NEW BLOG COMING SOON
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IThere’s an oak tree in the middle of field of maze that I try to get to for dawns & sunrises.
Like a quest worthy of Theseus but only pulling the wool across my own eyes

What ?

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​My body has suffered through lack of exercise & my mind through lack of stimulus & hope. I have been thinking about my death and my biggest, lifelong fear to die alone, with no one who I have met in life to love me and not having done anything I wanted to do on earth, or done anything in any way to help anyone else.

 I have had an awful feeling for some time now that I won’t live til old age, that I won’t even reach 62, which was my dads age when he died. When you’re scared of the future you don’t want to, even though you can still have flickering dreams of a happier scenario. The way I’m neglecting my body and the wallowing in despair is almost testing this. My friend Therese several weeks ago said she thought that I might be pushing myself to see how far I could go, to see how far I could push myself. I haven’t given up completely and this weekend seems like a new dawn after last weekends bleak sunset, although I touch wood very heavily here, mindful of how easily the worst thoughts could seep back into me. 

I go for almost daily walks at dawn, to see sunrises, it comforts me to see sunrises. it is the best time of the day across the earthy plateau of maise seedlings at first light and then sit down and watch the first appearance of the sun, then I go back to bed. The difficulty is later on in the day from about 1pm. It’s like it’s all downhill from there. I went to look at a few sunsets too, but didn’t find them as comforting, it’s like the passage of the day is a metaphor for life, although sunsets can be far more beautiful than sunrises, I hope that means something. I have no faith, although I have always counted myself a spiritualist, someone who senses more to things than meets an eye, an agnostic as opposed to an atheist.
I don’t know how many times I say to myself “Dear God, help me, or I talk to my dad, apologising for being such weak son and wishing he was here, telling my recently departed friend Sharron, how much I miss her as well, and my mums dear little shih tzu Maisie who should be here still, but I have no conviction they can hear me.
I don’t think I believe in a life, a consciousness after death anymore, even though I desperately want to, particularly sensing more than ever my own mortality. It seems more a wishful thinking fantasy than ever, leaving aside the science of what neuro transmitters etc enable that very consciousness in the first place, energy I was once told doesn’t just not exist it goes on, but I am not intelligent enough to grasp science and the best I can hope is for “There are more things in heaven and Earth philosophy. Do you know I’m not even sure by and large we human beings would deserve one after the travesty we’ve made of this one. I see the beautiful wild bees buzzing on the bushy hedge and wonder whether they need to dream of a life beyond, and they for all their life enhancing qualities richly deserve it more than we do.
With all the death, anxiety and uncertainty and the quality of all our lives so considerably reduced these days, I do think we need something to believe in, and the philosophy that my dear friend Therese puts forward that if we believe in what we want it will be true and that none of this is real anyway. So if I believe in mermaids and witches is that my heaven?

I do love life, but I don’t love mine. I feel sorry for myself, but not always in a ooh poor me kind of way, but more I look at myself in the mirror, or more often in one of the photos I am always obsessively taking of myself, and I see a body that I am occupying, that’s not too bad looking, or didn’t used to be, tall, compassionate, kind and caring, with a fucking great taste in music and films and I say to myself sorry. Sorry for not being kinder to myself, sorry for the neglect of my body with no exercise for over 2 months. Sorry for all the times I’ve had a go at myself, treated myself disrespectfully, wasted my own time and been too stupid to not recognise opportunities that may have made me happier. 

When I go out walking in the dawn or the beautiful, wild garden or even on the surface look at my books and records, and old sentimental toys that I gave personality to, I think how awful not to have this, while there is still the glimmer of a promising dawn that represents the hope for my two most wanted quests in life, to find love & strength in a woman and to make myself and others proud of me as an actor, how can I lose that possibility. But I almost wish that I didn’t see any good in anything, that there was no flame to be extinguished, that life and nature held no flicker of joy for me. That the sun before the new dawn fades wasn’t so lovely. 

I recorded myself doing Ian Curtis’s lyrics to the song of that name on Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Ian’s suicide on 18th of May, inspired by seeing Maxine Peake similarly doing She’s Lost Control on a special evening of events broadcast online that I watched on the evening of the 18th. I was quite pleased with the result recorded with the backdrop of the most beautiful dawn I have seen of late, and put it on instagram, twitter and youtube (I’ve come off facebook at the mo, became unhappy with it) but if the purpose of doing was to get attention, which of course it was, it failed, although a few lovely people said some nice things.

"Hi I’m Shaz" she said to me in her rich, deep, well spoken, sexy voice, looking me up and down, she was at once vibrant, beautiful and a little terrifying!

She wore dark clothes, shirt & leggings & had long, luxurious, brunette hair with a bit of a perm to it. I was 30 she was 20, although she looked youthful and indeed retained that youthful look & spirit all of the 26 years I have known her. Her whole demeanour, not just her voice, suggested a more mature sophistication, Shaz was a classy girl!

​She reminded me a little of Helena Bonham Carter in the face, same angular jaw & as I got to know her & see how fine an actress she was, she also brought to mind a young Bette Davis with all the passionate intensity & flashing eyes. Ah but Shaz was really her own unique self though!

I was about 10 years older than everyone, not that I played the age card at all well, I was rubbish with women before doing acting gave me a bit of confidence, and seemingly when it did, I only became confident at being a twat! According to Tasha, who's always been a good friend to me, at that time I had a bit of a mullet, looked like Nick Cave, (although from looking at old pics I think more Shane McGowan), and a propensity for wearing jogging pants that didn’t show my willy off to it’s best advantage!!!:D So I’m not sure what Shaz thought of me.
Indeed in the first of our three years at Birmingham, aside from seeing her everyday in school (and boy was it run like a primary school), I don’t really remembe hanging out with Shaz. I was definitely not cool enough to mix with the Pink Ladies, more’s the pity!

