Addicted To Murder (Memoirs of a Serial Killer)

Addicted to Murder

(Memoirs of a Serial Killer)

Barry McCauley

Addicted to Murder

(Memoirs of a Serial Killer)

Barry McCauley

Copyright 2013 by Barry McCauley

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Gorge Bajada - rockethifi © 2013

[email protected]

The moral right of Barry McCauley to

be identified as he author of this work has

been asserted in accordance with the Copyright

Design and Patents Act, 1988

All Rights Reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the author.

Although this book is a work of fiction,

parts of it are loosely based on real events.

Some names, characters, businesses, organisations

and events are the product of the author’s imagination.

Others have been changed or are used fictionally.

Any resemblance to any persons living

or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to:

Andy Esson for his constructive feedback and correcting my typos

Di Hubbard for your invaluable help and suggestions

Kevin Johnston for listening and supporting me

Graeme Nicholson for reading it twice and providing a great idea

Everyone who’s listened to me going on and on about my forthcoming book

And of course Gorge Bajada for his amazing cover design

Prologue

As we walked tearfully down the backyard, I remember that the concrete beneath my feet seemed to be particularly unyielding. We approached the door that led to the lane and we turned to see our mother, stern faced, dismissing us, ordering our departure. My brother and I were leaving the only home we’d ever known. My mother, angered by our non-conformity and our flagrant disavowal of her rules, had finally had enough and had decided to banish us from the family home. She packed our bags without a glimmer of emotion and sent us on our way. We were inconsolable, and, in complete contrast to her usual violent and tyrannical outbursts, she just stood by, detached, and watched.

Our impending exile was more traumatic than anything that we’d ever encountered up until that point in our lives, and, through a veil of tears we sobbed our final goodbyes. We reached the portal to the outside world and for the final time turned to face our matriarchal adversary, hoping for a last minute reprieve.

Without a second glance she turned her back and closed the kitchen door.

Dragging the large suitcases behind us we stepped over the threshold into the outside world not knowing what fate had in store for us.

We were four years old.

Chapter One

I am a serial killer. You don’t know me. You may know of my work, my accomplishments, my deeds and my triumphs. You will not, however, know of my mistakes, my near misses or what made and inspired me to be the person I am today. I’ve read that, subconsciously, all serial killers ultimately want to be caught as they crave recognition for their crimes - and then most of the stupid fuckers go and do exactly that, they get caught. Do I want recognition for my ingenuity, my creativity and everyone to know of my legacy and my capabilities? Of course I do, but I don’t want everyone to know my name or my face. I’m not the Madonna of mass murder for fuck’s sake. Why would I want to spend time languishing in some shitty jail when I could be out in the world accomplishing my life’s dream? To have the indignity of some talentless twat of a journalist sensationalising my being, transcribing my history, inventing or guessing the bits that they don’t know and then taking credit for delving deep into my twisted mind. It’s so insulting and, to be frank, really fucking boring. I know the truth, I was there, I made it happen and it’s my life, my story to tell. Let someone else write my story? I’d rather shit in my hands and clap.

All of the so-called greats from the world of serial-murder ended up in prison, or died by capital punishment, that’s the only reason they are famous and, Jack the Ripper aside, that’s also why they are all fucking idiots. Andrei Chikatilo - the Russian ripper, Dennis Neilson – who killed for companionship, Fred and Rose West – who killed for the power surge that it brought, the Moors Murderers – my first, flawed, idols, Peter Sutcliffe – the Yorkshire ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer – who loved a blow job from a severed head and John Wayne Gacy – the killer clown who raped young boys and buried them under his house. All of them were huge killers with moments of sheer genius but they made too many mistakes, they became complacent and then they got a life sentence. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could be so stupid as to allow their career to be prematurely curtailed in such a careless manner. Jesus Christ, imagine how much that moment of realisation must have pissed them off. I’m nicked. That’s it my life is over I’m going to jail.

What a hideous thought, and what a horrible fucking place to go I can only imagine the type of people you get in there, scum bags, low-life, common criminals. How could I consciously want to follow in the footsteps of such a bunch of slap-happy retards? They all started with truly inspiring ideas; Jeffrey Dahmer would take a severed head out of the fridge for a quick blow whenever he got a hard-on. Warm up the lips, squirt a bit of lube on the tongue and then just pump away, making sure, of course, that the teeth didn’t damage his old man - now that’s a truly inspirational way to get head. He didn’t even need to empty the vessel; just discard it when it started to decompose then he’d go out and chop himself a new one. Rose West allegedly kicked a baseball bat up the vagina of one of her and Fred’s pregnant victims, hitting a kind of mother and baby double-death home run. Only a truly warped mind and a true genius could firstly envisage and then orchestrate those kinds of actions. However all three lost the plot and fucked it up.

