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      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Publisher’s Notes

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Also available in the CONFESSIONS series

       About the Author

       Also by Timothy Lea & Rosie Dixon

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Publisher’s Note

      The Confessions series of novels were written in the 1970s and some of the content may not be as politically correct as we might expect of material written today. We have, however, published these ebook editions without any changes to preserve the integrity of the original books. These are word for word how they first appeared.

       Chapter One

      In which a talent spotting trip to the East End with brother-in-law, Sid, involves Timmy in an unseemly fracas and two close brushes with the opposite sex.

      ‘Gordon Bennett!’ says Dad. ‘Most people can get out of the nick easier than the army. “Dishonourable Discharge.” Sounds like what we used to find on the front of your pyjamas.’

      ‘Dad, please!’ I mean, that kind of remark is so uncalled for. Anyhow, I never had a pair of pyjamas when I was going steady with the five-fingered widow.

      ‘This latest disgrace has dropped us right in it with the neighbours. I don’t know where to put my face.’

      ‘Why don’t you try some of the places Sid has been suggesting all these years?’ It is sad, but Dad always brings out the worst in me.

      ‘You leave your sponging brother-in-law out of this. Just consider what you’ve achieved in the last five years. You’ve broken your mother’s heart and now you’ve damn near done for mine. In the nick twice and God knows how many jobs you’ve had.’

      ‘The first time was only reform school, Dad.’

      ‘That’s shredded in the mists of antiquity, that is. Why can’t you be like your sister? A nice home, two lovely kiddies. She’s done all right for herself.’

      ‘I couldn’t find the right bloke to settle down with, Dad.’

      ‘I don’t expect it’s for want of trying, though. That’s the one thing we haven’t had from you, isn’t it? I’m waiting for you to turn into a nancy boy. That’ll be the final nail in my coffin.’

      ‘I’ve started a whip round for the hammer, Dad.’

      As might be expected, Dad is not slow to take umbrage at this remark.

      ‘That’s nice, isn’t it? Bleeding nice. That really puts the kibosh on it, that does. You sacrifice your whole life to your kids and what do you get? Bleeding little basket wants to see you under the sod.’

      ‘One on top of the other, Dad.’

      Dad steams out of sight and I consider what an ugly, weasel-faced old git he is. It is amazing to think that he could have produced something as overpoweringly lovely as myself. Sometimes I wonder if he actually did have a hand in it – or something more intimate. I have always found it disgusting to think of my Mum and Dad on the job but the thought of some invisible third-party – a prince or something like that – giving Mum one behind Battersea Town Hall seems much more favourite. The arse is always cleaner on the other side of the partition, if you know what I mean.

      Of course, to be fair, you can understand Dad being a bit narked. When I was conned into signing on as a ‘Professional’ for nine years, he must have thought that he could fill every inch of my bedroom with nicked stuff from the lost-property office where he works. I use the word ‘work’ in its loosest sense. Dad had to be carried into the nearest boozer when someone in his bus queue mentioned overtime. When Dad thought he had got rid of me, he reckoned without Sid’s ability to put the mockers on anything he comes into contact with. I will never forget the sight of Sid’s nuclear warhead drooping towards submarine level while the colonel’s lady shouted for action and all those Yanks with gaiters halfway up their legs bristled in the doorway. It is the nearest we have ever come to causing World War III. She was a funny woman, that one. Very strange. There can’t be many birds who fancy a bit of in and out under the shadow of the ultimate deterrent – still, I expect you read all about it in Confessions of a Private Soldier so I won’t go on. (Of course, if you did not read about it, there is nothing to stop you nipping round the corner and having a word with your friendly local newsagent. If you ask him nicely he might be able to find you a copy – to say nothing much about the other titles in the series. For instance, there is – ‘Belt up and get on with it!’ Ed. All right, all right! I’ve got to live, haven’t I. Blimey, these blokes think you can nosh carbon paper. I am not surprised that Les Miserables packed it in after one book.)

      Anyway, getting back to the present. There I am at 16, Scraggs Lane, ancestral home of the Leas since times immemorial after an unproductive brush with HM Forces. It might have done Mark Phillips a bit of good but I did not as much as catch sight of a corgi’s greeting card the whole time I was in the Loamshires. Ridiculous when you consider how many Walls sausages the family must have eaten over the years. And talking of food, here comes my Mum, that commodity’s greatest natural enemy. The only woman to have burned water.

      ‘Stop going on, Dad,’ she says. ‘Tea’s on the table. I’ve got some nice fester cream rice for sweet.’

      ‘You mean, Vesta Cream Rice, Mum. “Fester” means to turn rotten.’

      ‘You want to taste it before you start telling your mother what she means,’ snorts Dad. ‘It doesn’t take a lot of prisoners, that stuff, I can tell you.’ Mum may be a diabolical cook but her heart is in the right place – and that saves an awful lot of trouble when you go for a medical checkup, I can tell you. It also means that she is always glad to see me home whatever I have done. She has even tried to spell out ‘WELCOME’ in the alphabet soup.

      ‘It’s funny,’ she says, gazing at me over the curling beef-burgers. ‘You look such a wholesome boy.’

      Dad snorts. ‘I expect Jack the Ripper looked bleeding wholesome and all. Don’t start making excuses for him, mother. He’s never going to change. I’ve given up hope for him.’

      ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do, now, dear?’ says Mum, absentmindedly straining the cabbage on to the beefburgers – at least it takes the curl out of them.

      ‘Sid’s got an idea about going into the entertainment business. I’m having a talk with him tonight.’

      ‘ “Entertainment?” But you don’t do

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