Every question answered by Edward Rickets
Q1. Have you enjoyed your life so far?
If you would have asked me this six months ago you would have got a different answer.
Looking back at this time of life I can say that I have enjoyed my life. I had a great childhood and was loved and had all the freedom that I wanted. I have met some good and loyal people throughout my adult years. I have managed to keep my health and stayed out of the hospital for over fifty years and have a job that I like doing. My relationship decisions have a lot to be desired at a cost to me and my kids, they were hard times and something that I really regret but thankfully I still have a connection with both my boys and have realized that it was me that has relationship problems and not the women that I was with. The death of my father knocked me for six but out of that came being closer to my sister and his allotment. I had always liked gardening but thought it was an old man's hobby and now I'm an old man and love it. Also, I have realized that being on my own is not such a bad thing.
So, on the whole, how could I not be happy, I have a job that keeps me in the lavish lifestyle that I deserve a hobby that keeps me busy trying to keep everything alive, great friends and a family that I love.
Q2. Do you like yourself?
I have to answer this question as yes I do like myself but it hasn't been easy.
The fact that I am my own worst critic and over analyse everything that I do and say this is a horrible question to answer. So other than my shyness, anxiety, self-doubt, mood swings and any other weaknesses that you can think of I don't think I'm such a bad person. I never bullied anybody or went out of my way to make someone feel bad. I always try to see the good in people which can be hard sometimes but hey we were all babies once and it's not their fault how they were brought up. I would give or do anything to help someone I like and like to think that I would help anyone that was in need. Animals seem to like me and so I've been told can sense an asshole straight away.
Bloody hell listen to myself going on, what a saint. Change my answer to no "what about the time when you..........." Anxiety and self-doubt kicking in.
Q3. Tell me a story.
for doing the same job. He also asked if any of my friends wanted a job.
So, one Saturday, decked out in a new shirt and jeans I went down to the RAOB club(better known as the Buffs)in Broad street to meet up with friends for a few beers and watch a live local band that was playing there. A few of my friends were interested about the job offer, so on Monday, I would be working with my mates, happy days. After the live band had finished a few mates were going over to the Island to the friars club for a late drink, usually I would have been going home but with my newfound wealth over we went. Due to my boyish young looks(or acne as some call it)it was a 50-50 weather I would get in, not tonight though(was it the new shirt?)we were in, we paid the £2 entrance fee and went to the bar. After a few beers I was feeling a bit confident, so pint in hand I walked around the club trying to chat up girls, I got a few comments on my shirt but not good ones(Note to self, don't wear a dark blue shirt to a night club when you have dandruff). So back to the bar, I went to stay out of the dance floor strobe lights. just when I thought the night was going to pot, I got a lovely smile from a pretty girl near the bar, she was a bit older than me but I thought what the hell and walked over to her." you got a lovely smile" I said to her, she held my hand pulled me away from her friends that she was with, then leaned into my ear and said," If I was the first girl that you said that line to tonight we would be going home together tonight, I think your friends want you". Ouch, but what a put-down. About an hour later I was coming out of the toilet(I had been trying to remove the dead skin from my shirt to no avail as there is a different lighting so I could not see those evil spots) when I noticed the pretty girl leaving the club. I followed her out but I was too late she was in a taxi and gone before I could talk to her. I tried to get back in the club but the doorman stopped me, he said "I don't care that you just came out, who let you in any way, how old are you 15?"Ouch again. So, with no mobile phones to get in touch with mates and not enough money to get a taxi on my own I had to walk the long walk home. About halfway home walking up Broad street wondering how the night had gone so badly I kicked out at a parked car denting the door, that felt good so kicked out at another car, another dented door. The next car I kicked out at the wing mirror and it smashed and hung there by a wire. The next thing I know there are blue and red lights flashing and two policemen standing in front of me, they had been watching me zig-zagging up the street and were keeping an eye on me to make sure I was ok. Ouch, number three. So, it's in the car down to the station, searched, fingerprinted and put in a cell, no chance of sleep as it was Saturday night and the cells were full with lots of banging and shouting. After what seemed like hours, I was taken from the cell to be confronted with my mother and stepfather, the police charged me with criminal damage, gave back my loose change that I had left of a half-smoked packet of cigarettes(I wasn't sure if mum knew I smoked but she did now)Ouch number four. After the long walk home, they didn't say a word about what had happened, just chatting about other things with me walking just behind them. When we got home, I was about to go to my room and have a sleep when my stepfather said "where are you going, you are coming with me, get in the car". It wasn't until he pulled into a parking space in Broad street that I realised what was happening, my stomach sank, we got out knocked the door and waited for what seemed like an age, me sweating and now feeling really sick. When he answered my stepfather said "what have you got to say to the gentleman? "I could barely speak and mumbled that I was sorry for kicking his car. What he said then was Ouch number five, "that's ok we were all young once "and thanked me for coming down and apologizing saying it was very brave. Ouch, Ouch, Ouch.
