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Menelaus
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#1
Old 04-13-2015, 12:39 PM

Memoirs' of a Spartan Grunt




Introduction: the motives behind my writings

You may or may not have noticed, but I have a great passion for writing. and the best thing one can write about, is one's own life. Now, writing a memoir about my life is probably going to prove difficult at first. Like many people, I believe that I do not have anything worthwhile to write about. Atleast, that's what I thought when I first considered writing these memoirs. However, once I started looking back at my life, I quickly realized that, even though sometimes the major events tend to fade into the past. I have had many memorable events happen to me. So here I am with my ersatz quill packed chock full with my experiences, musings, travelogues, stories, my experiments with cooking, and all that I have learnt along the way, in the journey I like to call 'my life.'


Writing My Memoir: organizing the facts of my life

In this thread, we will be looking at both the past and present events of my life, as well as where I feel that my life will be heading if it continues on its present and future course. Writing my memoir promises to be an accomplishment that will give me a great sense of pride and joy, and one that I am more than glad to undergo. My first thoughts on the writing of this memoir, as stated previously, are that it may not be as easy to write as one would at first think it would be, but writing one's life story could help with the healing of the many traumatic events one may have come up against in one's life. So I am glad that I decided to write this memoir, and I hope you, the intrepid reader, will be, too.


(please remember that comments are not welcome in this thread, although, if you do feel the irresistible urge to have your say, please feel free to post thusly on my profile wall or in my chat thread/hangout Blurt TV thankies ��)









Chapter One






Quote:
"My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then."
Antony and Cleopatra Act 1, scene 5
The term 'Salad days' has probably generated as much confusion over the years as any phrase in Shakespeare's vast collection of works (except perhaps 'hoist with his own petard.') Some believe that 'salad' refers to the kind of meal one was once, in less lavish (or more diet-conscious) days, forced to subsist on. Others think of their 'salad days' as times of youthful innocence and indulgence, of brightly colored, freshly grown adventures. Personally, I am one of the latter, more nostalgic, readers of the bard's works. Thus I have coined the title of my first chapter;


My Green And Salad Days

.


My first memory, is of sitting on the stoop of our prefabricated home in Battersea, South London. This memory is so vivid in my mind. It was the midst of summer, it always seemed to be summer when I was young, or perhaps my frazzled mind simply associates warm summer days with everything good that's happened to me in my life. my mum was busying herself inside sorting laundry, and had put both myself and my older brother out into the yard to pasture. In this it was not unlike any other day in the third year of my life, but what sticks out the most for me is that I was sitting in a pair of freshly pressed blue shorts (they were still warm from the iron and the crease was sharp enough to leave marks on the little boney kneecaps poking out from the hem), and I had a red bucket planted firmly on the top of my two and a half year old head. My mum remembers this day for completely different reasons than I, apparently for her it was the first time I counted up to ten un-coerced. but for me, it was the memory of my favourite red bucket, well, my only red bucket, which, for some still unbeknownst reason, had become my hat for a day.

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 12:40 PM..

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#2
Old 04-13-2015, 09:54 PM

I still retain many other fond and nostalgic memories of my early childhood living in Battersea. Even some that are just as vivid as the day my favourite red bucket became my hat. Friends I used to have, pets we sometimes kept, even the odd adventure or two in Banana Park. But one particular memory stands out from the kaleidoscope of images swimming around the far flung recesses of my time addled mind. I must have been about four years of age, and, once again, I had been put out to pasture in the backyard. My best friend, Jack had 'wandered' in for a game of 'who's got the spiffiest trolley.' I rarely think back on Jack, his features are a little blurred in my mind's eye, blonde hair I think, and I don't recall if he ever spoke. The only two things that I do remember about my first ever best pal, is that his dad seemed to get smaller and smaller as the years rolled by, and the time when their prefabricated home was inadvertently burnt to the ground. That was the first time that I had seen with my own eyes the devastating toll a simple flame could reap on the life of a human being, and for years I was certain it was the cause for Jack's father's regression in stature. But I'm veering off topic (I tend to do that sometimes, so please do bare with me), and I know now that his diminishing height was only my juvenile mind's perspective of my own developmental growth. So anyway, there we were, my pal Jack and I, sitting in the yard discussing the semantics of what constitutes the perfect toy trolley, when one of the neighbourhood's older boys, 'little' James, scoots passed running at full clip, followed closely by the gnashing jaws of his own ravenous dog.


