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Begin forwarded message:
From: michael wainwright <skreeworld@yahoo.com>
Date: 4 July 2025 at 00:06:37 BST
To: skreeworld.bollocks@blogger.com
Subject: Screecher no 31
I was about 6 or so and I'd already got into comics so did Screecher numbers 1 to 30. Then I stopped because my favourite comic was Silver Surfer and it only ran to 17 before poor sales saw the title withdrawn. To my young mind it was easily the best marvel comic and it hit me. Only through glorious failure to make it in the mainstream could an artist truly realise his ambitions. So I stopped the title and over the years they all got lost. Nevertheless they remained in the secret history of my group. For years my brother and other friends would talk of them and they gathered a mythical status. Lost screeds. Sometime later we were in the Yorkshire dales and discovered what scree was and I hurt myself scree running, a banned sport that had the glorious idiocy of the Gloucester cheese run where broken bones were common and local legends were cemented in to the local culture. A man who had won, even if it was back in the 70s could expect free drinks for life and the respect usually reserved for pop stars or football players. Anyway somewhere in this malay my nickname became Skree. I used a k for graphic effect and it has stuck to the level that 90% of people I know call me Skree. I don't ever introduce myself as skree but it's what I am known as. Like nearly all nicknames they begin as banter. It's also handy if you're with company that you don't particularly want to have your name. At school when we discovered magic mushrooms we had a series of parties where the tight nit nucleus of the group all took mushrooms and the more peripheral watched the madness and mysticism we experienced. This small cult was short lived and the school found out and like a police investigation all were questioned and they all grassed me up as the ring leader. Due to the fact I lived feral. My mother had died and my father became a heavy pub drinker who held a certain status as an entertainer. Me, my brother and sister were left to do as we liked. There were times when the electric was off as my dad hadn't paid the bill. With open fires and candles you can't keep anything clean. My first seven years of school I had really tried and usually came top or second on any project in the class. But once my mum was gone I stopped trying and sort to be the best at being the worst. You can't do homework in candle light as you get soot everywhere. In the modern day we would undoubtedly have been taken into care. Torn curtains, broken windows that were never fixed. My dad had lost his way and I rarely saw him. Sometimes we might go to the rugby league but my brother and myself to a lesser degree moved from the old man and children area and went to the south stand where the focus of the crowd noise was. We'd go to away games in winter, to hull or Wakefield and the hooliganism was always close. Anyway, the teachers had decided I was the ring leader and they were probably right. Sadly my close friend Martin was sent off to a private school. Instead he got on the train and went on a tour of the country. The local evening newspaper the Evening Post ran a continuing Missing Boy With Drug Problem as he hitchhiked and traveled the country for a few weeks. Finally he returned and came to live in the woods sleeping in a den we had in the woods. After school I would take him food. The paper said that his parents had seen their son mixing with the wrong sort. The entire business had them looking for someone to blame. I was the one who took the blame. The head master became a detective, questioning kids and looking for someone to blame. Never crossed his mind that they were all free agents. The reason I bring this up was he had it in his mind that there was some outside force. Someone above me even. Of course there was no dealer, the mushrooms grew on local school fields and they were abundant. Every day after school I'd go pick a few hundred. Some were dried but mostly I did them throughout the season and pretty much every night. Sometimes with friends but more often on my own. Walking around woods and across golf courses. I was, perhaps a little evangelical and spread the word of spiritual enlightenment through fungi. I grew to detest the taste and changed to boiling them up to make a powerful tea. I recall one time drinking it down then my dad came to get his quick wash, a second shave of the day, a splash of overpowering aftershave. Half the time he'd go straight to the pub, drink until closing time, come home and straight to bed. So there were the occasional fifteen minutes he had his ablutions and went out to drink copious amounts of beer. I'd always, if I was there, be in my bedroom pretending to be asleep, tripping balls. By now I had freinds a year or three older than me who had moved out into shared houses and flats and I'd go stay with them. Away for weeks at a time and he either didn't notice or pretended he didn't. The school sent letters out to the parents and one night when I was tripping he came home plastered and we had a father to son chat where coloured light clusters sweeper around the room like mini UFOs as his face morphed and distorted as he tried to impart wisdom. I think he knew I was like him and was altering my consciousness to cope with our loss. He couldn't cope and eventually lost his job. I never learned how that played out and I never had any understanding of what he did. I think he sold stainless steel containers to people in the Middle East. Before my mum died and our family was functional he travelled to Doah, Bahrain and other places I had no picture of. He was a great talker and always had a cluster of men who drank with him and listened to his bar room comedian and bar stool preaching. Years later I was excitedly told by a friends father that he was a legend. He was a clever man. Much smarter than his followers. If I had been his age I can imagine I would have been his friend. But beneath this the death of his wife had left him broken. In drink he put on a brave front. But he was an absent father. We lost both parents when my mother died. Really he was going through the motions. He just didn't want any hassle from the school and he hated the police and I'd get a bollocking after he'd fucked off the nosy bastards. He lived Ireland, Irish folk songs and would travel over there for fishing and drinking trips. He had a lot of Irish friends. But I'd be pissed off with him when the electric went off. Cooking over an open fire. But I could do anything and had a freedom none of my friends had. As all my friends placed the blame on me they knew I could handle it. I had a friend called Pig Penchion and the head master grilled me. Who was this Pin Cushion. This Big Pusher. I didn't correct his stupid misunderstanding. Nicknames protect you. No one, or few people know my real name. Our house never got cleaned properly after my mother died. Torn curtains. Broken windows . I have seen better squats. Finally I left home and stepped into the counter culture where I continued my study of the forbidden sciences.<IMG_5966.jpg><IMG_5967.jpg><IMG_5968.jpg><IMG_5969.jpg><IMG_5970.jpg>
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