Phil Wiley. [Chuckles] In all honesty? I don’t give the guy a second thought. I just let bygones be bygones.
And what about Nick Peacock and his cowardly refusal to give you the Radio Norwich breakfast show, even though it leaves a sour taste in the mouth of even the most casual observer? That must rankle?
Look, Nick did what he did. I’m fairly zen about the whole episode.
Given the success of this book, there’ll be a pretty loud clamour for a follow-up. Are you ready for that?
I take whatever comes my way. I roll with the punches and I ride the tsunami of life.
Does the book have an ISBN number?
Yes, I insisted on it.
What is it?
You’ll find it on the back of the book. But for ease of reference it’s ISBN-10: 0007449178 and ISBN-13: 978-0007449170
Thanks, Alan.
Goodbye and God bless.
1 I also have a daughter.
2 Hue & Cry’s ‘Labour of Love’. I thought I’d choose a song from their debut album as it’s one I’ve heard of, something I can’t say about any of the songs from their subsequent 15 albums.
3 Rodney. Richard. Tony. Tom. Jeffrey. Salman. Joanna. Dan. Wilbur. Andrew. Dalai.
4 This is a footnote, by the way. I’ll be using these to pepper and garnish the body copy, so keep an eye out for them. Or as I say: If you see a number, look down under! Which either rhymes or nearly rhymes.
Chapter 1
Beginnings
WHEN I WAS EIGHT years old, I suffered a nose bleed so profuse and generous, I bolted from the schoolyard and sought solace in the first-class countryside of Norfolk.
Nose bleeds were a pretty common feature of my childhood, caused variously by physical exercise, spicy food, bright sunlight, embarrassment, dairy, shouting (hearing or doing) and fiddling with my nose. And my school friends were wise to it. More impressively, they’d worked out that they could induce a haemorrhage themselves, by tethering me to the roundabout with the strap of my own school bag and letting the centrifugal force do the rest. (Unbowed, I refused to accept this affliction and would sneak into the yard alone after school and subject myself to a few turns of the ride once or twice a week. This went on until I developed enough tolerance to prevent the bleeding, at the age of about 16.)
But this nose bleed was hefty, brought on by a perfect storm of country dancing, hot weather and the high pollen count. As it spread and dried on my face and neck, I knew I couldn’t face the juvenile tittering of my class colleagues.
Which is how I came to wander the leafy idylls on the outskirts of Norwich.5 Had this been 2011, I’d have probably returned to the school with some Uzis to give my classmates something to really laugh about, but this was a different – and better – time. So I walked though the countryside, and I bathed in the majesty of nature in quite a mature way for an eight-year-old.
It was quiet, peaceful. The only soul I encountered was a lady rambler, who literally ran when I smiled at her. (The bleeding was very profuse.)
Eventually, I found myself stood at the verge of a copse, directly in front of a tree. I didn’t remember approaching it, but there I was, standing and gawping at a single tree. Why, I thought? Why this tree? What is it about this simple field maple that makes it stand out from the others? It’s not the biggest, the strongest, the coolest, the best at PE. Why am I being hauled into the tractor beam of this tree over and above the millions of other ordinary trees? I guess it had a certain something. At ease with itself and blessed with a gentle authority, it had class and spunk.6
Then it hit me (the thought). It’s me, I exclaimed. I am that tree. I personify its stand-out quality. Some people might say that’s arrogant. Arrogant? Actually, accurate.
What’s made me different from the others? How – and these were pretty much my exact words, even at the age of eight – did I come to be born with this aura of otherness, this je ne sais quoi?7
I stood and looked at the tree, and thoughts tumbled around my head like trainers in a washing machine. What made me thus? What made me thus? What made me thus?
And as the memories swirled around like the trainers I mentioned in the previous paragraph, all that could be heard was the pitter-patter of blood – my nose was still piddling the stuff – as it dripped from my nose and chin and on to my shoes. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter …
Pitter-patter goes the rain on the window. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, and outside cars zoom up and down the road, some of them dropping down to second to turn right into Gayton Road. On the pavement, people hurry and scurry, both to and fro. A clap of thunder – BAM! – and some really gusty wind. Everyone agrees it’s a pretty dramatic evening all round.
Pan right. It’s a hospital room. A clammy pregnant woman lies spread-eagled on the bed and is about to produce pitter-patter of her own. She’s not going to wet herself – although that’s often a distressing side effect of childbirth. I’m referring to the pitter-patter of children’s feet. ‘Stand back,’ says the midwife. ‘Her contraptions are massive. Get ready!’
‘Looks like Anthony Eden’s about to be named Prime Minister,’ mutters a nurse as she strolls past the door. ‘And Chelsea are about to win the First Division title!’ replies an orderly, almost certainly not educated enough to follow politics. In the corner of the room, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley blasts from the radio quietly.
You see, this wasn’t now. It’s then. The present tense used in this passage is just a literary device so that this next bit comes as a surprise. The scene is actually unfurling in 1955! The hospital? The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn. The sweaty woman? Mrs Dorothy Partridge, my mother. And the child’s head slithering from her legs? It belongs to me. The child was I, Partridge.
‘You’ve done it! Brilliant pushing!’ says the midwife. She holds the newborn aloft like a captain lifting a fleshy World Cup. And then the child throws his head back and roars the roar of freedom. The noise is relatively nonsensical but no less intelligent than most babies would produce. In fact, probably a bit more switched on than average.
In many ways, the proud wail that burst from my lungs was my first broadcast. Delivered to an audience of no more than eight, that still equated to an audience share – in the delivery room at least – of a cool 100%. Not bad, I probably thought. Not bad at all.
As I write these words I’m noisily chomping away on not one, but two Murray Mints. I’ve a powerful suck and soon they’ll be whittled away to nothing. But for the time being at least they have each other. For the time being, they are brothers. Which is more than could be said for me, for I was an only child. I will now talk more about being an only child.8
Why my parents never had more kids I don’t know, though as a youngster I’d often lie in bed wondering. Maybe it was financial reasons. Maybe I’d bust Mum’s cervix. Maybe Dad had just perfected the withdrawal method.
But I would have loved a little brother to play football with or bully. I’d rush downstairs every Christmas morning