Something Borrowed (Draft: in creation)

The 20^th day of November has been an essential anniversary in my life for over 30 years. Initially, it found a place in my diary as the date when, in 1917, the first day of the Battle of Cambrai took place amidst the mud and blood of the Western Front. Following a dawn attack, the British army made unprecedented gains, overcoming German entrenched positions and barbed wire with the mass use of tanks.

Church bells rang out in British towns on that day in celebration. However, two weeks later, after an effective German counterattack with the judicious use of artillery and stormtroopers, the Germans recovered much of the ground, and British casualties numbered more than 75,000.

Why was this so important to me?

Well, in 1986, I became an ancestral comrade of the men who committed to that battle. I was an unruly young man from south London with few prospects, so I joined the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. I became a Tanky, an armoured soldier, adorned in all black, and forever after, to Fear Naught. Cambrai Day is our battle honour; a day that begins upon waking with ‘gunfire’, a potent mix of black tea and rum traditionally served to enlisted men by their officers before the battle.

On the anniversary of the first day of that slaughter, soldiers and old comrades alike will gather wherever they might be in the world to ensure the ghosts of those long-dead warriors of Cambrai are never forgotten. The day sails along on a tidal wave of alcohol and war stories. Drinks are bought for, but never drunk by, departed comrades of the regiment.

In June 2006, my calendar co-accommodated a second anniversary on that date when I met a similarly aged man who was to become a close friend. Our acquaintance began at the West Highland Way Race, where I was a positionally challenged participant, and he was the official sweeper runner. His first words to me, spoken in a languid Australian accent, were, ‘Hi, my name’s Keith and I’m the sweeper runner. That means you’re last.’

By 2006, I was a time-served firefighter and former soldier, so Keith's casually brutal but comedic interaction was second nature to me.  Our brief acquaintance blossomed into a mutually respectful and supportive friendship. The 20th November was my new-found friend’s birthday, so I made sure to wish him a very happy Cambrai every year on the anniversary of his birth. 

Keith became close enough to me to be the first person I informed of a developing romance with another West Highland Way Race participant, Lee. Despite Lee living in Scotland and us both being single parents, we successfully developed and conducted a long-distance relationship for the following 11 years until our wonderful marriage in 2019. I thought Lee was a gorgeous woman with the kindest of souls. She had her demons, as did I, but I believed we were perfect together. I loved her unconditionally and would have died to protect her a thousand times over.

As I reveal the third 20th November anniversary, I will not comment on the events that occasioned that date.

Why?

Although I am only arriving at an understanding of why they happened, those events are so harrowing that I care not to write them down. I cannot do so without sounding terribly aggrieved or desperate for sympathy. I am not, but please believe me when I tell you that this was and remains the darkest, most heartbreakingly destructive time of my life. 

The 20th November 2022. 

After retiring from the fire service, relocating to Scotland, and marrying Lee, life had become a relaxing, happy place full of love, beauty, and adventure. I had spent a total of 32.5 years in uniform, being exposed to trauma and tragedy, working almost every Christmas and New Year, but enduring so with a smile, assured that I had comradeship at work and love at home.

Then, after a total of eight months in that metaphorical rose garden, along came PTSD. 

I was aware of continuing hypervigilance but was no longer going to bed, knowing that I might be crashed out at any moment by bright lights and wailing alarms to some life-changing emergency. The ever-present fight-or-flight reflex calmed down, knowing the worst thing that might happen locally was the theft of a bicycle.

But fear not, Dear Reader, if you've attended multiple disasters over several years and decided you're too tough and hard to need counselling, those disasters have the habit of returning to you at night. Yep, dreams, reuniting me with the victims of Grenfell Tower, the Croydon Tram Crash, the Paddington Rail Crash, the Maryhill explosion, and a multitude of encounters that never made the press became a nightly occurrence. My sleeping pattern was devastated, which led to exhaustion and sleeping during the day. Whoever prefixed the term 'mare' with 'night' had clearly never really experienced the reliving of trauma during the day, too.

Dreams are one thing—we all have them—but flashbacks are another. They usually occur during quiet moments but are not considerate enough to remain absent while driving; being transported back 400 miles and any number of years is unsettling, let me tell you.

I remember being out with Lee in late 2019. We were joining some colleagues from Glasgow University for a few drinks, and we decided to stay in an inexpensive hotel in the town. I arrived before Lee, and as I rounded a corner and looked up at the multiple-floored, concrete building that was our hotel, I became suddenly cold and unsettled. I had been here before.

In May 2004, I was choppered by RAF Puma from London to Glasgow as part of a nine-man team to recover casualties and victims from the Stockline Plastics factory explosion. This hotel had been our base for the duration of our deployment. Even though most of our time was spent on the rubble pile amidst the death and destruction, we repaired here to shower and try to sleep. I never thought I'd see the place again. On my unplanned return in 2019, I checked in and was directed to a room that may as well have been the one I stayed in 15 years previous. I was right back there, with brick dust in my nostrils, the sobbing of heartbroken relatives in my ears, and blood on my hands.

Repeatedly being in the past, permanently exhausted and living among ghosts led to confusion and paranoia. It's a slippery slope of denial. I believed I was tough and resilient; however, showering and shaving became an effort. I'd always fancied growing a beard, but there's a massive difference between the impressively facially coiffured Brian Blessed and some apparently homeless, stinky guy wandering around in nothing but a grubby pair of Y-Fronts.

Victim

There's a damn good chance that I shouldn't be writing this blog post. If I decide that's the case, you'll never read this, and I've just wasted my time writing it. Anyway, here we go, let's see how we get on.

For 52 years of my life, I was a fucking tough guy. Even as an infant, my old man's practice of smashing my head into my younger brother's when we were naughty taught me to be tough. It taught me a fair bit about poor parenting too, so there was positivity in violence. Every cloud...

At the age of nine, I was a pain in the arse during the summer holidays. I did outrageous things like kick footballs, play a game called 'fighting in the dark' with my brother (you basically shut the curtains and fought in the dark), and got caught looking at the womens’ underwear section of my mum's Grattan catalogue. So my old man dropped me off at the Brixton and District Amateur Boxing Club with the instruction: 'Tire the little fucker out, will you?' I stayed for several years and enjoyed the skills and fitness bestowed upon me in that sweaty, dusty house of pain.

A few years later, I joined the army, boxed for my regiment, fired guns and stuff and generally became a life-taking, heartbreaking, steely-eyed dealer of death. Then I joined the London Fire Brigade. My efforts shifted and were centred on saving lives rather than obliterating them. I served for 27.5 years, loved the job and rose to the rank of Station Officer.

My reason for this whistle-stop historical tour is to illustrate that, as the Practice Nurse from the Community Mental Health Team told me: 'You, Mr Waterman, are a victim of your own success. You've spent your life pursuing masculine endeavours, and now you're existing quietly in a small town in Scotland. Did you really think becoming a mature student would replace all that gung-ho stuff?'

'Yes, Sir, I did.' I replied.

Deploying a wicked sense of humour, he responded: 'Yep, you really are mad!'

If the past two years have taught me anything, it's that you can be as much of a tough guy as you like, but mental health impairment is tougher. It's like a Ninja; it sneaks up on you quietly, lurking in the shadows, strikes hard, creating confusion and suffering, and leaves a long-lasting effect. 

So if I can claim another lesson from the recent past, it's that I was never as tough as I made out. I could fight skilled boxers in the ring, I could deadlift 180kg, I could run 100 miles, but I was still the infant, sitting on the pram, fearing getting his head smashed into his brother's.

Attacks on your physical self are one thing. Generally, the attacker needs to be bigger and harder than you. But attacks on your mental health can come from all sources. I know massive, roided up bodybuilders in the gym who could pull your arms from their sockets and batter you about the head with the stumps. But the ones in my gym are like teddy bears and would be aghast if they upset you. Then you can get a 4-foot nine-inch woman child who will insidiously and stealthily break you down with unwelcoming behaviours, rudeness, ignorance and laziness. They might claim they're doing nothing wrong, smile sweetly and play on their apparent innocence, but the damage is being done. Chipping away at your well-being, denying you any peace, making you feel worthless.

Where's the tough guy now? The 87kg gym attendee that rack-pulls a quarter of a tonne? He's tearing skin from his thumbs; he's mumbling to himself, looking for help and support but finding none. He's a monster, you know; he's scary, he knows how to fight, and he's strong as fuck.Unfortunately, he's also a victim of his own success.

The Long Morrow

Someone once told me: 'Absolutely no one is interested in hearing about your dreams, let alone reading about them. They're boring, uninspiring and fucking tedious.'

With that advice ringing in my ears, I'm about to speak about dreams. However, I have access to the analytical breakdown for this blog, and its heyday of 1000+ hits in 24 hours is long since passed. The visits to this blog are now in single figures if they exist at all. That suits me, however, as I'm not in the business of entertainment. As has been mentioned elsewhere, this is a mental defective's attempt at psychotherapy through the written word. So if you do happen to be reading this for entertainment purposes, it's gonna be dull, uninspiring and fucking tedious.

