tomorrow all our dreams could come true

Squatting.... Where to start?

At the beginning I guess. OK, whilst at school - lawnswood high school in Leeds - when I was, probably 14 or 15 (1979 or 1980) I was going through some issues like anarchy, punk, unrequited love, death and similar related stuff. Education, at this time, appeared irrelevant to actual life yet it was where I had to go and be a part of. Even if I seriously did not want to be there. At 14 I think I went more than I didn't but even then it was troublesome, like when me and tub (my mate Toby) went to assembly at the start of the day, the previous night we'd dyed our hair peacock blue or turquoise. I thought it looked really cool, yet some deputy head snatched us both & we were redirected to the library for that assembly. It was the start of many similar occasions. Tub and I enjoyed our forced incarceration due to us locating some issues of punch magazine I recall. There were times that followed spent in deputy headmaster's offices when I was talked at about how the school had a reputation to uphold & I, being a pupil of said establishment, should somehow innately understand that I was an instrument of such upholdinness and how my hair colour was a disestablishing of such an honour that was bestowed upon me - without my realising it or complicit agreement of such. Where was this agreement or contract? Huh? All I can recall is staring over the top of Mr Dunnings head, as he was a short arsed git, through the window, as he was trying to relate his authoritarianism to my anti-authoritariism due to my hair colour. He spoke about wanting to have dayglo coloured socks, I wanted to be somewhere else, that was his rebellion, I wanted to see Wendy. We were at an impasse, I spent more time in the library.

Oh I got suspended too. Once or twice around here n there. Occasionally I kinda knew I was gonna run foul of the 'law' (teacher-cops) so I circumnavigated their malicious involvement in my happy life as I did not need their negativity bringing me down, man. So I chose to not attend school as I was, most obviously, too cool for school, true!

In the few times when I did attend & actually go to lessons my favourite was art. First with my first form tutor Mr Glover??? And next Mrs clawson, who was alright - I wasn't very good at art there but I liked the freedom, creativity, imagination it inspired within. Me. OK, I wasn't brilliant at it but for some brief occasions I had a dalliance with goodness or had a whiff of an excellent idea which I tried hard to conjure from those dark recesses of my creative mind to the blank page but often , I suppose, the effort or the reality was I wasn't good enough or my skills were lacking somewhat in producing imagined masterpiece. Still, I had a few good goes and I enjoyed it.

All very interesting no doubt but where's the squatting, huh? Well, bear with for a bit longer - getting to it soon. So there I was, sometimes, in art club, at school and during breaks or lunchtime they used to let you in to catchup on stuff or keep out of trouble. It was during one such lunch break when I noticed a picture on the wall. A really intricate and stunning pencil portrait of Johnny Rotten and I was incredibly impressed. In asking the teach Mrs Clawson she replied it was ??? Andrew Smith (can't actually recall his name right now lol). I was awestruck with the picture & made it my mission to meet this incredible artist whom obviously loved punk as much as me! So I became a sleuth asking pertinent questions to all and sundry in my quest. I learnt he was in the final year, he had a nickname of Biggles, and he was very elusive especially as he often didn't show up to school. He already was an inspiring character to me. Even more so when I did actually get to meet him as believe it or not he truly did look the spitting image of Johnny Rotten! Wow! I was in total love with the man! Purely platonic - I just found him inspiring, funny, he had a brilliant outlook on life, I just wanted to be with him all the time.

Although I couldn't spend all the time with him due to annoying stuff like lessons and such. We often met up at lunch break in the artroom, as mentioned before he was an awesome artist. During our conversations he explained that he lived in Leeds city centre (I loved the city centre) in a skyscraper, well Leeds equivalent to one, I think it was an insurance companies - his parents were caretakers and lived in the top floor. Sometimes I'd go & visit, some days he was in other times he wasn't. One time he showed me a suit he was making....a suit?!!! It was a bright red full tartan suit, trousers, jacket and possibly a waistcoat. Impressed? Too bloody right I was. Then one time he said that he never did homework from school as he thought it a waste of time... Hero status climbed atmospheric then, he said his parents backed his decision also.

Why was he not always at the insurance building when I called for him? I asked one time, 'calling for him' meant walking down an alley way, often where motorbikes parked off the main headrow street of Leeds. And on the side entrance to the tower block there was a buzzer, which is what I'd press & wait for reply. So where did he go to? He was often living in his house with his girlfriend Sandy and housemate Dolby. And his house was called 'Entropy Cottage' and it was a squat! Wowzers status became stratospheric!!! It was an end terraced house right opposite the iconic Leeds university buildings clock tower, just round the corner was a radical anarcha feminist bookshop! It was, to be brutally frank & honest & fair, a young anarcho punk rockers wet dream of a utopian existence! I was incredulously unbelievably amazingly awesomely awestruck by the absolute awesomeness of Biggles and his most amazing life. I was hooked, he was my heroin.

