John Bishop - How Did All This Happen?

My dad returned to the car and immediately went to use the lighter. When it didn’t move, he used his strength to pull it. The internal coil unravelled and the lighter fell apart.

‘Have you been using this?’ my dad asked.

I tried to explain it wasn’t my fault, but due to the burnt tongue I just said, ‘Ummn dun nooo.’

My dad looked at me, and I knew that he knew I had broken it. He looked me in the eye for a moment, sighed and simply said, ‘I liked that lighter.’

Then we drove home. I loved that car because it always reminded me of my dad’s forgiveness and that ‘things’ don’t matter. People do. Even if those people can’t talk due to their own stupidity.

CHAPTER 3 CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel. You give me a reason for everything. Acknowledgements Foreword 1. Hello World 2. My Dad and Cars 3. A Boy Learning Adult Lessons 4. School and a Friend Called Kieran 5. Teenage Kicks 6. All I Learnt in School 7. Newcastle 8. I Don’t Eat Meat, or Fight Paratroopers 9. Moving On 10. The Manchester Years 11. The Great U S of A 12. Football 13. Time to Grow Up 14. Learning to Ride 15. Road to Bangkok 16. Indian Days 17. A Day in Buxton Changed Everything 18. A Yank Called Joe 19. A Town That Didn’t Exist 20. Marriage, Fatherhood and Idiot Friends 21. Babies, a Surprise I Didn’t Want and the Snip 22. Bad Hair Day, Removal Vans and Broken Hearts 23. Frog and Bucket 24. Sometimes I Try to Be Funny 25. We All Have to Die on Our Arse Some Time 26. Life Saver 27. How a Wardrobe Can Change Your Life 28. ‘Mum, I’m on Telly!’ 29. Festival of Broken Dreams 30. We Are the Champions! 31. On Tour 32. It’s Always Better When It’s Full 33. Opportunity Knocks 34. 2010 … No Going Back 35. Sport Relief 36. A Family Day at Wembley 37. Week of Hell Picture Section Postscript About the Publisher

A BOY LEARNING ADULT LESSONS CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel. You give me a reason for everything. Acknowledgements Foreword 1. Hello World 2. My Dad and Cars 3. A Boy Learning Adult Lessons 4. School and a Friend Called Kieran 5. Teenage Kicks 6. All I Learnt in School 7. Newcastle 8. I Don’t Eat Meat, or Fight Paratroopers 9. Moving On 10. The Manchester Years 11. The Great U S of A 12. Football 13. Time to Grow Up 14. Learning to Ride 15. Road to Bangkok 16. Indian Days 17. A Day in Buxton Changed Everything 18. A Yank Called Joe 19. A Town That Didn’t Exist 20. Marriage, Fatherhood and Idiot Friends 21. Babies, a Surprise I Didn’t Want and the Snip 22. Bad Hair Day, Removal Vans and Broken Hearts 23. Frog and Bucket 24. Sometimes I Try to Be Funny 25. We All Have to Die on Our Arse Some Time 26. Life Saver 27. How a Wardrobe Can Change Your Life 28. ‘Mum, I’m on Telly!’ 29. Festival of Broken Dreams 30. We Are the Champions! 31. On Tour 32. It’s Always Better When It’s Full 33. Opportunity Knocks 34. 2010 … No Going Back 35. Sport Relief 36. A Family Day at Wembley 37. Week of Hell Picture Section Postscript About the Publisher

It was a sunny day early in the summer of 1974 and we all went for a family day out to the swimming baths in Winsford, where the pool was outside. These days, the concept of having an outdoor swimming pool in the north of England would seem crazy, and the fact that it is no longer there perhaps proves that such a venture would be like having a ski slope in the desert (I know they do in Dubai, but they cheat). However, my childhood seems to have been full of sunny days, and we spent many an afternoon at Winsford’s outdoor swimming baths.

As you entered the swimming pool, you were immediately struck by the brightness of it all. The diving board was painted red, and the bottom of the swimming pool was painted pale blue, which always gave the impression of freshness. There was a large pool housing the diving board, and it was a rite of passage one day to jump off the top. On this particular day – I would have been no more than seven – I had not reached the top, although I had gone halfway and was still edging up slowly. There was a shallow children’s swimming pool at the end, beyond which was a small shop where you could buy sweets.

It was here that I saw a friend from school. He had on a scuba mask and was playing in the children’s pool. We spoke for a while before I went back to the base my mum and dad had set up amongst the tables and benches, and where I knew there would be an endless supply of sandwiches and drink. My mum has always possessed the ability to make more sandwiches than she has bread. I know that defies logic, but it’s true. It’s a mum thing that they can just do. I think the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand can probably be explained by Mary making sardine sandwiches.

I was sitting with my family when I noticed a man run and dive into the pool fully clothed. Whilst everybody else was playing, I couldn’t take my eyes off the man under the water, as he seemed to be swimming furiously towards the other side.

Suddenly, he emerged from the water holding a small figure that I immediately recognised as my friend. The lifeguards came running over and the pool immediately began to empty, so that I had a clear, uninterrupted view of the proceedings unfolding in front of me.

In a panic, one lifeguard tried to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while simultaneously another guard tried to administer CPR. Both were working hard, but they appeared to counteract each other. It seemed like only seconds before the sound of a siren could be heard. An ambulance man entered the scene carrying a holdall, striding with the authority of somebody who knew what he was doing. He was tall and wearing a white unbuttoned shirt, black trousers and had black, greased-back hair.

He immediately took control of the situation, picking my friend up by his right ankle and holding him upside down with one arm. Water gushed from his open mouth. But my friend’s body hung listless. Dead. The ambulance man then placed him on the ground with the least degree of ceremony conceivable and shook his head.

The body was carried away under a blanket. The lifeguards seemed just to be standing in shock, while families began to look for little children, holding them tighter as they left than they had when they arrived. I don’t recall there being hysteria or panic after the event, just a sense that something terrible had happened. I saw a woman being led away in tears, and everybody seemed to move slowly and with purpose. The ambulance man had made it clear that there was little point in trying to do anything. It was over.

I understood that my friend was dead, and I knew what ‘dead’ meant, but I couldn’t fully comprehend all that I had seen. Then I noticed that, for the first time in my life, the main pool was empty. I had never seen it empty, as we had never managed to get in before the crowds. But now the surface was as smooth as glass, and nobody appeared to want to penetrate its calm.

As the ambulance drove away with my friend’s body, I felt the overwhelming urge to break the stillness of the moment. Perhaps in an attempt to recreate normality, to return the pool to a place of joy and not a place of fear and death, I ran and dived into the water. As I was in the air, I remember feeling excited at the prospect of being the only person in the whole of the swimming pool.

I broke through the surface, and my breath left me. The water was like ice; colder than it had been moments earlier, and colder than I had ever felt before.

I surfaced and scrambled up the steps before the coldness overwhelmed me, snuggling into a towel and my mother’s arms. I should never have dived in; I could never have made things normal by doing so and, as the coldness entered my bones, a coldness that was not just generated by water temperature, I knew I had made a mistake. But I couldn’t help myself. I had needed to stop being passive; I needed to stop being a witness. I had needed to stop standing still, even if it did result in me sitting in a towel trying to warm up from a cold that I don’t think has ever really thawed.