Injuries - Keeping The Faith?

[Guest brummiemick]

After over 40 years of having two false front teeth, a few months ago I finally decided to have a permanent bridge fitted. As the dentist was getting ready he asked me how I lost my original teeth and I said "Dancing to Soul Music".....

Back in the very early 70s I was at a club down south with a mate* and two Spanish Girls who were working in London as Au Pairs. The music had been dire all night and we had had a bit too much to drink. Then late on the DJ played the Four Tops "I Can't Help Myself" and i was off!

I was an OKish dancer, did a pretty good spin - but the drink had addled my brain - as i came out of the spin i did a front drop onto my hands but my head kept going, knocked myself out and woke up without my two front teeth!!! I felt like a right prat on several counts!

Although I still love "I can't help myself" it always brings back painful memories!

Anyone else got similar stories?

* My mate was David Bedford who not long after became the 10000m world record holder - boy could he drink!

Edited October 13, 2012 by brummiemick

[Guest gibber]

After an x-ray at the dentist they asked if I chewed a lot .

[Peter99]

After over 40 years of having two false front teeth, a few months ago I finally decided to have a permanent bridge fitted. As the dentist was getting ready he asked me how I lost my original teeth and I said "Dancing to Soul Music".....

Back in the very early 70s I was at a club down south with a mate* and two Spanish Girls who were working in London as Au Pairs. The music had been dire all night and we had had a bit too much to drink. Then late on the DJ played the Four Tops "I Can't Help Myself" and i was off!

I was an OKish dancer, did a pretty good spin - but the drink had addled my brain - as i came out of the spin i did a front drop onto my hands but my head kept going, knocked myself out and woke up without my two front teeth!!! I felt like a right prat on several counts!

Although I still love "I can't help myself" it always brings back painful memories!

Anyone else got similar stories?

* My mate was David Bedford who not long after became the 10000m world record holder - boy could he drink!

Bless you Brummy Mick.

That made me smile though. When I lived in Lincolnshire I used to organise summer beach parties - not huge afffairs they were just a few lads and lasses, maybe's about twenty or thirty of us. Big fire on the beach, loads of booze and some soul music from a ghetto blaster - thinking back now they were well fecking cool.

Anyway, one of the girls - either Anna or Hayley from memory, span round with a bottle of wine in her hand and smacked me right in the mouth! Didn't knock my two front teeth out but chippped em both! I felt like I'd been disfigured for life - I was such a vain bastrard back then. They're not huge chips and I've grown to accept them over the years.

Hope yer bridge looks good matey!

Peter

[Barry]

Would injuries include being on drugs, jumping off trains and being shot at?

[Guest manusf3a]

Would injuries include being on drugs, jumping off trains and being shot at?

Two out of three were pretty run of the mill for a lot of folks in years gone by, shot at would have been pretty rare thoughThe wall you could drop down over at sheffield station when samanthas was on was a bit of occupational hazrd for many who had jumped the train.and then had to negoitate the wall to get out the station,i wouldnt be suprised to hear this had caused some injuries in the way of dedication to soul.With the amount of people doing it it must have looked strange to passers by to see a bunch of bag carrying youth hitting the deck and running of like foo ken hell soon as they hit the deck.Getting back next day easy,platform tickets.

[Barry]

Just dug this out of me old posts - from 2009:

"I remember I was generally very much a 'bus home' type kid after Wigan. It was cheaper, dropped me off virtually outside my house and didn't involve dealing with too many people the morning after.

The problem with living in Warrington and being in Wigan that early on a Sunday morning was that there was a only a single bus that left Wigan Bus Station at 6.30am, then none 'til 12.30pm, which generally pre-empted the (bugger of a) walk home. It wasn't too bad as I'm sure it was all fields then and eternally sunny .

The bonuses of leaving for the early bus were liberating a pint of milk and a paper from the knotted packages left outside the newsagents in the Arcade - anyway I digress.

