Nightmare 2 -

Posted as a reminder to write about nightmate 2

pyjmas lead to self harm

Edit post, posted as reminder.

stabbed in the back with a bick biro

Edit post, posted as reminder.

am i dead in the middle of the night

Edit post, posted as reminder.

the walls have ears

Edit post, posted as reminder.

It a big secret I should hear

I over hear hushed voices

"When should we tell him"
"Theres never a good time"
"He isnt old enough yet"


I have a sinkin feeling that I am adopted, but i know that i am not.

I wait many years to find me the truth and when I do it like a steam train.

Introducing Billy the Twat

Billy the twat, is the nemesis of my uncle eddie.

I cant stand him with a passion.

Can you imagine a man stuck in the 70's with a big bald head, busy eyebrows, tweed jackets and moleskin trousers. A know it all bastard who likes to tend to his bonsai and his gladioli.

With a wife to match, big buofont permed hair and flowery dresses.

He is my mothers brother and always looks down his nose at my dad, he thinks he is better than anyone else. He is so far up himself, the horticultural society thinks he is a new species of daffodil.

His wife picks me up one day and tells me to avoid the dogs dirt on the pavement, I dont avoid it and it ends up in the back of her car. Oh dear.

Likewise, if I have to play hide the fucking grape one more time in her retro 70's living room, with a poxy bunch of artificial plastic graps, I think that I might explode.

More on billy the twat and his wife later.

Am I uncle eddies child ?

I really like my Uncle Eddie, although he is old now and rather contankerous, he is a diamond.

Although my dad has three sisters and a brother and I have lots of relatives on my crazy mothers side, Uncle Eddie is the only one that I bother about now.

As a young man, he introduced me to the world of motorsport, by letting me ride his Honda 3 wheeler and then later taught me the rudimentary basics of learning to drive offroad in a landrover. This was prior to me learning to drive on the road in a car. He was also a very diplomatic listener and when I was old enough to drive for myself, I would visit him at my lowest points and he would not pass judgement, nor criticise whether I was right or wrong. He did not take sides as my father did and I will always respect him for this. He also taught me to fly fish, but thats a side issue. I must remember to visit him soon, or at least phone him as Im not always good at keeping in touch.

However, back when I was a child though, we used to visit my uncle eddies, he stayed in Broxburn along with my grandparents.

My granny was a lovely woman, very kind and generous, but I was never close to him or my grandfather as my dad had been the blacksheep of the family. I realise now in later life that this was becuase he married my mother against all his family's wishes and he literally chose to disown them apart from visiting his folks once a week. Eddie was the only exception to this rule.

He kept an immaculate garden with a putting green in it and although he never once in my whole life gave me a birthday present, he gave me self respect and worth, he treated me as an adult form day 1 and I love him for it.

One day, my mother sits me down, she has been listening to the voices in the walls again.

She tells me that to protect me, that I am Uncle Eddies child.

I am young and confused.

I hold this burden close to my chest suffering with nobody to talk to about this for many years and despite all child like logic I have that my dad looks like me, I cant shake the thought.

I felt that I could not tell me father, he would not listen and take my mothers side if I ever complained about her to him.

I realised later of course that I am not uncle eddies child, its just all part of the twisted web she wove around me.

I tell me dad this many years later when I am a grown man, it upsets him greatly.

The bastard in the fruit garden

Around the corner from where we lived there used to be a small lane called quality street. At the end it had a small fruit and veg shop called something like the fruit garden.

The guy was middle aged that owed it, usually wore a suit, black hair, moustache, glasses.

I spilled his strawberries one day whilst in shopping with my mother, I remember bending down to pick them up and he shouted to leave them. I didnt and he slapped me clean across the face with such force that I had a hand print across my jaw and it sent my flying across the shop.

My mother refused to tell my dad no matter how much I begged her too, I wanted retribution even at such an early age. She wouldnt, fearing that my dad would kill him and the police would be called and the whole world would know our business and a million other crazy ideas that the voices in the walls told her.