Funnily enough, considering how much we both liked a drink over the years, she wasn’t like me one of the regulars down the unofficial drama school pub, the ironically named ‘Unspoilt by Progress’ in the concrete 1960’s precinct just off Fiveways in Brum, (and where I was eventually barred!), I think The Pink Ladies did their drinking somewhere far more cooler. We weren’t assigned to work together in scenes or shows that we put on in the famed Regency Room of the Georgian house on Church Road, Edgbaston that served as BSSD’s main HQ. The Regency Room where the height of technological advances to enhance our performance was a dimmer switch on the chandelier! 
As first years we had to stage manage final & second year shows at was called the Apex theatre, the pokey former billiard room of the old Georgian house, and there was a much larger space at an old dance hall several miles away in real ‘Peaky Blinder’ country, Smallheath or as I remember Shaz calling it, Smelly Heath! I wonder what the Shelby brothers would have made of that? My guess she’d have taken them on, or bonded with them, she’d certainly have been a rival to Helen McCrory’s formidable Helen Gray character! 

My aversion to dance became legendary, well more the stuff of hilarity and despair in equal measure. When we were streamed according to ability, advanced, intermediate or basic, they had to invent a whole new group below basic for me and Tasha as well, (she didn’t quite have Cha-Cha’s moves), which was unofficially christened ‘The Sunshine Group!’ 
The teachers just gave up on me at the end of the first year as a bad lot and I sold my tap & jazz shoes to a first year by the start of our second. However I had learnt to do a basic tap dance time step and all because of Shaz! 
She was very funny and I remember her sympathising with me over my tap dancing anxiety, just before I gave it up. There was a rhyme that Vicki Maxine the tap dance teacher taught everyone to do this basic step...
”Yes-I-know-I-can-do-it-as-I’ve-done-it-once-before” 

But Shaz had a much better rhyme that she’d come up with directed at Miss Maxine’s unpopularity particularly with the girls that she’d always have a go at...
 “Menopausal-Old-Bitch-Menopausal-Old-Bitch!”

Oh whenever I’d remind her of that in the years later, she’d find it hysterical and was really pleased I’d remembered it, although I’m not sure I could remember the time step to go along with it now Shaz!

By the second year we’d bonded. I do remember she had the idea that we share a birthday celebration as ours were just 2 weeks apart which was lovely. We were both vegetarian which back in those days was less common, and we both loved the Smiths. Most importantly we had become a mutual admiration society in acting, something we were to remain always, Shaz was always my greatest supporter in acting & I like to think I was hers.
I was truly bowled over by her, she had a real old school presence about her, huge watchability, a chameleon like ability to change herself dramatically in look and only a part of that was make up and hair. Most wonderful of all she had the most fabulous singing voice. 
I’ll forever hear her singing ‘I love Paris’ In her rich dark contralto voice to rival Ella Fitzgerald’s famous version. She originally sang this in a second year production we did called ‘Cole Porter Songbook’ and would later sing at our drama school showcase in London.
I was cast as the narrator in that show, not allowed to sing anything! (Singing is the thing that most embitters me about the school as I went from the getting top marks amongst the lads in the school to almost lowest after they’d fired & not replaced the singing teacher, a guy who I remember Shaz christened Fonzie as he had the definite look of Henry Winkler and wore a leather jacket. She was always good at coming up with nicknames for people!

I was struck by how such an attractive woman could play with ease, unflattering and often male characters, this mainly because the short sighted choice of plays with a heavy bent towards male characters, and the girls would often have to play male roles, without a thought amongst the directors, (even the women) of adapting them as female, or more often doubling up on the female roles, so that in production one girl would be on one night and another girl in the same role the next! This was very odd because there were a lot more girls than lads on the course as there always where at drama schools, in fact one of the main reasons I wanted to go to drama school in the first place! 
Shaz though seemed to revel though in playing a succession of unflattering blokes roles extremely well, from a thuggish but well dressed football hooligan in Arrivederci Millwall, (I played the skinhead leader), to the treacherous & pompous King Alonso in what was possibly the worst as well as campest version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest ever committed to stage, where I had fun wearing mascara and a skirt as the jester Trinculo, while doing the gayest Scots accent ever! 
Oh and not to mention Fanshen! David Hare’s play. Oh bloody hell! Travesty amongst travesties even at Birmingham, with us all playing Chinamen, and directed not by one of the teachers, but by the drama school’s accountant, who just wanted to have a go. God It was like primary school. Oh you had to have a sense of humour to go to Birmingham back then!
Shaz always made the best of whatever she was cast in though, despite a lot of eye rolling at initial casting she went for it hell for leather, whereas often I confess if I was unhappy I’d get a bit sulky and turn in a substandard performance as a result! Shaz was always a true professional. This something she did for all the years I knew her, in plays, short films and working in a succession of unattractive attractions like London Dungeon & The London Bridge experience where she played warty old hags and plague victims like her whole career depended on it. God I believe she never put in a bad performance. 

eI've tried to keep a spirited touch whilst writing all this, true to her dear self, regrettably though this is where this all gets very sad and even more indulgently reflective though, so if I flatter myself that anyone else is reading this, you might want to finish here.

