The Myth of Peck

Mike peck was born in speke in 1961. He was a skinny kid with fiery red hair and had more front than Brighton. In school most kids hated him secretly – no one dared to tell him to his face - and a few liked him. I was one of the few, he was the kind of kid that if you crossed he would always find a way to pay you back ten fold.



The Heroe and Sportsman
The Heroe

He was a master of curling a football from a free kick way before anyone every thought of it; in fact I think he invented it. He was an ambassador of sport and played every thing to win. He was a permanent member of Astmoor football team and always got his name on the score sheet. My nickname for him was ‘the goal hanger’ because he always hanged around the goal and sneaked the ball in the net even if it was going in anyway.

In summer we played cricket and tennis. Playing cricket he always had to score more runs than anyone else and he perfected the Alan Knott technique, the swooping down on one knee shot. His bowling was mediocre but he didn’t care batting was the important thing and cheating, he was good at both.

While playing tennis some kids swore he was the Borg with his long hair, hair-band and stubble. Hell! He even had the double-handed backhand and the shit serve. He always thrashed me when I played him, until I read the Rod Laver book of coaching but that’s another story. He refused to read the book because he said Rod Laver looked like my old man.


The scholar and philosopher
The Scholar

His claim to fame at secondary school was:

  • Burning down the metalwork room. Destroying some gonks baseball bat by sawing a split in the end and then running around with it in between his legs shouting give us a gobble. The resulting episode ended in the classic teacher line “ are you sick or something lad”.
  • Shouting at Gus (the headmaster) “Gus has got a dick like a maggot” from the back of the dinner queue then hiding.
  • Gobbing on the ceiling and waiting for it drop on someone’s head, it actually fell on Mr Wrigley’s head, my form tutor.
  • Wiping a crow on big Bob’s hand, Bob was fifteen and probably weighed fifteen stone. He had a beard and frightened people for a living.
  • Grabbing Debbie Harding’s arse and then blaming Ste Rodgers whom received a smack in the chops off her. If this gets on the web Ste you’re a MBBD.

Lust
Lust

Mikes greatest passion after sport was big tits, I don’t mean big I mean enormous, when we used to sign on at the dole he always went to la Rendezvous café for breakfast followed by a quick shop lifting session in the newsagents next-door were he nicked books like Peaches, bounce and bra busters. He had a secret hiding place inside an old monopoly game to avoid his mum from finding them.


The One Labour of Peck-ules
Labour

My first job after leaving school was working for Wimpy the builders at the windmill hill site, its still a site now but there’s a H in it according to sign when entering the estate. Mike worked there as well, when I say worked I mean pissed about, he managed to upset nearly everyone on site the list is endless but here’s what I remember:

The Ten Labourers cursed by Peck-ules

  1. He wiped human shit on some bricklayers spade and told him to his face when he had put his hand in it, he’d done it. His hand was covered in shite and he chased mike around site with his spade. He eventually calmed down and said if he had a gun he would shoot mike, then he said mike wasn’t worth the price of a bullet and he would prefer to club him to death with his spade.
  2. He threw a house brick at some old man laying the drains, missed and mashed a window causing him to be showered with glass. Ten micks threatened to give him a hiding after work but Charles Manson (mike’s name for joiners boss) calmed them down. He probably showed them the pictures of his wife naked after all he showed everyone else.
  3. He threw an aerosol can on the works bonfire and nearly blew bald eagle’s head off. I took the rap for it and said I did it by mistake.
  4. He was the main suspect for covering some big mad thick micks JCB with shit. The reason for the constant supply of human shit is because none of the toilets were connected up and all the workers shit in the houses, usually in the utilities cupboard. Oh! There was a toilet on site it was one of the portable things that if you went in some tosser pushed it over or rocked it backwards, either way you got covered in shit.
  5. Drawn pictures on the walls of a house of a man with a bald eagles head with caption “fuck off bald eagle”.Bald Eagle was the site managers nick name.
  6. He constantly threw old buttys and silver paper rapped in a ball at the can lad who was about seventy. He also corrected him when he said his mother had had seven children, mike replied by saying, “Don’t you mean six kids and one old man”.
  7. He went down the Barge pub with the scaffolders and came back at four o’clock pissed; he latter told me that one of them had tried it on with him (probably the one that pissed on my head, he was forever getting it out).
  8. Sold the can lad an empty bottle of vodka full of water.
  9. Pissed himself laughing when the manager told him that he was being finished up. He told Bald Eagle he had been praying for the bullet for ages.
  10. He found a huge turd in one of the tiny utilities rooms and told this mick, who he thought had done it, that there was a dirty mag in there. When he went in the room he locked him in by jamming a brush under the door handle.

His Helen of Romans close
Helen

Mikes first girlfriend was called Rainer, sounds weird and she was weird. She was the great love of his life but it all end in tears down at the Barge with either of the favourite female lines “I have a strange feeling or there’s something wrong” anyway he got blown out. He told people he had hit her on the head with a 12inch torch because she refused to have sex with him “what a guy” and the other thing about the Quo poster but its too crude.


