Contents

       Title Page

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Also available in the CONFESSIONS series

       About the Author

       Also by Timothy Lea & Rosie Dixon

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER 1

      ‘I got a post card from Nutter, today,’ says Sid, pushing away his tea cup as if he never wanted to see one again – with Mum’s tea you feel like that.

      ‘That’s nice. How is he?’ I say.

      ‘Difficult to tell. Most of it has been crossed out by the censors. He seems a bit under the weather, though – not surprising when you think how much it rains over there.’ Sid laughs heartlessly.

      I pick up the postcard: ‘The paddy fields, Ho-lung-ti.’

      ‘It looks nice, doesn’t it,’ I say. ‘The mountains and all that in the background.’

      ‘Blooming marvellous,’ says Sid. ‘I envy those boys, really I do. Doing away with National Service was the worst thing we ever did in this country. I remember how disappointed I was when they stopped it just before I was due to be called up.’

      ‘Why didn’t you sign on, then?’

      Sid looks uncomfortable. ‘It wouldn’t have been the same, would it? I mean, I wanted to go in with all my mates, didn’t I?’

      ‘They could have signed on as well, Sid.’

      Sid shakes his head. ‘Not everybody feels the same as I do about this septic isle, Timmo. I’ve only got to hear the opening bars of Land Of Hope And Glory and I’m rummaging through Rosie’s Kleenex.’

      I tear my mind away from this affecting thought and examine the postcard. The first word is scratched out and followed by ‘you’ and an exclamation mark. Then comes another ‘you’ followed by three words that have been crossed out followed by a double exclamation mark. Fortunately, though it would have been unfortunately, had I been of a sensitive disposition, I can still read one of the crossed-out words.

      ‘I don’t reckon it was the blokes in Taiwan that censored this, Sid,’ I say. ‘It must have been our lot. Nutter isn’t half having a go at you.’

      Not that I blame the poor sod. If you read Confessions of a Pop Star you will recall that Nutter and a group called ‘Kipper’ were rail-roaded out to Taiwan, that used to be Formosa like Alvin Stardust used to be Shane Fenton, by Sidney Noggett who still is my brother-in-law. They thought they were going to promote their chart-busting record but Sidney had arranged for them to promote the Taiwanese war effort by signing them on for five years in Chiang Kai-Shek’s army. Sidney does not usually go to this amount of trouble for people unless they are costing him money and there is little doubt that ‘Kipper’ were becoming an expensive luxury.

      Sid picks up the postcard. ‘It’s a nice stamp, though, isn’t it? I’ll save that for little Jason.’

      ‘You never think about them, do you?’ I accuse. ‘Thousands of miles from home and with none of their own kind near them.’

      ‘They never have any of their own kind near them,’ says Sid, bitterly. ‘You tell me one person who is as greedy, lazy and useless as they are.’

      ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Sid,’ I say after I have thought about it for a minute.

      Sidney waggles his finger at me. ‘That’s very naughty, Timmo. You know how sensitive I am.’

      I take a long look at the poor little suffering tea leaves at the bottom of my cup and decide to change the subject. ‘What’s this new idea of yours, Sid?’ I ask.

      ‘It’s a gold mine,’ says Sid.

      My heart sinks. I can just see it. Some clapped out National Coal Board reject that Sid has been conned into buying. Broken down lifts, flooded galleries, no pit head baths, worked out seams. And who will end up thousands of feet below the earth with a Mickey Mouse torch tied to his bonce and a kiddy’s spade in his mitt? That’s right, yours bleeding truly.

      ‘I’m sorry, Sid,’ I say. ‘I don’t want any part of it.’

      ‘But you haven’t heard what it is yet!’

      ‘I don’t care about the details. I’m not going down any mine.’

      Sidney claws the air in exasperation. ‘I was talking metaphysically, wasn’t I? I don’t mean a real gold mine. I never fancied mines after I saw Shaft.’

      ‘Shaft wasn’t about mining, Sid.’

      ‘You mean that big, black bloke didn’t have coal dust all over his mug?’

      ‘No, Sid! He was born like that.’ Honestly, you worry sometimes, don’t you? They say that there are over a million illiterates in the country and I reckon that they lie pretty thick around Scraggs Lane.

      ‘Oh,’ says Sid. ‘That explains a lot of things.’

      ‘What about the new idea?’ I say.

      Saying that to Sid is like striking a match to find a gas leak, but somehow I can’t help myself. I have been stuck with Sid for so long that I cannot break away. Like a junkie begging for his fix I must know what half-baked scheme the Maestro of Muddle has come up with now.

      Sidney leans back nonchalantly and rests his elbow in the frying pan that Mum has left on top of the cooker. Like everything on the cooker, including the rings, it is coated in half an inch of grease and is well equipped to become the first item of hardware to swim the Channel. Sid’s safari jacket therefore has to make a quick trip into the interior of the washing machine before the great white hunter can continue.

      ‘Do you know what is the biggest problem facing this country today?’ says Sid.

      ‘Inflation?’ I say. I mean, I listen to the party political broadcasts, don’t I? There is no bleeding alternative.

      ‘In a manner of speaking,’ says Sid, slightly downcast. ‘Obesity was the word I had in mind.’

      Well, it is a free country, isn’t it? I can’t tell him what words to put in his mind, although they would have to be blooming small to fit into that tiny little space. I would have thought that you needed to fold ‘obesity’ in half to get it in without touching the sides.

      ‘Oh yes,’ I say.

      ‘You don’t know what obesity means, do you?’ says Sid, triumphantly.

      ‘No,’ I say. ‘That’s why you used it, isn’t it?’

      ‘It means being fat.’ Sidney looks me up and down critically. ‘About ninety percent of the people in this country