It never occurs to me that anyone else might read my navel gazing blogs on this my anyway ’vanity website’, rarely anyone does as I don’t push them. And anyway such streams of consciousness without a much needed edit, are really meant for myself and do help as therapy for my mental health, never more so than at times like this.
I have been through an almighty depression this year and for the first time I’ve admitted to myself as well as others to suffering from depression for a long time. 
I was just getting over it when I got news of Shaz whilst on my way back from a shift guiding at the Coronation Street tour and on the eve of an almighty storm!

God everything is totally surreal at the mo, the biggest, lockdown & curtailing of civil liberties since World War 2 as a backdrop to losing dear Shaz at only 45, both as equally unbelievable. Even though what has happened has begun to sink in after being in a daze the last few weeks, including at the funeral, just writing this blog I still have to have a double take or twenty, just writing about her in the past tense and frequently still can't.
My emotions are all over the place, at the moment, I'm laughing at remembrances of her one minute and weeping at photographs of her the next..
I can't believe when someone well meaning says it was her time. That’s not right, it’s just not right that a vibrant young woman like this should go when she still had so much to live for. Shaz was magnificent in everything she did, whether it was her career as an actress, or any of the fill in jobs she did, and of course she was the most magnificent company.
In a room full of people she was very much where the party was at, in the quietest pub or in the most soulless office she was a breath of fresh air, the bright light that you would desperately want to be near to comfort you.
Shaz lived her life dealing with epilepsy and faced that with the same courage and positivity that she displayed in every area of her life.

Writing this almost 6 weeks after I first heard the worst news, hasn’t done anything to get me accustomed to this, in fact as time goes on I’m getting more upset by it. I wake up each morning hoping that I’m going to awake from a bad dream, that Shaz is ok and that I would break the habit of a lifetime and call her later today for a much needed catch up.
I’d become more fatalistic from having this depression in January anyway and what has happened to dear Shaz and what is happening in the world on all our doorsteps right now has just heightened this.
 I’ve cried more in the couple of weeks since the funeral than I have ever cried for anyone in my life, and I’m a bit of a soppy crier the best of times!

Grief is like a selfish emotion, it replays if only’s and what if’s and why’s over in your mind. It misses the person deeply, wishes the person there again as if this were a bad dream to almost the point of obsessing about it. It desperately, overwhelmingly needs them here for just for you.
Someone said that grief is all the love you want to give, but can't. Grief is love with nowhere to go and that' exactly it.

My dad who I absolutely loved to bits, died 38 years ago this year and honestly not a day has gone by since when I haven’t missed him and thought about him. Dad had been suffering from lung cancer for a year before he died and was brave, strong and protective throughout. Even though I’d been dreading losing him, I think I was probably in denial that I would, even on the night he passed. And it’s very odd but I felt strangely cushioned, numb when he did, almost like I was being given strength to cope. I always remember at the funeral a little bird flew into the church & settled on the coffin for a moment, dad always loved birds. It was amazing, almost like this was an affirmation that all was well and although you could say I have never stopped grieving for him, this grief over dear Shaz is different.
I was upset last year when a lovely old friend I knew from tour guiding 20 years ago, Jacqueline died very suddenly too, ironically the same age as Shaz. I’d been in love with her as well, and similarly had pushed her away because she wasn’t interested in me romantically, though she wanted to be friends, I’d made myself lose contact with her, hadn’t seen her for 15 years, so even though I was deeply sad & deeply remorseful about doing that, and it did affect me, with Shaz though the shock has been far more profound. 
Of course I am well aware I am not alone in deeply missing her, particularly Antony and all her many friends and family will be feeling the pain too, she is so well loved and deeply grieved for. It has been absolutely lovely and comforting talking to Shaz’s fabulous cousins Mairtin and Bernadette about her, as it has to dear Toni, sharing our grief and our joyous memories of her.

I was originally asked to do a eulogy at the funeral but gave way to her old friend Danny who really wanted to do it. In the end because of the current shit going on, he couldn’t come from the US where he lives and sent me what he was going to say. I used a lot of what he’d written which was lovely but when I came to do it, I just had to put a lot of my own thoughts in too, trying not to make it too personal to me or Danny, but trying to speak for everyone who loved her. 
Here though I wanted to talk about Shaz very personally and how much she meant to me,
I also imagine in my outrageous self importance here that I am a voice to tell the fucking acting world's movers and shakers what a lot of ignorant short sighted cunts they are in missing making this fabulous woman a star! Makes me angry when I think how brilliant she was. It's not a fair business I know and Shaz did work, and do good stuff as I have said, but fuck it she still should have been a household name!

I’ve tried to be honest here and I wanted to capture her in all those now precious moments I spent with her or heard from her. But ultimately no amount of fine words said here or as I did in the church take away what is an absolute, awful tragedy. 
My heart goes out to Antony. It’s true at times I have envied him being her love but I knew how much she loved him and how ideal they were together and to lose that, to lose one so fabulous as your partner in life is unbearably awful.
Whilst selfishly reflecting on my own grief, I can barely imagine the heartbreak he has had. He is understandably inconsolable. I heard him say later in the day after the funeral that there’d never be another woman in his life. Really got to me.

I set out to write a celebration of you here dear Shaz. You are a glorious woman and you've been helping me as you helped me in life in inspiring me to write this, which is helping me deal with this current highly depressing self isolation. I have been writing this piece on and off over almost two weeks, I haven't wanted it to end.
My memories written down here are like a kind of communion with you to reaffirm how fabulous I think you are, and always did, and always will and how much you meant to me.

