Immediate Action Read Free

places where you could go and buy swimming ribbons to put on your trunks. So the priority was to get a few of those and all become gold-medal swimmers. After that we didn't know what to do, so one of us took a shit in the frying pan in the little camping mock-up that they had as a window display.
        At the age of fourteen I was starting to get all hormonal and trying to impress the girls that I was clean and hygienic. You could buy five pairs of socks for a quid in Peckham market, but they were all outrageous colors like yellow and mauve. I made sure that everybody saw I was wearing a different color every day. I also started to have a shower every night down at Goose Green swimming baths. It cost five pence for the shower and a towel, two pence for soap, and two pence for a little sachet of shampoo.
        I wore clean socks, I was kissably clean, but I was overweight.
        The girls didn't seem to go a bundle on fat gits in orange socks.
        Then the Bruce Lee craze swept the country. People would roll out of the pubs and into the late-night movie, then come out thinking they were the Karate Kid. Outside the picture houses, curry houses, and Chinese takeaways of Peckham of a Friday night, there was nothing but characters head-butting lampposts and each other to Bruce Lee sound effects.
        I took up karate in a big way and got into training three times a week.
        It was great. I was mixing with adults as well as people of my own age, and I started to lose weight. I was also doing a bit of running.
        The schooling and all things academic were still bad. I got in with a fellow called Peter, who wore his cuffs and big, round butterfly collars outside his blazer. I thought he was smooth as fuck in his big, baggy trousers. He asked if I wanted to do a couple of weeks' work for his dad, and I jumped at the offer.
        His old man owned a haulage firm. Peter and I loaded electrical goods into wagons, then helped deliver them.
        We made a fortune, mainly because we nicked radios, speakers, and anything else we could get our hands on when the driver wasn't looking.
        I earned more than my old man that month. Even in adult life people would have perceived that as a good job. My attitude was, "Get out of school because it's shit, get a job, earn some money," and that was it.
        I didn't realize how much I was limiting my horizons, but there was no guidance from the teachers. They were having to spend too much time just trying to control the kids, let alone educate us. They had no opportunity to show us that there was anything beyond the little world we lived in. I didn't realize there was a choice, and I didn't bother to look.
        In the sort of place that we lived, a really good job would be getting on the print or the docks. Next level down would be an underground driver on London Transport. Other than that, you went self-employed.
        I landed up working more or less full-time for the haulage contractor, delivering Britvic mixers and lemonade during the summer.
        I managed to get extra pallets of drinks put on the wagons, sold them to the pubs, and pocketed the proceeds.
        In the wintertime I delivered coal. I thought I was Jack the lad because I could lift the coal into the chutes. I couldn't move for old ladies wanting to make me cups of tea. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I pitied the poor dickheads at school, working for nothing. I was making big dough; I had all the kit that I'd wanted two years ago.
        I lost my virginity on a Sunday afternoon when I was fifteen. My mate's sister was about seventeen. She was also willing and available, but very fat. I didn't know who was doing whom a favor. It was all very rumbly, all very quick, and then she made me promise that I wasn't going to tell anybody. I said that I wouldn't, but as soon as I could, like the shit that I was, I did.
        The contract work finished, and I started