WHEN I WAS A  LAD

When I was a lad, Things were very different, I began.

I was born in 1957 in an isolated relative’s cottage in the middle of a field, near Exeter in Devon.  It still exists to this day with only a solitary oak tree for company.

Nature would come to life around this cottage, which was about as airtight as a wire cage.  Sometimes the weather would batter it like a furious boxer going in for the final blow, leaving us and the retreating wildlife under siege.  The wind regularly gusted across the hills, driving the rain at all angles like a hail of spears, and leaving us feeling no better off than the cows cowering under the tree.

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It was just a normal day like any other.  I was out taking a gentle stroll on a fresh Sunday morning, enjoying the scenery and thinking about my plans for the week when suddenly my arms were grabbed from behind.  In the ensuing struggle a sack was pulled over my head and I was roughly bundled into the back of a van.  I heard a few distant shouts from passers-by as the doors slammed shut and the tyres squealed into action. As I lay there shivering with fear, a voice bellowed through the darkness at me from the front.

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