So I’ve finally reached edition 100 of this blog. Big thanks to all my readers, it’s very much appreciated. This one is just about me, and how I got here really.

I hated school. Well I say that, I enjoyed the dinners and as the only person at St Mary’s who liked Semolina, I used to get extra helpings of that.

I did like English though, but not enough to properly learn from it which is why I still don’t know what a Verb is, and have poor knowledge of grammar and the correct use of punctuation marks?

It was in English where I first started to write stories, and I loved this as did my teacher. Her comments in the end of year report would be the only good point in a sea of negativity. My favourite comment of hers was “I always enjoy reading his stories”. This was nice as it gave a bit of balance to the other remarks which were like “he has shown little interest in this subject and made no progress”, “kid’s a fucking idiot” “I’m surprised he can spell his own name” “I put more crosses on his work than on my Spot The Ball Coupon” and “I predict F’s in his GCSE’s only because Z’s aren’t a thing”. Okay, I made 4 of those up.

I started writing short stories outside of school off my own back and Swill would also join me in those days. The stories in this era would all end with the characters getting killed in the final scene.

Aged about 16 I wrote my first big story, this one about a football team called Caldmore Casuals. I opened my non league annual on a random page, picked Clevedon Town off it and replaced them in their league with The Casuals. To this day I’d still like to visit Clevedon to see what pubs the Casuals fans would have got to visit had I picked another team to displace.

I don’t remember much about this story other than that the Chairman was desperate for the supporters to love him and the Manager got wind of this so whenever he requested something he’d say “it’s what the fans want”. I still use this phrase regularly to this day. The other memory from this was one weekend The Mighty Saddlers weren’t playing so the Walsall Advertiser were covering the Casuals game and putting a report on the back page which the Chairman was very excited about. Unfortunately a 3-0 home defeat at The Old Cemetery Ground was incoming and the headline on the back page was Shit! Shit! Shit!.

In 1991 I wrote a story which I recall nothing about only that as I was having problems with Midland Bank at the time there was much slagging off of them in it, I was also deeply unhappy in life at the time and I found much needed escapism in this work.

The pen went quiet for a few years after that but then I became mates with the editor of the Walsall fanzine Blazing Saddlers, Pete Holland and he published a letter I’d written. I was really excited and chuffed at this. Unfortunately my mate saw it, called me “sad” and I never wrote for it again.

My next story was in 1996, set on Hawes Close where I was living at the time with Paul and Cara. A footballer got released, signed for Walsall and moved into the vacant flat next door to us. I loved this story and Cara in particular enjoyed reading about herself in it. All fictitious characters got killed in the final scene.

Again I went quiet for a while, writing a couple of things for then Walsall fanzines around the 2001 mark, under the name Scott Thompson whist also contributing to other articles via discussions with Steve Stuart.

More years passed until 2009 when myself and 4 friends went to London to do the Monopoly Pub Crawl. It was so good I wrote a Facebook note article about it which I have subsequently shared on here.

Next up was my first foreign holiday. Thailand. So much happened there that I had to have an article. I went up to the Sales Office at work a couple of days later and everyone was laughing their heads off. I asked what was going on. Turned out Don had shared the article out and they were all loving it. Please note the Sales Office was always quiet in August due to schools being shut, they weren’t skiving on the job.

The no nonsense Yorkshire lass actually came down to see me. She only ever came downstairs to use the loo or go home so it was a surprise to see her by my desk. She said “I’ve just come to shake your hand. That Thailand article was the best thing I’ve read in ages.”

Off the back of that a couple of people urged me to join a creative writing course. I did research, found one and decided to join. Unfortunately the day before class started my then flatmate announced he was moving out. So I decided not too go. I did some sums at work the next day, and decided that if I cut things back a bit I could still join up and so I did. And I’m so glad I did.

The teacher Cath was great and I met other good writers too including Nick who remains a great friend to this day. At the time Nick was doing a weekly blog called The Sunday Roast which was always a good read. I was inspired and soon my weekly Facebook blog Evo Elaborates was born. This proved very popular but then one week it only got 4 likes, I took the umph a bit and decided to have a couple of weeks off and it never returned.

At this time I wrote my first novella about a somewhat troubled lass. Split into 3 parts A Year In The Life Of Helen Bailey, Helen Bailey And The Dissident Philanthropist and Helen Bailey Chasing Storm Clouds. The title character’s name came off a returns form at work, and as soon as I saw it I wanted to use it in a project. I learnt a lot from writing this and the feedback I got at the time.

Through Nick I got to meet Amy, Dawn and Neil from Walsall Writers Circle. All great very different writers. I joined that group but the 6 of us would meet up regularly outside of that forum along with another lad Rich. I entered the end of year short story competition at the Writers Circle twice and was runner up both times.

Then came the big project. My two novels. About Warren Street and his best friend Blake Hall. I’m a bit of a London Underground geek so it was only right that both main characters were named after stations. Warren was a lad who was absolutely rubbish with the ladies. Write about what you know eh? Lots of work went into these two novels and I’ve been told they are good but I’ve never sent them off anywhere and they are still stranded on a broken pc in the loft.

I did continue to occasionally write Facebook articles about trips and pub challenges until that platform discontinued the notes feature. Around this time I resigned from the Walsall CAMRA Committee (before returning a year later) but offered to stay involved and start writing articles for the magazine. We won West Midlands Region Magazine Of The Year while I was writing for it which I’m still very proud of.

Just before the closure of the Walsall Advertiser print edition I was once allowed to write The Supporters Trust column which I was very proud of, even if the article did get edited a bit so it didn’t make quite as much sense, but then again when does my work?

A big turning point came when Blackpool Jane asked me to write an away day article for her excellent blog site. Needess to say I was like a dog with two dicks writing this, I loved it. Jane enjoyed the article too and it went down well when published. I expressed my frustration that the feature on Facebook that I used for my writing was no more, so she and the wonderful Vincent Fox on Facebook urged me to get my own WordPress site, and 99 editions later, I still don’t really know how to use the site other than to write and post pictures (and of late You Tube links) but here we are today. It’s been great, especialy doing the research.

Away from the blog I’m currently writing a very silly show called Greg Doesn’t Date. It’s about a lad called Greg who is rubbish with the ladies. Still write about what you know eh? I shall be playing Greg and thankfully he isn’t as cynical, world weary and best friend hen pecked like his predecessor Warren Street. It will be 6 episodes long and hopefully be filmed and on You Tube next year.

The State Of The Blog Address.

Whilst it’s been great fun, I’ve struggled for ideas of late, it’s been a tough year for money and I appreciate that I went a whole month without a post recently. Viewing figures are down this year too so I’ve been thinking of knocking it on the head. My renewal is in January and I said to Craig “If I can get to 100 before Christmas, that’ll do. I’ll remove my helmet, raise my bat and declare.”

However, I think next year should be better for money, I am starting to get ideas of how to push this in other directions so I’m renewing. I’m 50 next year and planning to milk that for all it’s worth so if that doesn’t generate material nothing will. So keep setting your alarm clocks for 9.30am on Sundays, as more of this is coming.

Before I shoot a big big thank you to everyone who reads this, likes it on the social media platforms, comments on it, shares or re-tweets it. It’s very much appreciated.

Right, It’s now time for The State Of The Blog Undress, but that’s for Premium subscibers only.