part two of the long story...

He had been a wilful child, and when Mother; as she insisted on being called, the head of Wilson’s home for dispossessed boys could no longer deal with his tantrums and outbursts, she sent him to work in the kitchens of the local Titan’s. When Bob visited the hotel, so impressed had he been with Jerry’s quick wit and ability to spin, he had immediately promoted him to his personal intern at the head office in Chicago, where he then worked for the next eight years, learning the business and taking everything Bob told him as gospel. This was his first stroke of luck! Bob had originally offered to pay for Jerry’s college career when he was just fifteen. They had a blazing row, reminiscent of those that Jerry imagined he would have with his own father had he been living. Jerry refused the offer of a free ride through college.

“It’s all well and good knowing the business Jerry,” Bob had said “but without that little piece of paper, it’s worth shit!” But Jerry was not, nor had he ever been the sort to take anything for nothing.

“I’ll go to college when I can afford it, I’ll work two jobs if I have to!”

“Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to make life so hard for yourself, I’m offering you nothing but the chance to be all you can be!”

“Would you have taken it at my age?” Jerry asked, staring hard into Bob’s eyes.

Bob knew he was beaten, of course he would not have taken such an offer. He was as proud and stubborn as Jerry now, and as wilful as Jerry when he was a boy. He had never even attended college because of the cost, but it was a different time and that piece of paper had meant so little then. He could see so much potential in the young Jerry Dawson so, despondent; Bob gave Jerry a large raise and told him to save.

Of course all that had changed upon his mother’s death, and Bob, being one of the few people who knew about Jerry’s past had been delighted, writing the Principal of Stanford University immediately upon hearing the news, insisting that Jerry would be the finest and most dedicated student who ever studied there. Jerry was elated when Bob promised him a new position as VP of the whole North West division, seven hotels and two casinos including the celebrated Titan Royal in Chicago, where the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt stayed during his visits to the city. As promised, Jerry was a highly motivated and active student of the University, sitting a numerous committees and the king of the Debate society. He was also one of the most popular boys at the college, having inherited the rugged good looks and suave charm which had sent Mavis running into Jerry Sr.’s arms twenty years ago, though he never knew it. He had girls falling at his feet from day one and flirted constantly with the female members of staff, actions which had him in the Dean’s office almost weekly.

“You must stop this Jerry, you’ve got Betty swooning every time you walk in,” Dean Peterson had said, referring to the young cashier in the dormitory dining hall, “She keeps messing up her register and we’re losing her three hours a week while she puts herself back together!”

Jerry left a rose for her on her cash register and a note apologising for his behaviour and telling her that she was beautiful, but he needed to concentrate on his studies and he had not the time to fall in love. So eloquent was the note that Betty could not even be mad or upset, and she reasoned that, as long as he kept winking at her in the mornings at breakfast, he would eventually find the time to take her out.

When he left college, as promised, he was given an office at the Chicago Titan, and the key to the safe along with a $25,000 a year contract. Jerry had finally realised the potential that Bob had seen all along. In his first year as Vice President, Jerry increased profit margins by twenty three percent, and met the President of the United States who commented that he was a fine young man with outstanding business acumen. Jerry, modest at the best of times, had been so enthralled by this commendation, that he had passed his ardour onto his staff, giving them a 70¢ per hour raise.

By the time he married Doris, he was almost thirty and over the next few years, Bob’s started to decline. This man who now served, not only as a mentor, but as a father, a business advisor and a friend was dying. Frequent bouts of influenza had left his round body exhausted, and when the Cancer got him in 1950, death was inevitable. It was still a shock when, 6 months after his diagnosis, he fell asleep after supper, and didn’t wake up. He was only 52, and the business world mourned. 

The Start of an as yet untitled story...

The wireless hummed in the corner of the breakfast room as I, in my thirties by then, brought fresh apple juice to his table. Plain oatmeal had been the staple breakfast for Jerry for nigh on twenty five years, but things had changed recently, and Jerry was going to make the most of it!

        “Will Sir be dining alone?” I enquired. Jerry nodded and I discreetly removed the second place setting with well practiced haste.

        “Hector,” he said knowingly.

“Please call me Hec,” I interrupted, I’d known him for ten years by that point and the formality seemed rather pointless.

