Well, how about me, and where to start? I was born, that´s always a good start! I was born in South London in 1956, not too far from Tower Bridge in a huge monolithic hospital called Guy´s, near London Bridge and that hospital nearly had the death of me around thirty years later due to a nasty lung infection. My childhood was a pretty normal one for a boy at that time, discovering new bomb-sites courtesy of the Luftwaffe from WWll, and pestering your mum for threepence for a big bag of fish and chips you very rarely received. But you had to try, just in case, your mum was in a good mood. I lived in a tall block of flats with my two brothers and three sisters and being born of Greek parents, I was named Mario after a sister that died a couple of years before I was born, named Maria, not only made me the runt of the litter, I was also the seventh kid of a seventh son, as my father also had six to look up to. I´ve always felt Maria has been my guardian angel ever since the umbilical cord at birth tried to take me to her, but she obviously didn’t want me to bother her there; so she´s been looking out for me ever since, bless her. Our days as kids in the 60´s had no distractions with computer games, designer clothes, television and homework it was all outdoors and on your bike son, playing football and every other sport you could get involved in, as none of my clan had equipment. In fact, my bike had been nicked so many times, it had more coats of paint put on it than my house. But as I rebuilt it out of scraps from other disused bikes, it was quite recognisable to everyone that knew me, so like a bad penny, it kept coming back. There was always a thought I might get a new bike when I showed them my tearful eyes, but that was just a kid’s innocence. The reality was you shouldn’t have taken it out. Like they say…. “The only place you find sympathy, is in the dictionary between Shit & Syphilis!”

 

The 70´s saw us move to a ground floor maisonette just off the Old Kent Road, most of my brothers and sisters had left the nest, which just left Me, Ted my elder brother by five years, whose name is really Thod´s shortened for Theodore and my mother Irma, and dad Michael. Why we lived in South London and not North London with the rest of the Greeks I´ll never know, but it made me good at football as all the black kids around my neighbourhood played like Pele´ and were my best mates. I was a Bubble & Squeak amongst the raster’s which probably accounted for why I still have a mop head to this day. 

I didn’t much like the school days having found them a worthless distraction to my playing football and generally getting up to mischief with my mates, but it was a good meeting place I suppose. In my opinion, schools should teach kids what they really would like to be later in life, to fulfil a dream and not bog them down with the information they can´t use. Hone those particular lessons to what it would take to get there. If it´s a Doctor, Lawyer, Athlete, whatever their passion, they might get some use out of schooling. I don’t think I´ve ever met anyone that remembers what they learnt from school and have to wait for college or an extremely lucky break before perfecting their skills of knowledge. But as you can see by the best and most successful of sportsman & woman they all have one thing in common, they started young. So, why not help the rest by starting them at school with what it takes to, say be a doctor; and maybe as it will be more interesting to have a goal, kids might retain more of the lessons. That being said, I actually stayed on at school for my A ‘Level’s but due to a disagreement with my head teacher, I decided to spread my wings to the big wide world. She had caught me playing my acoustic guitar in the common room, (yes I was even a prefect!) singing and playing Marley and Bowie songs was obviously not her cup of tea, and even though I´m pretty good on the old axe, in her opinion I was being a distraction to the other kids studies.

 

Now, being she was a miserable cow and not to be fooled with, I solemnly agreed, to put the guitar away and waited for her to leave before getting it out again by the insistent request of all the mates I had in the common room. It was definitely not a Kumbaya session, as we were rocking to Quo, Beatles and T. Rex when another teacher came in. I can´t remember her name, but she joined in the chorus and thoroughly enjoyed the singing. But unfortunately, after she left, she met up with the wicked witch of the west and felt compelled to convey her pleasurable encounter which in-turn brought the wrath of god down on our jam. This culminated in my rebelling and decided it was now time to leave school by destroying all my books and giving everything away to my mates that might be of school value. As you do, I thought. It wasn’t until I had resigned myself that I was leaving, as it was a shock to me after all those years of getting up early when I got a call from the head witch to come to her office. In my mind I was no longer a school kid and wanted to give her my opinion with both barrels, but she took me by surprise when she earnestly apologised, saying she did not know we all had a free lesson and due to lack of teachers at that time, our programmed PE lesson had to be postponed giving us a right to do what we pleased in the common room. She also offered me an opportunity to teach the first year kids at another local school for football as they were experiencing the same lack of staff.  I was truly gutted, as that would have been right up my alley.

 

Nevertheless, I had made my decision and even managed to destroy the infamous school blazer my mum had bought in my very first year, that was used for everything from goal posts to tug-of-war rope. It had even been used to pull my friend on his bike as a tow rope this jacket was flipping indestructible. When all the other kids had woolly plain jackets to start their secondary school life, mine was a double-breasted, pleated at the back Barathea and respectably belonged on a ship’s captain. Purchased by catalogue, and adapted for school, the shiny brass buttons were thankfully removed and replaced, as you can imagine my first day was like being a boy named Sue.    

 

My first part-time job while still at school was working at Dads restaurant in Kilburn, but doing dishes, cleaning tables and filling table sauces was not really me, I still had high hopes of being a professional musician and that was achieved at the ripe old age of just 15, so all guns firing I got a job as a carpenters labourer for Peabody Trust but by night I was a rock god in training. Well, you can but try haha!! 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED.......