Of course I've caught nowhere near enough of your gorgeous spirit and your wonderful, infectious sense of humour and it’s got all got a bit maudlin and introspective. Sorry Shaz because you were always an absolute joy to be with. I loved and cared about you dearly. I’m going to be eternally sorry that I went for long periods of time without seeing or contacting you after I stopped living in London. Never more have I regretted that decision to leave London!
I’ve been speaking out loud to you a lot in the last couple of weeks of my lonely , heightened introspectiveness, flattering myself particularly with a few whiskies inside me that you can hear me. More soberly I know that if you’d be with just one person on earth it’d understandably be with Antony. it is to him you would give an ear from wherever you are if you are anywhere and I believe you are somewhere, as big a presence as you were in all of our lives, There are more things in heaven and Earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy, to misquote Shakey!
 I'm sure you're somehow transmitting comfort to him even if you're not allowed to!

​Oh I wish I'd seen more of you, even just picked up the phone. I should have got over myself and just stopped being such a fantasist and a twat!
I blame Facebook! Fucking Facebook. I dislike and mistrust it as much as you and understand why you rarely did it, in fact a bit like you have stopped using it very much, I’m more wasting my time on twatter these days, which peversely is even less sociable.  Fucking, evil Facebook! I resent and blame Facebook for all the stupid group emails I put out which you didn’t see about times I was in London when it was you more than anybody that I wanted to see the most.
You see what I did there? Blamed facebook for all the times I should’ve have just picked up the phone and called you. For all my shortcomings, blame fucking Facebook!!!
You didn’t need social media to be social as you you were a normal and decent human being who actually phoned and spoke and frequently saw your friends and I regret most deeply all the missed calls, and often unanswered messages from you. 
I may have even gone more months this year, even without a national lockdown in place, in my frequently stupefying haze in not seeing or contacting my dear, dear friend. I think you understood that I got down sometimes and went awol, not that I think that it was acceptable to behave like that and it depresses me even more that Shaz might have thought I was a depressive old git!
I know the next time we met, no matter how long it had been it would have been as it always was, as if no such time had passed at all, but that doesn't do anything to alleviate  my eternal fucking shame.
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Oh Shaz I can loudly hear you say jokingly in reply … “For fuck sake, it's ok, please don’t be such a misery guts babes, we all need a laugh especially now!

​Saving me from bleak introspection in the last week has been Coronation Street….!

 This is a sentence I never thought to write. I have been aware of Corrie all my life, grew up with it on the tv. I was remembering my first memories of the street the other day and can remember vaguely a coach crash away from the street. Looking into this as I have been quite a bit in the last week as research for a job, sadly not acting in it, but working as a tour guide showing people round it. The coach crash on a trip to the lakes was in 1969 when the show had been on tv for 9 years and I was 5.  I remember watching it through the whole of the 70s, particularly Hilda & Stan Ogden. And then mum has watched it through the 80s and 90s and I have always caught it when with her. But I became irritated with it’s issue based storylines and the trend in all soaps for high drama to increase ratings and compete with other soaps like Eastenders & Emmerdale, when I always thought the strength of these shows were the characters and the small stories that make every day life. So I virtually abandoned watching it and even chided mum for watching ‘this rubbish”. But at the moment the street is helping along with medication from feeling hopelessly lost. Yes I wish my new agent had at least been able to get me an audition for it never mind an actual part in it, and yes I am day dreaming that somehow me guiding people round it will somehow open one of them doors on Coronation street to its casting director, even though I am well aware that those doors don’t lead into a real world at all, even Gareth, the head of tours & attractions at ITV made a point of warning any actors training to be guides that this was not a way into the casting department. This faintly irritated me for the patronising manner he said it even if for all my Billy liaresque dreams I am well aware of that already, but as I have said my dreams, are made of stronger stuff than me! 
So this is going to be a weekend job only, as they film Mon-Fri, assuming I make the grade of course as next weekend they will be looking to sign us off. But no false modesty I could do it tomorrow if they asked. I’ve not been guiding for this long, (22 years this year!) without having picked a few things up. Mainly an affliction for guiding at the expense of acting!) I’m more worried about where I’m going to live when I do the job at Media City, and doing some selling on their merchandise stand, which they want you to do as well. Not to mention that my legs ache after having just spent the last weekend repeatedly going round the set practicing the spiel in the freezing cold. In actual fact I am still hobbling round like a crippled old man two days on!  So maybe I won’t be able to do it long term, but it’s keeping me sane for now! I am also ridiculously overweight, having piled on the pounds since the summer after barely a month of having lost a shed loads for the play I was doing in July. This time last year I was doing a daily exercise regime & had given up pasta, potatoes & bread as well as most impressively for me, sweets. At the moment I am definitely the biggest I’ve ever been, I daren’t with myself. Well I can’t because the scales are broken, and no I didn’t break them, but I might have. I can’t bring my mind, where my head is today to restart the diet & exercise again, but I should, I need to, I must and sooner than soon.

I have got to get myself together. Life is so precious and while I still have the gift of it, I am doing it a disservice to not live it. I must get out of this depression and not wallow in despair. Mum said to me which moved me hugely do it for Maisie's sake and I will. I will do it for everyone who I loved and lost. I am worried about mum and losing her is something I dread more than anything in my current state. I am scared of not having enough time left myself to matter to anyone. But I must try to and to enjoy life at the same time and hope for a good year for our family and the strength to cope with things and to overcome loneliness by being around lovely people. I must work to make my dreams real and that includes meeting a Marian to my (albeit ageing) Robin Hood!
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I am a bit slow, too slow for life really, “Days are like seconds on my clock of reckoning” I once wrote in a poem. Most things have always taken me a long time to do, from reading a book to getting changed after I’ve done shows, I do eat fast, that’s about the only thing I do quickly! Of course some things in life are far more enjoyable when you’re not so fast, but these opportunities are invariably rare, personally speaking (more on this later!) I used to think, or hope that I was a late developer, (late bloomer), not so sure now, although I still live in hope!
I am a bit thick too, not so much dopey though, (more on this in a bit too),I often go on about the time I quietly left an IQ test after not being able to get my head around any of the 20 or so questions on the sheet of paper!

