So it all started 18 years ago now. I remember it well... My mother was a hard woman, her voice bellowing and strong like a Bavarian Gladiator and she was not a woman you'd dare to cross. By this age I had mastered communication and was quite comfortable walking around. One day as we sat around the dinner table with father (he was back for the weekend from the European dance-off's if I recall correctly) when conversation turned to the local village fate. All I heard was 'of course he is old enough, he has teeth don't he?!'
That's when father turned and told me... I was to enter the local Brick-Drag-Race at this years fate.
The Brick-Drag-Race is probably the most bizarre thing you will ever encounter. The point of the game was that you had to race in a peddle tractor around all the local villages (about a 17 mile route) with a sledge being dragged behind you via string with a brick in it. If the brick falls out of the container you are disqualified, If you come last however you are branded an outcast and thrown out of the village only to be adopted by Madonna at a later date.
Being only three I decided to not test mothers patience and accepted unwillingly then went off to bed.
I then awoke to hear the most horrible noise. I opened my eyes and there was none other than my mother at the bottom of my bed beating a wooden spoon on the bottom of a saucepan whilst blowing a whistle at full pelt. I remember her shouting 'come on! come on! You've overslept your training! It's half 4 in the morning! Breakfast is downstairs!'. She yanked me from my bed and escorted me down to the kitchen where all I saw was a large bowl of oatmeal and the brown stuff. That's one thing mother could never have to much of, gravy. She'd always say "go onnnnn, you will have a splash more gravy won't you?" whilst already pouring it on your Lemon Meringue- clearly mad now I think about it, but anyway she's happy now. She works at Oxo and I haven't seen her this happy ever since father got lost salsa dancing his way round Europe. Apparently he got too carried away in the worlds biggest conga line and 673 days later ended up in Tibet and is now a man of the cloth; a monk! but that's a story for another time.
So I ate my bizarre breakfast and then got dragged out into the yard to do squat-thrusts over a well lit fire. After 200 of those mother eased off a touch and gave me a pat on the back and said 'well done boy' then she swiftly booted me in the buttocks and I continued my gruelling training regime for another 3 agonizing hours. For some strange reason one of the tasks was being spun on a swing repeatedly which I didn't fully understand one bit (so I could withstand the "G's" of the Brick-Drag-Race apparently).
After this was complete father came down with the family's lucky hat and placed it on my head telling me the same story I'd heard a million times before (my great grandfather survived a small blast from a nazi grenade in WWI from wearing this hat, and a pair of undergarments but that was all he was wearing, don't ask- silly bugger got drunk and lost a bet to the Colonel and had to go to war in his long john's)
So we headed off to the fate with lucky yellow hat on head, I couldn't possibly lose.
I got to the line up and sized up the other competitors 'just a bunch of dribbling babies...' i thought to myself whilst slightly psyched after my morning torture and gravy. I was told to stand next to tractor number 7 and board the vehicle.
I walked up and saw that she was a beauty and I knew we were gonna win, there were only 10 other competitors. I did a few checks on my brick sled and the rope then sat on the blue Ford 7740.I looked at father and he smiled and did a thumbs up, then I turned to mother and she shouted "if you don't win me and your father are getting a divorce!" and then smiled and blew a kiss towards me. Father seemed shocked all of a sudden, I don't think mother ran there "deal" by him first.
All of a sudden the commentator mumbled something and everyone stood to attention. Then the farmer to the right of me raised the starting gun and fired the 12 bore shotgun into the air. This was it I was off.
Most of the 2 days were a blur and all I can remember is flocks of old Janners gathering at the edges of fields shouting abuse and throwing sheep faeces at the less speedy of us. But one thing which does stick strong was the feel of unity, of man; machine and brick united against all odds in an event so mad it would make Pete Doherty's everyday activities of stapling Goats to his chin and the like look like an episode of Vets in Practice.
Needless to say I was winning, we were going through the final village, my competitor Jonas was right behind me and he had been the whole time. We approached the second to last corner and my mum joined me again cheering me on 'you can do it, cause if not I hope you'll enjoy being adopted' I peddled on as hard as I could and I joyfully reached the finish line in 1st place! I raised my arms high in the air high fiving all the farmers on the side of the road and swearing at Jonas who was bursting into tears. Then the worst thing happened. The commentator said 'there has been a mistake, the boy bears not Brick, he is a Brickless-Boy. Disqualified'
I looked around and to my dismay my brick was missing. Little did I know it at the time but the cheeky bunt in the photo above photo -Jonas's dad- stole my brick on the final hurdles.
Anyway, after this we went home, dad went back to Europe to take part in the worlds fastest Bosa Nova with 43 other dancers in the streets of Hamberg and mother didn't get a divorce. But the event planted a seed, much like the potato plant and it grew into a... well... potato, but a potato of dreams, I knew from after that weekend that I wanted to be a Farmer and that I loved Farm.
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