The awkward moment with Porky Peters.

The best nickname I've known for a teacher was Reggie Boner.

Reggie Boner. Sounds like a child molester. Something dark and Dickensian, sinister and creepy.

He was of course just a man who taught French.

Reggie Boner didn't do himself any favours though. He gesticulated in a manner that emphasised every last vowel. He waved and karate chopped the air; quite eye catching when you have thumbs like big, flat soup spoons . He said the word 'shit' quite frequently, punctuating the t with spit and venom. He also had a way of saying hello to you in the corridor which would, come to think about it, necessitate a raise of a paedophile's eyebrow. Right, yeah, maybe he did get his nickname for being a tad dodgy.

I knew a maths teacher called Porky Peters on account of his green, putrid stained armpits. I was a bit gutted because he had a son not yet in the school who looked a bit like me. I narrowly missed being called Piglet, but the poor bastard - who was actually Porky's son - certainly got his share of shit.

Being numoric meant I was shit at Maths. Proper shit. All the extra maths lessons with people who'd give me cheap orange squash and those {Nice} type biscuits, didn't even really help. I hated numbers. They're all mental-Monopoly tome. Maybe that's why I drew a pig on my maths book - as a defiant stab at Porky and his stupid subject. I drew it small and I didn't think he'd even notice but he did.

Teachers aren't supposed to know their nicknames. But Porky did. Turns out he also knew he had green armpits and a son called Piglet. It was more embarrassing than anything, being asked, "Do you think I don't know my nickname is Porky?" How do you not laugh out loud when your maths teacher says that? All I could come back with was a totally transparent excuse that pigs were my favourite animal and that I had no idea that his nickname was Porky.

There was a Pinhead - unimaginatively yet observantly concocted - due to the size difference between his turnip head and weedy body. Pudding was another, Nicky Sly another still. Nicky Sly was the computer teacher whose catchphrase was a snivelling, "Computers don't make mistakes". He'd be the teacher, along with Reggie Boner, who just loved catching kids smoking in the woods. Although Reggie Boner did just liked catching kids in the woods.

Obviously it's not just teachers who cop a lot of flack in the way of nickname Christening. Children are also children haters. There was this one kid whose name was Thomas Tucker; quite unfortunate because he was a fat little fellow and so befittingly known as Tommy Tucker the Fat Fucker. He only had one friend, whose name was Toby Brass; again unfortunate because Toby Brass had a bad brace-induced lisp and a fat tongue, so couldn't say his own name properly. He was doomed like bambi born without any legs. They were totally the odd couple those two. Tommy Tucker the Fat Fucker was friends with Toby Bath, but would turn tale and cruelly rip into him if it meant winning favour of a bully. Poor Toby Bath. Poor Tommy Tucker the Fat Fucker.

But the kids at my second school were cruel as they were weird. It was a boys boarding school school, which is an unnatural surroundings for anyone to grown up in. What added an extra layer of weird was that it was a school that had evolved from an orphanage for boys who had lost one or both of their parents. This kind of traditional and institutionalised school was Tudor-grand and filled with problem kids. Kids who'd been expelled from everywhere, rejects, bullies, the bullied, the orphaned, abused and deranged. It was a melting pot of characters and individuals, all with their own quirk.

Like Toby Bath, Saul Surrie's voice reverberated in devastating onomatopoeic brilliance. Surrie had a whining, nasal, Shmigal-like voice and a violent temper. He had puffy blond hair a lemon-sucking face that was normally screwed up, all red and spewing. He'd often fight with Daniel Forks who strangely, and again rather fittingly, liked Freddy Kruger and knives.

It was a bizarre place to live. The prefects, who were as maladjusted as the rest of them, would hang boys out of windows by their feet, or put the smaller ones in trunks and roll them down stairs. I think the most revered game, invented by some sadistic teenager, was Space Invaders.

It wasn't complicated.

All you needed was one small boy and a tennis ball.

The boy would be forced to the end of the dormitory from where he would play the space invader, moving from side to side while he was pelted with tennis balls. The rules were that you had to side step at a slow and steady pace, like a sliding star jump. You weren't allowed to dodge or refrain from your star shape, no matter what was being thrown at you. An inventive and entertaining game for ages 12 and up. Well, there was no internet back then.

The boy who stuck out the most and will be remembered by many was named Howard Smithson. He was Rainman as a posh geeky child. He had the staple black rim glasses, combed down gel-hair, and was a bonafide obsessive compulsive. He was so exceptional in his behaviour that it was nearly cruel to throw him amongst the spiteful lot of weirdos that wandered the halls in that school.

He'd get into so called 'modes', where he'd be so focused on what he was doing that he would hear nothing outside his remit. If you were standing in his route, on his way to lunch, he'd run you down. And he 'ran into' boys all the time. It was a big exciting joke to the awful lot of little fuckers in the school; all teasing him and treating him like an android in a schoolboy experiment.

Even I did it, I'm ashamed to say.

Part of you thought he was joking with the 'modes'.

Part of you wanted to test him, to see for yourself what would happen when you went, "Howard, I've got a flame thrower", and pretended to flame him.

Part of you wanted to make him whack his neat blazer down in absolute horror.

Part of you wanted to see him head butt the mirror and reprimand his comb.

In the lunch hall, he'd talk to his food. He'd sit on his own and meticulously eat everything, bit by bit, everything in the order he had done it in yesterday. If you moved a piece of cheese on his plate, it was as if evil spirits had swooped down and possessed the cheese. He'd mumble and finger wag the cheese until he was satisfied it was still, once again. If you prodded the things on his tray for long enough, he'd flip a saucer off the table, or rush off in tormented horror.

