Memories – Charlierobinsonbooks

Where it All Began 4

Jersey

So there I was, seventeen-years-old, sitting on a plane heading to a far away island. My first view of Jersey didn’t disappoint, but I had just left a Bradford council estate where, after my first happy ten years as a countryboy, it had been cold, raining and totally depressing, so the bar was pretty low. I had become a different person during the years in Bradford, and not a particularly nice one. All it seemed to have taught me was how to fight and drink, but I had escaped.

I wondered what kind of reception I would get. I had some ideas. Fantasy Island wasn’t released until a year later but that it was the kind of image I had imagined.

There was a distinct lack of hula hula girls with flowers in their hair. No sophisticated, enigmatic Mr Roarke or a helpfull Tattoo, just a copper looking at me as I trudged past with my battered suitcase and an old guitar on my back. I left the airport, caught a bus into town and did what any sensible person would do. I went to the Tourist Information Office and asked if they had a list of B&Bs. There was one priced at £2.50 per night (remember this was 1976). When I arrived I saw an attractive brunnette leaning on the wall outside, she turned out to be the owner. I was 17, I wasn’t going anywhere else.

Now they say you make your own luck, I guess that could be true. It turned out her husband was a self employed uphosterer and could do with some cheap labour. Even at £1 an hour I jumped at the chance. He was also a sports diver/competition spearfisherman. Now we were talking. I had been watching Jacques Cousteau for many years, so diving was right at the top of my list, even after experiencing Mr Spielberg’s Jaws.

One day a friend of my new employer turned up, Peter. He’d heard I wanted to learn how to spearfish. “Jump in the van.” he said. “Why?” I asked. “You’ll need some gear.” He drove me, one by one, to each of his friend’s houses. He told each friend which piece of equipment they no longer used or had never used, and they were to give it to me, and by lunchtime I was fully kitted out. The next few months I was in the sea at every opportunity. In a spearfishing competition you enter the sea at 10am and have until 4pm to catch as many fish as you can. I was hooked (maybe that’s a pun).

One Saturday after a gruelling six hours in the water we were relaxing in the Yatch Club when my employer told Peter. “You should take young Charlie on your trip.” Apparently he was planning to head to the Canary Islands in September living out of a camper van and fishing to survive. The trip would last seven months, returning the following March. “Wanna come?” he asked. Did I want to come? 😂

So it was arranged, six months after arriving on the island and three months after my 18th Birthday I was going to be travelling 3,000km and spearfishing in the Mediterraen and the Atlantic while living out of a camper van. The plan was to take the car ferry to St Malo, drive through France to Spain and fish our way down the Spanish coast to Cadiz. A ferry would then take us to our final destination. A small village called Mogan on the island of Gran Canaria.

Felices senderos mis amigos 😉x

Where It All Began 3

Bradford

I’d had ten years living on two farms until one day it all changed. We were moving to a place called Bradford. I presume this came from mum as I later found out she hated the countryside. As for dad, he’d spent six years fighting the Germans, mostly in the desert with Montgomery and Rommel. Although I don’t think he had much of a relationship with Rommel. He just wanted a quiet life. So, off we went to a council estate in Bradford, the accommodation wasn’t quite what I had been used to.

It was all very exciting for the first week as I started exploring the council estate, but I soon discovered it was more or less the same wherever you went. During the second week I was beaten up by some other boys. After the third time I was beaten, I took some advice and joined the school boxing club. Drummond Road Boys School was a hell hole and features in the opening of my first book, The Siege of Mr Khan’s Curry Shop.

Mum and dad were working most days and nights in a Working Men’s Club at the other side of town. I became self sufficient by my twelfth birthday and I was feral 😂 I was smoking at fourteen, left school, started work and by my fifteenth birthday I was drinking regularly in Bradford city centre. I had certainly changed.

