It is July 1966. Do I look smug in this photograph? I've just returned to Belfast after being deported from Jersey for vagrancy which is exactly the knid of certification that I required to prove to my father that life on the road had not been in vain. However, he didn't share my perspective. Not surprising given that it was 5am. He was leaning out of the bedroom window in his striped pyjamas in order to get a better look. The prodigal son was bashing on the door knocker, dressed in what looked like a tent made out of fur. My mother was all for having me in for a welcome home Ulster fry but father was adament that I was a dirty runaway rat that ought immediatly return to the sewer from whence it had come. If I'd had a guitar I'd have sung him a "prodigal returns doorstep blues" but unfortunately one of the downsides of being a deportee is that they divet you of any worldly goods that might be set against the price of being a passage homewards. And since, besides the climb in and get-lost-rat-skin-coat that doubled as a sleeping bag, I had no worldly possessions except my guitar, they commandeered it. So I tried some poetry on my father to try to alleviate the stress that I was obviously causing him. Judging by the high flush on his cheeks and the fluttering exasperation in his voice he was, out of a misplaced sense of propriety, trying to avoid the only reasonable stepping stones out of the torrent of emotion my unexpected homecoming had engendered, to swear or kick the living shite out of me. I beat a quick retreat down the early morning street cursing his lack of hospitality while my belly screamed for the Ulster fry. The story of my life, really. After that I headed back to Blackpool and got a job as Batman. You can read about that in Lemmy's (Motorhead) autobiography White Line Fever.

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