This school was populated like that bar Luke Skywalker goes into with Obi-Wan Kenobi; all full of snotty creatures and oddballs who want to kill each other.

The awkward moment of my conception.

My father never wanted children, which he told us quite openly.

His father before him, had told him the same, advising against it. With the kind of enthusiasm my gene pool showed in evolution, it's a miracle I was concieved at all.

But it did happen eventually. Quite quaintly in the woods behind my childhood home in fact; the same woods where my latter-day friend Phillip Moleford would bury his latter-day porn magazines.

I like to think of my conception as a late 1970's summer's day picnic, infused by beautiful energy and pine cones. A wicker hamper, packed with love by my mother, repacked later with Austrian efficiency by my father. Slices of apple, exotic crab sandwiches, and a nice bottle of Lambrusco to one side, packets of cheesy Quavers spilling over a tartan rug that would become the canvass of my invention. I sometimes wonder if Oswald had those little clips that connected your plate to your glass. Probably did, the smooth old bastard.

My birthday puts the date of conception at November, which in the greenery of England can be a slightly sodden time of year. In reality my summer picnic was probably a damp wriggle in Oswald's blue Cortina. Since he wasn't an advocate for having children, I can't think that he had planned to conceive his first born in the Cortina, rather it was the surreptitious ovum of my mother which necessitated the naughty wriggle.

At the time of this particular jaunt in the woods or illicit passing of bodily fluids, Anne Igg was 27 and lived with Oswald in a flat in Stretham. At only 18 she had said goodbye to the beautiful maiden name of Merlin and began life as an Igg. Coming as she did from a large family who lived in a two up, two down, in the urban body mole that is Morden, the eighteen year old Anne found the charismatic and foreign Oswald all worldly and exotic. She was warned by girlfriends not to trust his easy charm, but she got sucked in. This fellow wore platform boots with his initials painted on them and owned a gold identity braclet for god's sake; he wasn't going to forget his name and she wasn't going to stand a chance against props like that.

Romance blossomed and sprouted little green shoots all over South London. Gin and tonic in the Dog and Fox followed ice cream on Wimbledon Common, and within two weeks my mother had mellowed the eternal wolf into sweet submission and near instantaneous marriage.

From the day of their marriage to the moment of my conception, my father had dodged fatherhood and my mother's inventive ovum for nine years. He made up excuses, invented worst case scenarios and even bought Siamese cats to dissuade my mother from motherhood. But by the time one cat had run away and the other had committed the act of suicide, my mothers ovum finally put down the copy of hello! magazine it was reading and got into action.

My father didn't jump for joy when Anne Igg announced her pregnancy with me. Nor did he fart rainbows of delight when three years later my Brother started growing in her oven. The first time (actually second, because we had an older brother or sister who was sadly miscarried) my mother uttered the words, "Oswald, I'm pregnant", I'm pretty sure all he would have heard was his father's voice going, "Oswald, Oswald. You fell for the classic blow job in the car park trick, you idiot."

Nine months later, Anne Igg squeezed out a fourteen pound baby and pronounced the shrivelled mess, Archibald Igg.

I was such an ugly, chewed-up-bubble-gum looking baby, that my father instantly began a family joke that still pleases him to this day. He maintains that I was mixed up with a gypsy baby who was born in the bed next to my mum. For years I believed him whenever he'd announce that he was returning me back to my real parents, taking a sharp detour off the motorway into a muddy lane with caravans and chained-up dogs.

And so it was that the Igg bloodline was given another stab at life.

The awkward moment my dad caught us with his porn.

As was outlined by the incident in the forest, Phillip Moleford had a keen nose for pornographic material. Which is why when he casually told us that the scribbled word on one of the meat boxes in the attic read Mayfair, which in turn meant 'PORN HERE', we were all ears.

Problem was that the meat box with scribbled Mayfair, was the last in a pile of meat boxes, stacked higher than we could properly reach. Further more, we weren't supposed to go delving into, or indeed moving any of the neatly arranged boxes. There was sure to be carefully arranged order, and to my dad moving even a ski glove from this order was as detrimental as moving a chromosome in someone's genes.

But the attic trap door was closed.

My dad was in the garden.

My mum was probably cleaning the kitchen.

We were clear for take off.

What then ensued, can only be likened to the kind of military excellence normally only possessed by Gurkhas. We were working in a team, moving lightly and with utmost efficiency. The boxes were heavy mind. My father had obviously thought this through, and would be buggered if those magazines were going to see the light of day. There were three meat boxes in all, lined up next to each other on the bottom of the stack. On top of each of these were another twelve boxes, packed with things like 80's kitchen blenders, old computer keyboards, baby clothes and my dad's line of hand warmers that never took off. The last few boxes were cleverly carrying legitimate car magazines, which happened to be just heavy enough to split the box when moved.

After the strenuous trouble and subsequent box splitting caused by lifting the car magazine boxes, I began cursing Phillip's inability to read my dad's handwriting, only then, quite magically, a Scandinavian woman with heaving beasts flounced herself in front of my pre-pubescent crouch.

I wouldn't say it was some great epiphany or awakening of my dormant todger, but I had just found more filth than I'd ever seen in my life and plonked myself down to enjoy the end of the rainbow. In no time at all there were copies Mayfair strewn all over the place. We were gorging our newly opened minds with images of blonds, brunettes, gingers, blackies and even some shaven ones.

