THIS IS A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MY LIFE - WHAT I CAN REMEMBER, ANYWAY. I WANTED VICTORIA BECKHAM TO WRITE IT FOR ME, BUT SHE WAS BUSY. BE PATIENT. THESE INSTALMENTS COULD TAKE A WHILE ... ALSO, IN TIME, I MAY BE ABLE TO TELL YOU WHY I FEEL COMPELLED TO PUT ALL THIS ON THE WEB.

TO MY AMERICAN READERS: I'M SET UP WITH A UK SPELLCHECKER...

It is said that everyone has a book in them. Ian Basell said he’d like to read mine. On your head be it, Ian…

My sister must have a photographic memory. It seems that most of my childhood is history that has been repeated to me by my younger sister, Susan. That, and the fact that Dad was a diligent recorder of our lives with his still and movie cameras. I remember his 8mm Bell & Howell - small but weighty, sandpaper-textured black steel case and a big winder on the right. He always had to hold the camera upside-down to wind it, because he was left-handed and only had two fingers left on his right hand. At least, that's how I remember it.

Until the age of about eight or nine, most of my memories are from photographs and old black and white home movies. The one of me, dressed as Hopalong Cassidy, in chaps with two six-guns strapped to my side, falling dead in real-time slow motion is one of the most embarrassing.

The very few memories I retain from early childhood were the result of traumatic events. My first memory is of Miss Smith, my kindergarten teacher. She was a very large, round, stern, elderly (to a five-year-old) woman. She gave me my first, and last, public spanking. On the return from a school outing to the neighbouring farm, I thought it would be fun to run ahead and hide in the classroom - then pop out and surprise everyone when they arrived. Miss Smith showed the rest of the class what happens when you act on your own initiative. When I got home, I got another spanking from my parents, just for good measure. No one else in Miss Smith's classroom repeated my mistake.

Twyla and Chyra Kirkland lived next door for a time. Twyla, the older sister, took an unnerving interest in me when I was about six or seven. She and her sister staged a wedding and roped me in as the groom, with as many willing neighbours as they could find to witness the occasion. After we said, "I do", Twyla dragged me around the corner for our honeymoon and savaged me with kisses. Jeeze! Their father was in the military and moved them away to Key West before she could do further damage to my reputation in the neighbourhood.

Twyla, if you're reading this, how about getting in touch?

I wonder if these two ever got married. Miss Molina was my third-grade teacher, and it was my first memory of really having the hots for a woman. Everyone could see she was sweet on Mr Harrison, who had the reputation of being even meaner than Miss Smith. Nobody messed with Miss Molina, because Mr Harrison was obviously just as keen on her. I had Mr Harrison the next year, and he wasn't nearly as bad as his reputation. In fact, I got my first class kudos from Mr Harrison. We were doing maths: each pupil took it in turn to answer a simple addition question posed by the previous pupil. I asked, "What is 8 + 5?" Well, the next pupil was flummoxed.

"Good one," said Mr Harrison.

Richard is the first playmate I can remember. He was a dark-haired, runty kid who just loved to draw. My Dad used to come home from work with these big rolls of butcher paper, and Richard and I would lay on our bellies and draw the most amazing panoramic battle scenes. Tanks and warships and fighter planes spewing fire and death. Always running out of red crayons. Cool.

"The Foot" was a sixth-grader. He was tall and skinny, with what must have been size 13 shoes. He was the absolute King of Kickball. (For the uninitiated, kickball is like baseball, but played with a soccer ball, rolled to the "batter".) When The Foot kicked the ball, it stayed kicked. This is the first person I ever knew that had a "rep", and actually lived up to it. One day, it transpired that I was to "pitch" to The Foot. I was probably about 30 feet away when the ball left my hand. The Foot gave it a mighty kick and it came back at me with such speed, that I had no chance of getting out of the way. It hit me straight in the gut, doubling me over around the ball, trapping it. The Foot was "out"! I lived the rest of that day basking in glory... but feeling slightly queasy.

Sally was a classmate. She always wore tight, knee-length skirts to school, even on our Track-and-Field Days. I’ll never forget the sight of her running in the 50-yard dash, skirt hitched up with one hand, white thighs pumping, beating all the boys. I wonder whatever became of Sally Stultz.

