1980 - Oslo - Djr, Oystein and family

We had just moved from the scary house in Heaton to Jesmond.

I've got great memories of this trip to Norway. Really happy. Oystein and I bonded straight away - he had a wicked basement room, full of space lego. Memory: walking down steps into basement complex, passing through Bjorn's room, him in bed with his girlfriend; hanging out with them there, hearing Alan Parson's Project Pyramid album for first time and being 'wowd' by it. Getting into Kiss, one of Oysteins favourites. Playing roulette down in the basement.

I was still at Junior School in Heaton. I had to walk 2 miles each day to and from School. Awful memory of trying to rollerskate one time. And carrying a massive Readers Digest World Atlas that made my arm ache because it was so heavy then. Brian Smith and I bought Sheriff's short-sleeved shirts from C&A. I spent a summer lying on a rug in the back garden inventing secret codes of coloured dots.

1980 - Oslo - Mum, Djr, Cousin Oystein, Aunt Edle

Yup, lots of space lego.

1981 - Newcastle - Djr, Dad

January, 1981. My sister was born.

1981 - Newcastle - Djr, Dad

My sister is Christened; the woman holding her was a long-time family friend called Avis, also known as "Chopper".

1981 - Newcastle - Djr

My first summer holiday, living in the new house in Jesmond, was also the end of my days at Junior School. I can remember still hanging out with my Ravenswood School mates, like Brian Smith, Wassim Fatme, Ian Elder, but they were destined for Benwell Middle School... so I guess we just drifted apart. It's around now that I met Alex M, who was the lad next door, and Ciaran O'c, who was living down the road.

1981 - Newcastle - Djr

September 1981, my sister was 9 months old, my mum was depressed, I had just turned 11 and I was starting a new school... a private school in Tynemouth. I hated it.

I would walk to West Jesmond Metro station every morning carrying a bloody briefcase, ride the train to Tynemouth, and come home utterly miserable.

This picture is taken in my bedroom.

The only good thing to come out of these early months at the new school was my discovery of role-playing games. I had been sitting on the metro one afternoon, coming back from school, and I saw Alistair Luvey sitting there with a pad of graph paper, weird dice and really cool monster figures...

...I found my father at the bottom of the garden on a cold, damp Autumn evening and asked him for some money to buy a game. He wanted to know why he should give it to me. I had to convince him. Luckily I did. I rushed into town and purchased the Rulebook (which came with a scenario), dice and some skeleton lead figures.

...welcome to Dungeons & Dragons. It blew my mind.

1981 - Stavanger - Djr, x

It was Christmas, I was three months into my new school and still hating it, but, I got to miss a few days of it and travel to Norway.

I did this trip on my own. My dad dropped me off at Newcastle airport, then I was picked up at Stavanger by my aunt-dagma...I spent some time there, before flying on to Oslo, met by my Uncle Erling and taken into Christmas heaven.

Oystein and I hung out in the basement bedroom, played with space-lego, built igloos in the deep snow outside.

1981 - Ski/Oslo - Aunt Edle, Cousin Oystein, Djr, x

I was so ecstatically happy being there; I think one of the reasons was because I was with a family that was functional, healthy and appeared pretty happy on the outside.

This is where Uncle Erling introduced me to the music of Caramba.

1981 - Ski/Oslo - Djr, Cousin Oystein

This is the trip I discovered the film "Fantastic Voyage", and they showed The Snowman on Norweigan TV.

1982 - Newcastle - Djr, Dad

What is really freaky is where I am currently sitting writing this (in June 2007), is right where Dad and I are...except the floor is level with the base of the BBQ. I'm currently sitting in the extension to the house, completed in 2005, which was built to help dad remain at home after he fell ill.

I have vivid memories of that garden table... I used to sit there, designing my first role-playing game. Something which continued for 25 years and has finally culminated in me completing and publishing Yellow Dawn (in 2007).

Above the sunshade is my bedroom, and that's where I've got a TV, video player and even a ZX Spectrum...with a 48k memory expansion.

My Dad's business had expanded to fill the whole floor of the office building. There were now two partners, and an even larger crew of auditors... there was an Olivetti computer system in a small room, which required a huge 7" BOOT DISK to get it going...the computer was the size of desk. The photocopiers were better quality now. I used to photocopy the topless ladies in page 3 of The Sun, and the naked women in the magazines I found in dad's office cupboard. Ahem! *blushes*

I used to spend my school holidays there... I loved that office building, it was my den. I would use the electronic typewriters to design my roleplaying game. I would turn up with a portable TV and my ZX Spectrum and spend days typing in BASIC code to witness some kind of naff "game" or application do its thing.... this was when the magazine Computer Weekly was a few sheets of black and white A4, I used to buy it every week from the sweet-shop in Tynemouth Metro Station, which was just outside my school.

I discovered that my Dad's staff started to mark my school holidays in their calendars, in red! It must have been a nightmare for them, trying to work with me roaming around.

My favourite bit of mischief was taking the huge mountain of used tea-bags from the kitchen, heavy and sodden wet, and I'd stand by the small window overlooking the busy street down below...and I'd wait, line up my target and lob one or two out the window.

