How Did All This Happen?. John Bishop

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СКАЧАТЬ it off for as long as I could. At least get to an age when I would not be buried in a child’s white coffin.

      Most kids play games where you count to 10 when you get shot and then you are alive again. I didn’t play those games very often after that day. I knew dead meant dead, no matter how long you counted for.

      I have to say that, despite gaining a sense of mortality, the experience did not stop me thinking I was indestructible. I don’t know if young girls feel the same way or if it’s the result of reading too many comic books where heroes have super-powers, or if it’s the genetic requirement of potentially one day having to hunt or go to war that makes boys assume they will bounce rather than break. If you have ever been in a family centre where they have climbing frames and a ball pool, you will know what I mean. Little girls play and enjoy the colourful surroundings. Boys fly everywhere, and if they have not fallen off everything in the first 20 minutes they have not had a good time.

      I was eight years of age and playing football on a field that we called the orchard. The sun was shining and we were getting to play out longer as spring was turning into summer, with the promise of light nights. Beside the patch of grass on which we were playing there was a fence, which I suppose would have been about eight feet high. Behind the fence there was a private garden full of trees. None of us had ever seen these trees bear fruit, but for some reason the area had become known as the orchard.

      Ten minutes into the game, one of the boys kicked the ball and it flew over the fence. I volunteered to do the risky job of fetching it, thinking in my eight-year-old mind that I would be a brave hero if I got the ball back: a cross between Steve Austin and Evel Knievel.

      I climbed the fence and jumped down to the other side. I ran quickly to get the ball so that I was not shot by the person who lived in the house – nobody to my knowledge was ever shot, but if you are eight years of age and on an adventure you may as well believe you might get shot for the sake of the excitement. It’s either that, or the possibility of being eaten by a dragon.

      I retrieved the ball and kicked it back to my friends. I then began to scale the metal wire of the fence that surrounded the orchard, until I reached the top. The fence was made of hardwire, which was spiky at the top. I don’t actually remember what happened next, but I do recall the decision to jump the eight feet or so down to the ground.

      Due to the fashions of the time, I was wearing flares that were so wide that the law of gravity would have allowed me to float down had I chosen to do so. However, I decided to jump, and the flares got caught on the spikes and made me fall the entire way: the first, but not the last, time I fell victim to fashion.

      I woke up in hospital. I had damaged my kidneys to the extent that the doctors warned my mum and dad I may need a transplant. As it transpired, my kidneys were actually only bruised, and the doctor suggested I was lucky because, for a boy of my age, I had particularly strong stomach muscles: clearly, all of those obsessive sit-ups had not actually been wasted. I think it was perhaps the only time when something I had done alone in my bedroom had proved to be of any use whatsoever.

      It was during this time, in Leighton Hospital near Crewe, that I recall for the first time being able to make people laugh. Living in Winsford and surrounded by the people who had been displaced from Liverpool meant that many on the estate sought to hold on to their Liverpool identity in the most obvious way possible: their accent. Similar to second-and third-generation Irish people in America, who become more Irish than the Irish, many on my estate became more Scouse than they would have been had they never left. I basically grew up around people all trying to ‘out-Scouse’ each other, and this made my accent extremely strong.

      Many people think it is strong today, but it has become much more comprehensible with age as I have learnt the importance of being able to communicate in a way that allows people to understand you – not something you immediately comprehend as a child. So, when I was eight years of age and lying in a hospital bed, I became somewhat of a source of entertainment. One particular nurse would affectionately call me ‘Baby Scouse’ and would keep on asking me to say things for her amusement; things that more often than not would involve the word ‘chicken’. There is just something about the construction of that word which makes it sound funny when said in a Scouse accent. The nurse would even bring other nurses to my bed, so that I could say the chosen sentence of the day. It would be something like: ‘Why did the chicken cross the road? How do I know? I’m not a chicken!’ Two chickens in one sentence – comedy gold – and the nurses would start their shift with a giggle.

      In some respects, this might sound inappropriate behaviour by nursing staff. These days there would be an enquiry, and I would seek compensation for the trauma and victimisation, as well as the anguish that has meant I can no longer eat chicken. However, I not only enjoyed the attention, I also enjoyed the sound of making other people laugh. And not only other people, but strangers, people who knew nothing about me till I said something funny. That sensation has never left me, and I feel blessed that it is now the way I make my living. The other thing that has been with me all my life is the enjoyment of entertaining nurses. However, that is not for this book. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Pass the chicken!

       CHAPTER 4

       SCHOOL AND A FRIEND CALLED KIERAN

      When I was 10 we left Winsford and moved to a brand new council estate in Runcorn. I joined Murdishaw West Primary School, along with Carol, while Eddie and Kathy went to Norton Priory Comprehensive, a 20-minute bus ride away.

      Eddie at this point was very close to leaving school anyway, which suited him, as he hated it. He left as quickly as he could at the age of 15, which is quite ironic in many respects because, as I write this, having already completed an art degree in his forties, Eddie is now studying for his GCSEs in English and Maths to enable him to train to become a teacher. Prior to that, his adult life had been spent as a professional footballer playing for Chester and Tranmere, and as a welder, both careers fitting my image of him more than standing at the front of a classroom. But my own career change, too, shows that anything is possible.

      Kathy, on the other hand, did well at school and left to train as a nursery nurse, knowing straight away that it was her vocation. She has now spent much of her working life looking after young children in nurseries and schools. I’ve visited her current school a few times to do an assembly for the children, and it is obvious why many people choose such a profession. Kids can be wonderful things – particularly when you can say goodbye to them at 3.30 p.m. Carol also went back to university and gained a degree in Community and Youth Studies, which led her to working at the young offender’s institute at Appleton Thorn, the former open prison our dad had been in. She now works as my PA, which is probably more challenging at times than working with delinquents.

      For me, a new school was always an opportunity to make new friends and have fun. Playing football is a great way to make new allegiances, particularly if you are quite good, and I settled into my new school very quickly. It reflected the estate that it served: it was new, fresh and seemed to suggest potential in the very fabric of its walls. The classrooms were bright, and it was the first time that a teacher had a real influence on me.

      Mr Jameson was our classroom teacher. Like all junior school teachers, he was charged with teaching us everything, from spelling and painting to world geography and maths. He also ran the school football team. Primary and junior school teachers at that time were like the Google of their age; they had to have an answer for everything, and Mr Jameson managed it all with a degree of calm control.

      In one game, we played a nearby school and we won the game convincingly. Mr Jameson’s unruffled demeanour was notable in its contrast with the lunatic teacher from the other school, who stood on the sidelines СКАЧАТЬ