Chapter 1-9

Robert Collier, the turn of the century, self help author said - "Constant repetition carries conviction." Repetition of anything that is. We had moved back to Wales and dad was working back in the furniture store and once again mum was a house wife, we started living in a rented house and eventually we moved into our own place in a little village outside the main town. My old school wouldn't have me back after my last actions, so I had a 2 hour bus ride into a school in the next town each morning. I would like to think that my reputation went ahead of me when I entered that school, but looking back, it was more to do with my attitude. After the last 3 schools I had a swagger about me, I knew I was big, I knew I didn't care and it showed. Problem is, with finding my feet my control was starting to branch out. When it comes to academia I'm not clever, I'm average, my science has always been better than my maths, and my spelling is really bad, as some of you have probably spotted.

It was one Wednesday during PE, I had worked out there was no way I could sneak off for a quick smoke, but that was alright there was plenty of places around the school to do that. I was sat on the grass with the rest of my class, at the back as usual; our PE master was a loud angry man, with a big bushy beard. "Jones" he snorted, "Over here, now". I reluctantly got up and slowly weaved my way through my classmates dotted across the grass, I stood in front of him eye to eye as he continued, "today class, we are going to be learning about explosive power." He sidestepped around me to address the rest of the students, "and Jones here is going to demonstrate with a sprint to the fence and back". I turned, facing his back and muttered under my breath, "like bugger I am". He spun around and met me once again eye to eye. "Jones, you useless little tyke." he bellowed, spitting slightly at the same time, "you will do, exactly what I tell you."

And there I was again, back in the headmaster’s office, that quivering little 9 year old boy, but this time it was different, this time I wasn't being looked down to, this time I was the bigger person, literally. In a split second I looked deep into my heart and decided there and then not one man would ever raise his voice to me again, I took a step back and head butted him with all my force, right on the bridge of the nose. I could hear the crack of his nose and I felt the blood from his upper lip splatter across my face, I felt a searing pain run through my head and as I opened my eyes I watched him fall backwards onto his behind, followed by a trail of blood, it was the most scared and exhilarated I had ever been. School bullies was one thing but this was a teacher! I stood over him pointing my finger into his face, just like my old teacher used to do to me, "Don't ever raise your voice at me again." I said in a low slow tone. He scrambled to his feet, and at that point he made a mistake, he swung for me. I dodged the punch and pushed him back to the ground, my classmates were cheering and shouting, all I could here was the chanting FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, suddenly I was being dragged off by two other teachers, my classmates continued to cheer as I defiantly punched the air.

I was dumped in the 6th form common room, and after hours of stubborn refusal to go to the headmaster’s office, he finally came to me, I was so happy, I was in control, the headmaster sang to my tune. It should have been a dark day, and looking back it was, but I was so convinced that mum and dad would move again and soon, the link between action and consequence was not even remotely part of my thought pattern, you see dads conviction was that he had to keep moving, the repetition of house after house, job after job, area after area was in his blood, he was convinced he was doing the right thing. It was about a month after I got expelled that they decided to move again, this time to London, the big smoke, as they call it.

London, I could cope with London, but could London cope with me?