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Hello, welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name's Jason Newland. This is Let Me Bore You to Sleep.
Please only listen or you can safely close your eyes. Oh, by the way, if you're wondering what I'm doing, I'm playing with myself. I shaved my head and I'm playing with my scalp.
It's really weird. It's a little bit, if you go back, maybe when you were younger, you'll remember the action man's head. You know, the toy, the action man, like the fuzzy, a little bit like that.
I've literally shaved my head or not shaved my head, but shaved my hair and it feels nice. I'm giving myself a proper scalp massage. It's very relaxing, apart from my hands because I'm putting pressure.
So I'm using my hands. So my hands are not relaxed, but my scalp is and my eyes. Oh, it's lovely.
Shame I have to do it myself. There should be someone here. There should be a scalp massager in every household.
I should read out a message. Let me read out a message that I got on my website today from Eli or Ellie. I think it's Eli.
Thank you so much. In capitals, that's the headline. So this was left on my website in the five star review.
Okay. Dear Jason, I'm a 12 year old boy who suffers from ADHD, anxiety and insomnia. Your let me bore you to sleep podcast helps me so much with anxiety and sleep.
I love your voice and Andre the ferret's little background noises. I can't thank you enough. And if I weren't 12, I had money to gift you, I would.
Please keep doing what you're doing. Love, Eli. But NASA, and this is on the public website, so it's not a private message.
So I'm just reading out what's on there. Thank you, Eli. That's very kind of you.
It does surprise me when I read that younger people are listening to my podcasts, because I just kind of assume that it's only be generally older people. I don't mean old, but adults, you know? So I think according to according to the podcast stats, and also YouTube stats, a bit sniffly. According to the stats, my, what do they call it? I forget.
But the age group, the average age group of people that listen to me is 45 to 55. So who knows? I mean, but then an average doesn't mean all the people, does it? You could have people, well, clearly of 12 and people of 87 listening and anyone, anyone in between or 97. Although I don't know if I was 97, I don't know if I'd want to be spending my time listening to me.
You need to use your time more wisely. Maybe. I don't know.
I'm joking. If I've got a lot of fondness for the elderly, I think it's because of my Nan, because I was, felt so close to her. And she was, she was as old as the ark.
I mean, literally she was, I remember her telling me what it was like before horses were invented. So it wasn't cars, but she knew what it was like before even horses were invented. I was like, wow, these people used to drag each other around.
It was very strange. But yeah, that's it really. I don't know what else to say.
Oh, I just heard a door bang. Well, I just pressed pause in the recording because someone outside talking, but I think they're going to continue. So, you know, I'm just, I'm going to continue as well.
Otherwise I just wasted seven minutes. So I'm going to continue talking and it might be a little bit of background sound, which is quite rare at two o'clock in the morning, which is why I wait till two o'clock in the morning before I make recordings. But it's a Saturday night.
So, plus, you know, it's up to them. It's up to the people, what they do. I get a lot of control over other people.
I do not have any control. I've got a huge amount of control over myself. Not really.
Apart from my big toe. I've got a lot of control over my big toe. It's been years learning how to control it, moving it around in a circle.
By a circle, it's still attached, you know, it doesn't detach itself and start spinning in the air like a little helicopter. But yeah, I'm quite pleased. But it took so long that I'm starting to think, how long is it going to take to do the rest of my body? It's taken 33 years for my big toe.
I don't know. You know, I used to walk around. That's not the whole story.
There's more coming. I used to walk around with my feet, my toes clenched up underneath my feet, almost like a fist. And I used to walk around like that.
And I don't know why, but I think I saw something on telly where I realized that I wasn't supposed to be doing that. It wasn't the right thing to do. So I actually taught myself how to walk and how to relax my toes so that they were no longer doing that, no longer like curled up.
And it took weeks. I'd walk from school. This is when I was about 10, maybe nine, nine or 10.
And I'd walk and I purposely, basically it was walking meditation in a way. I didn't realize at the time, but I was focused on my feet and the feelings of the movement of my feet as I walked. And it felt so weird because I was used to having my toes clenched.
And eventually it just became just normal. And then it went the other way. My feet started to curl the other way and I could actually scratch my knee with my big toe.
No, I couldn't. I'm making that bit up. It's Andre, the original Andre, who Andre is named after.
He was my friend in the past. And he used to have such smelly, sweaty feet that he could literally walk up walls. He could, like Spiderman.
It happened by accident. He didn't know he could do it. He was in the gym at school, apparently.
I didn't go to school with him. I didn't meet him until I was about 20. How old was I? 21.
Yeah. So I met him when I was 21 and became my best friend. Clearly, well, I'm unlikely to name, I wouldn't name Andre after someone I met on a bus and knew for a couple of weeks.
You know what I mean? This is going to be someone important. And anyway, he apparently, he turned up to school and he'd forgotten to bring his sports gear. So he didn't have anything to wear on his feet.
So the teacher made him do it barefooted. Disappointment is probably not the right word, but no one, the entire school, in fact, the entire village that he lived in, started to sort of phone, phone the ambulance, phone 999, phone in the police, fire brigade, like, but I don't know what it is. It's this pretty bad smell.
