The Trees

There is trouble in the..... erm no, I had left the army without a plan B. And although I went to work in an electrical contractors because even in my befuddled mental state (please see previous books) I was a better option in the retail part of the company (it was a local firm that had so many fingers in so many pies and yes I worked in all of them) and soon gravitated to looking after the cycling department in just under five weeks (things were either really crap or I was that good, you work it out!) but one afternoon some no hoper who knew the owner bought the wrong piece of kit for his Bike, even I could tell it was the wrong part but he knew best, two hours later he came back full of piss and vinegar saying that I (me with my reputation) had sold him the wrong part and then he did the unforgiven and called me a liar, to my face! cue lighting of blue touch paper and a seventeen year old just out of the army and raging lunatic to boot launching himself across the counter at said no hoper, the reaction was great if I could have got a proper grip on the tosser I probably would be getting out of prison around about............................now!

The owner had seen the whole thing and even asked me to apologise, to which my reply was “if I had lied and sold him the wrong part then yes, but I didn’t and I don’t lie so therefore he’s got no fucking chance” and at that point I took one step forward to emphasise my point the guy turned tail and ran like hell. Now at that point I thought that my career in the cycling industry was over, but after a long chat in the office I was given a raise and had my hours reduced (WTF) but I knew it was only a matter of time before I did somebody serious damage either by throwing them down the stairs or hitting them with a bike, the last straw was when the Santa Claus who was hired came back from his dinner pissed as a rat and I was ordered into the Santa suit, let’s just say if you know what I’m like for Christmas I probably scarred more kids that day than any other Santa in the history of Santa Claus! I handed my notice in at the end of the day and burned my bridges completely by having a strop, having said that the guy who owned the business tried to get me to go back and work for him whenever he bumped into me right up until he emigrated a few years ago the only company that he kept going was the original electrical installation company which was run by Shaun the electrical manager who remembered me when  he bumped into me at my current place of employment nearly twenty years later and give me a (quite embarrassing) glowing testimonial to my then boss.

This was three days before Christmas, with no job no savings maybe I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, the army had got me the placement, thankfully my boss rang the army (in those days they really did look after distressed ex personnel) and informed them what had happened. I received a letter the next day, inviting me to an interview for a new post on Christmas eve. I went but wasn’t in the best frame of mind, the guy I saw had a huge file in front of him presumably about me, and before I had said anything he launched into his spiel, he knew what the problem was, I needed my space, I needed to be in a physical job and he said he had a placement with the NCB’s forestry department, starting January 3^rd, fine I’ll take it” anything to get the guy off my back.

I drank myself pretty rigid over the Christmas and New Year although not enough to disgrace me or the family, and turned up to start bright and early, I had no idea what I would be doing as I hadn’t really taken notice at the interview, I didn’t particularly like the look of them they were an odd looking bunch, but there was a reason why for that and I will come to that in good time. I was told I was on a forester’s course which if successful would lead to a university course over three years. I had to learn every single aspect of the job from the planting to mensuration (that’s not as rude as it sounds but involves loads of maths) brashing, the fencing department (no not the Olympic sport), the Nursery and lots of other stuff that is probably still in my head of a shed, and I threw myself into the job with gusto. There was me and another chap Barney doing the same task and we were told (lied to) that if we did well we would start University in the September.

Barney was a character his dad was actually the equivalent of the Pope in the Methodist chapel (although we didn’t know this) he didn’t swear wouldn’t look at page three girls and all the other goody goody stuff you would expect. He was a nice bloke but he must have been made of pretty stern stuff, because I couldn’t have put up with half the crap that he did, and boy did he.

There was Pat the Mill manager who was born deaf but a great lip reader, so you had to be careful what you said as he was also a dead shot with cut off bits of timber, it was always funny when the H&S department came as he was the only person who wouldn’t wear ear defenders so funny, Minty a lunatic who did everything at a million miles an hour, Bob Wall who was the go to guy on site was always in the office fighting somebody's’ corner if needed, Pueblo who I never ever knew his real name just his nickname and nobody would ever tell you why, Urko (Peter really) who was the biggest man on site about six foot eight and with a waist to match, Captain Kirk(go figure) who was worse than me for being obsessed with time he finished at 4.30 Monday to Thursday and he pulled out at 4.31 if he was giving you a lift you had better be in the car because he would not wait, and if you weren’t there in the morning he didn’t stop and wait, he really did focus your mind with time keeping. Billy Mitchell whose opening question to anybody he met was Lennon or McCartney I threw him a curveball as at the time I didn’t have a clue so said Ringo which he liked, he liked them all equally, he was just an argumentative little.....person. Bob Mitchell the greedy site foreman who would always dive into the lads fish and chips that were on the canteen stove keeping warm on a Friday before we went off to the pub, well he did until one day we replaced it with a steaming cow pat (I don’t like thieves). John Milburn the only member of the Tory party that I liked, and the tale of us wiping out an entire orchard needs to be kept out of print for legal (silly) reasons (buy me a pint and I will be glad to tell you the whole tale). And a whole host of other characters, which thirty years down the line are as fresh as if it was only yesterday.

I have to admit there was many reasons why I liked the job, yes it was outdoors most of the time, it was physical and hasn’t helped me down the years (my shoulder is one the issues that first reared its head working here) a couple of broken ribs after cutting myself and my safety harness out of a tree (don’t ask), another tale curtailed due to legal reasons because the person who was the instigator of my fall from the tree, nearly died the next day due to a burst appendix and I said he was faking it ....ooops!  We worked incredibly hard but we played hard as well and thankfully because of this job I think I was able to integrate myself back into the general public.

Do I have any regrets? Well of course the lies didn’t help, after six exams were I got five straight A’s and a B+ and poor Barney six straight A +’s to be told by Larry Ridley (the horrible site boss, a real throw back to the 1920’s style of treatment of the workforce) that there was no money in the budget (as promised) to send us off to University (you had to be sent by your place of employment) yet mysteriously a brand new saw for the mill had been purchased for about £32000 (ooooh the cost of sending me and Barney....ah let’s not go there!). The two biggies though were firstly making me over qualified for to go and work at the National trust who wouldn’t employ me or Barney, thankfully music came calling and thats a whole number of other chapters! But number one in the hit parade was the fact that my father who I hadn’t by that time seen in nearly 9 years lived 700 yards away from where I worked I must have walked past where he was living every single day for nearly eight months and at that point in time my head was well and truly screwed up so a father figure would have come in quite handy, but as you should know by now that wasn’t to be.

Now have you noticed that I have barely mentioned music in this wee snippet of my life and well to be truthful?  There is an underlying reason why I mention the fact that I used to be a lumberjack, I like Fish the big Scotsman who used to sing (ahem) in Marillion but is now solo and I prefer him all the more for it, I like his lyrics, he wanted to join the army when he was younger, so did I, admittedly I did and he didn’t, that doesn’t matter, he worked in forestry doing the course I should have done, symmetry I can see it if you can’t, he has a bald head so do I damn it’s all coming together I would sell my eldest’s soul to write a lyric as clever as he does and that is where the symmetry comes into it, unfortunately I don’t have it in me to be a professional stalker (too lazy to put in the leg work you see). until the next time.....Toodles!