I don't know what possessed me to do it in the first place, but I shinnied up a bare tetherball pole during recess one day. I found myself at the top of the pole, rigid, having my first ejaculation. It wasn't the last time I shinnied up a tetherball pole, either. But, it suddenly occured to me that other people might know what I was doing, so I stopped. Years later, in P.E. they'd have us climb up ropes, but it wasn't the same, somehow.

I always wondered if this was a normal phenomenon. And, how people decided to become circus high wire performers.

The family went to Oroville to visit my Dad’s parents. Grandma used to give us a 2lb. Folger’s coffee can full of buttons that we would play with for hours. But, when I was old enough, she gave me a 2lb. coffee can full of marbles. Now these weren’t your ordinary cat’s eyes or puries. These were aggies, rock marbles, with the odd steelie thrown in. When we got back to Pleasant Hill, I proudly showed off my new can of marbles to Gary Alexander across the street. He was older. And, craftier. He quickly got me into a game of marbles and won every single marble I had. Dad was of two minds for, maybe, two seconds. He marched me back across the street to confront Gary, and he shamed Gary into giving me back my marbles.

I got along much better with Judy, who lived next door to Gary. We used to play jacks on her front porch. I was better than Judy at jacks, but I was crap at marbles.

I loved visiting my Grandad. He was a butcher from 9 to 5, and a cowboy the rest of the time. He had a beat up old pickup truck with a gun rack in the back window. He usually had a fly rod and a 30-06 on it, and his dog Pete in the bed of the truck. He’d drive that pickup, hat tipped to keep the sun out of his eyes, and roll a cigarette of Bull Durham crimp-cut tobacco from a drawstring pouch, with one hand one the wheel while rolling with the other. He taught me how to shoot and rope. We’d go to the rock beds left behind by the hydraulic mining of the Gold Rush and shoot his .22 rifle. He gave me a nickel for every empty beer can I hit, I’d pay him for every one I missed. I could earn a buck before he got tired. He let me shoot his .45 automatic once, and it near bounced off my forehead. Still, roping the stump in the yard wasn’t nearly as much fun, even when he paid me.

He could sing, and play guitar and piano. Dad said he used to sing in honky-tonks. I still have a really poor recording of him and his sister, Gussie, singing tunes from the twenties and thirties. But, I also liked to go see him at his work, the butcher counter in the supermarket. He would always give my sister and I a hotdog and brag to anyone within earshot about his grandkids. I loved my Grandad.

In 1967, I went to his sister’s funeral wearing my first moustache. He cut me cold. Dad had lots of explanations for it, mostly it was a response to his father, who used to wake him every morning by throwing a pan of cold water on him. But, I knew it was because he thought I was a "goddamn hippy".

It was some time after I left home that Grandad died, an ornery drunk. At least, that was my impression.

Grandad didn't have any use for a dog that couldn't earn its keep. But, as far as I know, Pete only had one trick: Grandad tied a rope to the handle of the screen door. He'd come home with his arms full of groceries and command, "Get the door, Pete!" Pete would run up the steps, give that rope a tug and swing the door open just in time for Grandad to waltz through. Excellent.

The railroad tracks were just across the street and down the hill from Grandad's house. My sister and I used to go down there and pick up old rusty bits that had fallen off the passing trains. Or, we'd pick Monarch butterfly caterpillars off the fennel that grew wild there. Or, we'd put pennies on the track and sit back until a train came by, then go collect our flattened pennies. It never seemed dangerous to us, as long as you kept an eye out for the trains. Duh.

Just recently, some children in the UK were killed while playing on the tracks. The reason, the court said, was because their parents were negligent.

John lived next door. He used to come around to our back yard when we would have our sleep-outs in the tent. He would come sit in the tent with any kids that were around at the time and show us a card trick. How the heck did he do those tricks? We would beg him to show us the trick again, but he said he would only show us the trick once. He promised he would come and show us another one next year. And he did, every year until he moved away! We all thought John Evans was the greatest. Turned out he moved away because he was a drunken wife-beater.

Apparently, Helen is now married to a really nice guy.