This particular morning I had no money left at all and was in a bit of a state as the preceding night I had been at the contents of a small enevelope I had taken with me to sell - I seem to remember up around 3am as Searling announced that M's would be open in five minutes, then nothing til the moment I was outside The Casino in the daylight.

Having no money and being in a state left me with one option - jumping the train, as there was no way I was going to be able to walk the nine mile home this morning and there was no obvious way past the single decker bus driver without my fare home.

I recall wobbling down Fishergate in me long leather and bag and upon arrival at the train station, after a little recce, working out that I could get up to the platform by scaling, Spiderman-like, a massive piece of corrugated sheeting that was leaning from the base of a small wall up to platfrom-heaven. This had no doubt been placed there by some other gimp for that exact same reason.

There's a blank again here but I must have alighted the train as the next thing I recall is being near the toilet inbetween carriages, arms leaning out of the window and approaching Winwick Junction (Winwick being the village just outside Warrington where I lived) - all with an amount of dread within me, as I knew what I was about to have to do.

Now Winwick Junction is a place where the Wigan-Warrington train slowed down to about 10-15 miles an hour as it was crossing a junction/tracks and was the only point on this hairy-journey that would be forgiving enough for me to attempt some kind of parachute jump-like exit from the train.

Not good.

Anyway, there was no way round it, I'd come this far.

I remember biting my lip, grasping the 'Communication Cord' (the 'Use Only In Emergency' brake cord that ran the length of the train)....and pulling!?

F*ck me, I don't know if you've ever been on a train when a 'Communication Cord' has been pulled but it's a pretty violent way to stop a 107 tonne, quarter mile long of rampant iron and steel.

"SCREEEEEEECH!" - "BANG!"

I got threw against the bog door - and then the other way - and then back again....as the train attempted it's non-standard Winwick Junction stop.

Now fully alert, as the fear and the thoughts of the possible consequences of my actions had seemed to morph into an imaginary hand that dove right down the front of my early 80's underpants, grasped my knackers and shoved them up my a*se. Thetrain was almost at a stop now so I grabbed my bag, leant out the carriage, opened the train door and jumped.

I landed like a sack of sh*t and rolled through a load of gravel and weeds into a wire fence.

I stood up, looked down the length of the train toward the engine and to my horror saw about three or four guards hopping off the now stationary train and heading, rather noisily, my way.

I jumped the fence into a very dewy cornfield.

It was as I was wading red-faced and fear fraught through this wet cornfield with my bag held above elbow height and a number of pissed of British Rail workers in tow, that I realised how badly the lining in long leathers handle the addition of water to their make-up. It was like playing that bloody game on Crackerjack whereby when you answered a question wrong they stuffed cabbage upon cabbage on your already straining person (don't now if that makes sense? but anyhow.)

I could see in my immediate view on the other side of a fence an upcoming copse, a small wood and, the irate voices behind me getting nearer and (GET HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!) louder, I began to think I may have an escape route of sorts.

In the distance I heard a BANG!!!, then another but in my present predicament it didn't register as anything life threatening at the time.

I jumped the fence and (BANG!!! again??) dragged my sorry wet arse into the first hiding of trees, there was enough cover for it to mask the sunlight and it became a little twilighty in there. "Great!" I thought as I headed a bit deeper in and looking around (BANG!!! again, louder this time - wtf) I could see our hi-vis wearing be-capped fiends (no spelling mistake, I was scared rigid) beginning to realise this may not be working out in their favour - and they began to bluster and swear at me as they gave up the chase.

I was now in a wood.

And the wood went BANG!!! a lot.

It was at this point I saw my first farmer, out with his mates on a Sunday am hunt!!

BANG!!!

F*ck me, I'm gonna get shot now.

So, adopting a pose somewhere between a Ninja, an SAS infantry man on a mission to nowhere and a piss wet, drugged up teenager in ridiculous coat -with a bag - I set off deeper into the wood, my aim to somehow traverse the local pig-pickers out on their shoot, without getting a hole in my ass.

