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I Am Bipolar Manic

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

My name is Kenneth Watson and this is my life story. I was born in Burnley Lancashire, England in 1930. I was born to a poor family, but there was lots of love in the home. My Father was a painter of houses and I think his wage when I was 5 was about $6. With that money my Mother had to feed us all and pay all the usual expenses, including a mortgage. I don't know how they did it, I was never hungry. We had gas for lights, and there was no T.V. Things were a bit depressed in the North of England, so my Father moved south to Watford where there was more work. Looking back, I think that was pretty amazing. My Father was not an ambitious man so I wonder who gave him the courage to move 200 miles south. He bought a brand new house 3 bedroom 1 bath $1,200 on a mortgage of course, but what a price. We also had a car, it was a standard 8 and he loved that car.

Almost new and only $200 I don't know how he did it. He might have got a little extra money with the move, but not that much. The only thing I can remember when I was 3 years old, was playing board games with all the relations, this was at Burnley. My Mother had a sister and 2 brothers and we were always getting together with her Mum and Dad and we played lots of games, probably to keep me happy. At that time I was the only child and everybody used to spoil me, But I could hold my own with the games. One of the games I remember was snakes and ladders. (I wonder if they still make it). Another incident I can remember, I think it was Blackpool beach. We were playing cricket and I got too close to the person wielding the bat. I was only 5 and I still have the scar on my mouth. It must have hurt. We didn't mix too much with my Dad's relations except for Albert who lived a couple of streets away, strangely enough in Watford who was married to Edith. Albert was a radio tecknition, eventually to become a T.V. man. My Father's other two brothers, Edwin and Harry who was the youngest and there was Pop the Father. I didn't see much of him either. I think he lived to 91 years. I was 5 and I settled in at the local school, which was Garston. I wasn't there too long and then they moved me to a brand new school called Kingswood. It was much closer to home and I remember having some good times there. We had a lot of kids the same age living round us. We played a lot of street games after school. When my Mother wanted me she would wail like Tarzan of the jungle. The kids used to-laugh, but it didn't worry me. I had to go in to shut up the noise. People probably thought we were getting attacked. In his spare time my Father used to paint pictures in oil. He would copy from a small photograph. He was very good. He should have gone to night school to learn more about art. I still have 3 of his paintings to this day. My brother Chris has the rest. I also did some painting and attended night school later on in life. I can't remember where my paintings went to. Another hobby of my Fathers, was to try and pick 8 draws from the English soccer teams. If he had been lucky he would have been very rich. The most he ever won over a lot of years was about $500 Smoking was his other vice, my Mother too. Of course they had never heard of second hand smoke affecting the kids. My Father had no ambition, he was just content to work for somebody else, I can't ever remember them going out dancing or to a restaurant or a pub. Only when the relations got together. He probably couldn't afford it anyway on his wages. The age of 9 soon came around and of course the war broke out and my Mother shipped me off to Burnley which was a safer place to be when the bombs are dropping. I had to enroll in a school. But it was close to where Grandma lived. You see Watford was only 20 miles from London and they were getting some of the left over bombs from the German bombers on their way home.

Chapter Two

Burnley was about 200 miles away and not on the flight path. So it was pretty safe. Eventually my Father got called up in the army and they had him guarding the Italian prisoners of war. He was stationed about 25 miles away but didn't get home much' Long enough to get his wife pregnant. Something he didn't think would happen as I was almost 13 lb. when I was born and did a lot of damage and the Doctor said that my Mother would not be able to have any more children. There is I3 and half years between my brother and I. The early bombardment of London eventually died off and I went back home to stay with my Mother She was alone and probably glad of the company. We would have onion sandwiches for supper and then go to bed. I don't think I have had an onion sandwich since. We had a rationing system which didn't give us much. They even rationed candy. I know the British Army didn't pay much anyway, not like the American Army. I used to love baked potatoes, but my Mother stopped making them. She said I would put a whole weeks supply of butter on one potato. We had a bomb shelter in the garden and we used to go down when the air raid warning siren sounded. The school had a big shelter too, and we all had to go down when the siren sounded, In both of the shelters we would play games to pass away the time. I remember at the school we had one of the old gramophone that you had to wind up. We had the big old records too. It passed the time away when you were down the shelter. It was pretty quiet, you wouldn't think there was a war on. It must have been about I94I and the bombing started again. I think that was the time that they had come up with their pilotless bombs, could have been a little later. We didn't go down the shelters at home again. We just got under the bed. We figured that if we got a direct hit, it wouldn't make any difference anyway.

The school still made us go down. The bombs that flew themselves were very scarey. You would hear the engine and all of a sudden the engine would stop, then you had better watch out, because its coming down, and they make big damage. We used to call them doodle bugs I think the real name was VI and V2s. One of these monsters demolished a house completely less than I00 yards away from us and killing everybody inside. Another V2 demolished a whole block of houses. A couple of miles away. We used to keep chickens for the eggs. I killed one once for us to have a meal. I had to strangle it, I don't want to do that again. My Mother used to feed them potato peelings. It seemed to work. We had fat hens and good eggs. Before the war I can remember the good meals we used to have. Steak and kidney pudding and steak and kidney pie, which I loved. Fried fish on Saturday which was kippers or herring. A meat joint on Sunday and we had to have cold meat on Monday Until chicken got popular and then we had the chicken on Sunday. Another day we would have steak and onions but it was only a cheap cut of steak. Sausage and mashed potatoes was good. It wasn't until I met Doreen, my second wife that I tasted Fillet Mignons for the first time. Her father was a butcher and I was 31 years old.

Chapter Three

We did eat pretty good although the cuts of meat and fish were the cheap cuts. I used to make toy lead soldiers from molds, just to make extra money. I also used to go chopping down trees for firewood. That would earn me about a dime, but it seemed a lot back then. When the war ended, I remember the big parties in the street. Everybody was happy, and all the wives were looking forward to the return of their husbands. I was very enterprising at a...