel wrapped in Xmas paper: ‘I didn’t get you anything for Xmas.’

Me: ‘What’s this then?’

Mum: ‘Oh, just socks.'”

LOUDER THAN WORDS

We are all consciously or unconsciously re-enacting previous unresolved experiences of loss, or absence, of relationships. These disappointments evoke in us resentment and anger, which control us until we can forgive - to see the victim in the perpetrator.

We remain victims all the while we are unable to forgive, and all the while we are unable to let people into our inner worlds of pain - to protect ourselves from breakdown, but also to protect other people from this part of our experience for fear of what it will do to them, and how they will react to us.

Had hearing test on Friday. 20% hearing loss in left ear. Ear canal is wafer thin in places, meaning wax build up. That, or a brain tumour.

12 week old son just laughed properly for the first time. Now he can’t stop.

3 days into my new job. Company policy says staff must remain upbeat. Loving every single minute of my return to wage slavery.

Baby son is one month old. Feels like we’ve had him five minutes and forever.

A NEW INGERLAND

I wasn't even born when we won the World Cup
I'm forty-six now and all hope I've given up
My wife asks me now 'Why don't you be a better fan?'
But all the players I loved at school already failed for Ingerland 

I loved you then, but I don't love you still
I bet you'd beat Portugal, but it ended nil-nil
I don't feel bad about letting you go
I just feel bad about letting you know...

There's no way we'll win the World Cup
Unless we play like a new Ingerland
And win at penalties

I loved the games in Italia '90
But that was bloody years ago!
I can't survive on the rubbish since then
Every time we go down to ten men... 

I saw two shooting stars last night
I looked at them, but they were only highlights
Is it wrong to wish on the BBC?
I wish, I wish, but here's reality...

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO... JIMMY CARTER?

A little under three years ago I eulogised about Jimmy Carter (the footballer, not the peanut farmer) in a musical response to 20lb Sounds eulogising about Jimmy Carter (the peanut farmer, not the footballer).

I wondered why Dan, the band’s Liverpool-supporting singer-songwriter, had neglected the opportunity to write about a player who is widely acknowledged (from a cursory search of fan forums) as one of Liverpool’s worst ever signings?

Two years later (thanks to the wonder of the internet, and possibly also the wonder of Doug Whitfield and his Music Manumit Podcast), I received a reply:



Around this time, I also received another reply:



(For those of you of a technical and/or inquisitive nature, I’ve posted screenshots of these comments because I lost the ability to link to them as actual comments on the original blog post during one of my many blog migrations.)

Now, I don’t know if this is the real Dan Lynch or if it is Doug Whitfield pretending to be Dan to somehow boost his podcast ratings, but who cares?

I tracked Jimmy down and found a recent interview with him on the Millwallant podcast, in which Jimmy ‘tells us what it’s like to be a professional footballer and also demonstrates his genuine knowledge and passion for the game.’ I found it really quite insightful, all the more so coming from a player who most people have forgotten, never heard of, or so easily disparage based on his ‘failures’ at Liverpool and Arsenal.

If you prefer to read, there’s a similar interview on the Arsenal website.

What got me obsessing about a fairly obscure ex-Millwall, Liverpool, Arsenal and Portsmouth footballer again? Well, Dan’s band 20lb Sounds took five quid off me in time for Xmas 2012 on the promise of an album release in February 2013. Since then there have been a few updates about how the album would be ready ‘next month’, ‘in time for Xmas’ and how much Dan and the boys were enjoying their holidays in the sun. But no album. Until now. A year later. But only for backers, for the time being (see footnote 1). I had a listen this morning, and, really, it sounds great. Well done, to all concerned.

So I decided to have another go at my own take on 20lb Sounds’ Jimmy Carter. I could have teased and tormented you all by not releasing it for another two years, and only to people who had given me money to do so, but I’m not like that.

