Just Call Me Jack

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Wikipedia.org for research information on events in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s

Goolge.com for general research, including Googlemaps for distances etc.

Jimi Hendrix, ‘Bold as Love’, The Stranglers’ ‘Bring on the Nubiles’, The Ramones’ ‘Hey, Ho, Let’s Go’, GC Llyod Steel Fabrications, Oberland Holidays, Merthyr Tydfil, St James Club, London, Mallinson-Denny Ltd., Timber Merchants, Cardiff, McGowan & Son Roofing, Cardiff, Hursteel Ltd., Atlantic Wharf, Barry Island, Poyners Dairy Ltd., Cardiff, Parc Hotel, Cardiff, CB Cabs Cardiff, Concrete Impressions, Ciudad Quesada, Alicante, Robbins Timber, Kingswood, Bristol, S & J Roofing Ltd., Kingswood, Bristol, Ultra Clean, Oostende, Belgium, Maenhout Logistics, Oostende, Belgium, Creyfs Interim, Oostende, Belgium, Masa International, Torrevieja, Alicante, Euroland Properties, Santa Pola, Alicante, CID Bau, Denia, SNC Media Denia, Orenes & Orenes Internacional, Santa Pola.

To all those I haven’t mentioned by name, be they private individuals or companies,, please accept my apologies. My memory is not infallible.

I would like to dedicate this book to my friends Siggy (Sigrid) and Ged (Gerard) and my other friends, my dear old mum (Monika) and my dad (Sylvester-John).

Introduction

I am a mature student at the University of Life. I have been studying here since the age of sixteen. I am now forty-six. Over the past thirty years, I chose to study the life of a working man and alcoholic. To gain an in-depth understanding of the subject, I adopted the practice of a method actor, became one with the character, and subsequently lived the life with its inevitable highs and lows. This is part 1 of my thesis.

During my youth, I regarded life as a starving man would a free buffet, innumerable delights laid out, just for the taking, with no limit as to how often one can refill one’s plate. Today, as an adult, with many years behind me, I’ve eaten enough; my sated hunger has changed my outlook. I see the feast through the eyes of a connoisseur. Bilious experience has taught me not everything on offer, no matter how tempting or plentiful, is worth the tasting!

The first memories I have of my drinking are during the holidays I spent with the family in Stellingen, a suburb of Hamburg, Germany. A half a glass of shandy and even a few sips of wine or sparkling wine often came my way. My mother, at the time an advocate of reverse psychology, gave me alcohol and cigarettes at an early age in the hope these vices wouldn’t interest me when I reached puberty and subsequently adulthood. Unfortunately, this approach proved fruitless, and by the age of sixteen, I had become a regular smoker and I didn’t often say no to a drink either.

My father introduced me to the hazy world of overindulgence at the tender age of fourteen, and on one Sunday afternoon, Dad took me to the Boar’s Head pub in Caerphilly, where he liked to meet his mates and drink a few beers on the weekend. Looking back, I suppose that event marked my introduction into the big wide world of manhood. Even though many years were to pass before I actually considered myself wise enough to call myself a man, it felt good to be a temporary member of adult society, sitting in the smoky atmosphere at the table with the old man and his buddies, listening to their conversations, and sipping on my own seemingly enormous pint of Brains Light.

I don’t recall exactly how many I managed to drink, however the figure four remains in my mind for some reason. Whilst still in the bar, everything was fine, however once we went outside and the fresh air hit me, things started to spin. It wasn’t a long walk home. It was a little over half a mile from The Twyn, where the pub stood facing the somber monolithic cenotaph, but on that particular Sunday, it turned out to be half a mile too far. My world had somehow slipped off its even plane. Everything seemed hazy and on a slant. Hot and cold sweats coursed over my body, I couldn’t see straight, and I felt the beer trying to force its way up and out of my insides. Finally unable to suppress the tide any longer, I fell to my knees, hung my head over a low garden wall on Brynau Rd., and threw up!

That was the first occasion I remember being pissed, however obviously not the last. During my teenage years, especially once I started attending St. Martin’s Comprehensive, my experimentations with alcohol began in earnest. I was sixteen, and as with many sixteen-year-olds, I stumbled around in the mist between childhood and adulthood. Our lives were governed by hormones, fashion, music, gangs, fights, heartbreaks, alcohol, and as time moved on, drugs. On the weekends, we threw house parties. Everyone brought along a bottle, we turned the music up loud, and started drinking. Those were wild times, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. On my eighteenth birthday whilst out on the piss with my mates, I drank pints of beer out of a Wellington boot, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the parties would soon be over. My teenage life was ending, life-changing, and I had the first bittersweet taste of what it meant to be an adult, the responsibilities and the hard realities of life.