I did actually write a song/poem that featured most of what I've written previously, if & when I find it I will post it (post it lol lol, like this is Facebook or summat) rewind.......I will include the poem within this text. Aha, I have just got access to a computer (currently writing this on a Kindle fire) so I can do it now. All I have to do is work out different fonts and stuff (using a free word processing programme WPS) as I'm not using Microsoft word...which is what I'm used to. Back in a mo.....

THOUGHT CRIME

I saw it in the town

Where I grew up

Sprayed on the university wall

There it and I were stood

Radical and shoddy

Rock against racism

Was all the rage

When I was trapped

In a middle class ghetto

Defined by social workers

And probation officers

Of being a death phased mental cage.

Smoking cannabis in a squatted house

Called entropy cottage

I met Biggles, Sandy and Dolby too

Along with various freak brothers

From number 72

Round the corner

Near a rad anarcha feminist bookshop

A spray can hero or heroine

Gave me the inspiration

For this musical story

With the words

Fuck me for my mind

Not my body

These words applied in this space

When I am so far away

From the happenings

You are living day to day

Make me wish we could talk about

All the mad sad things that were put in our way

Then again wishes are not reality

Magic does not work that way

If you were psychic would you want to live

Reincarnated born again

Politics of ideals just become stones and sticks

Pacifism is outdated

Now have I realised

My thoughts reveal a crime

And emotions just make you sick.

Ha ha ha, well there it is. Much stuff happened there & entropy cottage became often my chosen destination rather than school. Yet as this is about squatting the next thing that

happened was April 1st 1984.

Urban Renewal Group

Urg! That was what we were called, there was a meeting somewhere in a students type room, there must've been about 30 to 40 people at this meeting, many I'd never seen before - some I had. As its over 30 years ago now I can't remember a fucking thing about it other than Witney Blanket led the meeting and talked about the reasons why we were gonna do this mega high profile squat. What the logistic requirements were, what squatting actually was...as for me I'd heard of it but knew not much about it (other than what I'd absorbed from entropy cottage) some of the peeps will of been clueless about it. I kinda think I was there with my best mate at the time, yo! Or John. His brother was zippy - another cool dude, squatter, punk as fuck. John & zippy lived in cookridge another Leeds 16 suburban ghetto. So we'd met via friends like Stu or Tom Kincaid (rip) and they'd followed our punk rock band The Pagan Idols since its inception in approx 1982.

John and I really became best friends due to Stu. Stu I'd known since I was 14 when one day he & Tom called round my house & asked me to join their band, which was kinda funny at the time cuz I had my right hand all strapped up cuz of a work injury - oh, I might've been 16 then? I'm sure I read a diary of mine that documented this so at some point I will try & cross reference. Yeah, so, we'd got this band going in Tom's bedroom and various people were there, such as John, zippy and Paul. Singing along to our songs.

And after stu & Anna moved from harehills they went to Anna's house in Chapel Allerton. It was a cool house & Gina, Anna's sister lived there too (whom I had a massive crush on) so basically me & john used to go round to visit & stayed there for - what felt like a week - if not two weeks at a time, I'm basing this on having to sign on every two weeks and I do recall walking from there once or twice on that fateful journey to the dole office (think my signing on day was a Tuesday, often you'd see yr mates & have a bit of a chin wag or a roll up before continuing on our merry way. The process of signing on was quite straightforward,you would turn up on your allotted day. - Tues, like I said for me - you had to arrive at your allotted bay for your surname, then you had to get there before 10.30 or summat. And then they'd ask UB40? Ha ha no, not the band....that was the name of yr signing on card....if u didn't have it they'd ask 'national insurance number?' I had been doing this a fair old while & lost my ub40 long time ago therefore by now I'd memorised my NI # = ne7*8*3*d....which is what I think it is.....anyway).

Sleeping in the armchairs or staying awake all night chatting & stuff or mooching around chapel allerton. Sometimes we'd stay awake and write stories which often took a bloody long time. Sometimes we'd stay awake all night....well, more than some times, often we'd stay awake all night and these episodes would feature in the narrative that would be written. In the morning often we would allow the daytime peeps, namely Stu, to write a piece - they were often very bizarre stories. Yet it passed the time.

