I was quite, I was quite introverted and you know, I had a fascination with kind of like excitement, danger and fire. I used to play in the back garden and burn stuff, little toy cars. One day I remember, being in my bedroom playing by myself, and I was actually making paper aeroplanes out of the paper in the bottom chest of drawer and I was throwing paper aeroplanes across the bedroom and I actually set one of them alight and you know, it went into the bottom drawer and it actually caught fire and I remember just standing there staring at it, you know actually being quite entranced by what I saw.
And then it suddenly dawned on me that I thought now this ain’t good, this ain’t good, it’s getting a bit out of hand. And I was a bit torn what to do and I just thought I’ll run downstairs and you know my mum, I think it was yeah my mum grabbed a bucket of water and threw it over the chest of drawers and put the fire out. And I just remember her looking at me like you know with this glare in her eyes and she just said you know wait until your dad gets home. And I kind of like sneakily laughed inside because I thought you know, he isn’t my fucking dad. And I actually kind of, when they went back downstairs, I actually went into my sister’s bedroom and got out the bedroom window onto a ledge and jumped out. I always used to do this because I used to run away quite a lot over the woods. I mean I was never allowed out, outside the front gate but you know there was something about just running away. I actually climbed up a tree and I remember it getting dark and, don’t know, my memory is a bit blurred but it was almost like, I feel that I actually stayed out all night and just went to school. I mean I always used to go to school, almost to get my kicks met. But it seemed like I’d been missing for like days and I hadn’t seen my mum and I knew I was in shit. You know I was petrified of my step dad anyway you know, but I had this kind of like….I just missed my mum and I just thought I wanted to make it better but didn’t really know how.
Anyway, you know I was at school, across the playground and I saw my mum. She was over the other side of the playground and we clocked each others eyes and just said…I thought oh, you know kind of relief but kind of like anticipation and then we both run together like we were in slow motion and she just burst into tears and put her arms around me and just said, I love you son. Hmm you know, I was in tears, you know and she said you know, he’s not your real dad you know and I just remember smiling and thinking, thank you. You know, I felt that like I was released, that like it was confirmed. And I don’t really remember seeing my step dad much after that, you know, we moved to this village when I was about six and he got sent to prison when I was like six and a half so you know I just felt I was free then. But then it kind of like, begged the question, well actually if he’s not my real dad then, you know, then who is my real dad?