Essex Boy

by Steve 'Nipper' Ellis; Bernard O'Mahoney

  Kempton Ward, where I was housed, was full of children like me who were suffering from various types of life-threatening diseases. I can recall that one day my father brought me a Scalextric car-racing game. Two of the children on my ward, Raymond and Barnaby, were playing with me and because I was losing I began acting like a spoilt brat, shouting and being generally disruptive. The nurses, who had previously witnessed my bad behaviour on more than one occasion, decided to put me in a side room, away from the other children, as punishment. The following morning I was made to apologise profusely to them before being moved back on to the ward.

  I can remember looking to my right, towards Barnaby’s bed space, and seeing the staff remove his tiny, thin body. Two nurses laid his corpse out on a trolley and covered it with a bed sheet before wheeling him out of the ward. To this day, I don’t know if Barnaby died in his sleep or if he suffered some sort of organ failure. Cancer claimed my other friend, Raymond, three weeks later. I don’t think I really understood death at such a tender age but it was undoubtedly all around me.

  The chemotherapy that I underwent caused all my hair to fall out. It was a horrible experience that made me feel extremely weak and unwell.

  Every now and again minor celebrities and footballers would visit the ward and they would always say how brave we all were. To be perfectly honest, not one of us on the ward could work out what they were on about. We all used to ask, ‘What is brave about lying in bed, receiving treatment for a disease that we had no choice in having?’ ‘Unlucky’, in my opinion, would have been a more appropriate word. After three months of intensive treatment, I was told by a doctor with a beaming smile that I was well enough to go home. I thought that I would be returning to school and some form of normality but it turned out to be a living hell. All the other children at school mocked me by saying that I resembled the Beano comic book character ‘Plug’. Some felt the need to either slap my head or trip me over. With my bald head and tombstone teeth, I accept that I must have looked a sorry sight. In a well-meaning effort to alleviate the campaign of bullying against me, my mother purchased a nylon wig for me, which prompted my tormentors to throw food at it or use it as a frisbee. Disillusioned but undefeated, my mother arranged an appointment for me to get some cosmetic relief at the dentist, but this resulted in me being fitted with a steel brace that had more than enough wire in it to fence off fucking Hyde Park. I looked and felt ridiculous; I was every arsehole and bully’s dream.

  At Christmas, a well-meaning teacher decided to put me centre stage in the school play to deliver a solitary line. The idea was that it would boost my confidence. On making a rather grand entrance down a flight of multi-coloured steps, I was supposed to say, ‘I have travelled to the four corners of the world,’ but my buck teeth and nerves resulted in me mumbling, ‘I have travelled to the four corners of the weald.’ The audience erupted with laughter and I fled the stage in tears. Later that night, I placed a chair against my bedroom door to prevent family members from entering and after ripping out my brace I began scraping and hacking at my front teeth with a heavy-duty file. Grinning in a blood-spattered mirror, I was genuinely pleased with the result until the following morning. The nerve endings in my teeth had been cut and were exposed, causing me extreme pain every time that I inhaled. My gums and upper lip were swollen where the coarse file had torn at the flesh and, after rinsing the blood from my mouth, I could see that my teeth were uneven, cracked and chipped. I told my parents, teachers and a bemused dentist that I had fallen over and smashed my mouth on a kerbstone, but I don’t think any of them believed me.

  The bullies loved my latest look because it provided them with an abundance of fresh material for their repertoire of hate, bile and ridicule. My mother didn’t help with the torment that I faced. Instead of being normal, doing what others did and buying a dog for a family pet, she arrived home with a fucking goat, the symbol of Satan. My fellow pupils’ mothers would meet them at the school gates wearing floral dresses with Lassie-type dogs on leads. My mother would arrive dressed up like a car crash with the goat on a rope. I was so embarrassed I used to hide in the bike sheds until the other children and their parents had dispersed. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother, but if my father had taken her to a wife-swapping party, I am in no doubt that he would have come home with a box of the host’s unwanted bric-a-brac.