Following the 13 months Trauma-Focused CBT I undertook, I was assured that the symptoms that had plagued me were now absent and I no longer had the diagnosis for PTSD, Psychosis, Hyper-Vigilance or anything else that might enable me to get a part in the remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. 

'Fucking fantastic!' said I. 'That means I can terminate the taking of all the medication, then?'

'Err...not quite. You need to continue taking all of those sense-numbing, impotence creating, mind fogging substances for another two years, at least.'

'So I'm not better, then? If I were better I would need no meds, surely?'

'Listen, you're a fucking mental defective. If you stop taking the drugs you're likely to turn into Charles Manson, kill everyone and everything in your immediate vicinity, before throwing yourself off of a motorway bridge and making a huge mess on the tarmac.'

If I needed any convincing that my psychotherapist's ambition significantly outweighed his ability in his assessment of my recovery, it was last night when, under the guise of sleep, I travelled back in time to events in military olive drab and fire brigade red. Reliving historic events is old hat now; I've been riding that train for more than two years. But to believe I never left public service, and I'm simply waiting for the next event, and will be forevermore, left me feeling somewhat discombobulated, let me tell you. 

I remember as a child, having this recurring nightmare where I was cast adrift in space, unable to move or speak, floating about in the cosmos, looking down on the earth, my home and my family. And that was how it was to be for the rest of eternity, alone, lost, with no control over my existence. Fuck me, that dream terrified me, and it was made worse by the fact that when I woke up, my sense of spatial awareness and depth perception was altered. Age and experience have developed that dream into last night's episode of Mr Ben, but it remains the same. Alone, lost and with no control over my existence.

Boring, uninspiring and tedious...but enough to leave me in a dangerous condition after waking. My fairly recent routine is, to get up, put the kettle on, swallow the multiple pills prescribed to me, and hopefully, Sally Sertraline will do her stuff and leave Charles Manson locked up in a cupboard somewhere. Well, Charlie Manson came out to play this morning and it was only the comforting words of my best friend and smashing myself to bits in the gym that fucked Charlie Boy off out of it.

Anyway, if you do happen to be reading this blog, I apologise profusely for the boredom, lack of inspiration and tedium. My final comment on this tale of woe (put some positivity into it, you loon!) is this: If you were unlucky enough to accompany me last night on my travels, I think together we might have wished for boredom.

A Tendency Toward Haagen Dazs

 Psychosis: Psychosis is a mental health problem that causes people to perceive or interpret things differently. This might involve hallucinations or delusions.

That's how the NHS defines the condition. It goes hand in glove with Complex PTSD if left untreated. Looking back over the past couple of years, from a more enlightened and medicated state, nothing I experienced seemed then or now hallucinatory or delusional. Everything happened to me or around me, and I understood it and responded to it in what I believed was an appropriate manner.

Elsewhere I've mentioned visits from a dead girl; I've also felt someones' lips brush my ear; I've listened to snippets of conversation taking place in the air, and I felt a garrotte tighten around my neck. All of these things happened with just myself present.

Sleep deprivation, exhaustion and confusion create a fertile ground for these experiences. I remember sitting in our lounge one summer evening watching TV as my (much) better half busied herself going in and out of the house watering her outdoor plants. As she moved through the lounge and left through the front door, watering-can in hand, my need for Haagen Dazs ice cream became too great to bear, and I rose to my feet to head to the kitchen. I ought to say that this newfound love of Haagen Dazs has replaced the no-longer-present unquenchable thirst for strong red wine. I suppose it's the craving for the simple sugars the wine once provided. Haagen Dazs tends not to result in being the best-dressed man in bed or a frantic run down to the off-licence at 22:55, however.

As I turned to face the kitchen, I felt a hard, circular implement press into my back, probably around 9mm in diameter. Before you tut and think 'wanker,' put yourself in my position: I'm a former soldier who was once very familiar with firearms. But, unfortunately, I had been living in a delirious haze for much of the year, experiencing events and situations denied to anyone else. Anyway, my thought process was thus:

I've just seen my (much) better half leave the lounge; I know she's outside. There's no one else knowingly in the house. Someone has just pressed a gun barrel into my back.

Fight or flight? I can run quickly but not nearly enough to beat a 9mm bullet. If I spin around rapidly, I might encourage pulling the trigger. So instead, I turn slowly to face the armed intruder and cock my right hand to smash my fist, straight, true and hard into the centre of the face I was about to see. I'm aiming to break and splinter bone, I want to spill blood and mucus on the floor, and disable the intruder. Hopefully, permanently. Because if I don't, a 9mm copper-jacketed round may well enter my chest, pass through my heart, killing me instantly before the sound of gunfire ever reaches my ears. 

Or is this another psychotic episode where there will be no one at all in front of me? Like the garrotte I felt tighten around my neck as I lay in bed, maybe this is just death ideation.

As my eyes focus on the physical presence that is indeed in front of me, I see a watering can in hand, no longer pressed into my back. A beautiful, innocent face looking shocked at her husband, primed and ready for extreme violence. This was, and remains, the one and only time my hands have ever been raised to my (much) better half.

I breathed a massive sigh of relief.

'Please, please don't ever sneak up on me like that again,' I begged.

My ability to accurately assess time, distance and probability were all as clearly impaired as my thinking and general mental well-being. Nevertheless, that event, and several others involving unknown persons, led to Quetiapine, an anti-psychotic medication, being prescribed.

My doctor explained: 'This will buy you thinking time. At the moment, you've got a tendency toward an immediate aggressive response when you feel under threat. That served you well as a pupil at an uber-violent south London school, a soldier in the combat arm, or an operational firefighter at a busy inner London fire station. But it's not as helpful now you dwell full-time in polite society. Plus you're as mad as a box of frogs,' (Fuck it, if I'm gonna paraphrase, I may as well push the boat out...but that is essentially what he said).

So, the psychosis is now managed pharmaceutically. The reality is that Quetiapine simply sedates me heavily. There is no chance of me getting into trouble when I'm asleep most of the day. In that regard, it's a wonder drug, but not entirely different to the effect that strong red wine had on me. 

Right, I'm off for (another) snooze.

Caring for a Chameleon

Look into these eyes...what do you see?

Pound shop glasses...that's what. I've got some expensive prescription glasses that I should wear at all times, but they annoy me. So I take 'em off, put them down, then can't find them. Not necessarily because I'm blind as a bat, but because they seem to blend into the background, Chameleon-like. So this is me, wearing sight-damaging pound-shop glasses, in the magnificent National Library of Scotland. 

'What the fuck was a half-witted, tattooed Cockney doing in such a respected and majesterial centre of academia and research?' I hear you ask. I was there last week to view and photograph a 120-year-old copy of the London Scottish Rifles Regimental Gazette. I'm doing a PhD, doncha know? I'm researching a prosopographic history of the London Scottish Regiment from formation in 1859 to the end of the Great War. Mental defectives can also be Chameleon-like and mix amongst genteel, intelligent company. 

I accept I might not appear to be a standard aspiring academic. I never have. When I did my undergraduate degree, I arrived at Manchester University for Summer School, and the administration staff believed I was a coach driver. 

Anyway, I've been instructed that there needs to be some positivity included here if positivity does, indeed, exist. And of course, it does, but there are occasional hurdles that are pretty unique mixed amongst that positivity. For example, it was suggested that the person accompanying me to the Library was my full-time carer. That was in an attempt to overcome some bureaucratic red tape, but it wasn't too far from the truth.

Once was a respected Station Officer in charge of a busy, central-London fire station and a watch of challenging individuals. Now I need a carer to venture out of the house safely. 

So anyway, expect some more positivity within this blog/journal (I'm only terming it a journal because journaling is a recognised therapy activity).

So has any positivity resulted from journaling thus far? Writing the entry about the fatal RTA in Sutton was somewhat upsetting. However, it's kinda led me to understand some of my more extreme reactions to unpleasant events. I won't bore you with detail, but I've felt the need to mount a ferocious defence of several women that I've been aware of being victimised, harassed and worse over the years. The ferocity of that defence has possibly been over the top at times. Still, former friendships have been terminated without any confusion around the likelihood of that friendship ever being rekindled. 

My cod-psychotherapy has alerted me that I'm still rescuing that young girl in Sutton in executing that ferocious defence. 

I’ve got you.

You’re safe here with me.

I'll not lose her a second time.

Laters.

 

Rockabilly Psychosis

This PTSD lark is a constant round of fun and games, I can tell you. About 10 months or so ago I reckoned I was emerging from the depths of despair, a slightly broken, but put-back-together, guy ready to take tentative steps back into the world.