One time in conjunction with raising hell fanzine we embarked on a Michelin guide type review of Leeds city centre cafés which was an entertaining enterprise. Maybe, if you are able to download some very early issues of raising hell zine, you might be able to read some of those reviews. Think we had various criteria to fulfill such as; price compability with emphasis on the cheapness, quality of the beverages, biscuits, cake, etc, the ambience, location to signing on places/dole office or to Leeds flea market. Now, Leeds flea market was mostly situated in the old market stalls, outside (I stress old market as in mid 80's think they had quite a devastating fire which destroyed some of the old infrastructure. I recall my dad who was a firefighter at the time attended to it also) anyway, this flea market was a magnet for us punky squatters due to cool cool stuff & cheapness !!!!

It was where we bought our second hand Italian paraboots that were de-rigeur fashion items for crusty punker squatters nationally. We realised this when we occasionally visited Stonehenge for a festival or solstice or even venturing forth to various locations within the UK, like Nottingham to see Crass & flux, for example.

Around this time in my life which was probs most of 1982 and 1983 up to 1984, as there were some meetings which John & I attended that were about setting out doing a huge squatting event in Leeds city centre on 1st April 1984, all fools day! Classic, really looked forward to it. And when it happened it opened the floodgates for activists all around. Causing a squatting scene that flourished four many many years! Ha ha ha rewriting the beginning of this chapter may happen occasionally due to writing maybe one paragraph a week and not being top of the game all the time. Yet as long as the main narrative continues I'm happy, lol!

So, the meeting, 30 or 40 people, lots I'd never met - all here cuz we wanted to do something and we were eager to fuck shit up. Like I said, can't recall anything of it yet feel the atmospheric vibe of it going on eternally within my soul. It was talk of insurrection it was talk of anarchy it was talk of activism it was talk of direct action it was talk of mutual aid it was talk of ideology it was talk about action to be it was secret it was clandestine it was something real that we could do against the powers that be that would fuck shit up! And we wanted to fuck shit up! Not smash old factory windows with stones on the walk back, pissed up, from the Warehouse or Phonographique nightclubs. Or go joyriding in stolen motors & torch them or go shoplifting for choc bars, or do other levels of petty crime. We wanted to fuck the system! Destroy serious culture! We wanted anarchy in the UK! Punk rock had promised us this yet we were clever enough to realise that it was not going to be given to us, we had to do it ourselves. We had to reclaim our rights, stolen from us bgy those who'd fooled us into saying they were going to look after us....such as politician's etc etc! Well, yeah that was the vibe - there wasn't a PowerPoint demo or anything it was talk of the building, where it was, and what may happen. It was an old rates building, in the city centre, opposite a huge tower block police station (?millgarth?), and next to the brand new law Court buildings. Therefore extremely high profile - which, retrospectively, was the whole (maybe main) point.

From mine own addled brain; squatting is not breaking into empty or occupied buildings, it is entering a building that has an entry point and then, within, you can claim occupancy. Gaining entry is by a possibly open window or door or roof skylight kinda thing. This is a dodgy grey area obviously and as such I'm too drunk to get into it at the mo. Needless to say, on April 1st 1984, we squatted a big building in the centre of Leeds!!!! Yeah!!!! Punk fucking rock!!!!!

And, once within it we swarmed all over the place! It was about 4 or 5 stories high with multiple rooms. I recall Ben Sik'o'War suggesting & beginning to construct, from the first minutes, a huge skate ramp in a big just under ground floor area. Whilst this construction was taking place the barricades were also going up. During the occupation some meetings took place with the diverse people within. Skate ramps, barricades were two of the topics of these meetings that were realised. Others were potentials of what this space could offer:

soup kitchens, homeless peoples refuge, jobless people's space, band practice area's, lesbian gay disenfranchising peoples meetings, etc.

Often we'd have shared sleeping spaces - one of these times I do recall due to a photograph of me, playing an acoustic guitar with Rich? Of the scum dribblers an that reminded me of those times. Next vivid memory is in a room chatting with snakey and Becky. What did we chat about? No freaking idea! About possibility probably, some of which probably came to pass, possibly some that we dared to dream that were too much to achieve in this lifetime, in this place at this particular time on the planet. There's other photos: such as sitting outside the side door, waiting for people to visit our vegan/veggie cafe we'd set up or for people to come & ask for information. Basically we were there for all of 4 days!!!!! That's all the time it took for the system to evict us. No surprise really, but in that short time, networking was done, realisation that squatting was real, knowing that the system could be fought, realising that direct action works was amazing and self empowering!

