Free Today Everything Changes: Quick Read by Andy McNab Page A

and at night he used his old Ford as a mini-cab. He mended his own car and other people’s.
    We moved house a lot. I’d lived at a total of nine different addresses and gone to seven schools. When I was little, my mum and dad moved to the seaside in Kent. It didn’t work out so they had to go back to London. When Mum got pregnant and had a baby boy, I went to stay with Aunty Nell. This was no hardship at all. Aunty Nell was great, and the school was just round the corner from her house. Best of all, she used to give me a hot milk drink at night, with biscuits, which were a real luxury for me.
    When Aunty Nell’s husband, George, died, he left my mum a little bit of money. She decidedto buy a corner café with it, but my mum and dad were no good at business and everything went wrong. Even the accountant ripped them off. We moved in to private housing in south London, renting half a house. My Uncle Bert lived upstairs. Mum and Dad were paying the rent collector, but it wasn’t going to the landlord, so eventually we got evicted and landed up in emergency council housing.
    We lived on what my mum called Teddy Bears’ Porridge, which was bread, milk and sugar warmed up. Once, the gas was cut off and the only heat in the flat came from a three-bar electric fire. Mum laid it on its back in the front room and told us we were camping. Then she balanced a saucepan on top and heated our supper: Teddy Bears’ Porridge. I thought it was great.

Chapter Three
    When I was eight, I joined my first gang. The leader looked like the lead singer of the Rubettes, a 1970s ‘big hair and platform shoes’ pop group. Another boy’s dad sold used cars; we thought they were filthy rich because once they went to Spain on holiday. The third gang member had to wear glasses because his eyes had been damaged in an accident so he was good for taking the piss out of. Those three boys were my role models, the three main players on the estate. I wanted to be with them, to be one of the lads.
    We played on what we called ‘bomb sites’, where old buildings had been knocked down to make way for new housing estates. Sometimes we mucked around in empty buildings, like Maxwell’s Laundry. There were signs everywhere, NO ENTRY, DANGER, but they didn’t put us off. We used to sing the Beatles’ song ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, throw stones at the windows and smash the glass. We used to go onto the roof and dare each other to use theskylights as stepping-stones. It was fun until John fell through one and died.
    After that, I joined a new gang. I had to have a lighted match put to my arm until the skin smoked and there was a burn mark. I was very pleased with myself, but when my mum saw the state of my arm she went beserk. I couldn’t understand why.
    She dragged me off to the house of my new gang leader. The two mums shouted at each other big time while we boys stood there giggling. As far as I was concerned I was in the gang – let them argue as much as they liked.
    As I mixed with the other kids in the gang, I started to notice that I didn’t have as much stuff as they did. It was the skinhead era and everybody had to have green Dockers trousers and Dr Martens cherry-red boots. I told the gang I didn’t have them because I didn’t want them.
    We’d go swimming, and afterwards the lads bought Screwball ice creams or arrowroot biscuits out of a jar from one of the local pubs. I never had the money for either, and had to beg half a biscuit from one of my mates. One day I had scrounged enough money for a Screwball. I’d never tasted one before. When I got to the shop, I discovered that they’d stopped makingthem. I bought an Aztec bar instead, and felt very grown-up. Sadly, there was nobody to show it off to because I was on my own.
    I tried Cubs once but never got as far as having a uniform. We had to pay subs each week, but I lied my way out of paying the first few times. On Tuesday nights we had to have plimsolls to play five-a-side