Essex Boy: My Story (11 page)

Then the week before Valentine’s Day 2003 everyone kept talking about this girl called Sarah.
One mate told me, ‘She is a right little goer.
She has already slept with a couple of
people!’

‘Two people already?
No way!’

‘Yup,’ he told me.
‘Go out with her and there’s a good chance you are going to get sex.’

Well, the idea kept playing on my mind.
It was hardly likely to be the romantic first-time sex you see in the movies, but at least it would have happened.
And I figured withValentine’s Day
coming up, now might be as good a time as any .
.
.
So when I bumped into her on Friday 14 February I plucked up the courage and said to her, ‘Will you start seeing me?’
Because that
was the way you said it then.

‘Yeah, all right.’
She shrugged, as though she wasn’t bothered, but would do me the favour.

Result!
‘Yeah, I am seeing her!’
I thought.
‘I am on my way to having sex for the first time .
.
.’

Then I thought I’d move it up a level.
‘You might as well be my girlfriend if you’re seeing me, then,’ I casually said to her.

‘Yeah, all right.’
She shrugged again, as though this was also pretty unimportant to her.

Well, it was pretty damn important in my mind.
That night we did our usual and went out in East Tilbury.
At the time that’s what we all did.
It was annoying for me as it was two train
journeys away from where I lived, but if I wanted to hang out with everyone, I had to do it.
I wasn’t the only one from my area who went, though – most of my Seabrooke Rise gang headed
there too.
So we would all get on the train together, and of course we didn’t have the money to pay for it, so we were bunking.
But by that time we were such an imposing lot, ten scally kids
getting on the train in a group, none of us paying, that the ticket inspector would ignore us, assuming that we were just little thugs who should be left alone.

Then in East Tilbury we would always go to the park – the police over that way weren’t so strict – and I met up with Sarah that night in our group.
Hardly the most romantic
Valentine’s date, but there you go, I knew no different.
And we stayed there for a while, just drinking the usual weekend park drinks – big bottles of White Lightning or 20/20 –
until I said to her, ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’

‘Yeah, all right,’ she shrugged.
I was beginning to think they were the only words she knew.
But she wasn’t stupid – we both knew what was going to happen when we headed
off on our walk together, awkwardly hand in hand.

And fucking hell, the next bit is so unromantic, and to be honest, as grim as you like, that I’m embarrassed to tell it.
But I have promised to be honest in this book, so here goes .
.
.

All I knew about sex was what I had learnt from mates and through school and movies, so although I had a rough idea, I can’t exactly say I knew what I was doing.
But I took her behind this
green container in the park – yep, another green container!
Like I said, they were everywhere, and seemed to play a huge part in my young life .
.
.
Now when people asked, ‘Where did
you smoke?’
‘Behind the green container,’ ‘Where did that fight happen?’
‘Behind the green container,’ and all that, I could add, ‘Where did you
first have sex?’
‘Behind the green container,’ to that list!

So behind this container was a load of rubbish that people had dumped over time, including a table with only two legs at one end, so it was slanted like a slide.
I lay on it on my back and half
took my trousers down.
When you were a kid you didn’t want to get naked, so I didn’t even have them below my knees.

Then we fumbled around, I think I got it right, then a couple of seconds later it was done.
No protection, no romance, no foreplay, but I was no longer a virgin.
It wasn’t my best
performance, but it didn’t matter.
I had had sex.
And that was it – I walked back to my mates, strutting like a criminal who had just killed someone and was proud of it.
I had this
swagger and was as cocky as you like for the rest of the night – like a ‘Come on, boys, you want to feel my biceps?’
kind of attitude.
It is so embarrassing looking back.
If any
of my mates got on like that now, I’d rip them for it.
But I knew no better.

By the end of the evening I had dumped her.
That sounds so bad, doesn’t it?
It was awful to be that shallow, but I had only gone with her to lose my virginity.
Not that I think she cared
anyhow.
This is how the conversation went:

Me: ‘Sorry, Sarah, I don’t think you’re right for me.
I’m breaking up with you.’

Her: ‘Yeah, all right.’

And that was it.

Then after that night, it was like the floodgates opened and I couldn’t stop having sex.
I became a bit obsessed with it, and with women in general, like some kind of teenage nymphomaniac.
But the grimness of the sex didn’t improve after my first experience.
I was sleeping with any girl I could, anywhere possible – in bushes, in elevators, in empty flats, in the bin sheds
.
.
.
Anywhere and everywhere that you could have sex, I did.
But romance and love?
That never came into it.
It’s not like I was being rude, or a player, taking advantage of all the girls,
because they were just as bad.
Everyone was sleeping with everyone.
It was like we hit fifteen and life became a massive seedy orgy in Grays.

