1989 - Djr

The shift from 1988 to 1989 was, I recall, a cosey one. Me in my bedroom watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with the modern soundtrack. I'd bailed out of the double-glazing nightmare. Early 1989 I had my own business, a franchise of V- Industries selling water filtration systems... I had to hang out with another franchise working a different part of Newcastle whilst I got up and running (strange old bloke who designed some kind of divination bracelet)... I also bought my Philips Videowriter, stripped the wallpaper from my bedroom and painted it WHITE, and spent a number of weeks writing "No Place Like Attica" which was just awful. I think I also wrote "Caller from the Deep" around now, which is the story I corresponded with Briam Lumley about.

Ciaran and I continue to be regulars at the Citidel night at Studio's nightclub every Monday night, and Walkers on Wednesdays. We've made friends with a cool bloke called Jonathan. Penny Wallace has been and gone, I've done the drive to St Ives with Human League as a soundtrack to memories...

I got to meet Sarah and Caroline Sykes, and there were some amusing nights at Caroline's house in Ponteland...plus a late-night car race between a Rover and a Citroen CV. That might be the time I drove home the next day with "Sexy Beast" scrawled in squirty-foam cream on the bonnet of my car.

Johnathen, from the Studio, hung out with me a bit; he helped canvass Jesmond for customers, and he got me into The Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

A boat trip with Ciaran-Captain Vast and Alex Turbo resulted in me hanging from an overhanging tree branch whilst they drifted away from me in the boat.

Needless to say they found it amusing to stay out of my reach until my strength gave in and I dropped into the river.

Which resulted in the "Durham Cathederal by Moonlight" pose.

1989 - Oslo - Oystein, Chris Tonka, Djr

This is another trip to Norway but this time with my childhood friend Chris.

This was probably the last time Chris and I went anywhere as the friends we used to be. Leaving Norway, he had to endure an extended journey to America, and after that he went to Australia... after which he was a much different person. But I have great memories of these weeks we spent travelling around Norway together, visiting my family from the south, in Oslo, right up to the arctic. The massive tree trunk on the left is Oystein, my cousin you saw earlier (1980 Oslo)... and it is sobering to think I'm 6ft'1 and he's only 16 years old at this point.

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Arve

My cousin. Or "Big Blondy" as I call him. This was Arve's car... "That's my carrrrr!" he would call aloud. I remember him wanting to get a corrrrvette. He would drive around blasting out Beasty Boys, smiling and chuckling at the world. Lovely bloke. It was funny to realise one day that this was the bully who turned up in Oslo one day, when I was 10, and tried to spoil the fun I was having with space lego.

It was here, in Fauske, that Chris & I met two women in a club (the hotel disco). Chris went home afterwards, I accepted an invitation to an after-party. There was a long long drive, along empty roads lit by a never-setting sun... then a view of a vast mountain, and a calm fjord, a vast area of tall wild grass and a small cabin in the middle of it. Nothing and nobody else in sight. Stepping inside, I got as far as saying 'Wow' before I heard a female voice saying "Chase Me"... I turned round to see one of the girls had taken all her clothes off and was sprinting away through the tall grass.

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Hilde, Kyrre and Eric

My cousin, and brother of Arve. I have a great memory of being 10, in Oslo, and Kyrre turning up in the huge American car with seats wide enough for me to lie across.

The first time I ever met the young Eric he tried to eat my video camera. Jump a few years to 2004, and I'm standing on the edge of the same fjord when this strapping blonde haired man strides over to me and extends a hand. Eric. There is a video clip of some of his snowboarding antics that defy belief.

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Eric

Ahh yes, this is the very moment Eric decided to circle round and come in for the kill (to eat my video camera).

(Take a look at him 15 years later- click here)

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Uncle Rune

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Aage

This is my cousin, and brother of Arve and Kyrre (actually whilst I'm at it, they're also brothers to Tian and Kenn-Ole). He and I had very little contact with each other until the Internet and 21st century arrives.... now we talk every few weeks and has become a good friend.

This picture might make you think he's a very serious person...

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Aage

The real Aage!

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Aage and Chris Tonka

The Vikings didn't conquer England with bows and arrows. No. They used sausages hurled on the end of a spear... as you can see demonstrated here.

1989 - Fauske - Arctic - Arve

This is mid-summer Eve. We'd done the family thing, eating BBQ'd food by the side of the Strommen Fjord with a few beers... then Arve took Chris & I in his Beasty Boy mobile to another party... miles away. A lot of moonshine going around, and my brain nowhere in sight. This picture was taken well after midnight. The sun does not set. This is the 'night' I decided to grab onto a jeep's wing mirror, and stand on the runner-board as the (drunk) driver accelerated to 80 miles per hour along the beach... the drive them veered into the water and the force of the up-blast knocked my legs away... but still i clung on (for dear life).

1989 - Newcastle - Djr

Getting back from Norway in mid-Summer, Chris vanished to America and Ciaran became part of the "Theatre Crowd" with Alex M, a crowd I never became part of. I was still living at home, and I remember that being an issue... things with my mother were at an all time low... living there was no longer an option. So I moved out of Jesus Mound and into a four-room house-share in Fenham, living with three nurses.