At seventeen-years-old, I’d had enough. There were several reasons for this. Looking around me I could see my future, and it was grim, but then one day I was chatting to an old bloke at work. I was an apprentice engineer in a factory. He told me I had a job for life, and he had been coming through those gates for fifty years. My first thought was, Ronnie Biggs only got thirty years, and he’d robbed a train. What had I done wrong?! The way it was back then is where I got the original idea for my first novel. The racsim especially from the skinheads was rife, and as ‘rockers’ we were firmly against it. There were often tussles (polite description 😂)

Dad died when I was sixteen-years-old and a year later mum wanted to go and live with one of my elder sisters. I decided to travel the world, and started to save for a Landrover. Sadly I was an impatient seventeen-year-old and so, with the few pounds I’d saved, I bought a cheap Austin 1800. I met a man at the back of some garages, who said I couldn’t test drive it. “It ain’t taxed, mate, and I still own it until the papers go through. You can drive it away though, if you give me the dosh.”

I paid him and drove away only to find it jumped out of third gear, of course, he’d gone when I returned to the lockups 😂. A mechanic friend informed me it was going to cost more than the car was worth to fix it.

Plan ‘B’ it was then! I decided to purchase a one way ticket to an island called Jersey. I was seventeen, had £70 in my pocket and I wasn’t coming back!

I wonder how many of you good people set out to do one thing and then ended up doing something completely different?

Happy Trails, Folks x

From Batman to Hawkboy: A Nostalgic Childhood Tale

The countryside and nature was in my blood, but this was the 60’s and I had been introduced to the world of Superheroes. Batman was on the TV every week and for a while I was hooked. I still have the soundtrack and the annual. 😂

I’ve never been a watcher, I always want to be involved, to be doing something. So, maybe it was time I tried my hand at this superhero business, naturally my first choice was Batman.

Don’t get me wrong being Batman was okay, and I felt inspired, but I was an impostor. I began to search for a yet to be discovered superhero. Difficult without Google🤔. Saturday shopping days meant I was dropped at the library in Wetherby while mum and dad did what ever they did in town. In 1240, King Henry VIII issued a Royal Charter granting the Knights Templar the right to hold a market in Wetherby every Thursday and so Wetherby was a Market Town.

But I was more interested in the wonders of the library. I approached the elderly lady who ran the library and enquired if she knew of the existence of a Hawkboy. She retrieved a copy of A&C Black’s Who’s Who and began to search, to no avail. Eventually I had to infrom her that he was a superhero. She looked puzzled for a moment and then explained it was unlikely a superhero would be listed as they have to submit the biography themselves, which may jepordise their anonymity. I think she took pity on me and added.

“There is a chap in Kirk Deighton who keeps hawks but he doesn’t have a son. So, if someone wanted to take on the role, I think it would be such an adventure.”

That was all I needed, I was over the moon and I began to create my alter-ego. From my base (a tiny cubbyhole under the stairs) I started work. I used my Wolverhampton Wanderers football shirt (yellow), an old pair of mum’s tights, my old trunks (yeah, I know, a therapist would love that!) The batman cloak, utility belt and mask was handy. My utility belt was stuffed with things like my pen knife, laser gun and some baler twine. All I had to do now was hide somewhere and wait for trouble.

When you’re the only kid on the farm there isn’t a lot of crime, but one hot summer’s day mum asked me to go blackberry picking. Would there be blackberry rustlers? I couldn’t take the chance. I wore my costume beneath my ordinary clothes, it was imperative to keep my identity secret. Mum was surprised I was wearing my long farmwork trousers but I won the debate. I was quite an insistent ten-year-old. “You’ll be too hot,” she sighed and we set off.

The sun got higher, burnt off the few meagre clouds, and the heat intensified. I began to pray for a villain, any villain, a naughty sparrow would have sufficed, I was Hawkboy afterall! I began to feel a little sick, my skin felt clammy and I was so thirsty. When I began to feel faint, mum took a good look at me and began to wrench my outer clothes off. I tried to repel her, but eventually I had no option but to reveal my identity. After calling me a, “Silly little bugger,” but promising to keep my alter ego secret, we agreed that Hawkboy could have a day off and I removed the supersuit. There were raised eyebrows when she saw her tights, but I explained how sacrifices have to be made for the safety of the planet. She replied, “Aye, that may be, but not today. Drink some water!”

