After a period we moved into our own house. It was great to get our own space. I remember we moved into the house before our furniture arrived, so we basically had nothing for a while whilst we waited on the furniture delivery.
We stayed in this estate for a number of years. It was a grim place and didn't have a nice feeling about it. Not what we were used to, certainly.
My grandmother moved back to inner city Manchester, so we moved again to be with her. We moved in with her again, it was in an area close to Moss Side. Moss Side was infamous for gang violence in the 1980s. I remember encountering people from different races for the first time. I became good friends with a mixed race boy from my class who lived near me. It wasn't ideal though as again, we didn't have our own house.
We finally got another house, it was a new build council house in another estate close by. This estate was again, a tough place. I had to quickly become streetwise here, if you didn't you would quickly become a target. I found refuge in an unlikely place, I joined the army cadet force. They had training nights every Tuesday and Thursday. Then on some weekends they had camps. I have to say I loved it. It gave me purpose, something to part of. I made great friends and the trips away were great fun. I spent a number of years in the army cadets. My mum would comment on how dedicated to the cadets I was. I’d happily spend hours in my room polishing my boots and ironing my kit instead of playing with friends. I met my first girlfriend in the cadets and she would visit me a lot form another part of Manchester. Sadly for me it ended badly in the cadets. On my final annual camp I was put into a platoon with an instructor from another unit. I was around 14 at the time. We were on parade and myself and a friend of mine were laughing about something. The instructor called me out to the front of the platoon and told them all to about turn, (so they were facing away from me) he then slapped me accros the face. I can remember feeling totally shocked, but I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of that. I didn’t tell any other instructors about it but I did tell some friends who then did. Although nothing happened to him, as far as I was aware it was brushed under the carpet. I do remember him being overbearingly nice to me for the remainder of the camp.
Shortly after this we were at another weekend camp in a place called Ramsbottom. Myself and friend got drunk and did some silly stuff, I ended up taking a bike from someones garden near the camp and was riding it around the streets at night. I left the bike back but my instructors heard about it and I was called in to see my detachment commander. I was given a fair telling off and was kicked out of his office. I remember thinking that it was all a bit of an overreaction at the time.
When I got back home we were due to go on Easter camp. This camp was one of the best camps you can do in the cadets. It's for 4 days and was always great fun. I left for the camp on Friday with my friends on the bus, and arrived in Wales on the Friday evening.
The next morning I was called into see my company commander. I never could warm to him, he was a cold character who we were all scared of. I remember being marched in in front of him and thinking "what have I done now?" I walked in and he spoke for only a few moments and said we are sacking you because of what happened in Ramsbottom. I couldn't believe what he was saying to me. My eyes filled with tears. You are going home now so pack your stuff. They had brought me there, a 14 year old child, drove 2 hours the day before, just to sack me and send me home. When I think of that now I am absolutely horrified at how they handled it. I was taken home by two adult instructors, they made it clear on the way home they didn't agree with how it was handled. I got home on Saturday afternoon and told my mum. I was absolutely heartbroken. The Cadets had been my escape from everything, from all the other mad stuff that had happened to me. Then it was taken away like that. I decided I would fight my way back into it. I wrote a letter to the Company commander, pleading with him, offering the most sincerest of apologies. Told him how much the cadets meant to me and the letter was ignored. I often think about him and what must have been going on in his own life for him to just ignore me like that. I feel like if I were in his position I would have respected that person enough to at least reply to the letter. To this day I think they wanted rid of me before I could tell the wrong people about the instructor hiting me a few months before.
When I couldn't get back into the cadets I spent more time on the street. I would run about and was mixing with the wrong crowd. Up to all hours and generally getting up to no good. There was a gang had moved into a flat near where my grandmother lived in Hulme. You knew to stay away from them as they were bad news. I was riding my bike past their flat one day and one of them came out and stood in front of me. I knew him to be one of the main ones in the gang and I couldn't do anything if he wanted to beat me up. He pushed me off my bike and rode off on it. It's weird, I wasn't even that bothered at the time. I had lived in Manchester for a number of years and had at least 3 bikes stolen from me in that time. It was the norm. I walked to my grandmothers house and went in to see her. To say she was a character is an understatement. She had lived in Manchester for 45 years at least at this stage and still spoke with a broad Belfast accent. She drunk Bells Whiskey and liked to sing songs after a few. I loved her very much and we were always close. I told her about the bike and she just stood up and walked out, straight round to their flat. She demanded the bike back from them and to my amazement, they gave it to her.
I was happy enough and a few days later I was riding the bike past their flat again and another one of them shouted out the window for me to come up. I was terrified as I knew what it was. I went in and he closed the door and started punching and kicking me. I remember him getting a knife and making me put my hand on a table and stabbing the knife really quickly in-between my fingers, he stopped before he missed and the knife went into my finger. I managed to get out of the flat and ran home to my house. I knew at that stage I needed to leave Manchester, I didn't want to be there anymore I felt unsafe and was going down the wrong road.
I called my dad in Northern Ireland..
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