Stuart 101 - The Early Years

I'm nowhere near famous. Certainly not famous enough to merit an autobiography, but that mere trifle hasn't stopped me thinking about making some kind of note of my life thus far. Why? I have no idea, but recently it has, for some unknown reason, seemed like a good idea. If nothing else, it will hopefully spark some happy memories for me, and will, I hope, be at least vaguely amusing.

Everything you are about to read is true, some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent (i.e., me, of course!). There may well be some gratuitous nudity at some point. You have been warned.

Where do I start. Well, I was born 2 months early, 2 months to the day, in fact.  I was yanked out on November 15 (which was a Wednesday and, as I was even then nice and considerate, I popped out at 4:30 in the afternoon - no reason to keep mum up all night really, was there!), when I wasn't due to make an appearance until Jan 15. I always have had a thing for being early, although as I get older, it seems harder and harder to remain punctual! Apparently when I was born, I could fit into a shoebox. Given that I was 2 months premature, I'd have been happier had the hospital shoved me in something a bit more appropriate than a shoebox, maybe, oooh, I don't know, an incubator, perhaps?

It's fair to say, I was something of a surprise.  My dad was 40 when I popped out, my mother 36, my brother 16.  Apparently, I was the result of a broken leg.  "How so??" I hear you cry.  Apparently, dad had broken his leg and couldn't jump off quickly enough, the result - one of his little swimmers struck the gynaecological equivalent of oil and after a couple of victory laps, hit the button marked 'Fertilise".  I'm reasonably certain that my mother thought I was trapped wind for the first few months.

Anyway, despite weighing only around 3lbs when I was presented to the world, and causing a bit of concern for the first couple of weeks, by mid January the nursing hospital decreed that I was well enough to go home.

So, my mum and dad loaded the 2 month old me carefully into the car (I never asked either what the make of car was, I really need to try and remember to ask my mum at some point), and left the hospital to take me back home to Townhill. All was good with the world. Of course, this being me, it couldn't happen the easy way, and so it came to pass that as mum and dad drove me home (I have a mental picture of them having glowing smiles and singing along to a Julie Andrews song for some bizarre reason), dad decided to go rally driving. By that, I mean hit a patch of black ice and flipped the car, which would up on it's roof, in a ditch.  My comments on this are sadly unrecorded for posterity, but as it meant a swift return to the nursing hospital, it's fair to say I was probably fairly pissed off.  As luck would have it, I appeared to have escaped major injury and after a couple of weeks of observation, operation 'Take Stuart Home, v2.0' was a success.

My recollections of the next few years are hazy at best, not going to lie.  So, to fill the space, I will mention a bit about my family.  My parents, Vi and Sandy were Fifers born and bred, but they had moved to Whitney in Oxfordshire to find work.  When mum was finally convinced that she wasn't just suffering from a massive bout of constipation and did actually have a small person growing inside her, she decreed that she was going home to Scotland to have the baby.  My mother, who I love dearly, is a fearsome beast when roused, and knowing my father, I think he'd have known better to put up any kind of resistance beyond a cursory "are you sure, dear?". When I was born, I had 3 living grandparents, my 'big gran' (my maternal grandmother) and my 'wee gran' (who was, apparently genuinely titchy, I don't think she quite made it to 5') and my 'di'.  My maternal grandfather died in the 50s, so I missed meeting him by a considerable margin. I had the usual assortment of uncles, aunts, cousins etc.

The halcyon days of my early childhood were spent in Wilson Street, Townhill, where my mother still resides. It's sometimes kinda strange, depending on my mood, being in my mum's house, if I'm feeling particularly introspective I will wander into what was my bedroom and think back.  I can remember most of the posters I had on the walls, I can remember all the various room configurations, how the room looked when my bed was against this wall, or that wall, where I kept my toys, little things like that. Any time I feel like that and I go in there, some of things which pop into my head are quite strange, for example, I remember Sundays as a kid being really quite depressing, but I don't know why. It's not like I hated school, I actually quite liked going to school, but for some reason, Sundays always resonated badly with me, and it's as true today as it was then - I still don't like Sundays.  I'm sure there's a reason for it, but I've yet to figure it out!  I had the same interests as any small child, namely, eating, sleeping and of course, practising for my future as a lothario, learning, as you can see, how to look good with a pipe (although I am sadly lacking a smoking jacket).  There's always something authoritative about a guy with a pipe.

One of my earliest memories was nursery.  I must have been, I'm guessing, 4 when I went to nursery, which was held in a community hall which was an annexe to the local library.  My overarching memory is standing at the window was my mum walked away, crying, I'm guessing because I didn't want her to leave.  I'm fairly certain this was a recurring theme, but other than that, I remember vaguely enjoying my time at nursery, which makes my perpetual wailings at the start of every day somewhat odd. Anyway, I remember some things more than others at nursery, I remember a sort of indoor climbing frame, stickle bricks, and free milk. Whole milk as well, none of your semi-skimmed stuff.  Actually, the milk must have been fairly gross, but at the time it was great! It came in little 1/4 pint miniature glass bottles with a silver foil lid (I must confess my detailed memory of the bottles comes from primary school, but as these were the same as we got in nursery, I think I can get away with it), into which we poked thin blue straws.