James lived in a prefab at the far end of the street, near the wild patch of grass where a friendly clan of Romany Gypsy travellers had set up their erstwhile camp. I remember they used to have a haggard old donkey (the travellers, not the Jameses). Who could often be seen wandering from garden to garden partaking in the flowery feast set out before it in the overzealous windowboxes of my unknowing neighbours' homes, while the errant beast's masters moved from door to door trading their pilfered wares. Even though he was by far the tallest kid on the block, James had osmosically earned the moniker 'Little James' because he shared the name with his father, 'Big James.' Now he was a strapping skyscraper of a fellow, and quite the opposite of Jack's crickety old dad, in which he just seemed to get bigger and bigger the more you looked up at him. They were the proud owners of two of the most humongous and ferocious German Shepard dogs I have ever seen (to date), their paws were as big as my prepubescent head and there was always a swinging slobber of doggy drool draped from the corners of their slavenous jaws. They were too wild to be allowed to live inside so the Jameses kept the long toothed maneaters locked up securely (we hoped) in a huge steel meshed pen built into the side of their prefabricated home. And, as you can imagine, the pathways were always upon always promptly cleared of any unwary pedestrians that just happened to be wandering the local streets when it was time for their daily walk.



Last edited by Menelaus; 04-14-2015 at 12:18 PM..

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#3
Old 04-14-2015, 10:59 PM

As not so 'Little' James cantered by, his rear end fully under the auspices of the larger of his two dogs' aptly named K9 teeth, Jack and I could do nought but press our podgy little faces to the slats in the unpainted picket fence and wonder with awe (though probably more likely we were frozen with fear) as to what could possibly have transpired to cause James' favourite furry friend to turn on him in such a viscous manner. By accounts I had overheard between my brother and his friends, my young mind surmised that the tale began at James' extravagant birthday party (to which my presence had been forbidden due to the fact that 'stupid little kids' would ruin everything). James had always been, what most would consider to be, a bit of a bully. a fact that was only exasperated by the ever-present threat of "I'll set my dogs on you!" It seems that on this occasion, when pressed by his peers to carry out his, always resorted to, threat, his plans to reciprocate had inadvertently backfired. Upon releasing the aforementioned hounds, after what must have been several minutes of riling the caged canines up into a frenzy, one of the feral beasts must have mistaken the boy's boisterous enthusiasm for the final reprimand that broke the camel's (or in this case, the doggy's) back.

James' relentless bulling spree most definitely came to an end that day, more due to the irate insistence of his giant dad than from the life lesson he'd learnt. And soon afterwards he had recovered from his, what some would call poetically just, ordeal with only superficial wounds (and a "trophy scar' spanning the length of one side of his back which has no doubt instigated many a hero's tale in working men's clubs throughout his adult years). Jack, however, seemed to be totally unfazed by the events which had transpired. While for me, this close up canine gnashing experience had a profound 'fear of all things dog' effect on my own psyche. Perhaps the recent immolation of all he had called 'home' was still weighing too heavily on Jack's troubled mind, or the maybe it was the prospect of his dad shrinking completely out of existence. But for me, the birthday dog attack on 'Little' James was a definitive pivotal event in the course of my life all the way up to early adolescence.


Last edited by Menelaus; 04-15-2015 at 01:02 PM..

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#4
Old 04-15-2015, 12:58 PM

The rest of my memories of those days as a young boy living in a prefabricated home in Battersea are vague and fragmented at best. They mainly consist of journeys to the Battersea Park Easter parade, rats the size of cats scurrying about in the dump across the street, and the time that James' dog ate the travelling donkey's poo. But my final, and most vivid, memory of that place is of my final days in Battersea. The days in which all of my neighbours' prefabricated homes were, one by one, hoisted up into the air, and driven away on the back of a flatbed truck. I couldn't tell you which day of the week it all started, but I do recall that it was two days before my birthday by the time it was our turn to depart. The Jameses and their caged hounds had gone the week before, and Jack's entire family vanished without so much as a 'how do you do' shortly after the fire investigator signed off their singed and windowless home as unfit for habitation sometime during the previous year.

My mum had already packed our belongings into the delivery truck, and, after a tearful farewell, they were well on their way to new horizons before the time came for the flatbed to eviscerate our previous home from the very ground itself. I had always wondered why the houses on our street looked so much different in comparison to those on other streets, and this was the day I found out why. You see, they weren't ever meant to be permanent homes when the local council representative first commissioned them, just a temporary fix until the borough's endemic housing shortage could be resolved (for the time being atleast, there are still more housing applications directed at the borough than the number of accommodations available in Wandsworth to this very day). Just as they were being taken away now, they were brought here years before, on the back of a flatbed truck. Of course, at the time, I was too young to remember, or even understand, any of this, and my little red bucket was probable still being put together on some, now defunct, factory's assembly line. But now, at my five years and three hundred and fifty one days of age, I could fully grasp the complexities of a pre-made bungalow home.

