This is where it gets a bit boring. I have decided that I can’t really remember much from my primary school years, so I’m just going to compile a little list of all the great toys and television programmes I remember from around these years. They were called ’The Eighties’ back then, ask your parents.

These were quite possibly my favourite toys and games as a kid:-

1. Lego:  My all-time favourite toy. I still keep my eye in to this day. Lego Town was my favourite, fuck your Technics and your scabby Pirates, Town was where it was at. Role play at its very best. I once built Mount Everest out of my duvet and got one of my Lego people to climb it. They fell, but luckily my quickly assembled Lego helicopter saved them. Pure drama. I remember not having breakfast, lunch AND tea one day because I was in the Lego zone.
2. Scalextric:  A real boys toy. You either had a train set, or Scalextric. I was lucky enough to have Scalextric. My Dad managed to get a load of second hand track and cars off of a work colleague. I always wanted the hump backed bridge, but we couldn’t afford it.  My Mark II Ford Escort car with working lights was THE car of the track. Nothing else would even come close to it. Another toy where I would play endlessly for hours and forget the time. Watching a motorized vehicle whizz around corners and straights at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour was definitely a highlight of my childhood. Note: It is still perfectly acceptable to have the odd go today, just to keep your nephew happy.
3. STAR WARS:  Deserves the capital letters. Should be number one really, but you can’t grow out of numbers one and two on this list. I had the usual suspects, The Millennium Falcon (awesome, awesome name), X-Wing Fighter, Scout Walker. I got a Snowspeeder for my Fifth birthday (1982) and that was that. I always wanted Boba Fetts ship, Slave I, that was (and still is) a thing of beauty. Best played at school with all of your school mates.

I can’t really think of any more.

Television that shaped me as a kid included the following:

Airwolf

Street Hawk

Knight Rider

The A-Team

T J Hooker

Robin of Sherwood (Michael Praed better than Jason Connery - FACT)

Dempsey and Makepeace (Glynis Barber - FIT)

The Kenny Everett Television Show (Reg Prescott - LEGEND)

Dallas

Dynasty (Apart from when Fallon got taken away in a spaceship, bit far fetched I thought)

So, basically, this is the main stuff I remember when I was a child in the 1980s. My next blog will hopefully be about my lazy teenage and early adult years. It shouldn’t take too long to write as I can’t remember Jack shit about them.

OK. So for those of you who would like to learn more about me from my childhood up to my adult years, here is another riveting instalment of my life.

Years 4 upwards

I’m cheating again. I don’t know what age this will take me up to, I can’t really remember my teenage/early adult years so I might end the story here.

I started school aged four. I was on a good little screw. I got paid £1.95 per hour for six hours attendance. It was Government initiative scheme to pay kids to go to school to keep the truancy figures down. Of course, it all changed during the Falklands conflict, as they had to pay for that instead. That war has got a lot to answer for. I was told not to eat corned beef, as it came from Argentina and it could been poisoned. Good job I didn’t like corned beef back then really.

One memory from my first day at school was walking into the urinals to go for a ‘wee’ (I didn’t say piss back then) and seeing two other boys in the toilets having a ‘wee’. I stood up to the trap, then proceeded to pull my trousers and pants down. The two boys were laughing at me. I thought to myself,

“What am I doing wrong here? Why have these boys got their winky (I didn’t say cock or nob back then) through a hole in their trousers?”

It was then that I realised people used their zips in public, rather than pull their trousers down to their ankles. I always seemed to find things out the hard way, something I also do to this day.

School seemed to be pretty cool during the early years. Games of army, kiss-chase, show me yours and I’ll show you mine, and of course, British Bulldog against the Fourth Year pupils. This would separate the men from the boys. We also used to play a game with a tennis ball, and see who could through it over the school building. My throw was such a spazzy one at the time, I could barely make the bottom windows of the school.

I was what you might call “thick as pigshit” as a child. I once asked for a hotdog without the sausage. I just didn’t twig on that the sausage was infact, pretty much an integral part of the meal. This story gets brought up at the dinner table pretty much every time I go round my parents for a meal.

I didn’t even have the courage to ask Darth Vader for his autograph when he was on vacation in Barnstaple. I didn’t cry or anything, I think it was just because there were a lot of kids around and I felt a little embarrassed to ask him.I should have really, I mean, it’s not every day a Dark Lord of the Sith turns up in your hometown, is it? My Sister got it for me in the end, no harm done. I was probably about seven or eight then.

If I remember any more random shit, I’ll let you know sometime. Thanks for reading.

I can only remember so much of my life, so without wanting to bore the shit out of you with the meaningless things (i.e this entire series of my life) I will try and keep it simple. Time to move on.

YEARS TWO AND THREE

I have grouped these two years together, as quite frankly, I’m a lazy fuck.