BANG!!!

"Hey you!?"

I was spotted - "Arse!".

My mind had forgotten the little triumph that was losing our friendly BR div-jumping team and I was back to square one - exept these f*ckers had guns. What I would have given for the fear of a hi-vis jacket now!?

With a group of unhappy farmers on my heels ("Get Orf My Land" an' all that) I went tree to tree, skulking, dipping and diving until I could see the light getting brighter - I must be approaching the other side of the wood at last.

Then ahead of me I could see the white painted wooden fence that I knew to be the fence that skirted the road opposite the old Winwick (Mental) Hospital (read into that what you will. I WORKED there, alright!), a mile or so from my house and with the voices of my irate hunters tailing off in the darkness behind me, I reached the fence.

"Thank f*ck for that!"

I breathed deeply, cobbed me bag over it, steadied myself and with a final mighty effort jumped over the fence and onto the main road.

Then I got knocked down by a car.

Suffering for your art? David Blaine don't know the half of it."

• 
  
  

[Barry]

[SOULCENTRAL]

HI BARRY,

Great story that one. I think the group 10cc made a song that epitomises your adventure............." The things we do for love"

ROY

[Barry]

More like "The things we did on drugs!"

[Ric-tic]

remember that story well barry hilarious a soul source classic

[Chalky]

Brilliant story barry put a smile on me face after a trek round Tescos!!

[Peter99]

Just dug this out of me old posts - from 2009:

"I remember I was generally very much a 'bus home' type kid after Wigan. It was cheaper, dropped me off virtually outside my house and didn't involve dealing with too many people the morning after.

The problem with living in Warrington and being in Wigan that early on a Sunday morning was that there was a only a single bus that left Wigan Bus Station at 6.30am, then none 'til 12.30pm, which generally pre-empted the (bugger of a) walk home. It wasn't too bad as I'm sure it was all fields then and eternally sunny .

The bonuses of leaving for the early bus were liberating a pint of milk and a paper from the knotted packages left outside the newsagents in the Arcade - anyway I digress.

This particular morning I had no money left at all and was in a bit of a state as the preceding night I had been at the contents of a small enevelope I had taken with me to sell - I seem to remember up around 3am as Searling announced that M's would be open in five minutes, then nothing til the moment I was outside The Casino in the daylight.

Having no money and being in a state left me with one option - jumping the train, as there was no way I was going to be able to walk the nine mile home this morning and there was no obvious way past the single decker bus driver without my fare home.

I recall wobbling down Fishergate in me long leather and bag and upon arrival at the train station, after a little recce, working out that I could get up to the platform by scaling, Spiderman-like, a massive piece of corrugated sheeting that was leaning from the base of a small wall up to platfrom-heaven. This had no doubt been placed there by some other gimp for that exact same reason.

There's a blank again here but I must have alighted the train as the next thing I recall is being near the toilet inbetween carriages, arms leaning out of the window and approaching Winwick Junction (Winwick being the village just outside Warrington where I lived) - all with an amount of dread within me, as I knew what I was about to have to do.

Now Winwick Junction is a place where the Wigan-Warrington train slowed down to about 10-15 miles an hour as it was crossing a junction/tracks and was the only point on this hairy-journey that would be forgiving enough for me to attempt some kind of parachute jump-like exit from the train.

Not good.

Anyway, there was no way round it, I'd come this far.

I remember biting my lip, grasping the 'Communication Cord' (the 'Use Only In Emergency' brake cord that ran the length of the train)....and pulling!?

F*ck me, I don't know if you've ever been on a train when a 'Communication Cord' has been pulled but it's a pretty violent way to stop a 107 tonne, quarter mile long of rampant iron and steel.

"SCREEEEEEECH!" - "BANG!"

I got threw against the bog door - and then the other way - and then back again....as the train attempted it's non-standard Winwick Junction stop.