I was even the recipient of an invitation to a party...'I'm normal!' I told myself. Safe to mix in genteel company, in the presence of quickly quaffed alcohol and loud music. Why not? I thought. Once was in charge of a busy, central-London fire station and a team of pretty lively individuals. I can manage the polite conversation, soft-shoe-shuffling and sipping of port required at a celebratory get-together, surely?

Here's the thing. And I suppose it should have sounded alarm bells: I barely knew the host and had never met any of the guests. In the past, I would have convinced myself the guests would be so gloriously astounded by my dancing skills, my power drinking, and my war stories that I would be elevated from 'unknown guest' to 'must-have present henceforth' in the blink of an eye.

So with those thoughts in my mind, plus a bottle of port in my motor, and my dancing shoes on, I jumped in the new 1litre Fiesta Bad Boy, and headed over to Edinburgh for the party of the year. Let me just repeat that: The Party of The Year. Please hold that thought.

I arrived around mid-afternoon at a pretty remote house outside Edinburgh with huge grounds and a collection of smart automobiles outside. The kind where the cost of a bumper repair would eclipse the money I paid for the Bad Boy. I was dressed in my gym gear (come casual, they said) and strutted through the open door displaying as much non-existent confidence as I could muster.

The host, a former Royal Marine named Matt, was in the kitchen preparing food while sipping a glass of champagne and dressed like Michael Portillo.

'Hi Matt,' I boomed (booming is definitely a sign of absent confidence).

'Dave! What the Fuck? Have you got a change of clothes? Please tell me you've got a change of clothes! Serena (name changed to protect the nearly killed) will go fucking berserk!'

Before I could argue the definition of casual, in swanned Serena as if on a magic carpet of grace and elegance. Her eyes looked me up and down and her sneer said all it needed to.

'Err...I think I've got a pair of jeans in the car...'I spluttered.

20 minutes later, a freshly ironed pair of Levis replaced my jogging bottoms and one of Matt's shirts covered my tattooed arms. As the guests arrived I was introduced to Tarquin, Philippa, Theodore, Angelica, Rupert and Cordelia.

If I cursed my Mum and Dad for having the complete absence of creativity in calling me 'Dave' I cursed them 1000 times.

Clearly, the only strategy to overcome this nightmare of epic proportions was to employ the tried and tested trick of getting absolutely wankered. I drank red wine like a tramp drinks cider, then opened the port. By this stage, I couldn't give a flying fuck that I used a wine glass for my port. If I could have laid my hands on a pint pot that would have been the port receptacle of choice.

Of course, as my level of inebriation rose, my dancing and jokes improved exponentially. Along with the disappearance of my reluctance to fart and swear.

Now, this is all standard fayre for a Subversive tale of alcohol consumption. However, there are additions that had never been in the mix previously. My pals Kerry Quetiapine, Sally Sertraline and Ponsonby Propranolol.  Their acquaintance with strong alcohol had never been attempted before.

The night wore on, and at around 02:00 there was just me and the two hosts left. We were outside, sitting around a small bonfire, drinking port. Then it happened:

'Dave,' said Serena. 'Matthew tells me you have PTSD. Why do you have PTSD?'

Completely taken aback, and with my mind awash with alcohol and anti-psychotic, prescription drugs, I attempted: 'I think I took particularly poor care of myself in the past and now I'm paying for it.'

'Matthew tells me that you are heavily medicated. You do realise those drugs do you no good whatsoever, don't you? So why do you take them?'

'Errm...' I spluttered, as I felt a dark, descending cloud of embarrassment and shame envelope me. 'My doctor thinks that the meds help, so I'm following his advice.'

'Listen, David,' said Serena, employing my Sunday name. 'All you need is to get all of this stuff off your chest. You need to speak to someone and just get it all out there. I'm that someone, so start by telling me about Grenfell Tower..'

'Errm...' I said, using the oft-repeated phrase that really translated as 'FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE!' 'I kinda think that those end-of-life experiences are pretty sacred and should remain with me and those I accompanied on that journey.'

'END OF LIFE EXPERIENCES!' Thundered Serena. 'You're not a fucking poet, are you? So stop using such flowery language and just tell me what happened!'

And so the scene was set for the next 30 minutes. Serena demanding horror stories, me sinking lower and lower into my seat, and the mixture of medication and alcohol making bonds of destruction and annihilation in my mind.

When the seat could swallow me no further, and there appeared to be no end in sight to the cross-examination, I got up wearily and said: 'I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to bed.'

Serena angrily spluttered something about hospitality, but I was moving faster than Prince Andrew at a Fresher's Ball. I headed toward the very well-appointed, ground floor guest room I had been provided, where I closed the door and breathed a huge sigh of relief. This was such a mistake. Believing I could spring back into the world of parties, new people, alcohol and manipulative treatment. What a cunt I was. I wish I was at home. But I can't go anywhere yet due to my inebriation. I'll need to sit it out then escape in the morning.

Lock the door....yeah, lock the fucking door...they might be so pissed off with me they want to reiterate their anger.

FUCK! No fucking lock! Why is there no lock? 

Then the sound of blaring dance music exploded from upstairs accompanied by pounding and thumping on the floor above my head. 

What the fuck is going on? I don't understand what's happening. I knew Serena was angry by my refusal to talk...maybe this is her way of letting me know I'm not wanted. 

They're gonna come down here and have a go at me, I know they are. They're going to come through that unlocked door, snarling and shouting at me. I need a weapon. In this well-appointed room, with tasteful paintings on the wall and a peach aroma infused en-suite, there's not even a baseball bat or a hunting knife. What the fuck is wrong with these people? 

I sat with my back against the wall, waiting for the door to open, ready to engage in combat. Then I rang my (much) better half. Yes, it was 03:00 but this was an ambush situation.

'Hi babe, it's me. Listen, Matt and Serena are really pissed off; I've really upset them. They've been demanding horror stories. They're about to come into my room and there's no lock. I've looked for a weapon but can't find one but I'm pretty sure I can kill them both with my bare hands.'

I heard the words I'd just spoken. This isn't normal. I'm alcohol and anti-psychotic drug-affected, I'm far from cured of PTSD and Hyper-Vigilance and shouldn't be away from home. The Party of the Year.

'Dave, go to bed and go to sleep. Leave in the morning and come straight home,' spoke the voice of reason.

Four hours later I sneaked out of Matt and Serena's like a thief in the night, jumped into the Bad Boy and headed home where I locked the door, bidding a final farewell to alcohol, and took my meds. 

A week or so later, my mobile phone screen showed an unknown caller desperately trying to get hold of me. Unusually, I answered:

'Hi, Mr Waterman?'

'It is, who's this please?'

'This is Dr Moreau from the Community Mental Health Team. We've received an emergency referral from your psychotherapist. I need you to come in and see me urgently. I have a report that you attended a party in Edinburgh, had a disagreement with the hosts, and planned to murder them both in their bed.'

I was impressed with the level of embellishment and pleased that I had such fantastic material for a blog post, but tried to explain the reality of the situation.

It didn't matter. As soon as I said: 'I can kill them both with my bare hands' I was never going to win.

So what now? Well, my medication was adjusted to slow down an 'immediate aggressive response.' I've had no further contact from anyone at The Party of the Year, and I'm not expecting you, Dear Reader, to invite me to a party anytime soon.

In Lunar Shadows Slowly

 As I sit to write this, I feel compelled to issue a warning. In the 15 years this blog has been in existence, I've tried, sometimes hamfistedly, to make it humorous. Unfortunately, in what's about to be written, you'll find no humour.

In 1999 the London Fire Brigade's fleet of appliances included five Fire Rescue Units (FRUs). They were specialist vehicles that attended the most extreme and critical incidents that the natives of London could throw at them. Post 9/11, 7/7 and other high profile disasters, the London Fire Brigade now have 15 FRUs. So in 1999, with just five FRUs serving the whole of the capital, we were busy, busy, busy. It exposed the 2% of staff that made up the FRU crews to many more critical incidents than a standard firefighter, but created an elite and experienced band of practitioners. As I look back, I can say that it was a pretty transient position; FRU firefighters often moved on rather quickly. Those that didn't and stayed for the long haul, are prone to illness, alcoholism, addiction and depression in retirement. That's probably not a surprise, right?

Back to 1999. I was a newly promoted Sub Officer, in love with my job, confident (arrogant, possibly), but cared greatly for my men and women. It was some time during the summer; I can't be precise when, but I remember the stifling confines of the Sub Officer's room on the third floor of Battersea Fire Station. It was a night shift, and we had entered the wee hours.

As I dozed on my perfunctory bed, the familiar sound of wailing alarms and bright lights roused me from my sweaty slumber. In less than 60 seconds I was dressed and seated in the commander's position of the FRU. Moments later, I was joined by my four-man crew, and we were barrelling through the empty London streets on our way to 'RTA: Persons Trapped' in Sutton Common Road. I settled down, with one ear on the main-scheme radio listening out for an informative message from the incident. I never ceased to marvel at the driver's skill and speed as he zipped through red lights and across mini-roundabouts to get us in attendance as quickly as possible.