There were adverts for Marlboro and articles on Barbados, and I was discovering that rather than being a rude obsenity, this was in fact a magazine for a gentleman. It even had humour by means of little illustrated jokes. It was like The Beano, only everyone was naked and writhing about. One illustration that stuck in mind was the one with a 'man and wife' who were having sex on their bed, while the husband perused a copy of Mayfair behind her back. The caption read: "Oh great, now I can even turn the pages".

Before I could work out what had been holding the husband back all this time, the ladder gave a creaking squeal and so too did Phillip Molefield. My dad was coming up the ladder and we were about to be killed.

Phillip new my dad could get very angry and compared to his Christian folks, my father was like a wild barbarian with a German accent and a Bracker on the wall. To understand the excruciating look of fear that appeared on Phillips face when he heard the second creak, you have to know what a Brackar is.

Bracker is Austrian for carpet beater. I imagine that the verb, To Brack, goes back hundreds of years in Austrian legend when clusters of haus-fraus would spend a morning bracking their rugs with their Brackers. "Ooh that's a nice Bracker Helga, does it brack well?", they'd go. Oswald's mother had used it to beat the crap out of rugs when they were dusty, and Oswald's crap hole when he was naughty. Like many family traditions passed on from generation to generation, The Braker hung on the wall where we ate dinner. It was rarely used, but if you did get it, you'd have a red waffle imprinted on your arse for the rest of the day.

So Phillip was understandably petrified. His lazy eye probably bulged in fear. We shat ourselves too, because we knew the devastation that was about to enter our lives. We knew that being caught by your dad looking at porn was going to be uncomfortable. We knew that being caught by your dad looking at his porn was going to be really, really uncomfortable. And of course we knew that being caught by your dad looking at his porn with your friend who's parents your dad was friends with, was going to be an extremely, extremely shitty way to die.

On an average day, it took maybe eight seconds for my dad to climb the ladder that lead to the trap door. It had taken us at least ten minutes to unload the boxes to recover his artistic gentleman's mags. In panic, all I could think was to stick the Scandinavian woman with heaving beasts under the insulating carpet. My brother's reaction was to freeze like a monkey with a massive head, caught in the headlights of monkey hunters. Phillip, Mayfair still shaking in his hands, faked a left, then a right, then just froze on the spot to whimper.

The smell of the 1970s filth must have drifted down the ladder, because that trap door swung open like a barn door when a bullock is raging for cows. It wasn't my father who lept into the room with araknind athletisism. It was a maniac with crazy horse eyes, wearing my father's clothes. What made things worse was that the clothes my father had on were marroon speedos; a favourite of the time on hot days.

All tiny erections swiftly shrunk into our bellies and Phillip made a run for it. Dropping his magazine on the way past my dad and his maroon speedos, he shimmied down the ladder. I'd have loved to see him scoot past my mum in the kitchen to find his trainers. What did he say? How could he possibly have left without making her think there was a fire in the loft. Knowing Phillip Moleford, I can confidently assume he thanked my mum very much for having him and ran to the forest before my dad did have him.

After a fierce tyrade which may or may not have included the verb To Brack, myself and my brother were ordered to return all pornographic literature to the meat boxes while my father went downstairs, probably to fetch the Bracker. We worked like beavers in a porn packing prison and rebuilt the meat box wall in less than three minutes. Astonishingly, during this time more copies of Mayfair were shoved under the carpet; a decision surely only spurred by the newly sporned hormones still floating around our tiny scrotums.

We left the attic with the same speed we packaged the porn with, and ran down to the kitchen. As guessed, our mother was cleaning the kitchen as we ran through it, out the back garnden and to the certain sanctuary of the forest where Phillip Moleford and all his wonderful suggestions were hiding.

The awkward moment with Phillip and his buried porn.

Being an only child meant Phillip Moleford was incredibly well versed in self amusement. He knew how to be on his own, which in hindsight could explain his expansive knowledge of the porn industry (for a ten year old).

He lived by the railway crossing which cut through the large forest that backed onto my house. One day, myself and my brother Horatio were in Phillip's room, playing with the trains on the floor as life-sized trains zoomed past his bedroom and rattled the jet planes that hung from his ceiling.

I'd spent years up there, playing with Phillip and his toys. He always got a lot of second-hand toys, bless him. When me and Horatio would find one we hadn't seen before, we'd ask if it were new, to which he'd reply, "New to me." I imagine upon presenting his son with a new toy, Phillip's father would slowly hand it over with the careful instruction, "NEW TO YOU," which Phillip would quietly mouth back, eyes all wide and grateful.

On occasion I'd break Phillip's toys. Not on purpose, but out of impatience of clumsiness. Maybe it was because I rarely got second hand toys and was spoilt and heavy handed, but those little trains seemed to crumble like pretzels in my hands. If Phillip was there, I'd hide the toy until he went downstairs for more orange squash, then as swiftly as a cheating bastard, I'd place the toy next to the closed door and wait for Phillip to burst in and "break" his own toy.

"Oh what a shame, that second-hand passenger train just lost it's wheels", I'd go, or, "Oh no! Be careful! Oh rat balls, you've just smashed the window of that nice second-hand VW Beetle." Poor little Phillip could never work out why he always broke his own toys when I came round. This might actually explain the hiding place for his porn, now I think of it.