We had a world to win & we could win against all the shit! Jeez just had an epiphany... 32 years and 4 months and 4 days ago (at this time of writing!) No wonder I can't remember shit! But yet I feel it, the feeling of that time is awesome and it consumes me totally. Not brilliant to convey to readers but its all I have. Any other snippets of memories or such I will record & collate & update as much as I am able.

We searched the building up n down. Found many weird computer yet not computer machines that were fed paper. We found much paper that were to be fed to these machines - which we soon found a use for! We found many many empty rooms, some we'd designate for anarcho punk meetings, some for psychic experimental types, some for homeless people. Some for lots of other people. This place could've homed hundreds! Often we'd find ourselves downstairs involved in making up the skate ramps, or we'd be half arsed involved in building up the barricades. Or we'd end up in the kitchen/food area. Seriously can't recall fuck all about this lol!

Think Faith or Ros and Cardigan will have been there, along as with Dallas and Tony (van driver -Adrian, real name) afterwards I ended up in Chapel Town area of Leeds, infamously near to the Hayfields pub. Yet before all that we had the eviction carnival. Previous to the carnival we had the TV cameras in! Lol! A BBC look North 6pm programme. They came into the building and we were all lined up in a line as the camera panned across us. Previous to this, I'd heard about it so I'd ran or walked quickly in a cool, I don't care about anything kind of walk to a phone box & phoned my mum & dad's house.....no answer! So, I'd rung my best mates house, spoke to his mum & said 'I'm gonna be on the Look North news, please record it'. Which they must've done cuz I do recall watching it later at some point & analysing my movements.

A few things are thrown upon by this. 1, betamax And vhs were in the warzone at this point, we had beta. My mates mum had vhs.....to me none of this matters apart from she was in when I phoned whereas my folks were out! Oh, that's the second point! Third, I guess, is my obvious ego. Then again as its an autobiography.....guess, thinking of me is a plus. But it's more of being a young lad, never been on TV, never again to be on TV, it is, was, a big deal! Yeah, they asked us to line up - about 10 of us and then they panned the camera along us. I remember standing there, wearing my mod helicopter's jumpsuit, thinking what the fuck am I meant to do? As the camera got closer I started to check my pockets. Funny thing about a helicopter jumpsuit is that it had lots & lots of pockets! Therefore I was in pocket heaven when the TV camera eye swept over me within the Rates Building Squat!

Now, if I could find that piece of film, that would be soooo funny! My next half-assed project! There's pictures of me & John & Roz/Faith sat outside the side door. What were we doing there? I dunno, can't recall right now lol. And then there's the carnival photo's! I do recall some of that day, Gary Buddha in one room, me sat or stood up on a 3rd story window ledge leaning out shouting stuff, being daring and amazing! Loadsa peeps took part that day - lots of normal people saw this spectacle enfold & continued with their day - I truly think these were the people are were trying to connect with, to give them a glimpse into another world. The world where we have no power to influence anything, the world where we're not allowed to vote upon, the world where the rich & influenced carve up the planet to promote profit to themselves and their friends. We wanted them to 'wake up'! But, as I've been here 30+ years it does seem, ala matrix films - many of the people choose the blue pill rather than the red. Fair enough, if I had my time again I'd probs continue with my cadet training & join the Royal Marines as a 16 year old.

Ha, daydreaming is a cunting bitching fucktard knobwank ain't it!? As if wishing for shit is ever gonna change anything! Unless it gives you insight into useful stuff, which it does for me sometimes.

Oh, on that day we chucked out loads of that ticker tape paper we found in some of the offices. There's a few photos out there. Me teetering on window ledges enjoying the expressionism, the exhibitionism, the daredevilishness, the feeling of being part of something right against something that was wrong, being punk, living anarchy, being an anarchist, living for the moment believing we were gonna live forever!

Oh yeah, we got evicted. A CPO (compulsory purchase order), meant they (bailiffs & police) could forcibly evict you. We'd planned & had meetings and had blockade crew arranged but, in the end, we left peacably without a fight.....to infect further areas. In the local media: Leeds Other Paper (later the Northern Star - before it folded in mid 90's was an independent kinda radical weekly newspaper for Leeds. Notable for many various random things; boff's topical cartoons, opera reviews done by my dad [a very occasional select few], TV reviews done by my house mate Andy, also news reports about squatting & such that the regular media wouldn't touch with a barge pole!...as I was saying, the L.O.P. (Leeds Other Paper) actually featured us within our pages and our eviction carnival too. Some of the people involved in our occupation must've been clued up about local politics too as soon after everything was all cleared up & everyone had moved on, questions were asked about the Old Rates Building and its future. Apparently a councillor Mundy was reported to say that there were 'plans in the pipeline'...a few years later or maybe it was a year to the day, some graffiti appeared on the blocked up windows saying just that phrase, with a bit more added: "plans in the pipeline, eh?".

