Dave Mycroft

1976, the famous hot summer, was my last "darn sarf" and within a year I was living in Sheffield. I'd left Horndean loaded up with O levels, and was soon enrolled in King Edward VII School, one of Sheffield's best, for A levels. It's only with hindsight that I realise this was when things really started to go wrong, but at the time it was fun. Suddenly I found myself free. I'd always felt restrained living at Sonia and Brian's,and that's not a later observation but something I was accutely aware of at the time, but now I had realistically no authority or guidance. To a teenage boy that's a recipe for excess.

 

As was traditional I arrived at my parents' home in Wynn Gardens to find they had already made their mark. As one of the "last resort" estates for people who would take whatever was available, it wasn't the ideal place for a teen with a posh accent and two massively overweight and over the hill bikers weren't a great help.With visitors rare, and usually more to join together for a "run" than socially, home had taken on an appearance I'd become accustomed to. If there was a flat surface it was somewhere to put something, plates were washed on an "as required" basis and cats had free reign - a scenaro to be repeated years later by my sister. By now both my parents were officially disabled, and the scale had tipped from one extreme to the other in terms of hygene. The constant smell of mortuary strength antiseptics and disinfectants had long gone, and the pervading smell, that became normality, was that of two overweight people who rarely washed and lived almost exclusively in two rooms.

 

There were a lot of adjustments to make when I moved up to Sheffield, on both sides. My father in particular had problems with frustration. All my life he'd wanted to do more walking, climbing and mainly caving with me, but now the opportunity was finally there he'd already suffered two heart attacs and a stroke. AT the same time my mother reacted as though the 12 years away never happened, and I was still a 4the 4 year old that had been taken away. I now had to make my way largely on my own. My first motorbike, a BSA M21, soon gained me acceptance amongst the young bikers on the estate, and the bus gave me quick escape to the caves of the Peak District. The first two years back up north were mainly filled with bikes and caving - increasingly solo or at least without my parents. Education was there in the background but until I transferred to Richmond College it kind of ticked over.

 

King Edward VII gave way to Richmond College, and it was back to the old Spratton policy but with a twist. Instead of being the odd one out here we were all new. Suddenly I had a chance of something different. With a small degree of encouragement from home I applied to join the Army as an Officer, and soon had sponsorship. As A levels approached so did the Regular Coomissions Board (RCB), and a life in the RAOC. The Pre-RCB went well, but shortly after everything changed. Having a free afternoon I wandered into town, for some window shopping - anything to avoid going back home now I look back. In particular I was looking for new trainers to buy that weekend, and tried some on. Having found the ones I was after I took them off and returned them to the display (yes they had pairs on display in those days!) and headed home. As I left the shop a store detective stopped me and called the Police, claiming I had been going to steal the trainers but had seen him. Despite the fact I had no intention of stealing them, and hadn't attempted to the Magistrates Court somehow decided I was guilty - and justice was never to feel a reality again. The fine was small, relatively, but I still failed to make the payments and a warrant was rumoured to have been issued not long after I finished at Richmond, and I ran.

 

I headed south for an impromtuvisit to Sonia and Brian, then onwards to Ron and Glenda who were by now in Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor. Loking back I should have felt guilty at just leaving two ageing, disabled parents, but I hadn't learned guilt. To learn guilt you need to learn to care, and at the age of 18 I hadn't learned to care, to love or even to be loved. I'd gone from an abusive home to an abusive children's home, to being isolated in a boarding school. Then felt like an unwanted add on by foster parents who really wanted my sister but had to have us both, and finally back to parents who had no idea how to show they cared. When I left I had only one person in my mind and that was me.

 

