Where’s The Wabbit?
When I was growing up, our house was always full of men whom I naturally thought were my ‘Uncles’. One of these was a super friendly guy my mum and nan called ‘Legover Jack’. Now, being a small boy, I was obviously curious as to how Legover had got his name. One night, in the old Iron Juke public house that used to stand at the junction of Bellevue Road and the Plains of Waterloo, I asked the landlord – Johnny Giles – why the man had such a strange nickname.
Giles winked at me and said: ‘He likes a drink. The rhyme goes: Legover Jack, Legover Jack, takes three steps forward and four steps back.’
Naturally, I believed this, although it later became obvious that Legover was a ladies' man with so many notches on his bedpost that it was a small miracle he could still sleep on the bed without it collapsing.
In any case, I was maybe five or six years old at the time, and Legover Jack always did the same thing when he saw me in The Iron Duke. He would come up to me, bend down, whisper ‘What’s going on behind here, then…’ and suddenly pull a pound coin from my ear.
It was incredible, and I loved it...and not just because I was always a quid richer whenever I saw him.
It was MAGIC. Real magic.
You Could Leave Your Door Open…
I was born in the early hours of the morning at QEQM Hospital in Margate, an odd baby with a shock of ginger hair and a tiny mole on the knuckle of my left index finger. I was a bit of a miracle birth as my mother had been told she couldn’t have children (although this might have been spot on as I’ve never been officially classified as human). The date was 25th January 1978: I do know that.
My dad was the foreman for a local building contractor. He’d originated from Ireland but spent a lot of time in Thanet for his work. He was tall, dark and charismatic if not actually handsome. The comedian Dave Allen once said ‘The Irish are good at populating other countries, in more ways than one...so for all you know you might be laughing at your brother.’ In my dad’s case, this was almost literally true, as it soon emerged that he had a wife and three children in Portsmouth, the place he’d lived when he’dfirst arrived in the UK. My mum quickly decided that he wouldn’t be a good influence and sensibly made the decision to sever ties with him....so I grew up as the only child of a one-parent family on the Westcliffof Ramsgate before we moved across town to live with my nan.
Career Options During the 90s
When my writing career didn’t explode as I wanted it to (that wouldn’t happen for another two years), I headed into Ramsgate town to see what work was available. My extraordinary collection of GCSEs and one-week appearances at Thanet College afforded me the following three opportunities:
McDonald’s – not a chance: it looked like great fun, but I’d just lost somewhere in the region of six stone, and I didn’t want to put it all back on again in THREE hours.
Don’t Talk Garbage (1987)
During the 80s, there were many reasons to hang out at Ramsgate Pleasurama that didn’t involve queuing up for Golden Axe or Double Dragon. One of these was to trade and collect something so priceless and valuable that you didn’t even need to name it: you simply stood there chewing the free bubblegum that came with each pack and waited for somebody to wander up with the question, the ultimate question, the question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
‘You got Oliver Twisted?’
‘Sort of: I’ve got Dizzy Dave?’
‘NO. NO. NO. That’s totally different.’
‘It’s the SAME card.’
Dear Geoffrey
I found a letter in my attic the other day: it was written by me, aged either five or six. The spelling wasn’t great, but when corrected, it basically read:
Dear Geoffrey from Rainbow,
I am worried about you because I watch you every day and you are my friend and I have to tell you that there is a man inside Bungle did you know this do not say anything to Bungle in case he gets angry and the man comes out I never want you to die
Love David Stone from Ramsgate
The Boys Brigade
‘Anyone can play the drum: you just hit it.’
This seemed like a really stupid argument, especially if you were talking about a drummer in a band... but the guy in question was talking about ME, and the band in question was the 1st Ramsgate Boys Brigade.
In the late 80s, there were two Boys Brigades in Ramsgate, imaginatively titled 1st and 2nd Ramsgate. We were 1st Ramsgate, and our brigade captain wanted to be the best: the best figure marchers, the best athletes...and the best musicians.
1980s BMX Memories: The Wheelie Warrior and Childhood Adventures
The BMX Warrior: Funny 1980s BMX Memories and Childhood Adventures. A humorous trip back to 1980s Britain, featuring BMX bikes, childhood crushes, schoolyard disasters, and the fantasy books that changed everything. TRIGGER WARNING: contains offensive language.
The Tamagotchi Test (2018)
“Daddy? I want a hamster.”
“You’re not having a hamster.”
“Why?”
“The ant died.”
“The ant wasn’t even REAL.”
“It was real.”
“It WASN’T!”
“Look – if you put something down on the floor and it runs away, it’s real.”
Ramsgate Pleasurama During the 80s (2022)
Saturday mornings at Pleasurama. If you lived in Ramsgate during the 80s, being a kid obsessed with arcade games was a test of both mental and physical stamina. If you wanted to play Double Dragon, you had to mission it all the way to the boating pool on the West Cliff, as Pleasurama didn’t keep the original Double Dragon machine once a few of the better beat-em-up games had flooded the market.
Weekends in Hell
Hell - a cyberpunk thriller and a really unusual MS DOS game from 1994 - strange, both then and now.
Characters like Gideon Ashante and the demons Asmodeus and Mr Beautiful stick in the mind to this day. There might have been a Sanguinarius somewhere there, too.
Haunted Ramsgate (2023)
It’s hard to imagine now when you look at the sheer size and magnificence of the Granville Hotel…but for most of my childhood, half of it was quite literally a pile of old rubble. When I say rubble, I’m talking about the sort of mess you get in a Marvel movie when the Hulk goes rampaging through downtown New York. I guess there’s a good chance it was war damage, but as kids we just thought it was an awesome play area.
Why We All Miss Blockbuster Video (2023)
It’s a dark and rainy Friday night in Ramsgate sometime during September 2001 and I’m running the late shift at Blockbuster Video. I’m standing at the counter facing down a monster of a guy with a chin like an anvil who I just KNOW is going to be trouble. He is GLARING at me.
‘Say that again, mate?’
Ramsgate During the 80s (2023)
It’s the late 1980s and I’m sitting outside Woolworths on Ramsgate High Street watching a man dressed as a chicken taking on Morris, the lovable town drunk, in a fight over a Kazoo.
The Yuletide Yak Yeti
As Yuletide descends on the little town of Legrash, several mysterious and unexpected events combine to suggest that a dark force is about to take control of the festivities.
Carry on Camping (2026)
Carry on Camping, performed at the Birchington Centre between 4th-6th June by Leaky Brain Productions.
The Early Crowd (2023)
Are you sleeping comfortably? Then I’ll begin….
There’s a community in Thanet that you probably don’t know anything about: I say that with some confidence because I’m a member of that community, and there’s only about twenty of us.