As we rounded a bend in the road we came upon the incident. Two fire engines were already in attendance along with a couple of police cars, an ambulance and a high-speed ambulance car that replaced the London Ambulance Service's helicopter (HEMS) during the hours of darkness. At an odd angle in the road sat a white Ford Fiesta RS Turbo. It had obviously been on its roof and had resettled on its wheels. From my position I could see two occupants and I could hear one. A high-pitched, male voice shouting and swearing.

My crew dismounted, and without the need for instruction, set about preparing the hydraulic tools we might need to extricate the stricken vehicle's occupants. I followed protocol and reported to the Incident Commander. He was also a Sub Officer, the same rank as myself, but sported a partially fastened tunic and an unshaven chin. The few words we exchanged indicated he had no clue what he was doing and was relieved an FRU was now in attendance. I made a mental note that protocol could fuck right off and it would be my orders alone that would resolve this incident.

I approached the Fiesta which was surrounded by firefighters doing very little. An attempt was being made by a couple of guys to release the mangled passenger door, behind which sat a young woman of probably 17 years or so. She appeared to be unharmed but her eyes were only partially open and she was worryingly silent. Next to her, in the driver's seat, sat a pluke-ridden, shaven-headed young man of maybe 20. It appeared that a broken clavicle had punched through his chest exposing milky, white bone against his grey and bloodied shirt. And fuck me, he was letting everyone know about it. Not too much wrong with him, then.

I saw the person I wanted. Raya, a diminutive, Israeli HEMS Doctor, stood by the car trying to make herself heard by the firefighters surrounding her. 

'Hi, Raya, what needs doing?' I asked.

'Dave, they're not listening to me. I need the girl out right now.'

Nothing more needed to be said. Raya and I had worked together several times before and we both knew what her words meant. While the firefighters were pissing about trying to ensure the safety of the girl's cervical spine, she was dying. I pulled away the two guys that had now prised open the passenger's door. I heard angry comments directed at me but they meant nothing. I pulled out my non-issue lock knife, cut the seatbelt, threw the knife into the footwell, and scooped the girl out of the seat and into my arms. Her eyes fluttered open and a huge, hooped earring and long, blonde hair, settled against my tunic sleeve. As I carried her gently to the waiting ambulance trolley I looked into her eyes and said: 'I've got you.'

She looked back at me, through deep, black pupils set against blue eyes. I realise this sounds dramatic, but I promise I relate only to what happened. There was a connection...both a physical one and a meeting of souls. Then, the girl's eyes fluttered again and she became lighter in my arms. I knew she had died. I literally felt the life leave her body.

I placed her body on the trolley and it was wheeled off to the waiting ambulance with Raya doing everything she could to turn the situation around. There was to be no turning around.

The rest of the incident is something of a blur, but we extricated the driver and he was transported to hospital, swearing and spitting. It was reckoned he had entered the bend at a high speed, lost control of the car, and rolled it. The police accident investigation team would establish precisely what happened, having closed the road due to it being a fatal event.

In 1999 I was a fairly green firefighter, despite achieving promotion pretty rapidly. Although not my first fatal incident, this event upset me deeply. I was the father of three daughters and a son so I felt the unnecessary death of a young person heavily. The connection established in life and death felt elemental and real.

The day that I realised something was definitely amiss was a few weeks after the event. I was off duty, it was late at night, and my body and mind were numbed by strong alcohol. I lay in my bed, knocked out by the alcohol. However, in the adjoining bedroom slept my five-year-old daughter but my drinking was never a problem (despite that, I realise criticism of my parenthood is invited here). Sometime through the night, I heard my bedroom door open and a weight place itself on the end of my bed. My daughter often crawled into my bed during the night, so I pulled back the duvet and said 'In you get, Charly.'

Nothing.

I opened my eyes and looked through the gloom at the form sitting on my bed. It wasn't Charly. The huge, hooped earrings confirmed the identity of my visitor. She looked at me with her hands in her lap, then rose and left through the open door.

How did I feel about this, you may ask? The only word I can find is 'comforted.'

Let's fast forward 23 years. I'm in my weekly meeting with my psychotherapist and tell him the story above. I feel somewhat embarrassed to say that I failed to get through the telling of it without deep upset and tears. I was told that my experience was very common in the recent aftermath of trauma.

'What if I told you I saw her last week?' I asked.

We discussed this and settled that I had failed to let the girl go. EMDR, an end to the connection, and a period of mourning were suggested.

'I don't think I'm ready for that. She feels safe here with me,' I said.

I suppose this, right here, the writing of this blog is my attempt at letting her go. Cod psychotherapy carried out by a mental defective.

But...I'm still not sure I'm ready for this. She still feels safe here with me.

Creatures of My Dreams Raise Up and Dance With Me

Before we begin the self-directed therapy phase of this plan, I thought I might detail my descent into Randle P. McMurphy territory for posterity. McMurphy was, of course, Jack Nicholson's character in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Now, I might be mad, but I'm not so bat-shit insane to think I might lay claim to anything approaching Jack Nicholson's charismatic display of lunacy in the brilliant 1975 film. But a Jack Nicholson reference is more palatable than the more accurate Norman Bates one.

I retired from the London Fire Brigade in May 2019. I had a pretty successful career, if we discount one rather large hiccup, and loved that job like Katie Price loves...horses (I know what you thought I would say there, but I no longer feel empowered to criticise others, having joined the ranks of cock-loving nutbar lunatics like Price).

I was convinced that a new page was turned. The book was closed on my previous career, and nothing I had experienced had any lasting impact on me, either psychologically or emotionally. In fact, I was regarded as so immune from impact, a colleague once said:

'You're a fucking psychopath, Dave. We're on our way back from the scene of utter devastation, and you want to stop the fire engine to buy cakes.'

Indeed, I wore that immunity like a bombproof coat for around eight months after retirement. Then I became aware that despite continuing hyper-vigilance, I was no longer going to bed knowing that I might be crashed out at any moment by bright lights and wailing alarms to some life-changing emergency. I suppose the ever-present fight or flight reflex calmed down, knowing the worst thing that might happen locally was the theft of a bicycle.

But fear not, Dear Reader, if you've attended multiple disasters over several years and decided you're too tough and hard to need any counselling, those disasters have the habit of returning to you at night. Yep, those dreams, reuniting me with the victims of Grenfell Tower, the Croydon Tram Crash, the Paddington Rail Crash, the Maryhill explosion, and a multitude of encounters that never made the press, became a nightly occurrence. My sleeping pattern was devastated, which led me to exhaustion and sleeping during the day. Whoever prefixed the term 'mare' with 'night' had clearly never really experienced the reliving of trauma because those dreams occurred during the day too.

Dreams are one thing. We all have them, and I hear you telling me to fuck right off and grow up. Flashbacks, however, are another. Usually occurring during quiet moments, but not considerate enough to remain absent while driving, being transported back 400 miles and any number of years is unsettling, let me tell you.

I remember being out with my wife in late 2019. We were joining some colleagues from Glasgow University for a few drinks, and I decided we would stay in an inexpensive hotel in the town. I arrived before my (much) better half, and as I rounded a corner and looked up at the multiple-floored, concrete building that was our hotel, I became suddenly cold and began to swoon (I know, I know...grow the fuck up). The last time I had been at this place was in May 2004 when I was choppered by RAF Puma from London to Glasgow as part of a nine-man team to recover casualties and victims from the Stockline Plastics factory explosion. This hotel had been our base for the duration of our stay. Even though most of our time was spent on the rubble pile amidst the death and destruction, we repaired here to shower and try to sleep. I never thought I'd see the place again. On my unplanned return in 2019, I checked in and was directed to a room that may as well have been the one I stayed in 15 years previous. I was right back there, with brick dust in my nostrils, the sobbing of heartbroken relatives in my ears, and blood on my hands.

Repeatedly being in the past, permanently exhausted and living among ghosts leads to confusion and paranoia. It's a slippery slope of denial. I believed I was tough and resilient, and the creators of my problems were the people around me. Showering and shaving became an effort. I'd always fancied growing a beard, but there's a massive difference between the impressively facially coiffured Brian Blessed and some apparently homeless, stinky guy wandering around in nothing but a grubby pair of Y-Fronts waving a fucking big knife about. Yes, that happened, and yes, the local constabulary were almost called. A discussion a few months later went something like this:

'I was going to call the police, but I was fearful of your reaction. I didn't want you fighting with the police.'

My reply: 'I think I probably would have thanked you.'

I suppose the lowest point arrived when the one thing that gave me purpose, my master's degree dissertation, was complete. A Travelodge in Inverness, a massive handful of Codeine, a bottle of Port and some soothing music was planned to see me off to sleep. Forever. 

