A Life More Ordinary

I mentioned in ‘Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale’ my fear of water. From memory, I was always quite cautious as a child. Nervous, timid. During the summer holidays, we would regularly visit the beach at Teignmouth, both when we lived in the town and in Ideford. I found the beach a bit of an ordeal. Always have done. I’ve never been a fan of sand in my shoes and neither do I really enjoy sitting around doing nothing.

As a young child, I couldn’t swim and at no point had I shown any inclination to attempt to do so. I didn’t like getting my face wet and certainly didn’t like going underwater, finding the process completely overwhelming and disorientating. During the mid-to-late seventies, there was a Lido in Teignmouth and I also think I remember a smaller pool on the seafront, along from the pier (which fascinated and terrified me in equal measure). It was at this smaller pool that my dad and a friend of his, who we knew as ‘Uncle Joe’, who certainly wasn’t our uncle, decided that they would ‘teach me’ how to swim. Part of the problem with Joe Kennedy, a gruff, handsy Yorkshireman who regularly smelled of beer, was that he was neither a particularly thoughtful nor sensitive person and even after all these years, I harbour a distant sense of distrust of the man. Something I can’t put my finger on, but something unpleasant beneath the surface.

So, in brilliant sunshine and scorching heat, with me in my little spotted trunks at the age of maybe five, screaming my head off once I realised what they had planned, I suddenly found myself launched into the air by Joe and my dad from the side of the pool towards the centre. They reasoned that if I needed to learn how to swim to survive, I would do so. Well, somewhat unsurprisingly, I didn’t. As I landed in the pool, I sank straight to the bottom, cold water flooding into my open mouth and up my nose. Distant, muffled shouts and screams from other nearby swimmers filled my senses among the forest of legs and the taste of chlorine. The cold water inside me felt decidedly peculiar as I thrashed about trying to locate the surface, my heart beating wildly as I swallowed yet more water and I suddenly realised that I was going to drown. People say that your life flashes before you when you are about to die. I can neither confirm nor deny this statement and can only assume that I must have passed out, because I have no memory of being dragged from the pool or any subsequent events immediately following my narrow escape.

Because of that moment, I still have a fear of water. I did learn how to swim in my last year in primary school, clinging to a polystyrene float and creeping my way along the twenty-five-metre length swimming pool with my neck stuck out of the water to keep my face dry looking, I suspect, a little like a paddling giraffe. Even as an adult, I despise going underwater. I have twice managed to swim in the sea, in Malta and Cyprus and I have loved the experience. But it has always been accompanied by that one memory and that fear. I’m not a strong swimmer, but I’m glad that I can swim. The irony of that whole incident in Teignmouth is that I’m not even certain that my dad could swim and may have been equally afraid of water, so whatever possessed him to try and ‘teach’ me in such a way is beyond me. One of many mystifying decisions from my childhood.

Back in Ideford and the even smaller village of Luton, many evenings were spent at The Elizabethan public house, or to be more specific, the garden of The Elizabethan for me. Having been barred from The Royal Oak in Ideford (I have no idea why, but John, the owner, still allowed me to buy dad’s cigarettes for him and would occasionally give me a bar of chocolate along with the strict instruction to eat it before I got home, acts of kindness that have never been forgotten). John seemed very much to me a ‘gentle giant’ of a figure and from what little I recall, he couldn’t have looked any more like a publican if he’d tried. I would later base the character of Arthur, landlord of the Ivyford village pub in the early chapters of Stand Against the Dark, on John. A lot of my past has gone into my books so far.

As a consequence of his exclusion, Dad had relocated to nearest alternative drinking hole, probably at least a mile from home, where he would spend the evenings drinking while I was abandoned in the pub garden with a coke and a bag of crisps for the whole evening, running around and kicking an imaginary football or sitting at a wooden table waiting for eleven o’clock to finally come around. It seems crazy these days to talk about a child being left alone in a pub garden for five hours or so and if anyone had taken me, he would have been none the wiser until closing time. If anyone ever wonders why I have such a vivid imagination, it’s likely the result of those soul-crushingly tedious nights when I was sat freezing on my own on a wooden bench – I had to do something to entertain myself and dreaming up stories was a necessary means of escape.

There was one evening in particular that stuck with me, after my Dad had told me that he’d given up smoking. I had timidly pulled open the door of the pub (despite having been told not to do so) and saw him sitting at the bar, happily puffing away on a Rothmans. I don’t know why that moment broke my heart more than some others, but I suspect it was the deceit, the fact that he’d promised me something and didn’t seem to care when I discovered that promise was broken. It was at a time when I think we had learned about the dangers of smoking at school and, because of my mental state at the time, I was terrified that he would get lung cancer and die, leaving me alone.

After closing time, we would walk/stagger home and once finally back at number one Church Road, I would be told to sit down on the sofa while dad told me how much he regretted things about his life and essentially, he would pour his heart out to me. He’d cry and lecture me on a multitude of things that I didn’t understand before, eventually, I’d have to help him up the stairs to bed and undress him, tucking him in and making sure that he was ok before I could then hit the sack myself. I’ve often thought that during those times, there was an awful amount of role reversal and I arguably had to parent way before I should have had to do so. It must have been very difficult for him too. Looking at it now, it’s obviously quite a complex relationship. He was so closed to me most of the time and only when he’d been drinking would he allow himself to be vulnerable, while any sign of vulnerability on my part would be dismissed. Those late night conversations were only ever a one-way exchange of views and experiences. Obviously, I had to grow up very quickly and I lost a large part of my childhood during this time and while the things that I went through made me the person I am today, it’s hard not to feel that I was robbed of something.