Now fully alert, as the fear and the thoughts of the possible consequences of my actions had seemed to morph into an imaginary hand that dove right down the front of my early 80's underpants, grasped my knackers and shoved them up my a*se. Thetrain was almost at a stop now so I grabbed my bag, leant out the carriage, opened the train door and jumped.

I landed like a sack of sh*t and rolled through a load of gravel and weeds into a wire fence.

I stood up, looked down the length of the train toward the engine and to my horror saw about three or four guards hopping off the now stationary train and heading, rather noisily, my way.

I jumped the fence into a very dewy cornfield.

It was as I was wading red-faced and fear fraught through this wet cornfield with my bag held above elbow height and a number of pissed of British Rail workers in tow, that I realised how badly the lining in long leathers handle the addition of water to their make-up. It was like playing that bloody game on Crackerjack whereby when you answered a question wrong they stuffed cabbage upon cabbage on your already straining person (don't now if that makes sense? but anyhow.)

I could see in my immediate view on the other side of a fence an upcoming copse, a small wood and, the irate voices behind me getting nearer and (GET HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!) louder, I began to think I may have an escape route of sorts.

In the distance I heard a BANG!!!, then another but in my present predicament it didn't register as anything life threatening at the time.

I jumped the fence and (BANG!!! again??) dragged my sorry wet arse into the first hiding of trees, there was enough cover for it to mask the sunlight and it became a little twilighty in there. "Great!" I thought as I headed a bit deeper in and looking around (BANG!!! again, louder this time - wtf) I could see our hi-vis wearing be-capped fiends (no spelling mistake, I was scared rigid) beginning to realise this may not be working out in their favour - and they began to bluster and swear at me as they gave up the chase.

I was now in a wood.

And the wood went BANG!!! a lot.

It was at this point I saw my first farmer, out with his mates on a Sunday am hunt!!

BANG!!!

F*ck me, I'm gonna get shot now.

So, adopting a pose somewhere between a Ninja, an SAS infantry man on a mission to nowhere and a piss wet, drugged up teenager in ridiculous coat -with a bag - I set off deeper into the wood, my aim to somehow traverse the local pig-pickers out on their shoot, without getting a hole in my ass.

BANG!!!

"Hey you!?"

I was spotted - "Arse!".

My mind had forgotten the little triumph that was losing our friendly BR div-jumping team and I was back to square one - exept these f*ckers had guns. What I would have given for the fear of a hi-vis jacket now!?

With a group of unhappy farmers on my heels ("Get Orf My Land" an' all that) I went tree to tree, skulking, dipping and diving until I could see the light getting brighter - I must be approaching the other side of the wood at last.

Then ahead of me I could see the white painted wooden fence that I knew to be the fence that skirted the road opposite the old Winwick (Mental) Hospital (read into that what you will. I WORKED there, alright!), a mile or so from my house and with the voices of my irate hunters tailing off in the darkness behind me, I reached the fence.

"Thank f*ck for that!"

I breathed deeply, cobbed me bag over it, steadied myself and with a final mighty effort jumped over the fence and onto the main road.

Then I got knocked down by a car.

Suffering for your art? David Blaine don't know the half of it."

• 
  
  

Brilliant Barry.

Peter

[SOULCENTRAL]

More like "The things we did on drugs!"

HI BARRY,

Have a little recollection of my own from years gone by from the old Torch days although not quite as scary as your adventure.

Back in mid 72 we got back from a great nite at the Torch. Got home just in time to play for my local footy team. The lads were amazed i wasn't knackered after being to an all nighter and travelling home :shhh:

Any way we were 3-0 up and i was playing well but still had the soul sounds from the previous nite wizzing round the head. Just remember Frankie Beverly- If thats what you wanted, when whack and crack. Got hit good style by one of the oppdsition and ended up with a broken leg .

Fast forward a week and me and a mate are stood at the start of the M62 in Leeds thumbing a lift to the Torch, him with two bags at his side and me on crutches with a full plaster pot right up to the nuts!. After an hour an a half got a lift to Salford where the M62 finished, then hitched through Sale and Altringham eventually to Knutsford services where we arrived about 11-30. Got a lift from some guys from Newton who were travelling down and eventually arrived at the Torch about 12-30am.