I wanted my suicide to have as little impact as possible on anyone else, and I knew that my permanent absence would bring an end to the pain I caused others. I still have the written note on my phone that details my thought confirmation. 

However, I'm clearly not dead. So what happened? 

Well, a few things, really. A few words that provided a glimmer of hope from someone I love. Another person I love needing support in the face of illness. 13 months of Trauma-focused CBT. Oh yeah...and fucking loads of powerful meds. Occasional blips have resulted in the manipulation of medication, always resulting in an increase. I suppose that deciding that I might bare-handedly despatch two party hosts at 03:00 in Edinburgh encourages a greater degree of pharmaceutical control. I guess the next level is the padded cell and straitjacket.

So here we are in 2022. I'm still breathing but now resemble Randle P. McMurphy after his lobotomy. I spend vast amounts of time asleep, have wholly given up alcohol, and rarely leave the house. But things are much better than they were 12 months ago. And I'm alive. Kinda.

One Flew Over...

Here we are again. I did tell you 'maybe.' Last time we were here was in October when I told a tale of a flashback occurring in a centre of sporting endeavour while dressed like a dick.

What's happened since? I'll tell you what's happened since...we've entered a new year. New Year, New Me, right? Maybe. 

2022 sees the completion of my 13-month long period of Trauma-Focused CBT. Emerging from that is accompanied by some definite improvements. But the therapy hasn't been the fix-all intervention I hoped for. I shan't detail why because I'm not entirely sure whether it was the approach taken by the psychologist, my occasional diversionary tactics, a surfeit of problems too significant to fix in 13 months, or a mixture of some or all of the above. But I'm here now on my own...except for my ever-present friends, Sally Sertraline, Kerry Quetiapine and Pedro Propranolol.

But I'm not on my own, am I? I've got my blog/journal that might serve as the recipient of the multitude of memories stored in my pre-frontal cortex that tend to tumble out like tangled jumpers from an overstuffed wardrobe. Maybe this will help rearrange them tidily, fold them up, put them in my hippocampus, and slam the fucking door shut. This, my friends, is cod psychotherapy about to be performed by a mental defective. Stay tuned for fun and games.

The plan, then...it's to relive the incidents that cause intrusion through the written form without reference to persons living or dead. The fact that no one reads this blog anymore will ensure freedom from sensationalism. Or I could enable the settings so that only I can see the blog. While that will surely maintain security, I really will be talking to myself. Again. I'm not sure how I feel about such confirmation of insanity. We'll see.

OK...in the next instalment of the Cockney version of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' we're going back to 1999.

I am a Breathing Time Machine

I'm in the gym in East Kilbride. My journey from a Fire Brigade Station Officer in south London to a dedicated gym-goer near Glasgow is a story in itself; one of retirement, relocation and a spiralled journey into darkness. Let's see how we get on with this return to blogging, or 'journaling' as it's more commonly referred to in the therapy sphere, and maybe we'll shine a light into that darkness. Maybe.

So, anyway, I'm in the gym in East Kilbride; I'm kitted out in the type of clobber you might expect a dedicated gym-goer to be clad in. Should I admit to wearing a fucking baseball cap indoors...in a temperature-controlled gym? I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of honesty yet. Maybe we'll get there. Maybe.

I've just completed the third set of five squats with an Olympic bar totalling 100kg. My mind, very unusually, is quiet. The normal chaos that whirls around my brain is absent. This is one of the reasons I've become a swollen, protein shake chugging gym-goer rather than a skeletal ultra-marathon runner; the gym and hard, explosive, physical exercise quietens the chaos in my head in a way that running never did. An 18-month engagement with sciatica that left me broken and hobbling encouraged a departure from the sport of putting one foot in front of the other quickly, right enough. But I was never any good at it anyway. But weight training? I can dig that. It's generally done indoors, in the warm, with barely clad women training alongside you. So I ask, what's not to like?

Then the oh so familiar smell reaches my nostrils. The one you get following a fire; the one that I smelled every day at work for over 27 years. The one that told so many stories of devastation, destruction, pain and loss. On this occasion, the odour emanates from a recently extinguished bin fire outside. But a quiet, imaginatively fertile mind, and a familiar, very evocative smell are like welcoming hosts to an event of four years previous and some four hundred miles away. A flashback, some people call this event.

I'm not in a gym in East Kilbride clad in gym gear and maybe (maybe) a baseball cap. I'm in a tower block in west London clad in the orange of an Urban Search and Rescue operative and Drager full-face respirator. The smell of fire is in my nostrils despite the facial protection. My colleague and I are performing a task that we just need to get done. It's not a pleasant task. And I suppose this is the bit where blogging (journaling) about this type of thing becomes difficult. I was never asked to sign a contract confirming the experiences of individuals in death remain between myself and that person (and possibly the coroner) but I metaphorically signed one nonetheless. So excuse my reticence to detail. But my colleague is about to commit himself to a strategy I believe is unnecessary: if we take a little bit longer, and expose ourselves to this unpleasantness for a few minutes more, we can get the task done gently and with dignity. So through the muffled confines of a Drager facemask, in a building that's creaking and groaning loudly as if remaining upright is a huge effort, I shout 'NO!' very loudly.

But, of course, I'm not in a tower block in west London. I'm in the gym in East Kilbride, and the experience of a middle-aged gym-goer, lost in himself, staring into the middle distance, then shouting 'NO!' in the echo reverberating walls of a gym, is a disconcerting event for other gym-goers.

I return to myself. I realise what has happened. Others are looking at me with concern or amusement. I'm breathing heavily and shaking slightly but mostly I'm fucking embarrassed. I tell myself that this will all be forgotten in a few minutes and go back to the Olympic bar. But the side glances and sniggers tell me otherwise. This will be the chat around the water cooler; the mad bloke in the gym; the Cockney guy that talks to himself.

I make a mental note to record this event on my weekly 'Invasive Thoughts Diary' that I have to send to my therapist in advance of our weekly meeting by Zoom. The meetings where I've had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder explained to me. The meetings where the condition all makes so much sense but requires a multitude of prescription medications to manage it.

If I wear a different coloured baseball cap (maybe) and some different clobber at my next gym visit, maybe I won't be recognised as 'the mad bloke down the gym.'

Maybe.

Raising Lazarus at the River Ayr Way

After a Gobi Desert type dry spell in the ultra marathon world; and after a disappointing DNF in the West Highland Way, I thought I'd end this season with a bit of a gimme at the River Ayr Way.

Now let's get this right, RAW is still 40 miles, and anyone equating water only flowing downhill with a coasting from start to finish is in for a bit of a kick in the bollocks, but I've done this race four or five times before (I'm sorry, I can't be precise because I don't keep a log of races I've run. I tried keeping a training diary once but the plethora of blank pages months after its beginning preyed upon my mind like Marley's ghost, so I threw it out), always with minimal training, and always achieved a finish (except the time I couldn't be arsed so went to the pub after 10 miles).

My training for this year's effort included three of four gym sessions a week with a blast on the treadmill and one 13 mile off-roader about a month ago. The gallus, over-confident side of my brain told me the 70 miles of WHW in June was enough to get me the 40 miles from Glenbuck to Ayr; its opposing sensible, cautious side did it's usual and remained as mute as a church mouse. Let's just say I'm gonna give the latter mentioned hemisphere a good slap and tell it to speak up in future.

Anyway, the day of the race arrives and Mrs Mac and I are in the little car park in Glenbuck surrounded by 80 or so others. There's a bit of an air of excitement, this being the 10th anniversary race, and folk are chatting happily. I say hi to a couple of runners I know but the vast majority are strangers- testament to the fact that ultra marathon running in Scotland has widened its appeal...or that's just a really pompous, self important belief simply because nearly 80 people have never encountered an ageing tattooed, Londoner on the start line of a race.

Somewhere in the glove box of the car is my race plan that I scribbled down on a used envelope the night before. I reckon I can comfortably average 10 minute miles for 10 miles, then each 10 mile section add a minute which will get me home for a sub 8 hour PB. Piece of piss.

The race starts and my pacing is perfect. I'm happily tripping along, listening to my music, in my Hokas.

Yes, you read that right....in my Hokas.

Having launched an online campaign a few years ago against the bumper car-like monstrosities, and anyone that wore them, I'd gone and bought a pair in the hope they might be kind to the calf that I tore in April. I wore them briefly in the West Highland Way, coupled with a pair of gaiters, and they gave me blisters on my insteps. I blamed the gaiters.

Seven miles into this race, sans gaiters, the familiar soreness at my insteps indicate the gaiters are not the villain of this piece. It's those ridiculously clumpy, stupid looking breeze-block-cum-trainers. The soreness becomes full on blisters and the blisters burst and weep serum into my socks.