Friends were moving away and going off to college, and soon, I would also be starting my journey into the unknown, however I had one constant companion throughout that time, who has remained with me to this day: the ‘Drink’. Since stepping out of the secure environs of childhood, alcohol has been at my side along every step of my existence, like a friend, sometimes a good one, other times a total bitch, however my companion, like my shadow. She is always there and draws me to her, inevitably, repeatedly, like a fluttering moth to the flickering flame of doom.

Whilst we wander down memory lane, I shall sprinkle the misty trail of events with recollections of some of my alcoholic excesses and their ramifications. Please don’t think badly of me as you read what I say, because every step I made, I made with the best of intentions.

In the winter of 1964 after a smack on the arse, I took my first breath in the St. Brenda’s Maternity Hospital in the Clifton area of Bristol. Since that day, I have always considered the fact that the place of birth technically made me English to be no more than a geographical accident. I am the fruit of a mixed relationship. That is to say, my parents came from different countries and contrasting social standing.

My father, a Sligo man from the west coast of Ireland, one of nine children, five boys and four girls. At the time of writing this, sadly, most of the people I knew then, including my dear old dad, are dead and gone. The best way to describe the circumstances in which he grew up would be poor and uneducated. He and his brothers left Catholic school at a ridiculously early age, and by the time the family moved to England, my father had become a working man, obviously more out of necessity than out of choice. My early memories of him are dominated more by his absence because of work than pleasant times playing games or walking in the park.

My mother, on the other hand, came from Hamburg in northern Germany, one of two girls born to a well-educated and financially stable man, though things hadn’t always been so idyllic. My German grandfather returned from Denmark in 1954 after nine years in prison awaiting trial on suspicion of war crimes. Upon his release, he went home to his almost destitute wife and two daughters. That destitution was a result of losing the war and, during subsequent occupation, most of the family possessions. Some ten years later when I took my first breath, he had already managed to get back on his feet; the old boy network played a significant role in his rise out of the gutter. By the time my memories were reliable, around the age of five or six, he had a large house in a good area of Hamburg and had become quite wealthy once again.

My childhood was subsequently one of contrasts. Born in Bristol in 1964 after a few years spent in the Henbury and Bedminister areas of the city and subsequently in London and Hamburg, we finally moved to and settled in the South Wales valleys. The town where I spent my formative years is Caerphilly; it boasts a twelfth century castle complete with moat and a leaning tower, however contrary to popular belief, no cheese factory!

I attended Plas-y-Felin Junior and Infants School until the age of nine or ten. I then moved on to King’s School in Cardiff. After sitting for my O levels, I left Kings, or rather the headmaster asked me not to return. The next school on the list, St. Martin’s Comprehensive, I joined with the intention of re-sitting the exams I’d failed, possibly even trying some A levels. Going there wasn’t my idea. My parents had pressured me into this decision which was never a good start. Anyway, after taking a couple of ‘re-sits’, I once again received my marching orders (something to do with playing a major part in the demolition of the boys’ toilets and ripping off the coffee machine in the students’ common room). From St. Martin’s, I moved on to Ystrad Mynach College for further education, where I started a business studies course, also not my idea, but there you go. And yes, you’ve guessed it; it wasn’t long before I was asked to leave the college (something to do with hanging one of my schoolmates off a bridge by a long scarf around his neck and getting caught playing around, or better said, inhaling acetone in class). School was fast proving not to be my thing, because, like so many young people, I already knew everything!

My official education was finished by seventeen or eighteen; I’m not sure. Nonetheless, I do remember that I left without a sense of direction. In King’s, we didn’t have a teacher who taught us specifically about careers. In St. Martin’s, we had a careers officer or something similar; looking back, I suppose they did their best with the possibilities at their disposal at the time. Unfortunately, nothing they told me had any positive effect on me whatsoever. Maybe if one of those civil servants had ever had the gumption to explain a choice of career or lack of it would not only affect one’s working life, but also every other aspect of one’s existence and your time here on earth, then possibly, but only perhaps, things might have turned out differently!