“Hec, you couldn’t imagine how it feels to be here right now. Thank you,” he said as I set down his melon and Parma ham before him. It had been five years since Jerry had found his wife Doris in a romantic tryst with Henry, the butler and seemingly, he had only just recovered, but I knew better. At the time he had taken it hard and did not see anyone for a week. He had cried, in secret, weeping silently into his twenty five year old single malt behind closed doors, not venturing out of his suite. Of course gossip spread like wildfire, particularly after he gave them his blessing to be together. As though he was their father. The fishwives, particularly those who had pursued him and been rejected by him loved this. It served him right for what he put all the girls through when he was a young boy, fresh out of college.

“He took me out on a date, gave me flowers, took me to a movie and made a whole big deal of taking me to my door and insisting on meeting my father! He stole a kiss and was a perfect gentleman. The next day he was out with that COW Doris!” It was true that Doris was not the prettiest, nor the most feminine girl, but he had a secret which wouldn’t go away and he chose her because of her implicit trust and discretion. He knew she would never ask any questions, nor force his hand in any way. More than that, he knew she couldn’t have children. While she worked for him, they would talk and one day, over a scotch after hours, she poured out her heart about the terrible condition which had left her barren. She had feared she would never marry, seeing that she could never produce an heir. He had never bothered about continuing the family line. That night they sealed their affection with a kiss and within the week they were courting. Their relationship was as good as any other, they were affectionate with one another both emotionally and physically. The move from housekeeper to Lady of Leisure was an easy one and she never tired of ordering around the maid she had once been, sitting writing her correspondence and eating bon bons in the sitting room with the wireless on and their miniature daschund at her feet. He would send her out shopping for the finest Coco Chanel gowns and hats by Lily Dache and twice a year would put her on the train to New York to see Muriel King’s Spring and Fall lines in her East Sixty First Street Salon. She wanted for nothing.

The history of one Jeremy David Dawson, named for his father and grandfather, is not a happy one, and I know it better than most. His father had been killed in combat in the Great War, and his mother had lost her mind upon learning that her darling Jerry would never return and poor little Jerry Junior had been left in a series of Orphanages, dreaming that one day he would see them again. This fantasy lasted until his eighteenth birthday, when his mother died, and the last will and testament of Mavis Sanders was read. There was a large estate which had remained nearly untouched since his father’s death, and Jerry Junior could go to college. This was his second stroke of luck. He did not even attend his mother’s funeral and changed his name to avoid the slur of madness which ran through his family. Studying at Stanford, thanks to a kind word from his mentor, the great and good Bob Titan of the prestigious Titan Hotel and casino chain, he majored in Business Management, graduating at the top of his class. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

It Gets Better...

I just want to let you know that I wrote this a while ago when in a very low mood – I’m ok now, and I don’t want you to worry. I’m blogging it for all the people I know who have mental health problems.

“I was diagnosed (incorrectly) eight years ago with depression. I was at University, I was struggling. I was put onto anti-depressants, on a threat of hospitalisation and I started to feel better. Amazing in fact. I dropped 2 stone and started smiling again. But soon enough I was back to my lowest feeling suicidal and very depressed. This depressive period lasted a long while, around 8-9 months during which time my body failed me and I was hospitalised with a hernia.

Fast forward to 2006 and I started working for my Local Authority.

From the start I was bullied incessantly. My depression got worse and it affected my work. I was called “unenthusiastic” by a team leader who couldn’t understand why I spent all day yawning (after 3 straight night’s of little or no sleep). I was micro-managed, subjected to weekly reviews with a panel of managers who kept a tally on every behaviour I displayed. I thought I wasn’t cut out for the politics of working in an office. Had I been feeling better, I might have complained, or raised a grievance, but as it was, I did nothing. Returning to my psychiatrist who asked me to fill in a mood chart, I was finally diagnosed correctly.

Bipolar Disorder

My thoughts were scattered and my mood swings unbearable. I was put on medication, which I willingly took and I started to feel more positive and happy.

I finally had the confidence to seek therapy, leave my job and start a teacher training degree which I passed. Although I had a few bumps along the way, I managed to get through it thanks to very supportive tutors and mentors… But that’s what they do isn’t it? They are there to be supportive, that’s why they’re teachers – I’m the same.

After I completed my degree, I couldn’t find a job, and I needed cash fast, so I applied for a job at Reed and was placed in a fantastic position in a company who shall remain nameless. As soon as I started work I disclosed my condition. It seemed foolish not to, besides I still had a few weeks of therapy left. I worked hard, came off my medication under the guidance of my doctors and started enjoying life.