One day, unannounced, Phillip says, "Wanna see my porn?" Horatio and I instantly put down whatever we about to break and nod enthusiastically. "Come on then." he says and off he skis out of his bedroom door. We follow him downstairs which we thought was a bit a strange place to hide your porn, but still. On go the shoes and coats, and past his mum we went. Through his garden we continued, absolutely intrigued not only to see boobs, but also as to where exactly this stash of porn was.

Out the garden gate he skipped with us in tow, looking at each other excitedly. Over the road and down the path into the forest we continue, by now being totally aware that Phillip had masterminded a place for his porn that neither his mum or dad would ever find. And then we stop at a tree. Phillip brushes away a bunch of leaves until he finds a little string with a stick tied to the end. He pulls at the string and starts winding it in like a fish. More nervous looks skit from me to Horatio. And there it was: one tatty copy of Penthouse from January 1982, all wrapped up in not one, not two, but three plastic bags.

He was an industrious fellow, that Phillip.

The awkward moment of the sand car.

The day we found my dad's porn, we had Phillip Moleford round to play.

Phillip was an only child with a lisp and a lazy eye; my best friend at that time. He could have been an extra from one of The Famous Five books with his blond barnet and love for train sets and tree houses (the lazy eye would probably have held him back from snatching any of the lead roles). He was one of those children who was a bit wimpy and would often get stuck in a tree or hung by a rope. Phillip was better off on the ground; pushing little cars around the dusty trails formed by protruding tree roots.

Throughout my life, I've always had a constant supply of best friends like Phillip Moleford. The wimps, the outcasts, the one's with impedemants, the pasty or the ginger. All these characters, whether at school or later in life, are all interesting to me. They're not the one-sided personalities like many of the sporty or popular kids were at school. Instead my side kicks have always been quirky, imaginative and absolutely loyal introverts. Qualities I still find dependable to this day. Perhaps I also like the fact of having a reliable sidekick. Someone I can lead, someone who admires me, and someone I can trust not to be judgemental and to simply enjoy the ride, someone who's wonky eye distracts from my own defects.

At school, I'd very often be friends with kids who were either bullied or not that popular. It wasn't that I was either of these two things, but I've just always been drawn characters in some kind of need. One of the first virtues I can remember possessing was that of compassion. I knew I had it very early in life and understood the simplicity of feeling for another living thing. There's a dog-eared family photo, taken even before my brother was born, which frames the first time I felt the mega human emotion of compassion. I was probably around three years old.

My parents had taken me to Italy, whilst holidaying with another family of equal number. The other family left us for a day, so the three of us went to the beach. One of us had found three quarters of a white toy steering wheel, so out of sand, my dad built me a racing car to go with it.

They sat me down and with a plastic spade padded me in. Once the broken steering wheel was applied, I was ready for my picture. People back then treated the conception of a picture with saintly decorum; unlike today where we shoot digital shots like a free for all a fair ground firing range. If someone wanted to take your picture it was by way of a sweet compliment. It was like, 'Right, I've only got twenty four of these, but I'd like you to be in one of them so stand over there next to that swan'. Far removed from the digital dynamic we live in today, where I happily take random photos of my feet with my phone. Back in the old days, a photo of your feet was undoubtedly a mistake, not a contemporary masterpiece.

In those days every space on the film was like reserved seating for a particular moment of family gold. That said, some of the coveted gold seats displayed in my family's photo albums are filled with some big, fat, pointless bums of castles and cloudy views of cow fields.

As I sat there in my sand car, my parents looked so happy with the moment they'd created and about to picture. A lovely family day on an Italian beach, a moment well worth a golden seat in their camera. But I wasn't feeling it. In truth, I was a bit bored at no longer having another three year old playmate to hang with. I felt lonely and wasn't all that excited by the car my dad was obviously so proud of.

I could see how happy they were and how hard they were trying to amuse me. In the photo, you can see me smiling and holding the steering wheel like I'm about to take off at lights, but in my head I was thinking, "God this steering wheel is pitiful and the sand is starting to chafe". I just didn't want to spoil their moment, plus I could see all the hard work that had gone into the car, so I faked delight and everybody believed me.

The awkward moments that made Oswald Igg.

To fully appreciate the finding of the 70s porn, you need to understand the mind of an Austrian who likes boxes, labelling his boxes and having all his boxes in a regimented order.

Oswald Igg is an Austrian. As I have already outlined, he fashioned his own toys as a child out of blocks of wood. His father was strict and responsible, his mother what they call a 'haus frau' - a house wife. Without going into too much family history, it should be said that the Igg family were quite well off and then after the second world war (and subsequent birth of my father) quite poor.

Oswald Igg's father ran a family business, a renowned butcher and perveyour of meat and poultry. Oswald's mother, a smiling pudding of a women cooked all manner of Gulash and schnitzel and roasted chickens and spicy sausages and soups and pastries and cakes at home. Oswald's older sister, Ulenka was nine years his senior and in love with a doctor named Ernie.

Being born just shy of the end of the second world war meant my father grew up during the humbler part of their family history. His father was in a Russian prison for being on the wrong team and his mother was left on rations, looking after Oswald and Ulenka. Needless to say, these conditions provided a harsh (but beautiful) environment and world for Oswald to live and learn in.

Yes, he carved his own teddy, but in a way he was blessed to be growing up in nature. He was an Austrian Tom Sawyer; a child who fished, hunted, camped, swam, trecked and generally went wild through the forests and lakes of southern Austria.

His childhood was starkly beautiful, but of course hard. Austria was defeated, it felt defeated and it showed. Rations were a way of life and growing up was often the colder side of comfortable. When your side loses, there's a glum mood in the pub afterwards and this was Austria in the late 1940s.