A reflection on it just allowed to become another empty hulk of a building with many possibilities yet left to rack & ruin. Oh, guess what it turned into a few years later....yup, a car park. Well, parking your SUV can be a nightmare these days! I actually wrote a paragraph or two about this episode, called 'a splash of life' (inspired by one of the banners from the carnival day - which followed us to other squats...photographs of this are around somewhere). This appeared in my friends zine Peace of Mind. Will copy n paste soon hopefully.

Where next eh? Well, Chapeltown #93 with Dallas, Turny and Tony - with Dallas & Becky? Hmmmm met Becky Green Hair for the first time in the old DHSS squat (Dept of Health & Social Security [now DSS] old signing on place, not for me cuz my surname took me to other places). Maybe we went to DHSS squat? Wow, what can I recall from there? Not much to be honest, probs less than rates building! Oh dear ha ha ha. It was less high profile, it was less well-built, it was a bit of a hole to be frank but it was a squat, it was our squat, it was our home!

As a building it was very kinda prefab, very stark & quite minimalist - just about 3 floors & all open space. We'd kinda got some mattresses in one corner and that was our space. One specific memory is me, looking out a window - which overlooked the coach station - whilst listening to the 'strawberries' album by the Damned, on a Sony Walkman. Especially my favourite guitar solo on the one song 'under the floor again' yeah, that's probably the one - will check it for real later. Don't have WiFi right now so have to wait uhhhhhh!

Another memory is meeting Becky (green hair) and Cardigan - they were getting it together at this time, and it was quite sweet seeing them walking around hand in hand. They were all over each other in the mattress area, it wasn't tacky or anything, it was just lovely! Think it was cuz none of us knew each other, we'd briefly met in the Rates building, yet now we were embarking on an unsure future and often we could see we would be together - which, mostly, was true!

One time me and Becky walked up & down the headrow - main road of Leeds - popping I into each and every pub we found (back in those days there were lots of pubs!) and we asked for some cheap cider! We may've done some impromptu begging on the way to the next pub. Any road we returned to the DHSS building with our spoils & shared them with everyone. Good times.

Becky features in my early squatting days quite a bit. She was a lovely girl with an amazing spirit, and her green hair is almost legendary, to me at least! She was a bit chunky (like I am now) Catholic - probably from a catholic education, wore a black knit jumper and black hippy skirt. Always with a quick, cheeky, lovely smile and witty repartee. She was very cuddly and loveable! I have very vague memories of her telling me about her previous home family life & guess it mirrored many others. I immediately fell in !love and forever friendship with Becky - happy for her and Cardigan to get it together cuz they were both lovely people!

Oh, during our DHSS days we found out we had our own squatting copper, got photo's that mention him on the back, so will be able to update.... Ha who the fuck for? Who will care? Apart from the other squatters maybe. Argh, why am I questioning my happy waste of time that isn't a total waste of fucking time! I mean, I could be playing a new version of candy crush by Disney featured on their new animated film, maybe I should be doing that instead? Squatter cops, Wonder if that would be MI5 now, due to potential domestic terrorism? Change the names\labels - one persons freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Like how animal rights protesters become domestic terrorists. Would suffragettes nowadays be labelled terrorists? Yep, I bet they would, anyway I digress again!

Others in the DHSS maybe were Roz, ian and little Andy - more about them later. Well, a bit about Roz (faith) met her during the early days - think she had some flat or bedsit that we'd visit, me & yo probs. She was into comics, looked thin, came from Wales, Cardiff?? I thought she was fit ☺, weird - crazy zany lovely weird, she had a spinning linked clever way of talking that seemed random though really was as obvious as the day (did I mention her sparkling mischievous wit?).

She was thin, frail I thought - which made me want to hug her (though to my regret I don't think I ever did, or if I did - it wasn't long enough) and I liked her a whole lot! Her hair was punky & dyed black, she smoked a cigarette between her middle and ring finger! Not index and middle finger like 99% of all smokers! I occasionally do that nowadays, which reminds me of her, lol. Also Roz\Faith introduced me to brushing your teeth without water! Ha ha ha I still do this occasionally, its like a Bear Grylls survivalist thing that everyone should know!