But that little spectre never goes away does it? Look at Stephen Fry – He appears stable, he is witty and clever. But in 1995 he essentially quit his job after one day during a Bipolar Episode (actually he left the theatre and didn’t return for four days).”

The paranoia is the worst. I worry about meetings that go on between team leaders which have nothing to do with me. I’m no longer medicated and I’ve started to notice my triggers, but when I see a movie set on a psychiatric ward, or read “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, when I read Stephen Fry’s hyper tweets or watch him being rapid an interesting on QI I’m reminded that "there but by the grace of God go I."

So to all my Bipolar friends, all my Depressed friends, all my Borderline Personality Disorder friends… We face more challenges than we’d care to disclose – but remember, we need to be there for each other – don’t let it get the best of you and don’t let those dark thoughts stop you seeing the light.

Actual Creative Writing and stuff!

3^rd September 2005

Case Notes: 652234BZ

Initial Assessment and Goldberg Depression Questionnaire.

On August 28^th, the patient was showering at her mother’s home in Banks Street, New Orleans, close to the Mid City Yacht Club and Jewish Cemetery. The patient’s state of mind is perhaps revealed by the fact that, in spite of national concern and local panic, she refused to be evacuated along with her mother and younger sister. Stating that she wanted to take care of the house and protect it from looters, she remained in the property for three days prior to the hurricane. The dog, a German Shepherd, refused to be separated from her at that time, and even when she was discovered by the army the next day, in the Jewish Cemetery naked and distressed, the dog followed her into the EMS Truck and growled at anybody who got near her.

The patient’s mental history is fractured, she was admitted as a small child aged five when she attempted to push the baby’s stroller down the stairs and again the following year when she carried the baby into the street and left her in a box on the sidewalk. Both times the psychiatrist who examined her, a Mr Frobisher, could find no mental disorder or psychopathology, and she was discharged into the care of her mother. Later at twelve she was called in for guidance counselling at school after she was caught in the locker-rooms with a girl in her class. She begged that it all be kept off the record and vowed that she wouldn’t do anything like that again. The notes on her permanent record suggest that the school kept it away from her parents as they were going through a difficult and messy divorce.

After that, nothing for several years. Up until 2003 when aged twenty-two, she was admitted to a clinic at University Hospital near her home, after being discovered in a back alley, meters from her house wet and dishevelled with torn clothes. Here is another note relating to the family; “The mother was horrified to find her daughter being treated at a free-clinic and insisted that she be transferred to Red Oaks immediately, some six miles away across the river. She insisted that it was all nonsense and that her daughter ‘pulls this kind of stuff all the time’ before flouncing out for a cigarette. Even after we presented her with a positive rape kit she still wanted her in the hands of a psychiatrist, not a physician.”

I believe the mother may have a lot to do with the patient’s current mental state.

Six months later, during the coldest winter that New Orleans had seen in twenty years, the patient took a knife from the drawer of the kitchen cupboard and attempted to cut her wrists. She was admitted with chronic depression and drugged with Fluoxetine for two weeks and then released, once again, into the care of her mother.

My immediate impression upon meeting the patient is that she is depressed but also exhibits the classic signs of Bipolar Disorder, and a personality disturbance. She is an elaborator, and a pathological liar, although having met her mother, I can see that this need to conceal reality may be an attempt to conform to an impossible perfection.

I am passing her care onto Varla Jones for treatment.

Dr Trevor Phillips Psych. MD

It was raining the day I got raped. Heavy rain that killed the silence. I could hear a police siren in the distance, but it never scared him, it never stopped him. The rain was heavy but warm. If I hadn’t been being raped at the time, I would have thought, what a lovely night. In fact, I believe I did, when I was trying to disassociate my brain from my being. The rain that stole my screams, will remain with me always.

It was raining the day I tried to commit suicide. After they looked at my records, they said that I had chosen that day, that weather to tell people who wouldn’t listen the first time round, what had happened. That of course is not true. Had it been true, I would have chosen warm rain. It was icy cold on that bench, my fingers wouldn’t work the knife. Then mum came along, it was like a scene from a really shit movie. The mascara was running down her cheeks and I could see her breath.

