I’m in my fifties now and I started drinking when I was 15, which was in the early 1970’s.
I always looked older
than my age, though not old enough to pass for 18 when I was three years
younger but it was the 70s and landlords pretty much turned a blind eye to 15
and 16 year olds drinking as long as they didn’t look to out of place.
My first ever pint was
in a pub called the Man in the Moon and it cost me 17 pence.
And the first sip of
that foaming brew set me on the road to oblivion.
I didn’t drink everyday
but when I drank I didn’t hold back and I didn’t know when to stop.
On one occasion, a
Friday, I left work at 5.30pm and went straight to the pub, with that week’s
pay packet in hand, in those days we got paid weekly in cash, I woke up the
next morning in a bus shelter with 3 pence in my pocket, I had pissed away a
week’s wages in one night.
On A works beano one
year we went on a day trip to France the more serious drinkers among our party
drank nonstop for 26 hours and very nearly drank ourselves sober, one or two of
the group had to be carried but the hardened drinkers walked back to the ferry.
On another occasion
after a friend’s house party I woke up on the bedroom floor, having no idea how
I got there.
It was only later when
I spoke to my friends that I found out the whole story of what I had done and
that they had carried/dragged me home.
They were good
friends, who through my behavior, I gradually alienated one by one until there
was no one left to get me home.
So I woke up in
gardens, subways and gutters, I even woke up once in a skip with a kebab stuck
to my face.
In the end I was
disowned by my family and my only friends were fellow drunks.
Despite my drunken
binges I still managed to hold down a decent job so when
I was in my late
twenties I moved to Woking to take up a very well paid job which served to fund
my benders very well indeed.
On one particular
weekend in September I had been drinking since breakfast and kept it up all
day, but by midnight all the pubs were shut.
But a serious drunk
always knows where to find a drink so I took a cab to Casper’s, a members only
an all-night drinker.
It was there that I
met Angela who would become my salvation.
She was a good looking
woman, around about my age, who was also a drunk.
Although the drink
hadn’t yet diminished her looks.
The next morning I
woke up in the passenger seat of a car on the sea front in Frinton with Angela
sleeping slumped over the steering wheel.
I had absolutely no
recollection of how we got there, or how we got there.
I got out of the car
to stretch my legs and the bracing sea breeze almost knocked me off my feet.
I walked along the sea
front, trying desperately to clear my head but things were no clearer 20
minutes later when I returned to the car.
Which by some miracle
was parallel parked to perfection, and I marveled at how we had got from Woking
to Frinton and lived to tell the tale.
Then a sense of doom
came over me as I looked at the bright blue Chrysler in front of me because
although we had got to Frinton unscathed the car had not.
The front of the car carried all the hallmarks of a serious front end
collision.
I roused Angela from
her drunken slumber and got her out of the car and walked her up and down until
the sea breeze had blown the cobwebs away.
“How the hell did we
get here?” I asked
“Get where?” she
mumbled
“Frinton” I replied
“Where the hell is
Frinton?” Angela asked
I walked her further
along the seafront until we reached a café that was actually open at 6.00am on
a Sunday and several coffees later I got some sense out of her
“The last thing I
remember we were in Casper’s and you said “I haven’t been to the coast for
ages”” She said slowly “so we finished our drinks and got in my car”
“And?” I pressed
“And then you woke me
up” she said, head in hands
“Do you remember
hitting anything?” I whispered
“No, like what?”
Angela queried
“I don’t know” I
replied “but whatever it was, you hit it hard”
It was after nine when
we stood up to leave.
A small group of
fishermen were coming in as we were going out.
“All I know is old Joe
was walking the dog when he got hit” one of them said
“And he’s dead?” asked
another
“Yes, and the driver
didn’t stop” the first one replied
What little colour had
returned to Angela’s face while we were in the café instantly drained away as
the realization of what she had done dawned on her as well.
We returned to the car
but Angela was too distraught to drive, I was suddenly stone cold sober so I
got behind the wheel and chose a route that took us back to Woking via a
circuitous route.
After That September
Sunday all those years ago when some poor resident soul in Gods waiting room
lost their life at our hands I lost my taste for booze.
I still see Angela from time to time she still lives in Woking but she never
came to terms with what we had done that day and surrendered completely to the
demon in the bottle.
I see her around about town with the other winos and I believe she sleeps under
the canal bridge.
I wonder if she sleeps
any sounder than I.
