and all kinds of books about construction and building and used the techniques to build incredible places nestled high in the tree tops. Sometimes, if I was really engrossed I would tell the girls to piss off; I didn’t want sex I just wanted to get this latest project done. I sailed through my apprenticeship with more speed and success than anyone expected because most of what they were teaching I already knew.
When I was 16 I started to have a couple of sources of steady income, supplying obviously but also from my work, there was a training scheme that paid a pittance but also gave you a free bus pass, so I was quite chuffed. I had been pretty mobile before with my push bike, mopeds and motorbikes, but the bus pass meant I could go to places in comfort and without breaking any laws, a novel experience for me I can tell you!
I lost my virginity at 14, as I said I am not bad looking and once it got about that I was interested I was never short of someone to screw or a nice pair of tits to play with. By 16 my treetop abode had become more and more complicated and incredible. They would be protected from the elements with walls and a roof; I had a special tray that I put down to build fires in without burning the woods down. I constructed beds, chairs, tables, cupboards – the last one I built even had separate walls and kind of sprawled in this huge tree like a proper house! It was the last one I built because I realised I had done all I could there and was ready to start learning how to build real houses. I mostly lived in that tree house for the next couple of years, occasionally going home for a cooked meal and to get clean clothes. My parents were having a bit of a hard time with my sisters at this point and they were glad I was out of their hair. I had quite a good system actually, I would turn up for lunch on a Sunday (huge roast dinner and stodgy puddings – I wouldn’t need to eat again till Monday!) with a bag of washing. My Mum was so glad to see me that she put the washing on straight away before she began to quiz me about how I was getting on. A few starved expressions on my face and muttered comments about eating berries from the woods, or did she have any idea how awful wood pigeons tasted and by the time I went back to my tree house, my washing was clean and dried, I had another bag full of groceries and my mum would slip me a tenner.
After talking to Mum, I would go and sit with my Dad as he read the paper and smoked a cigar. They knew I smoked by then of course and as they both smoked themselves they didn’t have a lot to say about it. My Dad would put his paper down, get me a cigar and we would settle in to have our weekly man to man. I got on really well with my Dad, especially once we started having this quality time together. He was a pretty cool dude really and I discovered that building had been his passion and life dream until the accident that damaged his back. He had slogged for all his life at a desk job he hated and I discovered that he also had Lego that he would build incredible structures out of. I have to admit I was pretty blown away about that, especially the Lego part and I would pop over from time to time to build things with him when everyone else was not around.
He knew about the tree house of course. Mum would never have let me stay there unless he had given it his seal of approval. He even helped with some of the more complicated bits and every week he would have a new idea to show me, sometimes drawings and sometimes Lego models of things I could build to put in it. If I mentioned that I needed something there or if something wasn’t working he would give me the money to buy it, but then he would go out and buy it for me anyway! It was my dad that bought me the fire pit so I didn’t have to risk burning the woods down. My Dad would give me twenty quid a week on top of any money that I needed for repairs, he called it my “pocket money” and told me that if I needed any more