  A few months after returning to school, the bullying unexpectedly and abruptly ended, but it was replaced by a far more challenging problem. I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I had been in the bath one evening when I realised that I would require a wheelbarrow to transport one of my testicles around if it grew much larger. I reluctantly asked my mother to examine my genitals and after doing so she rushed me once more to the now familiar accident and emergency department at Southend Hospital. Later that night, I was back among my dying friends in St Bartholomew’s. My nylon wig was placed on my bedside table, now redundant among a ward full of bald patients, but a constant reminder of the bullying that I had suffered at school. I was dreading having to undergo any sort of chemo-or radiation therapy and after pleading with my mother to intervene she promised me that I would be spared the ordeal. The doctors said that it was an understandable but foolish decision, but my mother was adamant that she would rather let me fight the disease naturally. The hospital staff conceded that they could not force me to have what could prove to be life-saving treatment, but my father said that he could, and he would.

  The following morning, he instructed a firm of solicitors to make an emergency application to ‘save my life’ at the High Court in London. My mother argued that I was very weak and had suffered enough, but when a specialist told the court that my chances of survival without the treatment were virtually non-existent I was made a ward of the court. This meant that any important decisions regarding my welfare would be made by a third party working for the courts rather than by my parents. The very next day, I was taken to a room and laid on a table. Heavy lead shields were put into position to protect the unaffected parts of my body and a powerful radiation machine began to ‘cook’ the offending testicle. This process took approximately five or ten minutes and, at the end of it, all I wanted to do was sleep. When I awoke later that night, my father was sitting next to my bed looking extremely serious and morose. ‘I have some bad news, Steven,’ he said holding my hand. ‘The doctors have informed me that you may never be able to have children.’ I was still a child myself and so couldn’t appreciate just what was so bad about this news. I can remember looking back at my father and thinking: why would I want to have bloody children anyway? My mother looked equally devastated when she came to visit me, but at least she brought me a new toy and sweets to soften the blow of the ‘devastating news’. For the next three months, I underwent more radiation treatment and was administered numerous drugs, which made me feel more ill than the disease I was stricken with. If I ate, I threw up, and on the rare occasions that I managed to keep food down, I suffered from chronic diarrhoea. My weight plummeted and once more I found that I had little or no strength. Those that came to visit me were visibly shocked by my appearance but again, unlike many of the other children on my ward, I managed to pull through.

  When I was eventually discharged from the hospital, I elected to stay at home rather than face the school bullies. My mother did encourage me to attend but I think she worked out that I had previously been tormented and so allowed me to remain at home. While I had been in hospital my mother had formed a relationship with a very decent man named John Winter and shortly after I was discharged from the hospital they married. I really liked John; he was a kind, considerate, well-meaning man who treated me as if I were his own son. Sadly, he passed away in 2000. He had been suffering from a peptic ulcer, which is an extremely painful but treatable disorder. Unfortunately, John’s ulcer eroded one of his blood vessels, which caused gastrointestinal bleeding from which he died. Soon after my mother’s wedding, my father announced that he had also met a woman and intended to ma
rry for the third time. Fortunately for my father, although possibly less so for Beverley, his bride, the number three turned out to be lucky and they remain married to this day. I must admit that the very thought of watching The Jeremy Kyle Show these days fills me with horror. I half expect that every mystery father they say is waiting in the wings to meet a long-lost offspring will be mine.

  My absence from school attracted the attention of the local authority and they threatened all sorts of legal action against my mother if I did not attend. My mother’s pleas for understanding fell on deaf ears and so, with a heavy heart, she was forced to pack me off to school each morning. Once I was out of her sight I would make my way to the local church and hang around the graveyard or, if it was raining, I would seek shelter and warmth in the local launderette. I wasn’t a ghoul or some sort of morbid weirdo; I chose to hide among the dead simply because I couldn’t be seen from the road and few people ever ventured into the church grounds. Even if they did, they were so preoccupied thinking about their dearly departed that they rarely even noticed me.