Thankfully Mrs Mac is waiting dutifully for me at the shoogly bridge, just past checkpoint one, so I dump the Frankenstein's monster footwear and don my reliable Inov-8s.

Off again enjoying the extra minute per mile I've allowed myself, I'm cruising along for a few miles when 'PING', my lower back siezes and sends signals of pain to my brain, which wakes up the sensible, cautious side, which then instructs: 'STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING!'

'FUCK OFF!' I reply, and keep going, but my stride is shortened to such an effect that those 11 minute miles are nothing but an unachievable aspiration and that scribbled race plan is catapulted spectacularly out of sight.

Sorn is a lovely little village about 17 miles into the route. The river runs through it, ducks quack and waddle about and there's a beautiful stone bridge where loving couples or families might picnic in the sun. On Saturday, however a dark cloud entered the village, limping along, swearing and cursing and demanding Ibuprofen (yes, I know the dangers of consuming NSAIDs during exercise but they're outweighed by the slagging one might get for another DNF).

Mrs Mac is there with a folding chair set up and feeds me a beef roll and coffee.

'Brufen' is all I can say.

I neck the little, red capsules of relief and set off walking, waiting for them to take effect. I realise that if they fail to improve matters, a DNF might be on the cards, as might a move to Antarctica where I can avoid any claims of blouse ownership and wuss-boy status.

Sometime later the pain subsides and I'm running again. Not exactly Lazarus from the dead, but to me a remarkable turnaround. The rest of the race is really just a hang on for the finish affair, but just to make things a little more difficult, a poorly parked car blocking a gate, a misinterpreted instruction, and an idiotic optimism that the wrong way will metamorphosise into the right way added an extra three miles to my travel.

To make the effort worthwhile, meeting Mrs Mac at Tarholm bridge, where eight years ago a fledgling romance was embarked upon as the River Ayr tumbled beneath our feet, sealed the deal. An encounter with old friends, Tim and Muriel Downie, and Tim's company over those last few miles reminded me of the good people you meet along the way. And my friend and colleague from London, Aldo Diana waiting for me at the finish secured the realisation that, actually it's all worth it.

But some training wouldn't go amiss.

So I got the gimme that so nearly wasn't such a gimme.  I also realised that my days of turning up to races having done minimal, if any,  training are probably over. This, I think, is due to two possibilities, or maybe both playing in tandem. The first is that I've probably drained the well of liberty taking as far as expecting my body to do extreme things without adequate preparation is concerned. The other is that in four months I will be 50 and maybe the  relentless march of time is having a negative effect. Or maybe both are giving me a two handed beat down in these increasingly grey and sparse years. Whatever it is I'll need to be more considerate in the future.

But finally I have to say that Tarholm Bridge, and the vision upon it, were as magical eight years on as they were in 2008.

Laters.

The Four Goblet Challenge

Well, it's true that we haven't been here for some time, folks. I suppose the creative activity of the written blog has been taken over by the soundbite simplicity of the micro-blog. Facebook, with its meandering posts, photo albums and quizzes- the other day, after allowing a Facebook app access to all my photographs, I discovered that the Hollywood actor I most resemble is Charlie Sheen (WINNING!). After smugly posting a self indulgent, soft focus picture of myself taken seven years ago alongside one of Charlie before he really smashed the granny out of cocaine and prostitutes, I discovered that a few of my mates were similarly compared to Charlie. Even my Jamaican pal, Radcliffe, my auntie Joan and my dog, Mason.

Anyway, in this rapidly changing landscape of the blog, Facebook was quickly relegated to second division by its limited-symbol, express-yourself-succinctly, bastard child Twitter. And just as I started to get the hang of that particular medium, and the reasons why perfectly sane individuals would post fuck all except a string of loosely associated words all preceded by a hashtag, along comes Snapchat. If you've yet to encounter this most modern phenomenon of the blog world, allow me to explain: it quite simply allows you to send a photograph from your mobile phone to a selected recipient, which is then viewable by that recipient for up to ten seconds before it disappears from existence like a politician's promise.

So, if you're following my rambling logic here, my blog has been out of action because the once creative art of sitting in front of a PC and developing a considered, word processed account of an important life event, then posting it to Blogger or Wordpress, has been rendered redundant by the ability to send a soon-to-expire picture of your cock to your burd.

But why this revival of Subversive Running? I hear you ask. 

Well, going back to its beginnings, the reason for the birth of Subversive Running was to diarise my 2006 journey toward the West Highland Way Race- a 35 hour, 95 mile expedition on foot from Milngavie to Fort William. It was also meant to be a foil to the plethora of boring, rather-gently-poach- my-testicles-in-simmering-vinegar-than-read -your- time-and-splits-obsessed-bollocks. In fact, my blog very quickly became nothing more than a rambling record of alcohol consumption, fighting with police dogs and of being verbally abused by horse riders on Epsom Downs, with zip about running. But its revival is to enable a return to its raison d'être....yes, that's right, I'm running the West Highland Way Race again.

I had a quick scan back to the blog report I wrote following my failed attempt of the race in 2013 and it's a sorry tale of pain, exhaustion and the violent expulsion of fecal matter in a field in Dumgoyne. Indeed, following that race I went on record to swear I would never run it again. 

If you care to look back at that report, entitled 'Bodily Movements in the West Highland Way Race,' and you access the comments section, some of those that contributed their thoughts said things like: 'Yeah, yeah..whatever. See you in 2015.'

Well, they were a year too early but they were right. I'm back.

I've tried to keep away from public statements of my intention to race, preferring to use Facebook to record pictures of baked goods and fanciful ideas that I have a passing resemblance to Charlie Sheen...viewed through the eyes of a partially sighted drunken geezer in a darkened room fifteen miles away. 

That policy came really good in April when I tore my left calf while running up a hill in a weight vest. It appeared then that the race was off and June would see me supporting my big, numb-skulled pal Martin Antoninus Horatio Hooper instead- and assisting him to acquire his fourth finisher's goblet so that he could Lord it all over me for at least the next twelve months.

But the God of calf repair smiled on me and said 'Son, if you're a good lad and you sit on your arse for five weeks I'll place you on the start line alongside your mate, Hooper.' And so he did.

So, I've managed a clutch of 20+ mile runs with two 70 mile weeks since early May and I've done everything I can to ensure as good a chance I can of a finish. But, Dear Reader, this is about more than just a finish. This is the Four Goblet Challenge.

Both Hooper and I have three finisher's goblets sitting on our shelves at home (well, I have two and a half. One of mine was involved in a red-wine-meets-the-sound-of-breaking-crystal event a couple of years ago) and this is the quest for goblet number four.

Before I go off to stretch my hamstrings, bake some bread and do a quiz that tells me I resemble Brad Pitt (or maybe that should be Brad Pitt's arse) I'll leave you with a discussion Hooper and I had while running together last week:

'Here, Mart, you see if we're running this year's race and we've battled valiantly over Conic Hill, scrambled along Loch Lomond and suffered over Rannoch Moor?'

'Yeah, what about it?'

'And then we've stomped together up the Devil's Staircase, seen the sun rise on the Lairig Mhor and then hit the road into Fort Wiliam?'

'Yeah,' replies Hooper, warming to the romantic notion of shared pain and suffering and impending brotherly glory.

'Well, in instances such as that I've seen athletes join hands over the final yards and finish together in a beautiful, sporting display of togetherness.'

'Lovely idea, Dave, I can picture it now,' says Hooper, dreamily.

'Well, the thing is, I can sprint faster than you so you can fuck right off if you think that's happening.'

Laters.

Drinking and Driving is So Much Fun

If you're a user of social networking sites like Facebook you would have seen it today.

Every single person who acknowledges being brought into the world through a woman's birth canal wishing their mother, aunt, gran, wife, neighbour and, in one case I saw, some Z-list celebrity, a happy Mothering Sunday.

I avoid such frippery, preferring to look on from afar with snooty, snobbish disdain. Mainly because much of it is just stomach-churning, chintzy nonsense.

But also because my old ma died 21 years ago.

I used to get a bit upset at this time of year because my mum, Val checked out shortly after Mother's Day 1994. But they say time's a healer and it's true that the feelings of loss and sadness fade as the years pass. She's never forgotten, of course but memories of seaside trips to Southend and fishing with a net for sticklebacks in Keston ponds kinda replace the reminiscence of that night 21 years ago.

I'd been to see my mum during the day. It was an 18 mile trip from my house in Surrey to my parents' gaff in Camberwell made easy by journeying on my motorbike. When I walked into the sitting room my brother, John followed in behind me.

Mum was lying on the sofa, her 54 year old body ravaged by chemotherapy and looking like she'd been the victim of a concentration camp. She never carried too much weight anyway...I remember as kids we'd sit down to a meal on Sunday and she'd have a bowl of Brussels sprouts because there wasn't enough to go round.