He went to school and was quite clever. In his teens he owned a motorbike on which he broke his leg. At just eighteen he was enlisted to carry out his national service and joined the Austrian army, where every third bullet was real and he dislocated his left hip under a tank. He's had many accidents my dad, but they're a whole set of awkward moments unto themselves.

As the aspects of his upbringing colluded, they formed an Oswald shaped cocktail made up of:

1 part strict discipline,
2 parts Austrian perfectionism
2 fl.oz of Viennese charm
3 fl.oz Intelligence
A heavy handed sprinkling of impatientness
1.5 dashes of absolute accident proneness
One good blob of compassion or kindness to garnish

It was at the early age of only eighteen that his father tragically died of a heart attack, mortally wounding the young Oswald. He went on, left Austria (a decision which can't have been easy for anyone) and spent years working all over Europe; in Paris, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and England, where he met my mother.

I liken the mind of my father to that of his garage.

When I was a child, his garage could be seen as either the works of a genius inventor, obsessed artist or criminal mastermind. Everything, and I mean everything was decompartmentalised and fitted like the most practical mosaic ever to have germinated onto a long wall in a garage.

A vast array of different shaped plastic containers made up a cog-like frame work of odds and ends on that wall. Like the inside of a giant clock, each compartment had a job in the grand scale of things and was labelled appropriately. Labels were tapped out onto one of several label making machines and normally came in blue and white or sometimes yellow. A bunch of Alan keys from all walks of life lived in a red plastic shelf, labelled 'Alan's keys'. Not sure who Alan was but you always knew where to find his keys.

Everything had its place. Everything was lined up, shuffled in and kept in remarkable order. If something was hanging, it was hanging like the possession of an obsessive compulsive. To the right of his work bench were hanging: a flare gun, a glue gun, a tape gun, a scout knife, a battery tester and bull dog spark leads.

Each objected secured its place in the garage by getting a black marker pen outline. As soon as you took something off the wall, there was police outline around the missing article. If something was missing he'd know. If you'd borrowed something and put it back the wrong way, he'd also know. You'd be hard pressed to use something in that garage and have him not know about it.

So you see, not only was the 70s porn stashed and labelled in a white meat box, it was one of maybe fifty meat boxes that were stacked neatly in labelled towers either end of the loft.

The awkward moment in the attic.

As a kid, the attic was always a place of interpretation, intrigue, games and organised crap. The secret part of our house that was way up there in the scary confines of the roof and most likely haunted or at least home to dead creatures.

It was however, also quite luxurious. Floor boards had been laid so you could walk around, and a layer of fabric with glued on green insulating sponge lay on top of that. It had lighting and proper seating for two, although we always sat on the floor. You had to watch your feet on bits of train set and mind not to step on the scalextric race track - my dad's grown-up-toy; bought long before my mother had conned him into fatherhood where unwanted children would descend with clumsy feet.

My brother and I never actually had our own scalextric car, but we were allowed to borrow one from my dad's collection; a black Lamborghini with yellow trim, a 1980's silver Porsche with crimson interior, a white Mercedes 290 - slightly yellowed on the corners and a yellow Lamborghini with black trim. He also had some older cars that were Formular something and modern in the 1950s.

It was our camp and my dad's attic. Meaning - if my dad was around, it was his attic and if he wasn't then it was our camp. All three of us played scalextric, but if my dad was up there it was most likely to do a bit of organising. He was always very well organised about things. In the episode leading up to the time we found his porn, my dad had made two big mistakes in being so organised.

His first mistake was building a trap door that went over the ladder hole. This typical example of thoroughness had a screwed on door handle either side and a perfect hinge mechanism that swung the door back and up. It even had a wooden stopper for it to rest on. This door gave me and my brother an increased sense of security and isolation, even though we were only in the loft.

My father's second mistake was marking the box of porn with its actual published name. 'Mayfair' was written on one of the boxes in black marker pen. You could tell that he was trying to be cunning about it because he's kind of scibbled it where all the other boxes had neatly printed letters.

He was in the packaging business my dad, and that meant had loved boxes. Just had a thing for them. Whether it be an old Quality Streets tin, a salad dressing bottle, or one of his meat boxes, he would find a use for it and label it up. Added to which, he happened to collect everything, so in the Quality Streets tin went bottle corks, the salad dressing bottle housed washing up liquid designated especially for washing the car and so on. The collection of 1970s porn was kept in three heavy duty meat boxes, stashed away in the loft.

The awkward moments of Christmas.

When I was a kid, one of my talents was being good at finding things. I'd find dogs, rings, (not to be confused with the rings of dogs), coins, a Black Widow catapult, earrings, plastic animals, wallets, watches, cats and thrush (the feathered variety).

Perhaps without knowing it, I was looking at the world all wrong; scanning my immediate surroundings for debris, destined to fall at my feet, instead of facing the future head on and looking bravely forwards. Perhaps, I was just doing what we often forget to do as adults: I was noticing beauty in the inanimate. But mostly, I was probably just a dopey kid who looked on the floor a lot.

Either way, I was dopey kid with an Austrian father and English mother. As far as I can tell, this style of international breeding has left me a hybrid with several character legacies. These include: the absence of a proper English football team; the need to decompartmentalise my smaller belongings, like miniature sewing kits from hotels, and old work name badges into labelled containers; and celebrating Christmas on Christmas eve.