Will meet Roz\Faith again soon, but continuing with Becky - next squat we had was a big old house - along from Park Lane College, dunno who cracked it originally, might of been me - yet I can only vividly remember doing the Richmond's.

So, there we were in this big old house. All mattresses in one big room. There was me, Becky, little Andy, ian, and Jaimie and one or two others. During the first night Becky and I kinda began sharing one mattress with the closeness that is implied. I remember this time mostly due to a poem I wrote about this time. (Will include that when and if I can find it) specifics are me sucking on her tit & smelling her pubic emmanence...and thinking to myself I didn't wanna be doing this right now. So, I said I had to go pee or summat. So I went exploring, maybe that's what I wanted to do anyways as the next 2 floors hadn't been investigated yet, new squat!

Up on top floor there were 2 rooms & about 5am I was in between both rooms when I heard something. A moaning or words that I couldn't make out, probably female it appeared. I went into both rooms & heard nothing but when I was outside each in front of the walls between that's when I heard it. I felt it was real in my soul! Later on in the morning I related my story to my fellow squatters and then we tried to coax our animals up the stairs. Can't remember which animals were there but none o them would dare to go up on the stairs! So did we believe we were haunted? Oh yeah we did! Still, we stayed happy & lived there. In fact my room was the right hand room from the 'haunted wall' the left hand side room was Jaimie's.

I helped him paint it all black & then on one of the walls a huge yin yang symbol with I Ching hexagrams on it, as we were all I Ching'ing all the time we could. Jaimie seemed a really nice young lad from Halifax or somewhere, probs come due to the Rates building squat. He had some hand statues in his room, which I thought odd, and he had a plant too - which was new to me! Downstairs in the shared room we'd sit & chat & often 'Pick Lock' Pete would be there, he lived nearby, and he'd share his interesting stories or showed us how to personalize our baccy tins. He'd show up in the morning, have this stuff....we'd arrange it on the baccy tin lid - like an anarchist sign or just a black and red diagonal flag type thing. Then it needed to be heated to burn it onto the tin. We went round to Pete's flat one day & can honestly recall being overwhelmed by all the leafy greenery planty type things consuming most of the liveable space there. Also looking outta the Windows feeling I could fall from these & not die - bizarre thought from those times, not so much nowadays.

During this time I'd been seeing this girl, whom I thought was a witch, yet she had a boyfriend -Sputnik Dave - which was awful, cuz I liked Dave, but I iked this girl a whole lot more. All our liaisons were extremely platonic, in that she never let me penetrate her but led me to believe we would. Apparently she did have a child with Turney, whom I thought was maybe could've been a satanic initiate. More later, but at one point she said we wanted sea water for something. I felt that this was a quest I could achieve. At this time my folks were going to France & asked if I wanted to go....like I had done with them for the previous 18

years of existence. Holy squat No! Is what I told them at the time, yet due to many mind altering drugs & lust\ love (lol ) I hitched down to Dover - cool rides, reading wishstones of shannarra book on way over. Got over to Calais, felt like I'd forgotten something so returned to Dover and took a trip to the sea side where I filled a bottle with sea water! Quest achieved (other than returning it to said girl) I re-returned to Calais & hitched haphazardly towards Paris, why was I going to Paris? No particular reason it seemed like a nice idea.

Although it does seem to be a digression this onto one of my hitching stories.....so may continue later (some reminders 4 me - crazy young gfrench potential rapist, earring dude, down n out in Paris). Back to blighty & back to the same squat. Looked very empty & inside, through the letterbox I heard a growly, large sounding dog. So I guessed this was a not squat now.

Possibly straight after Rates building squat me & john stayed in a one roomed flat. It had one mattress, also a noisy one barred electric fire. We just spent a week or so there doing each others hair spikey. Listening to tapes, discussing witches, the English civil war - Roundheads & cavalier's. The mob's witch hunt single, pagan idols songs ain't no & tales from the grave. Also nursery rhymes & their sinister meanings belied by their being children's songs. Also being psychic & how the night time seemed to have more creative energy as opposed to daytime. Fun times. There was a phone box outside & one time it was ringing, so I answered it & was askefd to call about 4 houses down & pass on an item of news or call them to the phone.

That's all for now as I wanna do a timeline from beginning too end, I hard a way to do it about a month ago, but forgotten it now. Therefore continue this chunk about squatting later & do a new topic..... Of.....nursing!