'Hello, David,' she said (I was always called by my birth name rather than the more common, Dave).

She looked at my brother John and said, 'Who's your friend? Tell him to sit down and go and make him a cup of tea.'

We knew then that things weren't looking good but the quacks reckoned we had another couple of months with her.

We spent a nice day together watching the telly and chatting, my other siblings popping in through the afternoon. When I left I made mum promise me that she'd drink this highly calorific meal replacement shake that she'd been prescribed.

'David,' she said. 'I promise that if I can take it I will.'

I left, jumped on my motorbike and fucked off home. No kiss for mum, no 'I love you', no nothing. We'd been raised to not indulge in such endearing behaviour...I can't recall ever being kissed by my dad in 48 years.

I got home and slammed into a bottle of Scotch. Mum hadn't even recognised my brother, there was no way she was gonna be here in a couple of months. As I sat in my chair pouring drink after drink I promised myself that next time I saw my mum I would kiss her and tell her I love her.

It was 02:30 when the landline next to my bed rang. I picked the receiver up and groggily croaked, 'Hello?'

'David, it's Dad,' came the reply. 'I think your mum's dead. She's lying next to me not moving. I don't know what to do.'

Immediately everything came into focus.

'Dad, what's her temperature like? Have you checked for a pulse?'

'She's cold, son. I don't know how to check her pulse...' then he started sobbing.

'I'm on my way, Dad,' I said and jumped out of bed.

I made my way toward the pile of clothes on the dressing table and stumbled, almost falling over. 'Shit!' I thought. 'That bottle of whisky has properly fucked me up.'

Never mind, it was 02:30 and adrenalin was driving me on. Clothes on, boots on, jacket and crash helmet on and I'm roaring through the streets on my motorbike heading into town.

I got as far as Clapham before a police car pulled up alongside me at the traffic lights that control the junction into Brixton.

I stared ahead, not looking at the car; a sure sign that the motorist in question is panicking. In my peripheral vision I saw the police car's passenger window open.

'Oi,' I heard. 'Look at me.'

I turned my head to see two uniformed coppers in their motor. The one in the passenger seat was young with an Elvis type quiff.

'Pull up the other side of these lights, son,' ordered Elvis.

I did as instructed and waited for the inevitable. There was absolutely no chance of passing a breath test and any romantic notion of outrunning the Old Bill in a haze of burning rubber and a flipped middle finger was dashed by my motorbike being registered to Yours Truly.

Elvis made his way toward me and instructed: 'Take your helmet off.'

I did as ordered and then decided to throw myself at the feet of human kindness and understanding.

'Listen, officer,' I said. 'My mum's just died and I need to get to her house. Do me a favour and let me go.'

I remember the following exchange like it was spoken yesterday.

'You're joking?'

'No, I'm not.'

'How far have you come and where are you going?'

'I left Ashtead about 30 minutes ago and I'm going to Camberwell.'

'Right, if you've got this far in your state I think you'll make it. Tuck in behind us and we'll take you there.'

Ten minutes later I was outside my mum's house shaking Elvis's hand.

'Next time you'll get nicked,' he said as he climbed back into the police car.

I climbed the steps to the first floor landing of the block of flats where my parents lived. I walked along the landing and knocked the door.

My old man answered and just said: 'She's upstairs.'

My youngest brother who still lived at home was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea. As I made my way up the stairs I looked at him and saw his eyes red and raw.

For some ridiculous reason that I'm fucked if I understand now, I knocked on my mum's bedroom door.

Silence.

I walked in.

Mum was lying there with her mouth agape. She was nothing more than a husk.

I knew she was dead.

'Mum,' I said. not expecting a response, although I've always been an unwavering optimist.

'Mum!'

Nothing.

I left the room and closed the door.

Too fucking late to tell her I loved her.

Too fucking late to kiss her.

If you take one thing from this story let it be that you indulge in endearing behaviour...




Footnote:


I saw my mum two years later.


I'll explain......

In Answer to Your Question, Murdo....

It seems planning, buying and cooking my next meal has taken precedent over everything else in my life, recently. Feeding myself seems to have become something of an obsession and other stuff is suffering as a result.

Take training, for instance; I can't face any of that fasted cardio nonsense in the morning. I've got to load up on breakfast before I consider ever raising my heart rate. Then the gap between breakfast going down and lunch prep beginning leaves little time for the gym, regardless of the attraction of the mid-morning MILFs that proliferate David Lloyd Epsom at that time of the day. The afternoon is probably the time most likely to see me pull on a pair of trainers but a post lunch snooze always seems more appealing than a beasting on the treadmill.

I realise all of this kinda suggests I don't work but nothing could be further from the truth. Regular readers of this blog will know my paid employment is as a fire-fighter in the sunny streets of Battersea, South London. But that's a feast or famine type of job (interesting description given my reference to food....maybe it is an obsession). Being a fire-fighter involves four days of blue, flashing lights; hot, red flames and black, choking smoke followed by four days of stand down that ought to result in the perfect time for exercise. 

Alas not.

In an attempt to kick start my training I decided to buy a road bike. I imagined myself streaking along the roads of Surrey, heading for the nearby zig-zag route up Box Hill that inspired so many two-wheeled lunatics during the Olympics. I acquired said bike but in actual fact it now sits in my lounge performing the role of an ineffective clothes horse.

'Why is this?' I hear you ask.

'Because you're a lazy, food-gobbling, shiny arsed twat!' I hear you reply.

Well, yeah...partly that, but also because I'm fucking terrified every time I go on the road and bastard lorries thunder past me. Also, because you get numpty fucking drivers with 50% of their attention fixed to the text message they're sending as they bear down on a totally inept cyclist wobbling along the road like a baby giraffe taking its first steps.

There's a reason for my road-bound terror but I'm not sure the statute of limitation on relating operational incidents I've attended involving dead cyclists would yet allow me. Not that you need to hear this stuff anyway.

But that statute of limitation....I'm not sure it applies to incidents involving animals, does it? I'll let you be the judge of that.

So I received a Facebook message from Murdo The Magnificent today asking me what the Fire Service's current approach to incidents involving cats in trees was (his cat had obviously taken refuge from Murdo's terrible singing in a high, leafy canopy).

I sent what I believed to be a detailed reply and mentioned my personal belief in the appropriateness of the emergency service's deployment to acts of animal welfare.

Murdo's cat decided that the lure of Kit-e-Kat was enough to tolerate his master's strangled rendition of 'Flower of Scotland' and lured him from the branches of his leafy retreat, so my advice was not required, but it got me thinking of the Bronze Medal for Animal Life Saving that I was awarded by the RSPCA some years ago.

You might think that an RSPCA Bronze Medal for Animal Life Saving is pretty inconsequential, right? I'll admit that it doesn't exactly sit as proudly on the chest alongside campaign gongs and medals for gallantry that one might see at a Remembrance Day service, but it once got me out of the shit when I flashed it to an RSPCA officer after being accused of kicking my neighbour's dog.

Anyway, back to my awarding of this medal: We were called to a house fire in Battersea and arrived to discover a two up-two down terraced house with flame and smoke punching out of the windows on the ground floor. At the time I was a foot soldier in the fire brigade and as such received instruction that it was believed a resident was in the property. My task was to enter the burning house with a colleague and a charged hose and search for the individual concerned.

After starting my breathing apparatus set and checking my mucker was ready to go we entered the house and began our search. I would like to say that we charged in and rapidly cleared each room like you might imagine a black clad SAS seek and destroy team might as they hunt some soon-to-be-extinct terrorist cell. But the fact is that a Victorian house affected by fire becomes something of a death trap, with holes in the wooden floor and stairs that might collapse at any moment, so we move through the house without the luxury of vision and with our weight on our back foot, sweeping and stamping with our front foot as we proceed.

After discovering and extinguishing the fire in the downstairs lounge we completed our search of the house, sweeping and stamping every room, hall and landing, content that no human resident was present. You should appreciate that at this time not only was the house still full of black smoke, it was also heavily affected by steam resulting from our successful extinction of the blaze. All of this results in zero visibility....hold that thought.

Upon our exit of the property a neighbour is busy telling the officer in charge that the resident of the house is at the pub but her two dogs and two cats are definitely inside the building.

'Lads, get back in there...there's four animals need rescuing,' instructs our governor. So we do as instructed and head back into the smoky darkness looking for a couple of pooches and a pair of cats. 

It doesn't take long before we discover two small dogs and a wee kitty hiding in a corner of the kitchen. We sweep them up in our arms and rush outside with them. They're placed in the footwell of an ambulance and oxygen is administered by the paramedics present. Luckily, because they're low to the ground, the animals made the most of the diminishing oxygen in the property and their natural instinct to move away from fire kept them safe. But, fuck me, we searched high and low for that final cat. In the dark and smoke we swept and stamped that whole fucking house to no avail.

