Becoming Johnny Vegas. Johnny Vegas
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with the smell of frying bacon drifting in from the kitchen
SAINTS!! Paying when Dad had the money, or climbing in to see a match when he didn’t. Seeing windows around the town decorated in red and white like a second Christmas whenever they made it to a Challenge Cup final and knowing my town was best at rugby league. And making glass
Setting light to plastic beer-crates to watch the hot gloop spit and drip but having to hide the burn from Mum because she’d go ballistic if she found out we were playing with fire
The Sunday bonfire club and setting light to anything that would burn over Hankey’s Well
Refusing to jump off the roof of St Austin’s Infant School and starting to cry when our Robert tried to motivate me by lying about the police coming –
‘You’ll go to jail and never see me Mam or Dad again’
‘They can come and visit’
‘They’d be too ashamed. Now jump!’
‘I’ll write to them, every day’
‘Suit yourself, ya tart!’
Watching our Mark pour meths on a car and light it then run down the street shouting, ‘Get back! It’s gonna blow!’
Throwing blackberries at car windscreens from the railway wall and hoping some angry bloke would stop the car and give chase
Throwing stuff onto the train tracks on the other side of the railway wall and watching the train demolish it when it left Thatto Heath, despite knowing we’d never be allowed beyond hand’s grasp of our mum’s apron strings again if we were caught playing near there
Climbing down the huge water-meter rule that ran up the side of an empty Hankey’s Well and hating the peer pressure that had prompted me to do so, yet thinking it was like a picture I’d seen of the Colosseum in school once we were down there
A gang of us watching a kid whose name I won’t use for legal reasons wipe his arse on the corner brickwork of our street, then examining the results for worms –
‘Oh my God, that is sick!’
‘What would you know? Girls, eh? Pah!’
‘I think they’ve got a point’
‘Ya girl!’
My dad pulling my pants down and smacking my bum in front of everybody for climbing on the electricity sub-station
Finding a Tom O’Connor cassette over the woods that still worked and listening to it with my dad, both of us laughing even though I wasn’t always sure why –
‘It’s funny ’cos it was true, proper storytelling and with no effing and blinding like most of ’em nowadays!’
Crashing Paul Barnett’s birthday party by pretending to return a bag of sweets our Mark had misplaced at home, just so I could see his Evel Kneivel
Stealing the car from Lee Leyland’s Starsky and Hutch board-game and burying it in our rabbit hutch when guilt got the better of me
Volunteering my pet Blacky when I thought Dad was joking about whose rabbit was going in the pot, until I came home and found him skinned and strung up –
‘I saved you these’
‘What are they?’
‘His ears, tail and feet. They’re meant to bring good luck’
Waiting for Mark to get out of our shared bath so I could pour water on my willy with an empty shampoo bottle because I liked the tingle
Swapping a butty for a sip of the gravy from Chris Ramsdale’s Pot Noodle packed lunch –
‘It must be like this out in space!’
Teaching the whole year how to dance proper to ‘Prince Charming’ by Adam and the Ants –
‘No, it’s right arm up, step, then left arm up and cross, step, right arm down on hip, step, left arm down on hip, step. Sort of swagger when you do it and keep in time or else we’ll all look stupid’
The first time I ever got caned for fighting with Phil Morgan for jumping the queue at break time –
‘And you know why you’re here?’
‘Yes, sir’
‘Yes, sir’
‘And the punishment, as a result?’
‘Yes, sir’
‘Yes, sir’
‘And have you anything to say for yourselves?’
‘No, sir’
‘Yes, sir’
‘What’s that, Pennington?’
‘Did you know that I’m an altar boy, sir?’
‘I do, yes’
‘Okay’
‘Okay. Right, well, altar boys first, then. Hands out, Pennington’
‘Yes, sir’
Thursdays being velvet corduroy trousers day and hating how velvet corduroy felt against my skin, but still feeling guilty when I purposely took the knees out of them
Finding a pound note in the snow and believing my dad when he took it off me and said he was going to take it down to the lost property department at the local police station –
‘But it’s mine if nobody claims it?’
‘Oh, aye’
‘How long does it take before they decide?’
‘About a year, give or take’
‘Will they call as soon as they know?’
‘I should imagine so. Either way, at least you know you did the right thing, eh?’
‘Yeah’
My dad offering me five pence for every book I read and my tear-arsing it down to Thatto Heath library as a result –
‘Noggin the Nog counts as a book!’
‘Don’t try kidding a kidder. There’s too many pictures in that for a lad of your age and intelligence’
‘I can’t wait to get a paper round!’
‘Well, at least you’ll not be short of ow’t to read while you’re doing it’
Believing our Mark when he told me that Beecham’s Clock Tower in St Helens’ town centre was Big Ben
Believing our Mark when he told me that cars drove over the top hump of Runcorn Bridge
Marching through town to protest about a sex shop opening and feeling guilty because it used to be called Pennington’s the Tailor’s –
‘First Benny Hill, now this. What’s the world coming to?’
Busting our stereo by dropping a half-penny down between the cassette buttons and the casing and nearly electrocuting my mum when she needed some time alone with Johnny Mathis
Saying family bidding prayers in front of Archbishop Worlock in the Liverpool Wigwam and thinking –
‘Don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t think it ... but if you shaved the bits of hair off the sides of Derek Worlock and stuck ’em on his face ... he would make a great Ming The Merciless. Sorry, God!’
Gasping on the tarmac while waiting for Pope John Paul to land at Speke Airport with people going mad because some blokes with trolleys were trying to charge 70p for cans of Coke and Fanta –
‘Just one can between us?’
‘No, here, have some of this’
‘It’s