life – Charlierobinsonbooks

Where It All Began 21

So here I was in 1985, a farmworker for my sister on £10 a week. My nephew and I worked from 5:30am until around 9:30pm Monday to Friday that summer. It was a cattle farm with a few milking cows. We bought stirks. A stirk is either male or female, and we bought them between 6 months old and 18 months old, fattened them up and sold them at market. Life was simple, and I managed to fly my eldest son over for all the school holidays, the youngest was not allowed. On Saturdays and Sundays we showed cattle at Country Shows. That year we won nineteen Championships. Many years later, in the nineties, his son, my great nephew carried on the tradition from an early age.

I did this for two years, believing I had found a vocation. I was still running, often rising at 4am to get a long run in. But there was a bear in me somewhere, and restlessness began to eat away. Saturday nights we always went out, roaming from one country inn to another, there were a few scrapes😂But, there were also mobile DJ’s operating in some of them. Yup, you know what’s coming! My brother-in-law borrowed £800 for me and I purchased an old van, some disco gear, and Dial A Disco was born. By driving around the area touting for work I got two regular gigs a week, a heavy rock night for bikers on Thursdays and a dance night every Friday. It involved two types of dress code. The landlady on Friday’s nicknamed me Miami Vice 😂

My sisters husband was now working on the farm, finances had improved and I wasn’t in as much demand. I took a flat in York and went to work for an agency, Nightowls, who gave me as many gigs as I wanted. Their dress code was a little different to what I was used to.

I remember one particular night I was doing the after party for Bramham Horse Trials in a huge marquee. Late in the evening, on a packed dance floor people began to run, there was screaming. The crowd parted to reveal a young man with a chainsaw attacking the centre post. He had been refused entry, gone home got his chainsaw, and climbed under the tent to wreak his revenge. Such is country life 😂 He was talked down eventually and the marquee remained standing. Six months later the couple who owned the Disco Agency offered me a full time job as manager. It looked like life was about to take yet another turn.

Happy Trails, Folks x

A Day Off And A Bit of History

As a DJ (that’s a different story) I spent a lot of time around York, (or as the locals call it “Yark”) but not much sight seeing. So we decided to visit, walk the walls and grab a bite to eat. The Roman fort dates back to 71 AD, but the actual walls were built in the 13th and 14th centuries. And you thought I was old?

Whenever I visit places like this I get inspired, at least I like to think I do. Five caesars visited York unless you count Constantine but he was already there when he was proclaimed Emperor, so I guess the Romans were quite fond of the place. I have to admit the only one I know is Hadrian but I always thought he was a bricklayer. It’s 5k to walk all the way round, and there is a great view of the rear of York Minster it was wooden originally in 627 AD, turned to stone by the Normans in 1080, but the one we see now was built 1220 to 1472.

It gives you time to think, and I got a TikTok video out of it. You’ve probably realised by now this isn’t a lesson in history 😂 I did get some ideas for the new book though.

After the walls I got my reward. Food, there always has to be food involved with any trip or else I don’t go 😂 This time it was the Ivy, which is related to the one in London. I’ve been there. There’s something about these places, where writers and artists frequented in the 1920s. The Ivy in York is a spin off from the one in London, and the food and service is amazing.

I like to eat vegetarian sometimes when I go out as I’m a bit of a carnivore at home. This time I went with a Cheese Soufle and a Sweet Potato Curry. A pint of Guinness, half a bottle of Merlot and a double Jack Daniels. Well, c’mon a day off training? I may as well enjoy it 😂

That’s probably my last treat for a while as it’s the Yorkshire Three Peaks run in five weeks. Twenty four miles and 5,200 feet of elevation.

Well, y’gotta mix it up a bit? 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Don’t Let The Old Man In

Okay, I stole the title from Clint Eastwood. I doubt he’ll sue me, he’s not aware of my existence. It’s something he said when asked why he was still actively working. I think they meant active or even possibly alive.

But he does have a point, and if he hadn’t said it I probably would have. I’m often asked. “How old are you!!!?” Not because someone is enquiring about my age, but because of something I’ve done or said. I remember when I was fifty five and decided to retrain as a carpentry lecturer (ooops spoiler for Where It All Began number 35 😂) My neighbour asked me, “Don’t you think you’re too old?”