Fortunately, during the winter, visits to the pub were less frequent. I guess it was a step too far for me to have to sit out in the garden in the cold and the dark! I was still expected to go out on the ‘cigarette run’, but on such occasions, I discovered a new form of entertainment. The village church was on the way to the Royal Oak, but I had no need to go through it; I could just as easily have made my way to the pub by staying on the main road, such as it was. However, with my love of horror and the paranormal already well-nurtured, it was far more entertaining to go via the poorly lit graveyard. I would push open the rusty gate, wincing as it screeched out in protest before slipping into the darkness beyond. Looking into the alcove at the church entrance, I cast a wary eye over the scene, hoping that nothing was moving in the shadows, enjoying the feeling of not-quite-terror yet not-quite-excitement crawling across my skin! Then, as fast as I could, I would charge along the path, gravestones flashing by in my peripheral vision, accompanied by imaginings of skeletal hands pushing up through the earth and fruit-soft flesh peeling from blood-stained bones while spirits of the long departed snapped at my heels all the way to the lych gate, which I would bolt through and slam shut behind me. Having survived the ordeal, I would then make my way to the pub, pay for dad’s cigarettes and make the four-minute walk home, sometimes brave enough to traverse the graveyard once more, but more often than not giving it a wide berth, reluctant to taunt any ghosts and demons a second time.

Saturdays were my favourite days in Ideford but they could go one of two ways, depending on the result of the Sunderland game during the football season. We’d get the newspaper (Daily Mirror) and my copy of ‘Champ’ comic delivered around 8 o’clock, so breakfast was spent with me enjoying the latest instalment of ‘We Are United’ and ‘The Sinister World of Mr Pendragon’. During the summer, I’d then be out in the garden until the start of play in the Test Match and most of the day would then be spent watching Fowler, Gower, Botham et al in action against whichever side was touring at the time. Around three o’clock, the ice cream van would pay its weekly visit to Church Road and I’d get my usual order (spot the autism) with my fifty pence pocket money before returning to the cricket. At the close of play, I’d be back in the garden either bowling at the sticks that doubled up as stumps or kicking a ball around whilst pretending to be Bryan Robson (this was pre-Argyle for me!). I’d be out there until dark and that was pretty much every Saturday. In the winter, the television took a back seat in the afternoons, and dad and I would sit and listen to the football commentary and scores on the radio with me desperately hoping that the Mackems would at the very least avoid defeat and that Manchester United would win, except when playing Sunderland.

Winter in the countryside was challenging, especially as we were of limited financial means. The heating would only go on when it was really cold, but most mornings would see ice on the inside of the windows as I clambered out of bed, pretty much fully clothed. The short walk from the house to the bus stop on a school morning was spent watching the thin trails of my breath snaking away from me on an outward breath as I hurried along in shoes that were too small and trousers that I was told I would have to grow into. In the summer, however, it was glorious. I’m sure by now you’ll understand that it probably wasn’t, but those sunny days hold some of my warmest memories. I was quite insular as a child, so I didn’t really feel that I was missing out in the absence of any ‘friends’ and I’ve always been comfortable in my own company. During the school holidays, my sisters would sometimes come and stay and we’d go for long, family walks, more to have something to do than for any other reason, unless we were picking blackberries or rummaging in the scrubland by the golf course for any errant balls that dad could sell on in the pub that evening. There was a run-down, shabby building near the golf course that often held my attention, prompting spooky stories that would get written down in my schoolbooks when I’d tired of football and cricket.

My other love at the time was reading. I’d regularly check out books from the school library on a Friday and spend the weekend devouring stories. Admittedly, the theme was often restricted to science fiction and the Target series of Doctor Who books were read over and over again, to the point where I could probably have recited chapter after chapter if I’d ever needed to. There were one or two books that broke that pattern. I loved ‘Gobbolino, the Witch’s Cat’ along with the Narnia books and in particular, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I’m sure that there were many others but none that I can recall with absolute certainty.

For some reason, Dad objected to my interest in sci-fi and he would regularly berate me for my choice in books or television programmes (Doctor Who, Blakes 7, The Adventure Game), telling me that I needed to grow up and that science-fiction was just nonsense. Having said that, he twice made an effort to reach me in the wobbly corridors and imagined alien vistas that enabled me to mentally escape from the trauma of my childhood. The first time, he’d been out for the day and he came home with a copy of the latest Doctor Who magazine. I didn’t ever get to buy it as we couldn’t afford it, but when he handed me the issue with Peter Davison and Janet Fielding (Issue 85, complete with a pull-out poster of the Master that I wasn’t allowed to put on my wall) on the cover, my poor, malnourished heart very nearly burst with joy. Of course, I wanted to share every detail with him, which didn’t happen, but it was one of the best moments of my life to that point, which on reflection, makes me feel a little sad. Still, it was recognition of something important to me and even if only in my own head, it was affirmation that I was allowed to like the things that I did. It proved to me that occasionally, my father was capable of…I don’t want to say kindness but I’m struggling to find an appropriate alternative. Compassion, perhaps? Or just capable of hinting that he could be so much more than he was. And suddenly, I feel sad again.

The other occasion was when I asked if I could read to him, being a couple of chapters into my brand-new copy of ‘Warriors of the Deep’ (which would place this memory in the autumn of 1984, my autism reliably informs me). He agreed, albeit reluctantly, so we settled on his bed to continue one of my favourite adventures. Sadly, within three minutes, he was asleep and I can still remember my disappointment to this day. I’m sure that he had the best of intentions and was quite prepared to listen to me go through my full range of both human and reptilian voices along with my very best Peter Davison impression, but alas, the best laid plans and all that. So, I slunk off to my room with a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat and continued to read alone. In my head, I was travelling the Universe, watching suns rise and fall on distant worlds, righting wrongs, battling evil and saving the day. The reality was so very different.

Copyright Alec Hepburn, 2025.