You remember what I said about trauma? Mike was my best friend. He lived three houses down the block. We used to play together all the time. His Dad made him a scooter: a wooden box bolted to a 2x4 with a pair of dismantled roller skates screwed to each end of the plank. Broomstick handles. Man, did I covet that scooter. So, I had a birthday party, I guess I was eight. Mike came late, and I was in the middle of opening all my presents from the other kids. He said to come outside. Well, I didn’t want to – I was busy collecting my loot. He insisted. So, I went out front and he pointed to his scooter leaning up against the wall. "So what?" I must have whined. Well, I got caught up in a shit-storm of embarrassment. Mike’s Dad had been up all night making that scooter for my birthday. My mother made me go down and apologise to Mike’s mother for being such an ungrateful little shit-ass (Mom’s favourite word for me when she didn’t like me much). I told her it was a misunderstanding, but I felt like things were never the same between Mike and I again. He started running around with a tough kid whose name I can’t remember (oh, yeah! Dennis Golden. Jeeze, it does come back!). I got jealous, and by the sixth grade Mike was forced to bloody my nose in the schoolyard in front of his new best friend. I had had plenty of bloody noses before, but this was the first one that wasn’t my fault. Or, maybe it was.

Years later, Mike got into trouble with the police over some stolen butane tanks. The judge gave him the option of prison or the army. He got killed in Vietnam. He’s the only person I ever knew that got killed in Vietnam.

UPDATE: Okay, it's confession time. I have no idea how I came to hear the above story about Mike Richardson's unfortunate demise. Apparently, it's not true. Mom says Helen Evans saw Mike on the streets of Pleasant Hill not too long ago. She said "he looked like kind of a bum." Too bad the truth had to get in the way of a good story...

Mike had a Border Collie bitch that used to run away from home all the time, so they had to tie her up in the back yard. One day, hearing Mike arriving home from school, the dog jumped over the fence to meet him and hanged herself. The rope was two feet too long, or too short, depending on how you looked at it.

Mike also had a "club house" around the side of their house that we used to play in all the time. The Kowalski sisters, two Polish girls younger than us, wanted to join our club house. After some debate, we decided they could if they took their clothes off and let us prod them with sticks. So, they did. It was the first time I ever saw female genitalia that wasn't my sister's. Is this what they call a healthy interest in the opposite sex?

After the club members had satisfied their curiosity, the girls asked if they were in the club now, and Mike said, "No girls." Not surprisingly, the girls saw fit to tell their father what we had done. He was enraged, justifiably so, and went around to see each of the other fathers. My Dad asked me if I had done what Mr Kowalski said I did and I said, "No." He let it drop.

Mr Kowalski had a castor plant growing on the side of his house. It had really red juicy fruit and his house was painted white. I suppose for revenge, Mike and I plastered the side of his house with berries until we got caught red-handed. Now, culprits in hand, Mr Kowalski frog-marched us to each father for appropriate action. We got a hiding and were made to wash Mr. Kowalski's house. I'll bet that the father's had to pay to have the side of his house repainted, cause that stuff was never gonna come off. My allowance would have been docked if I had been paid one at that age. As it was, nothing more was said and we had no further interaction with any of the Kowalskis.

One day I came home from school and asked my mother, "What does fuck mean?" She dragged me into the bathroom, stood me at the sink, lathered up a bar of soap and proceeded to wash my mouth out with it. Until that moment, I just thought it was a figure of speech. There are two lessons to be learned here: one, if you want to know what fuck means, ask your Dad. Two, never, ever wash your kid's mouth out with soap. It's evil. On the other hand, to this day I only use the f-word when it's really important to do so.

Laura was my first sweetheart. I can still see her, but I can’t describe her. She was also my first date. Mom and Dad drove us to the cinema and sat a couple rows behind us while we watched "Run Silent, Run Deep", which must have been my choice (or Dad’s). The next day at school, all of her girlfriends asked me what I did with Laura during the movie. I said I had put my arm around her and given her a smooch. But, I hadn’t. I just sat and watched what I thought was a really good movie with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. Besides, Mom and Dad were right behind us.

Laura wasn’t my girlfriend after that.