So, by now I had managed to learn the art of walking and talking, pretty much essential things in everyday life. I would interact with my cuddly toys, Teddy Edward (I still miss you, l’il dude x) being my main teddy to talk to in times of crisis. Being able to walk also encouraged me to find random areas of the house to crouch down and go for a dump in my nappy. I didn’t need to lie or sit down, it was all about the freedom of movement for me. Soon I would be potty trained, and eventually toilet trained (via the aid of a designated ‘wiper’, aka my Mum) but for now, I could dump and run. Then cry when I fell over and sqiudged shit up my nappy.

Being a toddler running around all the time also meant accidents. There are a few I remember vividly, almost as if they had happened yesterday. The first one I really remember was trapping my big toe under a door. I don’t know if I was trying to kick it out of anger, or whether I had just invented the worlds most stupidest game. Anyhow, what seemed to feel like an eternity having my toe trapped under this door, I decided to somehow break free. To me, it felt like my toe was hanging by a thread, when in reality I had done nothing more than graze the bugger. I applied several dressings to my wound until it eventually healed over.

My next accident was the worst one of my life. It still gives me nightmares to this day. We lived in a cul-de-sac, in a house at the bottom of a steepish hill. (It seemed steep at the time, I could probably walk up it and back in ten seconds now.) One day I tried to ride my tricycle down it. I say tried, what I think really happened was that my sister helped me to the top, then decided to push me so I went full pelt with no brakes into the garage at the bottom of the hill. I remember my top lip was bleeding quite bad, I was crying and screaming on the sofa (proper tantrum, the type where you kick your legs and everything) and in the background, just starting on the television, was Grange Hill. Suddenly, everything felt better again.

We moved not long after that (I really did get my own way as a three year old) and soon I went to play-school. I think I could read by this time, the first book I read was Chicken Licken. I haven’t read this book since my childhood, but I think the animals all get eaten by a fox. Its a pretty gruesome, sick thing to give a three year old to read. I suppose in this day and age it would be banned and replaced with Chicken Licken sponging off the state and getting a luxury four bedroom house, swanning around doing fuck all. Foxy Woxy would probably be allowed to roam the streets, even though he was a mass murderer. Turkey Lurkey would have been eaten for Christmas.

One day, whilst at nursery, I wrote something on the blackboard. The first words I had ever written, anywhere, this was my defining moment. Three letters, quite a simple word to write, but one which many of the Mums who were watching didn’t really approve of me writing. The word in question? ASS. I was quite pleased by it, after all, I had written it left handed, thats pretty skillful for a kid. I even started shouting to my Mum that I had written the word ass on the blackboard. She did not look amused. I think she may have smacked me on mine when we got home.

It was also at nursery that I fell off the climbing frame. This is my first recollection of embarrassment, because all the other kids were staring at me as I cried in my Mothers arms. I told them to stop looking at me, but that is basically like telling somebody to not look behind them. It was at this moment that I realised people are always going to stare at you if you make a cock of yourself. Yes, I was showing off, yes, I fell off and hurt myself, and yes, I was doing it to impress a girl.

Right, before I grow old and turn into a drooling vegetable, I’m going to attempt to remember everything that has happened in my life so far. I’ll start at the beginning. My birth.

YEAR ONE

I don’t really remember a lot about being born, I don’t suppose anybody does, apart from that one really irritating person (we’ll call him Mr Nobhead) that can remember taking his bin out on a Tuesday, instead of a Wednesday about three years ago.

Apparently, when I popped out of the hole, the nurse spotted I had two teeth. Two little ones at the front, I believe. I am unsure if I was actually munching on anything or speaking (swearwords knowing me) but I think this would explain why I wasn’t breast-fed. This, in turn, would also explain my fascination with boobies. Breasts, jugs, norks, hooters, titties, baps, tats, chesticles, top-bollocks, beautiful, wonderful breasts. At such a young age, the starvation of such a marvelous thing must have stuck in my mind. Also, the lack of natural breast milk has probably led me to be barking mad in later life. I may sue.

My parents were going to call me Adrian, but this soon altered when they saw a T.V. programme (don’t ask me which one, I haven’t got a clue) which contained two gay men on it, one of them was called Adrian. I was to be named Gavin Lee immediately. I would like to point out that my parents are not homophobes, they just didn’t want me to be teased at school or anything. Good job I had big ears as a kid instead then, isn’t it? That is a true story.

I was dropped on my head by my Sister, she claimed it to be an “accident” but I know different. It’s the jealous child syndrome, she was the first born, she was the chosen one, then I came along and took her crown. Life’s a bitch love.

“She dropped me on my head!”

I’ve learned that the things I did as a baby were pretty much the same things I do today. I’d lie in my cot for most of the day. I’d have my arse wiped for me. When I was hungry, I would cry for food. I would get winded after feeding. The only difference now is I can legally drink alcohol, whereas back then, it was put in my milk to help me sleep. (Citation needed)

So, to summarise, I had arrived on planet earth. I didn’t know anything, I didn’t care about anything, I just cried and shat. In the next few years though, that would all change… . .

Drinking beer from an early age did me no harm