I remember walking down a long pale green corridoor with a friend. It was in a Mental institution (you could call them that in the 70's) in Colchester Essex. it was called Severalls. I keep getting this strange feeling, sort of like, being there all over again. not Deja vu, more an olfactory memory and a "sense" that i never really left there. it's so hard to put it into words and that is frustrating because i am sure if i could, i would understand why i remember it.

My friend and I had gone there to "cheer up" the inmates (well that "IS" what they were)we walked down the long accoustic hallways singing "travelling light" by Cliff Richard! seems quite apt now, as i have been doing exactly that for 31 years. The staff were not impressed but never said anything and sometimes there would be an inmate trying to sing along, it was very sad, i don't know though whether i felt sorry for them or envious at the freedom to be completely devoid of self consciousness. "I" was acutely aware of myself! an unqualified ego it may have been but it was there nonetheless.

I "felt" i knew everything. I felt that i shouldn't be here (Earth) and that it was purgatory to have to be around so called "normal" people! my God the contempt i felt for nearly everyone was so palpable, and it was often recognised and punished. But these "nutters"! they were brilliant, they didn't seem to give a damn. They were never violent, more often than not they were like curious little children and innocent with it, although sometimes i thought i could see a canny intelligence in their eyes. I am sure it was my own paranoia that made me think that.

So, this was early seventies about 1977 and I was 17 years old. I had left school at 15 3/4 which was just in time to avoid exams! I got myself a job at Colchester Zoo as relief Monkey keeper and felt right at home straight away, it was just like School only without any cruelty by the occupants!

I remember then that i didn't know what I really wanted to do and relied on the "Right thing" coming along and tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Hey Tony, we have been waiting for you to come along, you will love this work" It never happened! I started and finished dozens of jobs in a year and felt totally bored by them either within minutes or a few weeks. I was so angry that I couldn't get "recognised" and frequently lost my temper, usually on inanimate objects, and would injure myself in the process. I think it was Autumn 1977 or 8 when i finally decided to get some professional opinion about why I was so angry. I had been soaked by a passing car and I had thumped one of those yellow plastic bins they put on lamp-posts,  all the skin between my knuckles split and it really hurt! that was my cue for a visit to the Shrink.

I got an appointment to see a Dr Eddie Kwong and it was at .... Severalls. I was sent to Cambridge to have an EEG and also had blood samples taken. a few weeks later I was back to see Kwong for the results, i was so chuffed because i genuinely thought they could give me a pill and i would be "Normal" again (if i ever was) well, we sat down and had a little chat, of course, "that" is what "I" thought it was! but i suppose i was being scrutinised. Anyway, Kwong told me that i was justified in my reasoning for getting angry! all the things i got angry about were indeed unfair things but I must learn to react "constructively" as opposed to destructively! "oh give the man a fuckin Phd!" I was hardly "unaware" of the "right" course of action! I just couldn't, (strong emphasis on the word "Couldn't") react constructively, that was the bloody problem! well anyway, he went on to tell me that I had a Lithium deficiency and because I had only one kidney I couldn't take the pills, they would wreck the remaining kidney possibly. well, that was it, he sort of wished me luck and told me to try and control myself! 

So 30 years eh! 30 soddin years of what? 30 years of, trouble, and love, and adventure, and boredom, and adventure, and love, and confusion and a never ending "cycle" (thats another story!)  30 years searching but being unable to find............ "anything"! i don't even know what i was looking for, or if i was even really "looking"! I certainly found myself in places i would rather not have been, and in other places I had absolutely no right to be. It all just kind happened. Totally un-contrived if there is such a word.

So many people have told me i should "write a book", I am sure that same sentence is used on many millions of people every day. "Ooh thats so interesting Myfanwy, you should "write a book" "yoo no wot yoo wonna doo mayt, yoo wonna rite a bleedin book, vats wot yoo wonna doo"! "Oh I say Wodewick, did you weally dwive your Bently all the way to the Sahawa desert?, you should wite a book"!

Well, I don't know how to write a book! so I shall just mumble and ramble and perhaps along the way I will get some inspiration that will help me through the next decade and a half just in time to draw a non-existent pension and take up my final job as a lollipop man.