The thing I’ve been most stupid about in my life is love, desire, flutter hearting! From being too stupid to see opportunities for this, and those that liked me, to more often fancying the wrong, the most unsuitable girl, the ones that don’t or never would fancy me back. Oh I’ve been incredibly stupid with this..prolific in fact! From my late teens onwards I wrote poems, rambling silly often verging on the terrible poems, (though one or two quite good), about unrequited love.
Sex is a mojo giver! Certainly for a bloke I think, deffo for me anyway, which is why I’ve lacked confidence to do so much in my life, I've not had nearly enough of it! And I know from when I have and the times I've been in love that its better than flying!
​Oh I've desired many  many, many girls over the years. Some of my earliest memories in fact are of liking girls, long before sexual desire attraction was there. From the time I was deliberately naughty just to get to sit next to the threatened punishment of Stephanie Mattocks, the prettiest girl in primary school! Oh I maybe stupid, but not as stupid as the teachers I had! But I became an unconfident kid at puberty who desired girls strongly but was too shy to talk to them and was teased by some girls for being ‘dopey’ This was a nickname I had in class 12-13 years of age. I remember exactly how it came about. 

My full, christened name that isn’t even now on my passport, (as I successfully lost part of it it), is Nicholas, Michael Ashley Wood-Jones. I became self conscious of having a double barrelled name in senior school was teased, mostly by the teachers, a chemistry teacher called Turner insisted on calling me ‘Plastic Jones’ for reasons best known to himself, (I do remember calling him ‘Turnip’ back to his face, so unlike others he can’t have been too threatening!) So I was embarrassed at having 3 names on top of the double barrell. Was incredibly sensitive about the Ashley, (my mum loved the character played by Lesley Howard in Gone with the wind), some of the girls were chatting to the teacher Mrs Haughton & going through the register to see peoples second names and to my horror I suddenly heard one of them say ‘Ashley’ out loud with a snigger! Instead of proudly admitting this as my name, like a dick I said “That’s not my name!”  So forever after with these girls it became my nickname, even though ironically these girls were far dopier than I, as well as being not the least bit nice in temperament or looks!


 I remember a trio from Bollington , (a convoy of Bostocks coaches would bus in the kids from Bolly as at the time Poynton County High School must’ve been the only senior school that would have them!), a couple of which, Janet Turner & Christine White who were just horrible, but the third Ilona Gemmell, who was a very pretty & rather shy girl. She'd initially been teased by some of the teachers for her unusual christian name, deliberately mispronouncing it Iona or spitefully drawing attention to it’s uncommonness, (God we really did have the most stupid, moronic & spiteful teachers at Poynton County High School!) Sadly even cute Ilona soon fell in with the others to fit in and chorus “Dopey!” At me whenever they saw me! This hurt me hugely because I desired Ilona big time and loved her name & never forgotten it! Christine White, who was ugly in every sense of the word, even tried to pick a fight with me, challenging me to a ‘scrap’. Whilst being sorely tempted to slap her, or intimidate her at this constant provocation, although I never would of course, I instead opted for a jokey reply to try to fuck her off. I said I'd be embarrassed to be beaten up by a girl" Of course with this simpleton this only  made matters worse, she actually thought I was being serious and teased me mercilessly for my perceived lack of manliness and this was picked up by some of the more stupid lads! I’d never been bullied in school, (well there was the ‘ginger haired boy’ as everyone called him in primary school who would try and get everyones dinner money off them, but he didn’t last long!). I’d never been the popular sporty lad who gets picked early by the others in a team selection, although I loved football with a passion and was hurt at being in the left overs at selection, but no one bullied me
But after this I was teased mercilessly in my class by all but a small group of allies. Even one of the two most teased/bullied kids in the school, Nigel Milius was egged on by others to pick a fight with me. I let him have his little moment of liberation from bullying
until I'd had enough and snapped. It’s funny I’ve always hated seeing others bullied and I’m glad to say I never joined in with this, just to fit in as many a weak minded kid did, I never wanted to fit into the gang mentality, both Millius and Mark Foster (Fossy) who I think might have had polio because he had a funny leg/stance bit like I saw in Ian Dury later, were lads I hung out with, liked them, stuck up for them. I felt sorry for Fossy, his mum had died and we were told this by our teacher. I remember thinking how awful for him. They were targeted just because they were perceived as weak or different. I was a nice kid. But nice kids weren’t popular, to be popular you had to be a twat! There were rare exceptions, my good mate at Poynton was Bill Jackson. He was teased when he arrived in the 2nd I think it was, some called him ’Nobody’ as he looked a little like the kid playing a Victorian street urchin ghost in a tv series I absolutely loved in the 70s called ’Nobody’s House” Bill quickly rose above it, as he had a enviable natural cool about him, didn’t care about fitting in and being in a gang or giving you a wide berth just because others laughed at you, he just fitted in because he did, not because he tried.
in 1977 I went to see Sylvester Stallone in Rocky with my dad and this made me take on a tougher persona with the twats that had been calling me want to take on the twats who were calling me and facing up to them made them soon back down & go back to targeting the two weakest individuals, silly Milius & poor old Fossy. I hope it all came good for Fossy, I searched for him on Facebook and think I found him, but few details to confirm it’s actually him other than he’s from Bolly & went to the school, his profile photo is a snake!