As soon as we were in the crutches got slung in a corner and we hit the dance floor. What a great night and the leg felt good due to Pain killers consumed some time earlier. Danced the night away, got my crutches and blagged a lift back to Bradford with just a short journey home by bus, Result. :yes:

Went to bed about 1 in the morning only to wake up at 6 in absolute agony with the leg!. Rushed down to casualty at Lgi to be met by a rather disgruntled doctor and a "plaster" nurse with a face like thunder. What the bloody hell have you been doing with this pot she barked. There is no foot plate left in it and its black and wet through( the torch bogs).

The end result was i was in traction for two weeks, in pot for six, and got the scarbro warning as to what would happen if i came back again in the same state again. Needless to say i did not see the inside of theTorch for well over two months and the only compensation was gettin pain killers on prescription, although not sure they were exactly the ones i would have wanted :D

regards ROY.

[Peter99]

Nothing to compare with Roy and Barry - and I have posted this previously. Had a pair of denim patchwork bags back in the day - very baggy they were too. They weren't everyone's cup of tea. In fact my mum, who never swore, said when she first saw them "Our Pete, you look a right twat in them". Mm, thanks ma.

Anyway in a nutshell I was about to come down the stairs one evening on my way out and one foot got caught up the other trouser leg - fell right down the stairs. Be mum came rushing out to see what had happpened, took one look, and just said, "You silly little bastard - I told you". She never swore me mam. I wasn't badly injured but fellt like a right prat.

Went off to a niter at the Birmingham Locarno if I recall and had the piss taken out of me summat rotten by the more modern jazz/funk crowd who I think were downstairs - can't remember. It was a shit niter though - hardly any one there. I gave the fecking trousers away the next day and never wore bags again. I think it was about the same time that I had the confidence not to be bothered about being shit at back drops and stuff!

Edited October 14, 2012 by Peter99

[Barry]

HI BARRY,

Have a little recollection of my own from years gone by from the old Torch days although not quite as scary as your adventure.

Back in mid 72 we got back from a great nite at the Torch. Got home just in time to play for my local footy team. The lads were amazed i wasn't knackered after being to an all nighter and travelling home :shhh:

Any way we were 3-0 up and i was playing well but still had the soul sounds from the previous nite wizzing round the head. Just remember Frankie Beverly- If thats what you wanted, when whack and crack. Got hit good style by one of the oppdsition and ended up with a broken leg .

Fast forward a week and me and a mate are stood at the start of the M62 in Leeds thumbing a lift to the Torch, him with two bags at his side and me on crutches with a full plaster pot right up to the nuts!. After an hour an a half got a lift to Salford where the M62 finished, then hitched through Sale and Altringham eventually to Knutsford services where we arrived about 11-30. Got a lift from some guys from Newton who were travelling down and eventually arrived at the Torch about 12-30am.

As soon as we were in the crutches got slung in a corner and we hit the dance floor. What a great night and the leg felt good due to Pain killers consumed some time earlier. Danced the night away, got my crutches and blagged a lift back to Bradford with just a short journey home by bus, Result. :yes:

Went to bed about 1 in the morning only to wake up at 6 in absolute agony with the leg!. Rushed down to casualty at Lgi to be met by a rather disgruntled doctor and a "plaster" nurse with a face like thunder. What the bloody hell have you been doing with this pot she barked. There is no foot plate left in it and its black and wet through( the torch bogs).

The end result was i was in traction for two weeks, in pot for six, and got the scarbro warning as to what would happen if i came back again in the same state again. Needless to say i did not see the inside of theTorch for well over two months and the only compensation was gettin pain killers on prescription, although not sure they were exactly the ones i would have wanted :D

regards ROY.

I love Soulies

[Barry]

"Our Pete, you look a right twat in them".

...and I love your Mam more