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keep my distance from then on, and spent a lot of time at my mate Craig’s house rather than enduring my stepdad’s shit. Craig’s mam put me on the straight and narrow once more, insisting I study just in case I got injured and couldn’t carry on in the Marines. Of course, this was bollocks. I was invincible; the only thing that might stop me would be nuclear war, but as a Royal Marine I could deal with that too.
    Not long after that, my mam and stepdad bought their chippy at Seacroft in northeast Leeds. This was the second biggest council estate in Yorkshire and one of the most impoverished suburbs in England. It made Knottingley seem like Beverly Hills. Kids of eight walked around the estate with a bag of chips in one hand and a bag of glue in the other. Fifty per cent of the grownups seemed to live off a diet of cigarettes and alcohol or, if money was too tight, butane. Those who did eat food chose fish and chips, which made my mam’s shop a tidy investment. Thursday was dole day, so the shop would be heaving with punters and their pocketful of benefits. It all strengthened my resolve to leave.
    Yet here amidst the litter-strewn streets, burnt-out cars and smashed, piss-stinking phone boxes, rather than poverty being an excuse for failure it nurtured resilience, resourcefulness and ingenuity – all characteristics needed in any walk of life to attain success, and certainly components in building a highly-skilled soldier. It’s of little wonder that the council estates of the working classes are the breeding grounds for the UK’s continuing military excellence.
    My mam and stepdad had timed the move perfectly: the week prior to my first ‘O’ level exam. I was shunted around from pillar to post, looked after by relatives and friends just so I could actually sit the exams I’d spent the previous eleven years studying for. If there had been an ‘O’ level in Royal Marines Studies I’d have got an A. Unfortunately, none of the nine I took included the word ‘webbing’.
    The one good thing about Seacroft – other than the ready availability of glue, should you break a vase – was the parknext to our chip shop. Its periphery was littered with benches and other wooden obstacles that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a military assault course. It was ideal prep for the two weeks between my last exam and my joining date on 14 July 1986.
    One day, a bloke I’d seen regularly walking his dog while I trained approached me. ‘What you up to then, son?’ he said, as the dog licked his balls (his own balls, I should add, not the owner’s).
    ‘How do you mean?’ I said, eyeing him with caution and wondering whether he was the new Yorkshire Ripper.
    ‘Well, you’re the on’y daft bastard I’ve seen running, jumping and scrambling ovver all this lot wi’out a copper chasing you,’ he said. ‘I just wondered why.’
    I explained, and he nodded gravely.
    ‘Chuffing ’ell, tha needs to get some meat on thee bones. I wor’ in Paras, mesen. Let me tell you this: when you join an outfit like Royal Marines, think o’ hardest thing you could ever do. Then double it.’

THREE
    ‘A first visit to a madhouse is always a shock.’
    A NNA F REUD, PSYCHOANALYST
    THE SATURDAY NIGHT prior to leaving for Lympstone, I went home to Knottingley to be with my schoolmates. I spent the last of my family allowance drinking more cheap whisky than I care to remember, in derelict pubs that survived on the trade of underage drinkers. I ended the night walking home a girl who, unbeknown to me, had fancied me all the way through school. I was hoping it might lead to my first sexual encounter, but it ended with her giving me a chain of love bites and me stepping in some dog shit - an altogether unsatisfactory end to a potential cherry-popping scenario. Ending up back at my mate Craig’s house, his mam watched over me throughout the night as I repeatedly vomited whisky and bile, onto her soon-to-be-ruined sheepskin rug in front