Now the sun is always shining, my boss calls it a sabbatical, Mom tells me it’s an extended holiday; but for me, Los Angeles will always be prison. They thought it would be a good idea to send me here, far away from the hot, drenched New Orleans. The hurricane was the last straw. Some people call it insanity. In my opinion, the crazy ones are those who keep their heads when all around them others are losing theirs – I think that’s from a poem. I think I was the sanest of the bunch because I lost it first. I was in the shower when the wind started picking up. It blew in through the bathroom window, hot and wild and then; there I was, back in the alley. They found me naked in a ball, screaming obscenities to statues in the cemetery, Harry, our German Shepherd guarding my honour. Then and there the decision was made. I can see LA in all it’s glory, my cell faces the Hollywood sign. When she tells her friends, Mom calls it detox; when she drinks coffee with the senator and plays bridge with the girls. She picked the place, not just for its connections with the insane elite – allegedly Marilyn stayed here – but for its name; “Blossoming Cherries”. It doesn’t sound like an institution does it? For a moment I can imagine I’m on holiday, taking a break and relax. Then Betty the bulimic will start violently throwing up, making as much noise as possible and I’m snapped right out of it. Luckily for me, this is one of the only places left in LA where you can smoke a cigarette indoors. It’s dangerous to try and stop crazy people taking enjoyment from a still legal form of suicide. It’s the only thing keeping me level.

I’ve got my own room, which has all my things in it, but more importantly, I’m left mostly to my own devices. I masturbate so much, people think I’m in for sex addiction. They keep checking on me through the night, because I’m still a suicide risk, but the nurses are used to seeing me writhing on the bed. At first I would stop, embarrassed and apologise as the poor nurse just out of college would back away with a red face. Now I just carry on and she pretends she never saw anything. One night, my room didn’t get checked. Although I was in the throes of wilful abandonment at the time, I did worry! Suddenly the door opened. It was a new nurse, with short hair and big hands. She looked into my eyes as they glazed over and stood for a few moments watching me. As I finally settled she said “checks” and left the room. I never saw her again, and later found out that a dyke with a real sex addiction had heard about my nocturnal activities and bribed Betty to throw up later than usual, leaving the patients unchecked. Betty was moved to another floor.

I have a clinical psychologist who comes to see me three times a week. Her name is Doctor Varla Jones, and she is Russian. She insists on me calling her Varla, probably because Jones, her married name doesn’t quite fit her. I am totally in love with her. She was present at my inception. In all that madness, I managed to fall for her. As she came clicking into the room wearing grey suede Mary Janes and a grey tweed skirt. She looked strict. Her thickly rimmed glasses, circa 1983 slid down her nose repeatedly, and she, with a huff, would push them back up onto her face. I wondered why she hadn’t replaced them. She sat down at the table and the others left. With just me and her in the room, she said “Don’t lie to me and we will get on just fine.” Her smooth, Eastern European accent had me ready to do whatever she wanted me to do. She pulled out a packet of tobacco and some liquorice papers and rolled herself a dainty cigarette which she lit with matches. “Don’t complain about my smoking and we can perhaps get on even better”. My heart jumped to my chest and my skin goosepimpled. I later realised that although her command of the English language was commendable, her musings were often out of context and could be easily misread. I know she will never love me.

No one actually knows me, I’m a compulsive liar. I lie about the most mundane of things. You can choose to believe what I say or not. Everyone is allowed a choice. Someone asked me where I was from, and I told them Seattle, for no reason whatsoever. Eventually they stopped asking me because I couldn’t keep my stories straight. If you ask Betty, I have a maternal grandmother and a paternal godfather. But ask Amanda, and all my grandparents are dead. It’s hard to keep up and sooner or later people talk to each other. I won’t bore you with my life story, because it is pretty ordinary. That is why I lie about mundane things. I am just about the most boring person you will ever encounter. I was an only child, spoiled, precious, precocious! Schooled privately, I watched a lot of American high school sitcoms and was adamant that my life should follow that path. I should be head cheerleader, date the captain of the football team and eventually marry him and we should be ‘Prom King and Queen!’ This ideal lasted until I was thirteen and discovered girls. I had secret love affairs with most of my class and I mean secret. Mom was clueless, despite sending me to an all girls school, despite watching me get my hair cut from shoulder length to a short crop, despite my various medals for lacrosse and tennis. She just accepted the Martina poster and well thumbed copy of ‘The Well Of Loneliness’, although to be fair, I doubt she knew what that book was about. Ok, so I lied again, I told you about my life, it just slipped out.

