Bastard parents...
Both my parents were and remain acutely dysfunctional. I can't quite explain fully why, but my mum was orphaned during WWII and was passed around various relatives and foster homes, but my Dad remains an enigma. He was the youngest of five and used to sticking up for himself by scaring the bejesus out of whoever stood in his way. He was a control freak who had a weakness for flying into a sometimes violent rage with absolutely no warning whatsoever and was utterly unpredictable, being docile one minute and raging the next. Mum had endured nearly twenty years of this by the time I was born, so was as neurotic as it gets not to mention being fairly adept at her own brand of control freakiness.

As a result, growing up was a little unconventional to say the least. Oddly enough, Dad would usually just leave me to my own devices until he either a) was in a bad mood anyway or b) decided I was in need of some fatherly guidance when in both cases all fire and brimstone would be unleashed. Mum on the other hand would pretty much meddle with everything, as was her neurotic way.

Hmm... Where do I start? Early days first I think.

One Sunday I was challenged as to why the soap in the bathroom was wearing out faster than usual. Apparently Dad had decided I was the culprit and I recall getting a beating for this, I think I was five or six.

Dad would make a point week of yelling at me and my brother for interfering with his collection of records. Every week my brother, my mum and I stayed as far as we could from the records just in case. Truly bizarre... He was convinced that they'd been moved or someone had been messing around with them.

Sundays were the worst. Dad would want to listen to his records after Sunday roast, which meant absolute quiet so as not to disturb him. Opening or closing the living room door was out of the question, so I'd either sit listening to 1940s big band jazz (which I hate to this very day) or sit quietly in my bedroom. Afterward he'd have a nap, which meant more absolute silence. I wasn't allowed to play or make any noise whatsoever otherwise I'd get a thorough hiding. Dad was ultra sensitive to noise, often raging at my brother for the noise made closing a car door on the other side of our street.

My Dad was something of a DIY enthusiast and was keen to conscript my assistance with statements like "you're going to help me build a shed/shelf/etc". Now any thoughts that I might be able to participate in the actual construction of anything went west as my responsibilities were to either sit on wood while it's being sawn or hold various tools and hand them over when required. Strict concentration and silence was expected for the duration of these tasks. I was never allowed to wield a saw in anger in case I broke something, but it was apparently important for me to learn how to fix things. It wouldn't be long before something went wrong with either the tool/materials/ruler/etc and Dad would lose his temper and end up in a screaming rage. Guess who's job it was to bear the brunt?

One weekend Dad won a small amount of money on the pools and bought some wood with which he was constructing a record cabinet. Things went relatively well until the peace was suddenly shattered by a scream of "Oh shit!!!" followed by a loud bang and the sound of splintering wood as Dad ran round the garden kicking the rapidly disintegrating cabinet. Why? The wood was crap. Dad failed to spot the potential for disaster when attempting to plane chipboard. Of course, the logical thing to do was to kick an inanimate object around the garden, screaming. We still laugh about that at family gatherings now.

I recall once, I was beaten black and blue aged 8 by my father because I lost a fight with the kid round the corner, who'd been giving me hassle. Naturally the little fucker who beat me claimed responsibility when I turned up at school with bruises down the side of my face and a swollen lip, just to add insult to injury. I quickly learned that in the instance of getting a good beating, it's best to sit there and take it. Any resistance usually made it ten times worse, so Dad was absolutely furious with my total unwillingness to indulge in violence of any sort.

Naturally, this was yet another excuse for Dad to scream at me and sometimes hit me because I wasn't the fearless fighter he apparently was. Although I never saw dad flinch from a fight (I've seen him deck blokes twice his size) he began to realise as I got older that using fear to control me didn't work. We eventually squared up one evening in my mid teens and I made it clear I wasn't about to back down. Honest to god, I was ready to take him outside and let sixteen years of repression loose. It was the first time I ever saw him try and talk his way out of confrontation, he actually suggested we sit down and talk like adults.

Dad announced we were all off to South Africa to live one morning in mid 1987. The fact that the country was in a self declared state of emergency and was a hair's width from civil war notwithstanding. However, the worst thing for me was the humiliation of being forced to wear khaki shorts, khaki knee high socks, regulation Hush Puppy shoes, bottle green blazer (it's 35 degrees FFS!) and shirt/tie was one thing. But showing all my mates and any lady I bring home the pictures goes way beyond being merely "cruel".