I vowed that day that some time in teh future I would exact my revenge on that man.

I carried that with me until I was in my very early thirties and I seen him in a costco. I had always promised myself that I would say to him "remember me" followed by a short sharp rap in the jaw.

When i saw him, he looked really really old, and I couldnt bring myself to say anything. I felt more pity for him than anything else.

I eventually told my dad what had happened, there was tears in my eyes, it was a little secret that I had carried for so many years, just another piece of the puzzle.

Nighrmare one - the sheets move closer

The first nightmare is difficult to explain, it was more like a gut wrenchy feeling, like a brainstorm or something.

The only way that I could describite, is it was like a plain white sheet, ruffled, but constantly moving towards evil. Or another way to put it, it was like being at the end of a chess board, constantly edging towards the obyss of the opponents pieces and the battle that would ensue.


I know that doesnt make a whole load of sense, but thats what it was like, like you were gradually edging towards an unknown quantity or death. It was petrifying.

Travel Sick

One thing that I remember vividy about returning from Hawick was being travel sick.

My dad, for a reason only know to himself, would rather I sit in the back without a seatbelt in those days rather that sit in the empty front seat with a seatbelt on.

I have no doubt in my mind that he thought this was safer in some weird and twisted way, but stil it makes you wonder. Seatbelt or no seatblet, hmm let me see.

I remember sitting in the back of his car, and having to have him stop at laybys ever 20 miles or so. He would always get out the car with me and walk up and down rubbing my back.

I hated the thought of my mother consoling me, dad was always the man to be sick with.

Age 7 or so - The nightmares start

Im guessing at the age being around 7 or so. The truth is that I dont remember, Its like they were always there. Certainly all through primary school, maybe even into early high school.

If i close my eyes just now I can see them vividy.

Two particular recurring nightmares, both widely different and stupid in design. I would wake up in torment.

One is easy to explain, its child like and stupid, the other is harder to define, it was more a torture, a torment a stabbing mind game.

Im not suggesting that the nightmares were my mothers fault, but considering all the other stuff that i have been through I could have certainly lived without them

The long dark corridor

The place had old wiring and at night the corridor that lead from the end of livingroom all the way to the bathroom was as black as night. There was only one natural skylight window about three quarters along it and the only lightswitch was at the opposite end.

I supposed now, it wouldnt seem taht long a corridor, but it did then, long and straight with spooky shadows and the noises of the old building swaying and creaking and yawning.

Its scared the living shit out of me.

Finally dad came to rescue me and brought with him a hand made bi-plane. Now, my dad was a mechanic by trade, he was great with his hands and could fix about anything that had an engine.

Over the years, i have seen him bend a bit metal to any shape you want, fix boats, cars, lawnmowers, and everything in between. Nothing short of mechanical genuis

But, give him a bit wood and he was a disaster zone.

So, picture this bi-plane, big thick planks of wood for the wings. Thick downling between the two to make it look like a bi-plane. The body of the plane, fashioned out of one thick chunk of pine.

A big round bit stuck on the front and a black throttle handle from a lawnmower painted with a white chocks away simon face.

The wheels were off a lawnmower as well I think, they would have been the little wood spindles on an old atco or something that would be right at the front in front of the cutting blades.

It originally had a propeller too, actually properly shaped like one, but this was the first to break when I threw it off the banister at the bates mansion.

Other than that, it was bullet proof, and it was for a long time my very favourite toy.

I still own it and every so often, I ask him to make a new propeller for it, he hates it and see's it as a failure as he is now quite good at woodwork, so he wont do it.

it recently lost its tail, but my wife assures me that it will be in the house somewhere, but I have my doubts that she has thrown it away.

I cant explain how much this toy meant to me, my dad was a great dad. I sometime think that he made it to compensate for me being left at the Hazelwood, but probably closer to the truth was that he couldnt afford to buy an airfix kit and had knocked something up instead.