As I said, one of my failings was my lack of direction; the career advice I received during my education, well, wasn’t! On beginning to write these memoirs, I am faced with the question, do I consider myself a failure or a success. To be truthful, I think, in comparison to the rich and famous, I am a flop. However, on the other hand, in comparison to someone forced to live in ill health, ignorance, subjugation, or poverty, I’m a resounding success, as are the majority of us who live in the developed world even if many of us do spend a lot of our time moaning and groaning about how hard our lives are!

Perhaps at the time of starting our journey, you yourself are wallowing in a little self-pity, thinking your life isn’t all you deserve. If so, take a few minutes to look over and digest the following information, and to those of you feeling great, take a look at it anyway and realize how lucky you are:

There are around 6.8 billion people on our planet, and approximately 10.1 million of them are dollar millionaires. In comparison, approximately 80 per cent of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day. According to UNICEF, 25,000 children, give or take a few, die each day due to the effects of living in poverty. Nearly a billion people entered the twenty-first century unable to read a book or sign their names. Water problems affect almost half of humanity and it’s getting worse. About 1.6 billion people live without electricity!

To put this into perspective, here follows a list of the global spending priorities in 1998. It’s unimportant that this information is not up to date, because things haven’t changed much over the last decade or so. If anything, the figures have more than likely increased. The following figures are the amounts spent in billions of US dollars:

Cosmetics in the United States, 8 billion

Ice cream in Europe, 11 billion

Perfumes in Europe and the United States, 12 billion

Pet foods in Europe and the United States, 17 billion

Business entertainment in Japan, 35 billion

Cigarettes in Europe, 50 billion

Alcoholic drinks in Europe, 105 billion

Narcotics in the world, 400 billion

Military spending in the world, 780 billion.

Now some more figures relating to the other end of the scale: for every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment!

Less than 1 per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000, and yet, this did not happen!

Moreover, compare that to the estimated additional costs to achieve universal access to elementary social services in all developing countries:

Basic education for all, 6 billion

Water and sanitation for all, 9 billion

Reproductive healthcare for all women, 12 billion

Basic health and nutrition, 13 billion.

That makes a grand total of 40 billion dollars which is needed to give the underprivileged access to the things we in the civilized world take for granted; makes you think, doesn’t it?!

That’s the money side of things out of the way, and after digesting these simple facts, I hope you’re feeling better about not being a millionaire. Oh, I forgot; millionaires read books as well, so perhaps you are one, lucky bastard! Though on a more serious note, if you ever wonder why you’re not famous, here’s a statistic that might interest you, including writers, generals, politicians, philosophers, composers, scientists, sports people, musicians, and artists, etc. Right back as far as Aesop or Alexander the Great up to the present day, there have been no more than a thousand or so truly world famous people!

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Over the years, I tried to make the best of the opportunities left me after my reckless teenage actions. I have seen and done many things during my time, some of them bad, but many of them good. I have made mistakes but always tried my best to learn from them.

The road is long and winding, and whilst travelling my path, I’ve met numerous fellow wanderers along the way. The only thing I want to say to them is, ‘To those of you I have wronged, I apologize, and to those of you I have benefited, it was my pleasure!’

Now, if you have decided to continue, I will try to briefly outline what you are about to read. The best I can come up with is: If you are searching for enlightenment or slick rhetoric, I must disappoint you. This is merely my story told in my way, and I will do my utmost to portray accurately how I recall the events. The description is of course tainted by personal perception, however I will remain as objective as possible. I will lead you from my first experiences of work and the life that goes with it, and together we’ll take a journey through time from 1981 up until 2007.

Chapter 1

The Outset

As our journey progresses and we travel through time, I will comment on episodes, which for whatever reason remain in my memory. At the beginning of each decade, I shall give a rundown of events which occurred during that era, thus hopefully painting a picture of the world around me.

The tale truly begins in the eighties, in 1981 to be exact, a rather volatile year, but hey, I suppose they were unstable times. In that year, Peter Sutcliffe was arrested on suspicion of being the Yorkshire Ripper and having murdered thirteen women over a six-year period. The Ripper, the first serial killer I can remember who, whilst I headed into my teens, began his career. By the time I reached my seventeenth year, the police arrested him on suspicion of murder. The Ripper’s chosen prey, for want of a better word, were prostitutes and innocent members of the female population of northern England. It all happened a long way from the Welsh town where I was gradually feeling my feet and dealing with the everyday problems of the teenage world. Since his arrest and incarceration, a controversy arose as to whether Peter Sutcliffe was the genuine Yorkshire Ripper or merely a copycat killer. Apart from the fact that if he is a copycat killer, the true Ripper is still roaming the streets and able to strike again, it made no difference to me.