It’s funny I’m writing this 7 miles away from Poynton where I grew up and only 2 or 3 miles from Bollington, I’m at my friend Che’s house in Rainow dog sitting her trio of cocker spaniels, (I met Ché on Guardian soulmates earlier this year and really, really like her but she just wants to be friends, and since my friend Jacqueline died this year who I  gave over a blog a few months ago, I’ve realised how silly and harmful it is to cast women aside simply because they don’t want to sleep with you!). I’m wondering how many of those ‘Bollington bummers’ I knew are still there, Andrew Barber was a great mate of mine, we’d jokingly trade insults of Bollington bummers & Poynton Puftas! 
Wonder what became of pretty Ilona Gemmell, the only girl I had a crush on in this low high school. It's hard to search for girls you knew on social media as of course they change their names with marriage which never seems fair or right, (although I’ve long fantasised about my own gorgeous Mrs Wood-Jones!) 

Poynton County High School killed two important things for me, it killed my interest in sport, when you start equating games with dread of being forced to do a cross country run again because you didn’t look knackered enough at the end or showers deliberately turned cold and physical & mental intimidation from the dreaded double act of Mr Jones and Mr Morgan then you very quickly lose your love of it. I stopped loving football about 14 or 15, we didn’t even play footie, the school was mad on rugby or cross country running. Of course some might say that this sort of behaviour from your teachers makes a man of you, far mote likely brutalize and fuck you up I think!
I hate school mostly because it killed my love of art. Oh I still want to torch the whole fucking place (without actually killing anyone), for doing this to me. The so called teachers who took us for art frequently disrespected or devalued it’s importance. A horrible bastard called Hebditch who’d say in his whiney Essex-like accent, (And because of him I’ve always disliked this accent the most) “I like to see people rubbing out!” So if you drew as fast as me, yes as well as eating fast the only other thing I was fast at was drawing! You were in for it with him. What a moronic thing to say, and when the cunt was made head of year he’d shamefully spend the entire lesson checking your homework for other subjects, shitting on the very subject that he was supposedly there to teach! Oh I don’t like to have such hate in me, but I still hate Hebditch after all these years, the cunt is probably still alive, because cunts like that tend to go on, but if he’s dead, I hope he died a painfully terrible death for his crimes at Poynton, and not least because I hold this cunt almost personally responsible for killing my love of drawing, something I was always, always doing when I was a kid up to then!
Although I have frequently lamented the fact that we didn’t do drama at Poynton Country Shite School, (apart from hippie Mr Gray in the first year doing supposed relaxation exercises in the laughably named drama studio). Now I’m just glad we didn’t!

Now I didn’t intend this blog to turn into a rant about school, the original intention was to explore, what I frequently visit in these blogs, mojo. I like the word, although for much of my life it, confidence, (although mojo is so much more than that), has been a mystery, an illusive thing for me. I started this months blog thinking I’d tackle love & sex, and the shortage of it in my life being the reason I lacked confidence with virtually everything, not because of anything my parents did or didn’t do, and I’ll get back to that.
But school and particularly the 5 years I spent at this shite school affected a lot of my life and I still bear the scars almost 40 years since I left. Oh but the day I left I still remember as the happiest day of my life so far, and it is very sadly still the happiest day of my life so far! God if I could have just one wish it would be that before the 40th anniversary of my leaving school in July of next year that I have a happier happiest day!
It's also clear to me that the major damage that school inflicted on me was lack of confidence and certainly the explanation as to why I had ‘difficulties with girls’ most assuredly comes from school. That and the fact that within a few years of leaving my body was covered with psoriasis, roughly from the ages 17 to 25 until I had special puva treatment in Salford Royal to rid myself of it, (I was a bloomin’ virgin until I was 27), the shape of this scaley red mass which I would frequently itch so much it bled, was shaped like one of the most primitive earliest maps of the world. These things shape you.