Im sure that it would have took him weeks and I will never through it out. Its in the top shelf of my wardrobe just now and I seen it every time that I put a dress shirt on. It reminds me of my dad and thats important to me.

The bates motel

I realise now that the reason that I was packed away to the the mansion house was that this would be my mothers first stint in the hospital for her socially unnaceptable affliction.

I dont remember what my dad told me, but it was something along the lines of simply, she wasnt well and he could look after both of us.

I stayed there for weeks at a time, and I remember being strangely affected by it.

I vividly remember my mad uncle sinclair having a fetish for buying hundred of pairs of slippers, or two of the same book.

I also remember burning almost all of those slippers with the red hot poker from the livingroom open coal fire, which he consented to, I hasten to add.

Staying at Hawick

I seem to remember being packed away to my grandmothers house around this age. She stayed in the top flat of a large mansion house that had been divided up into apartments a long time ago. At one point she had owned the mansion house and all the surrounding land including outhouses and pasture, but as the depression took its toll it was all sold off.

Imagine being a small child and driving up the stone chip drive way, entering the flat door at ground level and having to climb the two flights of stairs past imposing stained glass windows until your reached the respective front door.

She owned the entire top floor and as soon as you went throught her entrance door, you were faced with a large wooden landing, about the size of my current living room. A winding staircase took you up to the apartment, a top landing if you like.

It had five bedrooms, a livingroom, a kitchen with an old Aga, a tower room and a bathroom. It also had the longest darkest hallway you have ever seen. I can only liken it to the bates mansion or the shining.

The only heating came from the coal fire in the livingroom and all the other rooms were massive.

It would make a great development opportunity now and my mad uncle still stays there to this day, granmother having long since passed away.

Cotton Wool syndrome

Dont ever understimate the devistating effect of an over protecting mother.

Mothers beware, choose a balance, an over protecting mother is something to be hated. She wouldnt let her me of her sight and although the school was 50 yards up the street, I couldnt go there alone until I was embarassingly old. That story comes later though.

She had an obsession with knitwear, maybe because it was the only job she ever held down at the pringle factory in her entire miserable life. She hasnt worked a day since she met my dad, who is a different kettle of fish altogether but more on him later too.

If she ever called me "wee lamb" again, i think i might stab her in the eye with the blunt end of a spoon.

I even hated women for a while until I met Mags and understood how a mother should be. But thats to come much much later, theres so much to tell.

Cotton Wool

Another trip to the doctors, I was always there, I knew all the waiting room posters off by heart and could tell you how many wrinkes dr robertson had on his old face, it was a lot and I had to keep counting them to make sure.

She would drag me there with the slightest cold and insist on antibiotics. Looking back in later life, its probably why I get so many colds now, in fact everything thats going as my immune system was shot to hell from an early age.

Boiled lemonade, honey and sugar on a spoon, hot water bottles and layers and layers and layers of woolens. Just what a growing boy needs.

It was the start of cotton wool syndrome

Still Age 5

Night time would come, she would get into bed with me. I told her that I was a big boy now and I wanted to sleep on my own. She told me it was for my own protection in case anything bad happened to me. It was a single bed and I didnt have much room. She would be gone by the time I would wake up in the morning. She told Dad that it was because I couldn't sleep.
At that age it was like having a life size teddy bear. I already had a normal sized teddy and I carried it everywhere.

5 years old

My earliest memory, as a little boy was sitting at a table being force fed custard and cabbage, pile and piles of rancid cabbage with butter on it. My mother would tell me that if I didn't eat it she would tell my dad when he got home and that he would be angry and he would eat it all up.

Of course, time after time it worked, and time after time I swallowed down the cabbage, and then the custard. Gladly it wasn't at the same time or in the same bowl. That would come later.

I would also learn that telling dad would prove harder than had been expected.