I don’t remember too much of what happened after I left Claybury to be honest with you.  I think Mum was in the process of selling the family home and moving to Berkhamsted.  I didn’t want her to move, but I didn’t want to stand in her way either. 

This was Mum and Dad’s retirement plan, had he lived. Mum had always lived a long way from her sister, Rene, since they both married.  After a lifetime of parenting and work she deserved to do what she wanted for a change.

When she went it was awful.  Mum, Dad and the family home had been in the same place for twenty-eight years.  I lived in that house from the age of four. I had moved out a few times, as did my sister, but I always had a secure base if anything went wrong.  I know Mum was racked with guilt for months after moving, and I did try to alleviate some of her worry, but all the same I felt as though I had lost an arm and a leg in the same day.

I carried on taking my medication, but after a while it didn’t seemed to be doing much good.  A new drug had just hit the market and my GP thought it might help my mood – it was called Prozac.  I can see now why it was called ‘the sunshine drug.’  I took one capsule and by the next morning I couldn’t stop smiling.  It worked as quickly as E.C.T., only without the storming headache that followed each session.  I felt so good I began drinking again, every night for six months.

By that time I thought I had escaped the clutches of my depression.  I was firing on all cylinders, with both oars in the water, head facing forwards at last, and it was legal!  However, this falsehood was to cause major problems in the coming months.  I was heading for a bout of powerful psychotic highs.  I wasn’t overly confident to begin with, but as the weeks passed I remember feeling pumped all of the time, and up for anything.  My razor sharp wit had returned and I was making people laugh.  Everybody around me thought I was back to my old self.

Prior to my redundancies, and on Bill’s advice, I had taken out an insurance policy that protected my mortgage against unemployment and illness.  More importantly it covered mental illness.  Bill acted on my behalf when the time came.  I didn’t think that the company would pay out such a vast sum of money per month without a fight, even though I fitted the policy’s requirement to the letter.  Bill made the call and I sat with bated breath waiting to hear their technical cop-out clause.

Call me pessimistic but I was right.  I checked the small print in the pamphlet and couldn’t spot it, neither could Bill.  He looked through the policy under a microscope and found the problem in the fine print, where else.  The clause stated that I had to have paid a minimum of six months’ subscriptions from a source in my profession before my claim could be validated.  This excluded benefit payments.  I had made four monthly payments when I was working and two payments from my benefits.

Seron said, “Don’t worry, he’ll think of something.”  Bill went quiet for a good ten minutes; lifting up his head he said with a smile, “Got it!”  It was true to say that I had only made four of the six payments.  All that was checkable from the date on my benefit claim form.  But not only was I receiving state benefits, I was also entitled to gratuity from my union’s unemployment fund.  Therefore I had been paid a sum of money from my trade of work six months in a row.  The policy didn’t state a specific amount, but I can bet it does now.  Bill got on the phone and relayed his findings. 

After a while the guy on the other end realised that he had been painted into a corner by the better man.  “You can relax now,” Bill said putting down the receiver “You’re covered for 12 months; the beers are on you I think.”  I planted a kiss on his forehead and told him what a star he was, mentioning that if he and Seron wanted another child, I would have it for them minus the conception part!

I went for a few interviews prior to the usual fight for my benefits and eventually I took a job in a family-run print firm near the Barbican.  After the spaciousness of D. S. Colour I was about to find out that size really does matter.  My new department was situated below ground level and right next door to the machine room.  I have never worked in a room that had it own weather system before!  It was hot, dusty and noisy in the summer and damp, dusty and noisy during the winter months.  More importantly there was no access for natural daylight, all of which didn’t affect me to begin with.

The room itself measured approximately 18’ x 12’ x 10’, which sounds a fair size until you put two people in it and all of the printing equipment.  We had a large camera that we used to copy base artworks from.  This had two powerful lamps on it and was situated in a 6 x 4 darkroom.  Just outside of the sweat box was a printing down frame.  This consisted of a 3 x 4 rubber backed base with a glass top.  Underneath was a vacuum; this held the films and plates in a fixed position. 

Over head was an artificial ark lamp; this exposed our film images to the printing plates.  Just to add a little extra warmth to the hamsters’ maze we had the bonus of the firms’ boiler pipes just above our heads.  On a good month we could grow cucumbers!  I had been used to working in a large open-plan room with at least eight people.  Here, if you didn’t get on with the person you were working with you were stuffed; there was nowhere else to go.  After ten months of working in the rat run, the non-conducive atmosphere was beginning to take its toll on my health. 

My new work chum didn’t have the same sense of humour as I did, which was a problem for me.  Soon after I started my new job he told me he was the boss’s son.  This news unfortunately reached me three days too late.  In the pub after my first day, a member of the office staff asked me what I thought of the place.  Having said what I had said I don’t think I had told them anything they didn’t already know. I replied, “It’s dingy, cramped and to fucking hot, and the wages are crap as well, but it beats signing on.”  Up the workers!  You can’t blame a bloke for telling it like it is!  Dad would have been proud of me.

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