Because both myself and my brother Horatio were Anglo-Austrian sausage children, Christmas Eve was when the presents arrived. Plus, my brother had basically (and I think rather selfishly) claimed/raped Christmas, by being born on the day (therapy suggests many psychological derivatives from this heinous act, but you forgive and move on), so Christmas Eve was absolutely the best evening of the year and an incredibly exciting family event.

This was a time of magic for me and even more visibly exciting energy for my younger brother. He would dart and skid around making monster noises out of his over-sized monkey head. My mother, for her part, would fill the house with an incredible array of hot, cold, sweet, savory, roasted, baked, handmade, bought-in, rolled-up, parceled, and insanely delicious morsels for us all to devour.

Most years we'd make a Hansel and Gretel candy house created with cakes, biscuits and icing sugar. It was constructed out of proper architect precision, was that house. Lights were put up all over the life-size family home, and a real, dead Christmas tree would slowly decay there in the corner of the lounge (or as my father called it "the sitting room").

More forest was mercilessly savaged in order to keep the fireplace stoked hot. As environmentally unfriendly as it might sound now, those days were idealic. We were told that embers of spider webs were troupes of tiny touch-carrying trolls, all marching up the great hillside. Hell, I even remember at least one time when we sat there - this sickeningly sweet family - all toasting English muffins on the open hearth. We were very lucky kids, especially at Christmas.

With characteristic technological embellishment, my father did the Christmas special effects for Santa. He'd go to incredible lengths, rigging up bells that ran out the kitchen window, round house and through a small "sitting room" window. The"sitting room" door was closed from about 5pm, so while the cooking was happening we'd creep up close and listen out for Santa, or as he was then known, Father Christmas. In total fear, we'd see if we could hear him doing his business in our front room.

We absolutely shat ourselves when we heard the bells from his boots dingling. Shit, how we'd shit ourselves. All trying to run away from my dad who was pushing us into the door. Ever since that dank Christmas when my dad took us to visit the evil Grampus, we knew that if you disturbed Father Christmas when he was doing his business, he pretty much fucked off and leave you nothing.

But we got away with not disturbing him and my dad got away with us never finding that string that connected my mother and Father Christmas to doing the business in the front room.

The normal protocol on Christmas Eve was this: door shuts at about 5pm (later as we got older), then mum gets on with doing the dinner, the remaining three go for a walk around the block Santa-spotting. All the while; my mum would scurry up and down the stairs, from cupboard to lounge, depositing piles of wrapped gifts as she went. It was brilliant bit of Anglo-Austrian engineering.

On the Christmas Eve of 1987, I found a pillowcase full of loot.

I say loot, because that has always been the description of said article; ever since I was a Beano reading Numskull (and obviously Beezer reading too). The word 'loot' is so comic-bookingly-English, that I can't help love it and will use it wherever it fits. It fits here, so will rip open a can of Ginger beer, tuck into my triangle-shaped peanut butter sandwiches and carry on with my treacherous tale of loot and skull-dugery.

The pillowcase full of said loot was opened to reveal a few porcelain figurines, a marble ashtray and an imitation pearl neckless. There might have even been a book - it was that uncool a find. No diamonds or guns or drugs. At the same moment I was eyeing the suburban kitty, the foiled would-be-burglar would surely have been cursing the countless rows of old people's bungalows he would have to enter before enjoying the fruits of his labour.

He probably looked inside the pillowcase and went, "Oh for fuck's sake, for the sake of fuck - pissing ornaments again." That'll teach him for robbing grannies at Christams.

But still, his wasted Christmas Eve was our delightful find, and we felt quite Indiana Jones about the old relics. We probably referred to the event as either, "exxy" (from the Latin; ex-cellent), or rad (from Neighbours, as in, "that's one radical mullet you have there Shane").

It was unfortunate that nothing in the stash was of greater value. Needless to say, if it had been, my dad would have insited we keep the find for ourselves. He wasn't adverse to a little thieving my father. But on this occasion he reported it to the police; we got a bag of sweets from a relieved granny and that was that.

The awkward moment with the goldfish.

I don't know why, but whenever there was an animal brought into our lives, my dad would nearly always do something, that in retrospect, is edging towards the peculiar.

He wasn't putting his willy into any of those dear little creatures - don't get me wrong - but he did cause moments of mild pandemonium, minor discomfort, and generally did make me think twice about asking for a dog. Maybe that was it: He hates dogs and never wanted to introduce one into the family, so to ensure our home stayed dog free, he'd put us off the idea by hanging the cat over the banister by the scruff of her neck (much to mine and my brother's squeals of protest), shooting mice that she brought in (to put them out of their misery of course - God I hated holding the torch), and doing bizarre things to fish.

My porn name is Goldie Vowden, named after my first goldfish and my mother's family name. Not as brilliant as my friend Joel's which is Roger Knightly. A dog called Roger, really. Actually, next door there's a cat called Stuart and I did know a photographer named Tony Biggs who had a Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Steve. On its collar was a beautifully crafted golf name tag with Steve Biggs proudly engraved onto it.

Anyway, Goldie the imaginatively named goldfish was won at a fair by my uncle Barry. It had a short life, lived in a small bowl on top of our fridge and I'm sorry to say that Goldie's novelty wore off not long after the first sprinkling of multi-coloured flakes had sunk.

Still, Goldie should think himself lucky. After him, we had a beautiful, yet jumpy cat called Kanya. She was black and we all loved her. My mum always said she was neurotic, but I think if my dad had held my mother over the banister by the scruff of her neck, then she'd have been a little on the nervous side too.