I think it was because it gave people a new thing to do.
A way to pass the time.

At that age, I knew everyone in the area.
Even if I wasn’t mates with a girl, I knew her.
And I would try my luck with them all.
I’d be on my own just getting a burger in the town
centre and I’d see a bird I’d met once before and I’d say something cheeky like, ‘You wanna come and sit on those stairs and wank me off?’

And more often than not the girl would be bored, and just go, ‘Yeah, all right.’

But that was just Grays back then.
Dirty, grim, but like a bored and frustrated teenage boy’s dream.

I especially loved having sex, because – and I’m not boasting – I was pretty advanced in the downstairs department.
My penis then was like a man’s penis.
It was
ridiculous but I loved it and I wanted everyone to know it.
I wanted to show as many girls as I could, and after sex, when they complimented me on my size, I would say, ‘You tell your mates
about me.
You fucking tell ’em, love!’
It gave me a massive confidence boost to know I had that kind of advantage over other lads.

And I was clocking up the numbers.
I have no idea how many girls I have slept with since the day I lost my virginity, but it has never really stopped, apart from the odd serious relationship
along the way.
If I had to guess I’d say I have slept with 800 to 1,000 girls.
That sounds like a lot, but I love sex so I don’t regret it.
And when I am in a relationship I behave
myself, and I think that is what is important.
Enjoy yourself when you are single, but when you are with one person, make sure you are true to them.

But the thing was, not one of these girls meant anything to me – and I didn’t mean anything to them.
I wasn’t too bothered about that, until I came across the first girl who
ever really blew me away when I was fifteen years old .
.
.

Ashley had to MC at a party in Stanford-le-Hope and he asked if I wanted to go with him.
Well, I did, as usual, because I loved going along to nights like that with him, and soon after we
arrived I spotted these three quite exotic-looking brunette girls.
Even though they were triplets, it was one of them more than the others that I noticed.
Two of them were practically identical,
but the third, while she looked like them, was even more stunning, a bit different – there was something about her.
She had amazing long brown hair and brown eyes, and looked gorgeous.

‘Ash, I need to meet that girl, bloody hell, my God, she is .
.
.’
I stopped, lost for words.
‘I actually think I have fallen in love with her.’

And I swear, that’s what it was like.
I had never got that feeling from looking at a girl before.
Ashley laughed at me, but he sorted it out that we were introduced.
It turned out she was
called Aisha, and although she lived in the area, her family were originally Turkish.
We got on straight away, and she was really bubbly and fun and had a cute laugh.
Luckily it seemed like she
fancied me, and before I knew it, I had ignored my nerves and plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she was my first proper girlfriend.

There was no such thing as going on proper dates back then in Grays.
It just wasn’t the thing to do.
Kids in Grays don’t do dates – they are for adults, or posh people.
Besides, we weren’t old enough to get in anywhere decent, and no one had the money to go to a nice restaurant or the theatre or whatever anyway, even if they wanted to.
For us, being
boyfriend and girlfriend meant walking round town holding hands, stopping in the bus stop to kiss.
Most days I would go home after school and get ready, doing my hair as best as I could to look
half decent.
Then I’d get on the train on my own and hang out with Aisha for the evening.

I really did develop strong feelings for her, and I suppose I did love her, although looking back it was still very much a teenage romance.
It was the first time I ever thought about a girl when
I wasn’t with her, and felt emotionally connected to her.
I also stopped messing around with other girls, as I didn’t want to hurt Aisha, and anyway I wasn’t interested.
As far as
I was concerned, I had the best already.
I did sometimes think, ‘Oh my gosh, this must mean I am becoming an adult!’

It wasn’t all plain sailing – we did have the odd row, and we split up a few times – but mostly, especially during the school holidays when we had lots of time to spend
together, we were pretty full on.

So all in all life was good, mostly filled with my girlfriend and MC’ing.

Finding My Way in the World

There was never any question that I was going to leave school as soon as humanly possible.
I was counting the days to get out into the real world almost from the first week I
started there.
I’d been kicked out of pretty much every class going, as I didn’t enjoy any of them, and I was useless at them all, so made up for it by being naughty.
The only thing I
liked was art, even though I wasn’t very good at it.
In fact for the last couple of years of school, because I had been thrown out of so many other classes, half the time they just sent me to
the art rooms and said, ‘You might as well just go and spend your time in there, because it’s the only place you aren’t naughty.
To be honest, do what you like, because
we’re sick of you.’