There was and is one other significant difficulty with girls that was there from the very beginning, and that I mention in passing in my biography on this my vanity website. From an earliest age, (certainly by 4), I was rummaging around in the dressing up box under the stairs of the house in Poynton where I grew up, the smell of mothballs and the rustle of taffeta. There was a long yellow rustly dress with black netting on it that I would shut myself into this cupboard under the stairs to secretly try on from at least the age of four! I actually blame my sister for turning me into a tranny!
On a few early occasions she would dress me up like a doll and after initially being uncomfortable with it, I started finding it.. fun, though didn't let on to her! I'd never dream of telling her now, I've heard her speaking negatively about trannies, she's not at all open minded about such things.
​Dressing up generally was a huge part of my early life, from dressing up in the correct football kit for Manchester City, (my favourite was the away strip of black & red), and cricket whites, the pads, the gloves and a jumper, (even now I want an England cricket tank top with the lions on it, although I don’t even like cricket!), to pulling my longest socks, (Man City, sky blue with claret & white tops), over my jogging bottoms or whatever we called long training or sports kecks back then, borrowing one of my dads shirts and one of his fencing swords, (I’ve still got his marvellous fencing swords), and pretending to be a pirate or a Musketeer. I loved great clothes, but girls were the best and most fascinating of all. I always loved big dresses with petticoats, (even the word ‘petticoat’ is still one of my favourite words), 
I never wanted to be actually be a girl though, but I was whole heartedly fascinated by women and wearing female clothes was a touchstone to their world.
When I was about 12 I think I first ventured out dressed up for a little walk down Dickens Lane in Poynton in a blonde wig and a blouse & skirt, It was terrifyingly exciting and I didn't go far, I went on to do this from time to time always when it was quiet early evening, but one day I took I ran into some kids, don't know who they were, but took fright and ran as hard as I could, pulling wig off and someone, shouted "Wood-Jones!" after me. Horrifying I'd been found out and next day in school I feared the worst, but...nothing happened and from that day to this I never found out who it was. My dad almost discovered me once and I'll always wonder if he suspected, as immediately after almost finding me out, he gently said something like, "You can always talk to me if ever you want , and if you ever get into trouble I'll always support you!"
Oh if ever I'd been. a dad and a son or daughter of mine was either a tranny or gay or anything they were ashamed of, I know I'd always be so supportive and do anything I can to make them feel so loved.
I think I stopped for a long time after that, and when I did again puberty had struck and inevitably dressing became sexualised and clothes became fetishistic, and as acting was deep rooted in me long before I realised it or became confident with it, playing the part of a girl became as important as wearing the clothes!
Through the many, many times in my life including now that I have not had a girlfriend, dressing up as girl almost became my compensation and when I was in love with a girl, more often than not  a big crush on someone who had no interest in me, I would become ashamed of this dressing up thing, and destroy any clothes I had bought, (a common trait I have read in trannies).  I often joke I dress with the regularity of the full moon, but am more a Wear-silk than Werewolf! In fact nothing like that often.
As regard trannies, being honest I've never felt part of that club, never terribly comfortable with blokes that do because I do and that's a terrible admission I know, and I'm not saying that I am horrible or intolerant of others that do, just don't feel akin to it. Strange because ordinarily I am hugely accepting of peoples foibles. I once went to a party in North London dressed just for the craic, but felt uneasy. from the start. It was very funny though, mostly old guys wearing miniskirts and crappy wigs sitting around legs apart chatting about the best route off the M1 to Leicester, and a smattering of male admirers, kind of creepy fellas attracted to trannies trying to put their hand on your knees and risking a decking, so I beat a hasty retreat!
Oh yes, I can easily understand unease in prospective girlfs & it has with girls over the years cost me dear. 

I kept this all quiet until almost 10 years ago when I decided what’s the point, although there’s mates that don’t know and I don’t feel the need to tell them, and my mum who probably knows anyway, (puts it down to being an actor and she’s right!) but who wouldn’t really understand and my sister who just couldn’t because she wouldnt), I have a small group of friends who do and I’m no longer terrified of everyone finding out). I kept a lid on this for years for fear everyone would think I was gay, even though I never had any doubts that I was straight’. When I first told my friend Tasha, she asked me why I hadn’t come out as a tranny to her sooner and I said because I was terrified girls would just think I was gay, and Tash replied “Oh we all just thought you were gay anyway, so you needn’t have bothered! Ha ha hahaharrrrrghhhhh!
I call this my ’Tara Power’ (she, her, my dressing up as a woman is my super power) I've always felt since very young that women are really what power is, despite men having always had it on paper. I've always been hugely attracted to powerful women too. A lovely woman who worked at The Yard in Hackney, where we did Wrestling the Walrus, admired my mermaid tattoo, done by niece Dana and I was telling her that I want a witch on my right arm, and she astutely observed "Oh you're drawn to powerful woman aren't you?" Oh yes.
I always like to think that two of my greatest heroes, John Lennon and Robert Louis Stevenson were both drawn to, collaborated with and married powerful and unconventional women, Yoko Ono and Fanny Osbourne. Women who both bore the brunt of criticism for the influence over these great men. Although I don't even in my most Billy Liaresque dreams compare myself to Lennon or RLS, I do dream of a such a love and powerful influence in my life. Behind every great man is a woman rolling their eyes!

For years I saw Tara as a curse, now I now very much view 'her' as a superpower. I am still relatively secretive about her, only a few close & trusted friends know. Of course no one reads this apart from my stalker! (Oh for a gorgeous stalker!) 
But Tara deserves respect, she is in a way very much a separate part of me, whilst being deep in my psyche, She's an amalgam of all the women I've desired over the years and she has an Irish redhead boho, gothic vibe! 
Over the years I've spent lots and lots of money on eBay buying far more and better quality women's clothes than my mans ones. Tara, is perhaps my greatest performance because she is me, she isn't a habit, she is hugely enjoyable, however ultimately unsatisfying, as the fact remains that however empowering she is to my psyche, she is still destined never to be seen by a wide audience and the reason for that is still I'm scared of ridicule, still fear women will think me gay or unmanly and that people will hate me not love me which just about matches the attention that my super power craves!

That said I don’t see the dressing as the curse that I for years did, see it as a blessing, but of course it certainly doesn’t help in getting a girlf! I often joke with the few close friends who know, about what my biggest hurdle is in getting a girlf, being a tranny, being an actor, having no money, no fixed abode or not being able to drive!!!?