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began #2

If you read the first post you’ll know by now at the tender age of five we moved to a different farm. Still miles from anywhere and still the only kid. The school thing was becoming a nuisance, and I discovered it would last for eleven years! At least I could walk to this one… it was only two miles away. Although it did mean crossing the A1. If you’re not familiar with this motorway it stretches (or at least it did) from London to York and then later to Hadrians Wall and was built by the Romans 2,000 years ago. There’d been some work done on it since then and back in the day it was a little safer for a five- year-old, and our cows to cross four lanes of traffic😂

I had another five years of interupted peace on that farm. My mother was quite ill (she’d had a brain heamorrage when I was four-years-old) Some days she didn’t feel good so, no school. She liked the company and I enjoyed taking walks in the country with her. I don’t think the teacher missed me, probably glad of a day’s rest from explaining things twice over. I was usually looking out of the window at the sky, the birds and the trees while planning my next adventure or project. I’d found an old pram and made myself a guider or some call a go-kart. I remember my dad made a hole for the front cross member with a hot poker, we didn’t have a drill 😂

That was me, we might have moved farms but happy days. I even managed to breed a few rabbits and I do remember going through an Artist Stage but it turned out I couldn’t paint. Although my sisters (when they visited) said I could tell a good story, even it it was completely idiotic!

You know that old saying? Nothing lasts forever? Well it’s a lesson I’ve spent many years learning over and over. Things were about to change! I wonder if all you good people have happy childhood memories?

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began

My wife is a therapist and I once asked her… “Should I get therapy?” The answer was a very clear. “No!” Apparently it would be too traumatic for the therapist. 😂 So I wondered, how did I get to this place.

I was born on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I had two older sisters but they were at work or at school. I had a trusty dog from the day I was born. Once I grew big enough, so I didn’t need carrying everywhere, she was a faithfull companion.

From an early age it was just me. This isn’t strictly true, I mean there was ‘Johnny’ (imaginary) He was my best friend and there was ‘June’ (also imaginary) she was a kinda girlfriend. As I remember, Johnny and I spent a lot of time rescuing June from the Indians (or as we now know, Native Americans)

We were farmers, at least they were. I was a cowboy! When we finally got a TV, as I remember, we only seemed to watch Westerns. Cheyenne, Bonanza, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Laramie, Sugarfoot, and who could forget Gerry Anderson‘s ‘Four Feather Falls‘. Eat your heart out ‘Thunderbirds‘ I was very happy in my world, Johnny and I riding the range, building log cabins, ableit sticking some branches together to make a kind of shelter. And of course there was always June to rescue. Jeez, that girl got inro some scrapes!

The Author aged 5 — I even had all the gear!

As a three to four year old living in the middle of nowhere I had free rein, and apparently I had a lot of energy. According to my mother I talked a lot. But, hey… give me break, if you spent every day with two imaginary friends, wouldn’t you talk a lot? The problem was, I had my own language. So when I related my day to my family they didn’t understand a word. They would retrieve picture books, and have me point to various images in order to better understand. I was told the most difficult sentence they encountered was. “A howashay in the cooashay.” After some patience they discovered there was in fact. “An elephant in the cowshed.” Which was strange as we didn’t own an elephant.

Book by Claude Clayton Smithhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Cow-Elephant-Claude-C-Smith/dp/0307602192

My elder sister had married her teenage sweetheart when I was a baby, and they had moved into the farm. By the time was two years old they’d had a baby daughter. This had little effect upon my life. I had, for the first two weeks or so entered my sister’s room with toys and posed the question. “Can she play yet?” The answer was always the same, I was told she was too little, and I’d have to wait. It seemed to me babies were a waste of time, they hardly did anything so, I bided my time and concentrated on the prairie, or as the adults called it, the abandoned aerodrome adjacent to our farm.

