My generation, it appears, was the last to grow up in the real world. We had trees, ball games, bikes and skates, walkie-talkies, wrestling matches, and above all, imagination, to entertain us. There were televisions and video games, of course, but no Netflix binges and the term 'gamer' had not yet been invented, to make people who sit on their butts in front of computer games sound a little less like mindless drones and a little more like career professionals.

Games and TV were just two of the many, many tools we had at our disposal, for the purpose of passing time, and all the fun of them was in sharing them with our friends, not pouring all our time and energy into them to the exclusion of our friends (or to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, as is the case these days).

We had adventures, drama, laughter, and every possible emotion that growing up brings, as a gang of cheeky lads, and we were always on the look-out for things we could use in some way, to enhance our games and engage our brains. We invented, re-invented, repurposed and imagined what we didn't already have, and it was good. We made dens, we carried rope and slingshots, we cycled to other towns, and we came home exhausted and dirty, every night of the week.

With that clarified, this series is a small collection of some of the adventures and moments that stuck with me from the days I spent, growing up in England, with my brother and a shabby gang of on-off friends, from around the way.

I hope you enjoy reading these short stories as much as I'm enjoying bringing them back to life, after decades on the shelves of my memory.

God bless those simpler times.

This book is the first in the four-part series, Accidental Memoir, in which I share some of the funniest things that happened to me throughout my life in school, college, and work. Everything you're about to read is at least 57% true, only the names have been change to protect the guilty.

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