No sooner had I adjusted to nursery, than the next great upheaval in my life occurred - Primary School.

I was fairly lucky, in that my parents house was literally a minute away from Townhill Primary.  Don't believe me? I took this picture from my parents front garden a few years ago, the school is the building on the left

It was great.  I could essentially wait until I heard the bell ring for the start of the day, and then leave the house.  After the bell rang, the kids had to line up in the classic Noachian 2 x 2 arrangement and wait to be allowed into the classes, thus affording me enough time for one more cosy second before I was out of the door, over the wall (what can I say, I was a rebel) and into the line with my classmates.

One of the peculiarities I've discovered when I got thinking about this is how little I remember of my primary school days. For example, I remember a few of my primary teachers, Miss DuPre in P4, Mrs Rowan in P3 (I think - actually, an odd memory form my time in her class is the time I got into trouble for smacking her on the ass. I don't remember why I did it, I'm sure it must have had a good reason, but that's long gone!) I think my P7 teacher was Mrs Bell, but that's all I remember.  Similarly, my classmates from those times are equally hazy,which, given most of them were in the same class as me for my entire life at primary is a bit odd.  Some I remember with clarity, or at least parts of them. I remember a girl called Andrea who lived near my gran, my best friend from primary times was Alan Grant whose father was some kind of shepherd I think, Denise Lumsden (who has recently become a FB friend, so if you are reading this "hi!"), Andrew Gaitens who later lost an eye in some kind of accident, there was a guy called Rodger, a girl called Linda (who may, or may not have been the first girl I kissed, you'd think I'd remember stuff like that huh, but no, apparently not), and a whole bunch of other people.

School days were taxing, but not crazily so, although I did exhibit annoyingly lazy traits quite early on which became a recurring theme throughout my scholastic life - I figured out how much effort I'd need to put in to make sure that anything I did I could do adequately enough to pass, but not so much work that I'd actually excel. If I had the chance to go  back to my young self and offer one piece of advice it would be this - "you aren't that dumb, if you work hard, then you can achieve things, so don't be a dick and get on with it".

Summer holidays were never ending, or so they seemed. Summers in retrospect always seemed warmer, longer, more fun than they probably were.  A lot of my time during the summer holidays was spent with my big gran, both my parents worked, so my gran looked after me, I sometimes would have to stay there overnight, and for some reason her house always vaguely scared me, although I'm not sure why.  These memories have just popped into my head actually, I've not thought about her house in Forest Place for years, but now I am, I don't remember many specifics, other than a picture of a wedding (one of my uncles) on the small dresser which was in the spare room, and the texture of her sheets, which were different from the ones my parents had.  I do remember she had an open coal fire, with a coal bunker around the back, also remember her kitchen, which was smaller than the one in my parents house, and had a small table upon which I would take my lunchtime repast on those days where I went to my gran's for lunch from school.

My big gran and I were always close. Some of my happiest memories from my early childhood involve my gran, mum and I taking walks through the forest which formed the backdrop of the parts of Townhill village where both my parents and my gran lived. My big gran was always something of a character, as she gold older she got a bit more eccentric, although she remained in full control of her mind until about 2/3 weeks before she died at 94. She was never one to hold back any opinions, I once remember visiting her in hospital where she proceeded to announce that "that poor auld thing over there, she's just no right", before shouting across the ward "I SAID, YOUR NO RIGHT ARE YOU". The poor thing she was talking too just nodded a silent assent. It was often the easiest way to deal with gran, just agree, and then move on!

You may be wondering why I'm talking more about my maternal grandma than my paternal grandparents. Well, my dad's mum died when I was very young, I must have been about 7 or 8, and she died on Xmas eve.  To be fair to my dad, despite having lost his mother the day before, he made sure that Xmas for me went on as usual.  I don't have many artefacts from my childhood, but one thing I do have is a book. It's called "The Little Boy and his House" and it formed part of my Xmas present from my paternal grandparents. It's one of my most treasured items and would be one of the things I would rescue should my house ever catch fire. My paternal grandfather followed a couple of years later, so by the time I was about 10, both of my paternal grandparents had passed on, so it was just me, my parents and my big gran.

That said, I can still remember some  things about my dad's parents - they had a whistling kettle for one thing. Not for them the convenience of a normal plug in kettle, no, if they wanted a cuppa (and my wee gran did, pretty much constantly - I'm sure she consumed half the tea produced by the good people at Tetleys) they put the water in the kettle, put the kettle on the stove, and waited for the whistle.  My gran (or di, I don't remember which) also had a real fondness for beef flavoured crisps. Even now, on the rare occasion I have a packet of beef crisps, the smell automatically makes me think of my long departed grandparents.

Anyway, I think that makes a logical breaking point for tonight - if I write too much, then no one will come back for the juicy expose of my early teenage years - the life, the love, the frankly alarmingly frequent bouts of onanism...