I liked the feeling of independence I had when I was doing art.
I could work on my own and at my own pace, and it wasn’t a straightforward matter of getting it right or wrong, so I
didn’t feel like I was being judged, like I did in the other classes.
I could express myself a bit through it too, and I didn’t feel like I had a teacher breathing down my neck the
whole time.
But I didn’t want to go on and study it further.
Art was just the best of a bad bunch to me.
I wanted to be out in the real world, living and working like my dad did.
I had to sit
my GCSEs first, though.
I knew I wasn’t going to get decent grades in any of them and it was a waste of time even attempting.
I just thought the quicker I got through the exam paper each
time, the better.

We also had the school prom once the exams were out of the way, to mark the end of our school life.
Everyone else dressed up in proper black suit, white shirt and black bow-tie combos, but my
mate and I decided to be different.
He went all in white, and I found a grey suit that I thought looked smart at the time.
I have only realized since it was pretty much an exact copy of the one
worn by Dr Evil in the
Austin Powers
films .
.
.
The party itself was a good laugh, though.

Of course I didn’t just go to the prom, I went on to another party afterwards, and was out all night – which was not rare for me by then.
The after-party doesn’t stick in my
mind, but I do remember exactly what happened when I got home at dawn.
As usual Bella was there to greet me, but she didn’t seem the same and was just hanging her head.
When I looked closer
she was covered in weird lumps, all over her skin.
It was like some kind of insect had attacked her in the night.
I called Mum, and she came down all sleepy, and then woke up with shock when she
saw the state of Bella.

‘You’re right, she doesn’t look good at all, poor thing!
I’ll get her off to the vet right now.’

Mum got dressed, put Bella on a lead and headed off.
I felt on edge after she had gone, because I could tell whatever was wrong with Bella was serious.
A few hours later I heard Mum come back
in, and went to see her, but she was standing there alone, with just the lead in her hand.

‘I’m sorry, Kirk,’ she said.
‘Poor Bella was filled with cancer.
Apparently those lumps were cancer all over her skin.
The vet said the only thing to do was put her
down.’

Well, I’m not lying, I cried like a baby.
I loved that dog to bits and was totally gutted to lose her.
She was fourteen and had lived a good life, but she had been present in mine as far
back as I could remember, so to lose her was like losing a member of my family.
It might sound ridiculous, but I felt like I had lost my sister.
I went into proper mourning for her.

Eventually I decided the best way to get over her was to convince Mum we needed a new dog – if we replaced Bella, it might make losing her that bit easier.
Besides, as it was just the two
of us in the house by then it was a bit lonely.
I figured we needed a third living creature in with us, and I love dogs.
So we went down to the RSPCA and took a look at their rescue dogs.
I
don’t see the point in buying one off a breeder if you can get an abandoned dog that needs a home.

We fell in love straight away with a dog there called Storm, a Labrador–Staffie cross.
She had been abandoned and they said she was well behaved, so we took her home.
Well behaved, my
arse!
She was a proper little terror from the minute we walked into the house.
She was always biting and tearing things to bits.
One of the first things she went for was Oscar, the little stuffed
dog Nanny Pernod had bought me when I was only a few years old.
I went mad.
That toy had been with me most of my life, and I don’t mind admitting that I’d still sleep with him when I
wanted comfort, even by that age.
If I was ill, or had been out and had a fight, I’d say, ‘Mum, where’s Oscar?
I need him today.’
And I wouldn’t stop moaning until she
found him for me.
It didn’t exactly go with my streetwise image, but as I’ve said, there are two sides to me.

Storm then went for my trainers as well – they were a new pair that Mum had been saving to buy for ages, and she totally shredded them.
We couldn’t see any way to train her.
This dog
just wanted to sit and destroy things!
But it wasn’t only belongings she kept biting – she went for people too.
And I don’t mean little nips, I mean tearing-people-to-bits type
bites.
So after she had attacked the postman and a neighbour, we decided we couldn’t handle her and took her back.
We clearly weren’t going to be able to replace Bella as easily as I
had thought.
So instead we got ourselves two cats and they were much more of a success.
Finally I had real cats, rather than just the models that filled my room!

After this, the six-week school holiday started.
It wasn’t really a holiday for me, as I wouldn’t have to go back to school at the end of it, but I certainly
started off treating it like one!
I was spending time with Aisha, hanging out with my mates and doing everything but think about my future and my career.
I had no idea what I wanted to do or be in
my life, so I was trying to ignore the whole question.

Instead, I wanted to start with some other changes that I thought might make me more of an independent, grown-up man.
One of the first was to come off Ritalin.
I had been on it for five years by
then, and felt I had given it enough of a go.
I still knew it only delayed my anger, and I thought I would rather just be myself.
Also the idea that it was impressive to be on it, that it made me
hard and tough to take these pills each day, seemed daft as I got older.
Now it made me feel a bit of a kid, having to take these stupid pills every day because I couldn’t control myself.

