So I’ve left school and I spent the summer enjoying the that feeling when you first experience cannabis. Getting high, sleeping in and hanging around street corners and parks the way you do at that age. Smoking cannabis and having banter, staying out until late at night, the freedom of youth. The only memory of that summer was the playscheme, not one of those kids ones but a teenage one. It was held at the national park that backed onto our estate. We played flags for about four hours a day. Hiding in the bushes waiting for someone to come before tagging them and hoping your team grabs their flag. Would then go home and hang out in the estate park with Dean and Chris, and the Roachfords until their sister Sacha called them in. We played football and chilled.
Actually I lie, that summer I also got drunk for the first time, and as a result I hate the feeling of being drunk, the feeling of no control and it stems from this incident. Dean, Chris and myself had been invited to a party a few roads down. We decided that before we went we would have a few drinks. We went to the local shop and despite all being under-age Mr Gandhi (I shit you not) sold us three four packs of beer, if I remember rightly Castlemaine XXXX, and half a bottle of vodka. We went back to Chris’s house, his family were out, and Chris put on some porn, to this day I remember it was called The Jade Pussycat, I found out recently that it is a classic. Anyway we sat around watching porn and I remember that the house was warm and outside was cold. I drank my four beers and felt, nice. Then drank a quarter of the vodka, still feeling great. Waited for the other guys to finish their drinks so we could leave. Obviously I was feeling great as we headed out, Chris’s house like my house my mixed up, the living room was upstairs. As we headed down the stairs I stumbled but just laughed, by the time we reached the front door we were in good spirits laughing and making a little noise but it was only 9-ish. I don’t remember much about the next 5 minutes other than, Dean opened the front door, I felt the cold air, as the air hit my face I remember looking up across the street to see my Mother in her bedroom window, laughing, then I remember falling face first like you see in the movies, but there was no crash mat to catch me just concrete pavement. As I lay there looking up at the stars, Chris and Dean did nothing to help just laugh, my Mother was laughing, no helping, laughing. After about 20 minutes I managed to get to my feet, more than willing to go home, but Mum wasn’t having it so we went to the party. We got to the party and I wasn’t feeling great. You know the feeling you get when you know you are going to be sick it is just a matter of time. After about 20 minutes I went outside the front and puked my guts up for a good amount of time. Now for anyone that has ever been really really sick, you will know that you get the shivers after because you have lost most of your heat in the puke and most of your fluids. I was sat slumped on the kerb with my head between my knees trying to get the last of the sick from the back of my throat. The next thing I know felt a sudden rush of wet and cold. Someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over me, felt like a big bucket as well. My shivering went into overdrive and I can’t remember a time when I have felt more not with it (except for the time at the lock in, having to go to work and sleeping in a wardrobe). I wasn’t with it, but I could hear a kerfuffle behind me. Chris had apparently not agreed with the bucket action and laid out some guy on the drive, girls were screaming and Dean was standing over me making sure I was okay. For the next hour I sat on the kerb before going home. The two things I got from that night were, it felt good that there was someone to keep an eye out for me and that alcohol helps you sleep really well. Although the first taste of a hangover was horrible, dry mouth, banging head and nausea that leads to sod all but strong desire for God to take you quickly and painlessly.
After that summer went to college to study basic I.T., more for the fact that I really couldn’t be assed to go into the workforce yet. The first few months of college were standard, go to lessons, chill in the canteen and try to beat everyone else’s score on Street Fighter II. Sometimes we would go out for lunch and smoke Hashish in the piss smelling multi storey car park opposite the college. After a few months of this regular routine was given a choice by my Lecturer, sort it out or piss off basically. So knuckled down and finished the course. But i met a few new people that year that I would then chill with for the next few years. Once college was finished for me went to work in the Littlewoods in the high street of town, it was a boring job, putting clothes out and making sure that customers got what they wanted, I hated the job but I taught me a lot about customer service, something I am still great at today. Now when I say good customer service I mean in a work environment, outside of a work environment I am a hyper critical wanker who more often than not will say it as I see it not really worrying about the repercussions. Unless it a woman I fancy then I put them on a pedestal and therefore in my mind make them special, harder to pull and out of my league when there is no need, but it’s ingrained now, and I find it bloody hard to change that. Prime example was Princess Buttaluv (not her real name). Anyway I digress, I was working at Littlewoods and hating it. I was spending time with Lee T and we were into Happy Mondays and that whole sound that was around at that time. Baggy tracksuit bottoms, or Aladdin pants as were called them, Global Hyper Colour T-shirts and wallabies shoes. We were lucky in the sense that we were there when the rave movement started. We used to go to the local music shop, a nice little independent store to buy tunes and see what was new. One day we were there and we saw a flyer for a rave, now this was new and exciting to us. It was called Labyrinth and it had a unicorn on the front of the flyer with a light blue background. I don’t even remember most of the acts, except for DJ Hype, Nicky Blackmarket and Carl Cox. Now at the time these names really didn’t mean a lot to me, but the thought of going to a rave with my friends was too good a chance to miss. The build up was exciting picking out what clothes to wear, working out if we would need a coat etc, we were young remember 16. We arranged to go with about 10 other people. We all met in the park and set off, the rave was close to us about 10 miles by road or about 5 through fields, being young and cheap we went through the fields, drinking as we went having banter. You could hear the music about a mile from the event, as we got closer we could see the lights, of the fairground they had erected. You could see people in the distance being herded through the barriers, tickets being checked. I remember feeling anxiety that we wouldn’t get in, the security would turn us away, all these thoughts went through my mind. Checking my pockets every 30 seconds for my ticket and poorly made fake I.D. I had no reason to panic because back then they didn’t give a rats ass about who was old enough and what they were carrying, they wanted money and people to have a good time. So we got in and it was amazing, it was in a marquee with a raised stage at the front and a massive screen above it. We were in there for about an hour drinking and dancing and working up a sweat when someone offered out the pills. Now we all took one, slightly reddish, an original love heart (which in today’s climate people would ripped your hand off for). After about another hour I could see it was affecting my friends, they were being very tactile and you could see the bottom jaw wobbling. But I wasn’t feeling anything, I was waiting for a change in mood, feeling anything but I didn’t feel anything. Regardless I lasted the entire night, highlights being, the first time I ever heard the Jungle Anthem Chopper remix (“ladies and gentlemen can I have you attention please…). And watching Carl Cox mix on four decks, to this day never had a feeling like it. We left just after watching the sunrise and made our way home, everyone was battered, walking at a slow pace finishing off any liquids that were left. I got home at 9am and as I walked through the door my Mum was in the garden, she immediately came in and made me a cup of tea and advised me to shower and go to bed. She wasn’t angry as she knew it was a part of growing up, experiencing these events. This would become a habit of hers over the years, to the point that one time after a rave she walked into a living room with 6 guys and simply said “Nice speed was it lads? Cup of tea?). Always love her for that. This was the start of my raving career/experience and it went on for at least 6 years. The raving was the best bit about the next 6 years because not a lot else was. If it wasn’t for Eddie Ig and James Smith those years would have been hell and I thank both of them for being there. But that as they that is for the next installment.
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