Some serial killers will keep souvenirs and mementoes of their crimes, which keeps the ordeal fresh in their minds – why bother? Keeping souvenirs will only land you in trouble. They’re evidence; they contain DNA, in Dahmer’s case they also contained rather a large amount of his sperm and in Rose West’s case, a few internal splinters. The Moors’ murderer’s tape, photographs and prayer book are all testament to the fact that mementos are a very fucking bad idea. Never record, video or retain anything incriminating – it’ll only come back and bite you on the arse with very sharp teeth. Souvenirs of your finest moments are best kept in your head. I have kept nothing but memories.

Some killers will prolong the torture and the agony of their victims revelling in the pain and helplessness of the victim, it can be fun and rewarding, it can also be distracting (I have done this only when I’ve felt truly inspired and I've had a bit of time to kill). Others have claimed to hear the voice of God telling them to go out and rid the world of low-life, immoral trash. It all gets very tedious and dull. Why make excuses? Why bother trying to justify your actions? Most of the so-called ‘victims’ were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s their bad luck so just kill the stupid fuckers and be done with it. Move on.

Do I think I’m on a mission to clean up society? Do I fuck!

I kill because I get pleasure from it – nothing more.

To understand me and my modus operandi you, possibly, need to understand my formative years and my subsequent life. Places and names in my story may be fabricated, however the adventures that I’ll share with you did occur – the fatalities crafted by my hands are real. My story is not just a bland list of cruelty, death, murder and pseudo justification - I take my work very seriously and I have a sense of humour about the whole thing after all it’s not your average 9-5 job, and to be fair there is a high degree of cruelty, death and murder. There’s also delicious truth in every word and syllable. My tale is written to inform, to entertain and to educate.

I’m an ordinary guy that likes to kill and maim those who deserve it. I’m not going make excuses or attempt to justify my deeds. The truth is I kill because I enjoy it. It’s that simple.

So maybe that makes me extraordinary.

My grand entrance into this world pretty much set the tone for the rest of my life as the first thing that anybody saw of me was my arse. I was a breech birth - one of twins. My brother and I were born within half an hour of each other and arrived in the same folded state, which may give you a slight idea why my mother swore never again to procreate – well that and the colossal amount of wear and tear inflicted on her front-bottom, not to mention the small fortune spent on the bags of frozen peas used to reduce the swelling.

Being an identical twin can be a strange experience that only other identical twins can really fully understand. As we were growing up my brother and I were often referred to by a common noun that seemed peculiar to the north east of England - ‘twinnies;’ or we were called the twins and very rarely referred to as Gary and Colin. The worst thing you can do with twins is to constantly acknowledge them collectively. It removes any notion of individual identity and permanently classifies them existing solely as one of a pair. The other big faux-pas and a major source of irritation is to refer to them as ‘the two twins.’ Do the idiots expect there are more than two?

Years later people would always question us about telepathy, or a psychic connection that allowed one of us to know when the other was in pain or trouble. The only time that anything like this ever happened was at the age of twelve. I developed a large cyst behind my right knee and very soon after Colin developed a phantom cyst in exactly the same place. Once I’d had an operation to remove the cyst, Colin’s miraculously disappeared. Nothing like that ever happened again. But we did share a dream once.

It was the sixties; the world was immersed in flower power, the meteoric rise of London fashion, fear of ‘the bomb’, peace protests and LSD. Two months before my predicted date of arrival I made my world début. Even then my timing was bollocks because as I hurriedly emerged from one warm enclosure I was immediately thrust into another, more commonly known as an incubator, and thus - incarcerated - I began the first eight weeks of my life.

My father was a carpenter and my mother a virgin, well at least that’s the impression I formed in my adolescent mind - of course none of us like to think of our parents having sex so maybe I formed this unconscious Christ-like-identification to avoid the realisation such an unappealing carnal act could occur under the same roof as me.

My mother hated nicknames (come to think of it she hated almost everything) and in an attempt at deflecting the inevitable she chose names that couldn’t be shortened.

She failed miserably! I was christened Gary and once I’d started school I became known as Gaz. My brother’s name was Colin, which was never shortened but because our surname was Robinson he became known as Robbo. You could see my mother bristle uncomfortably every time friends called around and greeted us by our adopted moniker.

