Forget You Had a Daughter - Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton Read Online Free PDF

doing. I was amazed at the reaction these drugs produced; I loved the novelty and loved the fact that I knew it was unconventional. It was my secret.
    Despite my promising Sewickley debut, two years after we moved to America we returned to the UK and to the same house we had lived in before. Again, my fragile, teenage world took a
    hammering. My brother had not gone abroad with us because he was away at university, so I bore the brunt of my disappointment alone. It rained on our return. I was 17 .
    Having missed my O level examinations by moving to America and then leaving there before I got the chance to finish high school meant that I had no academic qualifications. Sixth form college appeared and disappeared in a fit of my academic rejec- tion.Who needed qualifications anyway? And I wanted to prove it. Following six months of studying for exams I should have taken two years earlier the head of the college called me to his office and asked if I was happy.
    ‘No,’ I replied,‘as it happens, I’m not.’
    Politely he asked me if I’d rather leave. I did and the sense of relief was wonderful. I was free. I was an adult.
    Shortly before leaving the college I started going out with Spike, a wild-looking, unconventional and rugged 37 -year-old father of a four-year-old daughter. He was perfect.
    ‘How old did you say he was?’ asked my dad, his eyes squinting as I spat out yet another lie.
    It was a terrible time for my parents, especially my dad, and I can see now that it wasn’t right.They couldn’t stand Spike but I didn’t care.
    Once again my parents moved house, this time to Aberdeen in Scotland, and I decided I couldn’t cope with another move. Winchester, then America, then Winchester again. Now Aberdeen.Where the hell was Aberdeen anyway?
    So my parents left for Scotland and I rented a room in the house of an old lady whose son was a transvestite. I would like to say it was great, I really would like to, but we never hit it off and I decided to leave.After moving out I lived with Spike for two and a half years and we shared his passion for antiques. Before long we set up our own business stripping pine furniture and, later, once I realised that Spike was not the man of my dreams, I set up on my own buying and selling antiques and bric-à-brac. For a while I
    lived a peripatetic lifestyle moving to Salford, then Halifax before settling inYorkshire, in the house I live in now. It is a small, two-up and two-down terraced house facing south onto the CalderValley. I bought it from the landlord after renting it briefly and set about fixing it up. Before long I was living happily alongside my beautiful border collie,Kara, two cats and a parrot. I doubt I was ever so happy. Around November 1990 I was working at home, not particu- larly looking forward to another inevitable freezing winter standing at markets and fairs, hoping for a decent sale. A black sports car pulled up outside and one of my friends, Shanty, jumped out of the passenger side.A rather dashing looking man, with jet-
    black hair, stepped out the driver’s side.Who was he?
    Shanty brought him into the house, introduced him as John, and promptly drove off in his car. It was a rather strange introduc- tion but given my lack of convention I was curious to find out what this was all about. John explained. His girlfriend of two years had just left him and, in a fit of desperation, he had promptly bought a flight ticket to Thailand with the intention of drowning his sorrows on a tropical island in the sun.
    In a few days he would be travelling there but he had got cold feet about going alone and wanted a companion; none of his friends could travel at such short notice. Shanty couldn’t go either; however, she knew someone who might be interested in going.
    ‘Travelling companions,’ said John, matter-of-factly.‘No strings attached. I’ll even lend you the ticket money.’
    In that moment my life began mapping itself out for me. I was lured by the