A Life More Ordinary

It’s June 1990 and the torment of the whole GCSE ‘situation’ was coming to an end. Not only had I had to contend with my own shortcomings in the revision/retaining of information/examination processes, but some clown had also decided to schedule the beginning of the World Cup in the middle of the most important exams of my life. As if I really needed any more distractions…

Despite the feelings of disillusionment, abject failure and the ongoing repression of my past, something was changing in me. I wasn’t quite as afraid of my father as I had once been and while I do acknowledge the main reason for leaving Plymouth was the impending doom upon receipt of my exam results, I also began to feel the need to spread my wings. Eschewing Big Fun’s suggestion of Blaming it on the Boogie in 1989, I knew very much where the source of my frustration lay and who I held responsible for it. At the age of 15, almost 16, I felt that I was still treated like a child. I’d had a paper round for several years and had always been instructed to put half of every week’s pay packet into savings. I now realise that it was because my dad had little to no intention of supporting me for any longer than he deemed necessary, so he was encouraging me to squirrel away six pounds fifty on a regular basis so that I could become self-sufficient as soon as possible. I wasn’t allowed to go to Argyle games on my own, yet he wouldn’t take me and apart from running around Central Park with a football on a regular basis, I didn’t do much else. Two years previously, I’d finally ‘broken my duck’, so to speak, in the relationship department, albeit with a tryst that could at best be described as ‘fleeting’ and at worst ‘disappointing’ with perhaps a non-committal shrug of the shoulders too, but I’ll come back to that at some point. The temptation to fly the nest became more attractive as time wore on.

It wasn’t any easier after my exams had finished. I got a job working in the local store, Barbican Discounts, through a family connection and there’s a whole story to unpick there, which I’m leaving well alone for the moment. Suffice to say that anyone who knows their ‘Plymouth history’ will be very aware of the noise and subsequent revelations surrounding that particular establishment. There is one tale worth sharing at this point, however. The work was not overly stressful and I worked in the warehouse with a peculiar band of misfits. I use that term endearingly as I immediately felt comfortable around my new friends and we enjoyed ourselves to the point where we made potentially long days fly by. I still possessed a gob that remained, at times, a little uncontrollable and I retained my uncanny knack of finding trouble.

One lunchtime, our little crew had gathered in the warehouse for lunch when we found a newly installed fire extinguisher. One of the girls I worked with, I think her name was Karen, but I have a vague memory that we had nicknamed her ‘Olive’ (I have no idea why!), had just bought a new jacket and was proudly showing it off when I decided that it would be really funny to pretend to squirt her with a fire extinguisher. In hindsight, I suspect that there was some sort of immature flirting taking place and Karen jokingly threatened that she would deck me if I carried out my threat…so I clamped my hand down on the operating mechanism and pointed the hose in her direction, fully expecting some sort of lock to kick in to prevent it from going off.

There was no lock and it did indeed go off, precipitating a scene that looked not unlike a particular variety of adult movie that I’m told exists…we all stood frozen in absolute horror. Karen recovered her wits first, strode over towards me and absolutely hammered me with a belter of a left hook to the side of my head. I literally saw stars and the ring that she was wearing cut my eyebrow as vengeance and justice were delivered swiftly. I was left sporting a beauty of a shiner for a few days and we all got a slap on the wrist for messing around with emergency equipment. There were no hard feelings between Karen and me; it was entirely my fault and I paid to get her jacket cleaned, an act that made a noticeable dent in my first pay packet.

After three or four weeks of working and still having my finances watched over, I began to realise that nothing was going to change unless I made it happen.

I was already tempted to throw in my lot and move to Horsham, where a room was waiting for me if I needed it. But before that happened, I had the bright idea of running away. To Dartmoor, of all places.

I had this exotic, exhilarating fantasy that I would be able to live rough for a while before finding work at a pub of some sort and carving out a successful and fortune-filled existence for myself, all while making everyone feel terrible for the way that they had treated me. Perhaps it would even change my family; everyone would miss me dreadfully and I would be loved and revered forevermore.