To say that my mother was ill tempered is an understatement. She was constantly on the verge of a hysterically explosive outburst, the catalyst of which was almost impossible to predict. Hysteria comes from the ancient Greek word for womb (hustera) and it was assumed in the days of medical infancy that only those in possession of a womb - i.e. women - were capable of having hysterics. Based on this prognosis my mother must have been born triple-wombed and had at least another four surgically implanted.

Very much the matriarch, Mother was very protective of her family - a bit like Peggy Butcher from ‘Eastenders’ but without the blond wig, cockney accent, Queen Victoria pub oh, and she hadn‘t flashed her tits in a ‘Carry On’ film – yet many of her incomprehensible tirades were in our defence. She could be strangely protective and then terribly hurtful in a matter of seconds. Her wrath wasn’t just confined to the family. Unpredictably she would explode wherever and whenever something upset her. At times she would inexplicably go crazy and start ranting with uncontrollable frustration and, for whatever reason; she would unashamedly accost anyone who incurred her wrath. My brother and I would just stand there, our faces scarlet with embarrassment as another hapless bystander was verbally subjected to the law according to Sylvia Robinson. Anyone who knew her had a good idea of how she was going to react to a question, a request or a comment just by her immediate expression. The list of things that pissed her off was inexhaustible – someone swearing, using sarcasm or doing something that she disagreed with, workmen, teachers, neighbours or friends making a joke or a comment that she didn’t like or understand, an object going missing, a task not being carried out with enough haste, a mess or a breakage; any and all of these situations would incur her wrath at some point. She hated lies no matter how small or trivial. Deceit of any kind would throw her into the blackest of moods. Yet, one thing she never seemed to realise was that her behaviour encouraged lying. She always imposed her will, and thus got her own way, by throwing juvenile tantrums and bellowing, so more often than not it was easier to lie because telling the truth would just invite confrontation, an unholy row and a severe beating. Most people were terrified of her and rarely stood up to her; to them it really wasn’t worth the conflict because she would just go on and on and on and on and on for hours and sometimes for days. She had a fearsome reputation. I’ve no idea how adults referred to her, although I can guess that it wasn’t in complimentary manner. She was known amongst the neighbourhood kids as Gobzilla.

Growing up was a mixture of shouting, beatings and objects being hurled as missiles and was punctuated with the occasional fun day out. To us this was how every parent behaved - it was all that we knew. It wasn’t until we mixed with other kids that we saw normal parents and sane family behaviour. Other people’s kids got held and cuddled, spoiled and mollycoddled, there was a whole world of affection out there. It wasn’t just alien. It was uncomfortably weird.

One spring day my brother got into a juvenile argument with George Thompson - one of the neighbour’s kids. It was a pleasantly sunny Sunday and we were due to have a family outing. Colin and I were playing in the back lane. There was a bit of a scuffle, my brother got hit on the side of the face with a piece of cane and he retaliated by whacking George over the head with a broomstick. Next thing we knew George’s mother was at our back door having a screaming match with my mother. Gobzilla reacted in her usual way. After the public showdown ended she turned her rage onto us, we were ferociously belted and bellowed at, the family outing was cancelled and we were locked in the bedroom without food, water or anywhere to piss. From a very early age we tried to hold and control all bodily functions, sometimes we succeeded. A wet or shitty pair of pants incurred a beating that was often accompanied by a urinary or faecal facial as we were scrubbed with the offending soiled item - in much the same way that people rub a puppies face in a pool of pee to toilet train them. We wouldn’t be allowed to wash our face afterwards and the ammonia in the urine used to burn our skin and cause a rash. If she was really pissed off we’d get another beating for having a shitty face. When one or both of us couldn’t hold our bladder, and pissed the bed, it would incur a severe beating and then we’d be forced to sleep on the urine soaked sheets and mattress. Often when we were desperate to use the toilet we’d be so scared of the repercussions following a wet mattress that we’d literally piss ourselves with fear.

If a family outing was planned and something happened to ignite her temper she would always yell the same thing.

‘That’s it. I’m not going.’

As usual we’d be banished to the bedroom while she fumed and ranted at my father.