The Achilles heel
Achilles Heel

Some bloke who fancied her was taking the piss out of Mike one night in barge “big mistake” because on the way out Mike sneakily tripped him up and he smashed his head on the concrete decking. Mike slipped away laughing his head off. Thinking back it was a bit of a ‘Nogbad the Bad’ moment.

Mike was my Bessie mate and when I finally manage to pick up a women he had another ‘Nogbad the Bad’ moment and slept with her. It wasn’t really his fault he told me she was gagging for it and wouldn’t leave him alone. I wonder if she met his trusty torch maybe not.


The Apollo
Apollo

Mike liked most rock/metal music but Black Sabbath, Rory Gallagher, inxs and the Quo were probably his most favourite bands. In the late seventies I went to see loads of bands with him - too many to name- and we always went the Cherry on “rock Night”.


Oedipus Rex-a bit of Greek tragedy
Oedipus Rex

He had a dog-called Rex and it must have very old because I remember it when I was at school. It was still around in the mid eighties because that’s how he met Kenny, during a dog shitting session down the canal.

I also remember him insisting on taking the dog out after we had being drinking this home brew I made and he was so pissed he smashed his head open on the wall in the car park.

He also use to take it up the Fitzwilliam flats but stopped because some piss head give a earful about dogs farting and shitting all over the place.


The Albert map and Arthur crap Adventure

The reason why mike made up these stupid names is because he thought it clever to have them rhyme with shit and secondly he didn’t want any comebacks just in case he got anyone in the family way. His method of contraception was “blast it up em” followed by a very slow withdrawal. I had actual first hand knowledge of this because I was latter to see him in action.

Anyway we met these two sweet young things while on holiday and on the first date we got invited back to their tent for some how’s your father. One the second date, his one done a runner on the back of triumph bonny while we where outside the old Vic in Lanbedre having a drink. Mike made an attempt to pull her off the back of bike but the rider did a bat out of hell number. I found mike latter in the car park head butting a wall, it was hard not to burst out laughing. I think it was another ‘nogbad the bad’ moment again. I decided to go back to the tent with him, after seeing the other girl back.

On returning mike said “if I knew you were coming back here I would have sneaked around to her tent and give her one”.


Mushy heaven and Hell
Heaven and Hell

Mike had his first trip round at Roy’s and did a runner when Roy went bananas while looking in the mirror, looking in the mirror is not recommended on mushies especially when you’re an ugly f*****. Roy managed to mash the tops of the taps when he freaked out shouting “ I am deformed” and then all hell broke out in the form of mass panic. Mike ran home to his mum and told her he taken some mushrooms and needed to go to hospital. She hadn’t a clue what he had done and told him to stop being stupid.

Mikes next trip was in the fiddlers ale house were he spent all night laughing at the local nutcase he also said Ian, Roy’s cousin had a nose like a lighthouse-I think that was because he had a huge spotty nose. He stopped doing the mushies because he said he wanted to be normal again and went back to getting pissed every other night.


Aphrodite and Eros
Aphrodite

He went up to Roy’s one night and Roy had this fat horrible scrubber round there. Mike manage to get her round to his mums at the weekend while his mum was away, he told me she tried to nick his money out of his jeans while he was on the job with her. She drank two bottles of wine and burnt a hole in his mum’s bed. He blamed the fag burn on me, and told his mum I had done it. She must have been a great shag because two bottles of wine and a new mattress must have cost him about £70.


The Vestal Virgins
Vestal Virgins

I met him down the barge one night and he had these two brasses from the tanners with him and some old geezer. He came over because I was having a drink with the secret bender boy (chocks away I’m gay) and asked me if I fancied coming to sit with him and brasses. I refused because I knew he only wanted me buy the ale for them - all night- in return for a possible dose. Anyway the next day I went round to see him and he give me the whole story of how he had to shag both the brasses because the old geezer couldn’t rise to occasion and his heart was Knackered.


The return of Ulysses
Ulysses

He said in morning about six kids ran in bedroom shouting is that daddy.latter he drew back the curtains because someone was banging on the window, outside there was this psycho shouting he was going to kill him.


The seven Voyages nogbad
Seven Voyages

Mike came to pendle every year at Halloween between 1978-1985 on the back of my bike, we usually slept in a tent at the back of Witches Galore. But one year we slept in some farmer’s barn outside clitheroe. He kept calling john and Brian Blackburn oddbod and oddbod junior from Carry on Screaming and thought it was funny when he pissed in someone’s helmet, but it turned out to his own.


Homogargantius
Homogargantius

I wrote a story called One Summer for my GSCE English at college but it wasn’t absolutely true. The first night Mike, Brian and Motty pitched their tent on a car park in Ambleside. I ended up in Hawkshead - the campsite we spent the second night- with secret bender boy because I didn’t want to leave my expensive tent on a car park. I went to the village pub with bender boy and they got shit faced in some trendy wine bar and invited back to a swinging party. Mike pissed on the balcony carpet and got them throw out. He also tried a bong but was blowing instead of sucking and they thought he was taking the piss, which he probably was because he didn’t smoke. When they got back to the tent, it was pissing it down and tent collapsed because motty jumped on it pissed. He then slept in a puddle of water in his sleeping bag while Mike and Brian slept in the tent with no centre pole. They all got pissed wet threw.


THE END