Johnny Vegas - Becoming Johnny Vegas

I realise that the English teachers among you might hanker after a few more full stops over the coming few pages, but please don’t worry: the joining words will be back in full effect in the next chapter. I won’t be giving it the full James Joyce any more, once I’ve done justice to the breathless childhood rush of:

Taking my birthday money into town under my cousin Gillian’s supervision and buying ‘Action Man: Helicopter Pilot’ –

‘Are you sure that’s the one you want?’

‘Yeah, deffo’

‘Have you got the helicopter?’

‘No, but it’s all right, you see he’s not just a helicopter pilot, he’s been trained to kill just like the others’

Taking all my Action Men including ‘Talking Commander’ – as well as my motorbike and side-car, jeep with trailer, lorry with opening hatch and mounted machine-gun, and free Asian-looking enemy characters – into school on ‘What did you get for Christmas?’ play-day –

‘This one’s got no undies on!’

‘That’s how you know he’s a baddie – that, and the eyes’

Watching Star Wars for the first time with the Holkers on one of Uncle Mike’s access nights and leaving the cinema with a million questions whilst believing that there really was a galaxy somewhere far, far away ... And not knowing how to ask why their dad didn’t live at home

Climbing on the roof at Martin Hurley’s and trying to summon Spiderman with a torch pointed at the moon through the plastic web rotor of his die-cast Corgi helicopter

Writing a short, farewell note on the back of an empty Cook’s Matches box as we planned to run away to Star Wars’ Mos Eisley and join the rebellion –

‘We will have laser blasters or light-sabres so we will be safe’

My daft childhood crush on both Martin’s sisters, especially Jane after she gave me an Ian Dury single with ‘There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards’ on the B-side –

‘Does he actually say the ‘B’ word?’

‘He does, ’cos he’s a rebel’

‘I wanna be a rebel when I’m older’

‘Then this is perfect’

Exotic day-trips in the Hurleys’ working car to Blackpool, Southport and the pre-bombed-out Arndale shopping centre, Manchester

Taking Martin to Morrison’s on our weekly shop in a bid to return the day-trip gestures and shaming Mum into blowing her budget by buying us Yo-Yos at the checkout, then suffering a week of extra veg piled high at dinner as part of her quiet revenge

Martin’s parents taking us into country pubs with them instead of leaving us in the car and then buying us our own drinks, in our own glasses –

‘Look at this straw ... it bends!’

‘Michael, will you be having a starter?’

‘A what?’

Mum filling up a pop bottle with cordial and taking it with us to share when we walked to Taylor Park, or went wild and caught a bus to Victoria Park –

‘Mum, floater!’

‘Michael, what have I told you? Swallow your butty first, nobody wants to be drinking your leftovers’

Begging my dad relentlessly to be allowed to camp out on the big field with Ian Cropper –

‘But everyone else is going’

‘Well, good for them’

‘We’ll be dead safe, honest. Ian’s got a knife and matches and a proper paraffin lamp’

‘Has he really?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Well, that’s three good reasons why you’re definitely not going’

Tying fishing-line to a purse and lying in wait in the bushes to yank it away when someone tried to grab it, knowing that the victims who got narky had intended on keeping it –

‘Whoever you are, I know your dads – just you wait till I see ’em!’

Making breakfast in bed for my dad on Father’s Day but accidentally putting salt on the cornflakes instead of sugar –

‘And as soon as you’ve finished, you can open your card’

‘There’s no rush, you know I like to take my time with my food’

Going round Danny Rawlinson’s house believing that the future had truly arrived as I sat and watched with awe and envy, waiting for my turn on Atari’s Space Invaders –

‘Are you rich?’

‘No, why?’

‘Dun’t matter’

Saying my prayers in the firm belief that if technology such as Space Invaders was within our reach, then surely Star Wars was a realistic possibility –

‘Please, please get me to outer space. I know it might mean killing people, Lord, but you saw what they did to Alderaan, I mean, that was a whole planet ...’

Making movies on Danny’s Super 8 film camera and feeling magical the first time our film came back from the processors’ and we watched it projected onto a sheet tacked to his front room wall –

‘Look, look, there’s me!’

Playing snooker on Danny’s five-foot snooker table and dreaming of the day when Hurricane Higgins acknowledged the arrival of Michael ‘The Storm’ Pennington as the sport’s new name to watch out for –

‘... and as he lines himself up for a difficult angle on the blue into the right side pocket ...’

‘Do you always talk to yourself when you play?’

‘It makes it more like the telly’

‘Weirdo!’

Fishing with Danny’s spare tackle for four years –

‘Can Danny come fishing, Mrs Rawlinson?’

‘He’s out with his dad, Michael’

‘Oh ...’

‘The tackle’s in the garage – help yourself’

‘Thanks!’

My mum finally accepting it wasn’t a phase and buying me my own rod and reel from Makro for my birthday: a Shakespeare carbon-fibre ledger pro that you could bend right back on itself, although I never dared try –

‘Bend it ...’

‘No!’

‘They’re designed so you can bend ’em, to take the weight of a fish’

‘So?’

‘So bend it!’

‘No!’

Trying to breed my own maggots for bait by hiding pork trimmings on top of the cistern in the outside toilet. My dad doing a bloody good impression of Michael Caine in that movie The Swarm after taking the racing page in there for his Saturday ‘my time’ constitutional –

‘What the hell’s wrong with just using a bit of bread?’

Going hell for leather playing Murderball at Grange Park Youth Club until volunteer Phil blew his whistle –

‘Find a ball and you can carry on, otherwise the scrapping stops now!’

The first time we tried to play American football after watching The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds, and my brother Mark kicked our Rob so hard that Mum and Dad had to take him and his baking apple-sized swollen balls to A&E, where the doctor suggested pressing charges before being made fully aware of the circumstances –

‘His own brother did this?’

(Taking Mum and Dad to one side.) ‘Is he adopted?’

Rob’s glee at the stitches Mark had to have in his bum when Gaz Leyland stopped mid aeroplane-swing and dropped him on a broken bottle –

‘Your arse looks like a Sky At Night chart’

‘Shut up!’

‘Give us a pen and I could draw the Plough on it’

‘MUM!’

That huge terrifying swing off the flat shed roof and over the sharp, iron-tipped boundary fence of Hankey’s Well that everyone had to pog onto – a forty-foot arc of white-knuckle terror for the nine or ten kids clinging on for dear life –

‘Whoever’s holding on there, don’t – aim for the rope!’

The games of Skillie, or Manhunt, that covered the whole of Thatto Heath, Taylor Park, Portico, Red Rocks, Broadway and Eccleston Mere, despite always getting caught early and never, ever launching a successful escape bid for my team –

‘Same bush, same spot, every bloody time! Look, I can see you from here, Mike, and if you make me go over there and tag you, you’re getting a dead arm ... a proper one’