Five Facts About Me

Final draft of Demon Rising in finished and still two days to go till the twenty day countdown! Woohoo! Even more amazingly, I’ve done it through the grasps of covid clasping my head!

After hunting down an interesting website for blog post ideas (actually it was top of the list on google), I’ve come up with some interesting facts about myself (or maybe not so much) for the latest post. Enjoy the read!

1. I’ve done a 360 degree turn in a car

Man, that one was extremely surreal. I did ridiculous amounts of driving when I tutored for a living, commuting back and fore to student’s houses to scrape a money together. Due to lack of money and a low wage, it meant battling my way to the student’s no matter what the weather, be it hail, snow, storms or…ice.

On the way back, driving steadily down the country lanes, my tyres happened upon a fairly large surface of slippery frozen water before I realised it was there. With the car rotating around and my steering wheel unresponsive, I had to just watch as I turned like the handle of a clock. Fortunately, I didn’t even have to do a three-point turn to get home.

2. I once took the pulse of a fatality in a road accent

Probably one of the creepier ones, I was about to pull out to deliver a pizza when someone was hit on their motorcycle about 50 yards from me. As I was checking in that direction I had a close view. Oddly, the driver wasn’t thrown and didn’t do some sort of film stunt, but instead the bike hit the kerb and they fell off.

There’s something invisible that holds you back to go stepping forward in front of everyone, but I got out of the car, summoned up the courage, and checked his pulse. Sadly, he hadn’t made it.

3. I made a magic potion out of diesel

Ah the lovely sweet smell of tractor fuel. When I was a child it was repeated to me that I shouldn’t go touching the fuel tanks on my uncle’s farm under any circumstances. None what so ever. Hywel, don’t go anywhere near them! Of course, this meant nothing to a young kid, particular when they can see a small drip from the tap.

In all due fairness, it ruined the potion I had made from all of the bottles on my nan’s dresser. Up until then it had a fantastic smell, but once the pink fluid had been added the stink made me very reluctant to touch it. Unfortunately, the scent was also picked up by my mother, even after I had secretly washed my hands. Damn.

4. I’ve had twelve jobs.

Oh man I’ve moved from job to job, with several being my main income whilst others have given me a bit of pocket money to top things up. My first job was delivering the Guardian newspaper as a kid, putting a million leaflets into each of a hundred or so newspapers and then lumbering around the neighbourhood with it in my newspaper bag that was bound to give out at any moment. Fortunately, in our estate once the Evening Post deliverer moved on, it was always passed to the Guardian paper boy, like some holy grail. The Evening Post had about twenty newspapers and was about three times the money (mind you, thinking back how low these things were below minimum wage makes me think of slavery).

From there I worked briefly in Tescos during my college years, stacking shelves, until university made me end it. I’d get another shelf stacker job in M&S when I came back, but retail wasn’t my calling. The next job took me to working alongside my uncle (albeit voluntarily). When I failed to get my veterinary grades in college, I decided that the reason why I enjoyed working with animals was the times I had helped on the farm. I’d gradually go further and further into the farming side, working there for 12 years with the sheep and cattle in the summer sun and winter cold. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life, but there came a time to move on.

And of course, you can’t do a job without getting paid. My tutoring, alongside the farming, went on for many years, 17 in all, and it was fantastic to be helping so many people achieve their dreams. I took the work in education even further, lecturing anatomy and physiology and teaching in home education groups, and it wasn’t until I lost faith in the educational system many years later that I gave up on the job. During this time, I also worked helping miners complete claims forms. There was a massive rush for it around that part of my life and we had a phone call asking if anyone in the house has emphysema and had worked in the mines. My dad politely said that there was just his wife and son and, amazingly, I was asked if I’d like a job. Who knew commercial calls could be useful?

I gave up lecturing to sell pork, but this was not to be when my girlfriend came down ill and had to give up her job. I was now searching for work to keep us going and so started delivering pizzas. The boss was one of the best I’ve had and, though I folded millions of boxes and washed who knows how many pizza cooking tools, I enjoyed the experience. I even got a bit of work as a carer while I found my feet again.

I spread my wings into teaching chess in the private schools, a job that stuck with me for quite some time and paid very well for the hours I did. I had some of the cutest kids who loved the game, and, I’d like to say, they enjoyed the club as well. I tried moving into other non-private schools but the new system was to open new clubs and close the old ones each term. In one school I had thirty children who loved the game and then I was told in the next term that it was over. That one completely disheartened me.

Though I returned to dominoes deliveries, my job finally swung in a completely different direction. I looked to take on a well-paid career now I had a family of six (to eventually become seven). I taught myself some software languages and signed up for an apprenticeship with the DVSA and that’s where I now stand, a junior software developer. Hopefully, I’ll make my way one or two more steps up the food chain before settling down.

5. I was once hit on the head with a wheelbarrow

I’ll try to keep this one short! I remember (amazingly) a tonne of us kids going to the next-door neighbour’s derelict garden to tidy the mess up for fun. I would have thought BMXing or climbing trees down the fields would have been more of a thing for children of the 80s, but apparently that wasn’t the case on that particular summer day.

What was the case is that one of the larger boys decided he couldn’t be bothered to take the (kids) wheelbarrow to the bottom of the garden and back in order to dump weeds. Instead, he threw the freshly emptied barrow back towards the top of the garden. That was when I looked up from the weeding I was doing.

I’m not quite sure what happened next. I remember a lot of pain, my brother and the wheelbarrow thrower half carrying me round to the backdoor of my house, and a lot of blood. I think I passed out a couple of times but can’t be sure. Still, makes a great anecdote.

If you’re interested in my blog or want to comment on my bizarre life, feel free to leave something below! Hope you enjoyed the read! You can read tit-bits from my book or read about its background at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HywelGriffithsAuthor

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