OK so she wasn’t going but what about us? I was always amazed that my dad never turned around and said, ‘Fine it’s your choice, stay at home but we’re still going,’ or even just, ‘Oh fuck off you mad old cow. See you later. Bye!’ Of course that was never going to happen as my father was, for the most part, and especially with my mother, placid and easygoing; he didn’t court confrontation or argue with her if it could be avoided. Yet, when he got pissed off with us, which was erm… pretty often as I recall, the leather belt would make an appearance and it was always wielded with the buckle-end as the weapon of choice. The buckle would leave huge purple bruises or sometimes little nicks where it made contact with the skin of our arse and the tops of our legs which always remained covered, even in summer.

We weren’t poor but we were far from rich. Both of my parents worked and my mother constantly bemoaned having too much on her plate; working full time during the day and getting home in the evening to cooking, cleaning, ironing, looking after us kids and clearing up after everyone. There were times when dad worked away from home, sometimes having to go south to find enough work to support his family, incurring lengthy separations, or he worked many evenings and weekends to bring in some much-needed extra cash for holidays or luxuries. This was when my mother had to juggle a full time job, two children, looking after a home with no husband around for support. In hindsight it’s obvious that all of this was too much for her. There was no social support network, no self-help groups and no socially aware PC care workers - if things got too much she just had to bite the bullet and get on with life - and she did this in the only way she knew with a vile-temper and brutality.

Like all kids we occasionally misbehaved, but when she unceremoniously threw us out of the house, at four years old, I remember being absolutely terrified of the unknown world that lay beyond the boundaries of our home. As we left the backyard and walked down lane that ran behind the house, my brother fell and grazed his knee. Not knowing what else to do, we dragged the suitcases back to the house and started to bang heavily on the backyard door with our tiny fists, hoping that our mother would hear the noise and come to our rescue. After an interminable period of time she opened the yard door and we were allowed back inside, only to have her admonish and then beat us for the damage caused to the suitcases by dragging them along the gravelled concrete.

She had the propensity to turn any innocuous household object into a weapon. On more than one occasion the vacuum cleaner would come crashing into our legs or shoeless feet as we sat on the sofa. A feather duster would become a rod to beat us with. Bars of soap would be hurled as missiles, rolled up magazines pounded into our limbs and a comb used to rip the knots from our hair, pulling tufts of it out from the root. On the odd occasion that we were allowed to help her in the kitchen it was fraught with danger. She was making a cheese and onion pie and commanded my brother to grate some cheese for her; he didn’t process it quickly enough so the grater was used to remove the skin from his knuckles. In the middle of ironing clothes she went to answer the front door and I thought that I would help her. In doing do I melted a nylon sock and it fused to the sole-plate. When she discovered this she went ballistic and pressed the iron against the top of my arm causing a huge blister where the molten-nylon stuck to my skin. She always justified her actions by claiming that, ‘You asked for it’, or, ‘you deserved it.’ She was clearly unhinged.

My formative years were spent in a cold grey rented flat in the cold grey Northumbrian town of Bedlington. It was a ground floor flat in a terraced street. It was the type of place that was usually referred to as a two-up-two-down, except it was only a two-down. By any standards Bedlington is a small town. To be more precise it’s an overgrown village with a semblance of a past and no discernible future. It has two claims to fame. The first is that it was mentioned in the Doomsday Book way back in the 11th century – probably as somewhere to stop and piss on the way to Scotland. The second is for rearing a unique breed of dog known as The Bedlington Terrier, which is a cross between a whippet and a poodle. The poor little fucker has the shape of a whippet and the fur of a poodle. Thank God they didn’t call it a Poppet, a Whipple, a Whoppet or a Whoodle - imagine having to live with that! It doesn’t moult but it but it stands about and trembles a lot – a bit like a dockyard prossie in winter. The best thing you can say about the breed is the nylon carpet doesn’t have to be vacuumed four times a day to remove unwanted hair.

Like all kids we had to attend school and the soon the day arrived for our official indoctrination into the social codes of patriarchy - as if living with Sylvia wasn’t enough of an education. Starting school is a traumatic event for most children. On the first day I can remember crying at the gate desperately not wanting to go in - preferring the relative comfort my mother’s erratic mood swings to the unknown terror that lay before me. Just before she let us go inside I remember my mother spitting on a handkerchief and cleaning my face with it – I could smell her breath on the handkerchief and on my skin for ages afterwards. Colin was much calmer than me and just sauntered towards the main building looking bored and telling me to hurry up. Once we were inside it was sheer pandemonium. There were first-years everywhere all looking shell-shocked with tell-tale red eyes or trembling lips. We were herded towards the assembly hall where we were welcomed by the Head Mistress, whose nickname was Hagra. She limped among us reeking of lavender, cigarettes and piss. Hagra was a fearsome creature with a mane of white hair swept back from her face and piled in a severe bun on top of her prehistoric scalp. She was incredibly tall with the most enormous breasts that swung low in the front of her dress like a pair of starving cats attempting to devour her kneecaps. To our infant eyes she was hideously ugly and looked about nine hundred years old. She always wore baby pink lipstick that bled into the cracks above her top lip. Her cheeks were dappled with Aunt-Sally-rouge giving her the appearance of a grotesque pantomime dame. Other kids, already at the school, had warned us that she was a witch and had talons and fangs. Her real name was Mrs Carr and we were all terrified of her.