I don't know if it's a gas leak, you know, is it a volcano? I don't know. What is it? I've, I've, I've pooed my pants. What, what was going on? I just don't know what's happening.
And, uh, it was his feet because they were really smelly. Anyway, he had to run backwards and forwards. And it was, um, it's one of those things where you run from one side of the hall.
This is the gym to the other side. And then you tap the next person and then they run to the other side, like a relay thing. And there was maybe four teams and he was in one of the teams and he was very fit, you know, so I was always picked last.
I didn't go to school with him, but, um, even I had, if I'd gone to school with him, I still would have been picked last. Uh, cause I just, it wasn't that I couldn't do stuff. It's just, I wouldn't, if that makes sense.
And also I was so much smaller than everyone else. I was small for my age. I was a lot smaller than anyone else, pretty much in the whole school, not in the whole school, in like my year, but tiny.
And which meant I didn't have the physical, um, abilities that other people had. I wasn't as tall. So playing basketball was pointless.
Football, I used to get rough and, you know, I just didn't really enjoy it. I didn't see the point. So I didn't, I wasn't really that into it.
And so I used to get picked last. I mean, I used to get picked last and even the school, the sports teacher, when I got picked, he would look at the, um, the person who picked me and said, are you sure? Are you sure you want him? Which I thought was a little bit rude. Anyway, apparently Andre, he, he was doing this relay running across.
He was a fast runner, apparently, that's what he said. And as he was running down, the people beside him were just fainting from the smell. So all the other kids were just fainting.
There's this big, like green haze and fog as he was running across. It's almost, imagine, imagine if the, the flash, you know, the flash, the superhero that runs really fast, if he also farted at the same time, imagine what that would be like. Anyway, he wasn't that fast as the flash, but he was running.
People were fainting. The shorter people fainted quicker because it took longer to get to the taller people's noses. And he's running, running, running.
And because basically somehow the air, by the time he got halfway through the hallway, halfway through, you know, the, the part to get to the other side of the hall, the smell had got so bad that actually reached the people ahead of him, including the person that he was supposed to be tagging to, you know, run back. And he couldn't see where he's going because there was this green, like smog, fog, dust sort of all over the place from his feet. So he's running and he's thinking to himself, well, this is his, he tells me, he said, I, I thought to myself, because he was from Germany, I thought to myself, I thought, oh, I, I'm keeping running and I'm thinking, oh, this is a lot, a lot bigger, a lot longer, a lot much, much longer.
I'll just speak. He said, he thought, give me another drink. I want to drink some of yours.
No, Andre, get your own. Oh, go on, go on, Sol, give me some drink. No, Andre, get off.
I'll take my socks off. Okay, you can have what you want. Here's my wallet.
Have whatever you want, mate. You can have a car. Do you want my car outside? Sure.
Just don't take your socks off. Anyway, he, he robbed a bank once. He, he didn't put a sock over his face.
He, he just chucked it towards the, the cashier. He did put it over his face. And he gave a sock, gave one of his socks to all the other people that were going to be doing the bank robbery as well.
They were unconscious for 17 hours. And he just fainted from the smell. That amused me.
Anyway, he's running. And he's thinking, how come I haven't got to the wall yet? But little did he know he was. And he noticed the fog was starting to fade out.
And everyone was on the ceiling. Then he realized it wasn't, it was he was on the ceiling. He was running.
He'd run up the wall and on the ceiling and running back the other way because his feet were so sticky. And as he was running, cracks were starting to sort of get into the building. And I think the whole building fell down because of the smell.
But I might be making that bit up. The rest is absolutely true. Smelliest feet ever.
I mean, ever. I mean, seriously. I remember he had a phone call from Australia once, where I was living with him.
There was a phone call from Australia. And I said, hello. He said, oh, good day, mate.
You all right there? I said, yeah, thanks. He said, can you pass on a message, please, mate? I said, where are you from? He said, oh, I'm from Sydney in Australia. I said, right, OK.
So I said, what? He said, can you tell Andre to put his, wash his feet, please? Tell Andre to wash his feet. I can smell it. See, because Australia's a long way away.
We laughed. One of the times, I remember we were, there was a group of us sitting around. And I don't know why Andre said it.
I think he was sitting on the floor. His, his hard chair was being cleaned, so being bleached. So he was just sitting on the floor while that was drying off.
And he, he, he said something like, I wish I had a personality. Just out of the blue. And there was about five of us in the room.
Complete silence. For about two minutes. And I said, of course you've got a personality, Andre.
And everyone started laughing. But I don't know what he was after. I don't know what, because he did have a personality.
That's the thing about it. He was, he was lovely. It was funny.
One of the things he did is, so his, I don't know why I'm talking about Andre, but hey, here I am. He actually, this is the original Andre, not the little ferret that's asleep. We were in a pub in, must have been East London somewhere.
I don't know where. Maybe Forest Gate, Stratford, Leighton, I don't know. But it was in East London.
That was our manor. That was where we kind of were. And we walk into this pub full of, I think it was full of bikers.
And it was quite weird. They're quite, you know, looked quite rough, but they wanted to have a bit of a roll around in the mud, you know. So I'm sitting there with Andre.