It was the second time that day we waved goodbye to a truck, the first packed chock full with all our belongings, and the second with our home strapped firmly to its back. But this time was a much more awe inspiring event. When our furniture left it was no different that the day it all arrived from the department store, even the truck bore so many similarities that, to my young eyes, it could have been the same one. But when it came time to watch our house go for a drive, now that is probably one of the most unique memories that I have stored up in my age addled mind. I remember that the truck had a crane (always a good pull for a juvenile crowd) and that a gaggle of work men were busying themselves with massive hooks and huge rusty chains, which they masterfully attached to the domiciles exterior. The chains went effortlessly beneath the house because it was already raised off the ground by a series of deftly placed concrete slabs at each corner. Over the years I had hidden many a treasure beneath our prefab house, not least of which, my champion trolley. I was so upset the day that particular treasure had been stolen away in the night, and had always suspected Jack, he was the only other person to know of my secret spot, But I never said anything to him about it, and why would I. He was, after all is said and done, my best friend.

In more recent years I have returned to our little street in Battersea many times, and I am always pleasantly surprised by the warm feelings of nostalgia which wash over me everytime that I do. Though there is no longer anything near resembling the street that resides in my most distant memories. it has since been bulldozed over and transformed into a arboreal wonderland, but some of the surrounding features will always remain the same. The fire station is still in use, its ancient building, now restored to its former brownstone glory, has since been listed on the protected register. Seeing with adult eyes just how close at hand the fire station actually was, makes me wonder exactly how young Jack's home was allowed to became the unsalvageable inferno that it did.







Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 12:58 PM..

Menelaus
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#5
Old 04-16-2015, 04:04 PM




Chapter Two






Quote:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once."
Julius Caesar Act 2 Scene 2
When looking at the quotation, "Cowards die many times before their deaths," it is difficult to imagine how someone could actually 'die many times' before they actually die. But of course here, Shakespeare, who can be difficult to understand at the best of times, is using death as a metaphor. The bard's words convey how a person feels inside when they run away from a challenge, and the coward, of whom the wordsmith refers, is a person afraid to face the many challenges of life, such as dealing with difficult situations, taking risks, and fighting for the very ideals of which they may believe in. All throughout the next phase of my life, I faced many such challenges, and it is because of this fact, that I name my second chapter;


To Die A Coward's Death

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-18-2015 at 04:28 PM..

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#6
Old 04-17-2015, 12:38 PM

I never knew the life I had before living in Battersea. But now, with that little street behind me, and the friends I used to know scattered to the four winds, never to be seen again, I was returning to my home town. In two weeks time I would be six years old, a birthday destined to be overshadowed by the grand exodus my family and I were about to partake. My new home was different in comparison to that which I left behind in so many ways. Not the the least of which, was the fact that it was an actual house. As we departed the number nineteen bus on arrival in Tooting, I remember a faint wisp of familiarity wash over me. I had visited the local market here many times with Auntie Violet, my old next door neighbour, who had moved to the area a few years previous. She wasn't my real aunt, merely an old and dear friend of my mum's, but, as a young boy living in a close knit community of fabricated homes in Battersea, I had leaned long ago that the term 'family' was meant for your primary social circle, just as much as it was for carriers of the same blood. Tooting Broadway was a bustle of busy shoppers rushing in and out of the grand glass doors of the high street shops carrying bulging bags filled with their recently purchased wares, and I recognised the huge bronze statue of Edward the seventh, standing most regally above the maddening crowd in full royal regalia outside the tube station, from the popular TV show, 'Citizen Smith.' I noticed that there was a Mr Wimpy on the corner adjacent to the station, the life-sized 'Hamburgular' lookalike standing outside the restaurant caught my eye as its motionless form greeted hungry costomers into the open doors. in the coming months, their lifeless greasy burgers and hi-glass knickerbokaglory icecream floats would become a regular special treat on family shopping days out. I used to love the fact that they served fast-food on real plates, with real cutlery to boot. but that particular restaurant is no longer there now, the franchise went bankrupt a few years later after London's grand MacDonald's invasion, and the Mr Wimpy man which stood outside was probably auctioned off as fast-food memorabilia.

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 01:04 PM..