NURSING (&the week of being a Thief, Robber, Criminal, Housebreaker, utter slaezebag, etc) [age 15!]

Ah ha, like all new stuff - where to begin? As there's a few strands to this - not unlike every other thing I write about, lol!

First recollection of nurses.....ummmm, I'd been in hospital once or twice. What with the ear/deafness thing - all I recall then was my grandma looking after me. Also big hole in my leg & someone stitching me up - more focused on who I took me there & the revenge I promoted! Joyriding incident, vague recollection of more stitching. None of the personnel involved made it into my memory banks sad to say. Just that they were there. Next was the Fine Art/Interactive Arts degree years 1991-1994 that was when nurses made a bigger impact on me. Yet before I embark on that route - maybe I should recall when nurses & I were part of each others lives 24/7 so to speak - and what impression, if any, they had on me.

Linton house adolescent unit, part of menston mental health hospital in guiesely, near Harry Ramsdens world famous chip shop! Well, that's where I spent 6 months of my 15 and a half years to 16th birthday. As an voluntary inpatient. Apparently to treat my disorder which was exemplified by my solvent abuse - such as glue sniffing. Oh, and the school phobia, and the broken-hearted unrequited love, oh and the child sexual abuse I'd had. I was probably just another personality disorder awaiting a diagnosis and treatment. I'd been expelled from lawnswood high school. Sometime after I'd been sent to a unit 2 or 3 afternoons a week to write - in total 2 essays....but in between or concurrent to those events I met a young chap called Tony. He was a mixed race chap, full of bravado & tall tales. Apparently his foster/adopted family lived in horsforth - just up & down the road from tinshill. He was the archetypal bad lad, been inside for doing bad things, I was tolds he was a bad influence. Yet I was immune to all their advice.

He was a black hole and I was well & truly sucked in. Sucked in by all his stories of plunder and I'll gotten gains, of being a rogue, a thief, robbing from the rich to give to the......ummm, well, us, cuz we were poor ain't vwe? True, I hadn't had my pocket money that week! He made it sound so amazing, so liberating, so anarchistic.

He, tony, found a new secret place - underneath the stairs in the 'other' building at my high school. He was my new best friend, staying in my room, sleeping over, hearing my secret love songs to Wendy! So then he had the awesome tool of more embarrassment to weild over me - it was torturous yet nice, cuz any time I heard her name linked to me I died a little bit more....happy.

So our master plan was to screw a few houses and live like kings! So, that's what we did, went ground some houses in far headingley, knocking on doors.. 'Hi, were just finding out...(when people answered) [whether you are in so we can't steal from you].....if you'd lost a cat?' Or some stupid question. It was the same at a few houses, yet the bloody people were in. Can't screw these houses we realised. Tub, my very good mate lived near here but I couldn't bring myself to tell Tony so we walked a bit further into headingley. Now the streets reminded me of Townsend's houses, so we went to his. Knocked on the door. No reply. Ah, we had found our victim & it was to be a blameless crime cuz no one was in.....all property is theft as Proudhon said.....probably in a totally different context to be fair. Still, when we had to kick at the door 3 or 4 times to smash the lock. It did feel a little bit unreal. Though bat the time the noise of the wood shattering seemingly was a noise enough to wake the dead!

Did I want the dead to intervene and free me from this life of crime I was embarking upon? Yeah probably, but they, being dead, could not so my life force led me through the smashed door into the house I'd visited only about a month orv2 before as a guest and a friend of onbe who dwelt there. Jeez, what a slimey thing I was doing, as I went through living room and kitchen to bedroom after bedroom ransacking drawers after drawers in search of hard currency.

In hindsight their house, the Townsend's family was a working class home. 2 quite elderly parents with an only child Townsend (can't recall his first name nowadays lol. He was a gawky kid at school, never fitted in with cliques, yet fitted in with our anti-clique clique. He was over loud, not handsome, a bit ugly on the side yet amusing - grossly so at times. His best mate was a kid called ?????? Bamber???

Who'd been at Bedford fields primary school - along with Pog & Tub [Pig & Tub, obviously had been friends at some point in primary school but after high school seemed arch enemies! Never found out why? Was Sarah Mearns a probable reason? Guess I will never ever know!!!] Any road and a sliught digression to the story of 'screwing friends houses' I heard a few years later, probably a fdecafde or 2 later.....actually a story I heard from pog & probs embellished by Townsend & Tub was the story of the goat.