After being officially welcomed by Hagra we were allotted a teacher and a classroom. My brother and I were placed in the same class. Our new form teacher, Mr White, vainly tried to get us to sit together - seven months in a confined womb, sharing a bed at home and now asked share a desk at school? No fucking way! There were about twenty other kids in the class all pairing up and marking out their new territory when a latecomer strolled in unannounced. He walked up to a desk at the rear of the class, pulled out a chair and sat down. We didn’t know Charlie Thompson but it didn’t take long to realise he was going to be a problem. He was trouble from the start; he was chastised repeatedly, made to stand in the corner, given detention and threatened with a visit to Hagra’s office all on the first day of school. He talked incessantly and was constantly disruptive. As his behaviour grew more and more fractious, Mr White was rapidly reaching the end of his tether.

Towards the end of the first week Charlie began squirming in his seat. He raised his hand in the air and began repeating ‘Sir, Sir, Sir’ over and over again in an effort to get Mr White’s attention.

Stopping in mid-sentence, Mr White glared at Charlie, raised his eyes and very sternly said. ‘What do you want now Thompson?’

‘Please Sir I need the toilet.’

‘Well you should have gone in your break!’

‘But Sir I didn’t want to go then.’ This seemed a fair enough comment to me.

‘Well you’re not going now!’

‘Sir, Please. I really need to go.’

Raising the tone of his voice, with barely concealed frustration, he said,

‘Be quiet boy. I want to hear no more about it.’

He turned his back to the class and began to write on the board. By now you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Everyone was terrified to move, everyone except Charlie Thompson that is.

A pleading voice pierced the silence.

‘Sir purleeeeze.’

Quickly Mr White spun around on his heels glaring at Charlie.

‘Get up on your chair. NOW!’ he yelled.

Charlie remained where he was.

‘I SAID NOW - YOU STUPID BOY. ARE YOU DEAF? STAND ON YOUR CHAIR.’

Reluctantly Charlie stood on his chair while the rest of the class cowered, smirked or did both.

Mr. White returned to the board and resumed teaching. He was droning on about something really puerile as most teachers do, when, in the middle of his monologue, there came the sound of trickling water from somewhere in the classroom. Mr. White paused for a moment as if listening intently; then, shaking his head he carried on. The trickling sound continued followed closely by another sound.

‘Aaaaargh…’

A voice came from the middle of the room.

‘Sir he’s peed on me.’

Mr White twisted toward the class and as he did so his face contorted in an expression of horrified disbelief. Charlie, still on the chair, had a big wet patch on the front of his bottle green school shorts. The pressure on his bladder had been too great and unable to hold back any longer Charlie had simply pissed where he stood, drenching Anthony Smith who sat next to him. Smith stood up quickly, fresh urine running from his clothing and merging with the pool on the floor his face crimson with embarrassment. This was my first inkling that humiliation could be a powerful tool.

The class began to laugh uproariously. Charlie took one look at Mr. White, whose facial expression had changed from horror to one of absolute fury, and then he jumped from the chair, ran across the classroom and hurled himself out of the open window onto the school playing field. Mr. White, stunned with disbelief, stood frozen for a few seconds before tearing out of the classroom door in the same direction. Once outside he started yelling for Charlie to come back while tearing after him in hot pursuit. We all left our seats and ran to the windows to witness the spectacle our glee too great to contain. The class was in a complete uproar.

Shitey Whitey, as he became known, (mainly because of the rhyming couplet) was lolloping after Charlie like a great gangling giraffe yelling for him to stop but Charlie was having none of it he was off down the drive and out of the school gates. We were having so much fun we didn’t notice a new figure entering the classroom.

A familiar voice rang out behind us.

‘What is going on here and where is Mr. White?’

It was Hagra and she looked really pissed off. As we all shuffled silently back to our seats Hagra just stood motionless, her eyes pulled into slits watching like some sort of monstrous feline waiting to pounce on its prey. She opened her mouth to speak but before she could do so Whitey emerged through the door sweating and panting. Hagra took a step towards the open door.