I like to think that he did this to make myself and my brother appreciate the cat more. It must have been an act of cunning instead of an act of intolerable cruelty, because we were always so relieved that she hadn't been dropped down the stairs, and loved her all the more after all the squealing had died down. Perhaps he saw how poor little Goldie was forgotten about all the way at the top of the fridge and with pious effort and incredible success, made sure the cat wasn't going to follow suit.

Goldie might have had a short life, but his end was at least with some quiet dignity, which is more than can be said for the second goldfish we had, a few years later. We got to the stage where we wanted fish again, forgetting the rather forgettable experience with Goldie. My parents gave in and agreed to allow us a second chance at looking after a scaly pet. If we could manage simply looking at the thing, it would have been a small success following the unwatched Goldie.

So we went fish shopping. Me, my brother and my dad. We traipsed around from pet shop to pet shop, checking out all manner of amphibian. My father is always one for 'shopping around' whether it be for a car or a small pet. So we trawled through the pet shops, metaphorically kicking the tyres of all the fish tanks we saw.

There was this one aquarium place on the A3 which had a number of larger, more scary, brown types of fish. They must have been for grown ups who still lived with their mum, because they were serious fish, not pretty little fair ground wins.

Inside one tank there was nothing but a solitary fish, floating in the middle like he was meditating. It was the same shape and size of a piranha and for all we knew - it could have been. It's bottom row of incisors only confirmed that if not an actual piranha, then a rare Tolworth variety it must have been.

On the tank was a silo-taped sign saying: KEEP FINGERS AWAY FROM WATER. Even a child could tell that although the resident of this tank was staying quite motionless, he still looked like a vicious bastard and sticking even one pinkie in his house could result in surgery.

But it was one of those signs that suggests something that wouldn't have even occurred to you and then double dares you to do it. A classic trap. They always get me too. I remember one day at work there was a huge wrapped palette in reception, and on it was a notice that said: DO NOT TOUCH. Well, every time I went past to go to the toilet I just had to give it a single defiant prod with my finger, which had there not been a sign instructing the opposite, wouldn't have even crossed my silly, rebellious mind.

However, on this occasion in the aquarium place, it wasn't me who got all tempted, oh no. I may have a silly, rebellious mind, but I'm not totally daft. It was my dad who rose to the challenge, reached up and slowly dipped a finger into the tank. What with water playing that wonderful visual effect of mirroring whatever enters it, it must have looked to the Tolworth Piranha as if a strange sausage was materialising right above it's head.

I don't know if Tolworth Piranhas are commonly used in the entertainment industry as racing fish, but this one was bloody quick. No sooner had my dad stuck his chipolata in the water, the Tolworth piranha had turned, grinned and zoomed up, mouth open to devour the trespasser. He sunk his tiny teeth into my dad's finger and didn't let go. As his pulled his hand from the tank - piranha still attached - I felt a combination of horror and utter embarrassment. Everything seemed to slow as the piranha was bashed on the side of the tank in an attempt to loosen it's grip.

I felt sorry for the fish who was doing a good job at holding on. He was probably quite surprised that the chipolata had turned into a panicking human, but probably not quite as surprised as my dad was to being attacked in a aquarium shop. After a couple of successful blows to the head the piranha released my father and sploshed back into the tank, a little riled at being pulled from his world. Thank God the thing didn't let go and fall on the floor. I'd have been mortified and what's more, we'd have probably had to buy it and take home a dead pet. Needless to say me and my brother were ushered out of the shop rather quickly which we didn't mind because it was all fairly embarrassing.

After that debacle, I don't think we continued much more shopping around and settled on a big tank and four fish; one goldfish, two fan tails and a white and red thing. They were rather splendid to look at and both myself and my brother enjoyed putting in various props like sunken ships, marbles and rocks for them to ignore.

Now these fish were very well looked after, mostly by my mother, I must add. I say well looked after, although one did jump out in a rather horrifying suicide bid. I don't know what he had to moan about, but coming home from holiday to find a dried up fish stuck to you carpet is pretty horrible. It was one of the ones with a big tale too.

Maybe it was the food he was complaining about. We'd leave one of those badly named 'holiday blocks' in the tank and expect them to survive on it. Holiday blocks. It's hardly a holiday for the fish is it, being effectively starved? Those things should be called, 'Make yourself feel better when you leave your fish to starve blocks' because I can't think they are a very good substitute for real fish food.

Anyway, on the whole those fish were pretty happy for fish. They survived bloody ages. In fact the last one was five when he finally got ill and could only manage to swim in feeble circles, all pale and decaying. I remember his last day quite clearly. Me and my brother were peering into the tank, just watching the poor little fellow paddling with one fin. In comes my dad. He's a sort of no-nonsense chap, a very Austrian Austrian, possessing a remarkable and unflinching practical nature. He could see the fish was dieing. He knew it was suffering. So he threw it out the window onto the garden path below.

Me and my brother looked at each other in a strange combination of disbelief, excitement and repulsion. We probably didn't know what face to pull, so legged it downstairs to check whether the fish was dead. It was. Very dead.

As with many times in my life I can partly understand my father and partly not understand him. On one hand, throwing the fish out of the window was an act of kindness; on the other it was the sort of thing you'd expect from a heartless prison guard when an inmates only friend is blowing his last bubble.

The awkward moment of taking a briefcase to school.

The wisdom of parenting. At times, something to marvel. At others, something so wonderfully stupid, like calling a ginger child, Red.