So, without further ado, and introducing MC Jimmy ‘The Cartz’ Carter rapping an intro (footnote 2), and Richard ‘Smash it!’ Keys rapping the chorus-to-verse bridges (footnote 3) as part of his rehabilitation and bid to replace Richard Scudamore as chief executive of the Premier League, here’s my new, updated easy listening version of Jimmy Carter:

Wife: “I don’t like the words. I don’t like the music. You sound like a hooligan. I couldn’t care less about fucking Jimmy Carter.”

Teaching REM’s The One I Love to 7 yr old.

Had to change the words to ‘The One-Eyed Bug’.

XMAS 2.0

Abstract: Not another Festive Fifty podcast. Tags: podcast, jamendo, music, freedom, xmas

Following on, naturally enough, from episode one, I’m pleased to announce that, this morning, I finally got around to knocking out episode two of my much anticipated and eagerly awaited annual Xmas podcast. So here it is, at last, available for the listening pleasure of children of all ages.

As usual, I can’t be bothered to produce any show notes, but if you want to find out more about the songs I played, you can head over to Jamendo where you can listen uninterrupted by my dulcet tones, and even download said music for free.

Lastly I’d like to wish all three of my dedicated listeners a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. On the publishing frequency of this podcast, if you would like me to give it to you annually, please leave a comment below, and I will do my best to ignore it.

CAREERS ADVICE

“When I grow up, I want to play football for Manchester United!”

For an eight year old boy growing up in rural Lincolnshire in the 1970s it seemed like an honest and rational response to an impossible question. No one else at my school wanted to play football for Manchester United. Leeds, maybe. Liverpool, definitely. Other kids said they wanted to be firemen, soldiers, doctors, and nurses. More of that later. Maybe their parents were firemen? Or maybe not. I didn’t know what my parents were. My dad went out before I got up every morning, and came home after I went to bed. At weekends, he told me stories about George Best, Denis Law (his favourite), Bobby Charlton, and the Busby Babes. About Manchester United and how they had the best team and had the best players. Not any more. That was all before my time. I was born in the year United had won the League for the last time, the year before they went on to win the European Cup. The Glory Days. Now, in my time, United were in Division Two (although I didn’t understand what that meant at the time). What I did understand was that I got to see highlights on Yorkshire TV occasionally, with a young and annoying Martin Tyler commentating on matches against the likes of ‘local’ teams Hull City, Sheffield Wednesday and York City. United were good that season. Stuart Pearson was my favourite then. Stocky and powerful, he played with the passion that I came to expect from United players. He was never the best, but he scored goals and looked like he meant it. I meant it when I said I wanted to be a footballer.

“Think of something realistic,” I was told.

“You’ll never make it.”

“Concentrate on your studies.”

I couldn’t wait to prove them wrong.

I got in to the school team. In games lessons and playtime, I was a stocky and powerful centre forward who scored goals. Our first proper match was against another village school.

Five years later, in big school, I’d had my chips pissed on, but I still wanted to make it. I wrote to East Stirlingshire Football Club (just before a young Alex Ferguson took charge) offering my services. I got a polite rejection letter back.

No one ever told me why. I was too upset to ask.

Later, in Art class, I put together a morbid collage of war and that terrible question in cut-out newspaper headline letters:

“Why?”

“Don’t be so childish!” the teacher scolded me when he woke from his alcoholic stupor.

Well, pardon me. I was a child. Surely I was allowed to ask, and expect an adult answer?

So instead, I told them I wanted to join the Army. Not because I wanted to, but because that seemed to keep them happy.

Later still, when approaching school leaving age, after filling in countless forms asking me what I liked doing and what I was good at, I was told by a ‘careers advisor’ to study chemical or electrical engineering at university. I didn’t know what they were or why they’d been chosen for me. I resolved to go on the dole.

(Has careers guidance gone off the rails?. Was it ever on the rails?)

Wife says we should have named our cat Bjork.

Because she’s small, cute and makes funny noises.

Eating cold turkey, ham, pork pie, Lincolnshire sausage and haslet. Reminiscing about pig’s chap, chine and brawn.