I'd leave the office late at night with my Dad, and he would puzzle at the vast amount of splattered tea bags lying all over the pavement.

1983 - Kings School (Tynemouth) - away trip to Seahouses.
Steve Meachen.

Steve was one of the kids I got on with best at school. He had the unfortunate nickname of "Smegs", an abbreviation of Smeagle. He went from being a fairly shy, quiet kid to go on and develop a bloody hilarious and razor sharp wit... I witnessed him cut people down with just a few words.

1983 - Kings School (Tynemouth) - away trip to Seahouses - Djr

It's around now that Ciaran and I were heavily into D&D. I think we played most nights, sitting on the narrow balcony that ran along wall of his totally cool 2-storey bedroom... I was also friends with Nicholas Lamb, who lived up on Lindisfarne Road, he and I used to script BASIC code for the spectrum or race scalectrix. There was a derelict mansion on Lindisfarne that was going to be demolished to make room for a block of granny flats... I climbed up onto the roof of the derelict building and grabbed as much of the lead flashing as possible...then Ciaran and I smelted it down in mum's kitchen pans and poured the molten lead into moulds for figures you could buy from Games Workshop. I used to sell the lead figures at school.

This is the time that my dad bought me a massive chemistry set. It came with a fat book that had lists of all the chemicals known to man. I started going to Proctor & Gambel (sp?) on the weekends, who were a major chemical supplier, to buy the next set of chemicals on the list... I was working through them in alphabetical order. Some of them needed an adult to sign for them, so my dad came along and did so. I ended up with an incredible collection and I became quite adept at making powerful acids and explosives. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to do that kind of thing these days. Mind you, my scientific experience didn't stop me nearly burning the house down when an experiment went totally wrong and I ended up standing in my bedroom with a 6 foot flame roaring out of a hand-held flame-thrower...waaaay out of control, I had to fight to get the window open with one hand to throw the damn thing down into the garden, quickly followed by the curtains which I'd managed to set on fire.

I think it's also around now that I developed a mighty crush on Katie Meekal who lived up on Castleton Close, but I was such a geek, and so not part of the cool-Jesmond-set, and just so "odd" that I doubt I ever stood a chance...

1984 - Newcastle - AKR, Dad, Djr

I was 14, my sister was 3.

I was still spending my school holidays in Dad's office. I even took friends there and made a role-playing den within a large archive room that was clogged with grey metal shelves stuffed with tax papers. Within the labyrinthine corridors formed by these shelves, was a desk, and me and a couple friends doing D&D. It was around now that I discovered my joy of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi films... whilst Dad worked beyond midnight most days, I would sit in the main office with my portable TV watching these classic black & white horror films of the 30's and 40's.

This was the year Ghostbusters came out. I'd bought the 12" single and I was soooo excited about watching it.

I remember watching it with a bunch of people from school and their expanded social set... including girls like Sophie, and Sam "Dimple Chin" Brennan... this was a totally new experience for me.

1985 - Newcastle - Djr

I can remember being fourteen like it was yesterday. I was the kid that people thought was 'weird' - living in a bit of a dream world; challenged when it came to 'getting on with the lads', abysmal when it came to communicating with women. For me my passions were horror films (Salems Lot, The Fog), role-playing games and my ZX Spectrum.

My social group consisted of the Jesmond crowd: Ciaran and Alex M who both lived on my street; and my school crowd, Chris Tonka, Steve Meachen, Nial Patterson, and less often Adam A.

Memory: the summer of 1985 was Ciaran and myself locked away in his massive two-storey bedroom playing Gamma World.

Memory: late summer, buying Call of Cthulhu boxed set and being utterly WOW'd by it. Spending a day at Ciaran's mums reading through the rules listening to TOUCH DANCE by Eurythmics. Discovering the world of HP Lovecraft.

Memory: getting in the creepy music of Chris & Cosey, getting into Horror and the Occult.

1985 - Newcastle - Ciaran

This was taken on the day Ciaran and I built the bonfire of all bonfires down the bottom of the garden; we had a number of butane gas cannisters, the blue ones that you use with camping stoves... we made these the "core" of our bonfire, covered them with logs and old tree branches in a wig-wam shape, filled in the gaps with old bushes, boxes, newspaper...then set light to it.

The explosion threw the entire mass into the air...burning debris rained down on the garden, and in the gardens of my neighbours. Fantastic.

A brief interlude to my uber-geekiness came in May, I was 14, and I threw my first house party at my parents place. It was awesome. We bought 20 litres of cider in a barrel with a tap, and replaced 1 litre with whisky. Neil P staggering around with barrel on his shoulder tap in mouth at end of night. Me and Ruth Duncan - my first proper kiss - upstairs in bedroom. A month later, Ciaran Captain Vast holds a party down the road at his parents place. Chris Tonka pushes Steve Meachen through a window, which lands on my turntable breaking my TransX Living on Video 12", I was mighty miffed.

