Back in the UK ...
Returning from Greece in late 2001, I returned to Croydon and stayed for a short while with friends. But too much had changed there. I had said my goodbyes nearly a year before, and they had all moved on. There was no way I could fit back in.
After receiving the insurance payout for the damage done to my camper in Greece, I sold it and got myself a small motor to see me through. I honestly can't even remember what kind of car it was, but my entire life now could fit inside one vehicle ... a bit of a comedown from my lovely big house in Croydon.
The part-time pub job I got with my old landlord friend was never going to last and was going nowhere, but the brewery offered me an assistant manager's post at a pub in Sutton that had been experiencing problems with drug dealers. The landlord couple ~ a large Irishman and his South African wife (along with their large dogs) ~ didn't really either need or appreciate my assistance.
At one point I fronted a six foot five inch dealer, nose to chin(!) ~ I couldn't risk giving him any space as I knew he was tooled-up. Luckily for me, he didn't fancy his chances of getting out of the pub if he stuck me ... the locals wouldn't have liked it. I still had very little concern for my own welfare. The locals there were a pretty solid crew though ~ very boisterous, but they looked after each other.
From there the brewery started using me as a relief manager. I did a short stint at the Burn Bullock in Mitcham, which had once been a magnificent pub, with the biggest ground floor cellar I've ever seen. When cricket matches used to be held on Mitcham Common, the pub would be packed afterwards. By 2002, however, it had deteriorated to being a haunt for tarmac-travellers and the local branch of EDL fascists, along with a mixture of others who probably couldn't get served anywhere else.
I handled the situation by telling the top guys of each bunch they could keep three friends each for a late drink, provided they told the rest of their crews to go home. This they did, and it kept the place peaceful. The one real nutter, I showed how to use the bar top gaming machine ... that kept him quiet for a week! The police turned up on the third night and I asked them politely to fuck off, as their presence was more likely to cause trouble. They laughed and said they'd only called in because it was the first time in years three nights had passed without someone calling them out to the pub! I said not to worry, but would call them if there were any need, but I didn't foresee any. I did a massive amount of cleaning and sorting in that week ~ none of which was appreciated by the straight-laced couple who took over from me ~ who I knew weren't going to last five minutes in there!
Next, I was moved to a pub in Egham, where the previous assistant manager had been beaten so bad by the locals, he spent six months in hospital. A great recommendation. I couldn't walk anywhere safely in the town, and took to carrying some improvised weaponry with me wherever I went. Most of the locals were the offspring of criminal classes, who had made their money one way or another, but now their kids were living off the proceeds with no sense of morals or discipline. Drug use was rife and it was hard to stop it ~ particularly as the landlady wouldn't let me bar anyone for dealing. She told me just to make sure it wasn't obvious!
After one especially close shave, I decided it was time to go, or else I'd end up like my predecessor, or worse. I put all my belongings into my old motor and headed back to Kettering, and my family. It was the only place I had left.
My older sister was kind enough to put me up on her sofa for a few weeks until I found myself a room to stay in. I got myself some work driving ~ probably not the best option, as the sleep apnoea was still affecting me badly. But somehow I got through and managed to pay my rent. After a while, I moved into a two-bed flat on the edge of the town centre, which was fairly old, but suited my purposes.
It was around this time that my daughter, K, got in contact with me, and for a while she occupied the second bedroom, then left, then came back again. It was lucky she was with me at that time, because without her I wouldn't have had the sleep apnoea diagnosed so quickly. Once I was able to get myself really back on my feet again, I secured work with a local homeless charity who had helped me when I was struggling.
It was a great job and a way to help others who'd been in the same boat as me, or worse. I became good at it ~ too good really, as (once more) others started to get jealous, and ultimately I was bullied out of that job by two senior members of staff who revelled in making my life a misery and sending me deep into depression.
I did a short spell with a local HGV company based at Corby Steel Works, shunting dilapidated old units with trailers in and out of the works loading steel onboard, then taking them to the weighbridge, before strapping them up ready to be collected ready for the road the next day. They promised to teach us enough to take our class 1 licences, but after a month or so it became obvious this was something that only ever happened to one or two of the people they employed. The rest of us were stuck with the shit jobs, including cleaning out the yards. I left there and went back to delivery driving.
My daughter had moved in with her boyfriend by that time and was expecting her first child. I was offered a flat in Rothwell by a local housing association and took it, as the rent was much cheaper. This helped, as work was becoming more scarce and I had to have a knee operation due to my failing knees, both of which had little or no cartilage left in them. I was unable to work for a couple of months, and this was only shortly after an operation on my nose (now discredited and no longer carried out). At least I was able to afford the rent with the housing benefit I was receiving, and even able to start doing some part-time work to the limits they set (with maximum hours and maximum earnings) at a pub round the corner ~ The Rowell Charter Inn.
The next years were spent doing that job and others (covered under the Music Quiz and Wildfire sections). Unfortunately, the neighbour downstairs was one of those permanently sick people who have no consideration for others. He and his other drug taking friends used to play loud music all through the day and night. I complained to the housing association, but they couldn't do anything about it. Eventually, it got so bad my depression started kicking in again. Some of my quizzers saw the difference and one convinced another to let one of their flats to me, which was right next to the pub I was working in (see white arrow in picture). He even lowered the rent for me. (Lovely chap, one of the nicest people you'd ever meet ~ Alan Mills, formerly of Coast To Coast.) The two of them were local town councillors and they also managed to get me some work producing promotional literature for the town and its heritage centre. It was a good place to stay, and the quiz made me many friends.
I then discovered my pensions from two previous jobs were worth around £35k if I cashed them in, but would be of no or little use if I held on to them, as they would only yield a pittance as a monthly payout in retirement. I set myself to trying to find vacant shop premises in a coastal town in the south west that I could convert into a real ale bar, with no fruit machines, jukeboxes, or lagers ~ just ales. Unfortunately, every time a suitable property came about, the local councils wouldn't give me permission to take them over, prompting me instead to take over one of the multitude of empty pub properties in their town ... which were many. They couldn't suss that I hadn't the funds to take on something that had already failed. So, ultimately the money was running out, so I planned a trip to Spain, to visit a couple I knew who had just moved there to live in a converted cave. (More on this under another heading.)
When I got back I started looking for a full-time job again, and was successful in attaining a job as an assistant housing officer with a national homeless charity. Having been TUPE'd from them to the charity that took on their properties when they withdrew from actually offering accommodation to people, I became housing officer (all the way through the Covid lockdowns) until finally gaining my current position as Contracts and Compliance Officer.
Shortly after this, I moved in with my daughter, her husband and the kids, to help them afford the place they’d had to take on after being ripped off by another landlord. It would give me a chance to help out both financially and with my daughter's worsening health issues. But more than anything else, it was a great way to spend more time with the grandkids.
I'm still there and wouldn't change it for the world ... until at least circumstances change. Only problem for me is the stairs ... I really need somewhere that is all on ground floor level. But, despite my legs getting worse, and all the other ailments, I still manage to make a difference. And that's about all you can hope for really ~ working in a job where you're helping people, yet still being able to keep the wolves from the door.