When we came out we agreed that Tonto the tabby had probably escaped through a window so we packed up and went back to the fire station for a cup of tea. Of course, work still needed doing at the property, but we handed that over to a relieving crew from Tooting fire station. We'd done the heroic stuff, that was later recognised by the RSPCA, and happily left the shitty clearing up to Tooting.

Next day my governor received a phone call. 

It went something like this:

'Hello ****, this is ******* from Tooting. Just to let you know that, last night, after the smoke cleared at that house, we found Tonto the tabby.'

'Ah, that's great. Really glad he's OK...is the householder happy?' replied my Guv.

'Not really, ****, we found Tonto on the upper floor where he'd been stamped flat into the carpet. We peeled him off and could have posted him in a large envelope.'

So this statute of limitation I mentioned.....

Laters (from a holder of the RSPCA Bronze Medal for Animal Life Saving)

A Subversive View on Scottish Independence

With less than a week to go before we discover whether a union that, at times has been slightly strained, but one which usually sees us rubbing along together OK, will be broken up for ever more.

No I'm not talking about marriage number three.....I keep asking Mrs Mac to tie the knot but she tells me she's got some shopping to do or has to paint her toe nails or something....I'm talking about the rather longer lasting union of the United Kingdom.

Yep, in six days time the Scots go to the polls to decide on the little matter of independence and I have quite firm ideas on this.

I'm definitely and solidly in the No camp.

Why? You might ask.

Well, I've thought long and hard about this but I'm not sure I want to get into a rambling piece about the unity of the working class and how Alex Salmond's plans for unbelievably low corporation tax will benefit large companies but won't ever be passed on to the working man and woman. I think I'd rather consider my affection for a country and a peoples that pretty much dictate where I spend my money, where I go on holiday and what I do while making untold journeys on Virgin Train's wonderful Pendolinos. But I will tell you of my attempt to engage with the debate and put how I attempted to put my opinion on independence to the test.

So I decided the only way to do this would be to come up to this strange land where men wear skirts and women have a hierarchical system based upon the number of their remaining teeth, and get amongst it. I decided that I ought to immerse myself in the debate, in the desire for yes or no, in the singing of Flower of Scotland, in the bagpipes. And in the longer opening hours and relaxed attitude to falling over at the bar. I was also travelling up to see Mrs Mac (who was on a week long course at Stirling University) to get another knock-back when proposing the change of her surname but that's not as poetic and doesn't translate as well into a suggestion that I'm actively involved in the referendum.

Long suffering readers of this blog will know that I'm often in Scotland and it's a place I love. I love it for its scenery, its history, its culture and its quirkiness. I mean, where else in the world can you go for a spot of lunch, order a steak pie and chips (for some reason I'm still yet to discover it's called a 'supper' regardless of the time of day it's consumed) to be asked 'would you like your pie fried or just blasted in the microwave?'

Where else in the world can you go out for dinner, pay the bill with a number of bank notes to be asked 'do you want your change?' Now, I consider myself quite a generous fellow and generally tip waiters and waitresses regardless of the level of customer service but to assume I don't want my change because I'm gonna give it to you anyway is a little rich (excuse the pun). By the way, if you are a waiter/waitress and happen to be reading this, shit customer service will get you a tip. But good customer service and some direction to the higher percentage ABV wines on the list will get you a ridiculously generous tip from someone who doesn't actually earn a great deal.....particularly if Mrs Mac is paying. As she was when this particular incident occurred on Thursday night.

But this is supposed to be a treatise on Scottish independence, not just a few recent observations from eating establishments. So allow me to continue.

So I boarded the train at Euston station for my journey north to engage with the independence debate. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Euston station is a pretty soulless place. It's pretty bland and utilitarian with scant concern for appearing attractive. Travellers tend to stand around on the concourse with their necks craned and heads looking up at the departures board waiting for notification of which platform their train's departing from which acts as a trigger for them to unceremoniously rush to their train in the hope of bagging a table seat.

Once on the train after unceremoniously rushing for it in the hope of bagging a table seat...and failing, I sat watching the minutes tick by to get us past midday. You see I have this rule that alcohol consumption should only ever begin after 20:00. Unless I'm on a plane or train in which case there's a generous time reduction to midday.

At precisely 12:00:01 I cracked open the small bottle of cider I had in my rucksack and began celebrating my journey to Scotland and my engagement and involvement in the Scottish independence referendum. The plan was to pay the extortionate sum of £8.00 for access to the onboard WiFi and research all there was into independence arriving in Glasgow an informed and enlightened man. I also planned to make use of the facilities in the bog to wash, shave and clean my teeth as none of those things had yet taken place due to an overly relaxed approach to journey preparation.

Probably unsurprisingly my plan gradually dissolved as the celebrations gathered apace and the onboard bar got a hammering. My iPad was used for listening to music and looking at Facebook rather than my important research into the potential fracturing of the United Kingdom and my planned visit to the loo to conduct my ablutions was forgotten in a wave of 13.5% red wine.

Having arrived at Glasgow Central I skipped through the streets with my Staffordshire Bull Terrier on his lead and my rucksack on my back toward Queen Street station. At least in my mind's eye I was skipping. To the skirt wearing, partly toothed locals who invariably wore pin badges proclaiming 'YES' or 'NAW' skipped probably translated better as 'lurched ungainly'.

A quick pint in the boozer before boarding the train to Bridge of Allan gave me time to log my iPad onto the free WiFi in an attempt to get a feel for which way Scotland was leaning in the forthcoming referendum. From the online edition of the Daily Record I discovered that Tatiana Williams, a 'voluptuous' transgender woman had spent £60,000.00 to achieve a sixty inch bum and that some Glaswegian police officers so adore a particular sandwich shop that they're willing to transgress parking regulations to get their roll and square sausage.

As I drank my Guinness and marvelled at Tatiana's massive arse I completely missed the opportunity to use the facilities to change my appearance from slightly drunk homeless man to slightly drunk fella that's used a pub toilet to wash and shave.

The second train journey of the day was unlike the first in that there was no onboard bar and therefore no celebrations. Neither was there any WiFi so my iPad once again become a tool for music appreciation rather than a portal into the raging debate over Scottish independence.

On arrival at Bridge of Allan I phoned Mrs Mac who informed me that I was to wait at the station where she would pick me up in 20 minutes. Great, I thought....time to wash and shave. So I dragged my washing bag from my rucksack, placed my iPad on a bin and used its front facing camera as a mirror to shave and wash my face with a few Wet Wipes.

After transforming myself from an unshaven, unclean, wine stained hobo to man on a mission to engage in the independence debate Mrs Mac arrives in her car and I throw my washing bag into my rucksack and we're off to a campsite which would be my accommodation for the next few days. The suggestion that she smuggles me and a Staffordshire Bull Terrier into her University dormitory meets with hilarious laughter and the directions to the Witches Craig campsite.

Now if you've ever been camping you'll know that a successful and comfortable experience depends upon the amount of kit you have and the time spent establishing your pitch. 

Tent erection, sleeping station preparation, table setting, cooker building all takes time. Add in a trip to the local chip shop for dinner and a journey round the supermarket for provisions and we're talking four hours.

Witches Craig campsite. Not a bad spot.

Back at the campsite Mrs Mac and I are chilling out in the warm, early evening air before her planned departure back to Stirling University. A perfect opportunity to log on to the campsite WiFi and start this research into the independence debate thinks Yours Truly.

I reach into my rucksack to retrieve my iPad. I find my washing bag and pull that out. I fish around inside feeling socks, shirts, the odd running shoe.....but no iPad. An alarm bell rings in my head. I turn my rucksack upside down and spill its contents onto the ground. No iPad. Mrs Mac looks at me and I look at her.

'Fuck,' I say. 'I left my iPad at the fuckin' train station.'

'You idiot,' replies Mrs Mac. 'C'mon, let's go and report it as being lost at the Police Station.'

'What for?' I ask. 'Someone will be at home with a free iPad looking at my internet history and my research into transgendered birds with huge arses.'

'If you want to claim on your insurance you'll at least need a Police reference number,' she says.

Despite my complete lack of confidence in the policing of the ridiculously idiotic misplacing of property and a preference for drowning my sorrows in Buckfast, I climb into Mrs Mac's car and we zoom off to the police station. The fucking things not insured anyway but her ideas usually better mine in most instances. 

En route to the police station we pass Bridge of Allan train station and as we do so my eyes widen and my mouth is agape. 

There, on the bin, four hours after leaving it, sits my iPad.

I retrieve it to a repeated chorus of 'you lucky, lucky bastard' from Mrs Mac.

And that, Dear Reader is my engagement in the independence debate and my arriving at a decision on my preference for self governance:

For leaving a £500 iPad in situ for its dozy, idiotic owner to return to retrieve it, the Scottish people can have anything they want, and they can have it with a cherry in top, without any comment from me.

Laters.