Andre says to me, she's nice. And there was a lady sitting at the, standing at, no, she was sitting at the bar, drinking something. And there was another stool next to her that was empty.
And I said, oh. So he sort of moves past me and a bloke next to us, he says, oh, that's the leader's girlfriend or wife. You know, the gang leader, the biker leader.
But Andre just didn't care. And he walked up to her and he said, is it okay if I sit down and talk to you? That was his chat up line. Is it okay if I sit down and talk to you? And she said, yeah.
And all of these bikers were just staring in disbelief that he would just walk up and start talking to her. But at the end of the night, they all loved him because he was unthreatening at that time. He was, you know, he was just lovable.
And for some reason, I mean, he was a good looking bloke, but women really seemed to like him, like proper. You know, I was in a nightclub, again, this was in Stratford. No, I don't know, it's one of those, somewhere in East London.
Of course, that was her manor. So in this nightclub, this was probably 93, 94, something like that. It might have been earlier, but he was in there.
And out of all the women, this one stood out to me anyway, as being like, wow, just, it was just, she was something else. And I asked her for a dance, and she said, go away, you're horrible. I said, oh, thanks.
You want a drink then? Yeah, right. She would not leave Andre's side the whole time. She was actually begging him to go home with her.
She was saying to me, what's wrong with me? Why doesn't he want to go home with me? Everybody else wants me, everybody else is asking for my number, but he just doesn't want to. I said, because he's gay, he's my boyfriend. And she said, and I said, but I'm happy to do a threesome.
She said, what do you mean threesome? I said, I mean, pay three way for the taxi. You know, that's what I mean by remembering the audience at the podcast. And he wouldn't, he just, he wouldn't because he had a girl, well, he had a girlfriend, but they were kind of split.
They were on a break. But he loved her. He loved his girlfriend.
And he would not, it was so annoying to me, just the fact that you had, I mean, she was, I know this is superficial, but I don't care. It's also human as well. Let's pretend that people aren't attracted to each other.
Yes, yes. Yeah. And then there would be no population left.
Let's pretend there's no clouds in the sky. So she was really absolutely gutted that he wouldn't give her the attention that she wanted. I was happy to drink with her and dance and stuff, but he would not, would not do what she wanted.
And I've rarely seen that, especially as he had no reason, really. He wasn't, didn't have a girlfriend anymore. I don't think they ever actually got back together.
They might have done. I don't think so. And very just, another time he went to a gay club, gay club, gay club.
And for those that don't know what that is, it's a place where people are really happy. It's a really happy place. And he was happy himself to sit at the bar being chatted up by the bar staff, the male bar staff, giving him free drinks all night long.
He had no interest in talking to women. As long as he was getting free drinks, he didn't care who he was talking to. He was quite happy.
Man, woman, donkey. I think if you just gave him a free drink, he was happy. And he still came home with me.
Not came home, we lived in the same place. But I couldn't figure it out. What's going on? I mean, literally, maybe he was oblivious to the fact that people found him attractive.
He was oblivious to the men behind the gate, the bar, in the gay bar, or the women in the clubs that wanted him. He was just, maybe he did just have eyes for his ex-girlfriend. And that was it.
That's all he wanted. Or maybe he just wanted alcohol. And that's all he really wanted.
It could be that. He did like to drink and have a little drink of something myself, but not alcoholic. Oh, sniffy sniff.
I'm trying to think some other things that me and him did together. We went to, I took him to my comedy club in probably 92. And we went, I think it was either, I think it was a Thursday night.
So we went along and we bought, and I say my comedy club, it was the club that I used to, that I loved, when I was part of for 20 years. And in some way or other, even if it was just visiting, loved that place. The only building I think I've ever loved.
You know, the only social venue, yes, probably better description. The only social venue I've ever actually loved, like physically, emotionally felt connected to was that comedy club, that building, every part of it, including the cellar, including the, the, every part upstairs, you know, the cleaning room, because I did everything in there at some point. You know, I cleaned toilets at some point, I DJ'd, I worked in the office, I painted, I helped behind the bar, I waited sometimes, not much waiting, but just taking plates out and stuff.
You name it, took money on the door, cleaned tables, cashed up, took money to the bank, you know, all kinds of stuff, just over the years. So yeah, that place really meant a huge amount to me. But at the time, of course, I was quite new to it.
I'd only been going for about a year or two. So I wanted to take Andre and show him my life. Yeah, because my life that he knew of was just at work, because we worked together.
And he ended up being my boss. And he, you know, he was just, we used to have a laugh, and then we used to sort of hang out and go, go to the pub and stuff like that afterwards. And I thought, you know, I'll take him.
I did this a few times with people that I knew, that I worked with. I did it with someone that I worked with at the bakery. And I also took a couple of other friends along to a comedy night.
Not sure if I took my cousin. So it didn't happen very often, because I was never really sure how I was going to perform. Because due to my mood swings, and my unrecognized bipolar, I used to, my performance would depend upon what mood I was in.