Biggest problem I’ve had with women is that deep in my psyche, entrenched somewhat is this seeing a woman as a rescuer! I know this is fairly common, many people look to love as being a rescue, to save them from being alone, I don’t come across as needy and make a conscious effort to not appear so, but it’s so damn hard to find someone. My niece Gabrielle is getting married on 1st September. I’m happy for her but jealous also as I’ve never even come close to this in my life, seemed to have been labelled a singleton, a Batchelor, terrible word and would love nothing more than to have a ‘plus one’ at the wedding, but it’s a dream, and to some extent all my women have been dreams, including Tara, and for one who loves both mermaids and witches, it seems unsurprising that I still haven’t found happiness here.
I haven’t been in love, for a number of years now and I’m getting worried I will again. Oh I’ve been in lust and desired. I still very much like Ché, my ceramic artist friend, but really value her company and friendship, even if I still catch sight of myself being depressed at why we can’t just be boyfriend & girlf as she says she fancied me) The last woman I fell in love with, or was extremely depressed that I lost was Felicity, an arty and well spoken redhead near Cambridge, but that was Tara that did for that and funnily enough just after we’d seen the Eddie Redmayne movie The Danish Girl!
Recently I was in virtual lust with Gerry, a nurse in Liverpool. We met, we snogged and spent a day together but it was clear we’d built each other up too much before hand in sexy messages and it was never going to come to anything. She was funny though.
​ I still miss Liz, another girl I met on tinder. Gorgeous and nice Manchester girl and we snogged on Deansgate, to the cries of drunks around of “ get a room!” But when we did eventually get a room, tragically our moment of intimacy in a room at the Hanover hotel in Liverpool was ruined by water pouring in through the ceiling! Some clown in a upstairs room had left the bath running! Even though we both saw the funny side, it never really got ignited again after that and anyway I went after Felicity. Later regretful of our opportunity being dampened, I wrote Liz a love poem about all this and even though I know she has moved on I still think of her every August bank holiday Beatles festival in Liverpool in my lonely hotel room and send her a message to that effect to which she responds sweetly, (just as she just has at time of writing this), but with no hint of wishing to revisit.
​Also I am still in touch with Jane in York, who I chatted to earlier in the year when I still had ideas on Ché and was honest with her, she's sounds a warm & lovely lady and so easy to talk to and I hope we get to meet, who knows and then again maybe nobody ever will want to be with such an irresponsible, useless (according to my sister), effectively homeless, penniless, (nearly) tranny actor who doesn't drive! Oh God hope Jane doesn't read this!
Oh such navel gazing in lonely hotel rooms will be the death of me I fear, but the great sadness & fear of not having & never having a woman I love in my life increasingly depresses me and I am as equally scared of dying alone as I am of not having made a mark in this world.

​Working with Leanne Rowley…(Goddess, super woman and easily the best actor, I’ve ever worked with) made the process a hell of a lot easier, often I’ve joked that Leanne has been my carer both on stage and off in all this.

We got some great reviews, the Observer/Guardian called it 'Bold & inventive" even it did fail to mention the actors & musicians but its tone was positive. It gave Dan credit for the script, sadly there was no programme or details made available to press, informing them that it was a devised piece, that Leanne & I had written this script as much as Dan.
We did get five & four star reviews from online review sites who more fairly appraised it, and at the time of writing I am still trying to coax 2 agents, both Leanne's ex & current agency to take me on, one saw it, one didn't & I may or may not get a meeting with the one that couldn't make it. Trying to keep positive about this, as think it was a great showcase for me, but who knows?

​The biggest excitement about all this going into it, was the prospect of working at the Royal Exchange Theatre!
Oh how I wish, I could get over myself with this venue… for fuck sake! But the place is deep, deep rooted in my psyche, ever since seeing plays here 40 years ago, even writing asking for any sort of job here when my dad was alive, (he helped me with the letter), only for them to not think at interview that this 17 year old, (still 10 years off getting confidence to act, never mind to live), intensely shy and head in the clouds, big lug was probably not someone it would’ve been productive having around, and understandably!
I’ve frequently bored anyone who’ll care to listen with the oft repeated “I’ll never really feel I’ve become an actor til I work here” like it’s a whimsical benchmark I’ve imposed on myself for success. And of course by ‘here’ I mean inhabiting the magical lunar module of the Exchange’s main house, although the studio space has been wonderful and it’s just been a childish thrill to hang out here, come and go though the stage door and frequent the green room! You could easily say too much of my mind is romantic shit, but then again, rightly or wrongly it’s that romantic shit that is actual pretty hugely bloody well important, frames my life and helps me get to levels of emotion as an actor.

​Working with Leanne was easy, she is such a giving actress, she had the right attitude throughout, sure she’s worked for Dan & 154 before and knew their way of working, but also she knew how use her time for the best & most productive results. I feel she and the very excellent band of musicians, Nick, Hayley & James held this show together. It must have been hard for her with her because a lot of her time was no longer her own, with a 5 month old baby Nia to care for, cutest baby ever, though she never made it seem hard, just like her performance. In the first week she sent me a beautiful little message on WhatsApp one evening saying how she was thankful to me making it easier for her. I hope she still felt that after all the rest of the weeks had passed, because I wasn't easy!

​Crying was a big part of this show, for myself and Leanne. There were 3 moments in this play where I had to cry big time. Was that too many? I think not, because all were valid.
​Lots of people said to me that Leanne and I have real chemistry. We really fucking do! I’ve never found this with any other actor that I’ve ever worked with, I’ve often heard critics going on about chemistry between actors or bemoaning the lack of it and often wondered about it.. But this was powerful first hand evidence of it. It was there when we worked on Mr Browns Directions in Hull, felt it very strongly. It’s easy to get moved by her. Sad thoughts help of course too and the most powerful thought I had was something I didn’t and wouldn’t say to Leanne, for fear she’d think it sounded creepy, though I almost know she wouldn’t. It’s the big regret that I’ve never been a dad and looking into this beautiful young woman's eyes who could very well be my daughter that I’d forgot and of course she was in this, and I believed it for that moment.

What I will take away from this experience mostly is a completely different take on dementia. I still consider it a horror, but the humanity behind this attack on humanity and losing your memories doesn’t make you less human. That stories are important to everyone, regardless of whether they have dementia or not. I like telling my oft repeated stories, so does my mum and to never begrudge anyone the joy in recanting their stories/memories even if you have heard them a million time before.

Anyway here’s my first & only week of rehearsal diary entries, just so I can big up the moment of being an actor in a Royal Exchange show!