  At the age of 15, I left school without any qualifications or indeed much basic education. Hands up, I admit that I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but I had done something few other kids my age had ever done: I had stared death in the face twice and walked away to tell the tale. As I grew older, the knowledge that I had survived such an ordeal, not once but twice, gave me great confidence and a strong belief in myself. If I was strong enough to cheat death, I knew that I had the inner strength to face any adversity, and so I vowed that nobody would ever get away with bullying or intimidating me again.

  The first job I had after leaving school was cutting cheese into blocks, for which I was paid the princely sum of 50p an hour. I suppose that potential employers regarded me as thick and so it was a case of doing what I was given rather than choosing a career. I wasn’t cutting cheese for long. A friend of the family offered me a job rubbing down cars prior to their being re-sprayed and I gladly accepted. The hours were long, the work repetitive and exhausting, and so after just a few weeks I walked out.

  My illness, appearance and reluctance to attend school had alienated me from other children and so I didn’t have any true friends to speak of. I would roam the streets alone, gazing into shop windows thinking of all the things that I could buy if I had money, but I no longer had a job and, therefore, there was no chance of me obtaining any. It then occurred to me that if I did my shopping when the stores and shops were closed, money would not have to exchange hands.

  The first place I ever broke into was Oxfam. In my defence I didn’t commit the crime for my own benefit. I had been walking past the shop one day with my father when he pointed to two vases in the window and said that he liked them. I didn’t have the money to buy them for him, so I decided to break in and steal them instead. That night I tipped all of my father’s tools out of a canvas holdall, jumped onto my bike and headed for the Oxfam shop. After parking near my intended target, I checked that the road was clear before jogging across and into the Oxfam shop doorway. People had left bin liners full of old clothing at the door and so I tore one open, took a jumper out and went in search of a house brick. I soon found one of a suitable size, wrapped it in the jumper and smashed the glass pane in the shop door. While I was doing this a man walked past, so I dropped the jumper and went after him. ‘Excuse me. Have you got the time, please?’ I asked. The man looked at me as if I were something disgusting that he had just stood in and continued to walk away. Fuck him, I thought, before running back to the shop.

  I climbed through the broken window and put the vases into my holdall. I glanced across the road to ensure that nobody was coming and noticed that a man was trying to steal my bike. I clambered back through the window and ran towards the would-be thief but he saw me coming and made off in the opposite direction. Muttering something about fucking crooks and nothing being safe unless it’s nailed down, I climbed back into the shop. Behind the counter I found a large glass cabinet, which was locked, so I picked up a bowl and threw it as hard as I could in an effort to smash my way into it. The bowl hit the cabinet, bounced off and narrowly missed my head before smashing on the floor. I knew that I was making too much noise and so I picked up 75p off the top of the till, put a can of crazy foam in my holdall and made good my escape.

  After successfully committing such a petty crime, there was only one way that my criminal career could go and that was up. Soon I was carrying out burglaries at off-licences, builders’ merchants and post offices. If I couldn’t get my hands on hard cash when committing a burglary, I would take anything that I thought I could sell later. One time I filled two black bin liners with cigarettes and hid them under a shed at a local bowling club. I asked around to see if anybody was interested in purchasing the goods that I had stolen and one local entrepreneur agreed to buy the lot. As I walked away from the bowling club with the cigarettes, a police car happened to pull up alongside me and so I ran. As I made good my escape, one bag burst open, spilling all of the boxes of cigarettes out onto the road and so I dropped it and continued to flee. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that a police officer was in pursuit and so I turned down an alleyway only to be confronted by a wrought-iron gate with a sign that read ‘Beware of the Dogs’. I had always been terrified of dogs and so rather than risk being chewed I gave myself up to the gasping officer who had pursued me. I was promptly arrested and charged with theft.