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#7
Old 04-18-2015, 10:42 AM

walking through the backstreets of Tooting was, to say the least, a great cultural shock of an experience for a product of inner city living such as I. after spending all of my remembered life as an inhabitant of sunny Battersea, I was used to a more diverse type of populace. but here, being so far away from the big city's centre, there were only two brands of peoples , skinheads and not-skinheads. now, Tooting wasn't exactly on the suburbs, but, being a town which originally sprang up around a market, it may as well have been. my new house was exactly in the middle of the street (save for my next door neighbour, who could just as easily share that claim). as we approached the two story domicile, a strange looking woman (who had quite obviously been poured into her lycra leggings, which were atleast three sizes smaller than modesty allowed) caught my mum's attention with a very vocal rendition of "cooey!" which, by all accounts, was apparently the colloquial vernacular for 'hello.'

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-19-2015 at 10:18 AM..

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#8
Old 04-19-2015, 06:44 AM

the woman's name eludes me now, so for the purposes of this memoir we will call her 'Ilene.' in the coming years, Ilene deftly shuffled her amorphous muffin tops to pole position in my mum's list of best friends, more due to the fact that the foul mouthed busybody just wouldn't go away, than that she was her normative choice in companions. she had a son, name Lee, and, just as much as his mother was queen of all things spandex, he was the devil incarnate. never have I known a child so capable of stretching the elastane so far over his parent's eyes, but 'lycra' Ilene saw only glorious sunbeams emanating from the spiteful little brat's pitchforked derriere. so much so, that if he were to blatantly punch her square in the face right before your very eyes, she would swear blind to you that he hadn't, then proceed to tell you fervent tales of his excellence or well behaved exploits.

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 01:10 PM..

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#9
Old 04-19-2015, 08:08 PM

the other neighbours living on our block were a fragrant mixture of demons and angels. but one rather repugnant demon stains the recesses of my memory in particular, Lee Monday (one could almost be made to believe that the name 'Lee' was an acronym for 'Devil'). Monday was the epitome of the term 'bad seed.' in fact, if you looked up a picture of Satan in the Encyclopedia Demonica, you would most certainly catch a glimpse of the foul boy sat playing pat-a-cake on old Beelzebub's fiery knee. my first encounter with the detestable Mr Monday, was a few days after the move. my brother and I had traversed the hallowed threshold to the great outdoors, and, after some deliberation, we commenced our negotiations with the natives. now, the Tooting natives were cut from a different sort of cloth in comparison to the upwardly mobile Battersea variety I had become accustomed to. they had a poorer fashion sense, and community unity had long been lost to a pseudo gang mentality. Monday was our age group's local representative, and his welcome wagon consisted of clumsily strung together japes and incomprehensible racist comments. the young rapscallion lived in the largest house on the street, with pebbledashed exterior walls, and a garden littered with broken swing sets and an algae infested fishpond full of wart ridden mutant toads. the rumour was, that his father was an armed bank robber serving hard time for hijacking a security van, and his moll of a mother would have been more than at home on the set of an old nineteen sixties gangster movie. my brother, never one to accept derisive comments (especially ones he didn't fully understand) without a fight, promptly punched Lee on the nose, hard. this impulsive, yet courageous, action was surprisingly greeted by a volley of 'hurrahs' from the assembled juvenile crowd, all of whom had wanted to do the same at one point or another, but were too afraid to do so. that night, we found out why.


Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 01:12 PM..

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#10
Old 04-22-2015, 05:07 PM

I was in bed when the door knocked. I say 'knocked,' but it was more of an incessant pounding, that sounded/felt like it was in danger of dislodging the very foundations of my brand new home. curious of the commotion, I stealthily snuck into the master bedroom to take a peep out through open window at the scene below. four of the local teenage thugs, clad in drainpipe jeans and bother boots, were deep in heated debate with my mother about the possible consequences of my eight year old brother punching the devil's spawn in his brimstoned hooter. my mum, never one to take any type of intimidation lying down (especially from the skinhead Gestapo), was giving the lads what for with a pointy finger and even sharper tongue.

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 10:34 AM..

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#11
Old 04-25-2015, 10:35 AM

this back and forth conflict of opinions had been going on for quite some time before 'Ma Monday' came sauntering down the street from her royal box, in fluffy bunny slippers and endless rows of oversized pink hair rollers. the prune faced cow was angrily grazing on a thick slice of cucumber, no doubt an accompaniment to the avocado face mask she was wiping from the freckled edges of her receding hairline with her dressing gown sleeve. and when she spoke, the goose-stepping skinheads fell one by one into formation behind her, like denim clad fighter jets at the Southend air show.



TO BE AMENDED

Last edited by Menelaus; 04-25-2015 at 10:51 AM..

 



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