Jack Williams - The Rigger

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by

LEO COOPER

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright by Jack Williams

ISBN 0 85052 817 8

eISBN 978 1 78337 940 8

A CIP record for this book is

available from the British Library

Typeset in 12/13pt Bembo by

Phoenix Typesetting, Ilkley, West Yorkshire

Printed by CPI UK.

PREFACE

I, like many another squaddie, left Northern Ireland a bitter and angry man. The experience has changed me for ever. I can never return to the person I was. I dont want to. The fear was real. The comradeship, the stress, the long hours and never being able to relax anywhere, anytime, was a normal day. There was an emotional turbulence at not being able to retaliate when your mates were picked off, but then, who would you retaliate against? You just had to soldier on. You had to swallow bitter pills. It started just after Del and Dave were murdered at an IRA funeral during my first week in the Province. A small chink of ice, roughly the size of an ice cube, suddenly appeared in my chest. It was as though Id undergone surgery and an implant had been inserted. The small cube of ice had a life of its own and grew and grew until, finally, just before I left Northern Ireland, it filled the whole of my chest.

I became unpredictable. Anyone treading on my toes faced a full verbal onslaught.

Everybody is affected in one way or another by their tour over there, including the wives. It can sometimes take years for the infestation to appear. Then a mental breakdown occurs the soldier diving for cover every time he hears a loud bang. The wife who cannot stop peering through the curtains every time a car stops outside. One way or another, it affects you. It changes your mental attitude to life. It can give you moral fibre and a whole new meaning to life, if you come out of it all right. Go to Kings Cross or other seedy areas of London and youll find him there, the ex-squaddie who hasnt come to terms with it. It is preventing him from returning to society because of his hostility and he doesnt know how to overcome it, or the fact that he is doing it. It seems a normal day to him.

I lived in London on permanent adrenalin surges until the writing of this book. It sorted me out. The block of ice had to melt or I would remain a very angry, lonely, unloved person for the rest of my life. I didnt have to think to write this book because the writing was dominated by my feelings. My feelings poured out of the tips of my fingers and into the keyboard, and then they appeared before my eyes on the screen. I would sit day after day in a sort of trance. Not thinking, but allowing the writing to flow. It wasnt until I reached the final chapter that my release came. I cried and cried and all the pent-up frustration and anger poured out. My girlfriend Sue came round to see me one evening and I spent the whole night sobbing. We carried on as close to a normal evening as possible because there was no way I could stop the sobbing. I would talk, sob, and talk again.

I feel the experience has produced a better me. I refuse to be drawn into the hurdy gurdy rush of London. I stroll and I observe. I talk to people who seem to be lost and I try to help them. Talking to people in London isnt easy, as a rebuff is often the case, but what the hell! If I just miss a tube there will be another one, so why rush? Unless its the last one that is!

Even then you can do anything you like.

Youre here.

Its now.

You can head in any direction you like.

Im a free agent.

PROLOGUE

My first memory of life was running home across a narrow street called Tatton, holding my left hand out in front of me and crying. I had banged on the front door with my right hand. I waited, in pain, and wished my Mum would hurry up.

Whats the matter? she asked.

I thrust my left hand forward for her to inspect it and between sobs said,

I won all their marbles, so they put my little finger on a brick and hit it with another brick.

I offered my left hand for sympathy and got it. Mum gave me a great big cuddle and, with my head buried between her hips, I sobbed even more. My injury was too small to waste time on a hospital visit. Dad was working all the hours he could and Mum was busy raising three children. My little finger would remain severely bent. The rest of my life seems to have been spent with my body being punctured by stitches and my bones being reset in plaster.

I was eight years old when our family really moved up in the world. Tatton Street was being demolished to make way for a new bus station and my Dad applied for a new council house and got one. The new house was a three-bedroom semi with a loo inside. Sheer luxury. The only thing that remained the same was the toilet paper, yesterdays newspaper ripped into convenient squares.

Junior school slipped past in my life and, with it, my first recollections of the opposite sex. Yes, I found girls very attractive. Yes, I was aroused when I was around them. Yes, I was excited when I thought of them. Why, I didnt know. I was selected to play for the school football team and one year we won a cup. Anyone would have thought it was the World Cup we were so overjoyed. The headmaster even bought the team members a small bottle of lemonade each. We looked upon this as a major feat, as we had never known a teacher to buy us anything before. From our point of view, teachers existed for the sole purpose of disciplining us and filling our heads with useless information.

On to an all boys secondary modern school. I was put in the A stream. Why I dont know. I hated school. I just wanted to get out into the big wide world and join the men, but I had to wait another four years for that to happen. In the meantime all my reports said, Can do better, Not applying himself. Dad was really disappointed that Id finished up in a secondary modern school. It should have been the grammar school for his son. He went absolutely bananas when he found out that I had gone roller-skating instead of taking my eleven plus.

There was a wood near where we lived and our gang used to go there because someone had attached a rope to the branch of a tree. The tree grew on the top of what we perceived to be a cliff, and the rope swung out over the cliff. One of the gang members grabbed the rope, swung out over the drop and then swung back. He landed and threw the rope to me with a smug expression on his face. I stepped forward, let the rope swing out, then swing back, then ran forward, grabbed the rope and swung out on it. The problem was that, in my haste to swing out further than the previous boy, I mistimed the jump and failed to grip the rope correctly. It was another trip to the hospital where I had both my broken wrists put in plaster and slings. It was most embarrassing for a twelve-year-old boy. I couldnt feed myself and, worst of all, I couldnt go to the toilet by myself. When it was time to go, Id stand in front of the toilet and yell, Mum.

Mum would come into the bathroom, unzip me, pull it out, hold it for me and then keep asking, Have you finished?

Six weeks later the plaster was removed and I was out with the gang again. We were running down a hill and gravity was making us run faster than we had ever run before. We yelled, laughed and shouted to each other as the wind rushed through our hair and tingled our bright red cheeks. It was a joyous glorious moment, until I put my foot in a hole. My feelings went from total joy to total pain in one millisecond as my foot stayed where it was and my body carried on moving. Tears burst out and flooded down my face and my body was wrenched by huge sobs. The two-mile journey back to my home was the most painful journey Id ever made. The hospital put my leg in plaster. Six weeks later it came out. Two weeks after that it was put back in plaster. Seven times in plaster and eleven times in strapping! My file at the hospital was so thick they thought I was permanent staff. My brother and I shared the same bed and one thing he couldnt stand was the feel of plaster. The impish bit of me came out and I would wait until he was asleep, then hook the plastered leg over one of his legs. He would wake up screaming. On one of my later visits the doctor referred me to the orthopaedic department. The orthopaedic department was a strange experience for a twelve-year-old. Wheel chairs, artifical legs, artifical arms and crutches greeted me as I walked in. They took my shoe and extended the heel by a quarter of an inch. I never stretched the ligaments in my ankle again.