If I had to say what the moral to this story was or why it has always haunted me since it's not, you never know when your good luck will change, it's not, don't be a desperate fool looking for something and stay in the moment and good thing will come to you. It not even do not drink too much and act like a complete arsehole. Although they are lessons that I have tried to learn from this story the main one is how calm the older people were with me. The pretty girl put me down politely and never embarrassed me, the police were looking out for me, my stepfather made me do the right thing and the gentleman whose car I kicked went out of his way to make me feel good. As I have got older, I have become a much calmer person and I think it was these 24 hours when I started to change
Q4. What's something you've always wanted to do?
I always wanted to do a skydive when I was younger, anything to do with heights really, paragliding, bungee jumping. I even thought after watching an old Elvis film one summer that cliff diving would be fun. Throughout my thirties, a few opportunities came up to do a bungee jump and once to do a skydive for charity. All that was needed was £250 for a said charity and it would be free. Did I do it? No, I could have paid the money out of my own pocket but I didn't. I think the reason that I never got around to doing these things, or took the opportunities when they came around was that as I got older and had less of a desire to do anything risky. If the opportunity had of came in my teens, I think that I would have done them but now in my fifties, there is no chance. Why give chance a helping hand, if I don't jump out of a plane, there is no chance of breaking a bone, or worse. If I don't drive my car really fast through country lanes, there is less chance of a fatal crash.
I read a book by Bill Bryson years ago where he read out the statistics of how people have died.450 people die each year just getting out of bed and 20,000 are admitted to hospital. Now, what am I supposed to do now I know that?
Q5. What gives/gave you meaning in life?
What gave me meaning has to be family, the way that I was brought up to be respectful to others, the advice good and bad when I needed it, and the fact that I was never asked to be anything other than myself have helped in giving me an understanding of why I wake up in the morning, and who I am. I suppose the meaning is to be a good person. All the things I have experienced, the people I have met, the places I have been, jobs I have done, they are part of my story, good or bad nothing can change the fact that they have moulded me into who I am. The books I have read over the years good and bad have helped me understand the complex world that I live in and gave me an alternative perspective of how to live my life, John Steinbeck has given me more meaning than any other writer and definitely helped me.
What gives me meaning in life, in my fifties is to try and be a steady ship, take all that information of what I have learned and when asked for advice or just my thoughts on something, I can hopefully answer in a helpful way. Taking on my father's allotment has also helped me put perspective on the true value of my life, so for now, I will maintain the allotment, while it maintains me in body and mind and just be there for when my family or friends need me
Q6. What piece of music makes you feel the most?
I thought this would be an easy question until I realised how much music has played a part in my life. I cannot think of any music that makes me sad, maybe anything by Glen Campbell as he was my father's favourite but I would feel sad if that was the only music that I had to listen to. (sorry dad) Maybe Father and son by Cat Stevens, that can put a lump in my throat.
There are too many bands for happy so let's go with The Smiths, Morrissey's sometimes miserable lyrics and that happy Johnny Marr guitar, how can you not smile. I've seen punks, skinheads, rockers, mods, and even the odd new romantic try to dance on one leg to them, a fun thing to do. Rusholme Ruffians a stand out track.
Excited and pumped, again so many songs by different bands, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones has to get a mention but Led Zeppelin's first album gets me there every listen, just what you want out of a rock album, 45 minutes of pure noise. How many more times has to be the stand-out track, only because when it ends you just want to play the whole album again.
Nostalgic has to be The Steve Miller Band. A friend that I worked with made me a mix tape of his favourite tracks (he had all their albums). It reminds me of one summer going down to Saundersfoot with all me mates, I brought my cassette player but only one cassette and two visits to the shop to buy more batteries, we played it all day. The stand-out track has to be The Joker, being sat outside the Hean pub in the sun half pissed singing along to this with all my mates, happy days.
I can't end this without mentioning David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Chicago Transit Authority, The Beatles, Wings, and Ween of which I could answer these questions ten times over.
Q7. If the ghost of Christmas past, present or future could visit you this Xmas, which would it be?
It has to be Christmas present for me.
To be reminded of what generosity and goodwill means in the little time we live on this planet could only be a good thing for us all. A reminder to be a better person, and show more compassion and tolerance to people who think and act differently to you is a hard thing to do these days, so a visit from a friendly ghost now and then could only be a positive thing.
Q8. Did this past year go as expected for you? What do you anticipate this year?
Not at all, this time two years ago, I was planning to change my job and then live in another country for half of the year. Cut to this time last year, now living on my own, I decided to take a year to myself and consider what to do with my life. My job was secure but I still felt that maybe I could do something else with fewer hours and free up some extra time, only this time spend it here with family and friends. Cut to the present day and my job has totally changed, it has become too demanding for someone my age and is only going to get worse in the future, also I have been in a relationship for over half the year. So no the past year was not what I had expected, but it was a good year and I am happy and have learned a lot about myself.
As for the question, what do you anticipate for this year, what can I say other than more of the same please, the last six months have been full of fun and love and I feel very positive about what is to come in the future, also I have had the kick up the arse to get out of my job and find something else to do for a living, what that will be who knows?
Q9. What’s the worst pain you have ever felt?
