I’ve always worked, even in the loosest sense of the word. When my dear old dad popped his clogs way too early, my mother lost her husband, her livelihood and her home in one fatal blow. I resolved not be a burden and dropped out of sixth form college to get a job. I was seventeen.
My first brush with gainful employment was at a meat importing company near Smithfield Market in the City of London. It was a tedious gig and some days it sent me to sleep – literally. In those days, I was far too fond of sowing my wild oats. My employers were very forgiving but we both knew it wasn’t a marriage made in bovine heaven.
Next up, flogging light bulbs to the rich and famous in Habitat, a trendy home store on London’s infamous King’s Road (well, it was infamous back in the day). Felicity Kendall was always sweet and Lionel Blair was always vile. My partner in crime was an eccentric old Chelsea girl who had the look of Margaret Lockwood and drove a battered Citroen 2CV. As a pretty boy with a wandering eye, I collected phone numbers on credit card slips and tripped the light fantastic. They were the heady days of a deliciously misspent youth: ‘Days on the tills and nights on the tiles…’ as I wrote in Perking the Pansies (that’s my first book by the way. Not a bad read so they say). Eventually, I abandoned the Lighting Department for the counting house and rose to the rank of Chief Cashier. Cooking the books took all of half a day and I soon tired of flicking the abacus and twiddling my thumbs.
A life in the New World beckoned. I threw caution to the wind and boarded a Freddie Laker flight to the good old U.S of A – a one-way ticket to the land of the free and the promiscuous. I planned to stay and wallow but after a few months spreading the love in Washington DC, I became homesick. Before long I was flying back across the Pond to a land being ravaged by rampant Thatcherism. Imagine if I had I stayed the course. I could be a Yankee citizen with an irritating mid-Atlantic accent and a completely different tale to bore you with.
The Iron Lady would have approved of my next position – credit controller at Citibank, trying to extract cash from the cashless. It was a soulless task. As a bleeding-heart liberal, my face was never going to fit and I jumped ship before I went under. Besides, it was time for me to grow up and get a mortgage. I got a proper job with a pension attached at the council. This wasn’t any old council, mind. Oh no, we’re talking the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a beneficent parish with the richest real estate on the planet and enough reserves to bail out Greece. More through luck than judgement, I crawled up the career ladder and become quite important with a fat budget and a hundred people to boss about. But then I met Liam and he turned my head with dreams of hazy, lazy days in the sun. I was seduced. We liquidated our assets, upped sticks and lived the dream for a time. It was the best thing I ever did, and we did it for as long as we could.
And now we’re back on home turf. Why? Well, you’ll have to read the sequel to find out. We soon looked for ways to pass the long samey days, anything to avoid the empty calories of daytime TV. Quite by chance, Turkey turned me into a writer and new skills bring new opportunities. What are they? Find out more in a day or so…
Perking the Pansies 
❤ ❤ ❤
Love all the pictures. You're a stunner.
LikeLike
Why thank you. You’ve made my day!
LikeLike
You are welcome, Jack. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I lived and worked in D.C. until ’72 – shame we didn’t meet (Lafayette Park; Dupont Circle?????)! Boy, what a cutie you were – and still are, even without the hair!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the kind words for this old has been. I would have been 12 in 72! I do remember a bar called Scandals just off Dupont Circle, though.
LikeLike
. . evolution – the ancestors of whales and dolphins once crawled out of the primordial oceans on their flippers, grew legs, wandered around for a bit and then ambled back into the ocean, sucked up their back legs, put on a few pounds and now sing beautiful songs to anyone who’ll listen – looking forward to the next verses 🙂
LikeLike
Like Cilla, the voice isn’t quite what it was. 😉
LikeLike
I will wait for your next instalment with baited breath, have to say it sounds a lot like my life, but I am still here in Turkey. Just got through a massive operation and waiting my recovery, to say I entered a new chapter in my life would be an understatement I have been close to death and returned again all in Turkey. Understand why you gave up here I would have most likely done so too however my husband does not have the ability (yet) to travel back to UK with me. I love reading your posts they resonate with me, good luck with all of your writings you have great talent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Yvonne. I’m so sorry to hear about your health issues but really glad that you’re still with us to tell the tale. Life can be tough, can’t it? Liam and I are wishing you both a speedy recovery and many, many more days in the sun. 😀
LikeLike
1972? age 12?? OMG, Jack, now I really feel my age – duh, lol! Never been ‘into’ that young age group though, even if they were cute. Oh well, ces’t le vie!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well look at you all handsome and young. 🙂 Looking forward to reading the sequel.
LikeLike
I know. Now all saggy and wrinkly. How the mighty fall 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
hahahaha–I truly did laugh out loud. And you’r not saggy and wrinkly either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, you’ve been around a bit Mr Scott. 😉 Love all the pics – not sure I’d be brave enough to do that. 😀 As a reader of both your books, I feel quite smug that I know about your life in Bodrum…why you’re back in Blighty.
Julia
LikeLike
As Liam says, I’ve been round the block so many times, they named the town after me 😉
LikeLike
Well that was a great teaser for the next chapter in your life. A lovely set of photos – lots of quite mischievous looks!
LikeLike
Oh yes, I was a bit of a devil 😉
LikeLike