  I don’t know if a passer-by had stopped and picked up the boxes of cigarettes that I had dropped, but they certainly disappeared while I was in police custody. The charge sheet that I was given stated that I had stolen 50 boxes of cigarettes when I knew I had in fact stolen nearly 200. You can’t trust anybody these days! I hope they choked on them.

  Staring out of my bedroom window at the rain one evening, I decided that I would venture out to a local bar to play pool. I didn’t usually play the game and I have no idea why I felt such a sudden inexplicable urge to begin, but something inside told me that I should do so. Looking back, it was probably boredom; people do the funniest things when the mind is idle. The only thing that prevented me from curing my craving was the fact that I didn’t have any money. Close to my home was a corner shop that I had considered robbing for quite some time. Fondling one of my father’s old pool cues, I told myself that there was no time like the present, and so I tore the sleeve off my jumper, cut two eye holes in it and selected a large knife from the kitchen drawer. I had no intention of cutting or stabbing anybody; the blade was going to be used merely as a tool of persuasion. When I went downstairs, I hid the knife by the front door, pulled my makeshift balaclava onto my arm, put on my coat and went to leave the house. As I was walking through the front door, I picked up the knife and pushed it up my sleeve in an effort to secrete it. At that very moment, my father walked up the garden path.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m going to make a cash withdrawal. See you later,’ I replied.

  When my father saw my mother, he told her what he had seen and what I had said to him. ‘That boy is stupid going out with a knife,’ he said rather philosophically. ‘He’ll get himself into trouble.’

  Standing outside the corner shop, I adjusted my home-made balaclava and looked up and down the street to ensure that no have-a-go heroes were in the vicinity. Moments later I burst through the shop door. The lady behind the counter began to scream. I ordered her to open the till but my words fell on deaf ears; she continued screaming and ran from one end of the counter to the other. I chased her back and forth, shouting, ‘Open the fucking till. Open the fucking till,’ but she was clearly not listening, nor was she prepared to comply with my demands. When she began to call out, ‘Peter, Peter,’ I panicked, as I assumed that somebody else was in the rear of the shop. A dog began to bark and seemingly from nowhere a heavily built male appeared from behind the counter. I had no intention of getting involved in a fist fight and so I turned and ran out of the door. />
  When the police arrived at the shop, the lady gave them a detailed description of the miniature robber, and triumphant officers were knocking at my front door within minutes. At the age of eighteen, I was still only five feet tall, which is why I was given the nickname ‘Nipper’. Doctors had explained that the treatment I had received for leukaemia may have affected my development and so there was no guarantee that I would ever grow any taller. Fortunately, they were wrong and I did gain six inches over the next few years. Unfortunately, in the meantime I was the most distinct-looking teenager in the Southend area.

  My mother invited the police into the house and as soon as they set eyes on me I was arrested for attempted armed robbery. I asked if I could fetch my coat before departing for the cells and as one of the officers escorted me upstairs I heard my mother say to his colleague, ‘Oh yes, Steven did go out with a knife about that time. His father was really unhappy about it.’ My escort looked at me and smiled.

  I knew that there was no point in denying the offence and so I simply said, ‘It wasn’t worth it, was it?’

  The officer laughed and replied, ‘It never is, son. It never is.’

  When I was interviewed about the offence, I made a full and frank confession before being charged with attempted robbery. The following day I appeared in court and was remanded in custody to Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) at Ashford, in Kent, to await trial. This may sound somewhat bizarre to many people but, like my stay in hospital, I actually found myself enjoying the experience. For the first time in my life I wasn’t being bullied, I had like-minded friends and everything I needed was provided for me. When I appeared in court for sentencing, the judge ordered that I should serve two years and three months’ imprisonment. I was 18 years of age. I certainly didn’t need to invest in a pair of sunglasses because my future was looking far from bright.