Except, it wasn’t like that at all. In the days leading up to my Great Escape, I plotted and conspired with Ellie, my younger sister, having bought her silence with the promise of a wad of cash from my ‘savings’, which I was going to withdraw from the building society. In my youthful ignorance, I was totally underprepared, not only for the betrayal that would follow but in terms of understanding what I needed to ‘live rough’ and apparently, two bags of shopping from Tesco is somewhat insufficient.

So, the day arrived. Dad and Brenda disappeared to work and I put my plan into action. I swiped my savings book, made my way into Mutley and withdrew all the money that I had. The exact number eludes me, but fortunately, that particular detail won’t detract from the abject failure of my Master Plan. I paid Ellie off, spent a small fortune on tinned goods and a mixture of perishable and non-perishable items. Having already done my research, I hopped on a bus that took me to freedom, out through the gloriously named village of Crapstone and into Yelverton. From there, I walked out onto the moors for about three miles, finding shelter under a thick covering of brown ferns that looked perfect for hiding beneath to avoid detection.

It was a little after two o’clock in the afternoon and with nothing else to do, I settled down to await nightfall. In early June. After about twenty minutes of doing nothing, I became fidgety. These were pre-mobile phone days, so I had no way of knowing if I was already classified as a ‘missing person’ and besides, a problem of a far more pressing nature had reared its head. In my haste to escape my prison, I had neglected to purchase a tin opener. It was a bit like the episode of Bottom, where Eddie and Richie have to camp out on Wimbledon Common for a week to win a bet with ‘Mad Ken Stalin’, only I was neither furnished with a packet of Chocolate Hob Nobs nor indeed a tent. And there was most definitely an absence of Wombles.

Still, I consoled myself with the knowledge that I was free to live my life however I wanted, unfettered by unwanted interference and the trappings of everyday life. I’d hopped aboard the last Freedom Moped out of Nowhere City and I hadn’t even told my parents what time I’d be back. It was great. I let out a long, relieved sigh.

Just as it started to rain.

I lasted until about seven o’clock the following morning and to be honest, I think that in itself was quite the achievement. Once the rain began, it refused to abate and within an hour, I had discovered that while the ferns under which I was nestled did obscure me from view, they had all the resistance to water of a cotton shirt. Which was handy, because that was exactly what I had thrown over the top half of my body and it was now soaking. The overhead greyness settled in for the afternoon and the evening, during which a friendly but mischievous horse managed to steal my bag of apples and demolished them with alarming rapidity. Once sated, the horse buggered off, but not before it had emptied its bowels about six feet away from my hideaway, meaning that not only was I drenched, but I now had the constant stench of horse poo for company. I slept fitfully and uncomfortably once darkness fell; every noise was a potential ghost or goblin or worse, someone with designs on my swiftly diminishing store of supplies. Every horror story that I had ever read teased at my brain in its drowsy state, so that by the time the night receded and another grey dawn crept across the misty moors, I was thoroughly and utterly dejected. I sat in the same puddle that I’d tried to sleep in and cried before scooping up my soggy belongings and squelching back to Yelverton. On the way, a woman in her sixties with long, grey hair and a cheery disposition pulled over as I walked along the road. She wound down her window, looked pityingly at me and asked if I needed a lift anywhere.

I no longer had the fortitude to consider my own safety. In fact, if this slightly wrinkly but overwhelmingly pleasant Galadriel figure, beaming at me from behind the steering wheel of her Land Rover, had turned out to be a bit noncey, I may well have sold my honour for the want of a warm bath, dry clothes and a bacon sandwich. Fortunately, she only provided me with the latter and an ear to bend, both of which were most welcome. She telephoned my father, who was suitably annoyed with me and fully informed of Ellie’s version of events, as she had promptly spent the cash I had given her and then phoned him at work to tell him that I’d run away.

The woman was kind enough to drive me back home and after she had deposited me back with Dad and Brenda, long conversations followed that eventually saw them agreeing to my request to move to Horsham. Things were awkward for some time after, as we couldn’t get the move finalised until the beginning of August and perhaps this was what Dad had been referring to when, in later years, he told me that my children would break my heart. It’s a wonder that irony didn’t just keel over and die after that statement and the times that I wanted to point out that he’d broken my heart on many occasions were numerous.

So, it was a time of change, my dear. And it seemed not a moment too soon.

Copyright Alec Hepburn, 2026.