On a lighter note, the first DeLorean sports car rolled off the production line in Northern Ireland. The Delorean is a rather strange, and for the time, futuristic vehicle with stainless steel body panels and gull wing doors. There are even three gold-plated models in existence. By today’s standards, the Delorean or DMC is slow, in fact, for a high performance luxury vehicle, extremely slow, reaching 100 kph in around 8.8 seconds! Nonetheless, in my opinion, the speed of the vehicle is irrelevant, and to be honest, I don’t like the design very much, but that’s only a matter of taste. What’s more important to me is what the Delorean symbolises, the attitude of the eighties, innovative and outlandish. The eighties were a time of yuppies and big, big hair, and of course, the unforgettable shoulder pads in women’s jackets and blouses. I remember how many women during that time resembled American footballers sporting big power shoulders. The fashion designers of that particular era certainly played a great part in making many of us look ridiculous, mind you, not quite as stupid as many of us looked in the 1970s.

The year 1981 turned out to be a year of discontentment and riots, which were another frequent news item. They started in Brixton on 11 April and by 12 July, there had been a further fourteen riots across the country. Excessive use of the ‘Suss Law’ and insensitive policing had fuelled the tension between the public and the police in those areas. However, let’s face the fact. People become unhappy when the cupboard is bare and the wallet is empty. If this situation goes on for too long, then something has to give. In hindsight, I can only say that to my surprise, the streets have been quiet for a long time, meaning people must be content with the present situation.

Also in the news during my first working year was a mystery illness which seemed to infect homosexuals. Of course, as with many revelations, the news came from the United States. HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus hit the scene, and as soon as the possible causes of infection became public knowledge, I had a sinking feeling as it dawned on me that I would never experience uninhibited casual group sex like those lucky bastards had back in the 1960s. The risk was just too high and that was a great disappointment!

Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer married at St Paul’s Cathedral. Over 750 million people worldwide tuned in to watch the wedding, and for millions and minions, Lady Di embodied the perfect fairytale princess, lovely to look at, with a deep community spirit and a supposedly sweet soul. Unfortunately not the sharpest knife in the drawer, she didn’t manage to pass one O level even after sitting them all twice! Prince Charles was thirteen years her senior and heir to the British throne, a juicy position which comes with much responsibility and of course the paycheck to match. Charles is one of only three royals to succeed in earning a university degree, and that’s more than I, so ‘I’ll take me hat off to him.’

1982

The day after my birthday in January, Mark Thatcher, Maggie’s son, disappeared in the Sahara Desert whilst taking part in the Paris-Dakar Rally. Two days later, the Algerian military, flying over the desert in a Hercules, found Thatcher, his French co-driver, and their mechanic, all unscathed. Fifteen days later, the rate of unemployment in the United Kingdom broke the 3 million mark, the first time since the war it had been that high (glad to see some things don’t change!). Freddy Laker’s airline went bust, leaving 6,000 passengers waiting for planes that never came and debts of around 270 million pounds behind it. In the same year, John De Lorean, producer of the innovative DMC 12, went tits up!

For seventy-four days, Britain went to war with Argentina due to a dispute over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. I don’t really have many memories of that episode. At eighteen, I had other things on my mind. However, I remember being in a mate’s house with a couple of others, and two of our gang decided to join up. It wasn’t so long after that they did just that. In all these years, I’ve heard nothing from them. I hope they’re well. There are, however, a couple of events during the Falklands conflict that have stuck in my mind: the battle of Goose Green, the sinking of the Belgrano, and the bombing of the Sir Gallahad, and of course the story of Simon Weston, who survived 46 per cent burns to his body, especially his face. Simon incidentally was born in the miner’s hospital in Caerphilly, and all I can say is, ‘Hats off to that man!’

In the summer, the train drivers went on strike for fifteen days. Italy beat West Germany 3-1 to win the FIFA World Cup. The Rev. Sun Myung Moon received an eighteen-month jail sentence and a $25,000 fine for obstruction of justice. The IRA detonated two bombs in central London killing eight soldiers and seven horses (shame about the horses; they had no choice in the matter). The first CDs went on sale to the public in West Germany.