See, most comedians, and I would say I was, I wouldn't say I was an expert on anything. But I'd say I have quite a good knowledge of stand-up comedy. Not in the sense of being a good stand-up comedian, because I wasn't.
I'm not going to pretend I wasn't. I had some really good nights, but I had more really bad nights than good nights. Near the end, the last five years, probably had more average nights than good nights.
But they were getting better. The average ones were getting better. The good ones were getting worse.
No, they weren't. Less often. But I've seen, I mean, can you imagine how many thousands of performances I've seen live during that period? It's just, you know, just live, not sort of on telly, but actually, I mean, just when I was doing the DJing, four years, and I'd be there generally Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, usually Wednesday as well.
I didn't use to work all those nights, but I'd be there anyway. So on a Friday and Saturday, there'd be three acts in a compare, so that's four acts. Then another four, so that's four eights.
Friday, there'd be less, there'd be two acts in a compare, nine, ten, eleven. And then on Wednesday, there'd be about 12 acts, because new acts. So that's 12, 24, 23.
So on an average week, I'd be seeing about 23 comedy performances. And admittedly, I didn't go every Wednesday every year, you know, every Wednesday of every year. But I went every Wednesday, I'd say for the first few years, every single Wednesday.
So I've done hundreds of Wednesdays. I went hundreds of times on a Wednesday. And 51, 52, at least 200 plus weekends as well.
So it's, yeah, that's a lot of performances. That's just there. That's about all the other comedy clubs that I performed at.
So I did about 250 gigs. So I'd see all the other acts on that night. So there'd normally be maybe another three, four acts.
So you can times that 250 by four. So that's another thousand comedy performances I saw. That's quite a lot, isn't it? Andre, I can't believe it, even though he's asleep in the other side of the room.
He's like some kind of ventriloquist farter. Imagine turn up on stage, where's your ventriloquist? Well, you'll hear it in a minute. And you may smell it before you hear it.
So I think, I think it's fair to say I kind of, as I said, I'm not an expert in anything, but I've got a little bit of knowledge about it. But I've forgotten why I'm telling you that now. So just really, it's just, it's just pointless.
It's almost bragging, wasn't it? You know what? You know how many toilets I've cleaned? I've cleaned thousands of toilets. Yeah, why are you telling me? I just want to tell someone. And anyway, we went to the comedy club.
I took, you know, I took in there and we went with I think probably about 12 cans of lager in a bag. Went up to the bar, got two pints. I, and this is, I mean, this is, this is really kind of before I was sort of good friends with my friend who owns the place.
So it only happened once. So hopefully he's not listening. But you know, it was a very quiet night.
I just realized I'll get in trouble now because he's, if he hears I did this. But we bought two pints of lager, sat down. The thing is we sat down near the bar, which was probably a bit of a silly thing to do.
So we had the first pint and then we just used, was emptying the cans into the pint glasses. So we just sat there all night. For some reason, at the end of the night, he decided he couldn't be bothered to carry the bag home.
So he just piled all the empty cans on the table and walked out. And I got told off by the bar manager who was there at the time. And I said, I don't know where they came from.
It's just some random just walked in and put them on there. Oh, Andre's come to visit. Can you hear that? Wow.
That was, um, that almost looks like curry sauce. Even so, I'm gonna give you a cuddle. I'm just gonna make sure your bum stays away from me.
How you doing, honeyplum? Poor thing. You're smelly. You're so smelly.
You're not really. He's very clean, really, considering he's so dirty. Even though he's so naughty at times, I look at him and he's just so cute.
He's got the most beautiful little face. And I think that's why I originally fell in love with when I first saw him, because he didn't like me at all. He was biting me.
He didn't want to be anywhere near him. But every now and then, and there's a picture on my Facebook page. It's a picture of him when he was like really quite little.
And it's on the left side of my Facebook page down a little bit, not the profile picture, which is him jumping up. Every now and then, he does that. He looks up at me and he looks exactly the same as he did when he was a baby.
Even though he's way bigger, you know, he's a lot bigger than he was. He's still little. But you're beautiful, aren't you? Yeah, you're a beautiful little boy.
Yes, you are. He had a sneezing fit earlier. He climbed onto my bed because I was having a sleep.
Or he's being lazy now. He doesn't even try and climb on the bed. He just puts his hands against the bed until I put my hand down, and he clamps onto my hand and I pull him up.
And he sort of goes to sleep. Sometimes he sort of cuddles up a little bit, but he does like his own space. And he was sneezing continuously.
I was like, what's going on? What's going on? Why is he sneezing so much? You're going to bite my hand, aren't you? You can bite it if you want. A little nipple. I know you're not going to hurt me.
You'd never hurt me, would you? Not on purpose. You wouldn't, would you? You wouldn't. You cute little nose.
You cute little nose. I think he must have heard his name being mentioned, thinking I was talking about him. He's probably thinking, that liar.
I never drunk lager. I never went into the comedy club. Give me kisses.
Okay. See you later, mate. He's trying to bite my feet now.
I'm trying to think what else Drake got up to. Let's see. What else? What else? What else? He went to a place called the what was it called? It was in Forest Gate.
There was a pub, but above the pub was a nightclub when the pub closed, like at 11 or whatever. It's on the tip of my ear, the name of it. Not the Silver Horseman.