After two or three years the ‘baby’ became more interesting and I managed to entice it out into the wild. By this time I had a horse called Flicka although to some people it resembled a tricycle. I actually managed to convince the ‘baby’ she was a cowgirl. She took to the role amicably, although I detected some slight misgivings when she was continuously tied to trees, waiting to be rescued. Funny I never had any complaints from June!

Life was good for the first five years. Until one day a man from the village came to visit and I was informed I had to go into the village everyday to attend something called school. My mother told me it would be fun. It wasn’t. Most of the day we were cooped up inside something called a classroom, from where I could see the tops of the trees and the crows fluttering around. Now I knew the meaning of the term, free as a bird. Shortly after that my father became bankrupt and we had to move. At least it was another farm, where he’d secured a job as poultry foreman. The downside was that there was also a village and they also had a school! Little did I know it could get worse 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Wizard of Oz (again)

It appears there is no escaping this film around Christmas time. This year Castle Howard decided to use it as their annual theme, and as always it’s treat for the kids. (although there appeared to be more adults than children😉 )

Castle Howard was built over 300 years ago and took 100 years to complete. Most famously used as the setting for the film Brideshead Revisited an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel. But this year it was devoted to L.Frank Baum’s novel. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There were, in fact, 14 Oz books, but his first one, written in 1900, seems to get all the attention. After entering the Castle you are exposed to the semi- demolished home of Dorothy. (She’s already left on a tornado, Oz bound).

We then find ouselves in the Good Witch’s bedroom, because as you will remember, she’s the one who tells Dorothy to follow the Yellow Brick Road and find ole Wiz.

There’s quite a lot more going on that I’m kinda skipping around, it took two hours to get round and I’m sure you good folks need to get dinner on. So after meeting her various companions and hiking to Munchkin Land the Emerald City comes into view. Is it really green or is it a trick? Anyaways we had our photo taken under the Christmas tree

At last Dotty meets the Wizard, but we all know how that ended, don’t we?

But alas, Dot and her friends are being watched the evil eye under the command of the Wicked Witch sees all and a cunning plan is hatched. (you may scream if you feel the urge 😂)

But all’s well that ends well. C’mon…it was a childrens story. Dorothy’s pals get their wishes. I got to meet Glinda, Good Witch of the South and Dotty went home again… Whereas we went outside for a two hour drive home… Yay!

I think the Scarecrow was always my favourite, so I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom from the man himself. Happy Trails, Folks x

Back in Time

No I haven’t bought a DMC DeLorean and as the average cost of a 1981 car is $50,000 I probably never will.

I revisited a hotel from my past. The hotel in question is in York and up until last week, it had been thirty years since I was there. You could say I had a few memories invested in the The Elmbank Hotel. Apart from anything else it is where I met my, present wife. (That is the part where you all go, Awww 😂)

I started DJ’ing there in that exact bar in 1986. As You can see the decks were no longer there and the years have taken their toll.

The old place hadn’t changed that much, but it is a listed building so, there aren’t a lot of changes anyone can make. Built in 1862 as lavish family mansion in order to host parties and it was remodelled between 1898 and 1902 by George Henry Walton He became internationally known for creating the shop fronts and interiors for a chain of Kodak shops.

The Elmbank is classic Art Noveau and this is evidenced everywhere in the hotel. It is now part of the Hilton Tapestry Collection and I must say the recent refurbishment has rejuvenated the place.

Anyaways… back to the story. I first DJ’d there in 1987, if you could call it DJ’ing. The hotel catered for coach trips from various parts of the country, tourists visiting York. The guests were usually “older” if you get my drift. Tuesday night was Bingo night and we had our own machine

It was a lot of fun and teasing the Food and Beverage Manager was fun. In later years she became my wife.

Thursday night was dance night. I played mainly 60’s music. Well, c’mon, look at their age 😂. I’d throw in a few Waltzes and maybe a Quickstep but my pièce de résistance was the Birdy Song I even got them to do it backwards. So, there you, are a trip down memory lane. I wonder if any of you have visited places from your past? Let me know in the comments if you have. Happy Trails x