Back when I was about nine years old and living over Gibbonsdown there was a church that had just been built, it was all white and had a fence made of plastic panels. It was less than a week before the kids on the estate realised that if you smashed the plastic around the bolts of the panels you could remove them and hey presto you had yourself your very own street surfboard. Laleston Close where I lived was a very steep road and had a sharp right-hand turn about halfway down. At first, we would go to the top of the street and stand on the panels like a surfboard and see how far we could go but you would go too fast and there was no way to steer, so the best way to do it was to sit on the panel and use your feet to turn. We would sit on the panels two at a time and race each other to the bottom, you could not go too fast because of the sharp turn halfway down but too slow and you would lose the race.
This one time I was winning but going way too fast so I put my foot down and started to turn when the plastic panel caught on a stone, I slid off the panel sideways and landed on one arse cheek. What I felt and heard then can only be described as ripping, I felt no pain so put my hand down my shorts just to check if everything was ok, not so it would seem when I now looked at my blood-soaked hand. Now the pain kicked in and was getting worse. Not knowing what to do I ran home to an empty house. (parents were like that then, you were left to free range and so were the parents) I went to the bathroom and ran a bath and climbed in, not a good idea and more pain but at least I got myself cleaned up. As you may have guessed for the next few weeks going to the toilet was horrific and probably more painful.
Some people would say there is a religious teaching somewhere in this story but I can't see it.
Q10. What Scares You?
Apart from death, my answer has to be change. I think that I'm lucky that I have none of the phobias like snakes, spiders or heights(although, in a box a thousand feet up, with lots of snakes and spiders, maybe).
For most of my life change has not bothered me, but as I have got older a steady life is all that I wanted, and at this time in my life that's what I have. Now I know from experience that change is inevitable and that there is nothing you can do about it, it is out of our hands, and for me, there is nothing I fear more than being helpless and unable to stop what is to come in life. So for now all I can do is live my life and wait for the inevitable, and I hate it. On a lighter note, those national costume dolls that my nan collected gave me many a nightmare, so they come a close second, oh a pierrot clowns, let's not forget those creepy buggers
Q11.At what point in your life were you the happiest you have ever been?
Probably between the age of seven till 12, the seventies were such a great time to grow up in, probably the end of the relaxed parenting that there was back then and just before the start of the tech age that we live in now. The summers were great then, the weather was always warm and there was always so much to do, there were fields and woods to explore all around our estate and a huge park with a playground and a football pitch. There were trips to the beach, mostly Jacksons’ Bay, as Barry Island could cost a parent a lot of money with the flashing lights and noise of the arcades and the smells of food.
Then there were the Knap bars with its three diving boards, where all the older kids would bomb each other in their bum smackers, jeans cut off at the knee that helped make it not so painful. The next year I had pestered my mother so much that I had a season ticket to the bars and now I was one of the older kids in my bum smackers.
There were bike rides to Cosmeston Lake where we would jump off the bridge into the freezing water. One time more than twenty kids off the estate rode over, how there was not an accident I don't know. Then, when the farmers baled up the hay in the fields behind our estate, we would make dens out of them, it would take four or five kids to move them, you would make two dens one on each side of the field and then play cowboys and Indians or war games, sticks for guns and stones for hand grenades, the game would usually end with someone getting hit on the head by a hand grenade. One year someone set fire to one of the dens and the fire brigade was called, it was great fun for us kids watching them try to put out the fire, so setting fire to the bales became an annual event (probably why now the bales are bigger and covered in that black plastic).
Then there were bluebell woods where there was a rope swing across a brook, we would spend hours there as it was nice and cool in the summer. A game we played was to see how many kids at the same time we could get on the swing, it was never good to be the last to get on, you would always end up wet. One summer we walked to the Wenvoe golf club through the woods and spent the afternoon diving for golf balls in the pond, none of the golfers seemed to mind, we even managed to sell some golf balls to them and left with two carrier bags full of balls. The next day we took them to a second-hand shop in Main Street, he was buying them for 10p a ball, but we traded them for two air pistols and two boxes of lead pellets as long as we didn't say where we got them from, let’s just say the game of war had just escalated, it didn't last for long, the line was drawn by the parents, apparently this was not the wild west. If we found an old pram we would find some old wood and make a bogie (go-kart), not always successfully. But then the skateboard arrived, our street was on a hill so it was all about speed and not tricks, so you had to have Kryptonik wheels or you would never win a race.
Then there were the mystery trips that the parents in the street organised, camping holidays with my dad and his new family, carnival street parties, new year parties and bonfire nights where we would spend weeks gathering anything that would burn, we would go on raiding parties to steal the wood from other streets, but you had to guard your own because they would raid ours. All the parents would bring food and drink and we would all sit around the fire, great nights!
The winters were just as good, we would hang out in each other’s houses playing card games, Game of Life and Monopoly. TV was amazing, we had the Laurel and Hardy double bills, Monkey, the Water Margin, one year a season of Elvis films and if you were quiet you could stay up late and watch The Sweeney or The Professionals, but you had better go straight to bed after or you would not be watching it next week.