The first month saw me eaten alive by fleas; turns out the previous occupant of the room had liked cats. My first week I was woken by a loud commotion outside, I looked out the window onto a street where four men where smashing their way through a bay window...they entered the house and dragged out a male occupant, who they then proceeded to beat with bats before running off.

Despite the fleas, and the gang violence, I enjoyed living there. I was still pushing the water-filter franchise...I remember hot Summer days walking along some streets in Jesmond, performing chemical water tests for people who had responded to my flyers. One of these people turned out to be Chi-Chi, who was one of my Dad's clients. We drank tea and chatted loads; she showed me professional modelling photographs of her daughter and I remember my brain going "WOW"... I HAD TO MEET THIS GIRL!!!

I also remember spending evenings in the house-share working on the Philips VideoWriter, "No Place Like Attica" I think, because I can remember Caroline Sykes coming round and reading some of it one night.

The fleas got wiped out with some clever 'gas grenades' that you placed in each room, set the timer and got out; I remember a guy called Brian was sitting in out front room watching TV, we placed the grenade, set the timer, retreated to the backyard and discovered Brian was still sitting there...we could see him through the large window. Suddenly our view of him and the room vanished in a huge cloud of dense grey mist. A moment later, Brian appeared by the window with his face pressed up against the glass in deep panic, looking like a bluebottle about to expire.

It was whilst living here that I met the blonde girl with the roman nose; that involved the night when my car tire went flat.

Eventually I packed up the water-filter franchise and started working for a "Financial Services" company: I was an insurance salesman in disguise. The job required me to spend a lot of time in Manchester. I was given a great room in the Picadiliy Hotel, in the centre of the city... Karl Proud joined the company and he came with me on one Manchester visit. I moved out of my house-share in Fenham, and moved into an amazing apartment in Jesmond with a woman (she was 25) called Catherine H. I really loved that apartment (memory of Arcadia playing)...but one night saw Catherine and I necking Tequila Slammers and the next morning found me in her bed. Nothing happened but... Catherine flipped and I got "asked to leave". I was gutted.

But...fate, it seems, had plans for me and it was best I wasn't living there.

I moved back home, into my old bedroom. Mum was furious and made sure I felt unwelcome. I spent a lot of time at Karl Proud's place, he was living in an attic room just off Manor House Road...I spent hours there listening to Stone Roses and The The "Mind Bomb" whilst writing up notes on a roleplaying game I was thinking about designing.

Karl was running Cthulhu in a Warhammer genre, with a bunch of guys who worked in a building in the centre of Newcastle, part of scheme to help young people launch businesses... all of their businesses were based on roleplaying games. I've great memories of evenings spent there.

These guys became the infamous "Syndicate" in the live role-play Assassination game I launched. The building become the focus of a seige by real armed police when the game went a "little" bit out of control: that's a long story.

1989 -Jesmond - Karl Pr0ud

1989 -Jesmond - Dad

November 1989, I quite my job as a "financial consultant" to concentrate on being a writer. My boss at the time, tried to persuade me to stay, he offered me £500 cash...if I would stay.

The Berlin Wall had just fallen. My mother was in Norway and my father was in Kenya, both away for a month. My sister and my dog were with friends of the family. I brought the Philips Videowriter downstairs from my room, to the kitchen table, played Clan of Xymox and Caberet Voltaire, and started writing...ahem... "Dark Coyote". You really need to put on a dodgey gravel voice to get the ambience just right.

Dark Coyote. Oh dear.

However, this is where fate picked up the plot again. Remember I'd been asked to leave my apartment...otherwise I would not have been at home that one fateful night, when Richy called round out of the blue after 9 years.

I'd known Richy since I was 6, since living in Heaton. He ended up being dragged around the country by his mum, Mary, on a variety of adventures... Richy and I hooked up again, briefly in 1980, which is how he knew where I lived... or at least where my parents house was.

Richy was going through...stuff... so I think it was a purely random decision for him to come round that night, but he did, and I was delighted to see him; he invited me to a party at his house, in a big old place at the top of Osbourne Ave... and changed my life. I walked into the party and found myself sitting next to a girl I'd wanted to meet for months; the daughter of Chi-Chi, the girl in the photographs Chi-Chi had shown me. Her name was Graciela and we hit it off straight away.

That same month I met the girl with bright red lips (one of Karl Proud's mates)... a slow night in my bedroom with Talk Talk... a night downstairs in front of the fire... a night in her place on Shortridge Terrace, eerie green lights...

It's around this time that Adam A moves into Grosvenor Avenue and starts Shadow Run campaign... I also discover Christopher Fowler and Roofworld.

1989 -Jesmond - Grassy

When my mum came back from Norway our relationship went from bad to worse...

...Grassy went away to Italy for a few weeks and was happy for me to live in her place, an attic room in a big shared house her mum owned on Osborne Ave... which was great because Richy was just up the road. Vivid memories of the many nights I spent hunched up in front of her two-bar electric heater, reading August Derleth and listening to Jean-Michelle Jarre albums.