The years since have seen something of a role reversal. My parents are both now in their 70s and recent events has caused Dad to seek my counsel more than once. Bizarrely I have earned his respect by being compassionate, level headed and even tempered. The irony of this I that when pushed to extremes (and it takes a heck of a lot) I am more than able to take care of myself, but it takes an awful lot of provokation. However, when I go, I go big.

My mum doesn't escape this scott free, oh no...

My mother, bless her was as nervous as a kitten when Dad was in one of his rages but her attempts to placate him only made things worse. The one and only time she dared intervene when Dad was losing his temper was during the aforementioned incident when Dad beat me black and blue. Dad was absolutely incandescent with rage at this point and I recall being so frightened that he was going to hit her that I put myself in between the pair of them so he might hit me instead of her.

I find it very difficult to sympathise with her, as she often knew that the way Dad treated us all was wrong, but she'd never protest. Dad comes home from work in a foul mood and swings at one of us, it's our fault for getting in his way. She continued to make excuses until very recently, but dared not stand up to him. I have never quite forgiven her for that to this very day, despite the fact that I do love her dearly.

Mum was anxious for me to do well at school and would often express her forlorn wish that I might be clever like #### and get some of my work pinned to the classroom wall. The fact that #### now drives a dustcart for a living speaks volumes I guess.

My mum continued to set new standards in embarrassment. She could not understand why I'd save my money for clothes/trainers and used to labour the point of complimenting how good my Goth friends looked in their DMs and old baggy jumpers. Despite spending hours trying to explain the relationship between one's adopted subculture and the clothing which went with the territory she still never understood it.

"But #### looks so smart! Why can't you look like him?"

She was part of the war generation who's mantra was 'make do and mend', so while she'd think nothing of spending a small fortune on various useless and often unused gadgets around the house, the children's clothing budget was fair game to cut back on. New food mixer? Fair play. Slightly fashionable cut trousers for me? But they're soooo expensive! If I had birthday or xmas money from a relative my mum would not get the hint and hand it over so I could buy clothes, instead she'd insist on not trusting me to spend my own money by making sure she had my savings "in a safe place" and holding it for me while I went clothes shopping. It was only when I got my own Saturday job and had control of my own cash she was prized away from interfering. Doing odd jobs for my bro was another source of income which funded my beer/smoking passtimes.

There are some more lighthearted anecdotes however, for example at 15, when I'd saved my pennies for weeks and weeks so that I could buy myself a pair of baggy jeans and the obligatory paisley hooded top, my father vetoed the plan saying he didn't want me "looking like all the other herberts". I went behind his back, which didn't amuse him one bit, but an important victory was won that day. Oddly, he never complained when I'd roll up to the house at 2am in above ensemble on a school night pissed out of my gourd and smelling like a pub ashtray barely two weeks from my GCSE exams.

My mum was a chronic worrier and minor misdemeanours of mine resulted in the full theatrics. Even at age 18 when my family moved across town she was so concerned that I'd not be used to getting up earlier to get to college that she took to making sure my alarm clock went off five minutes earlier each morning for a month beforehand. Such meddling would invariably drive me nuts, which meant she'd be more covert about it.

For example, she knew I was heading off to a mate's house for a sleepover and she knew that I might indulge in a beer or three (aged 16). However, in her mind I'd lose control of my faculties to such a point that I'd misplace my clothing (!), so she decided to order some name tags and sew them into my clothing "just in case". Thankfully I caught her in the act and made damn sure that she undid the damage under my watchful eye, saying "don't come crying to me if you lose your nike t-shirt!". No amount of reasoning would get her to grasp the immense damage to my credibility which would have ensued.

Parental strictness is a funny thing. Both parents took next to no notice when I returned from said party to collect a sleeping bag, with me utterly reeking of booze and cigarettes and openly discussing with them that some of the partygoers were partaking in the Moroccan mixed herbs. Mum said words to the effect of "have a nice time, dear" as I disappeared through the front door on my way back to the debauchery.

I'd discovered that the way to deal with my folks was to tell the truth about everything, which would be dismissed as exaggeration. Strangeness...
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 8 Mar 2007, 13:02, Reply)