Dad had a fraternity hazing paddle the size of a flattened cricket bat on top of the refrigerator. It was the ultimate threat: "I’ll have to get that paddle down!" Finally, he had to get the paddle down.

I was playing in the middle of the street with my sister. (It was a very quiet street.) I had a small bottle of model paint, and I had lit a cap-full on fire. We were hunched over it in the middle of the street, watching it burn. In fact, now I wonder if he was more concerned that I had my little sister in the middle of the road than he was about the fire. Anyway, I got paddled. It turned out that the fear of the paddle was much worse than the paddle, itself. After that, the paddle disappeared. Dad can’t remember the incident.

I don't remember actually hearing the expression, "Cold War", back in 1957, but I sure remember the air raid drills. My classroom had a wall of north-facing glass, and we all know what flying shards of glass can do to a ten-year-old. Quick! Get under your desk, curl up into the feotal position, cover your eyes with one hand and the back of your neck with the other! And, remember students, "Don't look at the flash!"

I don't think Dad bought our house in Pleasant Hill because it was on high ground, but it was a good choice for that reason. One winter, the creek burst its banks and we had a flood of refugees in our house for three or four days. Neighbours from both ends of the street were forced up to our place, which was only five or ten feet higher than theirs. The kids all camped out in the back yard in tents, while the parents drank and played cards. We would periodically grab umbrellas, golashes and flashlights and go check the water level so we could report to the adults. I remember it being a fun and exciting time.

Dad use to put boxing gloves on me and encourage me to whack him in the nose. I suppose he felt he should teach me the manly art of self-defense. I was always on the small side, and he judged his tactics accordingly: "If you can't avoid a fight, hit them first and run! Kick 'em in the balls, or hit them as hard as you can in the nose and run like heck!" he said. Hard as I tried, he would just brush off my mighty attack. "Jab, jab! Keep your hands up!" Once, however, I slipped through his defense and smacked him pretty good. Well, he knocked me down and we didn't box any more. Which brings me to Camp Gualala.

I suppose every boy should go to summer camp. I was nine when I went. And guess what? As soon as we arrived and began spilling off the buses, the camp counsellors grabbed a couple of kids of roughly the same size, put boxing gloves on them and stuck them inside a real boxing ring. Me and this other kid were among the first. Well, I took one look at him and realised he was scared shitless. Forgetting everything my father had taught me, I laid into this kid for about 15 seconds before the counsellors broke it up, raising my arm and proclaiming me the winner. I had a great summer camp after that. Nobody messed with me. Everybody knew who I was. I got to sit down anywhere I wanted. Too cool for words.

I have been in three fights since then, the first being when Mike Richardson, age 11, bloodied my nose. I didn't start any of them, but I didn't shy away from them either. I got my ass kicked every time and my leg broken once.

Did I want to be a Boy Scout, or did Dad want me to be one? I know he must have invested a good few bucks into the trappings of Boy Scoutdom. I earned a merit badge in marksmanship. I even learned how to cook a meat and potatos meal in a hole in the ground. However, I drew the line at knots. After a granny knot and a square knot, which I learned from Grandad without having to wear a uniform, I didn't have much use for knots - still don't. But, Dad kept after me, "Study your knots! Have you learned your knots, yet?" Suddenly, the Boy Scouts weren't so much fun anymore. I quit.

It wasn't the last thing in my life I quit because it wasn't fun anymore.

I honestly can't remember how old I was when I had my first homosexual experience. David Taylor was an English boy, but other than that, I have absolutely no idea how I came to know him, except that it must have been through school. I remember he had a long, narrow face, pale skin, black hair and prominent teeth. Anyway, it came to pass that he stayed over at my house one night. We "camped out" in a tent in the back yard. He said, "You wanna do something fun?" "Sure," I said. He proceeded to show me how much fun it could be to stick your penis in the other guys bum cleavage. (I'm telling you, I didn't have a clue what was going on.) We'll there must have been quite an undercurrent of giggling going on, because we suddenly heard from the house, "Hey! What's going on out there?" We cooled it and went to sleep.

David, if you're reading this, go fuck yourself.