Shortly after my narrow - yet harrowing stint - as a part-time superhero, my parents gave me another most audacious gift. We were very lucky little sausages as children. We got proper "exy" (short for excellent) presents.

Our father was/is an Austrian sausage, so you see, no such behaviour would have been tolerated. He would often remind me that when he was a child, he made his own presents out of blocks of wood. You wonder if after finishing his latest toy, he feigned surprise and delight when after three weeks of chiselling, he gave it to himself. Cheers of Austrian child-joy, almost certainly followed by some neatly focused sobbing into a bad-ass Austrian Teddy made of Pine.

Perhaps as a vent for the Teddy bear indignation, I remember my dad getting really pissed off with us at times. One Christmas, a kerfuffle over our toys irritated my dad so much he directly threatened, "to send our RC (Remote Control) cars to a Bulgarian orphanage", were we not to stop effing about.

What stuck, was the specific detailing of where he was going to send our cars. It was going to be an orphange in Bulgaria. Not Hungry. Not Hamburg. But Bulgaria. An orphanage to be precise. Not a home for impovrished children, not the Red Cross; but an orphanage. The threat did add a vivid layer as I could actually picture some Eastern European lad called Helmut, 11, skidding my car up the dusty confines of his Alpine institution.

So you couldn't say we were spoilt. We appreciated and were perhaps a little over aware that we were lucky. Every Christmas growing up I would feel a slight uncomfortable guilt, as if that poor Bulgarian orphan, Helmut, was peering in through the trees at our dining table. My dicomfort was such that I could feel his stare lasering the shit plastic monkey toy that fell from my cracker; better than any toy he'd see all Christmas.

And so you see, it was not without a twinge of apprehension that I went to school with a brand new, black leather brief case. This wasn't a posh private school. This was the local comprehensive; a hive of children with varying tones of a green school uniform; like the powers that be knew the people were poor, and allowed parents to be ambivalent when digging around for their fourth child's PE shorts.

As I walked through the playground towards the main school, it was as if I was carrying a box of fox cubs - all eyes gravitated on me. Only I wasn't carrying something fluffy and amazing that was going to make me instantly popular and win the friendship of grubby urchins. I was carrying a black brief case that was about to get me bullied and laughed at.

By morning break it had been opened, tampered with and emptied. By lunch, I wanted the whole thing to be stolen so that I could feel anonymous again. By home time finally made an appearance, I left the gates, not holding it proudly by the handle like a yuppie, but on each side like lunchbox filled with sick.

I can't really blame my father for projecting his own goals and visions onto me. He was doing a kind thing; giving me a taste of being a grown up; letting me feel what it was like to be the business. I can't blame my father. But I will. What was he thinking? Was it, 'Oh, this'll show all the other children that Archibald is a no-nonsense child with strong mathematic capabilities and a fine understanding of how to use a combination code?'

Or perhaps, 'Oh a briefcase is just what a nine year old needs to carry Star Wars figures, a collection of rubbers (erasers, not contraceptives), his pack lunch and Superman costume.' Whatever he was thinking, it certainly wasn't, 'Hang on, sending him to that school with a briefcase will just about get him bullied'.

It is testament to nothing but the luck that my briefcase made it home without having the word WANKER carved into the fake black leather, and testament to common sense that I didn't bring it to that school ever again.

The awkward moment I wore a Superman costume to school.

For my eighth birthday my parents got me a Superman outfit.

One of those silky numbers that clung to whatever bulging muscles you had as a portly eight year old. Inspired, I decided that the coolest idea I’d ever had in all my eight years, was to secretly wear the costume under my school uniform and then wander around all knowing and heroic.

Of course I wasn’t ruling out the possibility that Catherine Owen might, by some twist of unimaginable fate, lose a marble up her nose again and need rescuing.

That morning I got dressed, twice. On went the costume probably over my pants (although I do question whether Clarke Kent put his Y-fronts over his costume or under), and then on went the school uniform.

You’d think the cape would cause bunching, but like I said, I was a portly eight year old, and besides which Matel – the makers of my costume – were a little stingy providing a full length of crimson for the cape, so it just about fitted. Off I went to school, looking a little more padded than normal, and went about my day.

Unbeknown to me, it was PE that day and we all got changed in class. As everyone began excitedly ripping off their uniforms, I stood there frozen. Nothing to do with Kryptonite, just the fear of looking like a total arse and being ridiculed for the rest of my school life.

This was the sort of thing that ruins your playground-cred as a child and the horrible little vultures in my school would have torn me and my tightly fitting Superman costume to pieces.

So I made like Superman and bolted for the toilets. Thank God Mrs.Hetherington let me leave otherwise I’d have probably involuntarily peed myself there and then. I legged it down the corridor, into the bathrooms and into a cubicle.

I do wonder today whether whilst ripping off my jumper, shirt and tie, the irony of the situation struck me at all. Does irony strike you when you’re eight? I can’t remember pausing to think “Blimey, my very own catastrophe”.

I’m also pretty sure the thought of Catherine Owen and a wedged marble didn’t enter my head either. Pretty much just pure panic. Panic at getting the uniform off, panic at getting the costume off, panic at getting the uniform back on again, and panic at getting back to my class in time.

By the time I did make it back, the class room was empty. Some Superman I’d make. No Catherine Owen. No wedged marble. Just a fat sweating eight year old, with a Superman costume stuffed up his jumper.

From that day on I hung up my crimson cape and silky costume and just watched Catherine Owen from afar, as she played kiss chase with my nemesis Peter Warren, who incidentally didn’t need a costume to win at bloody everything.