I got back to Sheffield a few months later, having pushed my welcome to the limit at the nearest I had to family, and if truth be told there was no reaction from Mum and Dad. The second year of A Levels saw me join th Student's Union as Entertainments Officer. I still find it funny that all the major influencing adults in my life, both Parents, Sonia and Brian and Rona asnd Glenda, were all politically left of centre and to some extent active. Becoming a Students Union Officer would have pleased them all, but to me it was a handy way to make a bit of spare cash. It took just a couple of weeks to be introduced to the scams, and by the end of my year the SU at Richmond had never made so much profit, but never leaked so much cash along the way. From selling on free tickets for promotion nights at local night clubs to reselling used tickets and resetting the pool and pinball machines making money took priority over education. Girls were still somewhat of a mystery, especially given that I never could have iether invited them home or introduced them to my parents. Girlfriends did come and go, and I remember well a battle with Nick, younger brother of Sebastian Coe, for the affections of one young lady. The combination of having spare money, and not wanting to be at home unless absolutely necessary, had it's downsides - and I was developing an addiction for gambling that would remain for decades to some extent. The money skimmed off from the Students Union filed the coffers of the bars and slot machines of Sheffield. It finally took its toll the summer following A levels, with the money supply dried up from the closed SU. I pushed it too far one day and forgot to take the rent to the council. It wasn't that I spent it, but I spent too long chasing losses to get there  in time. My parents were on a suspended eviction order for not paying rent, and the moment they were late they processed the order. On the Monday morning as I headed to the rent office with the money the two months notice dropped through the letterbox and again I ran!

 

3 months later I gathered the courage to go home again, this time to Newcastle Upon Tyne, and the next couple of years were largely uneventful. Caves were now too far away, but the hills around Rothbury were a good escape. Weekdays on the dole were spent either tinkering with motorbikes or heading for the coast. Cullercoats, Whitley Bay and even Blyth were regular haunts - along with a once a month train back for a night out in Sheffield. Weekends were spent as assistant skipper to a friend of my parents, taking a dozen people out with rods and lines on day long boat trips. We were never short of fish and the cash in hand from local chip shops was a handy supplement to the dole. Sea fishing also gave me a first break in journalism, with weekly angling reports in the Gateshead Post. All the time, however, life was becoming more untenable at home. I left Necastle behind one day when a bus pulled up outside the shop with Manchester on the front. For the first time I wasn't running from trouble, I was running because I didn't know what else to do.

As the last years at Prep School got underway life was, for the firt time, settled. One holiday a year would see me heading north to Sheffield, where my parents now lived, and the other two would mean the long train down to Ron and Glenda in Cornwall. The Public School accent wasn't exactly popular on a rough council estate in Sheffield, but by now the majority of the time was spent either at the caravan between Hope and Bradwell or under canvas. My parents were in their fnal years involved in caving, and to be honest lived more on their past than their abilities by the mid 70s. For me though it was heaven: I was with my Mum and Dad, and that was all that really mattered.

 

Cornwall was something totally different. At that age I just assumed Ron and Glenda would always be there and I'd always be going to them on holidays. Yes I looked forward to each visit, but in the way you look forward to something you know will always be there. By now we'd moved on from rambles across Bodmin Moor to climbing on the Dartmoor Tors, and even the evenings were adventure packed. I read of Shackleton and Scott, Hillary and Noyce, Shipton and Tilman. It came as no surprise to me when hearing from Ron last year that he led his last climb in his 70s.

 

The twin influences of caving and climbing stimulated the first sparks of interest in our natural world, and a long standing ambition to be a geologist. More importantly the independence of long distance solo train journeys, mixed with a blossoming love and respect of the outdoors was to prove a lifelong influence.

 

By this stage I'd found my level at school, and as older boys left annually and new boys replaced them I became part of the establishment. Mr Hunter, the headmaster, had taken a special interest in me and would accidentally give the childrens homes the wrong day for returning from holidays, meaning one night less at the home - even if it did mean a night as the only boy in school. I made it to Dorm Prefect with 18 months to go, and had high hopes of making a full prefect for a while. While academically, and in sporting terms, I was doing well I was still in constant trouble. Like it or not I was still the council kid, and I felt it. The answer was to be the centre of mischeif, and in reality that's all it was. I worked probably as hard on just being accepted as on any sporting field or exam paper, and though ultimately successful it had its downsides. I'm not sure exactly which incident it was that blew my chance of being a prefect - there were a few ;-)  It could have been climbing out of windows on caving ladders in the middle of the night for midnight swims, or maybe it was when we dropped a bottle of sodium in the outdoor swimming pool. Running the pupil-built 250cc go cart into the beautifully manicured lawns of the tennis court wouldn't have helped, or perhaps it was going on strike and refusing to play for the school rugby team in a battle over what I felt to be unfair treatment over some minor indiscretion. Even without the title of Prefect, and I still believe I would have made it but for a massive wind of change blowing through my life, life was good and school days were the best days of my life.