This goat, had been adopted by the school possibly or it inhabited a field near the school

more probably. Well, as the story went and as I try & remember it....those fine young chaps who went to Bedford fields befriended said goat (bamber, Townsend, pog, tub) they fed it goat food, grass? Sandwiches? Mars bars? Etc. All quite appropriate stuff until one day bamber got a bit naughty & fed it tainted food. Tainted by washing up liquid originally. Which doors not bode well for the goat.... Worse was to come, bamber next went & poisoned the stuff they gave (I'm inferring here that some of the others of this group maybe were aware of this awfulness being inflicted) with bleach. And as we reach the end of this small yet sad digression, the poor creature after a few weeks of increasing abuse died.

Also I learnt many years ago now yet many many years after these events took place that bamber had only gone & burnt down Bedford fields school down. And shortly after that event commuted suicide. So sad. He always seemed to me a happy soul, gifted with a humorous bent and wicked sense of humour and humblkeness about himself agai n not a hugely handsome chap loo!king a bit nerdy before being a nerd was cool. He was a part of our anti clique clique. Our unfashionable random chaotic groupage of cool people who shunned soicialiuzing with the great mass of humanity as we were above them/beneath them/noit seen by them/invisible to the general mass of humanity. We were all weird in our own way. Outsiders, further than the cool kids cuz we were way more uncool. We were the artists and the thinkers and the rebels and the anti authoiriutarians and the agitators and the activist. We were the troiubke makers at the back, middle & front of the class. We were the ungovernable, we were just kids, but we felt we knew the reasons why we knew we were right and they....them....were wrong! And we fucking told them. We were the ones who painted, on the school wall, in letters 5 foot high "Townsend is a wanker"

Or poured crude engine oil all over Mr macredie's cricket pitch - he was the archetypal fascist P.E. teacher....who loved his cricket pitch over everything else. Claim to fame from Mr macredie's wit is: one time during pe he told me 'yan Shaw, your hair looks like/you look like/you animated bog brush'

I do believe he was referring to my hair - oh, school daze wot fun. Sorry, where was I? Screwing a mates house I suggest. Hmmmmm, I was not a very good friend at all! I was a fucking cunt! And I got more twatting cuntish as that day wore on. Jeez, what a fucking knobhead I was then. I cannot believe what I was capable of then but I know it happened & how shameful I am of it & how such bad/dark/evil behaviour has scarred my soul forever more! Yet it was a learning experience and for that I'm pleased - don't read me out oif context please! If I hadn't done these unimaginable despvcable acts, which I truly did... They get worse, believe me. I could not have learned valuable life lessons from them. Yep, if I had my time again I would not have dine these things but I was misguided. Blinded and seriously fucjed the fucj up mentally. Anyrosd snuff hindsightedly seeking forgiveness. Get down & spill the beans! Oh dear, its befdtime for now, laters suckers....lol

Oh wow I'm even more or less pissed than I was when I wrote that lot just...other houses we screwed. Will go into more details later possibly. In the samew area was my very best friend forever's house....Adam's. Oh my Satan, poor Adam! Bet he's psychologically traumatised by what I did. I know I am, but luckily my brain/mind seems able to deal with this extreme amount of extreme stress continually! I dunno if I could last 6 years in a Nazi concentration camp to be honest, but I do think if my health didn't fail me, I could've walked out of Auschwitz saying, Hitler, he was a wanker weren't he....let's hope America doesn't vote in anyone like him to be ha ha ha a fuyckn president or summat! Damn straight. Its a bit ego and its a bit true. Occasionally I doi hget stressed out at work, but I feel that's down to my fucking colleagues who need to work together but sometimes are a zillioln times more fucktastic than any fucking psycho guy/bitch intent on destroying the fuckn universe! Towards creating negative entropy...the imploding kind.....within the shortest possible time...to create the most unhappy, destabilizing environment possible, so that its an uphill struggle just to try & normalize the situation.

Oh, mayhap I digress somewhat. Where was I? Oh yeah, burglarizing your home! Before, or most probably after Addams house ransackjing we, tony & I went to another area of Leeds 6. Near Kate Robb Webb's house! Ooooh now there's a story....

tomorrow all our dreams could come true

Pages

Wednesday 7 April 2021

Sunday 5 November 2017

work in progress for 'network of friends' zine...hopefully

Wednesday 19 April 2017

Share love and men.zip - 10 MB

Share peace of mind 6.zip - 27 MB

Share poetry of the class war.zip - 15 MB

Friday 3 February 2017

About Me