The last fifteen drink-induced years

Although the last fifteen drink-induced years have passed by in a bit of a blur I suppose some of you might be wondering how I got myself into this predicament! People often talk about their ‘first drink’. What I can tell you is, mine wasn’t in the singular. I think, if my alcohol-soaked memory serves me correctly, it was when my parents took me backstage after we had watched Swan Lake. I got hopelessly pissed on champagne and disgraced them and myself in front of Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev.
And it was the proverbial slippery slope from there. 

By twelve I was smoking for Britain and drinking whenever I got the opportunity. By fifteen I was passing out on a regular basis. There was many an occasion when my tee-totalling father came to collect me from one of the North Yorkshire parties to find me on the floor – literally.

Well, things got from bad to worse.  Particularly when I was removed from the boarding school due to lack of funds and put into a private day school for young ladies.  According to my friends I frequently raided the Dubonnet cabinet before school.

I remember (surprisingly) one infamous occasion when I persuaded a friend of mine to leave the birthday party we were at to hitch a lift to the nearest town because I had fallen for a tattooed toothless chap that ran the flying saucer ride at the fairground.

Old enough to be a grandfather, I had fallen for his charms, such as they were, and we turned up in the pouring rain so I could have a quick snog, and then it was time to get ourselves back to the party. We had trouble getting a lift back and when a dodgy character in a carpet van eventually agreed to take us our absence had already warranted a search party.