In the 16 months I’ve been here, no one from my old life has visited me, apart from my mother. She sits on the hard wooden chair in the private visitor’s room, because the deep, plush arm chair is too close to madness, too close to me. When she is here, she tries to distance herself from anything crazy, just in case she catches it. Of course this is impossible, you can’t catch insanity, when you are already insane! I caught it from her. Her infectious mental disorder, which involves an inordinate amount of armour. She is a Stepford Wife. This did not much affect her when she was younger. The epitome of perfection; stay at home mom, cook, cleaner, saint. After Dad left, she went nuts in the expected way. One day I looked up each of her symptoms individually and found answers to all my questions. Attention Deficit Disorder, OCD, Paranoia. She couldn’t cope with being everything, so she slipped into a state of denial, in which she has remained for the past 18 years. Being crazy is like being gay; even when you deny it, renounce it, and go running into the closet, everybody knows. I may be queer, but she is a screaming, closet crazy.

Big Society... My Arse

So, I turned on BBC News this morning, and it would appear that the "Big Society" idea currently being pushed by  the Cameron/Clegg ConDem coalition is now having an affect on THE MOST VULNERABLE in society. I'm not just talking about babies, elderly people - this is something that is going to affect anybody who has the misfortune of dying over the next couple of years. 


Councils around the country are now raising their Civil Funeral costs by as much as 25%. God forbid you should die after April.


For example, in Poole in Bournemouth, Civil Funeral costs, which were £455.00 in April 2009, had already increased to £535.00 in September, will now go up to £580.00 in April. That's a 27% increase in two years, and 8% in just seven months. North East Lincolnshire goes one enormous step further, raising burial costs for residents from £753.00 to £979.00, a leap of 30%. 


Of course, this won't affect people who have life insurance, or people who have private burial services, but instead will hit the most vulnerable in society. The mothers of stillborn children; the young single girl with cancer who never thought she'd have to plan for this outcome; the 22 year old walking in the Lakes who slips on loose rocks. It is their families, their parents who will have to fund the funeral, and deal with these council charges when they are at their lowest ebb. 

The fees, say the BBC News, will increase revenue for the Council by £80,000, and a Council official said

"We don't expect the proposed changes to affect the demand for services" - Well of course not - death is  an inevitable part of life! Just because a council raises their costs, it doesn't mean that the cancer will go away, or the teenager won't be hit by a car. This is nothing more than a stealth death task!

I wonder, what Cameron would like the mother of a dead baby to do? Sell some precious possessions? Shop around to find the cheapest alternative? Cremate rather than bury? Or maybe in this big society, we will need to bury our loved ones ourselves to save money.

True Friendship

I like to think of real, true, proper friendship to be honest, flowing and for the most part happy…

1)       The only time your friend should make you cry is by being sad or hurting themselves.

2)     You don’t have to see a real friend every day for friendship to stay strong, you can always pick up where you left off.

3)     Coming back to a friend after a period of absence should never be awkward or difficult.

4)     A friend will always be honest whether about your outfit or your latest squeeze.

5)     A friend will understand if you don’t feel the same way.

6)     A friend will know when taking the mickey isn’t appropriate.

7)     A friend will make you smile so hard your face aches.

8)     A friend will always help you out if they can.

9)     A friend can be somebody you’ve never met.

10)  True friendship can survive anything.

Real, honest friends are the girls who I go to when the fake friends fuck up and hurt me.

Carysanova Jones, Michele Edwards, Aly Heald, Jackie Crozier, Elle Aspinall

Jo Wilson, Gemma French, Katy Stewart, Jo Gruchy, Stevie Stevens, Erika Nagy, DeeDee Protano, Lisa Lindsey, Gizell Tampani, Suzanne Coleman, Becky Jones, Charley Brown and most recently, Helen V Bull and George Armanio.

Relationships… (or lack thereof) part two.

This next blog chronicles the years between 2004 and 2005 when I was 19 and had just been dumped by the love of my life. Once again, I reiterate that I’m not looking for sympathy – this is for me to analyse and dissect, although if you do have advice or ideas, please comment, facebook or Tweet me (@frustratedpoet). To paraphrase my phrase of the month… “dating girls… you’re doing it wrong!”

Over the next year or so (the year I was 19-20), I had a lot of fun, but not much luck! I lapdogged girls around nightclubs (namely G-Bar in Liverpool), and pined after girls in my halls of residence. As you can imagine, a bunch of hormonal 18-23 year olds was as fun as it sounds, there were squabbles and arguments, general bitchiness, bordering alcoholism and one trip to A&E (that’s the Emergency Room for any American readers).

