I was seven when my Dad got arrested for working in Woolworths.
By this time we called him The Old Man (which we soon shortened to Tom). I was in Woolies one Saturday because I wanted a record. I think it was probably something by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, or it could have been The Rubettes or Show Waddy-Waddy.
Tom stood there impatiently, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. I was keen not to experience his by now infamous temper so I flipped through the records fast as I could and then I picked one out without looking. But there was no one behind the counter, no one to take our money. Tom glared around like a wolf, giving everyone who dared come near a look that could have bitten. I think all of the Woolworths staff were huddled together somewhere safe, probably in the storeroom with the door locked and the lights turned low. Other shoppers scuttled on by, heads down, cowed by Tom’s dark, storm-gathered brow, his terrible stare creating a strict no-go zone around the record counter.
We waited what seemed an age, though in truth it was probably only about five minutes, and then Tom said, “Right!” and strode around the other side of the unattended counter. He muttered as he examined the workings of the till (it was manual of course, there were no computerised tills back then) and then he jabbed at it and was rewarded with a ting! and the roar of the drawer opening. He snatched the record off me, looked at the price sticker, rifled in his trouser pocket for money, all the while muttering, pulled some change out, counted it, put it in the till. He slammed the drawer closed, got a large paper bag, dropped the record in and handed it to me across the counter.
“Never Mind The Bollocks?”
“What?” said Tom to the older kid who’d suddenly materialised beside me.
“You got Never Mind The Bollocks by the Sex Pistols? Should be there somewhere, man. Just came out.”
“Jesus!”, said Tom
The kid looked at Tom, then looked at me. I just shrugged.
“This is, like, a record store man,” he said.
“I know that,” said Tom, “do you think I’m an idiot?”
Before the kid could answer Tom threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, turned around and started to scan the shelves of racked records, the ones that weren’t in sleeves, and because he was an intelligent man he soon figured out how it all worked and he extracted the Sex Pistols’ latest work of auditory art and found its sleeve but by the time he turned round again there were more kids there.
So began Tom’s short-lived counter career at Woolworths.
After a while a Woolworths’ girl came up and looked at him and looked at the customers and jumped when she heard the till go ting! and said, “what are you doing?” and Tom, busily serving a small girl with a single, said, “what the hell’s it look like? I’m doing your bloody job!”
“You can’t do that.”
“Well madam, it looks like I am. Somebody has to!”
“I’m going to get the manager,” she said, looking a bit frightened.
“Oh,” said Tom, “he works on Saturdays, does he?” and then he went on serving.
When the manager arrived Tom told him he was too busy to stop and talk.
The next time the manager came back it was with a policeman. Tom didn’t struggle, that wasn’t his style, but as he was led away he shouted out loudly about his civil rights and about how he had to work in Woolworths because the staff were so lazy and the place was so poorly run and if it wasn’t for him they’d have sold no records at all that day, and how he was going to report the manager for stupidity.
In the end they let Tom go without charging him. What could they do? He hadn’t stolen anything, he’d rung up all the sales on the till, he’d put the money in.
Tom came home in the foulest mood. He fumed and crashed around the house, eventually running upstairs with loud clumping feet. There was a moment of utter silence. We all held our breath and looked at the ceiling. Then we jumped as we heard the mad staccato of the old cast-iron typewriter and the loud bell when it got to the end of the row. We all jumped again when Tom crashed the barrel back along the carriage.
He came running back down holding a single sheet of paper that quivered with anger. He folded it, found an envelope, stuffed it in, sealed it, handed it to me and said, “First Class. You’d better be quick, they close at lunch.”
We never sent anything First Class. It cost two pence more and Tom didn’t reckon it made any difference. “It’s just a con,” he would say, “they just want our money.” This letter must have been very important. I got on my bike and flew up the village to the Post Office, peddling myself out of breath in the race to get there before it closed.
It turned out Tom had decided to bill Woolworths for the time he’d worked there. He laid out the circumstances in in-depth detail and threatened the big multi-national with on-going legal action if they didn’t pay.
A cheque arrived the following week.

When I was born it started to snow.
When I was three I tripped on the pavement, fell on my nose and saw blood for the first time. After a while I realised it was mine.
When I was four I stuffed newspaper into the storage bin under the seat of dad’s Vespa (they weren’t trendy then you know, they were just scooters) and I set fire to it. I watched the smoke curl out of the shed and then the flames caught the wood and the glass windows exploded. Dad came running out and looked at the shed and looked at me and then looked at the shed again as it turned into a blazing funeral pyre. We both ducked when the Vespa’s fuel tank exploded, sending half the scooter whining over next-door’s fence. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both alternately. Dad didn’t even shout. I don’t think he could find the words he needed.
I’d start every day by climbing on the front gate and swinging my legs against the wood and eventually I kicked the wood slats right out. I got a smack on the legs for that. And my brother and I spent an afternoon throwing balls of dark wet mud at next-door’s freshly painted white garage wall. No, I don’t know why, but I think it was just part of growing up.
When I was five-and-three-quarters I wired up a plug, popped it into the electric socket, switched the power on and fired up the radio. When dad came home he looked at me wild-eyed and looked at the plug and whispered, “Jesus” and then slowly sat down on the floor with me and said, “How did you know which wire went where?”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
On Sundays, sometimes I’d lie on my bed and watch the light move slowly around the ceiling until the shadows of the evening made the room smoky-blue and a deep hush descended and the bird song chirruped here and there then stopped. A soft peal of church bells and a dog barking in the next county and I'd know it was Sunday night and all was well in my child’s world, and as I dropped off to sleep mum kissed me sweetly before I tumbled into a dream.

to be continued...