Princess Alice. The prince is weird, isn't it? I thought about that for years. The Princess Alice in Forest Gate.
And where that was, was basically, if you go past Forest Gate train station, that train station being on the right hand side, and just go straight down. And there was... Yeah, basically just go down to the end of the road. Can't remember a lot of the... I think it was a particularly long road, really.
But I can't remember much in the way of what shops were there. But you go down the end, and it was literally on the corner on the right hand side, the Princess Alice. On the left hand side, as you went down, there was a... I think it was a secondhand shop, but it might have been an actual television shop, because I bought a television from there.
That might seem like an obvious thing to say. I think it might have been a television shop, because I bought a television there. I think it might have been a pizza delivery place, because I got a pizza delivered from there.
But I'm not sure if it was just a television shop. I got this TV, it was big, big TV, with a massive bum, you know, the back of it was huge. And I think I must have got a taxi to get it home.
And it's hard to carry. It wasn't the weight so much, although it was heavy. But it was too big for me to even get my hands and my arms around it.
Really big old thing. And I remember where I was living, there was a dog living there. I lived with a lot of dogs.
This one was my friend's dog. And he... I was keeping an eye on him in my bedroom. And his dad, my friend came in, he got all excited and he knocked the television off, and it just smashed.
It's not the best story, but, you know, it is a story. And it's a bit annoying. But I like that television because it was quite big.
It was... I hadn't had a big television before. But, you know, when I was at school, we had a television and I didn't carry one around. But there was one at home, you know, in the living quarters where the inhabitants of the house would congregate.
A family. And I didn't have a big TV of my own, really. I briefly did, actually.
I briefly did. When I was living in the... I would call it the mousy cul-de-sac house because it's full of mice and cats, you know. And there was an old lady that I lived with and she was... about 77 or something then.
So she was... Which means, what, that was 2001. Not 2001, 1990. Did I... have I been saying 2000? I meant 1990.
So I took Andre to the place in 1992, not 2002. Yeah, 2001. Blimey, I was in my 30s by then.
Wow. Can't believe I'm nearly 70. Anyway, the... you realize that people might be listening to this in 100 years time.
Why? I don't know. But if there is, I'll be 149 years old. Wow.
Isn't it weird? This is going to be the big question, I think. The big question mark above my head. Why did he continue making recordings? Why did he do it? Why? And I will, I'll still be doing that when I'm in my 90s.
Welcome to the Gates of Newland.com. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep, episode 65,413. I really... there's going to be thousands of these recordings. There genuinely will be.
Thousands and thousands just of this podcast. I might not be able to have them all on the podcast. I might have to... I might not be allowed to have that many on the podcast host I've got, but they'll still be available to download.
The sort of the earlier ones. But wow, that's quite... I think that's quite interesting. Just to me, not to anyone else, but just to create something that was something out of nothing, I think is quite cool.
Just in the same way that someone, if they draw, if someone can draw a picture, or paint a picture, or sculpt something, you know, out of rock or clay or wood, or make something out of wood or metal, or someone that can do something with craft, you know, or someone that can knit or sew or make clothes or... It's just something out of nothing. It's an idea that turns into something. And of course, other things like books, poetry, songs, even architecture.
And you could say pretty much everything comes from an idea, doesn't it? Even our actions come from an idea beforehand of, oh, I think I'll go to the shop. But it's not quite as creative as some other things, you know. Maybe... I just like the idea of the creative... I was very interested in creativity back in 1997, 98 time.
I started studying mind maps with, is it Stephen Buzan? And I wanted to be creative. I wanted to be... Because I always felt quite creative in a sense of having ideas, yet never had anyone once in my entire life say, that was a good idea. You know, pretty much when I was younger, I never really had anyone... Sort of, I didn't feel that my ideas were maybe worth anything.
And now, as an older person with experience, I'm very aware that they're not worth anything, but it doesn't matter because I'm going to think anyway. Everything's as valid as anything else, but I love the idea of creativity. Yeah, I didn't really have artistic skill.
There was a time I used to like drawing. Well, there was a time I used to... I mean, basically my step-mom, I absolutely adored her and I wanted to be like her. And I wasn't sure how I was going to accomplish that without some kind of hormone treatment, but she was a really good drawer, so I wanted to be a good drawer.
She could play the piano lovely and I wanted to be able to play the piano. I tried the piano and... The problem with playing the piano is I had to listen to myself. That was the hardest part of practicing a musical instrument, was listening to it.
You know, if I'd have put some earplugs in or something, I think I'd have been... I'd have enjoyed it more. So I played a few instruments over the years. Still thinking or looking at that ukulele box on top of my bookcase, above my big pink pig money box.
There's my boxing glove, boxing glove? Boxing bag gloves are on top of the box with a couple of books. Anyway, it gives you a little visual, but I don't know. I might try and give it a go.
But I don't really feel that interested in art. I didn't like it at school. Didn't really like anything really at school, really, apart from being naughty.
Not naughty, naughty, but just... Doing my own thing, thinking about things. Having a laugh, you know. Really, I'm surprised I learned anything, but I must have done.