In the autumn, the Mary Rose emerged from the depths of the Solent, and John Delorean was arrested for selling cocaine to FBI officers. Sixty-three people died in the Lenin (Luzhniki) Stadium in Moscow because of a human crush whilst watching a football game between Spartak and Haarlem. The Welsh language TV station S4C and C4 began broadcasting, and the first programme aired was the quiz show Countdown, featuring the wonderful Carol Voderman. The public saw the first demonstration of the Thames Barrier. Michael Jackson released Thriller, the biggest selling album of all time, ‘Cha’mon!’

In the winter on Pearl Harbour Day, 7 December, the first execution by lethal injection, considered a humane way of getting rid of undesirables in the US, took place in Texas. In the UK, more than thirty thousand women linked hands around the perimeter fence of RAF Greenham Common in protest about the basing of cruise missiles there (they don’t make ‘em like that anymore, women that is).

1983

In the year 1983, Klaus Barbie, also known as the Butcher of Lyon, was arrested in Bolivia. Barbie had been given responsibility for the deaths of some 4,000 members of the French resistance, also for deporting a group of orphans to Auschwitz, without doubt an evil bastard!

It became compulsory to wear seat belts in the front of vehicles in the UK, so much for the freedom of personal choice. I had always been under the impression that it was my decision whether to fly through the windscreen or be trapped in an overturned burning vehicle. At the end of the day, is this not what democracy is all about?

The Stern magazine published the Hitler diaries, and those interested waited impatiently to see whether they were the genuine article. They weren’t! The Stern had paid 10 million Deutschmarks or the equivalent of 5 million euros for forgeries made by Konrad Kujau. Heads certainly rolled as this revelation came to light. In spite of the efforts of the Green Common protesters, the first US Cruise missiles arrived at Greenham Common.

1984

The year 1984 was quite an eventful year, and apart from the usual reports of carnage, including the storming of the Golden Temple at Amritsar and the Bhopal Disaster which left many dead, there were stories of hope and human achievement. Discovery, the fourth operational space shuttle, reached for the stars on its maiden voyage, once more demonstrating man’s insatiable desire for exceeding his boundaries.

In March, the miner’s strike began, and I remember the verbal battles between Arthur Scargil and Maggie Thatcher. Having a few pits in our area, we had first-hand experience of the effects that long periods out of work had on the strikers. The image of striking miners standing outside Carrefour Supermarket shaking their money tins in the hope of getting some financial support from the passing shoppers has remained with me to this day. Even though it seemed impossible at the time, Arthur’s claims that the government fully intended to destroy the British coal industry were proven to be true!

In 1983, before the strike, there were around 180 working pits in Britain, and by 2005, less than ten; the policies prophesised by Mr Scargil and implemented by successive governments had decimated the coal industry. Because of pit closures, the suicide rate in some mining communities rose, miners were forced into debt, and ghost towns sprang up as families migrated to other areas in the search for employment. Economics and progress brought about the demise of the British coal industry, and it went the way of so many heavy industries in Europe, forced out of the market by cheaper imports from elsewhere. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, man has been replaced by machines, and with the onset of automation, computerisation, and subsequently globalisation, a continual shift in the labour markets has developed. There is no such thing as a secure job any more, regardless of whether the position be in the car industry or in the IT industry. The axe can fall at any time!

On a more disturbing note, on the horn of the African continent, people were dying. Famine had come to Ethiopia. We were confronted with images of pot-bellied children, their eyes, nostrils, and the corners of their mouths crawling with flies, lying listlessly in the dirt. One man, an aging punk rocker, decided to act, and over the Christmas period of 1984, the single, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ hit the charts and the answer to the question is yes they did know it was Christmas, but unfortunately at the time, God wasn’t available to help them! Bob promised the buying public that every penny of the purchase price of the record would reach the charities, and even the government donated the VAT. The song made number 1 in the charts and stayed there for five weeks, selling over three million copies.

In India, a gas leak at the UCIL plant in Bhopal killed thousands and injured thousands more. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own security guards, and that just goes to show you can’t trust anyone, can you?! British Telecom was privatised. Crack cocaine hit the streets of Los Angeles and since then has secured thousands of insatiable users.

1985

British Telecom decided to phase out the ubiquitous red telephone boxes. It was a shame, because they were always a handy place for a piss on the way home from the pub. South Africa ended its ban on interracial marriages, and that could be seen as the beginning of the end for apartheid.

On 10 July at 11.38 p.m., the Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk in New Zealand. The culprits were the French secret service, acting on orders from the French Ministry of Defence, who were worried about Polynesians getting uppity ideas about independence. And of course, the Rainbow Warrior’s ability to bring world focus on to the fact that the French were carrying out nuclear tests in French Polynesia. One man, a photographer, died because of the attack.