‘Mr. White, a word please…’

The school yard was a breeding ground for gossip, mayhem, rumour and scurrilous intrigue. It was also a place of education, although the syllabus was far removed from the officially sanctioned programme taught in the classroom. Here we learned how to swear, smoke, lie and go shoplifting – a skill that I mastered pretty quickly. There was great pressure to fit in to one of the social groups that were forming. I was a bit of a loner and it wasn’t because I had no friends, I had a vivid imagination and actually liked to be on my own mainly because it meant I didn’t have to talk to other kids. Also I had bright orangey-yellow teeth and it was the first thing that they saw as soon as I opened my mouth. The other kids took the piss out of me, calling me ‘banana gums’ and I quickly learned to speak or rather to mutter without showing my teeth. When they first emerged, alarmed, my mother took me to a dentist who assured her that my adult teeth would be fine and they were.

I was rapidly becoming known as a bit of a comedian or someone who would carry out a dare – usually a practical joke or a shoplifting spree. This, of course, successfully deflected the attention away from my dental defect and in doing so it endeared me to a whole new social group - that of the school bully. I had thus far in my life managed to avoid too much contact with the rougher elements inhabiting the school playground. It was all cause and effect of being taunted for my tangerine teeth.

As the teasing increased I discovered that by feigning stupidity and bravado instead of being the butt of a joke I was at the helm – they still laughed at me but this time I engineered it. In reality the teasing only really lasted a couple of months as they soon got used to seeing my ochre incisors but as a child I remember it going on forever. As the novelty of my off-colour pegs decreased and the teasing lessened I gained confidence and found ways of deflecting the attack by ensuring that the bullies began to target other unfortunate bastards. I diverted the attention from myself and turned my jokes towards the fat kids, the loners and the stinky kids. Soon they became the objects of ridicule and I was rapidly learning that it was the survival of the fittest and I was determined to stay on top. I learned the art of bullying; and soon I began to inflict the cruelty that I’d learned at home on other kids. I’d always pick on the younger and weaker children; it was more fun because they couldn’t fight back. Chinese burns were a great way of causing pain, or reducing a kid to tears, without leaving any tell-tale lesions. Carefully picked stinging nettles had a two-fold use, the thick stems causing pain on contact and then the stinging barbs from the leaves would leave a throbbing rash. I loved watching the kids, squirming to escape and then crying and pleading for me to stop.

It made me feel powerful.

A very popular children’s TV show on BBC1 called Blue Peter did a feature on a guy called Joey Deacon for the International Year of the Disabled. Joey was born with cerebral palsy and he had spent most of his life in hospital, but had overcome his disability enough to write his autobiography. The programme was presented in a sensitive way, portraying Joey as a man who’d achieved a lot in spite of his disabilities. The impact of the broadcast was immediate - and not as the BBC had intended. Deacon's distinctive stuttering speech pattern and mannerisms had a lasting impact on young viewers, who quickly learnt to imitate them and use them as ammunition. His name quickly became a label of ridicule in school playgrounds across the country, and overnight everyone who had a defect or did anything remotely stupid became known as a Joey. My school was no exception. My parents had watched the episode of Blue Peter and when they heard me call Colin a Joey, I was punched and kicked from one side of the house to the other. I was very careful never to say it at home again – or at least not in their earshot.

Like most British mining towns Bedlington was, and still is, awash with terraced housing where a garden is a luxury and you have to make do with a back yard. Our flat led directly onto a concrete back yard with outside toilet usually referred to as the Lavvy, the bog or more commonly the Nettie. It was always dank and perpetually bathed in twilight; if the climate had been warmer it would have been the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. The walls were covered with a cheap emulsion paint known as whitewash. It dried to a powdery finish that started to flake and peel almost as soon as it was dry; accidentally brushing against it left your clothing covered with chalky white marks that had to be brushed off.

The carpenter who fitted the toilet door should have been publicly executed or at the very least imprisoned for crimes against humanity. It really was the most appalling example of British craftsmanship. It hung with a lilt to the left and the slightest breeze caused it to rattle noisily on its hinges. Even today it must still hold the world record for most ill-fitting toilet door in history. There was a six-inch gap at both the top and bottom allowing the wind to billow around your exposed genitalia. Taking a dump in winter was a terrifying ordeal. The cold was so intense that you often started to panic and attempt a rapid duodenal push before your pants had passed your hips, or your arse