I mean, some of it's gone in. I do have some knowledge. And reading was something that I found quite easy.
Because it's something that I love doing. I absolutely loved reading. You know, it's probably one of my favorite things when I was a kid.
And my very first book that I remember was a book called Jackanory. And I got it in, I think it was a jumble sale at the children's home in Southend. So I was... How old was I? Probably six, probably.
That's the first book I remember having. I'm sure it wasn't the first book I ever had. I'm sure at some point I had other books.
I just don't remember them. But my memory of the children's home was we used to just share the toys. There'd be like a bunch of toys in boxes, and we'd all kind of play with them.
But didn't necessarily have our own toys. But again, I might be wrong there. But I don't really remember having much in the way of like my own stuff until I got sort of to seven.
And then I did. And I had plenty of stuff. Toys and same as my brothers and everything.
We all had our own things, which was cool. But reading, I used to collect books. I had this shelf when I was about 14.
I had a bunch of books, and they were kind of stacked and everything. And I had this shelf that my dad put up. And I had all these books, and they kept falling off the shelf.
The shelf, I think it was like two or three shelves with books on it. Brackets. And it didn't support them because it was too many.
And I went through a little period where I was really into adult science fiction. But it was quite adult, explicit, and really weird, weird stuff. But I really got into it.
And then I went through a period when I was really... I love comedy. I've always loved comedy, right from as far as I remember. I don't know.
I don't remember watching anything funny until I came to live with my dad. And I'm sure I must have seen funny stuff up to the age of six or seven. But there was a time we used to go up.
And before we moved there, me and my brothers, we used to go. And yeah, because we were in a children's home. And we started going to my dad's and his wife's, who became our stepmom, at the weekend.
And we did that. Maybe not every weekend, but it was maybe every couple of weekends. And then eventually we moved down there permanently.
And I think he'd pick us up on Friday evening, because he was working. He'd worked all day, I guess. And then he came, picked us up.
I don't know what time, but we used to get there quite late at night. So he'd probably pick us up seven or eight o'clock, maybe. Again, it might not be the right time.
But then he, then I think she was there as well, so both of them. I'd sit on her lap, because I was a baby. See, I was just under the age of seven.
And although I wasn't really a baby, I needed to be a baby, because I hadn't been a baby. Do you know what I mean? I needed to, I needed that. I hadn't had.
So I was very, very immature when I was with her. Before I was with her, I was proper rough. Like my brothers, we were quite rough.
You know, just like a little feral, a feral little pack. And which is just how we'd kind of grown up, live in different places and that. But something, I don't know, just, I kind of softened up.
Became more soft when I was around her. So I was quite nice. And I, the thing is, right, I think the chances of me, if it wasn't for us, or let's say me, it wasn't for me moving away from the children's home and going and living with my dad and my step mum, I probably, realistically, I would have had a very, very different life.
I mean, you know, not even a recognisable kind of life to the one I've had. Some ways that sounds quite attractive. But I know that it wouldn't have been a good, it wouldn't have been good.
It's, well, it might be, who knows, you don't know. There's always a chance someone will come along and sort of adopt you, you know, look after you, sort of look out for you. So, but yeah.
But I remember the weekends, we'd get there late. I'd be sleeping. I don't know if I always was on her lap.
Often we all took turns. Sometimes my brothers would, and sometimes my dad would be on the lap and I'd drive. And I remember looking out the window of the car.
And bearing in mind, I didn't drive, I didn't get in cars. All my travelling was, well, I'd walk to school. I lived in Southend and that's, I didn't ever go anywhere else.
Apart from that, I lived, before that, I lived in Newcastle. And I travelled from Newcastle to Southend on a train with my social worker. And before that, I travelled on trains.
So, I had been in cars, but it'd been years, years and years since I'd been in a car. And suddenly I'm in this car and I've got my head against the window. It's rattling.
It just feels really nice. Like a scalp massage. Like when I started this, when I was playing on myself, you know, playing with my head, massaging my scalp.
There's that vibration. Sort of can feel it also in the top of the head, but also maybe in the side of my head and my jaw as well. Sort of feeling it different places.
I've got almost a tickle. And there'd be a quietness. Because, you know, if you live in a place where there's lots of kids, you can get a little bit noisy at times.
But there was something new. Something new. And every, every, pretty much every part of it was lovely.
That was what was weird about it. Nearly every part of it was lovely. You know, the dad we only sort of got to know him, didn't know who he was.
You know, when, when they said to us, oh, your dad's outside and he wants to, he's come to see you. We thought they were talking about a stepdad from the past. So we all hid underneath a big, like a bed.
All three of us hid under a bed and made a pact about what we were going to do to this person. So, you know, it was quite weird. And then we go through the door and there's this big, big man with his big beard, smiling.
And it was our real dad. Our biological father, who I didn't know. My oldest brother, who was nine, hadn't seen him, what was it? Two, yeah, I really didn't know him at all because I was in foster care from the age of about three months, between three and six months old.
I was in foster care for until the age of two. So I really didn't know my dad. I knew him for the first few months of my life, but I didn't know him after that.