After the event, the Warrior was patched up and towed out into the bay in Auckland and given a Maori burial and over the years became a living reef and a popular destination for scuba divers, a seemingly fitting end for a vessel which spent most of her time heavily involved in the protection of natural sea life. The two agents who organised and carried out the attack received prison sentences of almost twenty years, however they were released in less than two! The fact that these two people were released after such a short time is yet another prime example of how unjust the world can be, rather, how unjust the people in it can be. Okay, the sinking of the Warrior was not an earth-shattering crime. However, at the end of the day, a man died because of these actions, and could any of us say, hand on heart, that a total of four years is a fitting punishment for bringing about the death of an innocent person?

Far out at sea in the distant past, on 10 April 1912, over 46,000 tons of metal, the pride of the White Star Line went down off the coast of Newfoundland, sank to the bottom of the ocean, and for seventy-three years, rested alone, almost four kilometres below the surface. Ironically, the Titanic, a reputedly unsinkable ship, sank 600 km off Mistaken Point, and one can only come to the conclusion the captain made a mistake when he decided to proceed at such a high speed of around 20.5 knots. The two radio officers were also mistaken when they decided not to relay what they considered to be non-essential messages regarding icebergs to the bridge, and so, due to ubiquitous human error, 1,517 people drowned or froze to death in the icy waters of the Atlantic. Jean Luis Michel and Dr. Robert Ballard found the wreck, and soon afterwards, images of the ship’s ghostly bow came over our TV screens.

The first version of Windows came into our lives, and this bit of information helps to put our technological advancement over the last quarter of a century into perspective. I am living proof of how we are all being gradually sucked into this new world. I was twenty-one and about to get married when Windows was released, and seventeen years later, I encountered the world of computers first-hand writing my first Word documents at work, sending my first email. That incidentally was first used in its present form, the SMTP, in the early 1980s. I consider these advances amazing, considering I remember the pocket calculator from Texas instruments hitting the streets and the first digital and LCD watches, and the list of astounding developments goes on and on.

Dian Fossey’s soul disappeared into the mist at the end of the year, and she went off to join Digit and the other gorillas that had gone before her. Fossey was found murdered in her cabin, her head split open by a machete. Nothing had been stolen, and so suspicion lay with poachers, dirty rotten bastards. Not only did they slaughter innocent animals for a quick buck, they then murdered a woman who had dedicated her life to protecting the lords of the jungle. Now if we want to talk about charity, why can’t the governments of the countries in question stop lining their own pockets and invest in a sustainable future for the indigenous people? The same story is heard in many of these countries, whether in the forests of Rwanda or the tropical rainforests in Brazil. All life must make way for progress, demand, and the need to put food on the table.

Rock Hudson passed on, one of the first celebrities I remember to die of the new horror illness, Aids, or as some of us know it, Anally Induced Death Syndrome. Please don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t find Aids to be a laughing matter, having had my own experiences, but more on that later.

1986

Britain and France finally decided to put aside their unvoiced fears, and 185 years after Albert Mathieu, a French mining engineer, first put the idea forward, the construction of a channel tunnel became a reality. Towards the end of January, live images of the Challenger space shuttle disintegrating shocked the world. Some seventy-three seconds after take-off, the shuttle exploded, taking all seven astronauts to their deaths. Contributing factors leading to the disaster were bad design and bad management.

At the end of April, heroes were born in the Ukraine as Reactor No.4 at the Chernobyl Atomic Power Plant exploded or, more accurately, ruptured after a sudden power surge. On our TV screens, we watched as the firefighters, with complete disregard for their own safety or complete ignorance of the danger, fought to keep the blaze under control. Causes of the accident were bad design, incompetence, and negligence.

In November, Iron Mike Tyson won his first World Heavyweight Championship by defeating Trevor Berbick, making him the youngest man ever to become World Heavyweight boxing champion. The following twenty years were colourful, to say the least, and even if Mike Tyson has not lived a commendable life, he will most certainly go down in my mind as one of the greatest boxers of our time.

1987

The Herald of Free Enterprise capsized on 6 March, resulting in the deaths of 193 passengers and crew. After capsizing, she came to rest on a sandbar approximately one kilometre from the shore; the disaster took place in under one minute. The subsequent enquiry concluded human negligence had caused the disaster. This event has remained in