It didn't take long to get back to being a geek. Ciaran and I began a sport of "jousts" on bikes. This involved cycling towards each other with great long sticks held out in front of us. We padded ourselves up with polystyrene blocks for armour, which was great...so long as the "lances" hit the armour. I once managed to gouge a chunk out of Ciaran's neck doing this.

1985 - Newcastle - Niall

Neil and I were racing our bikes, he fell off and landed on his head; I remember him actually bouncing on his head with his body upright, feet in the air; then I went over him with my bike. He came off worse.

21 years later (2006), Nial is working as a morge attendent in the main hospital in Newcastle... he helps carry down the bodies from main entrance to the freezers. November 2006 he finds himself carrying down my dad.

1986 - My O'Level Art Exam

Not sure what this says about me as a 15 year old, but somehow I managed to get away with this interpretation of the rather vague Art Exam question.

After O'levels, I went on a cycling / camping trip with Chris Tonka, Niall P, and Steve M to the Lake District.

After O'level was when I bought my Tarot deck (which I still use today - 2007), and got heavily into meditation and a spiritual attitude to life.

1986 - Newcastle - Djr

September 1986, my sister was 5 years and 9 months old, my mum was depressed, I had just turned 16 and I was starting a new school... 6th form college, in Tynemouth. I loved it.

Initially I would walk to a bus stop on Jesmond Road, and ride the bus to Tynemouth.

It's around now that I went into a really insular period of my life: I didn't go out or socialise, instead, I stayed in my bedroom watching around 3 videos a day. I would get the bus to a video store in South Gosforth... I think I watched everything they had. I literally dropped out of existence, only showing my face for college... this lasted for more than 6 months.

1986 - Newcastle - Djr

I had a brief friendship with a guy from college called Sc0tt Charlt0n, who was an interesting character... had a lot of guns, had a lot of crazy films... I can't remember what ever happened to him. However, the gun thing got me interested and it's around now that I joined a shooting club through Bagnall & Kirkwood, a hunting supply store in the city centre. We'd drive out to an army shooting range and gain experience in handling a number of weapons.

Interestingly enough, it's around now that I got my hands on the live-role-play assassination game by Steve Jackson, called "Killer". Adam A, Al1sta1r Luvey, Ciarian O'c, Alex M, and several others were involved...

It's also around now that Ciaran and I joined a larger group for Call of Cthulhu; there were many sessions around Ciaran's house in Jesmond, memories of Baron Hauptman, Eurythmics Sweet Dreams video, and early Gary Numan tracks from before Replicas.

1986 - Newcastle - Djr

This was Christmas, and was the time my cousin Oystein came over to stay with us. Sc0tt Charlton was also on the scene, from college, because we all went out drinking in the city centre and got so hammered Oystein projectile vomitted in the bar...well, actually, to be correct, he projectile vomitted after jumping to his feet and running into the toilet... the wrong toilet mind you; a moment later a women came running out with vomit all over her, looking pretty shocked, closely followed by Oystein who was also looking pretty shocked. We all left, quickly.

1987 - Jan - College Sociology Trip - Djr

This is the night everyone got wasted. Even the teachers. We were in a large cottage in the middle of nowehere. I woke up next day very wet... the bunk above me was empty but there was a puddle on the floor beside me, and a trail of liquid leading to the corridor outside, where I found the occupant of the bunk, naked, unconscious and lying in a pool of his own shit, piss and vomit.

I remember buying a big green trenchcoat and walking around Jesmond in the rain... moody teenager.

There was a fancy dress party one night, and that's when I scored with Sarah B, the platinum bombshell that everybody seemed to be interested in... and I remember my confidence soaring.

1987 - Newcastle - Djr

Joanna B moved in down the road. I had my first proper experience beyond just snogging...down in the summer house at the bottom of the garden.

Then Sarah L moved in next door and I was overwhelmed by her.

Then I got a car. I taught myself to drive, along with some coaching rides with Chris Tonka (Dad's car and Pat Benetar).

Memory: first terrified drive to college down the coast road; first time I filled it with petrol by myself and getting hit by a massive blowback - I was soaked in petrol, climbed back into car and Sarah L lit up a cigarette right next to me...I freeeaked!!

Memory: getting cut-up by a white van and clipping the cental reservation at 50 mph, whole car lifting onto its side and then coming down again minus two wheels.

Memory: taking Jesmond Dene Road (we called it the Pipe, because it is wide enough for 1 and a half cars, and is bordered by a massive sandstone wall on one side, and a sheer drop into a densely wooded slope on the other, about 1 mile long) at night with my lights off, doing 70mph, friends sitting on the window ledges holding hands across the roof, screaming and whooping with exhileration...if anything ever had come the other way at least one of us would have been dead. Not clever, but at that age it seemed we all thought we were immortal.

1987 - Tynemouth - Carl from Grimbsy, Caroline, Djr

Taken in the front entrance to the college.

1987 - Newcastle - Djr

I remember going through a massive personal transformation. I can vividly recall my confidence flourishing, bursting out in rays of jubiliant light and positive energy... I was meditating a lot, and working on me, as an individual, understanding my fears and weaknessess... I really came out of a shell...stopped watching videos and began partying.