My oldest brother knew him for the first four years. No, six years. Yeah, because my oldest brother lived with my nan and granddad.
Because my nan always used to ask about him. Because he took off when he was about 18 and never came back. So my nan was always asking about him.
How is, I won't say his name, but how is he? I don't know. Oh, I miss him, yeah. What about me? I'm here.
He hasn't contacted you, made no attempt to contact you. I'm here now. Why can't I be your favourite grandson? I was very childish.
As she explained one day, she said he was more like a son to her than a grandson. Because she'd brought him up from the age of... Well, obviously, he was four, he was four when I was born. And then she'd sort of known him all those years and looked after him a lot.
And then he lived with her for a further two years, nearly. So she kind of classed him as sort of her son, because it's a long time, isn't it? To be living with like a small child. And yeah, so this is big man.
I didn't know who on earth he was. All we all knew was he wasn't who we thought we were going to be seeing. So that was good.
Good for him as well, because he wasn't going to have a good time. And so we all put down the weapons and we were a bit like, oh, here I am. But you know, he was lovely.
We were generally going to kill him. I know it sounds bad, but that's what we planned underneath, under the bed. If it's him, we all go in with... I thought my brother actually handed knives out to us.
But they were kind of like crappy knives, you know, the ones you eat with. So it wouldn't have been any good anyway. But he was a lot older, you know, think about it.
He was nearly 10 or nearly 9. So he was... No, yeah, nearly 9. No, 7, 8, 9, nearly 11. What am I talking about? So he was a lot older. I was nearly 7. So he was nearly 11, because he was 4 years older.
And then we have this bloke that's in front of us. And big smile. I said a big beard.
He was lovely. This beautiful man. And I think the beautiful part comes to the fact that he took us away from that place.
And I remember the first time... I don't remember the first time, but I remember the period when we'd be there, go there on a Friday evening, get up Saturday morning. And probably, it probably wasn't the first time it ever happened. But the first time in a long time, we were able to watch cartoons on television.
Saturday morning children's TV, which I don't think happened in... which you could say would be like a monastery, basically, that we were living in. We were living in a Catholic... with Catholic nuns. So they did have a television.
So that's not that they didn't have a television. But I'm pretty... I don't recall ever watching cartoons on a Saturday morning. So this was our first time to actually be children.
Like proper... not proper children, but children that could enjoy the things that a lot of kids would just... we should just be, should just be a normal standard thing. Television's on, cartoons are on, or whatever. Nowadays, it's cookery programs, but... And then my stepmom, for some reason, she had to vacuum the carpet while we were watching the cartoons.
Yes, it was her thing. So we were putting our legs up, apart from me, because my legs didn't even touch the ground anyway, when I was sitting on the sofa. If I was on the floor, I'd just levitate.
And it was just... or well, actually, they thought I was levitating, but they didn't realize I was just farting, like lots of little farts in a row. It sort of raised my body up. And so we'd watch telly, and then we lived near the beach, and we'd go out, and it's really lovely.
You have the Saturday, all day. So it'd be the Friday night, Saturday night, and we'd travel back on a Sunday afternoon. And the Sunday always started off... it was just crappy, because we knew we were going back.
There was... there was no way around it, you know? It was, you know, we were still at school, still living at the children's home, still, you know. It's just we were having, you know... I don't know how often we went back at the weekends. There was one time we couldn't, because it was planned, but I think... I don't know if my stepmum had chickenpox or the measles, or my dad was ill, something like that.
And we ended up going to London to stay with my auntie instead. So we still managed to have the weekend away. And my auntie took us all out to, like, Madame Tussauds, and Trafalgar Square, and probably the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame.
I don't know, maybe Loch Ness. You know, places just the basic London sights. And, yeah, Area 51.
It's somewhere else. The Rocky Mountains probably went there. Didn't have time for Everest, but we only had the weekend.
But it was a great weekend. I just, I recollect part of it. And I think my nan was with us, I'm pretty sure, because there was one point, and I forgot about this until right now, when, and this is probably in Trafalgar Square, there was someone selling Winkles.
And those are basically little shells where you put a little stick in, and you eat this thing out of the shell. And I think I let the whole of London know that I was not going to go near it. I made a bit of a fuss.
And, nope, no thank you, no thank you very much. I don't know what we had to eat. Because I don't even know if there was McDonald's back then.
Because this is the 70s, this is what, 77? So I don't know if England had McDonald's. I mean, if there was a McDonald's in England, I'm pretty sure there would have been one in London. So I'm sure, well, I just assume that the cities would be the first places to have got McDonald's, and KFC, and Burger King, and I don't know where else.
But back those days, the Wimpy was quite big. The Wimpy was the place to be. So maybe we went to the Wimpy, I don't know.
But it was quite cool because my sister and my auntie's boyfriend, I think we stayed there and she was there as well. He had a big bushy beard as well. And that was the fashion back then.
In the 70s, big beards, very fashionable. So that was cool. And then going back to sort of the average Sunday afternoon, when we had to come back.
You know, it's a big, long car journey. It probably seemed longer than what it actually was. But it was a fair distance.
And none of us wanted to go back. And then we'd go in, we'd take our bags in and say goodbye. And they had to leave, like pretty much straight away.