Really? Who decides these things? Obviously health plays a big part in that, and I am blessed that I can still function. But it is possible to “Think yourself old” That’s why I refuse to give in. Recently I’ve been inundated with injury after injury, and had to cancel three races. I guess that’s what 50 years of running does to you. But I do the physiotherapy (and trust me I hate physiotherapy😂) And this latest calf injury is starting to repair. So, I’ve entered the Yorkshire Three Peaks Race, Jersey Marathon and the Dalby Forest Marathon. I blame the films I watched as a kid Monte Carlo or Bust, Genevieve, and Lassie. They never gave up 😂

Recently we got in touch with one of my old flames and she asked my wife, “How is the old nutter?” I have no idea what she means. 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Me and me ‘ammer’

I’m not an emotional person, so they tell me. But I do miss being on a construction site. And my ‘ammer’ is 43 years old. So, when I get permission I’ll tackle a bit of carpentry. You know that feeling? When one day you look at something and think, how on earth did it get like that? 😂

Ripping it all out is not a pleasant task. There were wild sapplings behind there, and Ivy that had been growing for twenty years. Plus there is a metal fence behind my fence, protecting them. This was gardening (I’m not a gardener) I persevered and after ripping various parts of skin from my forearms. I won… yeah I know a small victory when it’s only a plant! But that was nothing compared to digging the post holes. Why do builders, on a construction site, bury all their rubble in the garden? I was a carpenter so not guilty your Honour. SDS Hammer Drill down 400mm before I got to soil.

Have you priced timber up lately? The big merchants wanted £5 per length, and I needed 125 lengths. Luckily there is a a wonderful lady called Lisa who owns Belle’s Timber yard and she wanted £2 a length… Go figure.

So, my literary friends, probably not my most erudite, amusing, controversial post, but I wanted to let you know I don’t just run and write 😂 Anyaways here’s the finished product. Now my sciatica is playing up and my thumb joints are siezed after knocking in 1000 nails in, but I do love me ‘ammer’ 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

I’ll Do It

Those three words have probably been the reason it took me twenty years to finish my first novel, there’s always someone, somewhere, wanting something, have you noticed that? If I’d ever had the misfortune to be caught up in a war, I’d more than likely be a hero or dead on the first day. It’s that moment when someone says “who’s willing to…?” You look round the room and all eyes are gazing downwards, bums shuffling uncomfortably on seats, or feet shuffling back and forth nervously. I’m not sure if I feel sorry for the person asking, or I’m just dumb. But uncontrollably, my hand shoots up. “I’ll give it a shot.”

It got me into trouble at school. You know when you’re in the playground with your peers and someone suggests setting the fire alarm off? After riotous laughter, followed by the aforementioned ground gazing, and uncomfortable shuffling, comes the question. “Who’s going to do it?” Yup, that was the second time I got caned. The first time was for calling the PE teacher a f****** bully, after he’d beaten one of us for not climbing the rope in the gym. C’mon! the kid must have weighed 12 stone, he was rotund, and I’m being kind, there was no way he could have climed that rope. The headmaster didn’t see it that way.

A reason I didn’t excel in sports at that particular school was because the PE teacher wouldn’t allow me to participate again until I apologised 😂That was never going to happen. So when I called from the bench, “I’ll do it, sir.” I got a contempuous sneer. Although he did relent the following winter for cross country running. I guess he thought I’d hate it. Once he had set us off running the 3 miles around Clock House fields, he’d retire to the boiler room for a cigarette, reappearing just as we finished. I can still see his expression when he saw me coming in first. “Take a shortcut, Robinson?” he’d shout in his sarcastic manner. So, I did what any normal person would do. I stopped, turned my back on him, ran back to where my rotund friend was, and trotted in with him. Apparently I was a, “Waste of space.” 😂.

All these years later I’m retired, all I really have to do these days is write and run. Life of Riley, eh? So, I asked myself this morning, how have I ended up in two running clubs. The cross country rep for one club and race director of a race. About to take a run leadership course, followed by a coaching course with another club, I’m in six WhatsApp Groups and on two committees? Yup, “I’ll do it!” I guess I’m lucky I’m not in an organised crime gang.

Happy Trails, Folks 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

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