The
College Years
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Finally, I managed to get a grant from the local education authority (yes,
it was THAT long ago) enabling me to carry on my education. I enrolled
in the HND Computer Studies course at what was then Coventry (Lanchester)
Polytechnic, but is now Coventry University. I'd applied to Coventry while
I was still engaged, in order to be close to Sharon, my then fiancée.
Now, that closeness just reminded me of what I'd lost, and I think it sent
me a little crazy. I cut myself off from all my friends at home and started
tearing through women at a rate of knots, gaining a reputation as a "shark".
Around this time I stupidly managed to completely screw up my friendship
with Morgan, and we barely spoke for years (NOTE: Shortly after originally
posting this to the web, I made contact with Morgan again and we're in
reasonably regular contact now. Just goes to show it's never too late).
Hey, when you're on a roll...
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Being a student is possibly the coolest thing in the world, and almost
made up for all the crap I'd put into my life. Though I wasn't that far
from home, I decided to make the break and move into lodgings. Pretty quickly
I hooked up with others in the computer science block and things became
bearable. We spent most of our evenings at the Peacock pub (very handy
for the engineers and would-be proggies), where I pursued my taste for
Southern Comfort, Guinness and the opposite sex. For some bizarre reason
most of our time was spent using CHAT, a chat-room style BBS system created
by the notorious Simon Zapata (AKA Morph). Most of us knew each other by
our CHAT names, and to this day there are some people who's real names
I don't know. Here I met some of my closest friends; Mike Strefford (who
had the misfortune to be my best man a few years ago and who rather foolishly
asked me to return the favour recently), Andy Holder (AKA Zayphy, the man
who put the "oog" into "Boogie") and Malcolm
Arnold (AKA "Hawk", about whom little can be said without attracting
the Taste Police). There were loads of others, but these three are the
ones I've kept in touch with.
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During the poly years I started the epic "Skeleton Crew" role-playing campaign
(details of which will soon be posted on the Chill
page), using the Chill RPG system. In an effort to keep my sanity I channeled
a lot of the weird shit that was going on in my head into the game. A measure
of the success of this tactic is the fact that the game lasted over ten
years and is still going strong, even though I'm over 3,000 miles away
from my players. My original players were; Tim Cresswell (AKA Toad, playing
Johnny "Napalm" Wcszinski), Steve Parker (AKA Nemesis, playing Jason "I
AM a religious experience" Black), Dave Icantrememberhissurname (AKA Gook,
playing Patrick "Pyromaniac" O'Brien), Miles Brasher (AKA Mack, playing
Christiaan Oberon "Bastard" Zwaart), Ian Dickinson (AKA Vato, playing Alex
"Light-fingered" Summers), Zayphy (playing David "The Prof" McGee) and
Malcolm (playing Mike "Psycho" Aldridge). The game was heavily influenced
by the movies of the day (Highlander, Hellraiser, Predator, Aliens) as
well as the comics (Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, Miracleman, Sandman) and books
(mainly Graham Masterton and Clive Barker) that I was reading. The resulting
mix was a bizarre one; high octane cinematic action with a heavy streak
of horror, a dash of science fiction, a sprinkling of conspiracy theory
and a pinch of warped humour. We used to play on a Monday night, and the
following Tuesday morning a small crowd would gather around the comic stall
where I hung out to hear what I had done to my poor suffering players the
night before. Several copycat campaigns sprung up during that time, and
I recently found out that the gaming store across the way used to send
novice GM's over to my Tuesday briefings as a lesson in how to run a good
game. One of the most amusing occurrences to come out of that was when
a bunch of my players were at the movies, and were discussing what might
happen during the next game. When a total stranger in the row in front
of them turned around and successfully identified Dave as being the player
of Patrick O'Brien, my fame was assured. Instant paranoia set in as the
entire row in front of them turned 'round and started chuckling over the
fate they knew was in store for the player characters. It's good to be
the king.
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All good things come to an end. I spent the following year working at Collective
Paranormals, a comic stall in Coventry, while looking for work. Eventually
I got lucky and got a temporary job working in the computer department
of Coventry City Council. The
temporary job became a permanent one, and life rolled on...