And then be out the front. We'd be looking through the window. And they'd be out the front, getting into the car, waving.
And we'd be just banging at the window, screaming. Literally, it would be... Well, I would, I don't know about the others. I'm pretty sure the others, maybe not my oldest brother, but he might have been as well.
It's hard to remember. I was a bit sort of caught up in my own emotions at the time. And here's what I got.
My oldest brother, the thing about him is he looked after me. In the really early days, he looked after me. He was like a parent, really.
He was like my dad. Even though he was only four years older, he was the one that kept me sort of... Dad did his best to keep me safe. Weird, weird times.
And eventually, eventually we were told... I think we were given the option, we didn't have to do it. But do you want to come and live with us full time? And I said, what's in it for me? I mean, is there a payment involved? I didn't say that. So yeah, we just went and lived there.
It was in the summer, no 2000, 1977. It was probably May, June time. And beautiful summer.
And it was just, it was, I would say, probably the most magical time of my life as a child. It was just that period when we first moved there. It wasn't, I'm sure it wasn't smooth sailing.
For anyone at certain times. I don't remember those difficult times. But for me, in my memory is, we were free.
You know, suddenly we were free. We were with two people that were wonderful. And it was like, wow, it didn't last.
But it was a beautiful, beautiful time. The weather was amazing. I was still really short.
Not that that's really relevant to the story. But, and what, you know, my dad, or my parents, I say my parents, what they did is, they gave us these jackets that were exactly the same. But they're different colours.
So I'm pretty sure I might be wrong. I'm pretty sure I had a fluorescent green. My other brother, the second oldest, had blue, possibly fluorescent.
And the oldest one had brown. But they were the same jackets, just different sizes and different colours. I've forgotten all about that until just now.
It's also the time when we got our first bikes. Never had a bike before. So I was seven.
And I think I probably got it for my birthday, actually. Or it could have been Christmas. There's a chance it could have been Christmas.
And 77. I'm not sure. But we all got bikes.
I'd never had a bike before, so I was really excited. I'd never ridden a bike. I didn't know how to ride bikes.
I'd been on the little, like, things, you know, which you could ride. The little buggy things that we used to ride around in the car park at the children's home and stuff. But never, not a bicycle.
So my dad was, I had stabilisers on there, trying to learn. I kept falling off. And eventually I learnt it.
I learnt how to do it. And I was going to say I never looked back, but I had to because I had to see where I'd come from. I didn't know the area that well.
So I had to sort of keep an eye on where I was, where I'd been. And what other things? Yeah, we had an ant invasion as well in the garden, which was strange. But really hot weather.
Really nice. Really, really warm. And probably the best summer.
Probably my best summer ever, that was. Yeah, probably was, actually. Probably the best summer I ever had was that summer.
Summer of 77. Just because of the... I mean, summer is almost like being released. You know, having that freedom.
Having a new opportunity at life. A new chance to suddenly not be sleeping in a room with lots and lots of other people. I probably was in the same room as my brothers, but that was nothing compared to being in a dormitory.
I wonder if I actually missed any of my friends, though. Because people become more than friends, don't they? If you live with them. And sleep with them.
And bathe with them. And eat with them. And go to school with them.
And play with them. You know, if you do everything together, and pray with them, of course, in the church. If you do everything together, those other kids were family, weren't they? They were more than just somebody I went to school with, or somebody that, you know, just... I wonder what that was like.
I wonder what it was like for them to... When we moved, because it was three of us. You know, maybe... And that would have been a bit of a hole, being left, like three boys, and suddenly, you know, moving out all at the same time. Maybe not, though.
Maybe we just kept to ourselves. I don't know. I can't remember.
I can't imagine I'd want to hang around my brothers, though. I mean, they were older. I'd probably want to be with people my own age.
But at that time, I really don't know. It's hard to remember something that you've forgotten. That was a good summer, though.
Oh, yeah. So I kind of, you know, sometimes, I always get a perspective. You know what? Things... Things are okay.
Yeah. Yeah, things are okay, really. And when I talk about perspective, I'm just talking about myself, not anyone else.
Just... Yeah. Almost feel like I should write my dad a letter and thank him. So that's probably the end of this recording.
It's time that I went. And then I'll upload this, and I'll... Share it on Facebook, and... Blah, bleep, blah, bleep, blah, blah. Biddly, biddly, boo.
I still haven't finished talking about Andre. Never mind. I'll tell you more stories about our little Andre.
The original little Andre. Another term. He wasn't little at all.
But who cares? Who cares? Yeah. Like, he's got kids as well, you know. He's got kids.
So I think he's got two kids. Which will be... Wow. They might be older now.
They might have left school now. They might be old enough to even be... I wonder. I forgot about that.
Yeah. A couple of little Andres running around. Or Andreette.
Or Andrea. I suppose the female version of Andre would be Andrea, wouldn't it? Really. Andy.
Boston. Well, it's time to go. Thank you very much for listening.
Remember to be kind to yourself. Because you do deserve to be happy. And do something nice for yourself today.
Speak to you tomorrow. Lots of love. Bye.
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.