So I told Mum I was going to come off it, but I didn’t discuss it with the doctors or anything – I just stopped taking it.
I noticed a difference, of course I did, but mostly in a
good way.
I felt like I was going back to the real me, and I’ve never touched it since.

But the no job, no college thing wasn’t washing with Mum.
She gave me a few weeks’ cooling-off period after school, then she was on my case.
She was keen that I should carry on
studying, as she knew there was very little chance of me getting a job without at least some qualifications, so each day she would say to me, ‘You need to enrol in college.
What are you going
to do?’

I’d always shrug, and say, ‘I ain’t got a clue.
There’s nothing I want to do.’

And it was true.
There was nothing that had ever really inspired me.
I had no great dreams to do any particular job at all.
I liked the idea of doing something where I was pretty independent,
maybe a businessman like my dad, but that was it.
I wasn’t getting on that great with him at the time, but I thought he might have an idea, so I rang him one day and said, ‘Dad, help me
out here, please.
What the fuck am I going to do now school is over?’

And I should have guessed his answer before I even called.
Sure enough he said, ‘Do what your brother is doing – do welding.’

‘Dad, I don’t want to do that, it’s not my kind of thing.’

Despite all the fighting and everything, I’ve never been a real man’s man – I’ve always been a bit of a pretty boy when it comes to getting my hands dirty.
But in the
back of my mind I started thinking, ‘Maybe I should do that after all, because Dad loves Daniel for going down the family business route.’
The whole of Dad’s family thought Daniel
was the golden boy, which I did resent deep down a bit, I guess.

So I was playing around with the idea, swinging each day between thinking it was a good idea or bad one, until one day I was sitting at home, just flicking through the newspaper, and Mum came in
and said, ‘Right, you have to enrol in something today, once and for all.
What’s it going to be?’

I tried to ignore her, and carried on going through the paper.
I was so pissed off with the whole conversation, I just kept hoping someone would come up with a magic answer.

And then something caught my eye.
It was a picture of boxer Lennox Lewis fighting a Russian opponent, Vitali Klitschko.
Lewis had won, after badly cutting Klitschko’s face with a punch,
and the photographer had caught the exact moment of impact, and the shock in Klitschko’s eyes.
I was fascinated by it, and felt the photographer had done the perfect job.

‘Mum,’ I said, ‘I want to be a sports photographer.’

‘Don’t just say that to come out with an answer and shut me up, ’cos it won’t work, Kirk!’

But I felt sure, and said, ‘No, if I could ever capture a picture like that, that would be my aim, that’s what I want to do.’

She looked at the paper, then grinned, patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Right, well, you have a goal now – good.
Let’s go tell the college!’

So we went over to Thurrock Technical College to ask how I could get on a photography course.
There were already long queues of students, so I clearly wasn’t the only person making a late
decision!
This woman behind the desk told me, ‘You need two C grades in your GCSE results to get on the photography course, and one of those must be in art, and one in science.’

I was thinking, ‘Fuck me, I know I won’t get that.’
But our results weren’t due for a good few weeks, so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll have that fine, no
problem.’

She got me to fill out some forms and enrolled me, and as I was leaving she said, ‘Of course, we’ll need proof of your results.
So you can start the course, but once the certificates
come through, you’ll need to bring them in and show us if you are to continue.’

So the course started.
Most of my mates from school were in the college too, all on different courses, and I was actually looking forward to starting mine in a way.
If it could teach me how to
do a job I wanted to do, that was all good.
I’d looked at more photos since that boxing one, and seen a few sports shots that I really liked.
For the first time in my life there was a career
I could see myself doing: a sports photographer.

But on the first day at college, as I sat down in the class and waited for them to hand out the cameras, the teacher started to explain how to use all these photography programmes on the
computer, and how Macs worked.
I didn’t have one at home, and I wasn’t about to be able to afford one either.

I sat through this for a few days, but as it went on and on, I started to get frustrated.
I said to the teacher, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t get the point in teaching
me this when I want to be a photographer, not work with computers.
Teach me how to use a camera properly, please, ’cos I can’t afford a computer, so I can’t use all this stuff
you’re showing me.’

‘No, using the camera comes later in the course,’ he replied.
‘First we learn the computer side of things, then it will be about various lenses.
And finally once you have all
the basic info, we let you have a go with a camera.’

Well, as usual, I said what I thought.
‘I don’t care about all that.
Give me a camera in my hand and let me see if I can take decent pictures, ’cos if I can’t,
there’s no point in me doing the course if I only find out in a few months that I can’t even take a good picture and I’m wasting my time!’

Naturally they weren’t going to change the course because of some idea that I had about how it should be.
So – and as you will know, this is rare for me – I decided to bite my
tongue and go with it for the time being.