I made several stupid mistakes and found myself constantly asking “Why?”

“Why didn’t that girl fancy me?”

“Why did that girl never call me back?”

“Why did nobody reply to my GaydarGirls ad?”

(the latter is probably a good thing, there are some absolute weirdoes on there; me included!)

And, with the regularity of the Ormskirk to Liverpool train, somebody, every day would say “as soon as you stop looking, you’ll find somebody!” hands up (or comment), if you’ve ever heard somebody say this to you. It’s usually a “happily married” or a “recently loved up” although sometimes rarely a “happily single”. And I’d cry back “I’m not looking, I never look”, which was, of course, bullshit. True I wasn’t looking for love, relationships or any sort of extended happiness, no – I was looking for what my landlord calls “overnight guests”! A bit of fun. My third year, although fun was also fraught with difficulties. I had a severe hernia which required a stay in hospital, my depression took a new turn and led me to almost fail my degree, and I was spending money as though my wallet had a tap on it.

I’d be out in Liverpool three or four times a week at the new girl’s bar (now closed) Babystorm. Great fun! It was open late late late, but it was always dead dead dead! I spent some nights sleeping on sofas and floors, and never in bed with girls, it was a very lonely time. I couldn’t get a girl to save my life, and I was used on several occasions as a bed for the night. I kissed a LOT of frogs. When I wasn’t in Liverpool, I was in the college bar, drinking until closing. I was drinking every day. Not unusual for a student you may think, but I was definitely past that point. I was missing lectures, sleeping late and drinking alone.

My final act as a third year student was a disastrous night after the Graduation Ball with somebody who was wholly unsuitable, not very attractive, and who then spread the rumour that I’d seduced her and she was powerless to stop me! What a way to go. I’d like to say I was hammered, but I wasn’t, I was just lonely, and scared about what the hell I was going to do when I left Edge Hill.

After an unsuccessful six months attempting to secure a job in Liverpool, living in the ideal gorgeous apartment with a view of the Mersey from my bedroom, I moved back in with my parents and found a horrid little job in the public sector. I’d met a girl at Manchester Pride that year and we dated for a couple of months. This is the next notable exception to the "girls always dump me" idea. She was borderline alcoholic and I ended it with her after realising two things,

1)       I couldn’t change her

2)     She was always going to love the ale more than me.

At the same time, an old friend came back on the scene (whom I’d secretly pined for a while back). But instead of asking her out, or giving her any impression that I was interested in her, I slept with her best friend and acted like a dick (there was wine involved!). The best friend is a girl who irritated me no end by saying that she slept with people 3 times, but only slept with me twice! (if you’re reading this, tough – I’m over it now and it make a funny story!) This was about a year and a half after Katy and I went our separate ways and just after this, living at home became so unbearable after three full years away, that I met and moved in with a girl.

Within a month of moving in together, she’d bought me a puppy. She worked a measly 10 hours per week to my 37 hours, and yet never cooked, cleaned or walked the dog. I brought home the bacon, and cooked it too! I’d work all day while she spent most of her time playing computer games. Apart from this, there was a vile sister to contend with, and the scourge of lesbian bed death! We went away on holiday to Turkey, and it was there that I discovered that she had cheated on me with one of my best mates. I still consider her my best mate because everyone gets a free pass in my book – particularly as she’d looked after me when Katy dumped me! After the holiday, we tried to get back to the place we were at in the beginning. Unfortunately, that was a place in which we didn't know anything about each other, and I think that is why we worked! We attended Manchester Pride together that year, staying at the Premiere Inn at the GMex and I barely saw her. You could see it ending from a mile away, well at least everybody else could. 

You may be surprised to hear that she dumped me! I still suspect that it was because she met another girl who worked at the end of our street in McDonalds and who had a car. A girl she started sleeping with four days after we split up whilst I was still living in the house. The grief broke me, I felt so stupid. I took time off work, cried for weeks and made myself quite ill. My lovely puppy who had been so cute was now a whining, destructive beast who, inevitably, pissed my parents off so much that they wanted me to get rid of him! (Austin is an absolute pleasure now – the real love of my life and worth ten of any girl I’ve ever dated!) I remained single for twelve months and I pretended to be happy.