I remember watching my mother smoking and painting her nails, usually at the same time, while she watched the soaps. She would hold a cigarette, her fingers splayed so as not to mess up the varnish, take a good drag, then blow perfect smoke rings. Or, maybe, French inhale. I was old enough to know that men didn't paint their nails, so maybe I was old enough to have a drag on her cigarette. I asked if I could. "Sure," she said. "But remember to inhale." So, I took a good drag. I remember hearing her laughter as I choked and gasped to recover from my near asphyxiation.

I never touched a cigarette again, until I was old enough to know better. I married a smoker at the age of 20 and gave into the habit. I've still never quit properly.

Mom would lay down on the floor with my sister and I with pads of paper and a box of crayons. A big box. We'd take the black crayon and draw a big, tangled squiggle. Then, we'd take the coloured crayons and fill in the spaces between the black lines. I always admired my mother's colouring. She always knew just the right colours to use and shaded her areas smoothly, evenly. She was careful with her squiggle to leave herself nicely shaped areas to colour in. I emulated her methods and it was agreed, I was really good at staying in the lines. Afterwards, we'd pin up the drawings in our bedroom.

To this day, I find it really difficult to colour outside the lines.

I don't know what I did to deserve it, but it must have been pretty bad: Mom called me a shit-ass kid, dragged me by the arm through the house to my room and flung me across the room onto my bed. I bounced and hit the wall with my head, creating a dimple the size of an egg in the wall and a matching lump on my head. Of course, Mom was shocked by the unexpected result of her action and cried along with me and comforted me, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

That dent in the wall remained until we moved to San Jose to remind me to behave myself. Mom can't remember the incident.

Dad certainly knew the value of a dollar and was keen to pass on his knowledge. We got an allowance for doing chores around the house. 25 cents a week to take out the garbage and mow the lawns, growing to a buck by the time I was 16. Dad increased my allowance when I was eight and encouraged me to save for my first bicycle. Then, on my ninth birthday, he took my money and stumped up the balance to buy a red Schwinn Roadmaster. Glorious!

I also had to learn the power of the purse. Dad would provide for us kids, no problem. But, if we ever wanted anything he thought was unnecessary, or that didn't fit with his idea of sensiblity, we had to save up and buy it with our allowance: "That's what it's for!" Mostly, "going without" further emphasised the value of a dollar.

To be fair, Santa was pretty good to us.

Christmas morning was always a pretty exciting time for Susan and I. Staying in bed later than 4am was a challenge, knowing Santa had been. We always left out cookies and milk for him and he always took the time to eat it all. About 5 or 6am, we couldn't stand it any more and had to slip out to the Christmas tree and see what had been left overnight - always the big presents. How quiet can you be when you've just been left the pinball machine that you always wanted?

So, Mom and Dad finally got wise. We had the present giving on Christmas eve. But how were they going to work out the Santa bit? We began the tradition of going out on Christmas eve to see all the neighbours' Christmas decorations. We'd all pile in the car to go see the lights, but somehow Dad always forgot something. "Margaret! Do you know where I left my keys?" He always took forever finding them. And, the neighbours always put on a pretty good display. We ended up driving further and further as the tradition caught on. There even started to be traffic jams on the most popular streets.

And you know what? By the time we got home, Santa had always been. How the heck did he know? He missed out on the cookies and milk, though.

Larry lived near the school. It was easy to stop and play with Larry on my way home, and I did. His mother liked me and invited me to go with them on their summer holiday to Lake Tahoe. They were going to take their power boat to the lake and go water skiing. This was my last summer in Pleasant Hill and I had started to take notice of girls. There were lots of girls at Lake Tahoe, mostly in swimming suits. Excellent.

The morning we were to leave, I was surprised that Larry had invited another friend, too. I can't remember his name, but he and Larry were also very much interested in girls. The thing is, they were both much better at talking to girls than I was. In fact, I was rather a millstone around their necks.

The water skiing was fantastic, although I could never manage slalom skiing. The trouble started when Larry and X would ditch me and go girl scouting. Larry's mother caught me in tears one afternoon and asked where the others were. "Off with girls," I blubbered.

Well, Larry and X had their ears boxed when they got back from their reconnoiter. Of course, that made the rest of the trip even more unbearable. I couldn't wait to see the back of Pleasant Hill after that.