I have had a bit of sciatica in my leg and back this week, so this morning I decided that I would try to go for a light jog to release the niggling nerve. Imagine the joy I felt as I crossed through a playing area and my right foot thudded in to a colossal dog turd that embedded itself in to every nook and cranny of the sole of my trainer. If you are going to tread in dog shit, I suppose you might as well do it in style, and do it with a trainer with complex grip patterns on the sole.

As I sat on my doorstep retching as I cleaned all the grooves on my trainer out with matchsticks I wondered why my life has always had a love hate relationship with the majority of dogs, and in this case, their owners. Apart from Labradors and the odd Spaniel, I don’t like them, and they don’t like me. I just can’t get my head round these people who have to walk around with the fucking things as if though they are a statement of how tough they are. Dobermans, Rottweilers and the various Terriers serve no purpose except to terrorise and in some cases (usually in the inner cities) maim children.

I think my general dislike of Dogs stems back to a paper round I had between the ages of thirteen and sixteen which involved delivering to generally large houses around Baughurst, Brimpton Road, and Paices Hill (near Tadley) that were generally heavily armed with various dogs, all of them Bastards. One particular house at the top of Aldermaston Hill (backing on to the AWE) had an Alsatian which was a mere pussy cat compared some white squared headed lunatic that threw itself at the gated area to the side of the house with fearsome ferocity in attempt to get at me. The day that changed my life forever was the day it’s owners forgot to lock the gate. I heard it coming as usual, but I had gradually built up an immunity, knowing it couldn’t actually get at me. I would count to three, then growling and barking would be followed by a thud and a whimper as it hit the gate full on.

It was when I counted to five I realised there was an issue, my head span round to see the gate wide open and this crazed monster hurtling towards me at an alarming speed. I grabbed my bike and attempted to get away, now hearing his owner screaming in distress that it had got out, the panic in his voice filling me with even more fear. Jesus Christ, if the owner was scared, he obviously knew this fucker meant business, this was it, I was going to die in hideous circumstances! It actually got my tracksuit bottoms and caused minor flesh injuries to my ankle that required a tetanus jab, but I just made it out alive, still hearing the barking and shouting echoing through the frosty morning from a mile away, a distance I had covered faster than Lance Armstrong. It was a chilling incident that has stuck with me since, and I still feel an adrenalin surge when I see a dog off a leash.

Of course having a paper round wasn’t all bad, the other area I covered on the Brimpton Road was prosperous and there were some fantastic tips at Christmas to compensate breaking your neck with 30 odd copies of Sunday Times or The Observer. My weekly wage was £5.50 so anything on top was appreciated and I can remember one guy who had a driveway full of Scimitar sports cars who gave me varying tips throughout the year often without reason other than still being pissed from the night before. He would invite me in to his house that seemed to have a different racy looking dressing gowned woman in it every time (quite erotic for a 14 year old) and scurry about bleary eyed until he found me a five or tenner. One Christmas he gave me thirty quid and a PIFCO light for my bike. Thirty bloody quid, I couldn’t believe it…….. six times my weekly wage!!!

I don’t know what he did for a living, he was obviously stacked with cash, I can just remember his house always smelling of cigars and stale alcohol, a bit like the aftermath of one of my Parent’s house parties. He was probably an actor or a member of 70’s rock band who was grooming me for Johnathan King’s next visit, but the fact he appeared to have an insatiable appetite for women who modelled for the KP Nuts holders and Top of The Pops album covers made me feel quite safe, and more than happy enough to catch a fleeting glimpse of cleavage through silk dressing gowns and receive financial reward for my trouble.

On top of that my Brother, who by then was working as a bricklayer, would pay me half the face value of a stolen copy of the Daily Mirror and the same again for a copy of the well known up market wank mag Mayfair which featured the same women I am sure I had seen in the flesh in a messy mansion on the Brimpton Road!!!!